Because I came into the world to experience pain.

To feel sadness, rage, helplessness, envy, despair. To cry out from the wound my ego makes. To take on myself the force of the waves that knock me down, and the sly, unnoticed breeze that slips in through my careless moments.

And what would I do with all that? Learn.

Make out the colors of the forces that shake me. Notice how flimsy the beliefs that convince me really are. Know in my own flesh what it is to drown in a teacup and wallow in my own unawareness.

Rise above myself. Break through the fallacies. Find understanding among my delusions. Open my heart through my stubbornness. Loosen my clumsiness. Lift the weight from my eyelids.

And then see the sky that covers everything, and the joy that lives in everything.

Because I came into the world to experience love.