Metta

May you be safe

May you be strong

May you be content

May you be at ease.

Every once in a while, someone whom we think has it all, decides to end their life.  It is such a reminder that we fantasize that we are so different.  Only I have pain, or feel slighted, or feel someone says something that jangles me, or can’t keep my mind in the presence.   I have made many decisions based on assumptions and quick decision without getting the whole story or complete information.  

When I realize that something someone said in a second without thinking has affected me, I think about the thousands of seconds that I have said something without clear thought of how it is being heard.   If you are reading this, you know I have a cognitive problem and often leave out thoughts or words because my hands cannot keep up with my thinking.   Like my heart that beats many extra beats, my thinking is far ahead of my speaking and much farther ahead of my typing.

I am not a trance or blissful mind meditator.  I am an observer.   I watch where my “monkey takes me”.  When I first started observing, I found that the monkey was pretty boring and hardly worth following.   We went to the same or similarly stuck spot(s)… Why didn’t I do, say, hear… etc.?  Why didn’t they do, say, hear.., etc.?   For a little while, I kept a scratch pad handy to scribble without opening my eyes… where monkey took me and what I thought about the fantasy we were sharing.  Over a month, the trip was a variation on a theme.

To take a tangent.   I recently read an article about the collection of messages that were left by those involved in 911… in the Trade Center or on the planes.   Folks turned on the phone or borrowed another’s as they knew their doomed fate and said…    “I love you, take care of ….. , be happy/well.”   No one spent seconds saying, “I never liked your mother”, “Why did you say that…”.  

Today in my sitting, there is less monkey time and more the self-observer of NOW.   I believe in my heart that if we have the Buddha/God/Christ/, etc., we can be kinder, wiser, and get to the main issues.

1) I am only responsible for my actions, thoughts, feelings.

2) I cannot change the past or people…. Move on

 3) I waste my time in fantasy about the future …stay here and now.

To all in my life, all passing by and on, all casually near, all yet to enter……

May you be safe

May you be strong

May you be content

May you be at ease.