There were a few days last week when I’d nearly convinced myself that I should talk to my doctor about getting on some anti-depressants. Am I depressed? I have no idea. Maybe. Or maybe I’m just a year and a half into sobriety and getting older. For the time being, that’s my stance.
I was driving home from work today and, rather than listen to NPR News, which I find insanely sobering, I listened to my go-to “feel better” song by Free Energy. It’s good. I promise.
And as it has over and over again in the past few weeks, this imagery creeps into my consciousness.
Buddha taught that human rebirth was insanely difficult to attain. In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha presented this concept with simile. Imagine a vast, vast ocean. In that ocean floats a yoke, blown by the winds. At the bottom of the ocean lives a blind tortoise, one that only comes to the surface once in every hundred years. As difficult as it would be for the turtle to surface with its head through the opening of the yoke, just so difficult as it is to be born as a human being.
In the midst of day-to-day banality and global uncertainty and my near-constant anxiety, this image helps me. To just remember, through the duration of a song, how utterly and unquestionably fortunate I am to be here… it’s astounding. It’s humbling. And it’s beautiful.
Heyyyy, look. I wrote a blog.
Very nice darling. It IS beautiful isn’t it?