Only the Wonderful Remains

We often forget that in just a few years, especially when compared to Earth’s age, we will soon be dead and all our worries will die with us. Hopefully, you have not dumped them on to another friend or family member like cooties, forgetting that they have their own worries. I leaned over to speak with a woman on the plane, separated by an unfilled seat and we talked about flying. Started the conversation with a curiosity, noting a radio she had in hand. She had it to listen to the control tower lingo, and added that she also flew. “It’s easy to learn, and you just got to get up with an instructor and see if you like it.” She told me that he had to stop flying when her kids were born, but now older and have they left home …she can resume her flying hobby. She was small, and she joked about being able to stand without bending over underneath the overhead compartments.


I offered my view that we so often look at what is wrong or bad, instead of looking to what is good in every situation. I know I still gravitate much easier to what I don’t like in any given situation. Even last night, exhausted I woke up, unable to sleep, feeling angry, but able to laugh at myself and quickly pick up a book that I am reading. It is interesting enough to wind me back down. I do like silence when I read with my aphasia, to get the most out a book and be fully absorbed. So it worked to my favor, waking up unexpectedly. This is one of the small miracles of life that we could be easily be happy about but pass it over quickly to being upset. Moving back to a world that seen has a lot more earthquakes, floods, wars, and economic downturns than we ever possible imagine, all our worries pale in comparison. We are really just a speck on a fly in existence in the cosmic scheme of things and our ability to look beyond is purely an awareness that we can learn and adopt. This adoption saves us from despair and depression instead of our normally small view of our life we maintain just to boost our ego.


Life is a truly a dream,
All troubles I alone create
When I stop creating, the trouble stops.
With a single mind, with an unbounded heart
We wake up to the Wonderful Existence
within True Emptiness
That we are in the middle of right now.
When all the world ceases to exist,
Only the Wonderful remains.

— Bhikshu Heng Chau