POSTCARD #170: Delhi/Zurich flight: Leaving it all behind, a far and distant shore slipping away… there’s a feeling I could be on an old sailing ship, clouds and air currents like the swell of the sea. Jolts of turbulence like the flip of waves at their peak and passengers have to fasten their seat belts and remain seated. These huge engines, velocity 600 mph, bolted onto a lightweight metal cylindrical structure with wings; sailing across the world in a gigantic wind. In my mind, it’s like this; massive areas of stretched canvas sail cloth filling out. The creak of long hemp ropes, old wood decking – a wide open sky….
Sitting here lost in my screen most of the time, I don’t usually consider passenger jets flying above the clouds 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Active shipping itineraries reaching out around the globe, and down below, train tracks, highways and rivers of traffic. Arterial routes, ring roads, crossings, lights, junctions, and one particular lorry rumbling along a bumpy Indian road containing all our goods and chattels – rattle, bang, crash, in a cloud of dust; our temporary home. We’ve moved so many times it’s as if it were continuously on wheels.
The present moment is forever in transit, on-going, always underway. It goes by itself, I don’t need to do anything. I try not to dwell on the anticipation of things unforeseen, mind showing a disaster movie of it all crashing through the restraints of planning, and there it goes… it’s all coming to pieces in my head because I’m holding on to it too tightly. Let go, let it go, let it all go, and return to the stillness I feel contained here in the interior of this passenger jet, an enclosed bubble of air flashing through time and space… seeing the curvature of the planet sometimes, so wide and all-encompassing it includes absolutely everything – a breath-taking sense of ease, a very long drawn out out-breath, like the never-ending horizon seen from the aircraft window at dawn, cloud layers upon layers below.
‘Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.’ [John Milton]
————————-
dhamma footsteps 
How long are you in Zurich? Any plans for UK visit?
It’s possible, let me contact you by email
Lovely feeling you evoke of flying high above it all, unconnected, untroubled, yet knowing there is suffering. Be careful in Europe, my friend, as if I needed to say it. And may all be well with you and yours in your new home when you return.
It’s such a relief, isn’t it, to get your seat and be looked after by the staff and you just have the experience of flying. Down below there’s all kinds of things going on because people are blind to their own sense of Truth. Thank you for your good wishes.
Love this post Tiramit. Especially love the close: a breath-taking sense of ease, a very long drawn out out-breath, like the never-ending horizon seen from the aircraft window at dawn, cloud layers upon layers below.”
I feel exactly this…but could not put it into words.
Thanks David, it’s that feeling when you’re on a flight, look out the window, the immensity of it blows me away…
Exactly. Right there.