Perfect Days
Musings
Spring has finally come. Many trees are in bloom and everybody seems to be outside enjoying the pleasant weather.
There are flowers almost everywhere one looks. White and pink magnolias embellish even the disheveled building facades. Smaller and more delicate tree flowers seem to embroider everything around in white and pink. The smell comes and goes in waves. No perfume could ever compete with this natural fragrance.
Babies that are in strollers seem to be the most enraptured. Some are taking in this parade of nature for the first time. The expressions on their faces are wonderful to look at. There’s awe and amazement in their eyes. Most of them seem wonderstruck.
Yesterday and today have been the first sunny days after a week or so of rain and fog. The more I advance in age, the more I realize that it’s in the simplicity of moments like these that happiness resides. Seeing all these trees in bloom makes me so joyful. It may not last, but what does?
All these flowers seem made of wax. They are all so perfect, each one a little universe for the insects. They don’t have a mind of their own, but there’s surely someone or something making all these little miracles happen. How could it be otherwise?
Someone (something?!) must be directing this symphony which takes place all around us all the time. A force, something beyond our comprehension, a manifestation of higher energy, a god, a higher power, an almighty being, something that keeps everything going and not stagnant. Nature? The Source? The Universe? Who knows?!
How could we begin to understand the mystery of creation with our human-limited minds? And who cares if one uses the right word to describe this entity if we’re at that?
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth […]
(Lao Tzu — Tao Te Ching)
Anyhow, we’re lucky to be witnessing this show. We’re lucky to not be inanimate like the stones on the road. We’re lucky to have been endowed with the ability to take all these images in and process them in myriad unique ways.
We’re also lucky to be able to create stories and be part of them. We’re lucky to be alive and have these settings and these props all around helping us perform our complex roles.
Shakespeare must have been on to something when he said:
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. (As You Like It)
Like in The Matrix, there has to be something beyond what we imagine as real even though nobody has cracked the code yet. And if some enlightened beings have, they must be keeping the secret to themselves. They surely know the rest of us “mortals” might not be ready yet to understand.
The sufists, the alchemists, and the gnostics seemed to have been able to remove a layer or two of the veils that hide what’s real. They got closer to the truth. Jung at least seemed to think they did. He was not the only one.
It might also be that the truth cannot be known intellectually but only felt. Our hearts always know better than our minds. If only we knew how to listen to them more!
Until we find out who we really are and what we are here on Earth for, we might just as well enjoy these perfect spring days. Life is offering most of us quite a few.
This article was inspired by a Japanese movie that I have seen recently (“Perfect Days”). The main character, Hirayama, cleans public toilets in Tokyo but considers each day to be a gift. He lives a life of tranquility and simplicity and finds happiness in reading, listening to rock music, taking photos, and tending to his plants.