Being With What Is

Every now and again life delivers a 'game changing' event.
One that challenges us and shakes our very foundations.
It is in these transcendental moments we have revealed to us the true value of our practice. We are given a very real and meaningful yardstick for where we are at.
It can be all too easy to adopt a philosophy or belief that acts as a pacifier, to retreat into language in order to hide from our true feelings because the feelings are just too much to bear - To simply talk a good game.
Our work is not to arrange life so as to avoid feeling pain or sadness but to re-examine our relationship to these valid and inevitable emotions and feelings.
We have been taught to run from or distract ourselves from painful emotions instead of embracing them and investigating them, allowing them to appear as they are, giving them space to arise and impart upon us their profound wisdom.
To maintain an open heart and willingness to learn takes great practice and a certain patience and kindness toward oneself that does not seemingly come naturally. Once we embark, it is an ongoing unfurling.
We will all have life deliver these earth shattering events to us and our lives are perhaps best defined by the way we can meet them.
Personally, at this time, I am at a juncture at which all of the work of meditation, inquiry, contemplation and so on is revealing it's worth to me in a very real way. I have discovered that I have the capacity to be completely heartbroken and yet, remain willing to walk this path and stay with all of the pain that accompanies my current circumstances. I can be with the heartbroken-ness and also notice the subtle ways I might try and not feel it.
I am able to feel sadness as profoundly beautiful, so much so that it brings me to tears.
I am eternally grateful for the time I have spent, sitting, observing, reflecting - this could be seen as a kind of preparation for those parts of life we would prefer didn't happen.
This groundwork allows me to experience these parts of life as they happen and thus participate in more a meaningful way.
To be present to and appreciate life in all it's tragic glory.

September 2016