We admirers called her Buddha's Elder Sister for her wisdom. She said things like 'the rivers of thought all flow into a limitless ocean of consciousness" and "we walk the path of predestination with closed eyes." I liked her for her simplicity. Her mind was beautiful. She didn't seek answers, instead, she was always in the here-and-now. Thus, she was untouched by the pangs of desire that normally besiege us. I learned a lot from her clarity:
I learned that ambition is the Ouroboros of the mind. A dragon that grows by self-cannibalizing does not ever mature. We can be happy with all that we have, marvel over our senses, and appreciate the life we were given. I also learned that feelings are the children of our subconscious mind, usually expressing themselves outside of our control. What brings us pleasure does not necessarily bring us happiness, and it often does not. Sadness differs from grief in that one we can temper with rationalization while the other cannot.
She talked on these and much more, to me in passing. I listened to myself listening and she recognized my understanding. Wasn't I no different from the speaker after all? Her thoughts eventually merged into my own like different-colored crayons melting under a hot sun. We were two turtles cruising along together in the same ocean.
I asked her where God was one day. She smiled that perfectly disarming smile of hers and asked me what I thought. God is hidden in both the question and the answer. We don't need to meditate or to pray for clarity. "Look at the flowers with child eyes," she said. That alone would help address the most profound of inquiries.
Where do the bittersweet morsels of thought bake when there is silence outside and within? How does that differ from the state of death? Well in the former, one is listening to the pattern of what is, and in the latter, one is not--but both are still a part of the mosaic that is existence and non-existence.
She journeyed to the other side many years ago. But she has been very alive in my holographic memory. Her spoken jewels have tumbled in my mind all these years becoming polished by my own ideas. I look at the busy people on the streets from this cozy park bench I often sit on. I look into their preoccupied eyes and see the 'man behind the machine.’ Yet, their lives are so entangled in money-making and the obtaining of sense-gratifying materialism that they are never really at peace. Those that thirst for knowledge, are better off, but they too are in such a rush to learn more and more that they never really understand themselves. They forget to nurture their thinking and feelings by exploring what they already know.
I see our lives as a book. The future holds the past as the covers bind and hold the pages together. Who writes the words within the book, whether it’s really us or those people and situations around us, I'm not sure. But time and our designer continuously witness the flipping of the pages toward the conclusion at which point our stories are placed in the archives of memory for other people to one day peruse. Ultimately, the chapters of my life in which Buddha’s Elder Sister was a part of, helped to create a happy and spirit-satisfying story that others may benefit from reading.
I learned that ambition is the Ouroboros of the mind. A dragon that grows by self-cannibalizing does not ever mature. We can be happy with all that we have, marvel over our senses, and appreciate the life we were given. I also learned that feelings are the children of our subconscious mind, usually expressing themselves outside of our control. What brings us pleasure does not necessarily bring us happiness, and it often does not. Sadness differs from grief in that one we can temper with rationalization while the other cannot.
She talked on these and much more, to me in passing. I listened to myself listening and she recognized my understanding. Wasn't I no different from the speaker after all? Her thoughts eventually merged into my own like different-colored crayons melting under a hot sun. We were two turtles cruising along together in the same ocean.
I asked her where God was one day. She smiled that perfectly disarming smile of hers and asked me what I thought. God is hidden in both the question and the answer. We don't need to meditate or to pray for clarity. "Look at the flowers with child eyes," she said. That alone would help address the most profound of inquiries.
Where do the bittersweet morsels of thought bake when there is silence outside and within? How does that differ from the state of death? Well in the former, one is listening to the pattern of what is, and in the latter, one is not--but both are still a part of the mosaic that is existence and non-existence.
She journeyed to the other side many years ago. But she has been very alive in my holographic memory. Her spoken jewels have tumbled in my mind all these years becoming polished by my own ideas. I look at the busy people on the streets from this cozy park bench I often sit on. I look into their preoccupied eyes and see the 'man behind the machine.’ Yet, their lives are so entangled in money-making and the obtaining of sense-gratifying materialism that they are never really at peace. Those that thirst for knowledge, are better off, but they too are in such a rush to learn more and more that they never really understand themselves. They forget to nurture their thinking and feelings by exploring what they already know.
I see our lives as a book. The future holds the past as the covers bind and hold the pages together. Who writes the words within the book, whether it’s really us or those people and situations around us, I'm not sure. But time and our designer continuously witness the flipping of the pages toward the conclusion at which point our stories are placed in the archives of memory for other people to one day peruse. Ultimately, the chapters of my life in which Buddha’s Elder Sister was a part of, helped to create a happy and spirit-satisfying story that others may benefit from reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment