Happy Almost Birthday

I will admit it. It's my birthday tomorrow. Already I've been taken to see Wicked (Lawdy, the voices! Oh my!) taken to Robert DeNiro's restaurant Locanda Verde (thanks, Frannie!) and to Maya (thanks, Mel!), had the most scrumptious desserts homebaked by co-workers today, and there is much more celebration on the horizon.

But despite all this, I've been a little down. I'm trying hard to smile and to be happy. I should be happy, right? I've got great friends and family and much to celebrate. I've got all my limbs and my marbles. I've got the whole world in my hands. So why the funk? Why can't I, like a faucet, just turn off the gloomies when they're just not useful?

I read this today:

"Realization is unconditional happiness, an indescribable inner joy. We are always seeking something, trying to see, to know, just like we try to get ordinary things and accumulate ideas, and that desire is endless. But not seeing is true seeing, not knowing is true knowing. Not finding can be finding the true essence also. It sounds like nonsense, but it is recommendable. It goes deep. Not just superficial smiling, or momentary sense pleasure. It is beyond the mind as we think of it usually. Words don’t reach that.

Happiness means including everything. Why not? There is a blissful experience in the empty true nature of everything, when seen through to the essence."

- His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa from the interview "Awareness Itself" (Tricycle, Fall, 2005)

I don't know what a Gyalwang Drukpa is, but this seems rather smart. It's the act of trying to know, are trying to see, trying to find meaning that give us our answers. It is the people we meet, the teachers we seek, and maybe even the blogs we write that help us to get to the place that gives us a greater perspective. If we automatically knew and make our realizations immediately then we would all simply sit still, rub our own bellies and know everything. Not too exciting is it? No oceans crossed, no lips kissed, no home runs...no teeth straightened!

Heh. Maybe I'm getting wise in my old age after all! I'll let you know tomorrow when I hit the big 37!