Hurting & Loving

Sometimes it's in the seemingly little things. Like watching my bedroom slowly (finally!) turning into the soul nurturing space that I've long dreamed of. Like the small winter tree just outside my window, normally the resting place of purple and gold finches, the occasional hummingbird, but the other morning chock full of robins, sitting so still and peacefully, like beautiful ornaments, the first time I've ever seen more than one or two of them in that tree (and a day after I saw them in the willow trees across the complex, as though they followed me home!).When I walked my dog, there were dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of them in our little courtyard, in the trees, the bushes, on the ground, another thing I'd never seen. It was completely magical, a totally unexpected thing, and I just stopped and marveled. The small things, like waking before dawn to find one lone and brilliant star rising and later finding that it was Saturn, such startling beauty for a planet that can challenge us in the most difficult ways sometimes... and yet the beauty, of course, is that it is always, always with our highest interests, our soul's very purpose in mind.

Like the poem or quote that appears at the most amazingly auspicious moment... like this last night from one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Gangaji...

Pain is pain...  feel it… I’m jealous I hurt I’m fearful I love... now what am I going to do? Withdraw? Hate? Close off? Or just hurt and love? I recommend hurting and loving.

Ah.......So profound... just hurt and love... it's the most vulnerable, the most heart-opening thing, the most loving thing we can do... hurting and loving... not closing oneself off in a misguided attempt to protect - which doesn't work anyway, and only causes more pain. Yet it is innocent, we want only to not hurt, but know no other way. Hurting and Loving. Not masochistically, but just as in life simply hurts sometimes, no way around it, might as well surrender to it. And love ourselves in the process.

Sometimes the little things are actually big things. Sometimes they bring us the magical, put us in touch with the mystery that is greater than we are, but reminding us that we are not separate. Sometimes they bring us closer to home, home being our own sweet inner being, our spirits, our soul. Sometimes they can point the way, open a door, ground and soothe us. Sometimes they bring hurt, and pain... It's often the seemingly little things that can change everything; that can alter the very course of our lives, bring profound opportunities, drop us so deeply inside there is simply nowhere else to go.

Hurting & Loving... thank you, Life, thank you, Gangaji.

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It's so simple we miss it. We think it has to be something bigger, more spectacular. What do people think spiritual development is? It's not lights and trumpets. It's very simple. It's right here and now...  right here in front of us, so close we don't notice it. ~Tenzin Palmo,