Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

I never quite get the whole thing about having an extra hour of sleep when the clocks go back. I wake up at the same time but generally it just means I can get out on my bike an hour early when the sun has come up.* At the other end of the day, I get sleepy an hour earlier. This was a major benefit on Tuesday, as I went to bed before things looked irreversibly bad (though it already seemed that my pessimism had been justified), and I got a good night’s sleep before waking to the heart-sinking news on Wednesday.

There have been many encouragements for us to take care of ourselves and each other. My meditations this week have been reflective of this: one of my Within regulars was missing on Wednesday, and I assumed it was because she was too depressed about the results. The Thursday evening Zen Center group was sombre. I talked in generalisations, invoking “don’t know mind,” and the larger than usual group wanted to speak about their anger and their fear, and how do we practice with these difficult emotions?

One thing that has occurred to me is that we can counter the “I alone” delusion with “we together.” Just as group zazen has been a powerful practice for me this week, leaning on our communities and finding solidarity – and hopefully safety – in our sanghas is going to be key. As I remember Rev angel Kyodo williams saying after 2016, we don’t need to know what our plan of action is; staying close to “don’t know mind,” at some point it will be clear what we need to do.

*Usually, the morning of the clock change is a great time to ride because most people do stay in bed. This time I came across a lot of traffic in North Beach and remember that there was the Golden Gate Bridge half marathon which was about to start  from the Ghiradelli Square area, so it was a little busy out for the first few minutes. After that though I had closed roads, cordoned off for the race which had not yet begun, so I was able to ride freely for several miles to the bridge and continued to the ocean where the sun had just hit the sand and the waves and it looked incredibly beautiful.

It has been a week of lovely weather. The winds shifted to the east, so on Wednesday, seeking solace in the outside and phsyical activity, I had a tail wind on the way to the bridge, which felt quite lovely compared to the usual slog. There was also the benefit of rich sunsets as I headed home from work on Tuesday and Thursday (I posted more photos of this on Patreon).

Mostly I have not been wanting to sift through the hot takes in the media and on social media. There will be plenty of time to reflect on what went wrong, and on next steps to take. I will take what comfort I can find at the moment: being outside, being active, staying present with tasks at hand, to stop my mind running away with me.