Whisper

"If I could travel the endless desert and feel the scorching sand burning beneath my feet,
just to learn that a single grain could crush me.
If I could hike the steepest, biggest monster of a mountains
just to really learn that the sky is endless, I would.
But, Alas if I could stay right here, rip open my chest and head,
to hold my mind in one hand and me still beating heart in the other hand
and let my soul see them for what they really are.
With my dying breath would my soul finally whisper the truth of the universe in my ears,
while I have only moments left to listen…
would it tell me I am and will be love?"

-Jacob Grant Gabriel

Missed opportunites

"Our life is defined by opportunities... even the ones we miss."

It's true, so true. Each and every moment is an opportunity and what if you miss them and what if you don't.

Tonight for me was a don't. It could have easily, like many times before, been a missed one bit it wasn't. I didn't miss it. I got everything I could have asked for and more. I had dinner with an amazing guy, cuddled, watched a movie and shared a moment. He is special I can tell, he is something different. I don't want to write to much and seem like a crazy stalker but he really is something... he really is something.

Practice

I'm going to be honest, part of me in the morning whines that I "have to" or "should" meditate. But, those feelings I get thruoght the day of peace and calmness are, to me, invaluable, and what this life is about. It is why I practice.

My Dharma sister Koki said that practice feels to her like she is in the middle of fire. This is the quote she used to describe it.

"Bodhisattvas practice 'in the middle of the fire.' This means they enter into the suffering of the world; it also means they stay steady with the fire of their own painful emotions. They neither act them out nor repress them. They are willing to stay 'on the dot' and explore an emotion's ungraspable qualities and fluid energies -- and to let that experience link them to the pain and courage of others." Pema Chodron

I replied to her how odd it is that practice is so different to everyone and if we could ascribe words to those seconds of satori that we have, how different they would be. Yet, the thing that stood out in my mind as I contemplated what I just said was that we all practice, we all see things differently but there is no difference between you or me, or him or her or anyone. We are all the Buddha. Our inner being is like a piece of sunlight that has been trapped in a bottle and only we can let it out, never ending and boundless peace. THAT, I believe is the same in all of us.

So I say odd but wonderful how we are all like snowflakes, different and unique, no two the same. But when the sun shines and we melt and we are all the same.

With love,
Jake

Who is this "I" that we all speak of

Well Jake, that is a very good question. It is a deep, philosophical and existential question. There are trillions upon trillions of answers to this question, some from science, some from faith and religions. Yet, in the end it seems so very simple.

"I" is the thing that is at peace inside of me. "I" is what shines in my eyes when I genuinely smile. "I" is that feeling you get from me when I tell you I love you and I mean it. "I" is undefinable.

Part of "I" is in me (but that raises conundrum, isn't "me," "mine." and "my" just other forms of "I"... yes it is, tee hee hee.)Part of "I" is in that rock, tree, flower, air, empty space, forms, tears, a laugh, the tangible and the intangible, the conceivable and the inconceivable, the past and the future... "I" is all that right...NOW.

THIS MOMENT!!! Grasp on to it! Ask yourself what is going on in this moment, what is around me, what beauty us there. The more you ask this, the more you will live in the present moment

NOW LET GO!!! Let go of that feeling you had when you snap back to reality and are no longer present. For if you were truly present all the time, you'd probably be that wise man on the mountain top, or the happiest person alive... but we don't have to do either of those things. We don't have to distance ourselves the more we live in the now and we don't have to immerse our self the more we live in the moment.

We are all one, one is all, one is everything, emptiness has no form, I am the Walrus.

So I ask you... what is going on right now?