Precious, Precious, Life

On my journey through life I have gathered little stones, which I have saved in a sacred bowl. Then, as a dear friend was dying and the truth of death came close to the surface, I went to my sacred bowl of rocks and counted out 31. Each of them represented a day of the month and I put them in a special bowl, alongside another bowl, on my chest of drawers.

I then searched and found a beautiful little pouch that a friend had given me years ago with tiny bells on it and I put it on a cord so I could wear it around my neck. Every day of the month, I took a rock from the first bowl, which I called the ‘to be lived’ bowl and put it in the pouch around my neck which reminded me I was being given the gift of another day of life. Then, at the end of the day, I took the rock out and put it in the second bowl, the ‘already lived’ bowl. I did this for every day of the month and then when it was done, I poured the ‘already lived’ bowl back into the ‘to be lived’ bowl and began another month.

I did this off and on for a number of years and it was very powerful to watch the ‘to be lived’ bowl empty as the ‘already lived’ bowl filled. That, along with the little stone around my neck, kept on reminding me that life is a continually changing process and that everything that appears will eventually disappear; everything that begins eventually ends. This includes your next breath, the time spent reading this blog, this day, this season, this year and your life. You can either be afraid of this or you can use it to cut through the noise in your life in order to connect with the preciousness of this moment.

A meditation master was once asked, “How can we find happiness in a world where everything changes?” The master held up a drinking glass and said, “You see this glass? For me it is already broken. In the meantime, I drink out of it and sometimes it even reflects the sun in beautiful patterns. But when I knock the glass over and it shatters, I say “of course. When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious. Every moment is just as it is and nothing needs to be otherwise.”

This moment that you are reading these words is precious. It is the only moment where your life is completely brand-new, and it is the only moment that matters!

What can you bring into your life that reminds you of this truth, that invites you for a moment here and a moment there, to open to life just as it is? Life Is a constantly changing river and true peace comes when you can relax into its flow, discovering that there’s nothing to hold onto and nothing to push away and everything you long for is already here.

For just this moment, allow your belly to be soft and your out-breath to be long and slow, and simply open to the preciousness of this moment, just as it is.