Breathing fast and slow

I say the number 9 is my favorite number in the same way a child labels a number lucky. Nine is my favorite lucky number. My birth month falls in the 9th calendar month of the year. The number that marks our home, makes it stand out in the neighborhood, is nothing less than good old favorite number 9. In a book I once read, the protagonist is a young math teacher and her every daily encounter is replete with numerical reference. One of her students thinks the number 9 looks like girls playing in the grass. I like that and how its fine round body sits on a sturdy slanted stem. Oblique in that way, neither parallel nor perpendicular, but inclined. Inclined: It slants toward possibility. I once met the book's author and she signed my copy while we talked about our favorite numbers. Guess what? She is a 9-lover, too; and into my book she placed the number 9 with an exclamation point at the center of a hand-drawn sun. And I thought, anything IS possible. Yesterday, a

The journey of slow development is the way of transformation. Quoting Dögen, "It leads everywhere." From duty to freedom, the yamas to samadhi. Eight rungs, like the steps of a ladder; eight limbs, like the branches of a tree: This is raja yoga--the royal path. There is no difference between cooking and the Buddha's way, says Jeong Kwan, a Zen Korean monk, a nun who is not a chef but prepares her temple meals like one. Her journey of freedom is contagious. Even better, she says it is available to all. Her story is a balm for the seeker's soul. It includes heartache and loss, human labor and boundless creativity. I learn that trust in the universe does not require certainty but presence. Curiosity and a playful awareness are essential to taking ownership of the phenomenal world. Jeong Kwan says this is freedom.