Consider all the pain and all the pleasure
You have ever experienced
As waves on a very deep ocean which you are.
From the depths, witness those waves,
Rolling along so bravely, always changing,
Beautiful in their self-sustaining power.
Marvel that once, you identified with
Only the surface of this ocean.
Now embrace waves, depths, undersea mountains,
Out to the farthest shore.
~Insight verse 136, “The Radiance Sutras”, Lorin Roche, PhD.
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The image I drew in a recent Playing With Creativity and Meditation class that my friend Andrea Abrahamson and I co-teach at the online Radiance Sutras School of Meditation. It was her turn to facilitate, and the theme was travel.
Going into the meditation, we were invited to attune to our senses. I live on a really busy street, and the ebb and flow of traffic began to sound like ocean waves to me. I could see the image I drew so clearly, so out it came. As I worked with the pastels, my fingers blending the colours together also sounded like the ocean to me, so I played with that… moving my hand and much of my body, creating the sound of the ocean. The movement of waves. The tingling of my fingers reminded me a little of the sharp tingling of sand under my bare feet.
It’s my favourite little beach in Pacific Palisades, and is still closed after the January fires. I looked at the satellite map recently, tracing the route down the twists and turns down Sunset Blvd. that I’ve enjoyed driving. So much is gone; I’m not sure when I’ll have the heart to make the drive again. It’s so wonderful to have the memory of it, and now this image, as one of my doorways into meditation.
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