Thursday, August 8, 2013

Picnic on a Hill



This is a small replica of a large oil painting that I grew up with in our family home.  Art really does have an impact on one.  This evocative painting raises a number of questions for a child observing it.  Why is this woman up on a hill alone?  Is that a picnic basket?  Is she sad?

Then, the questions turn on oneself. Could I enjoy a picnic alone in nature?  What would I do there with no books, phone, TV or internet?  Suppose all my basic needs were taken care of, and I had a little cabin, heat and plenty of food.  What then?

Just the word "hermit" does sound sad to me, as does "solitude."  Flipping those feelings upside down, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition (among others) has the idea that living and meditating in solitude for long periods of time can be a break-through experience. 

I think lots of people, who are--like me--introverts by nature, pass a mesa in Arizona or a mountain in the Sierras, and picture themselves there in a cabin.  In our mind's eye we open into the vast sky, uniting with the spacious loving heart of the universe.

I've done enough retreat at this point to know that we carry our own baggage, the need to create problems, to invent unmet needs, and so on, to the mountaintop.  Unfolding is a process of applying the teachings of our powerful lineage of realized adepts to ourselves.  Starting at the beginning, the hallmark of Buddhism, the penetrating acceptance of impermanence itself.  Then, slowly coming to a conclusion about each critical point.

One petal at a time, the flower opens.  That hill is a good place to practice.  Why?  Well, for one, the ability to blame others for our problems is undermined.  They aren't even there.  I am  forced to take responsibility for my own mind.  Then, I am forced to love and accept the thinker of those ridiculous thoughts.

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