For Now

I am sitting down and looking around our beautiful little Dharma center while waiting for folks to arrive for our “first Monday” introductory session. A quiet ambience permeates the space and colors of the thangka images seem particularly vibrant. It really is a wonderful container for our practices and teachings. How did this center happen? I wonder about the history of our small organization and all the causes and conditions leading to its creation. It still amazes me.

I am amazed because of the infinite variables necessary for anything to happen let alone a Dharma center. But here it is nonetheless—for now. As with any organization, the future is anybody’s guess. Will it continue after I am no longer able to participate? Will it die of natural causes and echo through the lives it has touched. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

I am happy that, for now, the center seems to be serving a purpose. The hundreds of people who have passed through the doors over the past 27 years appear to have benefitted in some way, even if only to discover this particular form of Dharma is not for them. This place is a way station for travelers along their respective paths. Some stay, some leave. All along the way we seem to have developed a core of sustaining souls who make the center what it is.

So, we have a momentary presence making the Dharma available in a particular form in a particular time. It is all good and worthy of a gesture of gratitude. In this moment, I am grateful for all the lineage masters whose teachings continue to feed us here. I eagerly await the next stagecoach arriving with travelers exploring what it means to be an awakened human. May this stage stop be beneficial and a source of sustenance—at least, for now.