A Farewell ExistenceThe older I become, the more intense is my experience that nothing really belongs to me, that everything is borrowed for only a little while, a gift that I am allowed to enjoy with all my five, six, seven senses. More and more (and even more since the Ukraine war) this feeling of undeserved happiness intensifies in me, especially the incomprehensible happiness that I am alive at this moment. That I am allowed to be alive! My age (seventy), a heart attack in 2019 and the unpredictable ecological, political and social situation intensify my experience of living in "farewell existence.” But also the changes in our German sangha and house community contribute their part—there too is change, there too is no permanence, no certainty. Since 2018, Stefan and I are living with sangha friends in a three-family house in Freiburg, Germany. We acquired the house with a vision to create a sanctuary to support us on our spiritual path and to provide opportunities for our sangha to meet and practice together. Now, circumstances have changed. Stefan and I will move out; when is not quite clear yet. Now, we live in this house in a farewell existence—in a place between "no more" and "not yet.” It is stressful, but it is also often very lively, because what we have will not last: the view from the window to the panorama of the Black Forest mountains; the men from the demolition service across the street; the walk through the staircase, into which I have put so much work and which now rewards me daily with beauty; our front garden, which is now blooming so beautifully and which was a desert before we moved in; an unexpected encounter with my friend Ute in the hallway, where we both stand for a long time and talk intimately with each other… The approaching farewell lets the freshness of the moment break in as if from a different world—real green, real birdsong, real fragrance! All this fills me with an intense, wistful happiness that I still have all this now, which has grown to my heart, and I will lose it. To give space to wistfulness seems important, because it is exactly it that opens my heart in a completely non-violent way, like a gentle rain the earth, like a touch with tender fingertips. To feel wistful intensely leads me to a place inside myself, where out of it grows a kind of praise of the goodness of life, which for a while granted me something that filled me with happiness, love and gratitude. I strangely never think, "My goodness—so much work, money, time, love, commitment, risk we put into this project and now it's all going to be for nothing?" I don't know why I don't have such a thought. Maybe because all this has been something good, something bright and lively, even if it has not led to the realization of our wishes and hopes. All of us living in the house have given our best. At least that is what we have in hand, despite all unpredictability: to give our best. We do what we can and put faith in the process of life, but we have no control over the outcome. I notice how this fact relieves me: We have no control over the outcome, even if we do our best. If we could learn to accept this, we could relax in the midst of this "God-given" uncertainty, we can learn to walk "on groundlessness," as Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche calls it. Of course I am also sad and disappointed, but underneath that is the gift that I am allowed to experience all this, to feel that I am still free to love our friends in the house, despite all the difficult things we have all experienced in the last few months, despite all the inner and outer work we have done and all the work that will probably still come our way in the future. All groups and belongings (except my choir!) have been lost to me in Freiburg in the last few years. At first it felt like I was standing unprotected, lonely and disoriented in the cool wind. No more cocoon to protect me! No cocoon that allows me identification, that allows me to rely on others instead of doing what is necessary for my inner path in a serious and responsible way. It is healing for me to experience that a German sangha no longer exists in the old form it had when the teacher was our common (outer) center. It is healing for me that soon there will also be no more house of sangha family. In the meantime I feel the freedom that this also implies a new possibility to voluntarily connect with something or someone, to voluntarily call out and listen for a response that may not come from the expected direction or from outside. It may come from within, or from what the moment just gives. It also means the freedom to question concepts and to test them from my own experience, to let go of concepts and instead to open myself to the extent that everything can be experienced as a "gift of God,” at least in grace-filled moments… There is a big difference between knowing with my mind that everything comes from God, that everything is God, and experiencing this again and again. That experience comes as a gift, because something in me has been released. Somehow I am trusting, touchable and in turn willing and ready to respond, to resonate, and to be transformed. When you go, then go,
as if you have already arrived.
For where you are is all you need.
Hadjara, Arab mystic Gesine Bischof
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