Peacefulness follows any decision,
even the wrong one.
Rita Mae Brown

This seems to be true. It might be due to the utter relief of making some kind of move, any kind of move, in ones life. A move large and far reaching or small and still far reaching. But the awareness of the long term consequences of small or large decisions are hidden to us. For the most part. Who knows what twists and turns will influence our decisions as we continue on our way.

It is not as if there is one final decision and then everything follows from there. Although one good decision, made for the right reasons, has the power to carry forward into future good decisions. The key lies in the ability to keep listening to those inner prompting, or the internal bell I mentioned recently, and steer by them. As best one can.

I’m particularly, acutely perhaps, aware of this need to keep listening and keep flexible because I, and another female monastic of our order, are standing on the brink of launching a project. The public face of it will be a website which I will tell you about when the moment comes to open it to the world. The subtle face, the spiritual dimension if you like, is one you will connect with because the heart and expression of our project are identical to the heart of Jade.

The merit of this post is offered to a young woman who has gone missing. And for all others in similar circumstances – anywhere in the world.

It is all very well to talk about taking life as it comes and living one day at a time but life isn’t that simple. Or so it certainly seems. In this one day there is a need, for me right now, to make arrangements for future days. I’m currently organizing my schedule for the next two or three months – on the road again! At least I’ll remain within Britain.

Some days are filled with forward planning and some filled with living out those plans. Driving here, driving there. Navigating. Preparing mentally and practically. Yet other days meander like a slow moving river, seemingly aimless yet going somewhere obviously. There is a saying from Zen Master Dogen, I think, which goes every day is a good day. Are any of the described days NOT good days? What goes towards a GOOD day? In this post a chap is pondering on having a successful life and then contrasts that with what an ideal day might comprise of. He concludes thus:

I often sacrifice the practices and routines that bestow daily life with value in order to achieve majestic, overarching goals that may or may not truly bring any quotient of contentment. Most shocking was the realization that there was nothing keeping me from living an ideal day tomorrow. There was no barrier in the way except myself. My curse was my own obsessive-compulsive drive to ideologically displace my present self in a conceptually “successful” future, at the cost of living the life I truly want to live right now.

One of the very many blessing of my life is the constant call to return. To return to what’s before me. Sometimes caught in the midst of activities over long however that internal bell just can’t be ignored. The inner prompting to stop, redirect, move on, eat a meal, sit.

There is a structure, or template, that most have to the day, if only the fact of getting up, eating meals, retiring to bed again. However the drive to complete a project, to finalise arrangements, to finish the garment one is knitting etc. can so often drown out the sound of the internal bell calling us to the next thing.

I remind myself that there is no rush to the projected finish line. And even death, so often thought of as the ultimate end, is not that. Just another step, just passing through a flapping door…onwards. Not something one can plan for, nor wish for, nor be afraid of either.