Mark Strand once wrote, "Each moment is a place you've never been." We might also say that you are a gift to this moment, a gift that this moment is happy to receive. We tend too often to think of time as something we have to anxiously work our way through. But it may come as a happy surprise for us to think of this moment, right now, as a friend who is glad to receive us. This moment invites us into itself— it has the secret of eternity to share with us. There is nothing but this moment— the past is a memory, the future, a dream. As T.S. Eliot says, "All is always now." We don't have to resist this moment; we don't have to struggle through it; we can relax into it and be happy to receive the good that this moment is bringing to each of us. It may be the sunlight, or the beauty of a tree or a cloud formation, or it may just be a tiny thought like, "I'm here in this universe right now, and it's okay, and I'm okay, too." 

When we take a bit of time each day to relax, turn within ourselves and get quiet, release the thoughts and feelings and cares of our day, we experience a kind of instantaneous renewal. Meditation practice— even in short spurts of time is like a small joy, a tiny happiness. As we continue to meditate daily, we find that we are slowly but surely building an inner reservoir of spiritual strength and integrity. Meditation is sometimes defined as the center we find within ourselves. And indeed, as we stay with the process and let it gently unfold in us and through us, we discover this point of calm at the center of our being. To this center of stability and peace we return over and over again as we stay with our meditation practice throughout the years. And we finally begin to see, as this center within us deepens into greater peace, warmth, love and clarity, that this is who we really are. It isn't just that we meditate; we are the meditation itself, and we realize that this center we have discovered deep within ourselves connects us to God and to all life everywhere. We find our oneness with the universe and the meaning of our lives in such a simple act of just relaxing, sitting still and letting go. Meditation brings us home to who we are and to where we belong in this world. 

An architect was once asked to design an all-glass building on land that was within an earthquake zone. The architect responded that such a project was impossible. The person who commissioned the building asked the architect to look the word impossible up in his dictionary. The architect found that the word had been cut out of the dictionary. And he went off and designed and built the building. Sometimes we need to redefine what is possible for us. Too often we set mental limits on our capacities for achievement. Perhaps we really are in life to achieve something great, something that only we can do. And something that, if we don't do it, will never get done. Robert Kennedy said, "Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly." Let's not be so afraid of failing that we never take the risk to succeed. Let's give this life our own unique gift and let it prosper us. 
 

We've all experienced loss in this life— relationship, job, financial setback or even an inner sense of loss. Someone once said, "Things are so tough, it's hard to keep up with the losers." We've all been losers in one way or another. It's interesting to note Evelyn Underhill's statement that, when it comes to spiritual matters, the "loser always wins." Underhill says that on the spiritual path "he with the worst hand wins." Losing forces us to deepen our perspective on what's happening. There comes a point in our life when the notion of winning or losing itself ceases to be so important. We do what we do in life for the sheer joy of the doing of it— our reward is simply a happy by-product, and criticism ceases to annoy us. It's hard to imagine Van Gogh, Picasso, Dostoyevski or Mozart caring too much about the outcome of their genius. They simply gave themselves up to what they did. When we feel we are losing out in some way, perhaps we just need to see our situation from a new and different perspective. What looks like loss from one point of view may in fact be great gain from another. 

In Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, there is a story about a philosopher who once asked the Buddha, "Without words, without the wordless, can you tell me the truth?" The Buddha remained silent. The philosopher bowed and said, "With your loving kindness I have cleared my delusions and entered the true path." After the philosopher had gone, one of Buddha's disciples asked him, "What has the philosopher attained?" The Buddha replied, "A good horse runs at even the shadow of a whip." The true path, the right way for us to be in this life, is always at the point of dawning in our minds and hearts; the readiness is all that is necessary. Sometimes we read a word or a phrase in a book, or we hear someone utter a sentence or we silently gaze at a sunrise or the snowfall captures our heart, and suddenly we are, in that moment, transformed and nothing is the same ever again. C.S. Lewis was casually looking at an old beat-up book in a used bookstall one Saturday morning in London; as he started reading the book, he suddenly felt a spiritual awakening— in that instant he experienced a new dimension of being in which his whole way of life was transformed. 

Often we think that the way to fulfillment in life is by pushing our way through, grabbing our share before someone else beats us to it. Yet forcing our will on people and situations tends to be exhausting and doesn't seem to give us harmony or peace. Is there another way for us to find contentment in life without struggle, force or turmoil? Someone once said, "The more I let go, the more I receive from life." Perhaps each of us comes to discover that as we quit fighting for things, things come to us— as we release people, people come ever closer to us. A clenched fist does not bring happiness to our hearts. We can let go right now of all the conflicts, all the stresses and strains in our life and be open to receive the insights and solutions that are the harbingers of peace and fulfillment. Just let it be. 

This is the time of year when people celebrate Jewish Passover. One of the meanings of Passover is to pass over or pass out of bondage. Certainly Passover is a celebration of freedom from bondage. As the Israelites were fleeing Egypt, the place of their captivity, the Egyptians began to pursue them. When the Israelites saw that they were being pursued by the Egyptians, they became terrified. When we have even a small beginning of freedom, we look back on our former bondage in terror— never again will we allow ourselves to be enslaved. There's a Jewish tradition that when the Israelites reached the Red Sea, the waters didn't part until one brave person leaped into the water and started swimming. When we are being pursued by that which would hold us in bondage, and we come to a seemingly impassable obstacle in our path to freedom, we too, like that one brave person, must take a leap of faith until the waters of impossibility part, and we are released into freedom. 

There's an East Indian parable about a man who is running through a jungle being chased by a lion; whenever he looks back to see if it is still there, the lion is always right there just about to get him. The story suggests our own state when we are constantly looking backwards to see if something we tried to free ourselves from is still there. At some point in our life, we realize that the way to freedom is to quit looking back. We look back to make sure we are really free. But freedom comes when we boldly step forward into the new without needing to make sure or to know in advance how things will work out for us. Freedom is going forward anyway, regardless of the past or the future. A friend of mine used to say that when you are being chased by a posse, pretend that you're leading a parade. Let's decide to go forward into our freedom. 

There are two ways (at least) of looking at memory. Sometimes we feel trapped by our memory; we realize our tendency to superimpose things from the past on present time happenings. We can feel caught in a repetitive pattern of events because of our memory. We may view animals as much freer than ourselves because they don't seem to mind repetition. Yet our memory is not just a yoke that pulls us into repetitive cycles. Memory gives us the freedom to make sense of our life. Without memory, there would be no possibility of functioning in our world. We remember all the rules of life each day, and we remember how to apply them. If we had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, drive or relate to others every day, life wouldn't be possible for us. We can be glad for the memory of who and what each of us is every day. There may come a point of liberation when we are free from the bondage of memory, but we will still have the use of memory to function appropriately in this world. Be thankful for the great tool of memory. 

When we change, everything changes. Sometimes we seem to exhaust ourselves trying to get people or situations in our outer life to change. We feel that if only they would change, we would be all right. So we try and try to get them to see our point of view. We try to get them to connect with us, or we try to get them to let go of us. We spend a lot of time trying to make the outer world come around to our way of thinking. What a tiring pursuit! At some point we begin to realize that if we change our mind and our heart there is always a corresponding change in the outer. There's an old hermetic saying: "As within, so without." Let's begin to change our world by changing our own mind first. Let's release an old tired thought that is no longer serving any purpose. Let's accept a new positive thought about ourselves and our life. 

Too often we see our family from a center of judgment deep within ourselves. When we think of the different people in our family, we always seem to relate to each of them through a fixed idea of who he or she is. We say, so-and-so will always be like that. We never seem to allow for growth, change, transformation or unfoldment in our family members. Yet each of our loved ones is a growing and vital offspring of nature and nature never does the same thing twice. Perhaps it's time to set everyone free, to release every person in our family from the prison of our imagination— set each free to reveal himself or herself to us in a new and living way. Each person in our family is a unique way in which life is expressing. Each is an original, unlike anyone before or since. We can gaze in wonder at the unique energy-awareness-being each person in our life really is. Set everyone in your life free today. 

When my cat isn't fed on time, he sometimes becomes very angry— even outraged. And even after the situation is remedied, and the food is right there in front of him, he will still continue to whine and cry until he complains himself out. We, too, may find ourselves in a complaining mode long after the original injury is over. Complaining about a hurt we have experienced can indeed be a part of the healing process. We may need to sit in the corner for awhile and lick our wounds and mourn over our hurts and losses. While it's OK to complain, it's even better to complete your complaint and get on with your life. 

When things don't seem to be working out for us, we usually pick someone to blame. Often we pick the people nearest at hand on whom to take out our frustrations. These are the people who support and who love us dearly; yet when it comes time to fight with someone, we always seem to pick these people. Perhaps instinctively we feel that those closest to us will not mind our anger— because they know we don't really mean it. Yet it puts great strain on our relationships to test them in this way. In effect, we are saying, "If you really love me, you should put up with me even when I'm being hostile and unreasonable." Let's enjoy the people in our lives, not inflict our erratic mood changes on them. People are with us because they do care for us— let's make it easy for them to like being with us as well. 

Many times we blame outer circumstance for our problems. What a relief when we can begin to forgive the outer world and release the need to blame anyone, including ourselves. Complaining does not solve our problems. When we relax and release our scolding attitude, we discover that there is nothing and no one left to blame. There's aTaoist story about a man riding in a boat. When his boat is suddenly hit by another boat, the man turns around furiously to yell at the person driving the other boat— but the boat is empty. Who can we blame when there is no one there but us? 

A woman went to a counselor and complained, "When we were first married, everything was different. When I would come home from work, the dog would bark at me, and my husband would bring me my slippers. Now everything has changed. When I come home from work now, my husband barks at me, and the dog brings me my slippers.” "Why are you complaining?" asked the counselor. "You're still getting the same service." Things do change in life. We hear people talking about the good old days— but were they really that good? Perhaps they were spelled d-a-z-e instead of d-a-y-s. Rather than wasting our time complaining about how things have changed, maybe we can deepen our perspective until we reach the underlying harmony and order at the center of our life. In Taoism they say, "The surface changes, the depth always remains the same." Let's stay so centered within the depth of our being that we cease to be disturbed by changes at the surface of life. 

This present moment is not the past. Sometimes we feel that a present moment happening is just like something that happened to us before. We say to ourselves, "I know better this time." And we try to treat the present situation as if it were something from the past. We impose a preconceived judgment upon what is happening. But the present now moment is always fresh and new and innocent of the past. We need to be open to receive the meaning and joy that this present moment has for each of us. As no two people are alike, so no two moments in our life are alike. Let's quit trying to make the present into what has already happened. Our life is not a rehearsal; it is also not a rerun. 

In Zen they say, "When the cart won't move, who do we whip, the cart or the horse?" Logically we would say, "It's the horse that is to blame." But perhaps there's another way of seeing this. Yogi Berra used to say, "When I'm not hitting, I blame the bat, not myself. How can I be at fault for not hitting? So I get another bat, and then I start hitting again." When things aren't going well for us, we tend to blame ourselves or those closest to us. But how can it really be our fault or their fault? Maybe we need to just see it from a different angle. If we have to assign fault, maybe we can blame some external force (the bat or the cart) just to relieve the pressure. As Bob Dylan once said of the 80's, "It just wasn't my decade." It's surprising how much order and harmony flows into our lives as we release the need to blame. 

We tend to look in the past for why we are feeling the way we are now. Many times we find ourselves basing our lives on our past. We say: "The reason I am the way I am now is because of what happened to me." Yet, as Alan Watts says, "It really doesn't make sense to base our lives on what literally no longer exists." The past is no longer here; we don't have to fight with something that no longer is. We can forgive and release the past as a way of realizing our freedom from it. The past only controls us as long as we mentally dwell upon it and forget that we are no longer there. Jesus said, "Let the dead bury the dead." In other words, let the past be past— it came to pass, not to stay. Releasing the past, we then awaken to our freedom. 

Someone once said, "I have made a parachute out of everything broken." There was once a janitor named Murray Spangler who lived in Canton, Ohio. One day, Murray was sweeping dust from the carpet—as usual the dust from the sweeping was making him cough and wheeze. All of a sudden, Murray stopped sweeping. He had an idea: what if there were some kind of gadget that could suck the dust up from the floor into some kind of container? He found a friend to finance him, a man named H.W. Hoover.... So with us, in our life right now. Whatever is disturbing us, whatever is the problem, has within itself the seed of its own solution, a solution that may go beyond our own individual situation and also be of great benefit to our world. As Robert Schuller says, "We can turn our scars into stars" by not trying to escape but by seeking the solution to our problem from within the problem itself. Our problems are the stepping stones to our freedom. 

When we are having trouble releasing a tiresome situation in our life, it may be that we just need to give it a new name. What we are calling a mistake or a negative experience may have just been an experience that, at the time, we couldn't understand or see clearly. We may just need to relabel it so that it is no longer an obstacle for us. When we decide to stop calling something bad, we begin immediately to see the good in it. This frees us from the need to keep rehearsing it over and over again: "Oh, oh, why did this happen to me?" When we can give an experience in our lives our blessing, it lets us go.