The Season

(The altar in our meditation room decorated for the season)
(Our living room decorated as a "Buddha Land")
(The front side of the box for the Avatamsaka Sutra)

'Tis the season..., how often have I heard that in my life since I was a child? It is actually a nice thing to hear and I remember how much I loved Advent and Christmas time as a child. I grew up in the Episcopal church and that taught me to love ritual and see how it mirrors the changes in the outer and the inner world. In other words, this time of year has always meant a lot to me and this year coming from a Buddhist point of view, I decorated our living room to look like "Buddha Land" and made a wooden box with a picture of the Cosmic Buddha and Samanthabadhra on it to hold The Avatamsaka Sutra which is being read each day. Ritual is important to me and I guess it can be seen as a form of meditation. It brings my mind into a pointed awareness just as meditation does.



Along with all of this I have an Advent calendar that is filled with different kinds of semi-preicious stones...a nice link to the idea of the jewels in "Indra's Net" and each one comes with a word according to its symbolism. Today's stone was a Chinese carnelian...it is lovely! It is all sorts of opaque terracotta colors with a bit of milky white in it. It's symbolism, according to the box at least, is "vitality". A nice stone and idea to carry in my pocket today. Vitality at this time when everything seems to be losing its energy---dark mornings, evening light that begins at four in the afternoon, etc.



I guess the thought today is: "Be vital!" No matter how dark it seems, we are always in the bright Ocean of Meditation!