DAY 365+78

me and the birds

I went to the park the other day, still thinking about events of past week, trying to keep on slowing down my mind and recovering peace 


The afternoon was cloudy and the predicted rain seemed to be delayed, the park was lonely and quiet:

paths looked like no one had never ever walked through them,

trees were having sweet conversations by shaking their leaves,

bloomed flowers were trembling and rustling while opening their core to observers,

the wind was sighing subtlely and the world seemed to get around on tiptoe


But birds were flapping their wings, pecking about. They were twittering like there was not tomorrow:

defying silence

singing their joy

dancing their little dances

celebrating their tiny epiphanies

without paying attention to weather forecast, omitting past resentments


Life looks so perfect today, I said to myself. And then, I rectified and said, Life is perfect now, because indeed it was. And suddenly, this acknowledgement gained importance, made sense, and dealing with the hard stuff in my work seemed much easier to me


Life can be not that that perfect every day and we don´t have to feign such thing, we just have to stay with it a big longer every time. This is the training we need to appreciate the sweet moments that everydayness always brings and to be able to recognize (and enjoy!) the perfect days which come to meet us

If we persist in doing that, when those moments and days will arrive we ´ll not waste our time having regrets, longing for what we have had and we have lost or dreaming of the bright days to come, on the contrary:

we´ll be able to sing our joy,

dance our little dances

and celebrate our tiny epiphanies

DAY 365+77

the practice

"If you remember nothing else, always remember this one great secret of spiritual practice: we don't have to feel any particular way. We don't have to have special experiences, nor do we have to be any particular way. With whatever arises, whether it's pleasing or not, try to remember that all we can do is experience and work with whatever our life is right now. No matter what life is and no matter how we feel about it, all that matters in practice is whether we can honestly acknowledge what is going on, and then stay present with the physical experience of that moment."


Ezra Bayda

DAY 365+76

this place

So here I am again, in this same place , after a busy, exhausting and stormy week 

Here I am, alone, trying to clear my mind and bring back some peace to my heart, to soften the ridges of my thoughts that are revolving the same issues, trying to calm down my anger, to let go my disappointments... and to recover serenity

Here I am, alone, in this same place metaphorically (and literally) speaking

Here I am, alone, in this place of inner bewilderment. I would have said -just a week ago- that I am too old already to feel perplex, maybe not too old to feel wounded, but too old to feel puzzled. I would have said that nothing about human behavior could take me by surprise after all the things I have lived myself, after all the things I have read and listened. Oh, how naive!. Indeed, after a week of meetings with my co-workers aimed at arrange next academic course, I am totally amazed (and believe me, not in the best sense of the word) 

I am also annoyed and a bit distressed. This is not so strange; those meetings usually have that effect on my mood. But this huge astonishment is new, maybe because we have reached new (and unbelievable) levels of verbal and psychological aggression

Here I am, trying to find out the reasons why we have reached that point. Trying to persuade myself to keep the faith in what I do (in teaching) regardless those battles... but is not easy

Here I am, alone, in this place of self-purification. Trying to cleanse my soul, trying to purge the ire, to filter the waste of acrimony that past week has left inside me. Here I am, in this place of self-acknowledgement. Trying to pull out by the roots the "should" and the "could", even when a little voice inside me is wondering how I am going to survive and keep my professional dignity without them

Here I am, alone, in this place of self-confession. Trying to figure out how I am going to deal with these new evidences of indifference and where is the subtle distinction between acceptance and becoming myself an indifferent person

Here I am, inhaling peace, exhaling sadness; inhaling hope, exhaling failed expectations; inhaling clarity, exhaling frustration

Finally, answers come: 

If you are not doing (or experiencing) what you want, then learn to want what you´re doing (or experiencing) and all the things this involves, except when by trying this your essence ends up damaged, when this causes your soul pain. You don´t need to want what breaks your wings and ruins your gifts. You don´t need to want what scares away your bliss

Loving what is really means get real about life and yourself, means learning the lessons and trying to get ahead if necessary, it doesn´t mean delighting in suffering or coming to a standstill because of your (often justified) expectations. You must let the world and people be as they are and act accordingly 

I inhale and exhale once more time

Maybe is time to turn this page. Maybe is time to move on. Again

DAY 365+75

undisguised truth

"Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity."

Lao Tzu

DAY 365+74

life is fragile and unpredictable 
and things can change from one moment to another: 

You go to bed being a child and you awake having grown up 
You wake up smiling and go to bed sobbing 
You go to bed trusting someone and wake up disappointed 
You wake up frustrated and go to bed thrilled 
You wake up being strong and go to bed feeling helpless 
You go to bed in love and wake up alone 
You wake up with no hopes and go to bed trusting the future 
You go to bed fascinated and awake disconcerted 
You go to bed joyful and wake up in pain 
You wake up hating and go to bed forgiving 

And vice versa. Because life is fragile and unpredictable and things can change from one moment to another. Whether if we like it or not

Even when we want to fool ourselves,  we end up learning that this is the only truth we know for sure. No matter if this  sounds paradoxical and contradicts the previous assertion  

This used to scare me very much.  I felt victim of chance. I felt swindled because nothing would last forever, because nothing would be as I expected, because nothing would be constant 

And this continued to happen till I started to understand that maybe this could be an odd blessing which could be meant to create awareness and mindfulness. A gift in disguise that could make feasible to see tragedies coming to an end and suffering giving way to peace 

Till I started to understand that (just like fear does, just like ache does) hope and bliss also come from change


...till I finally understood that all this forms the obverse and reverse of existence