ROOMINESS

     The main cause of every problem I’ve ever encountered in life is my belief in limits. Since my earliest days, I have been conditioned by my culture to believe that reality is basically a limited phenomenon. Life, it's been suggested, is basically made of perimeters, boundaries, and edges, all of them serving to separate. It’s been subtly impressed upon me, over and over, that reality is fundamentally a matter of countless separate, limited objects trying to maintain and protect themselves. Life, according to this interpretation, has more smallness than largeness, more constraint than openness -- more like a small, closed box than a vast, wide open space. I sometimes think about this when I am faced with what seems to be a threat to my personal comfort and security. In situations like this, I often begin feeling closed off, alone, and vulnerable, as if my life is little and locked up tight, a small box surrounded by innumerable enemies.  Luckily, I sometimes find a few moments to think quietly about it, and I begin to see my mistake. I begin to see that the universe is not a place of limits, but of boundlessness. I begin to see, again, that life is not small and restricted, but vast and without walls of any sort. I see my “self” as it really is – as a part of an inexpressibly spacious universe that can hold any so-called threat with comfort and peacefulness. I realize that I am in no way weak and vulnerable, and that, in fact, I am not even a separate “I”. I am the universe and the universe is me, and therefore, truly, I am at liberty and illimitable. In a universe of such generous roominess, any apparent threat suddenly seems like nothing more than a silly and harmless charade.