a-contemplation-of-gratitude.mp3
a thank you, given sincerely.
this is very likely the last time i will ever directly write to you. even as i am not writing to you, but writing here.
it has taken me a full year to sort out the snarls and weeds encountered as a result of meeting you. in many ways, knowing you was nothing but painful. yet, for all the hurtfulness and selfishness and negativity, because of you, a connection to something perfect and wholesome in ways i could not nourish in you and, because of you, could not nourish in myself has been made.
it is somewhat ironic that something so beautiful should rise from something so utterly ugly as our relation to one another. a rose from a steaming pile of shit. of course, i realize my own discrimination gets in the way. human, still. all the same, for all it is known — that of you, of me — that which is fecund and unable to be otherwise served its purpose.
i wrote some time ago that this date was embossed on my mind. more recently, i wrote of the reluctance with which its primary blessing is forever linked with the unfortunate encounter of you… a spinning contradiction that i both smile and grimace for, thankful that it managed, regardless you, regardless me, to point in the needed direction.
it is an odd feeling to be so completely polarized. it is odd to feel a total disgust and aversion. but even more odd is the slow sense of it already decaying and some unknown result hovering ‘out there’, in some future moment.
in this moment, it is very easy to say i will never again wish to endure you. it is very easy to whisper thankful mantras for the expunging of care. even as i continue to learn things from that of you which remains, in that place where all are one.
i am thankful to you, even as my mouth curls into a repulsed snarl.
thank you for being just as you were, are… for showing me the foolishness of aggressive self-justification in so many ways.
thank you for never bothering to consider others, for setting all decisions firmly upon the altar of self and showing me how doing so creates insurmountable impediments all around.
thank you for insisting on assuming the worst possible motivations of others in every moment, and for communicating them proudly as certainties… you have shown me how such things of myself are infinitely harmful and though it will be a long process to shift this in me, i can now see it, thanks to your example.
thank you for carefully manipulating others to such ends as you would concoct, but never had the temerity to commit yourself. you have shown me how abuse of the trust and belief of others sets bitter seeds in virgin soil… and the horror of experiencing this of you helps me purpose to never again let my efforts as much as breathe upon another to such ends.
thank you for refusing remorse and regret in every moment. in the doing, you have demonstrated to me why both are fundamental to any true effort to become.
thank you for castigating, denigrating, and obfuscating all things to such extremes that any hope of ever unsnarling them had to relent and relinquish. you have taught me in your mindlessness the truth that mindfulness is the key to any and all striving.
thank you for insisting upon never trying to shift yourself, and refusing in every moment to so much as glance at yourself, let alone do so with the same focus and attentiveness lavished so freely upon the flaws and faults of others. you taught me in ways i will never forget how important it is to be an attentive evaluator of view, intent, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.
thank you for setting the phrase ‘not this life’ in such crystalline relief that i will never again shield my eyes from the truth that this life is all and that i must accept the only way to overcome my many ignorances is to persist in setting them in the light and never, ever set my eye from them. to begin now and to continue in every moment.
thank you for every bruise, every cut, everything. you have taught me, by them, to speak only after careful consideration of my words.
thank you for being all these things, to have experienced them from you has allowed me to see them more clearly in myself.
finally, thank you for mouthing the words of Dharma, even if to speak them was all you ever managed in relation to me. because of your speaking, i found the precious stream in this life.
the hurt and harm will be neutralized for this one, most perfect gift. some day. in the meantime, i speak of what i feel, find, and think and continue working my plodding slow way to learning.
and i forgive you all things even as i insist on turning my entire being from you in every way. all ways but one. thank you, thank you, thank you, and fare well.