I approach the new year after one of those times in life unusually filled with difficulties: endings, fears and losses, each striking before I could absorb the last.  As daylight begins to stretch a bit longer every day, I get some time at last to let the blows take their tolls.  It’s a wonderful time to have an established practice.

Whenever I meditate, I find myself enveloped in all the metta that I and countless others have sent out into the universe over the millennia.  Every fellow practitioner is there to buoy me up, and I feel gratitude cycling in and out for the opportunities I’ve had to learn and share the dharma.  Buddha, Dharma and Sangha offer perfect refuges from whatever clinging afflicts me.  The need to let go opens my heart and it fills with joy.

I’ve sometimes wondered why I’ve put so much time, love and energy into living and sharing the dharma.  Times like this make the answer clear.  This is the Path to the ending of suffering.  Even in the midst of terrible states of mind, it is possible to let go of the clinging that binds us to them and be free.

May all who suffer now be free.  May all who suffer anywhere, for any reason and at any time be free.   May all the causes and conditions of suffering fall away from every being throughout space and time.