Rest Stop

by Nat Cassidy

I have tried to make sense of this world. And a story sticks with me. A Buddhist teacher, with his students gathered around him—almost like a minyan, nu?—and he drinks out of a glass and says, ‘I love this glass. It is so beautiful. It carries the water to my lips and keeps me alive. It catches the light. But if, one day, I accidentally drop it and it shatters, my heart breaks with it. I am so sad. So I must remember: being broken is the glass’s truest nature. It will be broken far longer than it is whole. It is meant to be broken. It is already broken. How can I be sad then, for this brief illusion of wholeness?’ Do you see what I’m saying, Abraham?”

We’re all just biding our time before we break, aren’t we? This is just the rest stop.