The Epistle?

Epistles were really nothing more than letters. In a way blogs serve the same purpose. But Blogs are more personal letters to ourselves. Perhaps they are letters of affirmation, or letters that provide us an opportunity to think. I just came back from an amazing weekend all by myself. This weekend was the end of a planned month long journey. And a perfect ending it was. Through out the entire weekend I found myself going back to the wise words of Pema Chodron. She says, "it takes death for there to be birth. So, don't be afraid of death." She also says (which I love) "rather than letting our situation get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look. That's the compassionate thing to do. That's the brave thing to do. We could smell that piece of shit. We could feel it.." "We are raised in a culture that fears death and hides from it. Nevertheless we experience it all the time. We experience it in the form of disappointment, in the form of things not working out. But really this provides the proper motivation for an insightful compassionate life." I have never been at such a moment of such grief and such joy in my life. Her book helped me get my arms around this emotion........"if we totally give up all hope of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship; one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death. How transformative is that statement?