How do we live in this world? From where do we respond? Are we in touch enough with the place of the heart so that we can speak to a roommate that is difficult for us from a place of openness, from a place from where we don’t disconnect?

None of us are good. None of us are bad. And we are all going to die.

I don’t have to wait for gratitude to happen to me. There are opportunities to practice it now and let it fluoresce in the heart.

How do we get back in contact with those possibilities for us to live in a playful, creative, connected, curious, courageous way?

Maybe we don’t want to even recognize that we are in pain. We are still refusing to recognize how much we are all in pain and how much the world is in pain. But when we can begin to hear the pain that is being expressed through our bodies, we begin to melt, we begin to mourn and grief that which created the pain. And we’re flowing again.

What is at stake? What is at stake for ourselves? What is at stake in my life? What is at stake when I resist? What is at stake when I insist on separation? What is at stake when I don’t know what to do? What is at stake when I am confusing myself purposely? All the time, whatever is going on, in terms of my intention – what is at stake?

As our lives come into being, as we become, we learn about sickness, old age and death. It becomes life, loss, gain, or what we see as gain and loss. And what we do with it, in terms of how we create our own suffering from those changes that happen, from the life that happens.

Zazen is a way I would offer to open to relationality and to open to spaciousness in a full life.

We are afraid to break open, afraid to cry. And that is exactly what my invitation is. Go hear stories, be in community. It’s not just about right and wrong and seing our responsibility. It’s about grief.

We can’t acknowledge impermanence in the world if we can’t acknowledge it in ourselves. And it’s frightening.