Suffering is a profound experience
It strips away the roles, the masks, the pretenses.
And strikes at the heart of the matter.
Who did I think I was?
Who did I think he was?
None of it was true,
But it was of value.
When suffering reveals the hurt, the pierced places,
We are stopped in our tracks; dreams turn into smoke, expectations into dust.
Who did I think I was?
Who did I think he was?
It doesn’t matter anymore.
Illusions are fantasies created by
Hurt hearts, childhood minds, our need to understand
What cannot be categorized, boxed, alphabetized.
So we suffer, we look for reasons
Why, we ask. Why me? Why him?
WHY turns into WHY, which leads to WHY again.
We search for signs and sightings and myths and bolts of lightning.
We create religions and retreats and mantras and candles and prayers and costumes.
We’re all seekers, and in our seeking we create new reasons and categories and boxes.
And so it goes; human beings being human.