Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Path Ahead


These are photos of the winding hillside path that my room mate Orgyen and I built on my backyard hillside.  It leads down to a flat patch of sand I call "Dzogchen Beach" for its seclusion and nice view of the sky.  At various point along the path I have planted a Bay Area native shrub.  I hope they live through the drought!

Perhaps this is a kind of symbol of my own journey, gradually descending to the depths of my natural condition through the path of meditation and cultivation of "the view," the perspective of the timeless purity of our natural state.

As I put the last few shovels of DG granite--the clay-like path surfacing material on the path the day before yesterday, a little dog mysteriously arrived, trailing Lama Pema Dorje and Kunsang who arrived on foot from the store.  The young dog wanted to pay and pounced on the earth and dug beside me as I worked, and one point wrestling a bag of landscaping bark out of my hand as I tried to pour it around some plants.  Later that day I looked up my Tibetan astrology sign, just to make sure.  Ah, the Earth Dog!

So, this old earth dog is going to do to the mountains and turn off the internet for a good long time, to settle into my practice and attend to the here and now.  My dear readers, please be well and happy, and perhaps I will "see" you again when I emerge.