Reality Check

Theme song: Love Radiates Around

One recent Sunday, during zazen, I understood, more deeply than ever before, that everyone I have loved along with everything I have ever cared about will die or disappear -- if in fact it has not happened already.

Life experiences important for one reason or another streamed through my mind, as vivid as video.

I realized, as if it were new information, that I, too, will die. This time I felt that I did not want to.

It occurred to me that before my death lies a series of struggles, not the least of which are illness or old age.

I saw that I am not alone. These truths apply to us all.

I remembered both how beautiful everything is despite, or maybe because of, all the sorrow, and a vision I once had of life -- life flowing forward in an endless verdant tangle of loops and curls.

From the the flow, a single golden brown leaf floated downward, into the void.

Traces of what happened glistened in my mind and disappeared.

For me, desire asserted itself in the form of a fancy -- still not achieved -- for an orange-scented morning bun and a cup of milky, unsweetened coffee.

This is my question:

Is anything I wrote here today untrue?