I just want to talk a little bit about this weird phenomenon that I have been witnessing lately since the start of my spiritual path. This is the phenomenon of synchronicity. I have started to find that many events in my life seem to take place at just exactly the right time, as though some organizing entity acted spontaneously to fulfill the requirements. This world and this reality are gradually starting to feel more like a mythology, or a symbolic story crafted in the realms of divinity. There are many examples that I have that I can recall that seem to point in this direction, but the most stupefying ones are the so-called coincidences. I don’t really believe that coincidences are random anymore; rather, I feel certain that they are symbolic and meaningful. One example of these mysterious coincidences is the arrival of the word “chrysalis” in my life on the same day. I don’t believe that this word had crossed my mind for many, many years, but in one day (2008slastday) it popped up twice. The first time I used it was while writing a reflective post on the events of 2008 and the second time it showed up on the cover of a CD that my dad had randomly decided to show me. This event may seem inconsequential and just random, but it is only one instance of an increasingly recurring pattern. It seems now that since I started to take note of these coincidences and really think about them, they have started to grow in number. The trend appears to be moving in the general direction of a final waking up to the fact that every event in life is a coincidence. I am starting to find more and more meaning in seemingly mundane and common occurrences. Every stop-sign I see seems to be advising me to give up on the ceaseless mental activity and stress I subject myself to. Every new thing I learn seems to be somehow metaphorically connected to the universal story I am beginning to understand. Newly proposed theories in science appear to be perfect symbols of an underlying reality that can only have been crafted by an artist of divine power.

And relating to the path, I have lately been yearning for a master, for some guidance and for some direction. I have become more and more desperate and my confusions and delusions are in high tide, up to my neck, almost to the point of suffocating me in a vortex of inexhaustible dukkha. But the universe does not leave my calls unanswered, strangely enough. At the peak of my misery, I started reading Thanissaro Bhikku’s free e-book, Meditations, and I was astonished at how remarkably this book seemed to directly deal with my questions. Every new chapter I read surprises me by addressing some issue or another that I have recently had and soothes a little my concerns and my pains. In fact, this is another pattern that I have noticed since I started the path: that the universe seems to provide with the material I need and the answers to my questions if only I have patience and diligence in my practice, and more importantly, if I have faith in and simply surrender to the universe/Buddha-nature/cosmos/God/Dhamma/universal consciousness or whatever you prefer to call it. I have found this to be a greatly rewarding effort. Whenever I give up and just allow the universe to take care of me, I am instantly delivered and my crisis is immediately resolved. This whole path has been my gradual surrendering to the universe, and I have become its disciple and it my master. I do not need a master in the form of an enlightened being, for there is one already present and it is right here inside of me. I need only to uncover it, to dig and remove defilements, to purify and to attain the jhanas, to discern sharply with my sword of prajna, to turn my inner eye inwards until I can see the truth clearly, and then will the great extinction of everything ensue. Until then I have nothing but the words of the great masters before me and the mysterious and meaningful events of this life to guide me. And until then I shall proceed piously with diligence and faith, with patience yet with a sense of urgency, with acceptance yet with effort, with right view right resolve right speech right action right livelihood right effort right mindfulness right concentration.

May all beings find peace and end the misery of aimless wandering.