Sol -i - tude

"But so long as these discriminations are cherished by the ignorant and simple-minded they go on attaching themselves to them and, like the silkworm, go on spinning their thread of discrimination and enwrapping themselves and others and are charmed with their prison. But to the wise there are no signs of attachment nor of detachment, all things are seen as abiding in solitude where there is no evidence of discrimination. Mahamati, you and all the Bodhisattvas should have your abode where you can see all things from the view-point of solitude." --The Lankavatara Sutra

"The solitary bird flies highest" -- John of the Cross

"For that lucky old sun has nothing to do but roll around heaven all day" -- Harry Smith / Haven Gillespie

The Buddha, St. John of the Cross, and these lyrics to a popular song have in common an appreciation of solitude -- being neither attached to nor removed from the daily rounds of existing.

I like the word sol-itude for its implication that one is to be like the sun -- Old Sol. When we are like the sun, in our solitude, we are "in the world but not of the world." We move along our natural orbit unhypnotized by our discriminations and our attachment to them.

We discriminate as needed as we go but do not wrap ourselves in the discriminations. In our daily walk, we are not clinging to our previous steps nor mired in any potential future ones. We are profoundly alone (all one).

Now aloneness scares the hell out of many, who would rather put out an eye than be alone (and that is precisely what happens -- one is blinded, cannot "see all things," sees only the light around one's enmeshment). One spends one's life in the circle of light provided by one's own self-chatter and the continuous chatter of one's social world. One is imprisoned by the need for constant affirmation.

When one is like the sun (engaging in sol-itude) one is moving with lively appropriateness while centering in one's own being and nowhere else. One is in right relationship with all that is without thinking about it. One shines one's awareness on all equally without judgment. And like the sun, one is not trying to do this. It happens naturally.

In other words, one is centering and opening. Simultaneously. Now. And there is no time but now.