01
Can you bear the pain? Will you bear the pain? Why bear the pain? For what are we bearing the pain? What's with the pain? Why pain? The pain is the pain of being alive, Life is pain all the way from the pain of child birth, to the pain of child rearing, to the pain of children living home to take up the pain of their own lives, to the death throes of the dying. We bear the pain because it must be borne. To refuse to bear the pain, to numb it with alcohol or any of the 10,000 addictions (Religion being a primary choice), is to live in denial, is to not live at all, and we are born to live, to be alive. Our dharma/duty is to bear the pain of life, and bearing it well makes things a lot better than refusing to bear it at all. But, why live at all if it only ends in death anyway? We live to pass it on. The pain is just a necessary inconvenience. We live to pass life on, in service to the radiance and wonder of the experience of being alive. For the art, the poetry, the beauty, the majesty, the glory, the splendor, the sublime nature of being alive, of bearing the pain, of having done it as well as we could do it, as well as it could be done, we pass it on. We pass it on to discover what our contribution is, what our art is, what our shtick, our specialty, our thing is, and develop it, serve it, share it, celebrate it, enjoy it, delight in it and pass it on. We pass on the experience of all of it. The victories and the defeats, the wins and the losses, the gains and the broken hearts, the impact of everything, for better and for worse. Where are you going to go to beat it? Bear the pain well, and pass it on! It is essential that we do so! And, in so doing, we take our place in the long line of those who did so, who passed it along to us, trusting us to keep it going. Don't let them down! Bear the pain! Keep it going! For the radiance and wonder of doing it, and of having done it! Pass it on!
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02
Who are you? What are you made of? What is yours to be about? What sets you apart from the rest of us? What are your loves and your hates? Your likes and dislikes? Your specialties? Your shtick? Your talents? Your gifts? Your genus? Your daemon (Sounds like "diamond")? Your knacks? Your fancies? ... You are here to find out. We live to know the answers to all of these questions, and all the other questions pertaining to us and our way of being in the world. Live to know! Find out who you are before you die! And share it with the rest of us! You might begin by developing a healthy relationship with silence. Just sitting quietly opens doors noisy living prevents us from knowing anything about. However you choose to do it, don't die without knowing who you are, etc.
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03
Too many people are living resolutely in the service of the wrong things. I don't know what to do about that. It's the biggest problem we have. If we could solve that one, we would have it made. We have too many wrong ideas about what is important. How can there be so many opinions about that? Particularly when everybody who feels that way, can easily see how wrong everybody is who doesn't feel that way. How does "Wrong!" apply so often to someone else, and rarely to ourselves? What are our standards for discerning what is right and what is wrong? How do we know we are right about what is important? I remember working my way through all of the questions to the rightness of homosexuality and abortion: People can't help what their sexual orientation is. They have no say in the matter, any more than anyone can help who they fall in love with, and telling them, "Oh, if you really tried, you could fall in love with who we choose for you," is ridiculous, and we know it when it is applied to us. And no one has the right to force a woman to be pregnant against her will. Even God got Mary's permission! So, just back off, and give people the right to their own lives! Which, of course, means giving people the right to their own mistakes, including being mistaken about what is important! But, everyone owes it to themselves and to everyone else, to be clear about their standards for determining how they know they are right about what they say is important, so we aren't saying it is important because that is quick/easy/convenient. We owe it to everyone to ask the questions that beg to be asked about our selection process. And to keep a critical eye open to the possibility of needing to change our mind. I don't see much of that going on. Do you?
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04
Our dharma/duty in each situation as it arises is to trust ourselves to our instinctive, intuitive, sense of what is called for, and to respond to that call with the gifts, genius, daemon (sounds like "diamond"), talents, specialties, knacks, shtick, and spontaneous nature that are ours from birth. When Obi-wan Kenobi said, "Trust the Force, Luke!" he meant, "Trust your instincts, Luke!" "Trust your intuition, Luke!" "Do what is called for, Luke!" We are all Luke, just as we all are Jesus. And our practice is to learn to read our instincts, and our intuition, and to live out of them in all that we do. This Duty takes precedent over all other duties, social and religious, that may try to keep us from serving the voice arising from the silence to guide our way and direct our path. Our work is to sit with the silence until we can hear what is being said to us out of our instincts and intuition, and the to live the response that is called for in each situation as it arises, and so save the world.
