In the early, early spring, my grandmother took her paring knife out to the front yard and dug up tiny dandelion greens for her family of 12. My father continued this tradition of dandelion green salad, wilted with a hot dressing, and served with radishes, and slices of hard-boiled egg.
I just ended a week-long meditation retreat in Virginia, and the yard at the retreat center is loaded with dandelion greens and a little wild onion scattered all over fields as well as lawns. I'm ready to cook up a mess of dandelion greens and spring onions. A century ago, these were tonics for a spring cleaning of the body. The first fresh greens in 4 or 5 months were thought to clear the winter sludge out of the body.
The week-long retreat has served as my spring cleaning of the mind. I focused on a simple sense meditation all week--seeing, hearing, and feeling (both externally AND the internal senses of "hearing" thoughts, "seeing" (some) thoughts, and "feeling" emotions). Viewing my world through these sense doors of seeing, hearing, and feeling brings me a refreshing understanding of now--the only moment we ever have.
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Was Shinzen Young in Virginia recently?
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