Boundary

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Friday, December 24, 2021, 4:31 a.m.

         The belief that has caused all of my so-called problems, over all these 80 years, is the idea that life is filled with boundaries. 

         For most of my life, I have believed that I, myself, am enclosed within tight boundary lines. There’s me, and then there are my outer, very solid edges, beyond which is the rest of the vast universe, composed of countless other separate, solid ‘objects’, all with their very distinct boundary lines. According to this outlook, there’s ‘the present’, but it’s enclosed within definite borders, outside of which is ‘the past’ and ‘the future’. There are qualities like love, gentleness, patience, etc., but they all are contained within outer margins. You can only love so much, and then you come to love’s periphery, beyond which it doesn’t – and cannot – exist.

         This morning, I’m realizing, again, with a sigh of relief and gratefulness, that this belief is the exact opposite of the truth. The truth is, there are no boundaries anywhere – except those created by my thoughts. There is never a separate ‘me’ – and never has been. What seems to be my separate, solitary, very vulnerable self is merely a wispy, evanescent thought – a thought which, itself, has no boundaries, but exists within the limitless universe of ‘thinking’. Similarly, all the so-called ‘separate objects’ I seem to see – people, things, places, the past, present, and future – are creations of thought. Their boundaries are as illusory as my beliefs, as misleading as my night-time dreams, and can disappear as soon as I awake from their fantasies. 

         The simple and superb truth is that there is no separate and enclosed I or me, no present, past, and future, no now and then, no here and there. There is always and only Now – boundless, endless reality – and what sometimes seems to be ‘my separate self’ is simply an inseparable and limitless part of this vast and stunning certainty called The Universe, in which love and gentleness, and I and you and them, and here and there, and now and then, have no boundaries whatsoever.  

         All I can say is ‘Thanks, dear Universe!’

ONE DAY A MAN WOKE UP 

One day
a man woke up and wondered
why he was in such a large place.
He looked in all directions
and didn't see a boundary
or border line, just a land
that looked like it went on forever.
He was accustomed to living
with limits and dividing lines,
but this was something
different,  a world where the only
borders would be brought about
by his own little beliefs.

He liked this borderless land,
so much so that his little self
soon disappeared into it,
and what was left
was this endless world,
sometimes called the universe,
and his limitless life
inside it.

Here’s our lovely sunroom, with our small Christmas tree and Delycia’s beautiful amarylis flower …