Today, Monday, 29 January, 2007

I've come to accept that I will never be 100% happy all the time. But it gets better and better as I age. I've set my course toward more happiness and more joy in my life and I'm not going to turn back now. Life is too short.

I went walking a couple of days ago up by Erikson Springs where I have a strong memory of Steven. That memory's a story for another day, for it includes a talking bird with a bum leg. At any rate, I haven't been there in a long time. As I walked, my chest became gripped with that band of horrid, suffocating pain of loss and loneliness for him. It was at the same time his longing for me, to be here with me. He taught me something once, after my mother's death, and to that I've added the Buddhist Tonglen practice. When I see suffering, whether in myself or in others, I breathe it in. I take it out of the world. When I see joy, I breathe it out. It is a wonderful, almost miraculous practice. So I stood and looked out over the snowy mountains. First I eased my pain. I breathed it deep within. I took it through my heart and dissolved it, melted it. I thought about other people who have lost loved ones. I took in their pain, and some of their pain was deeper than mine, I knew that. I centered my consciousness in my heart as much as I could.

Next I took the beauty around me into my heart through my senses: the warmth of the sun on my face, the sweet smell of evergreen when the snow is melting, the distant craggy, snow-covered peaks, the black spiders of barren branches fracturing the landscape everywhere into rough geometric shapes. The silence. The peace. And I consciously, through my heart, sent that out to Steven, to all the dead who wish to remember the earth's beauty, to all the people in the world that they might be surrounded by such beauty. It's an amazing practice. Within 5 minutes that gripping loneliness and its accompanying physical pain were gone, replaced with a sense of connectedness and peace. And if it doesn't happen immediately that's okay too. I just keep breathing the pain out of the world through the portal of my own pain. I know, as I do this, that the pain is not me. The pain is simply pain, and I can take a lot in. I can do this practice anywhere, at any time, as frequently or infrequently as I wish. And that kind of spiritual practice fits my schedule perfectly.

"Peace is joy at rest; joy is peace in motion."