WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Saturday, August 28, 2021

ULTIMATE

            This morning, as I write this at 4:26 a.m., I am gratefully receiving, once again, the ultimate truth about life, as well as the ultimate of all gifts. 

            Filling my thoughts right now is the most basic of all truths – that the present moment is all there ever is. No matter how far or how long I look, I am never able to find any other moment than this one, right here and now. If I say, ‘Of course there’s a past and a future’, that past and future always exists only in my thoughts in this present moment, right here and now. And, amazingly, if the present moment is all there ever is, then it has no boundaries, and therefore is infinite – no beginning and no ending. The most fundamental of all truths is that I live – always – in the completely boundless realm called ‘presence’. 

            And … in this vast kingdom of presence, I always receive the ultimate gift – eternal newness. Right here and now, as the curtains beside my desk swirl in an early-morning breeze, I am a totally new part of the universe, and so is everything else, including this breeze that’s caressing the curtains in an utterly fresh way. Also – astonishingly – this moment, right here and now, is the best of all moments – the supreme and unsurpassed moment in the entire history of the universe. Of course, the wonderful truth is that every moment is unsurpassed – the absolute epitome of moments, the utmost, the pinnacle and peak. Every single moment. 

            I’ve used so many italics in these sentences because I’ve wanted to shout out in wonder so many times as I typed the words. Now, at the end, I’m going to stop typing and simply sit in shock and amazement, and realize, again and again, that 

I live in paradise, right here and right now!

LAUGHING AND LETTING

“Laughter may well be the ultimate act of letting go and letting be.”
-- Matthew Fox

Once 
there was a man who laughed a lot, 
which helped whole flocks of worries 
fly out of him. 
When he was seriously lecturing his students 
about some essential principle of sentence punctuation, 
laughter sometimes burst from him 
like a soft and pleasant explosion,
and all solemnity streamed out of him,
leaving a tranquil mellowness
that allowed his best teaching to begin. 
In situations when 
he was holding on to his personal safety, 
laughter sometimes suddenly shook him, 
and thoughts of personal safety 
loosened and sailed off
into something like a misty sunrise,
and he swayed with the understanding
that safety is always everywhere.  
When he thought he was absolutely right
in an argument, 
laughter often softly fluttered up from inside him 
and helped him see himself 
as simply a star in a sky 
full of sextillions of them, 
and he smiled and shook hands 
with his surprised adversary
,
because she or he was also a star.