This Calendar Year...

...comes to an end today.

It's strange that we measure time so minutely. Scientists have it measured to the nanosecond. It categorizes each instant as if it were a separate entity unto itself, instead of the continuum it is.

Yesterday at Sangha, during our book discussion, a 20+ year practitioner pointed out that enlightenment is a continual process of learning and realization. You don't practice, practice, practice and then one day enlightment strikes. It is ongoing. Awakeness is an on-going practice. Pema Chodron also alluded to this in her interview with Bill Moyers on his Faith and Reason special. We watched it again last night and it was so good, again.

Yet, we westerners are programmed to hope that this year ends today and perhaps the new one, which starts tomorrow, will be better or different. As if each year were a chapter of our life. As if what is going on in our lives, who we are, will be different tomorrow because the calendar has changed. We attribute the hardships or good fortune we've experienced in the past year to luck, rather than our karma or our decisions to behave in certain ways. There is always the effects of other people's karma that we witness and can cause us pain or not. And so we hope that those we love will be safe, healthy and prosperous too.

I am not a nihilist, nor do I believe in fate. I do believe in karma, as a constant, and I do believe you can consciously create karma, whether negative or positive and that can effect your future life and lives. Painful experiences will still occur to me and to those I love, and to the world at large. And that is just life. I can willfully end this life, but I cannot willfully end life, as I believe I will come back again and again until not only I get it right, but I have vowed to come back again and again and again until all beings take the opportunity to get it right.

So "the calendar's changing, the pages fell off, but the singer remains the same." Lyrics by Harry Nilson, fromMr. Richland's Favorite Song