“It’s a pretty fun day actually…We’re good. We’re real good.”

Today as it was going to be when I went to bed: Get up, make breakfasts and lunches, get kids to school, go to BJ’s for big grocery etc shopping, library, Walmart (unfortunately) some xmas shopping. Get kids from school, do dinner, go to a friends church to see a Christmas showing of some kind.

Today as it is: Get up to the phone ringing, former wife says there’s no school today. Look around discover there is no power and half a tree has fallen in the front yard of my apartment and pulled a wire down with it. No power, can’t cook, decide to take kids out to breakfast. Round the corner and find my car under a pile of giant tree branches with windshield smashed.

Later discover that former wife’s house is the only house among common friends/families with power. Everyone else is getting colder and colder. Get car to dealership with aid of former wife, end up at the house of former wife and discover Massachusetts and New Hampshire in a total state of emergency from this ice storm. Currently hunkering down at the old homestead waiting to take in more heatless families!

I’m loving it. An opportunity (as every moment is) for practice. It’s a pretty fun day actually. We have wine. We have food. We have a movie. One of my son’s friends brought his Wii along. We’re good. We’re real good.

By sKott Rogers from Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the border with the state of New Hampshire.

Kindly contributed to Zen Moments by the author
Photo: sun trees snow shadows by CoCreatr

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
By Shunryu Suzuki
Recommended by sKott Rogers
“…From diverse topics such as transience of the world, sudden enlightenment, and the nuts and bolts of meditation, Suzuki always returns to the idea of beginner’s mind, a recognition that our original nature is our true nature. With beginner’s mind, we dedicate ourselves to sincere practice, without the thought of gaining anything special. Day to day life becomes our Zen training, and we discover that “to study Buddhism is to study ourselves.” And to know our true selves is to be enlightened.” Brian Bruya