"In the mind of the beginner there are many possibilities, in the mind of the expert there are few."
I don't mind how many times I begin again in my life. I will keep picking myself up, dusting myself down and starting over as many times as life demands it of me. I won't give up. Sure, that will keep me at square one, and yes, life has many times felt like trying to climb a greased pole. But the benefit of all this is the great opportunity to live life with beginner's mind. Again and again.
I'm going through the greatest transition of my life right now, it's a journey, an adventure, an unknown quantity. Every day when I wake, every day when I sleep. But it is what it is. The journey. My life as a pilgrimage. That's what my life became the day I started the first Zen Road Trip [Zen Road Trip is an unpublished memoir of my journeys]. But what are any of us doing but taking a journey, from birth through to death. What better form could it take than that of a pilgrimage?
Right now, the thoughts that are highest in my mind are those of retreat, pilgrimage, spiritual progress. Most of all, to simply be.
The less time I spend online, the less time I want to spend online. I gave up RSS feeds this week. I've reduce my Twitter to a bare minimum, and still find discomfort with it, yet struggle to give it up. I read only two or three writers online regularly now. The rest, I can leave.
I'm planning to go and pick up a notebook tomorrow, so I can sit in the garden and write, without concern for battery levels, or online distractions. I want to read books printed on paper, not eBooks. All my books I gave over to eBooks so I could take them on my travels. I miss some of those spiritual texts. Many of them aren't available in eBook form anyway. Yes, I want to sit in the garden. Walk a little, meditate a lot. From this, I will sharpen my focus, and energise my path.
I'm looking for something else. Something deeper. I've been there before, every time life has thrown me a blinder, or a curve ball, or any one of those life events that come along and sharply slap us around the head and point us in the direction of our souls. But I don't want to hang around until I need another reminder. I'm weary of that process. I'm ready to pursue it through an act of positive energy. Once and for all.
I want what Bashō, Ikkyū, or Ryōkan had, wandering pilgrims, with a simple but deeply spiritual way of being. I've tried everything else. To travel, to read, write, teach, meditate, what more do I need than that? Nothing. That's what.