Changes

                
           Went hiking in the white mountains, Mt Escadilla. The third highest mountain in Arizona. Most of the leaves had been washed from the trees in the rain but did get to the place where I could walk back down through the above pictured ravine.
           This is a difficult hike and I could not complete it. I am either out of shape which is often the case when I start getting back in shape after a summer of not being as actively hiking or the the body has weakened that it can not do what was easy before.
           Some of this is of course an aspect of age , and as such must be acknowledged and respected. some of this may be  an aspect of the drugs that the body is subjected to and that must be fought.  Finding that balance is my path. Learning  inner joy is the gift.
            I had a day yesterday that would have thrown me completely into despair  realizing that I had not been as attended on the levels of PSA in the tests I have been given I found myself in panic. However after sitting with this for a few minutes I realized that is was only a wave that was going through me and just as a large wave washes over  a rock on the seashore. It rose and dropped just as surely as the ebb and flow of the ocean.
            It was an exercise in mindfulness and equanimity the rest of the day, there was simply a sense of being present with whatever emotion or pain emerged. It was not difficult since there was not anything to attach to it. The mind functions normally but the awareness of the mind stays still .
            My prima amiga sent me an extensive collection of audio tapes of a teacher named Shinzen Young. I have learned how to transpose the tapes into the computer and have been doing so . While doing so the subject matter on the tapes came to the forefront . Emotional pain, mainly fear, although all emotions for me are not pure but rather a jumbled mess that I can extract one part out of and then another. As each of these are brought to awareness there is a growing realization of what the buddha was talking about when he spoke of impermanence . Nothing lasts including whatever is the flavor of emotional or physical suffering that is being experienced.
           Shantideva the famous 8th century Indian Buddhist philosopher once said that people call to themselves the very thing of which they are most afraid. I certainly do have a great deal of concern and fear about metastatic bone cancer , but not facing the fear will not undo the diagnosis and will certainly make things worse since it will transform into a hell. Facing the fear will allow for the transformation to  awareness rather than running from awareness. It may change the physical nature of the body ,it will change the emotional and psychological nature of the mind.
            It already has.