hope

when i grabbed that book last nite, i grabbed it hoping
(interesting word) to find what he said about 'hope.'
i didn't find it.

this morning, first thing, it was right in front of me.

i'm not sure i can just plunk down a few pieces of it
and have it make sense here in a blog.
but i want to put it out here anyway.

the whole concept of hope confuses me.
i see it as a good thing. you gotta have hope, ya know?

but he mentions it as a bad thing.
no. that's not right. he doesn't call things bad.
maybe a thing that keeps the mind from being present.

it was on my mind yesterday. i was seein' it as a bad
thing. as a thing that brought pain.
see, i'm not as cool as him. i go to 'bad' and it
takes awhile to see it from his view.

so. the whole topic confuses me....
and maybe the describing it as 'bad' is part of the
confusion. if you describe it as something that keeps
you from the present, yeah, that makes sense.
that makes total sense.

here's some tidbits....
'hope is born of fear, of wanting.
only when we are without fear will we be able to
live without hope.'

'...all holding to future possibilities creates
a painful inability to enter the present. hope
causes us to kill ourselves again and again.'

and here's a side sentence that grabbed me...
'to allow beings to enter into your heart, you
can eliminate no part of them.'

i don't know.
i love it all when i read it. i love it when i
sit and think about it.
and then i go and try to practice it.
splat.
i just fall flat on my face.

i think today will be a good day to practice it
a bit. the challenges i want to apply this stuff
to will be near enough, but not so near that i
should get totally lost.

maybe i can remember some of this. and maybe
i can work on just accepting all the feelings inside
me. and allow everyone to be.

well.....prolly not.
but i can try.
it seems worth the try......