Dear Caminoheads,
Today wasn’t different than yesterday if measured by the craziness of the day. Another day running in circles, and when it looks as if things get closer to the path they should take, a wind comes and there they are, blowing away in a new direction…
Someone told me today that I was frustrated because I was paying too much attention… and this made me think about my attitude when doing my hand-laundry in the Camino. For some unthoughtful reason, I purposely bought 2 white t-shirts and 1 black t-shirt to take to the Camino. Let me tell you, my first lesson learned was that white T-shirts are not a good choice for the Camino.
My second lesson learned was that when doing hand-laundry, I was very much aware of the dirt and spots, and my unskillful hand-laundry technique. As soon as I would put the T-shirt in water, I would see all the places I had left spots the previous day, and which were the ones that the T-shirt had acquired during the day. At the end of the Camino, white my T-shirts were ready to be burnt -if not because I had to keep one to wear, as that was all I had-.
There is a price we pay as we become more conscious: we can no longer pretend we don’t know. Sometimes, as we become more aware of our unskillful habits, it’s humbling to see the ways we fail to do the right thing, or the way we fall short.
Ram Dass wrote in his book “Be Here Now”:
“As you further purify yourself, your impurities will seem grosser and larger. Understand that it’s not that you are not getting more caught in the illusion. It’s just that you’re seeing it more clearly. The lions guarding the gates get fiercer as you go towards each inner temple. But, of course, the light gets brighter too.”
It looks as if it is a good thing to note the spots in our T-shirts, and to recognize how short we fall at doing hand-laundry… maybe I should have not burnt my white T-shirt in Finisterre…
Take me back to the Camino Loves,
Cris
Love the quote from R Dass.
Ram Dass died recently.I have read about him but not his actual works.If I recall he was a westerner who fell under the sway of eastern mystical thought?I think that he was aquatinted with Timothy Leary.