Sunday 2 November 2008

Determination


Your destiny is to realize the truth of your existence. Weather you like it or not, one day your mortality will draw down on you like an iron avalanche of fear and disbelief, destroying everything you spent your entire lives building. While we choose to ignore these road signs that say the bridge is out and doesn't exist, that something is terribly off, yet we speed ever faster towards that bottomless gorge. We may say we know we will go to heaven if we do good or say a prayer. We may tell ourselves God will carry our souls off to eternity, name, rank, and serial number included. However, blind faith is that mirage of an oasis in the desert and belief coaxes us onwards, regardless of knowing how our thirst never gets quenched.

We are extraordinary builders and creators, no question. There isn't one doubt that the human mind is capable of marvelous feats beyond our own poor recognition. It is as wondrous as the most beautiful vista nature can display. We have created in our minds this shadow of me, owned and operated year round, who's sole purpose is self preservation. We name it, put labels on it, dip it into the sweet river of attachment and place it upon a shelf of memories to admire. With your mind, you have created human life, built its foundation on ignorance and fed it with lies and embraced denial.

What is real and what is true, is right here, right now. We know it already. This isn't some exalted secret handed down by ancient scribes and sages. If we just took a moment, just one true moment of life, in perfect honest understanding, we may see this actuality. This inescapable truth of the emptiness of who you are is not the greatest fear imaginable, it is infinite liberation. This liberation is total and complete freedom from the bondage of mind. Worry, doubt, fear and confusion will begin to burn off like the dense fog in the mid-morning sun on a hot summer day.

Tomorrow, I will rise and watch this beautiful painting of life I've created fade a little more into the canvas of my mind. Disciplined determination to do so? Well, thats the bitch, isn't it?

Dhammapada

Who shall conquer this world
And the world of death with all its gods?
Who shall discover
The shining way of dharma?
You shall, even as the man
Who seeks flowers
Finds the most beautiful,
The rarest.
Understand that the body
Is merely the foam of a wave,
The shadow of a shadow.
Snap the flower arrows of desire
And then, unseen,
Escape the king of death.

And travel on.

~Buddha Guatama

2 comments:

  1. What is real is often ignored because it's too traumatic. Both positive and negative can be a source of trauma. What is true is put in place of the real to ignore the trauma and the true becomes the new real when it's really not. This is necessary in order to live a lie
    I think you are a very good writer.

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  2. Ted - Thank you for your very kind comments.

    ReplyDelete