I came across a baby Jackdaw last evening in the grounds of the monastery at Moone. It was still somewhat unsteady in flight and was taking a rest on the ground, seeming a little bit intimidated by the next step it has to take in life, having to let go and learn to fly.
How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things teach us: to fall,
patiently trusting our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Another reflection on the value of not forcing (wu-wei) in our lives, and the benefits that come from trusting and letting go:
The ten directions converging,
Each learning to do nothing
This is where we learn the Buddha’s training;
Mind’s empty, all’s finished.
P’ang Yun, 740 – 808
Water is free from the birth
and death of a wave.
Thich Nhat Hahn
waiting to be born.
David Whyte, The House of Belonging
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of the Way, every day something is dropped.
Less and less is done until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 48
“Non-doing” – Wu-wei, – meaning “not to force”, refers to what we understand of one’s acting accordingly to one’s nature, of one’s swimming downstream, sailing before the wind, rolling like the waves or one’s bending in order to win.
Alan Watts, Tao: the Watercourse Way
photo sharon loxton
