What I Learned on My 9-Day Meditation Retreat-4

Part Four

Saturday, Day 8—The last full day of the retreat and I am ready for the day. I bound out of bed at 6 a.m., put in my pre-breakfast 2 hours of “doing nothing,” and go into the morning prepared to report on a calm and insightful meditation. During the 10 to 11 a.m. sitting time I begin to reflect on my upcoming 73^rd birthday. “I am almost 73 years old! Wait a minute—let’s check this out!” Born January 25^th, 1937, I begin rehearsing the decades of life so far. An aha!—“I’m actually going to be 72 years old on the 25^th. I will be beginning my 73^rd year of possibility. In fact, I’m not old! I am about to embark on a new year of living.”

Now comes the kicker. I’m recollecting, decade by decade, the incredibly smart and constructive things I’ve done, and the absolutely stupid and destructive, the friendships I’ve made, and the enemies, the people who have benefitted from their association with me and those I’ve hurt. And in the midst of this rehearsal comes up: “It is enough!”

It is enough that I know that I have done the things I’ve done and not done others. It is enough that I know that I have been present and conscious, and at times without a clue to what was really going on. It is enough that I know that I know and that I know that I don’t know. It is enough! It is enough! It is enough!