"You are not an improvement project."

Nopal cactus (prickly pear). Jalisco, Mexico, June 2023. (Pencil on paper. C.M.)

22 June—There is nothing more important or wondrous than whatever it is you are doing and experiencing right now. Which is to say, at any given moment. And that is true no matter what.

There is no more important person to be with or to be listening to than the person you are with right now. Even if that person is a driver in another car and she just gave you the middle finger.

There is no better or more appropriate feeling or emotional state than the one that you experience in the very moment it arises. Even if it is jealousy or rage, greed or hatred. There is, obviously, the crucial point of not acting on feelings or emotions in a way that causes harm. That is of paramount importance, I remind myself as I write these words. But there is nothing inherently wrong with whatever emotional state you are experiencing.

Love and generosity may feel better than the emotions I listed above, but if you look closely at the nature of emotions there is not one degree of separation between them. Love and hate are of the very same nature. Which is why one can so easily turn into another. If they were fundamentally different in nature that wouldn’t be possible.

Emotions are nothing other than energy, intense energy. Pure energy. Pure in their very essence. If you can sit with an emotion, simply watch it, and look straight at the experience in your mind and body without adding fuel to the fire or reacting in any way, the emotion naturally settles on its own. It dissolves into space, it settles into peace, it disappears like a wave dissolving back into the ocean

This is what I have been taught. It is what I have experienced and know to be true.

Every moment of life, however it manifests, is precious—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter fully into your own experience and penetrate to the wisdom that resides in your own heart and mind. This is true especially of the most painful and difficult situations in life.

When you are able to be fully present, to look deeply into your own experience without adding any narrative overlay, you touch the wisdom and peace that resides within that experience—which is to say, within your own nature. When you do that, you bless the world. That is the very raison d'être of being. There is nothing better, more worthwhile, or important to do.

You are not an improvement project. You do not require fixing, changing, or solving. Your true nature is perfect—perfectly awake, perfectly aware, and perfectly full of wisdom and compassion. You just have to see it, recognize it, realize it—you have to nurture and encourage it.

In order to see the truth of your own being you first have to be able to calm and quiet the discursive mind—you have to quell the illusory ego that is always getting you into trouble and telling you false things about yourself and others. Meditation helps. In fact I’m not sure it’s possible with out some form of meditation or contemplative practice. Prayer also helps, because, like meditation, it enables you to pacify and transcend ego.

Paradoxically, if you want to be happy you have to get over yourself, and at the same time, you have to recognize your true nature. When you see your own nature, you see the true nature of others as well, however hidden it may be, however buried beneath egoic bullshit.

I share this with you in the hope that it is helpful and because I know it to be true—and also to remind myself. Because the reason we’re all here is simply to wake up to our true nature and to help each other wake up. It’s easy to forget. And remembering is the difference between confusion and clarity, happiness and suffering.

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