November 25, 2020
Saṃsāra
Creator, the disbelief of others can be so contagious, especially when one feels weakened and blighted by one’s own frustration with You. The trials and tribulations of life can wear a soul down, taking a heavy toll, and we are often left in pain, fearful and confused, and with overwhelming feelings of abandonment. However, You have swept in to rescue me so many times – through the subtlest shifts in thought and feeling, through the “charge” I have taken to writing about, in which You seem to charge my very being along with the environment around me with the awareness and sensation Your both soothing and overwhelming Presence; through chance encounters, through grace-filled happenstance, and through the biggest and smallest of miracles – and I long ago learned to stop questioning Your existence. Still, I must admit, You frustrate me so sometimes, even though I know that Your seeming inactivity and passivity is really Your greatest gift to us: the space and time to exhibit our free will and to learn what we must learn. We are allowed to do what we want, but with that gift we must also be willing to reap what we sow.
I believe, though still with a healthy amount of skepticism, that reaping what we sow can require many lifetimes; lifetimes filled with both abundance and destitution, depending on what karmic debts we have incurred or what karmic advances we have made. The Buddhists call this Saṃsāra – the beginningless and endless cycle of repeated births, mundane existences, and deaths – and consider it to be dukkha, painful and unsatisfactory, and perpetuated by desire and avidya, or ignorance of the Truth and of Ultimate Reality, which, in my opinion, is You. Coming to seek and know You for the Christian leads to heaven and for the Buddhist leads to Nirvana. Tomayto, tomahto, as far as I am concerned. We are all struggling to and adamant about finding just the right words, or word, to name and describe You. Impossible!
Still, how do I translate this knowing of Your existence to others? How do I articulate to others how it is that I have begun to see, hear, feel, and perceive You in everything, and that it has almost nothing to do with religion or pantheism, for that matter? How do I chart the trajectory my soul has gone on – for myself more than anyone else – mapping out the ways in which I see and perceive You running through quarks and the cosmos, through our cells and magnetic fields, through the laws of nature and through quantum physics, through our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls? You are both impersonal and extremely personal; at times You are seemingly cold, distant, pitiless, and remote, and at other times You are palpably close, warm, all-encompassing, and sacredly loving.
The devout seek You in scripture, in the sacred practices of prayer, meditation, and contemplation, and through acts of self-sacrifice, service and compassion toward others. The scientists seek You, though they may not say or admit so, in Your creations and through Your natural laws and mysteries, struggling to dissect, quantify, categorize, and pin You down. Funny enough, I sometimes feel atheists and pantheists are closest to knowing You because they have no preconceived notions of You; they only view and focus on “reality” – on what is – and You are, after all, Ultimate Reality; You are all there is.
On this Thanksgiving eve, I pray that You fill and surround loved ones and strangers alike with the awareness of Your Presence within and around them and within and around all things. I pray that You hover over those who are alone, abandoned, anguished, angry, and addicted, and that You fill them with faith, hope, and love, and with Your sacred peace and light. Most of all, I pray that You fill others with the knowledge profoundly intimate You can be, if sought, with each and every one of us. Amen.