Allow your life to unfold naturally.
Just as you breathe in and breathe out, there is a time for being ahead and a time for being behind; a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous and a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe and a time for being in danger.
Lao Tzu
Another storm passing over parts of Ireland today: high winds, then cold and snow. A good metaphor for our life. Sometimes we are subject to cold winds from an unexpected direction:
Being tossed and turned by circumstances is part of life’s weather. You may trip on obstacles, hurting someone you love. You may find yourself alone, without the person with whom you thought you’d spend the rest of your life.
How do we meet these challenges?
For me, I try to remember, when breaking, that every crack is an opening. No matter how harsh the experience, something is always opened within us; and what is opened is always more important than what breaks us. We might experience cruelty or unfairness or indifference or the brutality of chance — all of which are difficult and life-changing. And while cruelty and injustice are never excusable and need to be rectified, we must not get stuck in our list of legitimate grievances, or we will never be able to enter the depth that becomes available for being open.
It’s hard to keep this deeper understanding of life in view when in pain, when in fear, when confused and worried. But this is the nature of being broken. “To be broken is no reason to see all things as broken.” This notion has been a profound teacher for me in meeting difficulty. Though it’s understandable to be consumed with what we’re going through, it’s essential to remember that all of life is not where we are. In fact, this is when we need the aliveness and vitality of everything that is not us. When closed, we need to open. When fearful, we need to trust again. When feeling lost, we need to remember that we are in the stream of life, which is never lost.
Mark Nepo, What to Do When You’re Broken
A deeper feeling – a sense of groundlessness or loneliness – is normal in humans, and part of meditation practice is learning to sit with this. Advent, when a lot of running around is encouraged, is a good time to notice the energies connected with this.
The restlessness of our inner abyss. Pope Francis, Church of the Gesù, Jan 2014
As I look out at the world, I see that a lot of us are just running around in circles pretending that there’s ground where there actually isn’t any ground. And that somehow, if we could learn to not be afraid of groundlessness, not be afraid of insecurity and uncertainty, it would be calling on an inner strength that would allow us to be open and free and loving and compassionate in any situation. But as long as we keep trying to scramble to get ground under our feet and avoid this uneasy feeling of groundlessness and insecurity and uncertainty and ambiguity and paradox, any of that, then the wars will continue. It’s like the matrix of creative potential. The matrix of the spiritual life. It’s like if we could rest there, which I suppose would be the description of enlightenment or the mystic, you know. Rest in that place, and is completely happy.
Pema Chodron, Interview with Bill Moyers, Faith and Reason, 2006
Can we stop judging our whole life just because of a disturbing feeling in the body?
All of our reactions to people, to situations, to thoughts in our mind
– are actually reactions to the kind of sensations that are arising in our body.
Tara Brach
The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings.
If we refuse to hold them in hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.
Parker Palmer
As yesterday’s post reminded us, things are always changing in life, just as nature has its seasons:
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep in your heart the miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Kahil Gibran The Prophet
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