January 2025

On Rereading Tolle by Ed Rinderle

By Jim Hendrick
Posted: 09/10/2024

On Rereading Tolle

I think.  Too much.  Too long.
Too convoluted, spiraling up and away.
I can't turn off my brain.
Then I slip away from my swirling thoughts
And look at them from outside, objectively.
I understand that I AM not my thoughts.

I'm angry.  About many things. Even furious.
I do nothing, but the rage threatens to boil over.
Then I slip away from the turmoil
And look at it from the outside, objectively.
I understand that I-AM not my anger.

I dwell too much on the past.  Regrets and joys alike.
On childhood, young adulthood, the prime years.
Then I slip away into the Now 
And see those past occupants of this body as "not me".
I understand that IAM not my past.

I separate, I sink, I soar
Beneath the thinking, beside the emotion, beyond the past.
Until I understand that IAM utterly and profoundly alone.
And in that aloneness I find peace.

😋 Written and read by Ed Rinderle, the Cajun wordsmith, at A Poetry Gathering.