What would you like to learn today?

Great question!

The school of Buddhism I belong to has a supplication we refer to, and two of the lines are as follows:

"Awareness is the body of meditation, as is taught,
Whatever arises is fresh, the essence of realization."

Awareness means being 100% here in all aspects, at every moment. The challenges every day are different, hence, "whatever arises is fresh." I can't work off yesterdays revelations, today they might still be a reality, but nuanced. I can't live in yesterdays moments.

However, depending on how long I've been asleep, sometimes it takes focusing on an issue in meditation for a while, to realize the changes necessary to develop the awareness needed.

In a nutshell, I want to learn my lessons as they happen. I want to learn to be vulnerable to correction. I want to see those fresh arisings, and integrate them. I want to learn today to be more aware than I was yesterday.

I received a response from this post, which became a rumination for me today while I was playing Santa Claus for the local nursery.

Yea, weird, I know. But believe it or not, and maybe this is weirder, half or better of those that stop in bring their pets for a picture of Santa. It's a great way to meet dogs and neigbors.

But I was a bit sad today, with the void of my mother-in-law walking on. So that's sort of the milieu I found myself in emotionally as I approached a three hour set of photos of kids and dogs with Santa.

Well, an earlier poster reminded me of the second two lines of the two I posted earlier. They state:

To this mediator who rests simply without altering it,
Grant your blessings that my meditation be free from conception.

So there I was with my arising, which happened today to be the sadness around my mother-in-law never being seen or heard from again. And I realized that this arising is what I need to rest in without altering it. And that's a rub we all run into.

I've been an addict. And I agree with the assessment that addiction is first and foremost an emotional dis-ease. The action of addiction is to cover the dis-ease. And it becomes cyclical, and if we add a physically adddictive substance, it adds a double whammy. So my addictive tendency is to "cover" pain with something that provides an emotional "high:" lets try a few shall we.

Drugs of couse alter reality. But ignoring my situation can involve a good fiction book, that transports one into a different part of or different world altogether.  It can drift into pusuing that elusive and forbidden relationship that tingles with sexual tension that never materializes, but becomes the source of the rush. It can drift into activity, like committees and boards and causes. Head rushing on the intellect and meeting a great challenge in a discussion is always a thrill isn't it? Especially in politically diversive times....

So rest with the pain. Don't alter it. make it my friend, and know it. As Thoreau is attributed to saying,

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend it and cherish it until it comes to have a searate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.