This morning I awoke early, having gone to bed much later than usual. I woke to the sound of birds, loud birds, outside my windows and tried in vain (having gone to bed, I told myself, 2 hours later) to grab a few more minutes of shut-eye when a vivid image of thousands upon thousands of people sleeping on the floor of some large building in Japan flashed vividly on my mental screen. Much better wake-up call than my little black travel alarm clock with its monotonous beeping. As I shifted my weight in the comfort of a warm bed, I was overcome by a terrible wash of urgency and could envision beyond sights and sounds the pandemonium, the many inner monologues of desperation and fear when faced with the instability of utter groundlessness: when the very ground you once implicitly believed would support you, no longer does.
I had no choice but to get up at that instant. Not that somehow getting up earlier does anything for the folks in Japan or anywhere else on the planet at this moment who lack a comfortable, safe, bed, and the countless other things beings need or wish for. But at least if I get up I can do something, anything, in the direction of serving or meditating or dedicating whatever I do, a tiny scratch drawn by the tip of an atom in space; that through my intention it might somehow turn into whatever others may need. It's the intention that counts, or so the Buddha said. Similarly, if I shift my glance just the slightest bit I can go from seeing only this screen to an entire panorama in front of me.
Through a slight reorientation in my mind that requires no physical movement at all since it doesn't depend on my five senses, I can distribute with abandon and no concern for the bill, tempurpedic mattresses and warm blankets, houses, food; rescue teams that can magically locate every missing person, comfort, healing, medicine, hospitals, removal of harmful radiation, insta-repairs on nuclear reactors, whatever exactly it is, down to the most divine details (asthma medication, insulin, glasses) that someone might need in whatever terribly embodied fact we find ourselves in, and offer these things to those wearied and pummeled by one crashing wave or another. Then I can (no, must) go one more and thank them for the opportunity, the great blessing, of being able to intend doing something kind in their direction even if I lack the ability just now to directly be there attending to them. Then again if it were my own child or my own mother in that state I would make "direct" happen, wouldn't I?
