How much healing
derives from the world outside,
and how much simply comes
from our willingness
to be whole again?

How often
does suffering remind us
that the pain we feel
is mostly a sundering
of ourselves
from ourselves?

It is a message
from our mortal self,
a call for kindness,
so that that within us
which never dies
can offer comfort
to that which does.

I row this boat
that I call “my life”
down the stream of time,
forgetting, mostly,
that it is all a dream.

Sometimes
I strain frantically
against the tug
of life’s unfolding,
convinced
that my very essence
depends on my resisting.

Or, I may row gently,
half waking from the dream,
enjoying the flow,
tranquil and trusting
that these waters will take me
wherever
I am meant to go.

How does Spirit flow through us,
when we don’t even know
what it is?

Maybe it is only
when we give up understanding
that Spirit CAN flow,
as we free ourselves
from the tyranny of our minds.

When I step outside
of my own mind,
out of the stream
of my jostling thoughts,
I find a realm of peacefulness,
already there,
where I am.

When I look outside
my own identity,
with all its little problems
and inadequacies,
I find a spaciousness
where it is enough to be
what I already am.

Each experience is a gift,
and an opportunity.

We may accept it,
which brings peacefulness,

or resist it,
which brings suffering,

or respond with action,
which leads to new experience.

Sometimes my mind
is like a swamp,
alive with swarming thoughts,
like a thousand shiny lures,
bait for my hungry soul.

And sometimes,
a glint of light
reveals my hunger itself
as just a thought,
and all those tasty,
tantalizing morsels
recede into my imagination,
and I am free to swim again
in clear water,
my real home.

We were born
to appreciate this world,
to see the beauty in it,
and the suffering.

We are here
to share that beauty,
and to ease the suffering,
as best we can.

With our joy
and our compassion,
we fulfill the gift
of being human.

Sitting in that chair,
body almost broken,
your mind and spirit soared,
way beyond
what most of us
can ever see.

You made your life a gift
to all the world,
accepting the gift
of your own life
without regret.

And now
your crooked body
has finished its brief trip
through time,
as the blinding light
that was your brilliance
shines on,
timelessly.

When I feel the world’s beauty,
am I feeling the world outside,
or just its refection,
in my own world,
inside?

What if there is no inside or outside,
but just a vast, exquisite whole,
which stands revealed
when the veil between the worlds falls away,
and the myth of separation subsides?

I’ve been hiding out
in a little room,
most of the time,
for most of my days.

I must have thought
I was safe in here,
that someone told me
I should stay inside.

I had forgotten
the vastness
outside these walls,
gotten used
to how small,
how tight
it is in here.

I had forgotten
that this little room
grew out of nothing,
like a cocoon
around my fears.

I had forgotten
that I was born
without it,
that it was my choice
to stay within it,
and that it is my choice
to leave.