If I inhabit a reality of my own creation, which I truly believe I do (at least intellectually), why have I not created a more beautiful place to live?
Where is the love? The justice? The sense of equality that I would expect from me? Why are we all still suffering? In misery?
Do I truly need continuing lessons on compassion? Or is it detachment I’m working on?
I feel sad… So sad. I’m not depressed; just sad. I look around me every day and take note of all the suffering taking place, my own included. I acknowledge that life isn’t fair, and changes are upon us, and that each and every being I encounter these days is struggling with something of significance to them. We are facing our deepest “issues,” whatever they might be – financial, health, purpose, faith, loss, grief, codependency, addiction, relationships, career, etc… And it is no longer enough to compare apples and oranges to find “relief”…
I take no comfort in saying “at least I’m not dealing with [that] today!” Or “thank Goodness my crisis is only financial!” I don’t need to compare my suffering to others to find gratitude today; I am well aware of how loved and lucky I am…
But that does not diminish my “suffering” today, for my financial insecurity is the one “issue” which I have never satisfactorily resolved; it has always haunted me, and it continues to do so. To minimize its impact on me, and the way I live my life is a disservice to my Self…
But yes, there are many, many others who are suffering much more than I am, within their own personal hells… And I don’t need to minimize or overstate their suffering, either, in an attempt to balance scales. I simply accept that we are all suffering, and this world we share truly is hell!
So…
Why? I ask my Self, “why?!” For when I cannot “solve” a problem, I seek to understand instead. My powerful Self could create a “happier” place, at least for me. Why haven’t I done so?
I need to know…
the otherhood of one 
I go through similiar thoughts… my meditation group today is discussing empitness… but the thing i try to remind myself is that even those who are not aware they are creating the world, create the world. It is the collective consciousness of all sentient beings. Which is way a monk praying in the wilderness makes a difference, but also why a lost individual filled with hate, ignorance, and greed also makes a difference. Don’t give up. Persistence is what I am focused on now in my practice.
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Persistence… yes. Thank you for the reminder, for it would be all too easy to give up! (Sorry for the long delay in responding; I literally haven’t been able to get back here since I posted this…)
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well, if there is anything I can claim expertise in, it would be “giving up.”
And no apologizes needed. The fact that you returned to your blog after an amount of time away shows a quality of persistence, to keep showing up, just like having a months and years of posts on a blog.
Re-looking at your post, maybe what is sought is detachment (non-grasping / letting go) and compassion. Now there’s a tall order.
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Yes… and precisely where my own thoughts have led me recently… Thank you for your kindness, understanding and encouragement; they mean a lot to me! 😀
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🙂
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Hi Lisa! The existential questions of the awakening and aware mind – inescapable. We live in between mental worlds of knowing too little and too much at the same time. To solve the great problems we know too little. To live at peace with whatever, we know too much. These are the days of discomfort, the in-between times. Torn left and right. Pulled up and down. Desires unfulfilled. Truths turning to lies. We walk on shifting sands and when we look back our tracks are erased, and we ask ourselves, ‘Where am I going like this? With this?’ We still believe we can manufacture peace, quiet, some certainty and comfort, yet these have vanished, taken from us just as our world has been taken from us. I look at the world around me and simply know I have nothing because such a vast majority has nothing either. That is why many decades ago I deliberately chose to enter into a state of detachment and self-empowerment. Then chose to practice these through a compassionate lifestyle, come hell or high water. The results far exceeded my “expectations” in that I discovered the life-changing power of living in joy and sorrow, transcending my own problems into an empathetic relationship with the world. It’s like developing inside an egg. As I change, so must my surroundings, and soon I must break out and leave it all to its own designs. There will be no loss, just a transition. Meanwhile, I learn to detach more from the “terrible things” while accepting the consequences of living in a time of disintegration. This civilization cannot hold. It is riddled with inconsistencies, depredation, decadence, moral turpitude. Ignorance and violence have been crowned the gods of the age and increasing numbers are bowing to them and hoping to draw comfort and security from these scarecrows. We who, for whatever reason have become aware of our surroundings, don’t look back; we practice patience and learn. The hoped-for changes, or “return to good old days” (that never existed) will not manifest: entropy is setting in for mankind and that’s something you cannot turn away from. What can I say to you? Don’t get sucked in the hope for better days?
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Hope really doesn’t feel like an option these days. Your words speak right to the core of me. I guess I am still trying to “live” in the microcosm of everyday, while my Self embraces the macrocosm of what is; it is uncomfortable, to say the least! 😀
And I apologize for the long delay in responding; I do so look forward to your comments. Time has been working against me, though, taking away those very activities that used to bring comfort and pleasure; each day has been a lesson in leaping from one “crisis” to another, not all of them my own… 😦
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