And what I further feel is that when I harbor anger, viciousness, and vindictiveness, I am giving my own life away. It is evaporating while I am not paying attention. It is steam rising, carrying away all the good that could have happened.
It is perhaps the case–indeed, I believe it IS the case–that a life spent getting up every day, enjoying it as much as possible, and still never knowing what it is about, or what exactly I am supposed to be doing, so that I guess every day, is STILL a good life. This is OK. If life does not come with an instruction manual, it is perhaps because we are born knowing the basics, and that the rest doesn’t really matter that much.
It is so easy to fall prey to passions and manias which make everything feel important, when in reality what matters most is subtle, and only found in silence and peace. It is only found, or largely found, in dullness, or what seems like it.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned somewhere, I did martial arts of various sorts, one for a good long while, perhaps 7 years, and every practice would begin with the mantra “Every moment contains the potential of Great Enlightenment”.
So, I am not saying wisdom is not to be found everywhere, but when we give away our life, we push it away.
I am trying very hard to grow beyond some very significant psychological limitations, and I think making some progress. This last week has been unbelievably unlucky and odd in some ways. I literally looked up an astrologer to see if anything unusual was going on, and apparently this lunar eclipse is quite significant in terms of processing latent, unconscious Shadow energy.
I don’t know if I believe in all that, but when I had a reading done, it was quite accurate, and very different than what I feel someone could get from cold reading, or guessing generically. In my own case, my Moon is very important. It has jumped out at every astrologer who has looked at it. They look at me funny for a second. I’m the guy that runs into the burning buildings. My first encounter with the name Leonidas, many years ago, was in reading about my moon. And I do like to think I was one of the 300. Any of them. They fought the same, and they died the same. That is a good death.
I may die a good death. But I may die like the wasp I watched all day today, on the same job site. It was plainly hurt and unable to fly. It is possible I watched its last moments, as it crawled into a crack. I was tempted at first to kill it–actually I tried to run it over with my cart, but missed. After that, though, I watched it walk around the floor, periodically curl up into a ball in what appeared a spasm of some sort, then keep walking. I kept an eye on him, and shared a part of my day with him. He was my only company for much of it. I couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like to be a dying wasp, and then what it will be like when it is my turn, whenever that is.
Actually, ponder for a moment how much death happens outside your window each night: the bugs, the worms, the birds, the mice. Ponder how many fish are eaten by other fish every moment in our oceans. This is life on planet Earth. We are all the same in that regard. We are all destined for dissolution.
I understand a little, I think, why some Indian ascetics inhabit cremation grounds, and why many gods have skulls around their necks.
That’s enough wandering for now. Good night!!!