This Is It

I guess like most of us, I have been searching for wisdom for most of my life – searching for some sense of who I am and what this thing called life is all about. Sometimes – often on silent, unblemished summer mornings like this one – I realize, to my dismay, that my search has been wasteful and silly, since true wisdom doesn’t have to be searched for. It’s wherever I am, as ever-present as air and as immeasurable as the sky. To find wisdom, I simply have to stop searching for it, open the door of my small, cautious self, and walk out to where boundless wisdom is always making its miracles. It’s truly as simple as that.  Like the confused Buddhist student monk in this cartoon, I have to wake up and realize that ‘this is it’ – that ‘right here and now’ is absolutely all there ever is.

BEING BACKED UP 

 He’s always backed-up,
which brings him an easy, consoling feeling,
like flying in an infinite sky
with never-failing, always-helpful winds.
When worries assail him,
simple presence has his back,
reassuring him that now
will never be any better than it is now,
which means it’s matchless
right at this moment,
and that miracles can arise
even from fear and fretfulness.    
He gets help from the happiness 
he sees in old, simple streets 
and in stones that sit in peace. 
His support is always present
in every spreading-out 
and restfully soaring 
new moment.  



 

Here are some ‘right here and now’ moments from our walk in the Peace Sanctuary this morning …