T
he disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-tzu’s dictum:
“Those who know, do not say;
Those who say, do not know.”
When the master entered,
they asked him what the words meant.
Said the master, “Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?”
All of them indicated that they knew.
Then he said, “Put it into words.”
All of them were silent.
Anthony DeMello, One Minute Wisdom
Basic goodness, the shimmering brilliance of our being, is as clear as a mountain lake. But we’re not certain about our own goodness. We begin to stray from it as soon as we wake up in the morning, because our mind is unstable and bewildered. Our thoughts drag us around by a ring in our nose, as if we were cows in the Indian market. This is how we lose control of our lives. We don’t understand that the origin of happiness is right here in our mind. We might experience happiness at times, but we’re not sure how we got it, how to get it again, or how long it’s going to last when it comes. We live life in an anxious, haphazard state, always looking for happiness to arrive.
When we are confused about the source of happiness, we start to blame the world for our dissatisfaction, expecting it to make us happy. Then we act in ways that bring more confusion and chaos into our life. When our mind is busy and discursive, thinking uncontrollably, we are engaging in a bad habit. We are stirring up the mud of jealousy, anger, and pride. Then the mind has no choice but to become familiar with the language of negativity and develop it further.
The only place ever to work is right now. We work with the present situation rather than a hypothetical possibility of what could be. I like any teaching that encourages us to be with ourselves and our situation as it is without looking for alternatives. The source of all wakefulness, the source of all kindness and compassion, the source of all wisdom, is in each second of time. Anything that has us looking ahead is missing the point.
Pema Chodron,
I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.
I get a glass from a cabinet, open a bottle of wine,
then I sit back in a ladder-backed chair,
a benevolent god presiding over a miniature creation myth,
and I began to sing a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth to hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow
so that the grove of orange trees and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave, the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightening on a dark lake.
Then I fill my glass again and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather, singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.
Billy Collins, As if to Demonstrate an Eclipse
The art of living….consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Alan Watts
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.
Rumi
When we stop clinging to the known and allow our dreams to become instruments of change, we learn to practice meditation in action at the deepest level. In these moments, we must risk taking a joyful leap with no guarantee of being caught as we fall. In Zen practice, we call it stepping off of the hundred-foot pole — living fully without clinging to anything. Students often speak to me of the great fear that arises even contemplating taking a leap into not-knowing from the cliff top of their old life. All we can rely on, after the joyful leap, is the reassuring discovery of what truly sustains us. I am still in freefall but sometimes I feel the comforting arms of “just this.”
Melissa Myozen Blacker, The Joyful Leap
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