Life is always pushing up through the earth of our karma like a green tongue testing the temperature to see if it is spring. This moment that you and I are in (as I write and as you read) is our karma—the sum total of all our choices and the choices of the whole cosmos from the big bang (and before) up to this second. This moment could not be other than what it is. Not one thing could be altered. Everything is as it should be because this moment can’t be other than what it is. What’s real is what is. What is is what is, and that’s it. If you don’t accept what is, then you accept what is not—and that’s crazy.
So when I pray that I be led from the unreal to the real, I am asking that I see what is and accept it; that I be able rest in what is without complaint. To complain about what is is crazy because then you’re wanting what is to be different from what is, and, of course, as we have noticed, reality can’t be other than what it is.
If I don’t accept what is, what is real, then, guess what? I’m not real. And when I’m not real, I feel that I lack something, that I’m not complete—and that’s the truth because I’m not completely being here. When I accept what is without resistance, then I accept myself as I am this moment. And when you get right down to it, that’s all there is. I am this moment. I am what is.You are this moment, and that’s all there is.
If I want to be someplace else in the future where I believe I’ll be happier than I am right now, then I have divided myself into being here and being there in the future, and I am not complete. I am resisting what is. I am avoiding life. I am not what is.
This moment is complete, and it is the only thing that is complete. You can’t divide this moment no matter how hard you try. But my mind can separate me from this moment by wanting to be in another moment where I think I’ll feel complete. But when I get there, guess what? I’m still not complete because I’m still here in this moment. This moment never changes. It always is what is right now. This non-acceptance of what is is being trapped in Karma—the wheel of suffering. We’re always chasing completeness, but never arriving, like the hamster on a wheel.
Completeness is always right here! What a joke. And if you every realize this, completely, you’ll just wake up laughing. Hah!
Posted under meditation help
This post was written by ed on November 16, 2008
If we as a people have learned one thing from the Bush years—and we had better learn it—is that when we elect a president we share his karma. As
Evelyn’s peace lily grows on our front porch—I take it inside for the winter—and it needs a new pot. It is eleven years old now. We got it when my wife’s mother died. Not long after she died a psychic friend said she saw Evelyn standing in the foyer. This was the house she raised her children in and where her husband died. The roots of Evelyn grow deep in this house on Main Street. She moved here in the early 40s, sold the house in the 70s when her state police job transferred her to Norfolk, and bought it back when she retired. Every room, every closet has a piece of Evelyn here.