The most important thing
about another human being
isn’t who they are.

In the world of identity,
they are only
who they think they are,
or who you think they are.

In that world,
we are merely snapshots
in each other’s minds,
images frozen
from a moment’s perception,
separate from the flow of time,
seen only through the lense
of our own identities.

Beyond those images,
we are the same,
one giant family,
drifting down
a common river.

We are born
from the same place,
and bound
for the same place,
always sharing
our suffering
and our joy.

Become a friend to yourself,
and you will never be alone.

Give to yourself
all the love,
all the support
that you would give
to your dearest friend.

Withhold your judgements
and your blame,
as you would
for a beloved friend.

Be a source of comfort,
offering compassion
and understanding
in your darkest times.

Give yourself
what you have always hoped
someone else would give you,
and you will always be complete.

A circle of drummers
is like a ship,
its hull,
the sounds
and the rhythms
of those within it.

At the helm,
one can nudge it
this way and that,
but it is a living thing,
always in flux,
always creating
its own shape.

It sails through the silence
on threads of expression,
a tapestry weaving itself,
flowing through time.

Each thread
is the light of one spirit
merging magically
into the whole,
a confluence,
a synergy
of symbiotic souls.

In such moments,
there are no “me”’s
and no “you”’s;
there is only
one big “us”.

These are the moments
that remind us
what a gift this is,
to come together like this,
to put our separateness aside,
and become, again,
a community
in rhythm.

I bless my body,
as it blesses me.

I bless my spirit,
as it blesses me.

I bless this world,
as it blesses me.

I bless this world’s spirit,
as it blesses me.

I bless our universe,
as it blesses me.

I bless the universal spirit,
as it blesses me.

To rise above our own opinions,
like a plane ascending
above the clouds,
is to break through
into a clear sky,
where there is nothing
but clarity and peace.

Looking down,
we see the cloudy confines
where we usually dwell,
our comfortable prison
of prejudice and judgement.

We see the hell below us;
and above us,
only sky.

There are people we revere
because they have done
what we never did,
succeeded in ways
we never dreamed of.

We hold them up as gods,
as members of a higher race,
separate and superior,
or, in our jealousy,
we cast them down,
like fallen angels
who sacrificed their souls
for their good fortune.

And what if they
are not different from us,
but have simply made
different choices?

Can we not see them
as our own family,
brothers from the same brood,
starting from where we started,
but graced with discovering
their special paths to greatness?

Can we not welcome them
as our beloved teachers,
pointing the ways that are open
to any of us,
and all of us?

I don’t give a shit about Donald Trump.

He is merely a bump in the road,
wherever we are going.

He does not create the narrative -
we do!

If you relax your hold
on the rudder of your life,
you may feel the tug
of karma and chaos,
steering you swiftly
into turbulent waters.

You may feel control dissolving,
like a mirage,
as reality impinges,
through the immediacy of touch,
of sight, of hearing,
on the orderliness
of your mind’s inventions.

You may learn to open
to the nudges of experience,
both strong and subtle,
in each pregnant moment,
shattering you complacency.

You may learn to suffer,
but gently, as in your mother’s arms,
and to sail through suffering,
towards the shores of peace.

I have an angry monkey
careening through my mind,
shouting judgements
from a forestful
of preconceptions,
excited and incensed
by the slightest stimuli.

Should I hunt him down,
or would that only increase
his frenzy?

Better to befriend him,
to offer him the calm
and the patient compassion
of a mother monkey.

What else, indeed,
does any creature need,
except the comfort of acceptance,
and the strength of being loved?

Equanimity
is not indifference.

It is the desire
to experience life as it is,
not as we might wish it to be.

It is openness to everything,
without the need to grasp,
or push away.

It is the opposite of indifference,
which is a kind of death while living,
a blindness to all we could experience
if we enjoyed the flow of all life’s wonders
without expectation,
and without fear.