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When pending down to bow I feel like a full pitcher emptying--pouring out all the junk and afflictions. All day pouring, flushing, filling, emptying. At the end, I am squeaking clean inside until the first false thought.
Bowing near Beverly Hills today I looked up and saw mountains in the Northwest ahead. They were exactly like a dream of thee or four years ago. In fact, the temperature, strong wind, sky cover--everything was the same. The direction of the route and the feeling also identical. In the dream another person and I were on a journey to a city called 10,000 Buddhas, high in the mountain plateaus to the north. The city we were in and going through was dying, falling. Nobody there knew anything beyond the craziness of the city--quick pleasure, wealth, parties, drugs, etc.-- a kind of spiritual despair hiding behind a gay front. The road was in need of repair and not used for a long time, but walkable. The city of 10,000 Buddhas was like a ruin, old and dormant. At one time it had flourished and thrived, but for some reason through neglect or catastrophe had been uninhabited and not visited for years and years. A noxious gas or something had covered it and the surrounding country. But now it was ok--in fact cleaner and more pure than anywhere on the globe. Waiting to be discovered and rekindled.
Flashes like this happen just about every day. I don’t know dream from real, past from present, here from where anymore. It’s ok.. Déjà vus and similiar-type non-ordinary experiences are happening with such frequency I can’t keep track of them. More and more the dimensions break down--time, space, etc.--merging, turning inside out and upside down. I just reached to grab the door of the van and looked on the ground outside standing next to Heng Sure and had an incredible déjà vu. Before or in the future, in a dream or is this a dream? I don’t know. I don’t really care. At first I used to take interest in occurrences, but they’re only some kind of state and happening so often that I hardly notice anymore. Every once in a while a particularly strong one hits and it freezes me to halt for a few seconds--like if I continued or kept going I would walk right into another universe and time.
I’ve been ready old Vajra Bodhia Sea commentaries on the Prajna Paramita Sutra by the Master. They’re better than lunch. T’ai chi this morning was really strong. I can feel a new strength, power in the tan t’ien, lower back, and along the spine--really like electric water; light and potent. Having left home and Three steps, One Bow are making unbelievable difference inside with my ch’i and my “seeing.” Really hard to explain, I am so grateful and happy for a chance to cultivate the true--it’s so obviously the Way. Each day I realize how rare and inconceivable it is to be this close to the ultimate.
“If the Way grows an inch,
the demons grow a foot.
If the Way grows a foot,
the demons are really on top.”