Here I am, getting lost in the details of everyday life, having spent hours working to solve computer tech glitches. Finally I walk away from today’s unresolved problems. I feel how my mind is still caught in crunching details.
I remember, hearsay — or heresy of our driven culture — that life is more than problem solving. I walk this body outside to search for big mind. Can I breathe in the spacious blue sky? Is there any room inside here to take in the beauty offering itself up today?
Matthew Flickstein tells this story on himself. Listening to a master teacher in the Vippassana lineage, Matthew watched him rotate his mala prayer beads. Matthew saw the teacher fidgeting. So Matthew asked him, what are you doing with your beads? The teacher gave him a penetrating gaze and replied, when you can drink the River Ganges, you will understand.
Now, how can I not judge this niggling little ego mind, but gently take it for a walk into the stirring breeze?