Buddha birthday time for an epic fail?

 THREE CHEERS FOR FAILURE. REALLY?

SO earlier  this week it was the birthday of Buddha.  Now...I don’t claim to fully understand  all the teachings of Buddha nor the various “branches” of the philosophy.  I do practice meditation and believe that each soul contains  an inspired inner light or spirit that is connected to the great light and love of the universe no matter what label you may choose to give it.  This belief seems to be congruent with pretty much all major spiritual teachings when push comes to shove.  When push comes to shove?  What kind of saying is that?  Is push something you do and a shove is something that happens to you?  Anyway  I tried to compose an entry about the birthday, yet my creative juices kept taking me to a strange place and I couldn’t gently bring my focus back to my breath or writing.  Why?- I think my mind kept drifting to exploring what a birthday party  might be like...for Buddha that is....

There would be a lot of sitting around and heavy breathing and when it was time to sing happy birthday most people would just  hummmmmmm ohmmmm. How would you get to or leave the party/. You would have to follow the eight fold path but be sure to look both ways before crossing the street.  

Okay you see I just couldn’t succeed at this task and that prompted my so think/meditate on failure.  Most of the time when I write there is a feeling of success and inspiration....not that time and my focus sort of moved to other failures in life as of the past few years (ago many years...who’s counting)...and then I started sorting my failures into the things I did wrong and the things I had failed to do or try.  It didn’t take long to  realize the things I hadn’t tried bothered me more than the times. Things did n’t work out just right.  Were there exceptions to this?  Yes..but there are more lessons. In things you try.  You know the average infant learning to walk falls at a minimum of 17 times a day?   I started to think these babbies aren’t walking wrong so much as they are learning to walk and that leads to my conclusion that “if you won’t risk learning to fail you most certainly will guarantee failing to learn.” 

This “failing” also reminded me of a take your brain with you but follow your heart”song lyric that I once cobbled together.   “Know you’ll rarely finish but you’ll often restart—

So in the realm of seeking peace and joy there will be failure and maybe from time to time it. Will be welcomed.  It takes a lot of energy to sort out the thoughts you control from the thoughts that control you unless you don’t fret so much about  failure and thinking again and starting. Anew.  And having  said this... as tomorrow starts a new week...get out there and screw something up!