August 30-A, 2022

We have to find our peace
and live from there.

It begins with making our peace
with our life just as it is.
With coming to terms with things
just as they are.

Most people I know never do this.
They live hopelessly,
or with resentment and bitterness,
or depression,
or with a combination of all of this
and anger,
and grief...

Nothing changes 
until we change our relationship
with our life.
And nothing has happened to us
that is more important,
in terms of its impact upon us,
that the way we have responded to 
what has happened to us.

Our response is the power move.
We hold the key in determining
our outcome 
by the way we decide
what all that has happened to us
means to us.

It means what we say it means.
We transform the impact of our life
upon us by changing our mind
about what it means 
that our life has been what it has been.

Look at it as a proving ground.
As a practice field.
As a way of developing 
our original nature
and our innate virtues,
and molding us into becoming who we are.

What we have been through 
prepares us for the future 
that we have been living toward all our life.
All this time we thought we were
being punished,
or separated from life 
and thrown into some corner
with nothing worth being with
all our life long,
all this time we were distilling life,
getting down to the core values,
coming to know what is truly important,
truly valuable,
truly worth our life,
and now there is only realizing that,
only knowing what we know.

It is all right here
in our body,
in our heart,
in our soul...
The soul knows.
Through all we have been through,
our soul knows what matters
shines through the heart of all that,
and we only have to open our eyes
to know what our soul knows,
what has come through all we have been through,
to be the jewel in the lotus,
the treasure buried in the field,
the pearl of great price,
the stone the builders reject,
that we are prone to reject,
because it is not what we had in mind,
when we are just being asked 
to see what's there
and relish who we are right here, right now.

Enlightenment,
illumination,
is waking up to who we are,
right here, right now.

Dying to our idea of what
we want our life to be,
what we wish it were,
and opening to what it is,
just as it is,
right here, right now.

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