When I was 19 years old and living in NYC, I had an inkling to stick out my thumb and go for broke, coast-to-coast.
At the time it was all about the open door, a battered map, and my desire to experience . . . and frankly, proving to myself that I actually would/could do it.
Well I did, all the way.
After four months I made it back home and went on with life as best as I thought I could.
In the years since much has happened — a full life, dotted with surprising successes and heart-breaking failures; much joy and sadness.
And while I always carried – treasured, actually – the memories of my travels, it has taken later-in-life exposure to the lineage of Tibetan Buddhist perspectives and practices to allow it all to manifest into one very simple empowering, and now guiding, truth.
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No matter how far one travels, with sights seen or experiences collected, it is our own mind in which the whole world lies, and once we learn how to look and learn, its door of entry appears, with our very own key in-hand.
There is no one who can provide us with that key, or bring us to the door it opens.
Only we can do it, and the methodologies for doing so are neither mysterious, uncomfortable or onerous.
Nor are they a means to themselves.
Intuitively practical, they bring about a goodness born of inner wisdom . . . a goodness that needs no motives . . . knows no limits.
Such is the pure nature of mind.
Mine, yours, all beings’.
***
~If this resonates with you, neither grief or a broken heart, or fear, precludes you from experiencing it.