MEA CULPA

It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okay-ness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.

~ Pema Chodron 

Despite what I know to my bones, the constant striving toward a time when I can arrange life to suit my purposes enough to fully relax into it bobs to the surface – again and again.

If only we could find the perfect home; if only the neighbors at the nursery would cease the deafening dragging of metal pipes in the wee morning hours; stop scraping off areas of eight-foot-tall grass down to burnt earth which subsequently packs itself into screens, clots itself onto windows and exposes our yard like a bride on her wedding night.

If only life would rise to my expectations, what a lovely world it would be!

But wait a minute: for every time I think I could do better than the vexation of random circumstances that constellate around me, I am bowed in humility by a magical bolt out of the blue. The unexpected consistently proves greater than my frail human mind could conceive of it. So back into the flow I go; into the magic that is Creation; into acceptance of what is – which remains, despite the occasional bumps and bruises – always perfect and timely and right, especially in retrospect.