I feel the pain and loneliness of discontent, depression and anxiety. It does not belong to Colin, though. I feel it in the people around me recently: friends, family and, sometimes, random people in public. And it stabs my Heart, ripping it open, exposing an awareness of separation everywhere. Separation from Self. Separation from Spirit. Separation from Truth. This is my Bodhisattva Heart. My Christ Consciousness. And I accept the pain with hands open and heart full.

Most of the people in my life seem to qualify as mostly happy, most of the time. Lately, several of them seem to be unraveling, identifying with separateness. And it reminds me that, for most people, this "mostly happy, most of the time" is a facade. It is threadbare, covering an underlying panic that surfaces when all the little pieces we line up in our lives start to get mixed up or disappear or crumble.

Instead of defaulting to proselytizing or fixing, I mostly simply see them in their pain. I meet them in it, connecting with them on a level beyond conversation. If it seems appropriate, and they're open or looking for feedback, I might offer some. Typically that consists of pointing out Big Picture currents and asking questions that encourage them to look within. And, then, sometimes my ego latches onto the "problem" and tries to save the day. I am immediately reminded of the inadequacy of this tactic when I sense the recoil in the victim of my ego (with a delay that can be hours long), and I shift back to Being.

I feel tremendous compassion for those that identify with the separation, the depression, the anxiety, the panic. I know those identifications like the back of my hand. My life journey has brought me through all of it, in cycles that repeated with alarming frequency, interspersed with a reprieve in the form of "mostly happy, most of the time."

My perspective has changed so profoundly that I know, deep down, that I am no longer afraid of anything. Even though I know I will experience ego contraction in a cyclic way for the rest of my life, I trust that it is and will always be temporary. I know what lies beneath, beyond, within it: Pure Awareness, Bliss and Emptiness. I am a process with a ground of Being. And I am available for Being with anyone experiencing anything.

Making gassho...