With Gratitude to Pema Chodron:

Negative thoughts
are the little burps and farts
of the mind.

Inspirations
are the little orgasms
of the spirit.

We are born of Spirit,
with no shape,
like a blob of light.

As we walk through the world,
tourists in its worldy culture,
we collect its spare parts,
forming a frame around us,
a shield from threat and rejection,
held together with wire and tape,
the hope of being accepted.

It is like driving through life
in a junkyard car,
forever plugging the gaps
with rationalizations and deceptions,
ignoring the rattles and shakes
of encroaching entropy.

And there may come a time
when we grow weary
with the strain of grabbing
at its decaying seams,
and release our hold,
allowing time’s arrow to guide us,
the wisdom of falling apart,
to be naked once again.

In this perfect moment,
wanting nothing,
remembering nothing,
planning nothing,
I am boundless.

In this perfect moment,
I disappear,
becoming all
I experience.

We are luminous beings,
obscured by clouds.

Too often,
the clouds become our world,
the props in our drama,
fears and hopes made real,
cloaking our light.

We are spirit and energy,
caked with the dust
of old ideas,
ossified by the rituals
of our stories.

To bore through this artifice
with the drill of attention,
mindfulness’s patient practice,
is to break free,
bursting into brilliance,
whole once more.

There is a forest of sadness
I wander in from time to time,
stumbling, surprised,
upon its winding ways,
long hidden in forgetfulness,
tucked away beyond the well-worn paths
of the everyday, the familiar.

There is comfort
in its sombre embrace,
a peaceful acquiescence
to pain long past,
a gentle hug of empathy,
a breath of courage
to move on.

All too often,
when emotions swamp us,
we swim in a soup
of fear and anger,
careening off each other
like billiard balls,
in wild trajectories
of upset and judgement.

Strangled by ego,
tangled by myopia,
our paths of right and wrong
veer randomly away
from the simple path
of understanding.

From our common source,
we stray into a tangled jungle
of opinions and indignation,
a thicket of division.

How easily we forget,
when pride consumes us,
the common source
we came from:
we are one family,
one mind.

There is something in the human mind
that longs for simplicity,
searching always
for two sides:
good and evil,
right and wrong,
liberal and conservative.

Nuance is the enemy
of emotional thinking,
dissolving righteous anger
into calm and clarity,
scattering our clouds of outrage
into fading wisps
of unease and confusion.

At the core of our suffering
is the fear of uncertainty,
the niggling doubt
that nothing
and no one
can be pinned down.

To acknowledge this,
to accept it as our own,
is to give up blame,
to see ourselves and others
as we really are.

There are no liberals,
or conservatives,
there are only people.

Another Postscript to the Election:

Now is the time to be strong,
to look inside
for what does not depend
on outside circumstance,
for that which does not change
as life’s calamities
and disappointments
roll past us,
that which is beyond fear or hope,
that which is eternal and inherent,
which cannot be diminished,
because that is what we are.

A Postscript to the Election:

I awoke today
in a different world,
where common sense
and common decency
seem to be devalued,
supplanted
by hatred
and fear.

Is this a new world order,
or is it merely the old one
laid bare?

Have we been blind
to the darkness
bubbling beneath
our blanket of civility,
seeing only the surface
of what we espouse?

Awakened from our dream,
we have reason to despair.

Or we can dig deeper,
acknowledging
the ugliness
and the grace
inside us all,
to build a new dream,
grounded in the truth
of who we are,
and begin the long walk
out of this darkness.

I have wanted things
that weren’t real,
and feared things
that weren’t real,
as well.

I have felt unease
that triggered thoughts
of longing,
of distrust,
or hope,
or dread.

Why
have I lived so long
in a world
of my own making,
so often blind
to the truths outside,
floundering
in my own imaginings?

How do we all
live so alone,
barricaded
inside our little universes,
hoping there is
a bigger world outside,
but afraid to find out?