Time to Grow

The work of the mind is not a one-time repair. It is not like fixing a broken chair and being done with it. It takes years, maybe a lifetime. I know that because I am living it.

When I look back, I can divide my life into two distinct worlds: before I met the Dhamma, and after. The difference is astonishing.

Before, I was sad, restless, and angry. Now, I am — most of the time — happy and peaceful. But Dhamma isn’t just about replacing sadness with happiness. It is more than that, and it progresses in phases and at its own time.

In the first phase, those first few years of mindfulness, I felt as though I had been reborn. I was like a child again, noticing everything as if for the first time. I would run in the mornings and feel joy in every season:

• In summer, the deep green of the trees.

• In spring, the sweet smell of honeysuckle drifts in the air.

• In the fall, the bright orange and golden leaves were in my hands, and I carried them home like treasures.

• In winter, the cold, fresh bite of snow fills my lungs.

I loved life. I was happy every day.

But later came another phase. The joy wasn’t as bright anymore. I wasn’t sad — not like before Dhamma — but the excitement was gone. I didn’t feel much interest in traveling, in men, or even in people in general.

Sometimes I was miserable, but it was a different kind of misery. It came not from confusion, but from seeing too clearly. I understood human suffering — not just mine, but everyone’s. I could see my own mind — what it wanted, what it feared, what it chased.

I understood why a stranger might slam their fist at a gas station counter because the cashier took too long with the receipt. I understood that kind of impatience, because I could see the restless craving underneath it.

And I began to see the fakeness of so much in life. The illusions we build to keep from facing the truth. To me, life began to look mechanical — a process that carries people from one moment to the next, not toward a destination, but simply along a path that eventually ends.

People pass by, time passes by, and then one day, both are gone.

It is the repetition that struck me — the same struggles, the same desires, only in different places and times.

And yet, even in this phase, there is freedom. Not the bright, intoxicating joy of the early years of practice, but a quieter, steadier knowing. A seeing of things as they are.

This is where I stand now. And this is where my next growing begins.