Fuchia among many greens

warms the grey lit morning.

Goldfish trawl the pool for food.

I catch my breath, chase a dream.

Most mornings I have 8 o’clock classes in Building 7 here on campus.  They’re generally on the fourth floor.  From our apartment to my classrooms the morning walk is around two blocks long and seven stories high.  So I pause shortly before the last half flight of stairs.  Bldg 7 like almost all teaching buildings here on campus is built around a courtyard garden.  7’s garden features a small pond with large, well-fed gold fish, a small bridge artfully crossing over it, and several flowering shrubs and well clipped trees.  I pause to catch my breath before huffing and puffing up the last few steps.  I pause to enjoy the view of the garden from above.  I pause to clear my mind before going on to start my class.

I am really writing this blog entry to say it is time for me to take a break.  I have been writing the Plain Field Meditation blog for over a year now.  It has always been a series of essays not written for specific due dates.  I have written when I felt inspired to do so.

Now I feel inspired not to write any more.  

For example this entry I started a week or so ago.  Then I started teaching an extra class at the university, and the pressure of developing new lesson plans for that class took precedence over finishing the blog entry.

Still I woke up at 3 AM the other night and remembered that I hadn’t finished this entry.  That dimly lit recollection came at the same time as a realization that meditation and life as a form of meditation were no longer the crystal through which I viewed the events around me. 

Instead I view the events around me – that is, living in China and teaching on a daily basis – as the more engrossing experience. 

My guru would have swatted me on the head and talked knowledgeably about inaction in action.  Being centered in one’s deepest, most tranquil self while in the midst of coping with life’s immediate demands.  And, he would be right.  There is peace and quiet in the midst of the most ferocious action.  One simply has to see that space to be in it, to live it, to enjoy it.

I am not there.  I know the space exists, but I still need to get my lesson plans done for next week.  I need to get the handouts prepared so that I can get them copied for class tomorrow.  I need to be in the space of action in action.  I need to focus on doing.

So I am taking a break as the sole contributing writer for the Plain Field Meditation blog.  I plan to come back to it this summer.  After I get my grades done.  After I turn them in and pack my suitcases.  After I get back to America.  After I have had a good cup of brewed coffee. 

After the world of action that I inhabit begins to resemble the quiet world of being, living, and enjoying.  I hope to see you later in that same quiet world.  I hope you have been there for a while, have the coffee ready, and would be interested in company to chat with.

But, for anyone interested in following the teaching gig in China, you can read my other blog: www.3chongqingpix.spaces.live.com.