Loss

When I look at living beings
I see them drowned in a sea of suffering:
therefore I do not show myself,
causing them to thirst for me.
Then when their minds are filled with yearning,
at last I appear and preach the Law for them.
Lotus Sutra, chapter 16, "Life Span"

Dear Friends,

First, you are all invited to join Barbara Bonner and friends in her weekly meditation group, Sundays at 4pm at LifeWorks in Great Barrington, at 50 Castle Street. It's starting up after a long, multi-reason hiatus, and the town is the better for it.   Her group is a very clear offering: a minimum of chat before and after, with one solid hour of silent sitting together in the middle.  I heartily recommend it!

Today we take a break from the Way and pause to face loss in its many varieties.  These include the loss of the climate homeostasis the planet had enjoyed for millennia, the eventual death of everyone we know including ourselves, the loss of American ideals (witness January 6, 2021; witness the police murder of so many, but just lately Tyre Nichols).  Everything is lost -- some of it inevitably, some unjustly.  Every instant is lost as the next instant arrives.  The moment of inspiration dies into formulation and mere memory.

From a certain standpoint, the experiences that devastate us with dread, rage, confusion, despair, and grief are also stimulants or goads.  They push us into existential and spiritual tumult, into inner or outer activism, in a way no theoretical considerations ever do.  They don't absolutely force us to grow, but they powerfully encourage it.  We may discover, precisely through Novalis's "Keep the wound always open," through the Lotus Sutra's "mind filled with yearning," that loss itself, denying none of its difficulty, is the doorway to a new finding.

If we are lucky enough to live, we have to reckon with increasing numbers of people who matter to us deeply and who have died.  Today we'll engage in one specific practice to recover and even improve our relationship with our so-called dead.  As a group, we will make ourselves into a beacon of love and then offer the light and warmth of this love toward those who were close to us on earth and who have left the scene slightly ahead of us.  Our capacity for love -- is that ever lost?

with many blessings,

Michael