Meditation on Change 10/06/07

I start by just settling in to basic meditation, observing my breath, watching thoughts as they come and go. Then I entertain thoughts about change, changes in the world. It's fall in this part of the world, and I observe this season of rapid change every time I step outside. Some of my flowers have caught the frost and have shriveled and died. Gradually the trees are changing colors and leaves are beginning to fall. The colors seem especially brilliant this year. The weather is unpredictable: warm and balmy one day, damp and cool another day. I think of big changes, the 1987 Supernova, the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, 9/11. I think of the gradual changes in governments and countries, of the arbitrariness of political boundaries. I think of pets that have died. I think of my near miss yesterday evening in homeward bound traffic, a car speeding in front of me through a red light. I clued into the possibility of being seconds away from death in every moment. I see an image of myself, sliding toward the edge of an abyss, my heels dug in, trying to avoid the inevitable. In doing so, in being rigid, in trying to avoid change, I miss out on life. Again, I settle into basic meditation in order to assimilate my insights, to tuck them away into whatever files they are to occupy in my mind and body.