Keeping rose in your pocket

I was listening closely over the snorting of an espresso machine at Starbucks. Why did we pick starbucks to meet? With a hearing loss it was difficult, but it still worked. Those green green eyes of hers brimming with tears, I really didn't even need to hear every word to be listening to her. It was a lay ministry meeting with a church member who requested pastoral care, which just means, they need to talk, and someone needs to listen. So I did. It was wonderful. How is it that diving ears first into a stranger's grief can make me happy? I think it is just the diving in, diving deep with any good heart that is the good part.

We talked about her growing Buddhist perspective and her loss, too many losses. "Life is suffering," the first principle of Buddhism; it is a difficult principle to swallow. But I like it. When we are surrounded by the be happy culture, the make me happy culture, the I deserve to be happy culture, the I demand that something make me happy now culture, it is calming to remember that life is suffering, filled with grief and pain. The reason that is a good thing to accept is that once you take that as the baseline, then it doesn't piss you off so bad. It doesn't seem so unfair. The "why should I have to suffer?" question can be set aside. It isn't you, it is just life. I am beginning to get that. I have a child with disabling incurable illness that will kill her if she doesn't have an accident first. How does a mother take in that kind of thing? My mother decided my future is to be a homeless person, our culture's untouchables. How does one take in that level of rejection? It is a good day when I don't have constant joint pain and diarrhea. It just is. And I know my suffering is trivial compared to others. But the good part about "life is suffering" is that everything else is a bonus. So when I got to sit at the warm starbucks and drink tea with a beautiful woman that is Bonus, little pieces of heaven that rise up out of the suffering. Once you get okay with "life is suffering," then the jewels in time rise up and sparkle. But only for a moment for all things are impermanent. We have the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, but catching it is another matter, and holding on to it is like keeping a rose in your pocket.