and then going ahead a little bit, she says, we don't know anything. We call something bad, we call it good. But really, we just don't know when things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not. What the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize, not think we know, not conceptualize the spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell. In fact, that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable, thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly. The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last, that they don't disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security. From this point of view, the only time we ever know what's really going on is when the rug has been pulled out and we can't find anywhere to land. We can use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep. Right now, in the very instant of groundlessness is the seed of taking care of those who need our care, and of discovering our goodness. This is our natural, spontaneous goodness, not becoming rigid and moralistic, becoming available, flexible. She says, I remember so vividly a day in early spring when my whole reality gave out on me, although it was before I had heard of any Buddhist teachings, it was what some would call a genuine experience, spiritual experience. It happened when my husband told me he was having an affair. We lived in northern New Mexico. I was standing in. Front of our adobe house, drinking a cup of tea, I heard the car drive up and the door bang shut. Then he walked around the corner, and without warning, he told me he was having an affair and he wanted a divorce. I remember the sky and how huge it was. I remember the sound of the river and the steam rising up from my tea. There was no time, no thought, there was nothing, just the light and the profound, limitless stillness. Then I regrouped and picked up a stone and threw it at him. I When anyone asks me how I got involved in Buddhism, I always say it was because I was so angry with my husband. The truth is that he saved my life. When that marriage fell apart, I tried hard, very, very hard to go back to some kind of comfort, some kind of security, some kind of familiar resting place, fortunate, fortunately for me, I could never pull it off. Instinctively, I knew that annihilation of my old, dependent, clinging self was the only way to go.