It is a very strange feeling. There was no plan of what sorts. Although the family stays pretty nearby and it was a no-brainer to head there to just spend moments together, yet the heart just wanted a quiet night with the little one. There was then this thought of curiosity of how I had spent last year’s eve and did not have any memory of it. It was rather strange, as if some memory of the past were totally wiped out. And then there was a recall that I spent the eve at my teacher’s center, singing and chanting with many. It was a beautiful night filled with lights and loving ambience.
Many, at this time, would be reflecting the past experiences encountered and planning for the year ahead, toggling right here and now between the past and the future. I can imagine some people finding thrills in it. I remember I did. And there will be those too, who would treat today or tomorrow as any other day, except the flip of a calendar date. I remember, I was that too.
Somehow I could not relate the memory of my past moments as a ‘year’ that went by, because it seems very near, and yet also very far. When the memory presents itself, the emotions arises with it and hence making it near because of the experience of emotions, yet because there is a recognition of what arises as memory, it also seems very far away yet being experienced now. Again, a strange and interesting feeling.
The other day, a beloved friend visited and asked me how I was coping without the guardian angel (she had to go back to her home country for a long duration of time), the new job, the daughter and etc. Admittedly, I told her that it was a little tough initially. Yet gradually, there is much ease into the routine and sudden increase in activities. It is how and what people would put it as ‘getting used to’ or being adaptive too. In my experience, it was really about Acceptance.
These past few months were truly a process of coming into being. It is as if I was on a retreat of my own amidst the environment of a daily buzy-fied surrounding full of activities from moment to moment.
True Happiness is Accepting What Is. And I have noticed that True Happiness is not necessarily of those where you laugh out loud and jump around like a kangaroo and it also does not have to deny unpleasant feelings. In fact, it accepts unhappiness, anger, depression, anguish and all its other relatives. True Happiness is beyond the myriad of emotions that we could be experiencing at any moment, despite the external environment, including our own behavior.
We often forget that we have placed many conditions before what is accessible to us without the conditions. We place conditions upon others, the environment and even ourselves in order to achieve what we thought we could get after all conditions have been fulfilled. Yet, if only we had taken a little time to simply come into being…
So as the clock ticks into the dawn of 2013, here’s wishing all a loving year of True Acceptance.
May you finally arrive at where you started, for when you come to the beginning, you have come to the end with a brand new beginning of Love Wisdom. 🙂