challenges are bigger. i am bigger

this morning's meditation brings up the tendency of contracting, daunted by the challenges we are facing, including we may have to sell the house. meanwhile the back and forth with my editor is accelerating. she says, you are a very unconventional writer, most of the time it works, but sometimes it doesn't. i get it. i say, i'm open to using 'conventional' things. i can find ways to make them work for me. so as i journal this i realize i have never been following a conventional path and i have always been great at staying with a challenge and finding unconventional ways that work. with that i feel a sense of centering spreading all over me. a house is a house is a temporary configuration of consciousness. we are going to do what is necessary to see we can keep it but whatever the outcome is it has nothing to do with our inner selves. they are always pure and strong. ahhh. that's it. i am always pure and strong and centered unless i choose to be thrown off balance by some temporary configuration of consciousness. this is great. i see that i am more and more grounded in my own highest and innermost self. the reality that the challenges are getting bigger and bigger is a reflection of my progress on the path towards full-realization.

mental activity are temporary configurations of consciousness

a lot of mental activity come and go in this morning's meditation. no wonder the sages say, thoughts travel faster than light. one moment there's a thought about oakland, california. in the next moment is another thought about hong kong. i catch myself getting swept up in it when i feel a little dizzed out from the mental twirlings and swirlings. i know i am in a sort of crisis mode when i see the mind getting stuck in a cantonese popular tune about a compulsive gambler. i am about to be sucked into the worrying, anxious, fearful, insecure mode. meanwhile the body is still in a stable, comfortable easy lotus posture. i am still vaguely aware of the rib cage movement. so i summon the will to turn attention to the breath. i take in a deep one, watch the chest expand and then the belly, follow the long outbreath all the way into the natural stillness into which the exhalation merges. then, in a subtle way, i experience the sweet security permeating me. it lasts until the next inbreath begins and the next thought appears. but just a sip of this sweet possibility energizes me. i'm, once again, in the vast, open sky of the inner self with clouds rolling by. clouds are temporary things just as mental activity are temporary configurations of consciousness.