What I have materially and spiritually is sufficient for today and at all times, regardless of what other people, society, the computer, my internal mind-ego voice, my body-mind-senses, my ancestors, my partner, my teachers (past present and future), and even animals say, believe and/or indicate. There are enough materials, time, space, permission, solitude, community, personal and impersonal love. I AM enough, and I do not need to do or not do anything to prove it to myself or others or God, regardless of the unworthy feeling that never goes away completely, yet I must live life and perform actions and duties.
I don’t mind trying to develop a better attitude towards the endless chores and duties that maintain the modern way of life. I do not expect to be exempted from the need to learn through action and experience, sowing and reaping, but I do need to balance it with the “pleasure” that I feel just being in the park or woods, or going on a hike, or going to a yoga class, or standing in “T” in Times Square, or practicing and experimenting with body and breath alone or with others.
I am most thankful for my health and awareness of the unhappy nature of my mind. I am thankful for a partner, family, teachers and friends who allow me time, space, and freedom to explore the question “Who am I”. I am thankful for participating in a system that attempts compassion, forgiveness, and justice and allows freedom of expression, investigation and exploration of “Who am I”. I am thankful for being able to endure both its success and its failure, my success and failure, our success and failure.
I am thankful for access to divine wisdom, which allows me to see the futility of all of the planning, effort, and goals. I am thankful for putting forth the effort even though I know its futility. I am thankful for knowing that absolutely nothing belongs to me. I am thankful for seeing the obsessions of my mind, how I seek perfection and security and happiness where it will not be found in any lasting way. I am thankful for knowing that neither achievement nor perfection nor success nor failure bring me to reality.
I am thankful for knowing that it is impossible for the body-mind not to be affected by the karma of myself as well as other people and beings in painful as well as pleasant ways, expected and unexpected. I am thankful for whatever access I have to the awareness of knowing that who I truly am is not affected by these experiences of karma, no matter how it appears to myself or others.