To desert – to leave someone, especially lacking
Desert – a dry place barren or lacking of water, and therefore life, typically characterized by sand or rocky substrate
Have I deserted others? I have been repenting for abandonment – all while running from those in need, in this very life.
I have grown attached to comfortable conditions and yet things are changing. Although I know the years bear varied fruits, I still expect a consistency inconsistent with samsara, and now I am frustrated and my wishes are unfulfilled!
What can I possibly do to bear the burdens and great sufferings of this life but go for refuge to the Three Jewels – the only glimmer of gold available to protect my mind until I reach full Enlightenment. I will always be vulnerable to the illusion-like elements, believing them to be inherently existent and external to my mind! Ha! A joke and a lie grasped at by a self-cherishing, ignorant mind.
Please, Buddha! Ripen a Dharma Jewel in my mind that I may no longer abide in such senseless suffering knowing that I create causes, I purify negativity, I grow merit in abundance, especially by remaining ever mindful and alert to the delusions that arise continuously in my mind, nonstop, as I breathe. To fight against this endless deluge, a magnificent current, is only possible through blessings (a miracle indeed)!
Praise to Buddha, the neverending source of happiness guiding all my steps, so that I may always keep a happy mind and so I might attain Enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings! How wonderful I have this precious opportunity. I will not take it for granted and I will not waste time wishing things would be easier or faster. What benefit is that to me when my primary goal is to end samsara permanently? I will be patient. I will wait quietly. I will not seek revenge. I will take responsibility for my negative karma. I will act as a Bodhisattva, now, in the present, even as I’m becoming one. I will bring the future result into the present which is simply happiness – for whatever arises is bliss and emptiness and we’ll wake up laughing, seeing it was here all along.
And after all, how far off can we really be?
All we have to do is give up grasping at this dream.
I will desert the dream.
I renounce samsara.
But I will not abandon living beings. I will come back to help all others. For my goal is not, nor ever, solitary peace.
No matter how much I think I may enjoy the quiet.
I will not live in the desert.
The Halfwit Writer 