🚘 Heading up to Lisboa very soon, for a Micro Meetup afternoon.
Cais Palafítico da Carrasqueira - a place of old fishing piers and huts, near Comporta and the Atlantic coast, Portugal.
Wonky window on a ruined building.
A beach scene from Easter Sunday.
I love writing, it feeds me, even if that writing is personal and not shared. However, at the moment writing time is constrained for me and at a premium. So instead of dropping into despair that I have no time to write, I am trying to adopt a habit of looking for time, and then setting a timer and maybe writing for just 10 minutes. If more time emerges, great. But even if not, at the end of the day, I still feel as though I have written something. It may not be as much as I would like, but it is something. Progress has been made.
I’m working on a blog post for those who are interested in meditation, but who struggle with it. While I don’t like to proselytize about meditation, I do believe that some people drop it because they approach the discipline with some unhelpful ideas and expectations, and that makes me sad.
Maybe a recalibrated approach might open up the possibilities provided by meditation, and yield results that initially weren’t apparent?
Moon rise in the house last night.
🔔 Sitting quietly at home at the end of a long day. Tired but much achieved. The church bells sound nearby for Easter.
🪛 A busy day of putting things up in the house - shelves, lights, etc - running out to pick up items. Getting there. Order appearing out of chaos. It’ll be a long day.
Evening light.
My body must have known that it didn’t need to get up for anything this morning. I didn’t wake up until 7:45am, which is late for me. That was a very welcome sleep.
I found this rather large fly down at the coast yesterday.
🏎️ I spent this morning driving through Lisbon traffic 🤪. Outside the city now in Parço de Arcos. Rush hour traffic to manage later.
Fresh, Spring air breezing through the open windows. That alone, feels as though it is cleaning the house.
⏲️ So far I am managing the jet lag pretty well. I slept well’ish last night. Though I’ll probably be eating my words in a day or two!
🇵🇹 Bom dia Portugal.
I’ve heard of a Christmas tree, but never an Easter tree.
On the move
Sunday, April 2, 2023
I sit in a hotel - on the move. I look out of the hotel window onto a busy freeway intersection - people on the move, going in all directions. I look out on the adjacent airport - people on the move, across the country and across the world. People on the move fascinate me. The human race, it seems, have always been on the move - exploring, hunting, grazing ground, searching for a better life, conquering, pilgrimage.
🌞 It’s a beautiful start to the day in Northern California this morning.
Tukdam: Remaining in Meditation At the Time of Death
Saturday, April 1, 2023
I recently watched the documentary Tukdam: Between Worlds. This explored the phenomenon in Tibetan Buddhism where experienced practitioners can remain in a state of meditation after the body has shown all physical signs of having died - no breathing, the heart has stopped. In this state the body can support itself, the skin looks healthy, there is no sign of decomposition of the body (even in the heat of India where many of the exiled Tibetan community now live), and a feeling of warmth remains around the heart.