good-better-best

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I suppose anyone concerned with spiritual adventures would like to be good ... or perhaps better ... or perhaps best. Not so angry, more loving, less confused -- stuff like that.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But there is a fly in the ointment. Good-better-best, however smooth or whispered or even unspoken, relies on the world around us. Others who are good-better-best, perhaps. And that relying is bound to run us all into brick walls, trip us up, entangle us in barbed wire. Why? Because the benevolence of life does not adhere to good-better-best. It does not rely on anything whatsoever.

In this way -- with countless brick walls -- we can learn that trying to convince others or trying to convince ourselves of good-better-best is a fool's errand when it comes to honest peace. There is no way to arm-twist or cajole or flatter life as a way to be in control. It simply doesn't work.

But there is practice. There is this breath.

No virtuous mirrors required.
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