the best marriage advice i ever received is this. hold your hands and see each other you will end in divorce, hold your hands and see god in each other then you'll be fine. i can't say i have totally imbibed this wisdom and totally live by it because in the heat of the moment i forget, and not infrequently. what do i forget, really? that i am deeply flawed and imperfect. sure, my innermost and highest self is pure and perfect. but there is a tangled ball of conditionings, preconceived notions, habitual tendencies covering it. the moment i can bring my attention back to that place of inner tranquility i can see what's at hand differently. the self of me sees the self of him.
i saw the movie 'west side story' when i was little. i loved the music. who created these gorgeous sounds that squeeze my heart and wring my gut? leonard bernstein. bernstein. i have loved that name ever since. and an inexplicable desire appeared. i would like to have that name. i never told anyone. what's the possibility of a chinese girl from a poor neighborhood in hong kong to become a 'bernstein?' well, here i am. as a matter of fact, it wasn't until years after i got married that i recalled this experience. now, with 21 years of spiritual efforts i can truly say that was the voice of my highest and innermost self. the voice of boundless potential. the voice of infinite possibility.
i am truly looking forward to the thousand more years with hwubby, hand in hand, heart in heart, seeing the self in each other.
