20241021 - 15:24
Today I woke up knowing that things were different. 23 years old, today. It’s funny how little it means, these things. Expectations to ‘enjoy’, more than anything. I woke up, had breakfast, walked with my mom to her work. She hugged me goodbye and said “I love you.” It’s the first time she said it first for as long as I can remember. I was a bit taken back. “I love you too, mom.” Really, I do. From the bottom of my heart. Despite our differences, despite the fact that we don’t always get along or understand each other. I see you, and I know you care. I know you try.
I continued my walk with a strong determination. “To plunge into the ice cold water, and to know that you’re not ever really ready.” That’s what she had said. So I walked to the nearest bridge. It was a foggy morning, and although usually the whole park is visible for tens of kilometers: now only birds a few meters ahead of the bridge was. I changed into swimming clothes, and walked up to the edge. I closed my eyes. Stretched. Felt my heart beating. Felt the cold affecting my skin. Felt the fear rising. And before the doubt could set in; before time would let the fear fester and grow, I dove. More than the cold, what shocked me was how doable it was. Nothing but my fear could stop me. I swam around a bit, felt my body shaking from the cold. “That’s it?” I thought. Yes. That’s it. All you need to do is do it.
I remember now, clearly, why I started climbing rooftops as a teenager. I remember the first time, 15 years old. Heading home and walking past a scaffolding reaching up to the roof, about 6 stories high. “I could climb that”, I remember thinking. Then I remember feeling the feebleness of these words. The way they were seperated from the real world, how they just existed in imaginary dream-land. So that same night I snuck out from my apartment. It was dark, and rainy, and cold. I climbed all the way up. Crossing over from the scaffolding to the roof, I almost fell. It would not be the last close-call. But the feeling of standing there on the roof: I hadn’t felt anything like it before. This was empowerment. This was my first act of what some call ‘magic’. Alchemy. Transforming those drifting dreams into reality.
Where, then, am I headed now? What does it all mean? What undertakings feed the flame in my heart? To which rhythm does it beat? What do I desire?
If the words are meant for anything more than the pixels they occupy on my screen, I know where I am bound. “For the liberation of suffering, for the benefit of all sentient Beings”. I have sung these words countless times, and I have meant them. Once upon a time, it were not so. Once upon a time, they were just words, motions to go through at the sidelines of the practice. Once upon a time, I did not know my heart’s desire. The words “IT-security consultant” really did make my heart light up. There’s no shame in that. To follow the heart: this is all. But now I find no excitement in the options that are waiting on this road. It seems a long, cold, winter. If I were to die tomorrow, is this the life that I would choose? Is this the life that can support me as I look into the eyes of death?
I have changed, there’s no denying. I don’t think I saw it clearly before. Somehow, these months that I’ve been home, still I haven’t seen it. When I left, I did not know. When I left, still then, all I had was drifting dreams. Through my work those dreams turned into reality. And that reality affected me, deeply. Back then I did not know, I wasn’t sure. “A trial run, 2 months in China, we’ll see.” I’ve always been outside, in some indecipherable way. I thought life was just like that. But now I know otherwise. Now I have felt home, and it is not here. It is not here. I thought that I could be afloat. No vows were taken indefinitely, no promises were made. No commitment. And yet as sure as I am of anything, I know that this is forever. I know that in my heart a promise has been made. To follow the path until the end.
Every day that I am here I wake up under the illusion that I carry yesterday on my back for the benefit of tomorrow. I forget that every day the choice is made anew. Every day we wake up, and we get to choose who we want to be. The choice of yesterday does not carry over, it doesn’t linger. Past good deeds does not redeem the present, neither does mistakes stain it. Today, we get to choose. Here, and now, I choose.
‘For the liberation of suffering. For the benefit of all sentient beings.’