Hi friends,
In 2022 I spent about 6 months working with Fugen Tom Pitner, a Zen Roshi and coach. I was feeling disoriented in the midst of becoming a father and wanted some support through that transition.
One of the practices he offered was to write Haiku poems.
Here is one I wrote during that time along with a brief commentary.
Take care,
Alex
Presence yields virtue
Right relationships arise
Freedom from the I’s
There are depths of presence. At the surface we are preoccupied with fixed images and ideals.
Qualities of presence like kindness, patience, courage, insight, and clarity spontaneously arise when we are not caught in habitual patterns of thought.
Meditation teaches people to notice the default state of their mind: always running, discursive chatter.
This mental activity obscures a more subtle attunement to what is here now.
By lowering the noise, we experience clearer signal.
When attuned in this way, we are able to enter right relationship with ease.
To "do what the situation calls for".
We are also released from the tension of the many I's. Fragments of hope and fear, locked in the past, buffering us from contact with reality.