Inside-Outside

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Saturday, December 18, 2021, 4:34 a.m.

OUTSIDE-INSIDE

            For most of my life I was troubled by the apparent dichotomy between the concept of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Everything in life seemed to be either on the inside or the outside. Life seemed to have borderlines everywhere, and every moment, person, event, and thing was on one side or the other – either inside or outside, me or not me, good or bad, past or future. I almost always felt that I was ‘here’, and the rest of life was ‘over there’, outside of me and only available through hard work and good luck. 

            Now, though, at 80, I am relieved to see that, actually, there are no real borderlines anywhere, ever, except those manufactured by thoughts. The concept of inside/outside is simply inaccurate and incorrect. It exists in my thinking, but not in the vastness of life itself. It’s clear to me, now, that reality is a bottomless, shoreless, surface-less, and everlasting dance, in which the concept of inside/outside is simply meaningless. Every moment, person, event, or thing is at the precise center of a miracle that has no boundary lines. Right now, at 5:02 a.m., I am at the exact heart of the universe, and so is everything else, and so will everything be at 5:05 a.m. and 11:19 a.m. and 5:29 p.m., and on and on and on.  If tragedy happens in Sudan, I won’t be ‘outside’ of it, because there is never an outside anywhere. That tragedy will be at the center of everything, and so will I, right there with it – even though I may not know it, living, as I still sometimes do, in the ‘inside-outside’ fantasy of my thoughts. 

            What a blessing – to know that I will always be at the strict center of everything today, and so will everything else! How lucky can a creased and crumpled dude get?

GOING TO THE HUB
(Philip M., 89, Blessings CT)

He always wants to get to the center of 
things, so sometimes he simply sits
and listens – tires on streets, songs 
from small birds, stomach sounds. Wherever
he sits seems to be the center, the 
essence. The light of his lamp is holiness
then, and six specks of dust on his desk.
He is at the center, and so is the light 
and the dust and the circling stars 
and planets, and so are the smallest cells
inside him, all at the hub of heaven.  

Here’s the front of our house, all set for Christmas ….