Losing the Words

"Better out than in," says Hagrid cheerfully, when Ron is vomiting up slugs. It's on more or less that principle that I post things like my last. That, and I suppose that I harbor a fantasy of being some kind of "apostle to the skeptics," a Buddhist version of C.S. Lewis, and I know how reassuring blasphemy is to those of us who grew up viewing faith with superstitious dread.

I hadn't reckoned, maybe, on how deep the tear would go. I spent a lot of last evening crying. Reciting the bodhisattva prayer embedded in the Ngondro practice -- which I have had by heart since I began a year ago, and have recited pretty much daily since then -- I lost the words twice, and had to go to the text to find them. My voice cracked and stopped, and I had no idea what came next. As though I had called a curse of wordlessness and confusion down on myself. Which I think I had.

How many other things I may have torn, I don't know. I expect I'll be finding out in the next few days.