I walk the line


Somewhere between born and unborn, alive and dead, this life and the next, the past and the future, I walk the line.
This awareness has become increasingly clear to me recently, and I find it fascinating and liberating. I see it as helping to open up this space that I occupy, and find that grasping for attachments is truly an illusion that I have created in my mind.
How do any of us draw a line, creating a space that is exclusive and separate? Where is that line exactly that separates us not only from each other, but from past and present, living and non-living?
Am I not truly my Mother and my Father, and are you not my Brothers and Sisters?

The Buddha taught us about Dependent Origination (Paticca-samuppada), and without trying to explain that here, I can simply refer to this teaching as offering additional clarity on this reality.
Simply observing this consciousness that we have right now, I find it easier to see that without me there is no you. Just as there is no you without my consciousness. These are mental formations on both our parts and they fool us into thinking there is a separateness between us. And it is the observation of this that allows me to see the barriers between “living” and “non-living” as being identically delusional.

Perhaps this all sounds very lofty and “quantum theory”, but I actually am finding it firmly grounded in the present experience of the breath. Starting with the breath, anyone can see that we do not own this breath or control it. This is the same breath that we all share, and that offers life to this body we inhabit. Seeing this, I think it begins to expose how connected we all are at a core level. And I’m sure this was part of Buddha’s intention in teaching us to meditate and focus on the breath. The presence of it, the reality, the connection to the self and all other beings.
And I believe that once we cease to breathe, it is only an opportunity to drop the perceptions of this reality, this consciousness, and experience a more profound truth. We are not just here or there.

May you be well, happy and peaceful.