A master of meditation in one stare

I was going to write about swimming today as lad swam his first few strokes this week.  But I will write about it another day.  This afternoon, surrounded by hundreds of people in our little community, an eight year old boy and his ten year old brother stood beside their daddy at the funeral of their young mother.  Such was this lady's role locally that the school closed at lunchtime so that the staff and most of the children could go.  Although I have never met her I have spent the day wiping away tears and staring at the grey clouds in the sky.  Three weeks ago this vibrant, athletic lady was diagnosed with cancer.  Three weeks.

Just recently I have spent quite a bit of time wondering what it must be like to fly out of the earth's atmosphere and stare through the blackness at our beautiful planet.  Whilst standing on it and trying to imagine our world as one, you are overwhelmed by landscapes, problems, people, billions and billions of insects, political leanings, cruelty, kindness, arguments with your neighbour, love and elation, fish swimming in the absolute dark of the depths of the ocean, drought, genocide, the list is infinite.  But from space, the world is one thing.  Your eye need not travel far within its socket to take in its entirety.  It would probably have the same effect on you as studying meditation for 50 years, all condensed into a silent, silent gaze as you drift across the universe.  We are nothing, in the scheme of things.  And yet we can feel so raging and full of life force with love and loss.