What do I not want?
I don’t want to be unprepared when I die.
I mean this in both the metaphorical and literal sense. I want to meet death with graciousness and spaciousness every time ‘who I am’ crumbles and falls apart, and also when my body-mind (re)turns to dust eventually.
Why? Why is this important to me?
Life and death go together. You cannot have one without the other. So how one relates to death is how one relates to life. I want to experience graciousness and spaciousness in every moment I live, and therefore, I must have it in death too.
Right now, what’s preventing me from doing that is distrust. I find it hard to trust that I’m being up-held and supported, always. I struggle to see that what’s holding up and restricting my unfolding, is in fact up-holding and supporting my unfolding — if I choose to see it that way.
That’s the choice I want to make in every moment — to see that life is good, even if it’s not always nice.
In other words, I want to trust my karma. I want to trust that what’s coming at me from within and without is good. I want this to be my sadhana — my devotion.
But that begs the question — who is the “I” that wants this?
The “I” that wants this is a body-mind generating a harmony, part of the larger harmony of life. This harmony — which sometimes, is also cacophony — is coming together and falling apart through time. The graciousness and spaciousness I was referring to earlier is a remark on the unfolding of this harmony-cacophony.
So really, it’s not as much about preparation, as it is about practice. The more I practice, the more I’m prepared. And what’s the practice? What’s my sadhana?
To consistently acknowledge and re-cognize that life is good, even if it’s not always nice. And to steward in the graciousness and spaciousness that naturally arrives when there is no conflict with the unfolding flow of life. To come together and fall apart, again and again and again… As many times as is needed, which is all the time. And to trust that this is good.
This feels like a radical stance to take.
And yet, I can see that it’s also elementary.
It is as basic as it gets, even if it’s not that simple.
It doesn’t involve doing anything new as much as it requires letting be, allowing.
And allowing for my not allowing too.
Because if life is good, then there's nothing to change.
This doesn’t mean change won’t happen. Change is all that ever happens.
This doesn’t mean not taking responsibility. By devoting myself to my sadhana, I’m doing the one thing that is the only thing that I have a right to. The last, and in fact, the only true human freedom… The choice. The internal outlook.
Choosing to see that life is good.
Even if it’s not always nice.