Tag Archives: The Moment

Day Eighteen: Newcomers Welcoming

New to me. The couple sat on the patio of Keur Saloum, one table away. We Belgians, Senegalese and Canadian crammed together nearby, laughing in three languages. I said several silly things, such as one comment aimed at Marie-paule, Lydia’s mom. We were both taking up residence for a few days at Eddy’s bed-and-breakfast. “Marie-paule est dans la chambre cinq. Je suis dans la chambre … cinq.” (Marie-paule will be in room 5. I’ll be in room … 5.”) Much laughter erupted, and as I glanced over to the next table, the woman was smiling.

As our conversation continued, the couple talked together – in French I believe. Once in awhile, she’d look over to us as our words spilled out. Smiling again.

Lydia brings people together. As our group got up to leave, she bubbled over to our neighbours en français. The conversation among us all sped up and I was left in the dust. Fast French means no French for me. After awhile I walked over to the flowering bushes to watch the sunset on the river. As the disc fell behind the trees, leaving its pink glow, I returned to our tables. All the Lydiaists were standing and inching towards the exit ramp.

It felt like the woman next door was looking straight at me but she may have been taking us all in: “Would you like to stay for a drink?” I looked at the barely receding feet around me and responded “No, I want to get to dinner.” The woman across seemed to lower her head. Then somehow words kept falling out of people’s mouths. I stood there, passive on the outside and churning on the inside.

The movie Dead Poets Society came through – the one where Robin Williams teaches a bunch of high school students about life. “Carpe diem” he would say … seize the day. “And Bruce, isn’t this a perfectly good day to seize?”

As feet really did move one after the other in farewell, I reached down to the nearest chair and pulled it over to the couple. Yes, let’s talk.

We did so for three hours. In another seizing moment, I said yes to having dinner with Julie and Luc. Happily we talked about our lives – rehabilitating elephants, working in the Belgian embassy in Dakar, seeing big white birds land on an island at sunset so they could be together overnight, living with cancer loss, volunteering with 11-year-olds, eating a delcious meal in Keur Saloum … just everything.

There was communion at our evening table … three discovering friends savouring the flavours of relationship. It was all so cozy.

We hugged and shook hands goodbye. Will this be the end of it or will there be a friendship which endures? Using Lydia and Jo as an example, there may be many more dinners to come.

One Taste

I enjoy reading the thoughts of Ken Wilber.  He’s a philosopher.  And his goal has been to pull together the wisdom of the world, as represented by spiritual leaders, scientists, business people, psychologists and many others, into a coherent whole.  Ken thinks that every perspective has something to offer and it’s a mistake to say “I have the whole truth.”

I find that spiritual ideas stay in my head a bit and then leave.  I’ve read many books but it’s rare that I can recall what they said.  And I want to remember something “important” when I’m writhing amid the daily grind.

I see potential for me in Ken’s phrase “one taste”.  He points to the ocean and the waves on it.  Each wave can be considered as one of life’s experiences: happy stuff, sad stuff, frustrating, peaceful, challenging, sublime.  Or how about each wave as a person you know – someone kind, someone nasty, distant, cozy, chuckly, morose.  But if I look at all these waves, what is their essence?  It’s true that some waves are big and some small, but what is the core of it all?  Why, it’s brilliant and obvious … they’re all wet.  A tiny ripple is just as wet as a tsunami.

All these experiences and all these people, as different as they are from each other on the surface, down deep are the same.  They’re all sweetly light and graceful.  They all have one taste.  How can this be?  Surely the bliss of bright colours in my condo is better than the pain of constipation.  Well, on one level, of course.  But maybe there’s another level that I can access at any time, even when the temperature is 35° Celsius (95° Fahrenheit), with a heat index of 43 (109).  Sure, my body would be massively uncomfortable, but what about my Spirit?

Here’s what Ken has to say.  His use of capitals may be offputting, as well as his inclusion of the word “hopeless”, but then there’s the message:

The desires of the flesh, the ideas of the mind and the luminosities of the soul – all are perfect expressions of the radiant Spirit that alone inhabits the universe, sublime gestures of that Great Perfection that alone outshines the world.

There is only One Taste in the entire Kosmos, and that taste is Divine, whether it appears in the flesh, in the mind, in the soul.  Resting in that One Taste, transported beyond the mundane, the world arises in the purest Freedom and radiant Release, happy to infinity, lost in all eternity, and hopeless in the original face of the unrelenting mystery.

From One Taste all things issue, to One Taste all things return – and in between, which is the story of this moment, there is only the dream, and sometimes the nightmare, from which we would do well to awaken.