The key to ending it is not seeing it as wrong but seeing it as OK. It’s very curious.

But to the point at hand, I have found grief, if allowed to flow and ebb, to be a thing of clear beauty that actually washes sadness away, strange as that may sound. I’ve watched people dam up their grief, hold onto it as proof of their caring, for the whole world to see, until it became muddied and almost solid, palpable.

It is like any other experience; it needs to be felt and then let go of. Unfortunately people have been acculturated to believe that grief needs to be demonstrated in order for it to be real. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it is not NECESSARY. Then the issue of how long must this demonstration last comes into play (though not articulated or even consciously thought). And on it goes.

To paraphrase an old saying, “Grief is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

Sometimes, I debate if something is just another concept or if it’s a construct that may add some value to the journey. That someone else may relate to.

What is this ‘relate’? That is what is given or taken. Not some concept or process but more a reminder of what we are. A construct that resonates with us in some way. There is the danger that this enforces the illusion. But also the benefit that it may remind another.

There may be some concept that we are separate persons and one persons journey has no relation to anothers. But in reality, there is only one journey, with many ways of relating to it. There is no separate persons. This is why such relating and such reminders have some value. They may help us see our own journey through the eyes of another.

There may be value in looking within, seeing whatever process is underway, and then asking how. But I can see no value in asking someone else to give it to me. How can it ever be transferred? And is it possible for me to take it? I can take what I want, but is it possible for me to take what is already mine? (‘Mine’ is not entirely the right word here.)

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the mind’s attraction to the process. But what happens to that process if I adopt another person’s functioning? If that then becomes the new process, does the process have any value at all?

This is not to say right or wrong or to lead in any particular direction. Just questions…

That is a nice distinction between the two words, grief and sadness. It is important for us to be clear about how we are using these words. It can only help to make things…less cloudy, let’s say.

The mind likes to understand process. Is it necessary? No. Is there value? I still see some value in How. It does not explain grief but it gives it context, draws the separate threads together, draws us to see griefs relationship to love, draws the many into the one.

But how is not the only way.

Sadness I think is an egoic movement; it is the reaction of the ego that is not getting what it wants, and perhaps is resigned to not getting it. Grief, is something else, something not completely describable. Grief, without the movement to want to change what is, is a deep appreciation of experience, as you say beautiful and miraculous.

Thanks for the insight.