Cattāri Brahmavihārā

I feel like it has been a long time since I was able to think about much else beyond money and my business. Lately, and I mean the last few days, my practice has been cut to shreds and reduced to a simple bearing witness to and standing under the sheer weight of it during formal meditation. At times I’ll catch a glimpse of the breath before it darts back into the gloomy tangle of obsessive thinking but that’s it. It feels almost as if there is no relief sometimes but that belies just how deep my delusion has gone–forgetting the truth of anicca and thinking that any conditioned experience could last forever is to be far from the Path.

So, just what is my duty here? To see dukkha, to understand it, to practice the path to be free from it and to find release. Not easy and especially so in a world that is as driven by money as ours. Even my teachers here in NYC are constantly reminding us to give and, now that I am unable, I am even ashamed to visit them any longer. So, what does that speak to? Obviously it speaks to what’s in my own heart and says more about my own misunderstanding than it does about my teachers.

It is always helpful for me to reflect at times like this on the reality of impermanence and the fact that dukkha will be as my shadow even if I were to have all the wealth in the world. Where is security? What is wealth? The Lord Buddha answered these questions and my obsessions reflect just how little the Dhamma has penetrated. Anicca vata sankhara.