4 and a half months and counting...

That's how long I have left. 4 1/2 months, more or less.

I've been asking myself, more than ever, how I want to spend those days. Honestly, I've been questioning whether or not to continue the Year to Live practice at all. It's been a hard road lately. Meditation, once my refuge, has become something...well, scary. A place where I really face up to my demons. Where I see them clearly for what they are, where they came from, and (sometimes) let go of them.

Sometimes. More often, I find myself in bed at the end of the day, having been "too busy" to meditate.

This is what I do, I guess. I get busy (stop snickering, Cape). I find 1,000 ways to occupy my time, usually with work. And of course, some of that is necessary. I need to work, to get clients, to research, to write. That's what I do.

But lately it's all been a blur. Too much, too fast. No time to be present.

Amazing, isn't it? I mean, really, there's always time to be present. In fact, that's all there is. this moment is it. And yet I keep waiting for the next, and the next, and the next. Trying to stave off...what?

I don't have any real problems right now, at least not compared to the last year or two. I have some money coming in, a job I really love, good friends, a great relationship. There's no recent traumatic event that I'm reeling from. But here I am, with just as much suffering as when things were darkest.

Maybe I'm just more aware of it, so I see it more clearly. A constant background noise--a static-y buzz that digs into my heart and sets my nerves on fire. The feeling of constant, never-ending discontent. Craving.

Ah. See, that's why I write this. It helps me see clearly. When I write things out, the 10,000 little buzzing thoughts that rattle aruond in my head fall neatly into line. I'm forced to focus on what I'm really trying to convey, what my real experience is. when I write--really write, when I'm not self-editing but just letting things flow--it's very meditative. Moreso than just about anything else I do.

Before, when my life took a sudden and harsh shift, the suffering of others was all I could see. My own pain reflected back at me...but more than that, I could see, for the first time, how others suffered. In a deep and very real way. Out of that perception grew more compassion, more caring, more mercy and forgiveness--for myself and others. After all, if we're all suffering in our own way, it's hard to hold a grudge against somebody. Not to say I have no grudges, of course...

Then, after a few months, a new awareness came: Fear. Fear was all I could see, and it dominated my meditation. Anxiety, worry, all the related emotions came up. But I had guidance, and I understood that this way simply another level of awareness. "Oh, here's what's causing that suffering--all that worry and anxiety and fear!".

Now it's shifted again. Now I see craving, and it's twin aversion. The constant hunger for more, for something else, for things to be different. To have everything the way it "should be". To not have to put up with difficult emotions or people. To just "have a normal life".

And I think that's underneath the fear, the root of it. The root of everything.

Of course that's what Buddhism teaches. Suffering is caused by craving. I knew that. I knew it was true the first time I read it, 20+ years ago.

But to see it, to feel the truth of that in my bones...that's something very different. Beyond words.