
Yesterday I missed you terribly
So I closed my eyes
and gave you back to me.
Welcome back.

Yesterday I missed you terribly
So I closed my eyes
and gave you back to me.
Welcome back.

So your friend does something you were not expecting.
Where’s the surprise?

In your attempts to save what you have
you will lose it all.
I wondered for years why if TW was so effective nobody was as “advanced” as KT was even though there’s now been people doing TW for decades. One day I understood that we were all chasing the end of the rainbow. That day I “graduated.” It was a quiet ceremony. Nobody was informed. I did not receive a special certificate. If I had to put what I learned that day into words it would read like this:

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It doesn’t end.
It’s just not a problem that it doesn’t end.
That’s the freedom.
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The most amazing thing I learned that day was just how much I was like everyone else:
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I
I’m just as fucked up as the man next door,
I just don’t beat myself up about it as much as he does.
That’s the enlightenment I know.
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And sometimes
I notice he beats himself up much less than I do.
Those days he is the enlightened one
and I’m proud to call him
Teacher.
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II
Deep forgiveness for our apparent imperfections.
Deep compassion for our apparent flaws.
A knowing that it’s okay to be just like this.
Even as I try to be a better man with time.
Perfection and Imperfection in perfect harmony.
That is the enlightenment that I know.
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III
Anything that I can compare myself to
Is imagined.
Why would that be a fair standard of comparison?
Better to spend my time appreciating
How much of a good friend
I can be to myself.


Focus on what works,
Discard the rest.

Much more than some sort of ‘eternal bliss,’ the end of suffering is a kind of equanimity, a perspective of the sort ‘this, too, shall pass,’ a gentle endurance towards small and large discomforts alike. If those sound like some sobered up (even boring) claims about what freedom looks like in practice, good, because that is the point of this post.
Meditation and self inquiry, dutifully engaged, deliver a taste of this basic freedom, and the miracle, the mind blowing grace of it all, is that THAT IS ENOUGH for us to be able to live a peaceful, joy filled life. The realization of this enoughness can happen in an instant or it may take a lifetime to figure out, and some people die without fully knowing it. It is the veil that separates heaven from hell.
And this realization can’t be promised. No meditation, medication or ’spiritual technique’ can give it. This does not render our practices useless, however. Paraphrasing Joan Halifax Roshi: Enlightenment is an accident. Our practices make us accident-prone.

Sometimes people think they know what I mean
when I write what I write
on this blog.
How curious!
“She is perfect”
…
Keep thinking that.
That’s going to be your demise.