A Friend's Wisdom

"Completely understand your preference for one on ones rather than socializing en masse. That sense of everything being so painfully superficial much of the time was one of the reasons I ended up on retreat in Uruguay. But of course there I had to discover (also somewhat painfully) that actually no-thing is ultimately satisfying. No connection, no conversation, no person, no location, no meditation can ever truly fulfill that incessant longing for something much deeper. It was there that I realized it was actually my grasping for something more that was the cause of my suffering. It is the searching for something other than what is right here that is so agonizing. Once I was able to stop looking for something deeper/better/different/more meaningful I accidently stumbled upon the peace and love that is always here, even though the mind often looks right past it and misses it. Hard to put into words, but this realization has revolutionized my world. And made it easier to talk to about anything, whether that be the weather or parties or vacations. Of course I'll probably always have a preference for talking about internal worlds and internal processes but it feels freeing to feel more at ease in anybody's company and in any conversation."