“Consider difficult people in our lives
as reflections of our own negative traits.”
- Zohar
Every time I read this, I pause and wonder…
“Am I really anything like that guy down the road?”
“Can I possibly have anything in common with that annoying attorney who controls the town?”
“And my former boss.”
Frightening thoughts.
“In order to be able to understand the great complexity of life and to understand what the universe is doing, the first word to learn is synergy.” –Buckminster Fuller
I think we want to understand this and to experience what it’s like to be part of a larger system or organism–a drop of water within the sea, as some call our true relationship to everything else.
Day to day, though, we habitually fight it, and go about our daily tasks seeing the world around us as “everything else.”
Oddly–or predicatbly–we are drawn to fads from the latest music to the latest clothes, but when it comes time to commit ourselves to the group on things that really matter, we tend to retreat back inside our homes and our own skins.
We yearn for more, though, while we resist it.
I enjoy my visits to Dailyzen. The studies and commentaries are interesting and are very nourishing, even to those of us who are not seekers along the Zen path.
Currently, Daily Zen is focusing on “Sho-do-ka” (Song of Realization), by Yoka-daishi, and it begins like this:
You cannot praise nor blame realization.
Like the sky, truth has no bounds.
Wherever you stand, it surrounds you.
When you seek it, you cannot reach it;
Your hand cannot hold it,
Nor your mind exclude it.
When you no longer seek it, it is with you.
In silence, you speak it loudly;
In speech you manifest its silence.
Thus the gate of compassion opens wide
To the benefit of all beings.
I am reminded something Yoda told Luke in one of the Star Wars films: “Don’t try, do.”
We are forever trying, and this seems to get in our way, rather like the feet of the proverbial centipede in the old gag who was asked, “when you start to walk, which foot do you move first?” At that point, the centipede was unable to move at all, just for the thinking of such things.
My speculation here is that when we stop wondering about which foot to move first, we’ll be able to walk a lot farther down our chosen paths.
I look forward to my e-mail newsletter from Soul Flares partly because of the wonderful quotes at the beginning. This one reminds me Joseph Campbell’s statement that the “privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” That journey we’re taking is, in reality, measured more by time and thought rather than miles.
“But whats wrong? What is this sadness we cannot name? Here is a question that deserves loving meditation. Perhaps the heart of our melancholy is that we miss the person we were meant to be. We miss our authentic selves. But the good news is that even if you have ignored its overtures for decades, your authentic self has not abandoned you. Instead it has been waiting patiently for you to recognize it and reconnect. Turn away from the world this year and begin to listen. Listen to the whispers of your heart. Look within.” Sarah Ban Breathnach, from Simple Abundance
“The hero’s will is not that of his ancestors nor of his society, but his own. This will to be oneself is heroism. Life is a desperate struggle to be in fact what we are in design.” –José Ortega Y. Gasset
There has always been spin. In the 1800s, dime novelist Ned Buntline knew about it. Buffalo Bill Cody knew about it and so did Barnum. Now, we have the evening news, “Entertainment Tonight” and the Internet to keep spin spinning.
Quite often, we are told who are heroes are by one spin doctor or another. Then, because of the notoriety, both real and fabricated heroes need spin doctors of their own to handle the barrage of photographers and reporters and every day folks camped out in their yards.
How nice it would be if we could live our lives with less noise doing that which makes us ourselves and noting, of our own free will and a friendly comment, others doing likewise.
