Wow.  A lot of time, life, joy and angst have passed since I last wrote a blog post here.  Where have I been?  It is difficult to say, even more difficult to remember.  The last year has been a blur of trying to make a living, a struggle to keep the things I own, part time teaching, part time working, part time wandering around in a haze of confusion.  In summary, a full time struggle.

I realized that I have been in the vortex of the Buddha's First Noble Truth, driven by the Second Noble Truth.  I realized this today, actually, as I was reading from St. Francis de Sales The Devout Life.  My struggle, my craving as it is, is to keep things.  It is also to live as a Bodhisattva in this world.  These two struggles are in themselves futile.  One can never keep things, because one will ultimately die and in the end lose everything material.  One can not make oneself a Bodhisattva, that comes from a place that cannot be forced.  St Francis wrote that the more we struggle to be seen as humble and righteous, the less humble and righteous we become, and so it goes.

In one of the gospel readings for today, which is Pentecost Sunday in the liturgical Christian world, Jesus offers his disciples peace, not the peace that the world gives, but the peace that only comes from God, the peace he offers us through the coming of the Holy Spirit, the helper, the paraclete, after his death.  The peace that comes from surrender of the soul, the enlightenment through the Eight Fold Path, the secret to hacking the struggle.  It doesn't just happen, it takes effort.  But it shouldn't be a struggle.