Sometimes, to achieve something, it is best if we step back or let go, as the Daoist-sounding great Zen Master reminds us
When you leave the way to the way,
you attain the way.
Dogen, Bodaisatta-Shishobo, The Bodhisattva’s Four Methods of Guidance, 1234
To live without roads
seemed one way not to get lost.
Naomi Shihab Nye
What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until it all ends.
Mary Oliver What Can I Say [extract]
The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and planets spinning
through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?
You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless nor ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.
Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again. Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?
Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?
Lynn Ungar, Boundaries
Parker J Palmer related a story in his wonderful book Let your Life Speak about an elder Quaker woman who explained to him at an important time “An open door and a closed door are the same thing. They both send you in a direction”.
“Proceeding as the way opens” means that life has a holy rhythm.
Carrie Newcomer, As Way Opens
Another month ends. Our rituals and practices, like sitting in meditation, are like a well-worn path which allow us to deepen our capacity to see
To learn something new,
take the path that you took yesterday.
John Burroughs, 1837-1921, American naturalist, quoted in Pico Iyer, Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells
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