Not Knowing

Once in the Orient, a seeker talked of suicide with a sage, whose clear and gentle eyes seemed to be gazing at a never-ending sunset.

"Dying is no solution." the sage affirmed. 

"And living?" the seeker asked.

"Nor living either," the sage conceded, "but who tells you there is a solution?"

~story from If You See the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him. 

This says to me that when we look for solutions, we miss the moment. And it is only in this moment that we can know the correct action. The choice to live is a moment by moment choice. Even if you choose life, you can only choose it for THIS moment, because you do not know what comes in 100 moments from now.

I started this blog as a way for me to drop my teacher voice and relate to myself as a vulnerable human. Initially, I didn't tell anyone so I could stay courageous and honest. Since I started telling people about this blog, I have seen myself move into my teacher voice again. My shield is up and I stick to discussing ideas. If I am the expert, I affirm my knowledge and my value to you. The problem is, it is a lot of work to try to be important to someone in every moment. I am dependent on an audience - a kind and generous audience.

If I drop the shield, what do I need or want right now? I want to know I am of value, my life has some meaning - that their is a solution. So what happens when is none. At one point my life was built around a marriage - it didn't last. There was no solution.

Funny isn't it. None of you can give me a sense of meaning until you are with me and even then it is only for that moment. It is temporary, roles, meaning comes and goes just as my role as wife was came and went as will my role as a mother continue to change. There is no solution - no end, there are only the moments, each moment as it comes.

Can I choose to value myself in this moment and the next and the next and the..... even when no one is telling me, even when I am making mistakes - even when there is no reference point? I guess that is the real practice. 

Who do I want to be here in this moment? I want to be open to all of you. I want to be courageous. I want to be able to love when hurt, I want to be able to be brave when consumed with fear. My experience is that even by questioning - as I have just done in this writing, questioning why I am preaching, I can see what is behind it - my fear of not being good enough for all of you. (And as I am editing this, apparently I still need to practice being enough for myself).

Seeing beneath the surface, I can hold this moment less tightly and it feels lighter. Now I can focus on being open and brave. Thank you for listening.