Meditation was good last night, and I really needed it. I missed last week because of the Parish Council, but apparently they were talking about symbolism, and last night was a follow on from there. We talked about the symbolism of the elephant, how it keeps going no matter what, solid and persistent, pushing through obstacles. This has been a theme for me this week, to keep going even if I don’t see the value of what I’m doing, even if there don’t seem to be any tangible results, even if I can’t see what the results might be, dogged persistence, on and on and on, don’t give up.
I felt very strong last night. It’s not often I get that feeling. We did a walking meditation in the middle of the sitting meditation, and I remembered when the children were small and I struggled every day to keep myself from going crazy with frustration, the image I held on to then was putting one foot in front of the other, just taking the next step, then the next step, then the next, over and over. This is what we do in walking meditation. And I thought, I have never really had to struggle with outside circumstances, as some people have to, my struggle has always been with myself, and even though I no longer have to deal with the day to day pressures of parenting small children, I am still struggling. Why should that be? I have no idea, just that this is how I am. Before I had children, I struggled with my desire to have them, before then, uncertainty over the decision of whether or not that was what I truly wanted, the seeming impossibility of it, what would happen if it never happened, what would happen if it did? It’s so long since I thought about those feelings, so long since I thought about the feelings I had when they were small. Now I stand here in this place and look at my life, and still nothing is clear.
Also last night we talked about the symbolism of the Buddha’s right hand in those depictions where it is pointing down towards the earth. This symbolises drawing strength from the earth, from the past, from the history which has brought you to this place. This seemed to me to be the mirror image of the symbol of the elephant, because it is talking about what brought you here, whereas the elephant is taking you into the future, a continuous process. And it is a path of growth, a progress, a development, even if it falls into doldrums sometimes and spins you round in circles, bringing you apparently back to the same places, there are changes, even if you can’t see them.
Tomorrow I am giving a talk about the European project (have I said this before? Probably, it has been on my mind all week, and in the back of it for ages). I’m used to doing such things, I don’t mind it, really I don’t, I know it will be fine, yet I am always apprehensive. Maybe everyone feels like that, I don’t know. I have found it very hard to concentrate this week, I have struggled to keep going with the things I needed to keep going with, to get anything done at all, although actually when I think about it I have achieved quite a lot.
I saw my daughter yesterday. She drove round in her boyfriend’s car – they have got the insurance sorted out after all. She is definite that she doesn’t want to go to uni, doesn’t want to stay at college, though she doesn’t know what she wants to do. Graphic design, apparently, is not for her after all, or so she says now. She doesn’t think she is good enough to do what she would really like to do with it, so she will try something else. How does anyone ever find out what they want to do? How do any of us get through our lives, get through the day?
Persistence.