the-journey

I loved Enso Roshi__ teachings. I loved learning about life. I loved life. It was a good thing to feel. I loved life, and I loved learning, and I was still learning. I was not, yet, done. At the end of our journeys, there would be an end to the journey. Maybe. If I was lucky. If providence shone down upon me gently. I would find love. I would find acceptance. Complete love. Complete acceptance. I would know, that the self, is an illusion. I would come to enlightenment, but that would also mean, there would be no ___ there. I would realize that the ___ was an illusion, all along, just like some great dream. This is what the wise sages say, the great teachings, the mystical teachings, not only from the East, but also from the West. The Gospel of Saint Thomas. Thomas Merton. Thomas, like I was Thomas, and also doubting, the main reasons I__ chosen the name. If nothing else, it was lovable, just as it is. My life. Even the parts I didn__ love, could I love them? The struggles. It was all part of the journey, and would I not look back fondly on this, at some time? Look at how arduous and sincere I__ been. Look at how worried I__ been. Look at how insecure I__ been. Look at how I__ struggled. Trying to find my way. Would I not look back upon myself, affectionately and fondly and with love?

If you__e been there, done that, gotten the t-shirt, isn__ it time to move on to a new destination? Don__ waste a lot of time stressing the __ould have___ _ because if it should have, it would have!

For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.

There__ a dream I keep having,_ Sheridan whispered into the telephone. __he dream has always been the same__ntil tonight.___nd what happened tonight?_ asked Lil_ John.Sheridan hesitated, his words stumbling out in tentative phrases: __he man in my dream . . . he spoke to me for the first time . . . he told me of a sacred gift that had been lost . . . a gift that could save the world.___our dream,_ John urged gently. __s the gods conspiring to give you freedom, just like the elders sang that night in the Sundance ceremony:__hen worlds collideThere sounds a tollingA call to riseAnd seize the momentThe gods conspireTo give us freedomWhen worlds collideThe journey has begunSheridan pulled at the collar of his t-shirt, Lil_ John__ words suffocating him. Pushing back from the precipice of dread, Sheridan strained to speak, his husky words weak and staggering: __hat are you saying?___our search for the sacred gift has already begun . . .