Surely, I must be feeling some anger about hearing of my Mom’s diagnosis tonight, about her too-clogged up arteries to receive the healing opening of a stint.

She had hardening of the arteries, asthma, C.O.P..D. (a condition that basically says, “No air for you, and you need oxygen, and will need to breathe like a fish gasping for air unless you use your tank.” ) osteoporosis, Degenerative Disc Disease, esophagitis, acid reflux, arthritis, a handicapped right hand (she is right handed) and so you are at high risk for falling since you can’t hold a cane properly. You will be in a wheelchair by the time you are 60.

(She is past 70, and with her determination, despite all these diagnosis, she is chipper.)

The song, “Ain’t nothin’ gonna break-a-my stride,” comes to mind, but I find myself saying secretly, after all these years of practicing yoga, meditation, the trip to India, the many times I’ve spent in meditation with the guidance of Swami, or bending on knees in prayer at the Catholic churches in honor of my ancestors and my mothers connection to Catholicism, I find myself saying tonight, F*ck Buddha.

I am anywhere but on that middle path right now.

I am crying. I am angry. I am experiencing what some might call a mid-life crisis, but truly I am in touch with this strong full moon in Aries, and also pissed at this part of life where we come to experience the reality of our favorite person on the planet nearing that day we won’t be able to reach out to them at our leisure.

I am at that point in my life where I feel both full and empty at the same time, where no one I know is capable of  filling the emptimess and no one, including Buddha, Pema Chodron, Shiva, Ganesha, Mother Mary, or Jesus, is able to comfort the fullness.

I’m angry at all the time I have wasted on people that were unworthy of my time, and should have been spent on those worthy of it, even though we’re taught everything leads us to this very point in time, and that nothing is pointless.

I am sad my best friend is my Mom, as beautiful as that is, because who will comfort me when she goes? Who will I call? I love my husband, but he is a man. My lover, man best friend, not my go-to woman. I love my sisters, they rock my soul from the bosom of Abraham, but still they are not my soul’s sister-twin, only my Mom carries that space.

So, pardon me, as yoga teacher, as spiritual being and practitioner of Shamanism, as Goddess loving, witchy woman that I proclaim to be, and maybe this will strike me dead the moment as I write it, but here it goes, “F*ck Buddha and his middle path.”

Did I just utter those words, write them (even worse)?

Well, yes, I did. I own it. I am hurting. I am crying. I am saying for this moment that middle path is nonexistent. I know it will surface again, and that his image, the mantras, the meditation practice, and all the beauty, equanimity, and peace found there will surface again, but for now I own this moment, and for now I say, I am screaming, I am yelling, and judge away because Dalai Lama taught me something on Mother’s day, when I took her to see him in Kentucky.

He gave me permission to feel this. He said, “Anger is healthy. If one does not feel anger and express it, they are not being fully honest.” He taught me much more than that, but tonight, in hearing of my mother’s frail health, from my best friend herself, about her being too clogged up for help, his words come raging back to me.

It’s OK to express anger, in healthy ways. I am not hurting anyone. I also feel even my saying, F*ck Buddha is healthy, because it was Buddha that created, discovered, coined the middle path and how can we discover anything unless we know clearly its opposite?

How will I go forward one day without Mom? Others have done it before me, but I have no idea, and for this moment I am grateful she is still here with me, and I am also deeply aware of that day when she will no longer be here in physical form.

When that day comes I will embrace Buddha even more wholeheartedly than I do now, because then, and only then, will he be my best friend. For now, Mom holds that seat, she is my Goddess, and he has some pretty big shoes, or seat, to fill.

For now, because I am in no hurry for her to leave, to transition, I say with all I got, F*ck Buddha, and in the most enduring heartfelt ways because I can think of no other love closer to perfect to Mom’s than Buddha himself. Peace be.

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Ed: Sara Crolick