the warm hug of the universal

Hmmm . . . This body still prances around pretty well though one of its hooves complains and its joints moan until movement gives them proper lubrication. I can see quite clearly however that when this horse does fall I will take my leap away from it. Like that happy rascal Seung Sahn once said, you don't want to stay centering in your body when it is dead. Hahahaha!

Now lest you think I am becoming too morbid in my thought these days by dwelling on death and dying, I reassure you that I have never been happier. It is just that, as a geezer, one is aware of the imminent approach of The Time of the Leap.

In younger years, one is occupied with thrusting oneself into the world and receiving what the thrusting brings. And rightly so. Bless all the younger ones. I am happy to be done with that. Now the journey is the journey of Return.

So. Back to the body. One of my favorite Zen questions is "Who is it dragging this corpse around?" It prompts in me a large internal smile, maybe even a grin, and sometimes outright laughter. I greatly appreciate my corpse. It is a forming of my soul. It has stood up under everything I leaped it into, has walked wearily and thirstily through barrenness, has drunk the waters of many pools. God bless it.

It seems to have a capability of another 100,000 miles. But one never knows. I continue to learn how to leap before the Leap, how to dive safely into the arms that contain me and have always contained me, into the Warm Hug of the Universal. As the Sufi folk put it, I die before I die. How sweet! How wonderful! Geezerhood brings many treasures.