As I awaken, once again,
from the dream
that sometimes seems
to be my life,
the deluge of daily details
that parade across my mind,

I fall, once again,
into the sea of the senses,
awash in the brilliance
of what I see,
and hear, and feel
around me.

There is a world outside,
when I’m not lost in dreams,
that speaks louder than any thought,
and the world inside reopens,
merging in intimate embrace
with what is beyond it,
until there is no inside,
no outside.

These are the moments
that cannot be bought
with thought or effort,
when everything falls away
except being alive,
and I find myself
in the middle
of everything.

The clouds
are not the sky,
and my thoughts
are not the world.

When I get lost
inside my thoughts,
my world
is only clouds.

When I look outside them,
I am what looks at them,
then I see the sky,
and I AM the sky.

Sometimes I catch myself
doubting myself,
and I have to ask myself,
“Who are all these selves?”

And sometimes I see
that only the one
who sees all this
is really me,
and all the rest
are merely dreams
and imaginings
of my restless mind.

I sit here,
the sound of rain
gently tapping
on the metal shell
surrounding me,
the vehicle I sit in
otherwise inert
and silent.

Bereft of its function
as a means for moving,
how peaceful it becomes,
not as a machine,
but as a place of quiet,
restful and undemanding.

What an unexpected gift,
to be here
with nothing needing to be done,
peacefully enjoying
the subtle pleasures
of just sitting here.

When there is a nagging feeling
of what is missing,
when a stream of thoughts say
“this or that is not enough”,
there can be no peace
in any moment.

only when the chain of thought
is seen and broken,
the lie revealed for what it is,
can the little things that fill our lives
suddenly be satisfying.

The feelings I feel
are like clouds
in the sky

and I am the one
who sees them
pass by

I am not the clouds
I am the sky

Things don’t care
if they are seen,
but we, as humans,
do.

We long to be cherished,
dreading dismissal
or disgust.

But a thing
simply is,
devoid of doubt,
empty of self-image,
free of concern
for what it is.

How would it be
to learn that freedom,
abandoning our discontent
with how we are?

Perhaps,
by learning to love
everything else,
just as it is,
we can learn to love ourselves,
and each other,
just as we are.

I have always felt
I was an imposter,
insufficient to the task
of being who I thought I should be.

Now,
as the illusion
of being someone in particular
slowly slips away from me,
I see the pointlessness
of trying to be anyone.

My story is irrelevant;
I exist
beyond the flow
of what was
or what may be;
I am only real
in this eternal Now.

I have not yet learned
how to freely love
another human being,
or this person
I call myself.

But I am beginning to love
being alive,
surrounded by life
and this universe of wonders,
and for now,
that is enough.

It is never tomorrow,
and it is never yesterday;
it is always only ever
now.

Fears and regrets,
longings for what was
or what might be
are all that stand between us
and the richness of each moment,
steeped in the simple truth
that all there ever is,
is now.