I haven’t always loved as deeply as I could have. After Kenny passed I could see ways that I had fallen short, of what I am not sure. Perhaps of pure love, totally selfless love, the love that I feel and sense when I am clear and attuned to This That Is.

I loved him as his human and I suspect, for him, that was perfect. He would never have asked for more. He never did.

Why is it, do you suppose, that we tend to berate ourselves for doing the absolute best we can? Why do we judge yesterday by today’s level of loving kindness. I guess it’s better than the other way around, better than setting a low bar, a bar so low it’s dug in, and then living down to it.

An even more important question: Why is it that we judge at all. The need to compare and contrast, to see ourselves as better or worse, and others too, feels to be at the core of the heartbreak, the crux of happiness, regardless of whether it is an abundance of joy juice, or as often is the case, an utter sense of its absence. 

What does judgement do? Here it’s felt like a ripple in an ever-rippling pond. Judgements arise, just like thoughts, for in truth there is no difference. Habitually flowing, they simply arise before falling back into the soup, unless another thought gives them meaning. If they arose without the following thought, and the ones after that, there would be no problem, kind of like noticing a cloud shape or a hummingbird sucking at the feeder.  Life would simply life.

Lest you think I judge 😉 or that I am telling you not to, judgements are not a problem, nor are the follow-on thoughts that give them meaning. All is arising and falling in awareness. Some thoughts are more fun, more comforting, more joyous. Some fall into a different category. Either way they can be engaging intense distracting.

Even the thoughts — I don’t want this thought. I want to stop judging. I want peace, innately are not problems unless of course they set up a conflict within and then they are only a problem because the resident thought says it is. Conflict, wrong, right, peace … all thoughts.

What I’ve noticed is that when I don’t mind what happens (both meanings: pay attention and prefer one thing over another) the conflict doesn’t have anything to grab ahold of so it doesn’t arise, but not minding isn’t something that I can tell you how to do. I can only tell my story and add to the field of data points in yours, letting you see other possibilities, expanding your view.

Not minding fell out of seeing what this is and seeing what this is fell out of not minding, neither of which I did, created, figured out for myself. I didn’t quit minding; minding quit me. My immediate field of awareness accumulated sufficient evidence and what I saw as possible shifted, what I could see expanded, what I was willing to feel, what I could understand, was augmented. it was always present. I just couldn’t see past what I previously believed. 

That’s what life does. It’s a proving ground for love — not romantic, transactional love, although that’s fun too, but love, sacred hearticles that make the world go round kind of love. Love is the process of shift, the estate of expansion, its own galleon for growth.

Wanting to awaken, wanting the world to be more loving, wanting all the wars, big and little, to end, is part of the expansion. Wanting it is far more loving than not giving a damn even though it hurts more overtly, even though it feels like hell … and yet, the wanting gives way to what is, to what in this moment cannot be changed and yet is always changing.

It seems we need to think it, and let it be consumed in the mental fires, before we can recognize we are already it … and yes, at times, it feels like we have to think it way too long … but within that thought, the thoughts that arise and fall over years, perhaps lifetimes, the ache of fruition builds to its natural crescendo, the seed of realization sets down roots and spreads to consume the old way of being.

Love is having its way with us all. It’s all that’s here even when it doesn’t seem that way. The more you can relax and let it be the easier it is, but perhaps easy isn’t in your vocabulary yet.

I love you, and for me anyway, that’s everything.