Andrew, this brought the tears in when in the last bit you called me a miracle. I am your devoted follower since I read your book. Also there's knowing lots of people you know, including your mother. I'm Becca's mother-in-love. I'm going to send your Ode to my UU minister....maybe she'll fashion a sermon from it.
Judy, thanks so much for writing to let me know. Your words gives me courage to continue writing and sharing here, means a lot. And thank you for sharing! So appreciate having you with me here.
I loved this, a lot! Life is hard, corn chips help unless you cannot tolerate corn even though it is indeed miraculous, then you eat Lesser Evil puffs and wonder how others can be so fortunate to consume said miracle! We are blessed in every way, we just have to set our minds “right”; Thank you for reminding us all to spend more time in a state of gratitude!
I write to remind myself as well. Amazing, how the ungratitude slips in so quick, so easy. This is a place for remembering. Thanks for remembering with me here, Tammy.
"The Great Way Is Easy For Those Who Have No Preference." - Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen (The Hsin Hsin Ming)
I feel sort of conflicted inside of this piece of writing, like there is the initial preferences right? "Why do they have to do it this early, and Can’t they come back some other time, and Please just hurry up and get it done for christ’s sake, and Are you really still backing up, like, really?"
And then there is perhaps also a preference that is harder to catch that is for being in a state of gratitude or wonder instead? ... like we celebrate gratitude and wonder... there is a lot of positive opinions about these states and a lot of push in our culture to cultivate these qualities...
Here: "A practice in tolerance? Is that really the best I can muster? How about a goddamn jubilee, an uninterrupted, unceasing, balls-to-the-wall exaltation of every breath, every corn chip, every rooster, every dump truck, every man and woman who have agreed to spend significant portions of their lives dedicated to the task of cleaning up the messes I make....It’s all a wonder. And yet, I mutter darkly in the dawn. These garbagemen. These goddamn garbagemen... “Do garbagemen refer to themselves as garbagemen?” I said aloud in bed as they wiped me clean and fastened a fresh diaper around my ungrateful ass."
Did you mean to do that? Like to talk about the "less beautiful" thoughts and judgements and then make a push towards gratitude and wonder and a better state to be in? Or were you showing the pattern of the initial thoughts and then the response to that of more preferences? And then sort of just observing the nature of the mind to be so dualistically caught in, "it's not perfect, it has rough edges, it has a bitter taste, its' too loud, too soft, too sharp, too wish-washy... trying to make things better because something is a problem here...?" ..... Or, did I just read it that way because I have a belief that those are better states to be in!?!
For me, personally, tolerance is perhaps the most enlightened I get...
"My life opened up as an artist when I realized you don't have to resolve every contradiction, in fact, right at the center of contradiction is the place to be." - Bono
Thanks for this, Kendra. Love your wonderings. Clawing my way to gratitude from the muck of whatever else I might be going through is a way of doing what I can not to get totally submerged by the other thing. Not that the other thing isn't worth living, worthy of my attention and body, just that it takes some resourcing in order to open myself to the darkness and the muck, and gratitude is like a breath of fresh air, to vitalize me for the plunge, the slog. Fighting against the muck is always futile, resting into it, with the courage of my gratitude. I was also just kind of amazed, you know, genuinely amazed that I can so easily forget the loveliness of life and end up in an ungrateful trash heap inside...doesn't feel funny when I'm in it, but it's almost funny. It's like, dude, the sun just rose! The air is fresh! The water's delicious! And you're upset about what again?! Just having some fun with this human interface. Thanks again for your thoughts!
It's a-maze-ing, isn't it?
Andrew, this brought the tears in when in the last bit you called me a miracle. I am your devoted follower since I read your book. Also there's knowing lots of people you know, including your mother. I'm Becca's mother-in-love. I'm going to send your Ode to my UU minister....maybe she'll fashion a sermon from it.
Judy, thanks so much for writing to let me know. Your words gives me courage to continue writing and sharing here, means a lot. And thank you for sharing! So appreciate having you with me here.
I loved this, a lot! Life is hard, corn chips help unless you cannot tolerate corn even though it is indeed miraculous, then you eat Lesser Evil puffs and wonder how others can be so fortunate to consume said miracle! We are blessed in every way, we just have to set our minds “right”; Thank you for reminding us all to spend more time in a state of gratitude!
I write to remind myself as well. Amazing, how the ungratitude slips in so quick, so easy. This is a place for remembering. Thanks for remembering with me here, Tammy.
"The Great Way Is Easy For Those Who Have No Preference." - Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen (The Hsin Hsin Ming)
I feel sort of conflicted inside of this piece of writing, like there is the initial preferences right? "Why do they have to do it this early, and Can’t they come back some other time, and Please just hurry up and get it done for christ’s sake, and Are you really still backing up, like, really?"
And then there is perhaps also a preference that is harder to catch that is for being in a state of gratitude or wonder instead? ... like we celebrate gratitude and wonder... there is a lot of positive opinions about these states and a lot of push in our culture to cultivate these qualities...
Here: "A practice in tolerance? Is that really the best I can muster? How about a goddamn jubilee, an uninterrupted, unceasing, balls-to-the-wall exaltation of every breath, every corn chip, every rooster, every dump truck, every man and woman who have agreed to spend significant portions of their lives dedicated to the task of cleaning up the messes I make....It’s all a wonder. And yet, I mutter darkly in the dawn. These garbagemen. These goddamn garbagemen... “Do garbagemen refer to themselves as garbagemen?” I said aloud in bed as they wiped me clean and fastened a fresh diaper around my ungrateful ass."
Did you mean to do that? Like to talk about the "less beautiful" thoughts and judgements and then make a push towards gratitude and wonder and a better state to be in? Or were you showing the pattern of the initial thoughts and then the response to that of more preferences? And then sort of just observing the nature of the mind to be so dualistically caught in, "it's not perfect, it has rough edges, it has a bitter taste, its' too loud, too soft, too sharp, too wish-washy... trying to make things better because something is a problem here...?" ..... Or, did I just read it that way because I have a belief that those are better states to be in!?!
For me, personally, tolerance is perhaps the most enlightened I get...
"My life opened up as an artist when I realized you don't have to resolve every contradiction, in fact, right at the center of contradiction is the place to be." - Bono
Thanks for this, Kendra. Love your wonderings. Clawing my way to gratitude from the muck of whatever else I might be going through is a way of doing what I can not to get totally submerged by the other thing. Not that the other thing isn't worth living, worthy of my attention and body, just that it takes some resourcing in order to open myself to the darkness and the muck, and gratitude is like a breath of fresh air, to vitalize me for the plunge, the slog. Fighting against the muck is always futile, resting into it, with the courage of my gratitude. I was also just kind of amazed, you know, genuinely amazed that I can so easily forget the loveliness of life and end up in an ungrateful trash heap inside...doesn't feel funny when I'm in it, but it's almost funny. It's like, dude, the sun just rose! The air is fresh! The water's delicious! And you're upset about what again?! Just having some fun with this human interface. Thanks again for your thoughts!
Please remove the indignation & trash from this miraculous highway called Interdependence Way.
One rooster, one corn chip, one dirty diaper at a time