A Walk in the Rain
by Paul Foster
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 As the story goes, I was walking through the rain on a cold Autumn evening in Oxford. The sky was getting dark; I was wrapped up warm in my new coat. And suddenly and without warning, the search for something more apparently fell away, and with it all separation and loneliness.
And with the death of separation, I was everything that arose: I was the darkening sky, I was the middle aged man walking his golden retriever, I was the little old lady hobbling along in her waterproofs. I was the ducks, the swans, the geese, the funny looking bird with the red streak on its forehead. I was the trees in all their autumnal glory, I was the sludge sticking to my feet, I was my body, all of it, arms and legs and torso and face and hands and feet and neck and hair and genitals, the whole damn lot. I was the raindrops falling on my head (although it was not my head, I did not own it, but it was undeniably there, and so to call it "my head" is as good as anything). I was the splish-splash of water on the ground, I was the water collecting into puddles, I was the water swelling the pond until it looked fit to burst its banks, I was the trees soaked by water, I was my coat soaked by water, I was the water soaking everything, I was everything being soaked, I was the water soaking itself.
And everything that for so long had seemed so ordinary had suddenly become so extraordinary, and I wondered if, in fact, it hadn’t been this way all along: that perhaps for my whole life it had been this way, so utterly alive, so clear, so vibrant. Perhaps in my lifelong quest to reach the spectacular and the dramatic, I had missed the ordinary, and with it, and through it, and in it, the utterly extraordinary.
And the utterly extraordinary on this day was awash with rain, and I was not separate from any of it, that is to say, I was not there at all. As the old Zen master had said upon hearing the sound of the bell ringing, "there was no I, and no bell, just the ringing", so it was on this day: there was no "I" experiencing this clarity, there was only the clarity, only the utterly obvious presenting itself in each and every moment.
Of course, I had no way of knowing any of this at the time. At the time, thought was not there to claim any of this as an “experience”. There was just what was happening, but no way of knowing it. The words came later.
And there was an all-pervading feeling that everything was okay with the world, there was an equanimity and a sense of peace which seemed to underlie everything there was; it was as though everything was simply a manifestation of this peace, as if nothing existed apart from peace, in its infinite guises. And I was the peace, and the duck over there was it too, and the wrinkly old lady still waddling along was the peace, and the peace was all around, everything just vibrated with it, this grace, this presence that was utterly unconditional and free, this overwhelming love that seemed to be the very essence of the world, the very reason for it, the Alpha and the Omega of it all.
–Paul Foster, in ‘Beyond Awakening‘
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A Walk in the Rain
What shifts occur(or have already occurred) in your worldview if you accept the author’s premise – there is a sense of peace that underlies everything that is? Have you had an experience of coming in touch with “an all-pervading feeling that everything was okay with the world”? What does “grace” and “presence that was utterly unconditional and free” mean to you? |
| Conrad P. Pritscher wrote: Paul Foster is a wonderful writer. I have difficulty adding anything more. When one is one, the way that can be said is not the way. Desiring nothing can be peaceful. As Gandhi said:… |
| JPSingh wrote: It is a most difficult state for anyone to achieve. Still more difficult to comprehend There is no desire for reaching, arriving or seeking. There is no goal. The player,goal-post,goal kee… |
| Ricky wrote: When you change your language, your choice of words, your focus, you are able to articulate the ideas that arise in this article. As we change our view of our presence here from ‘it’… |
| Thierry wrote: What a wonderful happening and what a paradox. But to walk around with the desire to have such an "experience" is precisely desiring the ‘more’. That ca… |
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One rainy night I was driving along a lonely highway. Ahead of me, I saw a man, shoulders hunched, walking rapidly along the side of the road. It was pouring rain and I slowed down to avoid splashing him as I went by.
Sangha of Auspicious Companions 