Tuesday, September
10, 2013:
I like to walk alone on country paths,
rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth
in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments,
existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider
walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not
to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged
in a miracle which we don’t even recognize a blue sky, white clouds, green
leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child --- even our own eyes. All is a
miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh; Miracle of Mindfulness
&
The latest estimation of the age of the universe is estimated by
cosmologists to be about 13.5 billion years. It seems that this approximation is
just a stab in the dark to those of us ignorant of the physics that came up
with that time span… after all, physicists have been wrong in their estimations
so many times before. But, for me, the universe did not exist before I came
into consciousness. If I am honest with myself, it all begins and ends with
me!
Of course, I can look out at the cosmos and I can actually see that the
earth I stand on is but a tiny speck orbiting around the sun on the outer edge
of a spiral arm of our galaxy (which is but one of hundreds of thousand billions in
the known universe). But ,in actually, as far as my consciousness is concerned, I really am
the center of my universe. Others simply orbit around me like astrological
signs. I know that my perceptions about myself are so very wrong when I do the
math… but do I act that way? Do I bother to consider that I am but a speck in
human history… that the day will come when I go back into the void out of which
I came?
If I were to achieve a certain amount of
fame and fortune in this span of time… this bardo… this place between the inhaling
and exhaling of billions of breaths of what we think of as God, how long will I
be remembered… A couple of hundred years… A thousand years…? Perhaps my name
will be remembered a millennium or two if I achieve the greatness of the
Christ or the Buddha. Or I might become infamous if I perpetuate the atrocities of a Khan, a Hitler, or an Alexander. But,
for most of us, our memory only lasts as long as our grave markers. How can I
consider these things without sinking into despair?
This what I call, a cosmic bind. I can fantasize
about life everlasting out of desperation or I can accept the reality of the
now… this footstep I am taking here… this one of thousands here and now as
important as my first one that was celebrated by my parents only a short time
ago. Here I am and the miracle I need is now. The Heart of Compassion is
everywhere and every atom of my being is replicated in a cosmic hologram throughout
the universe. So must be my consciousness independent of the mortal coil that
comes and goes with each breath in the wonder of a child's eyes.
geo 4,461
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