Posted: 2/11/2015
So Bahari! Nanda Sena! Sam! Mamu! Uncle! Maca!
Whatever you're called these days—where are you now?
In this moment, in this time and space—where are we at?
Who are you?
Where have you come from, where have you been, and where are you truly headed?
Are we near, or are we far from our final destination?
And what is this destination, really—what lies in the afterlife?
How have you spent your allotted sixty-odd years on this planet?
Was it fruitful? Worth your while?
What have you learned from being here, dwelling in this fragile time and space?
What do we have to share between us and all our fellow creatures—large and small, crawling and running, flying and swimming in our oceans?
What has our presence here meant—amidst all the comforts, joys, beauty, and love—amidst all the horrors, pain, and suffering that we inflicted upon ourselves and one another?
What have we left behind?
You’ve walked the sacred lands of the Apache Nation at the Gila National Monument in Silver City, southern New Mexico, on the borders of the Sonoran Desert.
You sat in the nest of the Bald Eagle at the edge of Sand Point, deep in the Aleutian chain.
You braved the cold Alaskan winds and meditated atop a pillar of rocks out in the Bering Sea.
Where are you now?
For three years, I worked in the cold rooms of Packerland Packing and Green Bay Meats in Wisconsin, meat-cutting for nine to ten hours a day in temperatures below 45°F.
You could see your own breath as you worked—boning beef, separating meat from bone, one hundred heads of cattle a day, all for hamburger.
It was the worst—and the best—of times.
I had a wife and a five-month-old son to raise, in a new land far from Penang.
But I was there—and I did that—and I survived.
Where I’ve been and what I’ve done—these are the threads that make up the fabric of my past.
And I keep looking back to share these stories—my path—my way of getting to where I want to be.
I lived as close to my will as I could.
But I let my ego override my better judgment, let my head rule over my heart.
For this, I’ve paid—and still am paying.
I divorced.
I let go of my first son while working as a meat cutter in Green Bay.
That is one regret I carry.
Yet, his life turned out well:
He is now a Captain in the Emirates fleet.
His mother lives a good life in Germany.
Not such a bleak ending, after all—nothing that a little Love and Compassion can’t heal.
I walked the empty streets of Pompeii, Italy, one cold and rainy afternoon, the wind whispering from Mount Vesuvius.
There, I saw a version of myself—one who is now no more—become who I was.
At the Green Gulch Zen Center, after arranging a tray full of Chinese soup bowls, I saw it—
a white lotus of a thousand petals, blooming right before my eyes.
It was a moment of awakening.
My practice instructor looked at me through thick glasses.
We bowed.
He whispered,
“Sometimes it happens.”
Yes.
I, who I am—this, too, is no more.
It has become who I am
.
No—I have not done enough.
Not worked hard enough to ease the suffering in myself or in others.
But I’ve come to understand—at least in part—my purpose in life.
And even then, it remains hazy.
I have followed the Masters, listened to them, walked in their footsteps, sat before them.
I am who I am.
And this, too, will pass.
#WhoAmI #LifeJourney #SoulReflections #SpiritualAwakening #ZenPractice #PastAndPresent #ThisTooShallPass #AleutianDreams #GreenBayDays #InnerPilgrimage #LotusMoments #PompeiiWhispers #WanderersPath #LegacyInWords #FromPenangToTheWorld #LoveRegretGrowth #Transcendence #AwakeInTheNow #SeekerOfTruth #MemoryAndMeaning
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