fortunate to have each other

the wonders and marvels of doing the practices with a group of dedicated, fun yogis are endless and always astonishing. we laugh hard and dive deep. as we pour ourselves into singing om i am immersed in this richly textured symphonic sound that ebb and flow in waves. they wash me over and over. sometimes i can discern a strand of resonance resembling my own voice. mostly it's a giant ball of resonance rocking my whole being. i feel my own vastness. it is enveloped in an ocean. the ocean is within my awareness. my awareness is aloft on the unwavering longing of my fellow yogis. as we enjoy the yummy mung sprout salad and a spread of yummy food that shivaa prepares i chew on the truth that how fortunate we are to have each other.

i don't meditate and torah study to gain benefits and yet...

i don't go to torah study because i want to get benefits in anyway from anybody. i simply love the sweetness of torah. i don't do spiritual study groups regularly because i want somebody to do something for me. i just enjoy the holy company of fellow yogis who love immersing in the lights of the scriptures. i couldn't have schemed or engineered or fantasized the scope and breadth of good fortunes that have been falling into my lap one after another at super-duper speed.

first case in point. i'm in bellevue trauma ward after a sleepless night. i'm allowed to stay there twenty-four hours, but not to sleep. i put together two chairs, doze off, feel someone tapping my shoulder. it's the night nurse whispering, my supervisor says you can't sleep here. the chinese in me who is scared of authority jolts me up. i'm in that enforced state of sleeplessness for goodness how long when someone says, are you suk wah? i say, yes. the person says, there's a call for you at the nurse station. my heart jumps and skips. i blankly say into the phone, hull-ooo? a guy's voice says from the other end of the line, suk wah, this is so-and-so. my mind stays blank. i could not recognize this name. after an awkward pause, he begins to speak. i cannot make any meaning out of the words until these two. torah study. suddenly i remember like seeing the sun popping above the horizon. yes. i know who he is. he sometimes goes to torah study in the rabbi's house. we rarely speak to each other except greeting each other shabbat shalom. i blurt out, yes, yes, ben-ji. this is the name i know him by. he goes straight to the point. suk wah, i know you need a place to stay, you can stay in my apartment. just like that. no questions asked. no conditions. a couple of weeks later i find out what transpires. judy, the point contact person in the shul, emails the entire shul population about my need to find a place to stay in the city. ben-ji's boyfriend, steve, gets it while in an airport somewhere in the world. he knows this apartment fits my needs. the trick is there is another person staying there but about to leave. so there's only a tiny window of time to get me the key to the apartment. meanwhile judy, under my strict instruction, would not give out my cell to anyone. so steve, whom i sometimes like to joke around with, says, call bellevue. as it turns out, i have a two bedroom garden level apartment all to myself. i can have a meditation room. i can chant facing a snow-covered garden. i can take a bus from around the corner and get off at the entrance to bellevue. to top it off, it's a beautifully done place. elegantly simple. chic with a lot of character.

second case in point. at the last minute i need a ride on a monday afternoon to drop off an envelope to the lawyer in new york. the first name that pops up is claire. she is my spiritual study buddy. i know she is off on mondays because we have to periodically adjust our weekly study schedule. i call her. she just comes. again. no question asked.

my guru says, again and again, to the effect, get the relationship with your inner self right and everything will be all right. well, it's more than all right. it's infinitely more spectacular than i could have imagined. but then, all this and all this are not why i meditate, chant and study and do the practices. it's because i love it. i can't stop doing them.

i'll just have to keep returning awareness to the breath

i know, i know, i want to be a liberated yogi and the hallmark sign of a liberated yogi is not to get worked up about anything and definitely not to react to thoughts and emotions. but for now i just couldn't help it. here's why. this morning there is a hotel charge $165.93 showing up on the credit card. turns out this charge is in the process of being refunded and is takes several days to happen. then there are two charges, $7.95 each. some sort of services to get you onto the web in airports. but hwubby doesn't remember giving credit card info for such services on that date. my point is this. the investor insists on our credit balance showing zero before they would fund the mortgage loan. on one hand i have no problem with that. on another hand this is a corporation that received tens of billions of federal bailout money. so somehow my mind just can't reconcile the two and keeps churning out reaction after reaction, emotion after emotion. really, the corporation gets a huge bailout. it turns around and squeeze responsible borrowers like us. i have outstanding credit score. i have demonstrated that i have been paying all the bills on time. yet the investor wouldn't accept anything other than zero balance, not even after i paid off the almost six thousand dollars of statement balance and another two thousand dollars of current balance. that's a matter of principle? fine. but what the heck is all that bailout money about? wasn't that against the free market principle?

in the end, as i type, i paid off the $181.83. but the mental turbulence is still going strong. i have to keep my eye on the goal. getting the loan through. i guess i'll just have to keep returning awareness to the movement of the easy breath until the mental torrent runs out of momentum. om namah shivaya.