Wednesday, October 22, 2014

A letter to a friend

"What kind of universe is this that people get tortured, children die, there's war and disease, and everything lives only by death?"

I'm not sure if there's any answer to this question, at least not a "true" one. It's obvious that there must be varying qualities for life to be experienced. We just want to be rid of the unpleasant half of the equation but that doesn't seem in any way possible. What certain people have realized is that the majority of our discontent comes from our thinking process. It's unlikely that the uncertain essence of life will fundamentally change but if we can drop our assumptions, expectations and beliefs about it, maybe we can meet and even embrace it as it is. 

For me there have been a few of what could be seen as major "awakenings." The first was to the simple fact of consciousness, the second was the realization of the folly and fallibility of knowledge and the third was the recognition that this too--this present life, as we know it, is the perfect expression of nature, just like a pine cone, that we humans are just another species trying to do what every over species does--trying to thrive. This is one of the things that can happen with cosmic stardust.

A few weeks ago, I was experiencing some new parent hell. There was no point in trying to avoid it, that would only make the suffering worse. There is some challenging shit that comes up in life, no point in trying to deny that. It seems though that everything that we live through has the potential to wake us up to another, perhaps formerly unknown realm of experience and to expand our understanding and compassion. Seeing what my mom has gone through has helped me empathize with old people and seeing what me and MJ have gone through has helped me empathize with parents.

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