Already There

I am traveling into the sun toward the Dharma Center and notice a streak of light in the distance. It is the sun’s reflection on the snowfields high on the Three Sisters mountains. I am transfixed and a little giddy for no apparent reason other than recognizing the light of awareness. I am glad I am able to simultaneously pay attention to my driving. The poem, A Walk, by Rainier Marie Rilke comes to mind:

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far beyond the road I have begun,
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has an inner light, even from a distance—
and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are…