Children are Dying
I see the news and I cry
That sweet little girl died
Twenty-two so far
And terrible injuries
Afraid, terrorized
Running for their lives
A black death is here
In our rose garden
Thousands of people
Living their dreams
Excitement; thrilling, thunderous fun
And then the darkness comes
I cry when I see pictures
And read words
And hear what people say
And see such painful grief
Children are dying
Everywhere
Over there
And now here
I saw that sweet little boy
Lying facedown on the beach
He was on his way from there to here
And died somewhere, in nowhere
Children are dying
Where?
Here and there
They are dying
I remember that wide-eyed little boy
Helplessly, hopelessly staring out of Iraq
His arms and legs won’t be growing back
At the time I did wonder, why do we do that?
One mother is the just like another
And their death wails all sound the same
Broken, bleeding hearts
Again and again
We all breathe the same air
We eat and we drink
We walk and we talk
And we love and we hate
On this shared Earth
Under one sky
Everyone is right
And no one is wrong
We kill, they kill
They die, we die
We, they, us, them.
It’s always good versus evil
Meanwhile, little children lie underground
Not making a sound
Forever gone
Which bloody side were they on?
Love is Love
And a Bomb is a Bomb
Hate is Hate
And Right is Wrong
Foreign policy?
Warped ideology?
Does any of that matter?
When children die.
The Here and the Now
I want to know
Is the answer always lying here in me?
So I meditate and ask myself,
“Is the answer always here?”
I wait for what arises,
For what emerges.
The answer comes:
“There is no answer when there is no question.”
I ask myself, “What do I want to know?”
“Who am I?” I ask.
There’s a sense of something.
I can feel it, but no answer comes.
I ask myself another question,
“What should I do with my life?”
The answer flows upwards in me.
It seems to arrive from nowhere.
The answer comes from somewhere
That doesn’t seem to be from thinking.
Is it thinking or sensing?
How can I know?
Does it matter?
My brain translates the information as it arrives.
As it’s felt and sensed within my body, within my stomach;
An aliveness, a non-verbal moving, feeling sensation,
I find words that give meaning to those feelings.
“What should I do with my life?”
Live and do and be.
Follow what feels right.
Trust and do the next thing.
Be right where you are and stay there.
Don’t look back or forward.
There’s nowhere to go
Other than right here, now.
Be with what is
And not with what’s not.
Be with what you have
And not what you want.
Respond to others with the love
That’s already within you,
And allow all feelings to be.
Nothing’s going to go wrong,
And nothing will ever go right.
There’s nowhere for you to go
And nothing you must do.
There isn’t a right path.
There’s only the path.
Take the next step, knowing that you can’t ever move away
From being where you are right now.
Stand still and it’ll all come to you,
Or run hard on life’s treadmill,
Which is going to take you
To where you already are.
Your right foot can’t get far away
From your left foot,
No more than you can ever get away
From yourself.
You can’t escape yourself,
Nor can you move away from this moment,
Nor is it possible to be somewhere other than where you are right now.
There’s nowhere to go and you’re all you have,
So just be with yourself and that’s enough.
I wonder if there’s more that I’m not seeing,
So as I meditate, I ask:
“What am I missing?”
The answer arrives.
You look ahead and you think back,
And try to do what’s best,
Or what you think they think you should do,
And what they say you can and can’t do.
You’re missing yourself.
You aren’t seeing your intuition
Or your passion.
You aren’t allowing yourself to just “be.”
You aren’t allowing yourself to go nowhere.
If you go nowhere without trying to be someone,
You’ll see where you go
And you’ll see who you are,
For you are here and you are this.
You don’t know what’s next
Or who you are,
So don’t wait for what happens next
Or search for it or plan ahead.
Don’t think about the past
Or about those that aren’t here right now,
Both the dead
And those that are asleep.
Be with what’s happening now
And just be with that.
Don’t wait for anyone, or try to find them,
Or miss them because they aren’t here.
Meet them in the sacred now, and when you do,
Be fully here as you connect with them
And allow them the freedom to be elsewhere.
Whether with or without them,
You’re always going to be here, now.
Love the here and now,
Because it’s always with you.
It can never leave you
Because you are that.
I find myself wanting to go back
To the unanswered question.
“So who am I?” I ask.
This time, an answer comes:
“You are the here
And you are the now.”
So that’s who I am,
And that’s who you are.
We don’t have to try to be here, now,
trying to find the moment.
No need to be in the moment anymore,
We can let that go
With freedom, with relief.
There’s no need to do any of that “in-the-moment” stuff,
Because you’ll never find where you are, who you are,
Not by looking over there.
You can’t find the moment because you are it.
You’re already here,
You already are,
and if you look for that, you’ll miss yourself.
You are the very moment that you seek
And all it contains.
That’s what you are.
You are That.
Who Knows
I feel a “yes,”
And that’s a want.
I have a “no,”
And think I shouldn’t.
Then I think I should, but I don’t want to.
And now I want to, but know I shouldn’t.
I have a “yes” that I’m afraid to follow.
Now there’s a strong “no,” but I’m afraid to speak up and say.
Sometimes there’s a “yes”
and then a “no.”
And sometimes, the dreaded conflicting confusion of
“I don’t know.”
What do I want?
What should I do?
Why don’t I know what I want
Or what I should do?
I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong.
Do I comply and go along,
Or speak my truth and do what I want,
Even when they say I’m wrong?
I seek advice from those who say they know
What’s best for me and what I should do,
But they don’t know what’s best for themselves,
So how on earth can they know what is best for me?
Who knows?
Who am I?
Who are you?
Who knows why?
Who knows
What’s for the best?
What I want,
What you want?
Not me, not you, not “them,”
There’s only you, talking to yourself.
There’s no one else here,
And you don’t know.
It’s worse than that,
It’s better than that,
For there are no decisions to make
For there’s nothing to know
And no one here to know it.
You’re an empty space of nothingness
Thinking you’re full of “something-ness,”
In control of the of story of you
That’s made up and believed
By a mind desperate to exist
And afraid to die.
Stop deciding and stop driving.
Stop thinking it’s all up to you.
Stand still and see where you are,
See where you go, what you do.
Do without doing
Think without thinking
Notice without noticing
And see what happens.
You don’t need to know,
So take courage to your fear
And do what you do
Without deciding or knowing why.
Follow yourself,
For although you’ll never get it right,
You can never get it wrong,
Either way, no matter what.
As you think this and do that,
May you rest in the peace of not-knowing,
Always held by the embrace of this moment.
You’re safe now, my love.
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