To Love, and to Open my Eyes

Okay, I take it back. Sometimes meditation is relaxing. Sometimes I like it a lot.

Sat last night in my massage room, as the last of the light faded. I do like the way sitting in one place allows you to see how the light changes. Except of course that you never quite see it. You just realize that it's darker, suddenly, that there's more space in the room, that it's quieter, at some level below sound, that the night -- not that the night is coming, but that the departing day is revealing the night that was there all along, cool and dark and sweet, asking nothing.

And it's good to put my hands together and pray for everyone. I forget -- until I come back, all rusty -- what a relief it is to put aside the world of friends and enemies, the continual reckoning up of who deserves their pain, to exactly what degree, and who doesn't; who deserves good fortune, and how much, and who's been rooked of how much of their due. I had no idea, before I started meditating, no idea at all, how elaborate my judgements about all that were, how hard I was working as a scribe for the Lord of Hosts' book of accounts, anxious to make sure that nobody got credit they didn't deserve and everyone got their full due of blame. I don't know how the world convinced me that was my job -- as if it wouldn't get done without me! -- but it certainly did; and it's a strenuous, effective exercise in shrinking the heart and narrowing the mind. Such incredible liberty to step out from that. It's no business of mine. Which is lucky, because I have no talent for it, and the kind of information I'd need to make accurate judgements isn't given to human beings on this earth. My business is to love people. Which I do have a talent for, and I do know enough to accomplish. I am not going to hold anyone accountable for anything. I'm not going to punish anyone. It's not my job and it never was; the world will rattle along just the same without my majestic apportionments of praise and blame. The whole thing was an exercise in megalomania. The world doesn't lack for praise and blame: its cup overflows with them. What it lacks is love and clarity. That's my work. To love, and to open my eyes.