'Life is Suffering'

Whenever I sit down to write I ask for my heart to speak. More often then not my mind goes blank and the words stop flowing. When this happens I ask myself, "are there so many walls built up that I myself can't see what lies on the other side? Or is it that the heart has no word, and only feels. It simply is?"

As human beings, our lives blanketed in rules. The laws of the universe, and our divided nations. The rules imposed on us by others, and the rules we impose on ourselves.

"Don't swim to far or you'll drown."
"Go to school or you wont get a job."
"Don't eat meat."
"There's only one God."
"Life is suffering."
"Live in the moment."
"Eat organic."
"Simplicity is the only way to enlightnement."

Once, as I walked to work, I had a thought. I imagined the first monk who reached enlightenment laughed and laughed and laughed. Because they realize they didn't have to do everything they did to reach it, and at the same time they couldn't have reached it any other way.

Sometimes when I think of my path to spirituality, it doesn't feel like something that was chosen. It came to me simply as taking a deep breathe. I've always flowed with the currents around me, like a salmon swimming still in the currents. I asked for no answers, but little by little they came to me. Thinking back to my childhood I was open to the experiences that entered my life, but open in a way that I observed rather then lived and felt. I think I understand why I was like that way now more then ever.

I had to first observe, so I can reach where I am now, ready to share what I've seen.

I'm reading a book now called Lamb by Christopher Moore. It's the gospel written by Biff, Christ's childhood friend. It's funny. I laugh and laugh, but there's a deep undercurrent to this book. Some of it sad, some of it true. As I read it I often wonder if some people were offended by it. When I thought this I asked, 'well, what's there to be offended about? After all Christ is supposed to be to be the heavenly link who people can understand and speak with. Something we can touch and relate to. That being the case, what's wrong with a book that humanizes him further?'

I feel as though my thoughts are taking me to a place I have only a vague picture of. It's like squinting at a point in the distance through a fogged glass.

There's a part in this book where they're among the monks and the monks say, 'Life is suffering.'

Is that true?

I've always believed pain is the greatest teacher we have avalible to us, but to say life is suffering? I had to place the book down and ponder this for a while. What I realized is that life is love, and love is all things. Love is sadness, love is pain, love is suffering. In that way, I can see the truth in the statment, but why not just say life is love?

Perhaps it's because people seem to understand suffering and pain, so much more then they do love. When I think of this, it makes me sad but am I any different? I've spent so much of my life either in pain, or locked in a white room, holding my head with the back to the world.

Recently, I've decided to empty the cup. I've always lived by rules. So many that they became shackles built from fear then the freedom I've been seeking. I'm emptying the cup of all the things I've learned. All the books I've read, all the scriptures that have been written, all the laws that govern the turning of the world and the meaning of the stars. From in this place of empty silence I'll listen, and find the truth I seek free of those bonds.

I don't know if I can do it.
But what is humanity but uncertainty?

I once gave myself a tarot reading which talked about change and eternity in equal parts. It said life was change. It said life was eternal. I didn't know what to make of it. What I found was simply there is one eternity, love. Everything else is change. Grow, experience, explore. Because life is change and to stop moving forward out of fear of falling back is no different then a cage. However, while you change and the world changes around you, remember eternity, and return to it in those quiet moment, in those sad moments, in those moments between suffering. Because life is love, and pain is life.