Beauty and the Beast

Sorry I'm so long in writing, I've been busy with a really complicated move!  And speaking of that.... we get to the subject of this post.

Nearly all the rooms in my new home face a large apartment building across the street.  Would that it were a beautiful apartment building, but it is not.  In fact, it is a bit run down, and parts of it have been painted colors that are most peculiar and do not go with the style of building that it is. It may be truly full of wonderful people but they are lucky... like the Frenchman who ate lunch in the Eiffel Tower every day because it was the only place he could eat without having to look at it, they do not gaze upon their own building. So as wonderful as this house is, I have had to contend with the view of The Beast from the front porch, upstairs porch, living room, and my bedroom.  Blessedly my kitchen looks out toward the back of the house instead!

I have set aside a wonderful meditation spot in this house, up high, and sure enough on my first occasion to meditate, I realize that my meditative gaze out the window in front of me, will be fixed squarely on the Beast across the street.  There seems to be no escaping it!

So I thought, short of dynamiting it into oblivion, how might I come to terms with this building?  Could I grow to see it as beautiful?  Could this indeed be my first meditation practice?  It seems to me that attempting to find the beautiful in the ugly is a worthy goal in many aspects of our lives, and this building may indeed be a metaphor for just that.  It also speaks to our need to endure things that are not perfect, that are not exactly as we would like.  How do we make peace with the unbeautiful, the undesirable, the difficult in our lives?

Perhaps as I gaze upon the Beast in the morning on my meditation cushion, I will one day come to see Beauty.

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