a massive stroke of grace

a life without grace bears no fruit.
millions of lives can be lived.
but for what purpose 
if there's no breakthrough?
what a mindstopper. and these words of wisdom are hard to chew on. for several days i've been meditating on them. they are illumining certain old tendencies. how about this one? that gnawing, lingering unpleasant feeling goes like this. what am i doing this for? is this what my life's about? i recall so many times in my life when by all conventional measures i should be happy and proud of myself and feel abundant and great and blah blah blah. but deep down i know i am not experiencing any of that. i couldn't make sense of it. it drives me nuts. it was frightening to even entertain the possibility that whatever i can achieve and get outside of me is not going to answer my burning questions once and for all. it was beyond the mind to conceive that there's no one who can grant me lasting happiness. really, where would i be if it were not for a massive stroke of grace that breaks through the concrete cage of fear and anguish that i found myself locked in. hey, who cares if i had lived millions of lives adrift. i am back on course in this one and that's all that counts.

so much respect for dancers

here i am trying so hard to keep up with the dance teacher's moves. this dance fitness class in the health club. i don't even recall why i would pick this class at all. but then again hwubby and i met in a singles dance in the ashram. anyway my hands and legs are like pasta twirling in boiling water, scattering in ten thousand directions. gee, it looks so much easier when i see the  teacher demonstrating the moves. now i can't even keep counts of three. i am several steps behind, struggling not to crash into others when i spot hwubby standing outside the room, laughing so hard he can't stand up straight. later he says, you look just like your idol, lucy - as in lucille ball. hearing that i realize how ridiculous and hilarious i must have looked. but check this out. i don't feel an iota of embarrassment or inadequacy. i laugh just as hard as hwubby. in fact, i say to the teacher after the class, now i have so much respect for dancers. indeed. they have to be present, in the body. there's no room for thoughts or any mental activity. there's just the flow of consciousness. by the way i am really glad i do the class. it's so much fun.

can i hold both in awareness?

my editor says, suk wah, you write so beautifully, i've never seen anyone writing about food as beautiful as you do, the metaphors, the way you write about it, are just...i can't write better than you do. sometimes a writer says to me, i write this way because it's my 'voice.' i would say, you don't have a 'voice.' anyway, my editor goes on to say, you write best when you just write, paragraph after paragraph, but you can't write forty pages of 'eating lox and bagels.' i really can't bring myself to say, one of the reasons i end up having forty pages of 'eating lox and bagels' is this. marquez writes eighty pages about a couple moving around each other in the night. well, all i can say is it is not working out for me. not yet. marquez is marquez. suk wah is suk wah. i have to deal with suk wah's reality as it is. don't compare, suk wah.

so, what's the point i am trying to get at? let me see. o yes. this morning, in meditation, it comes to me that i get lost, in a good way, when i just write and write. but then i lose the narrative, pacing, rhythm. i am very good at writing scenes, dialogues. i love it. i get so much joy doing it. but i want to get the book done in a proper way. so i have to be able to hold the scene and the story together in my awareness while dialogues and details are flowing out from the inner self. my editor says, can your mind work that way? right now, i don't know. not yet.

have no fear. inner self is always with me

my teacher says again and again, to this effect, go higher into your own self, deeper into your own self, you'll see things you couldn't see before. i am having a powerful experience of that. here's how it goes down. at one point it looks like it's all but certain we have to sell our house. do i panic? no. am i upset? a little but i quickly see it as passing cloud. i don't attach my self worth to anything outside of myself. period.

a few days later, a question comes up in meditation. and then another. i take these questions to see the person i trust most in this kind of matter. by the end of our dialogue i see a road map to resolve the situation. there are actually two possible ways to resolve it and they are ways we can manage. hwubby says, this is unbelievable, one moment i am all but certain we are doomed, the next moment it all works out, i couldn't believe it.

as if that's not good enough, yet another insight comes to me in this morning's meditation. i see the pathway to blend in the two ways to become the third possibility. now we have not one, not two, but three options. actually, as i am journaling i see a fourth one. talk about abundance consciousness. which one to go with? i see a sequence. i'll try one. if that doesn't work, i'll go to the next. and so on and so forth. meanwhile i'll keep a close watch and an open mind to the ever-shifting circumstances. really. have no fear. the inner self is always with me.

where do all those lights in the dream come from?

sleeping 7000ft above sea. bright and vibrant dream. lots of laughter, back and forth and activity with my meditation teacher. at several points i am working with a bunch of yogis to mash lots of ripe bananas and mangoes because the teacher says to me with a bright and kind smile, we have to feed a lot of people. so much fun.

i wake up with this question. where do all those lights in the dream come from? my eyes are closed. the room is dark. the lights have to come from within me. i am sleeping but someone is watching and understanding all that unfolding dream drama. who's that? then it occurs to me this is the same one who watches that suk wah being pulled here and there by thoughts and feelings. this is someone who sees and gets it. indeed. i can safely say all that in the external world are some form of dreams. i have so much lights within. beautiful lights. pure lights. happy lights. lights of courage. lights of strength. lights of kindness. lights of generosity. so on and so on. no end to the abundance within.

i am an inner space traveler

i look at meditation as space travel. i go to the inner space. there i experience this ethereal sweetness and lightness and brightness. restlessness and anguish cease. i see mental activity associated with worry, fear, anger come and go, like meteors passing through the outer cosmos. i am not them. i don't get caught up in them. not for long. not anymore. meditation helps me to shorten the lapses where i identify with them. as soon i catch myself going along with them i make a conscious inner effort to turn attention to the flow of the easy breath and i return to the deep inner space where my own inner self is, where pure and independent joy is, the cosmos of abundance consciousness.

what good does it do not to forget i am the inner self? 45 m + 15 m

for now it's taking me longer than i would like to get up. am i lazy? what is it?

here's what i observe. as i leave the state of sleep i am aware of nothing else but the sound and movement of the gentle, easeful breath. in that state i remember nothing else, i know nothing else, i want nothing else. i am this hungry infant latched onto the nipple and won't let go and if you dangle the biggest diamond in front of it it couldn't care less.

that is a sweet and quiet state without worry, anxiety, or any relative of fear. but it is so alive, pulsating with the inaudible buzz of life force. the silence is thrilling. the stillness is exhilarating.

and so it is not difficult for me to hold back the old tendency to yank the body out of it. i have no doubt that the intelligence permeating every cell and nucleus and mitochondron is guiding the body to move along at a pace that is just right for me. which is not move at all, not in a way that is comprehensible to the mind and senses, kind of like a glacier is moving all the time but not detectable to the human eye. but through the pure awareness bathing in the breath ocean i know keenly that the body is responding to the steady and unyielding momentum flowing through my breath.

this message appears quietly as i relish being aloft in the ocean sound and warmth of my vast consciousness. any moment you think you are not enough, you don't have enough, you are not good enough in any kind of way is the sign you forget that you are the inner self.

right away i hear the old mental tendency enslaved in mitzrahim, narrow, poverty consciousness, shoot back, o give me a break, what good does that do?

not missing a beat i hear the response from you know who, no it doesn't change the external circumstances of the challenges but it puts you right back into a state of cool, clarity and courage and you can take care of whatever that's in front of you that needs to be taken care in an easeful manner.

bingo. i get it, not in the head but in the depths of bones and beyond the mind. why, of course, being cool, clear and courageous is who and what i am, is my nature, my essence.

waves of refreshing energy wash through me. one by one, the tasks of the day come forth.

i say, body, are you ready? the body responds, yes. And so does the mind.

let's go.

this year's meditation on joseph's story. 38 m + 10 m

i ask rabbi lerner, in the prayer invoking ancestors, joseph is not included but in the text his story is in great detail relative to yitzak and yaakov, why is that?