We Shall Meet Again Tomorrow

On Coming to Consciousness and Riding the Waves

I stumbled upon a massive procession of police officers on Broadway in Inwood this Sunday. They shut down Broadway and lined up outside the funeral home at the foot of the 215th Step Street to honor a 22-year-old officer who was killed when shot during a domestic violence call in Harlem.

Jason Rivera grew up in Inwood. In his 2020 application to join the force, he said he wanted to bridge the gap between the police and our community. His broad smile and warm gaze in the photo the New York Times ran this weekend made me cry. I hope something positive will come from this terrible event. I hope his family finds ease in their grief.

This year has already brought with it a fair share of loss. These are in my heart in this moment.

Thích Nhất Hạnh died at 95 on Friday. His talk on how to deal with strong emotions shares the secret of how to successfully live as a human being in an emotional body. “Emotion is something that comes, stays for some while, and will have to go away,” he says. “I don't have to die just because of one emotion.” I first heard this talk during seminary and its clear message that suffering is optional, that emotions do not define who we are, and that our perceptions are fleeting and cannot encompass the whole truth of this world, profoundly affected me during this time of tumult. In his words I have begun to open to the idea that I do not need to work to flatten my emotions, but instead, learn to ride the wave, even when it feels frightening, from the sublime to the overwhelming, and the mundane in-between.

Patricia Moreno, another spiritual leader I admire greatly, died Saturday, just 13 months after learning her body had cancer. She helped teach me how to love myself and recognize the connection between mind, body and soul through her wonderful body movement and affirmation work called intenSati. I remember being so self conscious when I first began taking her classes, welling up with tears from embarrassment from the emotional release of saying phrases like "I am happy and I am loved," simple words that even now I worry can’t convey the profundity of healing they carried.

I almost didn’t write this newsletter. Too much grief. What will people think of me? I stopped myself from posting about a panel I am speaking on Tuesday night on "how to own your wins, tell your story, and control your narrative in 2022," because I’d had a very sad day managing final business involving Oscar’s death and it felt wrong to post something happy.

It feels almost disrespectful to celebrate wins and achievements when there is so much grief and suffering around us all, but then I remember that perhaps there has always been grief and suffering, we are just now all coming into pure consciousness about its depth.

I texted Lisa that I wasn’t sure I knew what to say during Tuesday’s panel. How could I talk about how people can tell their story and celebrate wins when I struggle to do it myself?

It’s been a heavy time for so many of us and the waves feel primed to take us under just when the horizon seems to come into view. I texted that I wish I could just tell the truth, that:

I think it’s that it’s really hard to “brag better” when it feels like the world is crumbling. That my idea of ambition and success has changed, so my story and focus has changed. That I didn’t want to broadcast that I was doing this event, because it felt discordant with the “sad” things happening in my life. That it’s been hard to plan for the future, and dream of success, because of the collective uncertainty (even though I know life is and has always been uncertain). That it’s hard to rally behind getting my dreams met (publish book) when every day takes so much effort.

Lisa, wisely, told me to “say fucking that” and that there is beauty in telling our truth. Fortunately, Meredith Fineman, the organizer of the panel and author of “Brag Better,” wants to delve into that truth, especially that truth. (RSVP)

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“With all my heart I pray you’ll continue to explore and grow and most of all experience a level of self love that heals you,” Patricia wrote before her death, sent in an email to the intenSati community this weekend. Her parting gift to her community is the last post on her Instagram page, a video showing her smiling from ear-to-ear, eyes ablaze with life as she danced and recited her affirmations.

With great love comes the potential for great loss. When you live a life deeply connected to love, its strange bedfellow grief is never far. I am coming to understand that this is the deepest aspect of the healing process, the living process. Learning to keep my heart wide open and receiving of love, despite the fear of knowing it will eventually be torn apart again, and again.

Contemplation on No-Coming, No-Going This body is not me.I am not limited by this body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, and I have never died. Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars, manifestations from my wondrous True Mind. Since before time, I have been free. Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey. Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek. So laugh with me, hold my hand, let us say good-bye, say good-bye, to meet again soon. We meet today. We will meet again tomorrow. We will meet at the source every moment. We meet each other in all forms of life. Thích Nhất Hạnh, Zen Master