Is it Possible in this Lifetime?

To awaken?

One of the questions I've asked myself and have determined given my brain injury and the difficulty life presents to me. That it is probably not possible. I'm not defeated, meanwhile, I try to maintain a good intention. Thinking after coming from a week of service at Vipassana, recently. Which was a great way to integrate daily living and interacting with others, while doing meditation 3 times a day. I was able to observe myself constantly and reflect on misdoings.

I found this poem to be appropriate:

Upward
by Tony Hoagland courtesy of Sun Magazine

With the help of Zen,

my old friend Jack

dissolved his disagreements

with the world,

purified his quarrels,

shushed his ego,

stopped biting back

when bitten,

and gradually had

no opinions

other than wise ones.

And so our friendship

lost its bones and meatiness,

because it is clear to

me that I

am not going to humanly

improve

but will be

forever benighted

by shadow and abrasion.

I will keep eating my experience

with a certain

indigestion and

shitting out opinions

to the end.

Goodbye, my friend, goodbye, I say

quietly to myself

like a character

in some science-fiction novel

as I watch the

smooth spaceships of Zen

slip the heavy harness

of the earth

and rise into the weightlessness

of space,

leaving a few

hundred million of us

behind,

weeping and holding on

to our stormy weather

and our extended

allegiance to stones.