Hello!
Happy Wednesday to You!
I am happy to be home after a great trip to Mexico with my son. I got some surprises during the trip home, which made it even more special to have made it here.
First off, my son and I were in a deep discussion over world events while in heavy traffic with lots of buses and big trucks in front of us and we missed the airport turn-off by 12 miles.
Fortunately, the route back to the airport was well posted. When I explained what happened to the ticketing agent at the Cancun airport, he told me there is only one small sign directing you to the airport coming in from Tulum and people often miss it…
I got my flight without a problem, so all was well.
When I landed in Houston, TX., the customs hall was packed and it took me almost an hour to get through.
Then, unlike most airports, after clearing customs in Houston, they make you go through security again even though you’ve never left a secure area…
Well, again, long lines…I hadn’t realized that there had been tornadoes in Dallas and flights were being redirected.
Because I refuse to expose myself to the radiation in the new high-tech scanning machines, I had to be patted down and get the full going over…
Fortunately, I had a cool security guy feeling by body and I told him, “Don’t worry about the explanation, My plane leaves in 15 minutes!!”
As a very unusual gesture by a security agent, he offered to check the status of my flight as another agent finished processing me.
He came back and informed me that the gate had been changed to a gate two concourses away!
I picked up my bags and ran like hell for a few hundred yards and got there just as they were closing the gate!
The flight attendant saw me approaching the door and said, “You must be the guy in business class?” “YES!, that’s me!”
Every seat on the plane was full but mine. But I made it and got a lovely little weighted sprint session in!
It is lovely to be home; no matter how beautiful the places I go may be, none bring me more joy than my own home!
I will have a relaxing day today. I hope you are all as glad to be home as me if you are that fortunate today.
I hope you enjoy the Tao Te zen sutra for today: One with ONE = Together!
“Universe” means “One Song.” In the Universe, all that looks to be “apart” is truly a togetherness—just as the flowers, shrubs and trees appear to you as individuals, together they make a garden.
Rams in their male individuality will lock horns in battle—ultimately to ensure the crucial growth and development of the herd. Mother bear scolds her cubs individually so they become “One” with nature—togetherness is their survival.
Zen practice is to cultivate your individuality to bring strength and unity to a larger whole.
In doing so ask yourself, which unity can you do less with to complete your wholeness? Is it your family? Is it your business or your co-workers or is it your country?
Or is it the world in which we build our dreams together?
Zen practice of individuality ultimately brings any sum together for the betterment of the whole; wholeness is zen.
Let’s practice zen together.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
