A gentle and humble mind

I mimic the wise, even when I don't feel entirely kind.  It remains the way I keep my mind gentle and humble, to bow before those who are sentient.  Who am I, to decide I should be right, when like a child I dress up in serious business, this corporate employee mother and wife has to earn her right to breathe by making sure those who depend on her are met fully with everything she can be.  But this mama be lazy by nature, and I notice I find excuses to procrastinate till it's almost too late, and then spurred by the pressure I cram everything I can to produce something exceptionally distilled.

It's a subtle pride that can set in around the practice, the easiest method to meet the pitfalls of one's own self-patting is to balance it with healthy doses of reality, met in the form of challenge/obstacle.  So do the eyes of my teacher seem to say.  Having your presence so near became so quickly a habit, I miss the wry notes of infinitely gentle correction combine with the vast depth that rich laugh bore.  You know the kind... I'm sure you do, it's full, laughter that bubbles up thunderous and joyful, from the belly up.

If you're like me, you live always juggling the awkward imperfect sense of reality without imposing your expectations upon what seems to be.  But you always look so much gracious than I, I see every little blemish and flaw in my own eyes, but your mere presence let me see it is not me I'm even seeing.  I'm not that awkward clumsy in between, I simply live in the perpetual effort to be more like what good I see in the eyes of those who walk a life's path of kindness.

Regardless of form, at the heart of mind is joy.  I met it like a soundtrack of laughter on a comedy show, the preprogrammed stereotypical "applause" or "awww" tracks.  I would respond with the automatic feed when I'd hook onto what I'd buy into, till I saw the heart of someone who lost everything and came to give joy to those she could touch.  Framed in robes, her story was just in a parentheses of suffering, a story as common as a dime, but she found like I have that joy lies in what you can give, which normally resides in the sweet spot of having just enough.

Having just enough is a state of mind.  The perfect balance of love and want with all absence of hate.  How counterintuitive that the most complex task to master requires the simplest technique, exchanging self for others.  The objective I learned was not to rid myself of my desires, I feel like I've been forged in the heat of my desire, the constant longing for genuine truth.  I fed myself to that which ate me, very gently, very slowly, but eventually enough of me was gone to see what the truth is.

There is a subtle error present in the way self-importance shapes need and desire.  That I should be "right" is what leads to a precipice of pain.  I've fallen off that cliff, and now I know, it's better to not jump ahead, and not assume that the wise are not as wise as I.  I remember it's them I pretend to be, even when I don't feel entirely kind, it is always better to be the one who's kind than the one who's wise.  The former can be done by any human.  The latter has the tremendous danger to lead us into the filter that holds our vision captive: pride.

Then I wonder, is reflection on the nature of emptiness and the realization of this truth sufficient to shake off this mental mold I've made myself over countless lives... then I know... what I prioritize is what will materialize.

I only aim to keep a gentle and humble mind.