San Diego POC Sangha

You have projected onto yourself a world of your own imagination, based on memories, on desires and fears, and you have imprisoned yourself in it. Break the spell and be free.

Spring comes slowly and quietly to allow Winter to withdraw slowly and quietly. The color of the mountain afternoon is tinged with nostalgia. The terrible war flower has left her footprints- countless petals of separation and death in white and violet. Very tenderly, the wound opens itself in the depths of my heart. Its color is the color of blood, its nature the nature of separation. The beauty of Spring blocks my way. How could I find another path up the mountain? I suffer so. My soul is frozen. My heart vibrates like the fragile string of a lute left out in a stormy night. Yes, it is really there. Spring has really come. But the mourning is heard clearly, unmistakably, in the wonderful sounds of the birds. The morning mist is already born. The breeze of Spring in its song expresses both my love and my despair. The cosmos is so indifferent. Why? To the harbor, I came alone, and now I leave alone. There are so many paths leading to the homeland. They all talk to me in silence. I invoke the Absolute. Spring has come to every corner of the ten directions. Its, alas, is only the song of departure.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

It’s not self-pity that keeps me returning to that sad place. It’s the conviction that there is something valuable in the body-memory of slamming up against a biological limit – of running out of second, third, and fourth chances – something we all need to learn. Hitting the wall didn’t dispel my belief in healing and recovery. It just taught me that these gifts require a special kind of nurturing, and a constant vigilance about the limit beyond which life cannot be pushed. Because the truth is that humans are marvelously resilient, capable of adapting to all manner of setbacks. We are built to survive, gifted with adrenaline and embedded with multiple biological redundancies that allow us the luxury of second, third and fourth chances. So are our oceans. So is the atmosphere. But surviving is not the same as thriving, not the same as living well. And as we have seen, for a great many species, it’s not the same as being able to nurture and produce new life. Just because biology is full of generosity does not mean its forgiveness is limitless. With proper care, we stretch and bend amazingly well. But we break too – our individual bodies, as well as the communities and ecosystems that support us.

The discriminating mind is like a magician who sees the world as his stage. The intuitive mind travels with the magician, becoming a mirror which reflects emptiness and impermanence.

Be Yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just Be.