A depreciating asset (2)

Be kind to your body but don’t pamper it or confuse it with yourself. It is, after all, just a body. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that.

Anger management 1.0

Don’t say, “I am angry.” Does the zoo-goer say, “I am a rhinoceros.”? Or the meteorologist, “I am a nimbus.”? Or the cancer patient, “I am cancer.”? Say instead, “I feel angry.” Or: “I am aware of anger.” When we label ourselves, we box ourselves. Here’s an example of double boxing: “Hello. My name is Keith Ashford. And I am an alcoholic.” Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous got sober by taking LSD. That’s so far out of the box that AA declines to talk about it. Krishnamurti said, “As soon as you know the name of the bird, you never see that bird again.”

Bundled up

As a person, a mere mind/body, I’m a bundle of memories and habits, fears and desires, obsessions and aversions, likes and dislikes. This is just a temporary arrangement. I am not a carry-on.

Dropping it

Non-forgiveness is like clutching a hot coal in our closed fist. We only drop it when a moment of perfect clarity reveals how holding this pain has distorted and deformed our entire humanhood.

Radically normal

When we die, we cease to identify ourselves with a body. We die before we die when we realize we are not the body. Then we are nobodies, the walking dead, absolutely fearless, radically normal.