Like Poetry In Sand

My mind has a habit of attaching various conditions to happiness. It is good to sit and observe this tendancy to allow these fleeting inconstant conditions to direct the show and throw me off the quiet path leading to greater peace and freedom. I can't pretend to understand the deep connection between the heart and the mind but I know there is no inner peace without some sort of reconciliation between the two and this place must be a knife edge. Falling to either side brings about a sense of disequlibrium, a place that keeps my rooted in the past or the future, thus spoiling the potential flowering of the present moment. Staying on the edge must be the goal of meditation practice, but I must admit to an almost fatal attraction to avoiding the only place real happiness is possible.

These conditions are the drama of life; the sine qua non of the ego which is not that interested in happiness and more involved with survival and self justification. Sometimes domination. The ego has a hard time seeing things as they are and prefers to see things as it wants them to be. And it is the wanting that leads to conditions and unhappiness.

So...how to stay on the knife edge? How to dwell longer in the unconditional world where the mind and heart have joined together in a clear-eyed compassionate embrace? How to throw my arms around the present moment and drain the bitter and sweet cup it offers.

At least part of the answer to these questions lies in becoming comfortable with letting go of judgement or a need to put things into neat little boxes. This is especially true of feelings which come in a variety of flavors. Learning to observe feelings without judging them or acting impulsivly on them is of great benefit. Allowing them to arise, greeting them with patience, non judgement, and compassion, then allowing them to pass on is the way to reduce their power to take control of your life.

In my life I get ample opportunity to practice this! I would say a word that describes a great deal of my experience is disappointment. I would like to say Happiness but the reality is that things rarely turn out the way I want them to and I judge this as somehow bad and thus disappointing. Thich Nhat Hahn would say that these "things", countless in number and ever changing, can become little reminders to return to the breath and letting go. He calls them mindfullness bells. Like in the zendo when bells are rung to announce change or to return the practioner to a more calm way of being in the present (taming the habituallyover-active mind). In this way the whole world becomes your meditation hall.

A few months ago I was paging through old journals and came across a number of poems written when I was much younger. I know at the time they must have reflected some very important feelings, but I can barely relate to them now. In fact they seem almost ridiculous, though I think a better way to see them is like little reminders that all things change, nothing is constant, and attaching great importance to these changing things leads to suffering. The poetry reflects "real" feelings, but it is written on sand, a beautiful image described by Danny Ellis in his song Poetry in Sand.

If I could remember this from moment to moment rather than waiting long years for this wisdom to settle in, I would find that knife edge of happiness easier to balance on.