is it possible for us to find happiness with just this?
with just this moment as it is?
with its frailty, its delicate and persistent heartache?
with its sadness and weight?
can i see also resilient beauty hiding in forms masked?
can i hear music that speaks of Love as no word can?
can i see life in death and wholeness in what otherwise feels broken and sick?
is it possible for me to find happiness with just this?
this is the beginning of our practice
this is our path
~j
The Metta Garden 
it’s so simple…and I intellectually know it…but I forget it so easily…I know the moments when this has been true for me, I can see them, but still I forget to practice it…
Now, I must know that even this experience of reading and reflecting is the thing…To be happy in anything, to just choose it as a mental state….to be free of the stress I choose…
Thankfully, I have reminders such as your beautiful words to keep me aimed at now.
Love you.
thank you for commenting, dear friend. i’m right there with you. it is a practice, for sure…so easy to fall back into old patterns of thought…so often it is easy to live the dramas of yesterday and dream of tomorrow without fully living here and now…connecting, listening, loving. it helps give perspective to entertain the question, “what if this is it? can i be happy? have i known love? what if it is ‘just this?”
love to you, dear sojourning friend ~j