I was asked to write a piece on what Buddha invokes or inspires in me.

When there is a moment in time, a vacant space, a twinkling of stillness, I imagine myself at one with nature and the world around me. This is what Buddha would want for us. To be connected. I have believed for some time in the communal consciousness, a place where we go to in our dreams where on a deep level we can all communicate with each other. We can achieve this in waking life with the people in the world, heal distant and lost connections, feel and share suffering, dreams and inspiration, as well as connect and communicate with nature, the biosphere and the cosmos. When we are able and open to connecting with this place within ourselves we feel we are not alone, and we are a part of something greater, that we belong and that we are loved. The universe and this openness are filled with love, yet we must stop and be still to see it. As we busy ourselves with the tasks, distractions, duties and worries of day to day, we enter a place of fear. But when we are still, silent, and connected, the fear dissolves and the importance of our worries, troubles and selves shrink and dissolve when held up to the grand and eternal background of what is. ‘What is’ is magnificent, but most importantly we are connected to it, are safe within it, are welcome in it, and belong in the soft cradle of the universe’s vast and unending space.

Feeling alone, lost, fearful, and insignificant are some of the most deprecating ideals buried and held inside of ourselves. If we can take the message of our dear Buddha into our hearts, that we are all connected, that peace is available to us, that stillness and love belong to us and always have; that nature will cradle us, care for us, meet our most basic needs and nurture our broken hearts, the world could perhaps lay down its sword, and mend and stitch together its broken pieces. Though struggle is a blessing, for as we struggle we gain tenacity, strength, wisdom, and from all this we glow and vibrate with new and beauteous colors. As we stitch these patches of colors together in the wind of communal consciousness that blows through us and is ever so accessible, we create a blanket even more beautiful in its diversity.

Let us all take the quilted blanket of our life lessons that we have ever infused with others’ colors and patches, for we must share the burdens of others in order to rise as a phoenix, and together bleed our colors to the universal tapestry of our community landscape. But most importantly we can do this just by sitting, breathing and letting the connection to all that is soak into our pores. The universe, healing, peace, and love are ever so accessible, free and granted to us at no price or cost. Buddha tells us to simplify our lives and to cease looking outside of ourselves for gratification, to sit in stillness with our struggle and let the knots untie themselves. He teaches us to search deep inside of ourselves for the connection we call love, and reminds us this wisdom and beauty of the world is right here, we simply have to listen.