Work is going well this week - I am getting deeper into router and switch configuration than ever before, and there is a tremendous amount of documentation to do where none exists or what there is does not reflect the ways things are put together. I'm not as afraid of being unable to deliver high performance in a job, and unable to cope with everyday life as I had been in recent weeks.

Part of the reason these activities - and various other facets of life - are seeming more like fun and not some sort of punishment is the way all the reading has converged on the subject of reducing the amount of time spent mentally dwelling in the past and future. Between Pema Chödrön's "Comfortable with Uncertainty" and the "Power of Now" book by Eckhart Tolle I am seeing this basic requirement for a happy life and emotional health presented in a variety of convincing ways.

Add to that a careful watching of an old recording of Dr. Wayne Dyer and his Power of Intention program and Alan Watts in some intriguing cassette lectures from the beat era, and you have an unavoidable confrontation with some fundamental tenets of the human condition. All of these sources tap into thousands of years of demonstrated benefit from a more honest and straightforward relation to existence than what we are so often saddled with by our conditioning.



One of the most powerful of the Buddhist teachings is that as long as there is struggle to achieve or avoid something, it will never be brought into or kept out of our lives. Once one is able to peacefully abide, things have a way of happening as they were meant to in the grand scheme of things.

And no matter what takes place, at least there can be peace of mind and some appreciation for the life that happens while trudging along the path.



Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

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