An American Monk, Dropping In

Standing in the yard, looking up at the eves and up at the sky, I stand there, and my time is like prayer.

I am wondering how to wind up to the pitch about this secular monk thing I've got going on. Yes, it is a sort of "dropping out".

But those attuned to less "Western" pursuits ("the rat race"), less Type-A get ahead-aholism and workaholism and God's-Country-Americaholism, more in synch and in sympathy with the easier ways of "Eastern" thought, what we might call Zen awareness, peace and self-dependence, self-satifaction, thinking for oneself as one thinks of all others, these people have called it "dropping in".

Living a life of principle, even one not of passivity but of action, has as much to do with what one does not do as with what does.

Not driving so many miles, not having many if any children, not arguing, not even "trying to get ahead" but letting the others go. That is acceptance. That race of rats is how most people are, not so far removed from rats themselves, even when they go tearing around trying to "save" the world.

Sometimes be. I am finding some substantial solace in being.