You get the word
somebody you love's
on the street running
hiding because he's wanted
by the police because he broke a law
because he got addicted to a drug prescribed
because he was in so much pain he could hardly stand it
because his stomach collapsed on him
because the colon's cancerous because . . .
who knows why, and all he knows is
life hurts like he imagines hell to feel.
So you try to imagine that much pain
and the grief of that pain, feeling so
afraid
angry
sad
living so badly
you want not to live at all.
So much pain is a stranger to the imagination.
That much pain takes living tissue to impress.
Yet you've seen faces who've worn it, borne it
with singular purpose and poise.
So you study the singularity as mystery.
You set aside all expectation of attainment.
You let be the dissimilarity of own experience.
You suspend all belief of what is and is not true.
Then you ask yourself what life would be like
if you lived as if only this much were true:
The Way You Look At Life
Forms The Life You Have
To Look At.
Notice the As If outlook need not be truth absolute
to bear fruit that helps you look out for yourself.
Certain principles arise like incense
that seem possible necessarily.
Go to Eight As If Principles
