What's Always Already Open And Free

What's always already open and free gets veiled by seeking it.

We assume that our bondage is the karma of lifetimes,  requiring lifetimes to unbind, when in fact we invent our bondage each moment, and each moment we are free to drop it.

How? Just by allowing thoughts, concepts, and mental images to dissolve back into energy, which is pure consciousness. Such allowing does not require effort, but the dropping of effort. Letting forms return to the formless does not expend energy, but increases energy. Grasping, making a fist, requires energy. Ungrasping releases energy.

This very breath is an opportunity to sweep the mind clear, and fall back into the chaos of the Beloved. Then the universe gushes in, filling the void with star-clusters, chrysanthemums, mountains gleaming in first snow, dragonflies, mushroom spores gushing out of loam, and the sensation of our own heart fiercely softly dancing, weightless as God.

Why do we not immediately see and feel this simple truth? Because we are in bondage to yesterday's mind.

What our nation needs is not the politics of left or right. What we need is to open our heart chakra.

Take some time each day to meditate, to bathe in the radiance of what’s always already open and free. Then, in your chosen work, wherever you serve or play, simply remind each other in a thousand small ways how ineffably beautiful our true nature is.

The radical act is being present. The revolution is to breathe. Postpone the apocalypse, defer the catastrophe, but do not procrastinate this crocus, enfolding the whole golden alfalfa field in an unexpected drop of amethyst, lately come to the motherland. And do not miss the familiar spark in a stranger’s eye.

Gratitude expands the heart. This is the secret of our energy. The world will be gone in an instant, but you still have time to breathe. You could imbibe the sun with your next inhalation. From crown to belly, fill your body with the riotous pollen of joy. Inundate the hollows of sorrow. Let your exhalation transmute lead into gold.

A single shouting flower in this meadow of desolation heralds a new earth. This is not a spiritual exercise. It's how Christ sees the lilies. So'ham. One breath changes everything.

Photo: Autumn crocus near my home