The “me” I think I am
exists only in my memory,
a chain of thoughts
I have thought about myself.

It is a story strung together
from thought after thought,
until this train of thought
seems to solidify
into a sense of “me”,
into an object
of my experience.

How often I forget
that there is an “I”
who is witness to all this,
who sees these thoughts
come and go,
who sees everything
come and go,
welcoming
each new moment,
needing no story,
no explanation.

What a relief,
to see that I don’t have to be
the guy I’ve been trying to be
for all my life.

I have always been simply myself,
and that is all I ever need to be.

Thinking can be useful, but it can also turn against you,
when you let it commandeer your sense of who you are:

Your mind will tell you
that it has an answer for everything,
that thinking is the best path
to knowing and understanding.

It is the little despot
that schemes to rule your consciousness,
interrupting the flow of experience
with its constant stream of analysis.

It will distract you, if you let it,
from all the little epiphanies
that come from simply listening,
simply looking, simply feeling,
and accepting the bounty
of spontaneous knowing.

The people in our lives
are like the air around us,
like molecules dancing
in Brownian motion.

We are all caught up
in a quantum quadrille,
temporary partners
in a grand squaredance,
brought together
and torn asunder,
jostled and pulled
by chaos and karma.

We are dancing a dance
of serendipity and tragedy,
understanding and conflict,
friends and enemies,
coming and going
in endless patterns.

It is the soup
of our experience,
flavored
with the richness of joy,
and the bitterness
of defeat.

It is this dance
that makes us alive,
with all its vicissitudes,
and all its grace.

Joy is always
just a breath away,
just as heartbreak
is always just
a heartbeat away.

All we are given
is always right before us,
to step into
and stand in,
to cherish
or ignore.

The times i am happiest
are the times i am not “me”.

Sometimes,
there are just my eyes seeing,
my ears hearing,
or my hands playing,
with no one there,
no thoughts
to guide them.

Without a history,
without a reason,
there is only a witness
to the richness of experience,
to life’s gifts,
momentary and eternal,
little and big.

To find your true path,
stand quietly in each moment,
trust your inner knowing,
and put one foot
in front of the other.

Peace can easily be found
in tranquil waters,
if we allow the turbulence within
to be calmed
by the peace around it.

Likewise,
there is peace to be found
in turbulent waters,
if we can only look beyond them,
to the sea of peace
that surrounds them
and us, and everything.

Trying
is the path
to a thousand failures,
and failure
is the path
to learning.

Learning
is the path
to wisdom,
which, with patience,
leads to freedom.

And I have been trying
and failing,
for so many years,
just to be myself,
only to learn
that I am only myself
when I give up trying.