RANDOM SNIPPETS - No 5 - Weeping In The Ruins

'Discerning whether a desire is a healthy one to encourage, or not, is a life skill to be learnt. It's one that I find always requires my conscious practice, because I've yet to  master it. I notice in myself when a desire has become particularly sticky. When I ardently want something to happen, to buy something, to find something troubling me that won't go away. There is a subtle shift, when it flips from being a passing maybe pleasant thought, into this betrothed willed for thing. What then follows are the incumbent anxieties, stresses and strains derived from my yearning.  The weightiness of carrying this desire around with me, as though its a gall stone I cannot expell. 

And yet, as soon as I can release my grip, relax the need for something to happen, and breathe more with the ebb and flow of life. Then the mind turns that little bit looser and away from the tight control of destiny. I commit myself to further suffering through desperately clinging.  And yet, losing something I've grown fond of or loved, it can be painful. To grieve for what has now gone from your world, it is a saddening experience. These wounds can go deeper and sometimes can last longer than even my one little lifetime. As every time I visit an old monastic ruin, I'm reminded and once again lament for what has been lost. For in the ruins of our desires, of what remains, can be our grieving for centuries old unhealed wounds, but also for our wish to be at peace with them. I cling onto a memories as I stand right in the midst of their ruins. And here as I'm weeping in the ruins of what was, I start the process of washing away the residue of accumulated pain, to set my desire for restoration to rest. To learn how to let this thing be.'

Taken and further adapted from my Morning Study Journal the 13th January 2026.