After the movie ended, I sat for a moment. I imagined a moon rising behind the clouds, so that the weather’s back was lit all silver, while below the rain fell easily down. Nothing easier than letting go, from a great height, and being received, at sea level. That was not what I thought. That is what I was.

What I thought took place in the mind, while everything important was going by. The mind felt alone, even lonely (of course): that is how a mind lives. The body, it simply touches or does not touch, feels rain or does not get wet, stays long in the sun and turns red or does not turn red. The mind, meanwhile, reaches out with no fingers, speaks with no voice, feels the beautiful curve of no lips, recalls the graceful arch of the body, the arrow loosed, the heartbreaking arrival (you cry, because beauty breaks the heart, whereas horror merely hardens it); the mind reaches out with fingers fragile and tenacious as a spider’s web, tries to catch the breeze, the dew, maybe time.

She shifted her weight imperceptibly right to left, so the sand beneath her sifted, with what she imagined was an audible rasp, then locked again, the earth reassembled beneath her. Just ahead were ripples in the beach the wind had carved, waves in a dry mere that capped and broke and crashed with such slow dignity that only the most patient eye could follow their motion, day on day. If she practiced the smallest fraction of that patience, and held her eye on one hands-breadth of beach, the grains of that small wave could be appreciated; but if she wandered, if her interest drew her further from the moment where she stood (right then: right there), the detail blurred and merged, the grains became a texture then a whiteness in the sun, while the waves resembled ridges resembled ripples resembled an empty canvas where anything could be drawn.

I picture a circle of relatives, drawn together by circumstance, from distances and activities that kept the majority mere echoes to one another, voices from the past, children’s faces, simple times. There is a circle of relatives standing around a hole cut into the earth, gestures turned to ashes, words turned to dust.

And in that gathering of grief, as though each had swallowed a stone, the weight of gravity drawing them down, as if to join the departed one.

“… hope she is feeling better. Have a good night yourself.”

The ember of the day fading, so the small electric sparks that lead from corner to corner all the way home are now apparent, where before their minor lights were lost in the grander, warmer rays of the sun. A friend departs. The engine stumbles back to life. The CD that had paused picks up where it left off

… and so all follows water’s path, from cloud to peak, from heights to valleys, from valleys to the sea; follows through channels that life itself creates, in currents at times quickened at times slowed by degrees of its descent. The selfsame wave that rises, falls; the selfsame lightning separating droplet from the whole, sees droplet join the torrent, follow current with the urging of this gravity-constant hand until, to end a sinuous trackless trail, again it joins the whole.

Our habit of looking backward is only matched by our desire to grow, keep growing forever, perhaps; or to look forward at the vast horizon and never see it rush toward us, not feel the edge and the bright light or the pure darkness beyond. Amazing how an event from childhood can reach into the heart and into the cells of the body, certainly into the convolutions of the mind and the echoing halls of memory, steering the feet and the desires toward or away from today’s choices. Amazing how our efforts can disregard time, as though today’s choices were all that existed and all that mattered: as though time itself, a current that began at some unremembered flash (if it began at all) and runs on to an out-of-reach terminus (if terminus there is), would carry these bodies and their endeavors on without faltering, and would never let us… fall.

By heaven and the night star!  And what shall teach thee which is the night star?  The piercing star.  Over every soul there is a watcher…

We find ourselves through an effort of discovery. That we are all born into this life, with years of uncovering to follow, is simple, and fact. The events in which we play part or which come upon us are the mirror, and our senses and our eyes, through the effort of discovery, open to all that is being reflected. Until we find the strength to open and see the good and the bad, until we look and see our failures and our graces, the glass is blank; the name is unwritten; and the night star, your night star, is for you invisible.

… and then there are the moments where, surprised, you find that the fingers loosen of their own accord; you no longer struggle to make something happen, nor struggle against struggling, but allow the events of your life to be the agent of release.

Tonight, I passed some time with Tevye, the village milkman: Tevye, whose fundamental beliefs are challenged at every turn, and at every turn helets go, further and further. A daughter marries against his judgment, a daughter marries without his consent, a daughter marries without his knowledge… and with a smile and a shrug he bows to the will of the God of change, bows to the god of gravity, the god of aging, the god of humanity, asking of the same spirit: Why…? Didn’t your teachings say, follow this path, it will keep you and your family safe, it will grant you peace and propserity, give you enough?

Under the cover of darkness, or in the blaze of mid-day, there are the brief encounters with the teacher: the real teacher. When we are young or when we are misinformed, the lessons are ignored or avoided. As though that final test could be dismissed, no thank you, I prefer not. It cannot be dismissed. Under the cover of darkness, when we are most exposed, or in the blaze of mid-day, when we least expect it, we are offered these little practice sessions. Just listen! It is Guará come back not to haunt, and neither to taunt, but to instruct.

Many Buddhist traditions share a specific practice for opening the eyes, opening the eyes of the heart. 

If you follow the path of enlightenment that Gautama Buddha walked, one who wishes to be free of entangling thoughts and desires – desire for the next and better car, the other better house, a different and better partner – makes an active attempt to embrace impermanence. Meaning: one does everything in his or her power to realize that this life passes with the snap of the fingers, that much of our effort comes to no result, and that in our hurry we often miss opportunities for seeing what truly has value.