Every day I receive this daily Dharma and this one hit home:
September 24, 2009
Tricycle's Daily Dharma
The Lion's Roar
We each need to make our lion's roar—to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears—to declare our right to awaken. We need to take the one seat, as the Buddha did, and completely face what is true about this life. Make no mistake about this, it is not easy. It can take the courage of a lion or a lioness, especially when we are asked to sit with the depth of our pain or fear.
–Jack Kornfield, from “Take the One Seat,” Tricycle, Summer 1993
I think this is what I needed to do when I quit my job and "ran away from home". Anne and I had been together for 17 years. Prior to that, I was with Cathy for 7 years. There really was no time in between (and that's another story).
I had been married for the last 24 years of my life so when Anne died, I didn't know if I even had it in me to face the real grit of life alone.
Taking off, especially to San Francisco where I stayed in hostels for 24 days and wandered the city alone and even went to Oakland to that concert alone, clicked for me.
I still had the courage to be free and to face the unknown on my own and to even have fun. I could stretch without snapping. I could play without a playmate.
Now that I know this, I feel very settled in my soul again. Oh, I will wander off some more I am sure, because I can and it feeds my spirit somehow.
But I don't have to run next time. I can walk away knowing that I will come home; wherever home is or will be.
--Kathy
:)
ReplyDelete