I had walked from Trehebert to Treorchy on a grey wet day. As I went over a railway bridge I saw a discarded loaf of sliced bread lying in the gutter, it's open and the slices are lying there soaking up the dirty water from the rain. You can just make it out, in the middle, toward the bottom of the image. I become interested in the discarded food and the people walking past it and I take some photos. I crossed over the road to look at the scene from the other side.
I take some photos of people walking across the bridge. A woman strides by and quickly I take a photograph, instantly forgetting it as my attention is drawn to something else. Later, I am surprised by the image. The blurred nature of the way the woman is walking across the bridge. The way her body mirrors the angle of the girders. The symmetrical link of the human form with the constructed form. But, it is not the form which draws the attention, it is the synchronicity of the form - the way disparate elements naturally hold together and are not held together. We can see the woman walking across the bridge, her body and the girders in sync, out of sync, in sync, out of sync, in sync, out of sync, in sync. Gone!
Rain raining
Cars swishing
Bridge walking
In meditation, sometimes we feel synchronised with the process; sitting is occurring and we are part of it. At other times everything feels disjointed, with the experience hard and difficult. It is the same in our life, sometimes we just live it and there is an innate flow. At other times it feels as if we are on another planet, out of sorts with ourselves and not part of the things that are happening around us. The ebb and flow of life, the oscillations of living are the natural way of how all things work. This is the way of the universe. The practice is to be present in both the synchronised and the unsynchronised.
“Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning...look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.”
Bernie Glassman
