Sitting outside early on a Sunday morning, I found a meditation on line that was just Tibetan bowls, and bells. I often use guided meditations, at least guided for a few minutes, but this morning, I didn’t want anyone else’s words. It is quiet, there are birds chirping, and a the teeniest of breezes blowing. It’s damp out from the rain last night, and cool. It’s gray again, and as I write this, a mist begins to settle on the ground and I have to go inside.

I read an article on meditation yesterday about whether or not it is necessary when meditating to blank one’s mind. The article said no. I have always agreed with that. How could one blank one’s mind? How can you stop a thought without consciously thinking “Stop that thought”? For me, what has always worked best is to allow whatever comes into my head, and to stand back and observe it without judgment. In the same way as I advocate sitting with our sadness, I advocate, during meditation, sitting with whatever comes by your mind, and just letting it be.

During gong meditations this happens to me on an intense level, and because of it, I’ve been able to work out some really difficult issues. Scott and I had so many issues, so much push-pull in our relationship. I would go to a gong meditation, and come out of it with resolution in my mind. I would tell him, and he would say, “I think you need to go to a gong bath every night.” I would agree.

Now that that relationship is over, at least in the physical sense that we don’t see each other or talk to each other, this morning, what came into my head was that I was glad for learning that I can love so intensely. I looked at the risk involved. Because yes, there was, is, a lot of risk in loving someone so freely and intensely. I did it without any demand that he love me back in the same way. I don’t ever, won’t ever, demand of someone that they love me in order for me to love them. Love has to be freely given, or what is it worth? I exacted no price from him.

But there was risk to me, real risk. And as it turned out, the risk was real, I suffered because I loved a man in whom I could see only his possibility. The soul which he tries to hide from the world and himself was so brilliant that it blinded my eyes to his human weaknesses. It’s not that I was naive and not seeing the darkness. He told me about it. I saw it, I didn’t care, because I knew there was also great beauty inside him. Why did I do this with him, and no one else, ever in my life? I don’t know, I’ll never know. I do think, in my heart of hearts, that I have known him for many lifetimes, and it colored the relationship in this one.

Anyway, as I meditated this morning, in the cool morning mist, with the birds and the Tibetan bowls, I knew that it was time to let the relationship go. It had taught me what I was in it to learn. That I can love, that the knowing that I have the ability to love is far more important than the risk of the pain it can cause. There was so much pain in it. I can still cry if I allow myself to think of it. But that’s just self serving, that’s just my ego saying “See, see how you can be hurt?” Yes, of course I can, all people can. Does that mean I should never take the risk? The ego would have me believe that a risk is never worth it, and to cloak myself in protective gear so that I don’t get hurt.

But if I do that, then I miss out on the glorious opposite side, the incredible experience of the joy of loving someone so much. I’m so glad to have experienced it. I will be so glad to experience it again, in a richer and fuller way, with someone who also is unafraid to love in this way.

When I say, I love him, I will always love him, I mean that. But what it doesn’t mean is that I can’t love anyone else, even more. It’s as if I was shown a path, on how incredible love could be. It’s the path I will follow. It’s the one with flowers and brooks, and sunshine, it’s the one that runs along the beach at low tide and lets you find the treasures of the sea washed up on the shore. It’s the path that fills your senses and makes you utterly grateful just to be alive. I know there are others on this path, and that there will be someone like me there. Someone who has been learning their lessons, all their life, and evolving their soul, and now wants to share those beautiful things with someone else as they enter the last quarter of their life. To reap the benefits of the work.

The people who give us the most pain are our greatest teachers. Both my ex-husband and Scott were by far, my two greatest teachers. I appreciate their place in my life. I love them both always. I just know there is a greater love out there for me.

This post is the result of a meditation in which I didn’t try to blank my mind. Instead I just allowed whatever was there, to be there, and to feel it and see it, and let the universe help me to work through it with love.

The Dalai Lama said, at least, I think it was him, that if all children were taught to meditate by the age of 8, you would see a different world than we now live in. I couldn’t agree more.

Love and light everyone.