As I write these lines, I see the snow falling outside.
We are coming to the end of a calendar year, an arbitrary measurement of time when many ponder the turns and events of the year, the losses, the challenges and accomplishments. This is the end of a journey around the sun, and its beginning. As I work with my patients, the (unspoken) question crystallizes, in and out of awareness, as I participate in reverie with them, in their joys and sorrows, their satisfactions and regrets: "Is my life meaningful?"
I see the snow falling outside, and I remember Su Tong P'o's poem (ca 1100). He wrote it to his brother Su Ch'e, in honor of an old monk they had met while traveling together.
Remembering Min Ch’e
A Letter to Su Ch'e
What is our life on earth?
A flock of migrating geese
Rest for a moment on the snow,
Leave the print of their claws
And fly away, some East, some West.
The old monk is no more.
There is a new gravestone for him.
On the broken wall of his hut
You can’t find the poems we wrote.
There’s nothing to show we’ve ever been there.
The road was long. We were tired out.
My limping mule brayed all the way.
May we all leave beautiful prints behind us as we travel around the sun once again.
We are coming to the end of a calendar year, an arbitrary measurement of time when many ponder the turns and events of the year, the losses, the challenges and accomplishments. This is the end of a journey around the sun, and its beginning. As I work with my patients, the (unspoken) question crystallizes, in and out of awareness, as I participate in reverie with them, in their joys and sorrows, their satisfactions and regrets: "Is my life meaningful?"
I see the snow falling outside, and I remember Su Tong P'o's poem (ca 1100). He wrote it to his brother Su Ch'e, in honor of an old monk they had met while traveling together.
Remembering Min Ch’e
A Letter to Su Ch'e
What is our life on earth?
A flock of migrating geese
Rest for a moment on the snow,
Leave the print of their claws
And fly away, some East, some West.
The old monk is no more.
There is a new gravestone for him.
On the broken wall of his hut
You can’t find the poems we wrote.
There’s nothing to show we’ve ever been there.
The road was long. We were tired out.
My limping mule brayed all the way.
May we all leave beautiful prints behind us as we travel around the sun once again.
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