Centered: Everything is Illuminated Highlights II

"Father is never home because then he would witness Grandfather crying. This is my notion. 'His stomach,' he said to me last week when he heard Grandfather in the television room. "His stomach." But it is not his stomach, I understand, and father understands this also. (This is why I forgive Father. I do not love him. I hate him.But I forgive him for everything.) I parrot: Grandfather is not a bad person, Jonathan. Everyone performs bad actions. I do. Father does. Even you do. A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions. Grandfather is now dying because of his. I beseech you to forgive us, and to make us better than we are. Make us good.

Guilelessly,
Alexander"

I pulled this quote because it speaks volumes of emotion to me. The actions that we commit in youth are sometimes the very things that might haunt us into our old age. Without clarity of thought, our selfish deeds and actions could turn into demons and bring us into a "hell-like" state. In Buddhism, they talk about theword ignorance in a different manner in which we use it in modern English.

Ignorance simply means being thrown off your center (assuming you are centered). It's allowing the needle to spike and let your emotions short-circuit the system, whatever they may be (greed, lust, anger, etc.). A centered person is one who sees correct action the whole way through its process. This knowledge mixing with the idea that no action occurs in a vacuum, there are effects (seen and unseen) of every action, creates a powerful cocktail for life. We need to be aware of every action in our life for ourselves, those arond us and those who follow.

There is another line in the book I marked that seems appropriate here:

"'Great-great-great-grandfather,' he sighed, 'don't let me hate who I become.'"

It is my belief thatif we work towards finding our center, we will see correct action happening more and more around the world. Meditation and yoga are prescribed vessels for centering, but they aren't the only ones. Yesterday I was listening to Dr. Andrew Weil speak about breathing. He spoke about the connection between breath and spirit. How the word for breath was the same word for spiritin many older languages. He said that even if you spend a few more seconds focusing on your breath today than you did yesterday, you're walking a more spiritual path.

My hope is that we can all breath a bit deeper and have more awareness when our needle spikes.