I dreamed that I was in my car trying to park in the bus terminal in order to purchase a bus ticket.  A transit authority official told me to move my car.  I turned right onto the next street to look for another place to park.  There was a hotel, but no parking whatsoever on either side of the street.  Then my car disappeared and I was trying to park my bicycle, but I didn’t have a lock.  A woman from the hotel came up and told me that it was ok for me to park my bike across the street in a partially enclosed bus stop with a bike rack.  So I put my bike there.  It was about a block downhill back to the terminal.

I finally got to the ticket machine.  From there I could see my bike.  I kept trying to put a $5 bill into the dollar slot.  It kept being rejected.  The $5 bill returned faded.  I looked up and my bike was gone.  I woke up stressed.  My immediate thought upon awakening was, “You always make everything so difficult” or “You always do things the hard way.”  Something like that.

I sat in meditation thinking about my dream.  My interpretation was that I had a car, yet I was unsuccessfully trying to buy a bus ticket.  Then the car disappeared and was replaced by a functional bicycle.  I put the bike aside, didn’t secure it, and continued an attempt to force money into an unaccommodating receptacle.  Finally, I had nothing – no car, no bike, no bus, and money that didn’t work.  The question was why, when I had sufficient transportation, was I trying to secure less than what I had?  That search itself expressed a denial of what already existed.  Accordingly, it all went away.

The dream was trying to tell me that I already had what I was seeking.  By denying my sufficiency, I was affirming lack in my life.  Denial is wanting more without acknowledging and giving thanks for what is.

Not knowing who we are and what we have causes us to constantly focus on other than.  Causes us to look for a bus while a car is taking us where we want to go.  Causes us to not value and secure what we have while we persistently covet something more and different.

All of our needs are instantly and completely met according to our capacity to receive.  The stream of abundance is continuously flowing to and through us.  Yet we persistently perceive lack and limitation.  As I walked around the lake, a company was giving away little containers of ice cream.  A man complained to me, “They didn’t give us anything to eat it with!”  I responded, “Did you ask for a spoon?”  He looked confused.  It hadn’t occurred to him to ask.  He went back and obtained a readily available spoon.

I was watching the TV series Entourage.  Ari, the talent agent, was perfectly satisfied until an old school friend showed up who had been down and out, but was now worth $65 million.  Ari became depressed until his wife shook him and said, “We have enough! You are enough!”  I began to reach this awareness when I kept losing more and more.  Finally, something inside of me insisted, “It’s you! You need to change your perception!!  In this very moment – not next month or next year – you have enough.  Give thanks!”

My Master’s thesis, written in 1998, is entitled Transformation of Pain Through Transformation of Self.  I wrote, “The new dimension is a state of awareness that takes one out of the realm of reactive response.  Focusing on the external is a continuous process of being drawn into it (whether it be person or circumstance) and then expending all of one’s energy reacting to it or trying to escape from its grasp.”  This is what I have been working on for the past 20 years – trying to control my reactive behavior and speech.

I read a story about a Para-Olympian from South Africa who lost his leg while swimming.  A shark bit him.  He said, because of the shark attack, he has travelled all over the world and won many awards as a professional swimmer.  But for the loss of his leg, he would have led a very ordinary life and would not be the successful athlete that he is.

We don’t know where the present circumstance will lead us.  Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to think the worst of wherever we find ourselves.  Trials are given to us to teach liberative technique.  They are not punishment.  They are to grow us, to develop and teach us how to use our spiritual muscles.  They are to strengthen us to thrive in an evolved world.

The conditions and situations in which I have found and find myself have taught and are teaching me gratitude, appreciation, optimism, faith, trust, and to love life in whatever form and fashion it presents itself.