Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Rotation of the Earth Sutra:
I love living under relatively clear skies. Light pollution from the city of Escondido obscures the night sky in the southwest, but the rest of the sky is quite satisfactory compared to both San Francisco, where either fog or light pollution ruined the entire sky, and New Jersey, where light pollution from New York City rendered all but the brightest stars invisible. But every clear night so far, I’ve been watching constellations rising over the eastern ridge, others making their way across the sky, sometimes staying out long enough to notice the stars move.

This sometimes translates into daytime activities if I’m working outside, and I can notice the shadows change as the sun moves across the sky. That’s what I call the rotation of the earth sutra. With my feet planted firmly on the ground, this incredibly large rock is rotating actually quite quickly on its axis. We usually don’t notice this because we usually only notice the position of the sun and stars in split second moments. Look up, there it is, go back to what we were doing. But look long enough and have something to mark their relative position, you can notice them move. I don’t think of the sun or the stars moving, but I consciously think of the earth rotating like it’s breathing and living. Perhaps each day as one large inhalation, and each night as one large exhalation. Breathe in, breathe out, that’s one day. And that’s the sutra. Breathe in, breathe out, and that’s a day of our lives. What did we do with it? What will we do with the next?