Grief

How lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. Many people are not so fortunate. I do not do the best job of letting all of the wonderful people in my life know how wonderful I think they are. That is something I should improve.

I was sad to hear yesterday that a friend of mine recently lost her grandmother. Death is unavoidable, but just knowing that does not make it much easier to lose someone you love. In Buddhism, as I'm sure with most religions, part of your practice includes learning to understand and accept death as the natural end to life. No one tries to pretend that the death of a loved one will ever make a person feel good, but to learn to accept it as what must be, to learn to accept the impermanent state of all things, can make the fear and therefore the pain a bit less. I don't believe a person will ever not grieve - accepting where you are and what you're feeling at each moment includes accepting sadness. I think grieving equates to the "recognizing you have a thought" moments in zazen. And after you recognize you have a thought the next step is to let it go. Grieve, and then let go.

Easy to say, hard to do.