(This is Part 28 of a series. Go back to Part 27.)
"Intelligent control appears as uncontrol or freedom. And for that reason it is genuinely intelligent control. Unintelligent control appears as external domination. And for that reason it is really unintelligent control." –Lao-Tzu
Another way of looking at that beautiful quote by Lao-Tzu is that life handles itself. The universe can be trusted to handle its own affairs. Paradoxically, this doesn't mean that we sit still. It simply means that our actions arise from a place that understands that the so-called individual self is not the actual doer.
Every so often I get the hallucinatory notion that I might have some suggestions to offer about life and happiness. Caught in the death-grip of my hallucinations, I might put it something like this:
Embrace what life offers, in great joy and gratitude.
Take what life offers you, and embrace it in gratitude for what you received—whatever it's been. The sadness along with the joy, the defeats along with the victories, the nights along with the days.
Of course the question arises immediately: But what if I want a better life?
The funny thing is that if life is offering you a "bum deal," then embracing that "bum deal" is actually your most effective strategy to be happy. This is in part because the feeling of happiness is an internal thing.
If you're lying in the gutter and it's your last night on earth and you're wet, cold and hungry, and you're weak and dying...if you're completely surrended to all those things and feel gratitude and love in your heart for the privilege of existence, you'll be happy.
So surrender, embracing, accepting alters us inside. That's the first thing. The second thing is that it leads to action, but to a different kind of action, a kind that arises by itself from within, a kind that's steeped in great humility and compassion. So an amended guideline might go like this:
Embrace whatever life offers,
then let action arise by itself.
The first line makes possible the second line.
A note: The action that arises is never impulsive, hasty or reactive. It can be swift at times, but it's never hasty or reactive. It takes its time, even if it's being swift, because it's not concerned about the outcome. It's willing to let life go where it wants to go, and in the very midst of that surrender also seeks to serve life however it can.
The mind might want to make this into a strategy: "I'll surrender to life so that action will arise that will make it look like so." That won't work, because it's not a true surrender, it's not a true embrace of reality-as-it-is. If we accept reality only to change it, our acceptance of reality is not yet genuine. We're simply using our acceptance as a means to an end.
Further, when action-from-surrender arises it is not because the world or other people or ourselves needs to be "saved" or "fixed" or "improved" in some way. Rather, action of service simply arises like the blossom from a flower. And there's no telling what that action will be, because it's coming from a completely mysterious place. Yet it definitely has whispers of harmony and peace and good-will.
Thus, whatever our situation, or whatever the situation of the world seems to be, let's fully embrace it. Another way of putting that is: Let's let go of our resistance to reality-as-it-is—especially since it is this way—and surrender to it instead, in all of its various hues.
Paradoxically, the action that arises in us from that point of surrender is far more effective than otherwise, because it is arising from a place that is rmuch more stress-free. And the action that arises from what we might call the great embrace might very well be one that we would have undertaken anyway—but if so, it will come from a very different place. And that place is more relaxed, more clear-sighted, more effective and more energetic.
Genuine embracing is also complete surrender. It understands that reality itself knows far more about how to run itself than this little three-pound brain does. It understands that the vastness on some inconceivable level doesn't need any "improvement" whatsoever because it's already perfect—reality already partakes completely of its own divine perfection.
From that release, the actions that then arise on their own have a quality not of improvement of the world, but of service to it. The question that then arises is: How can I serve? And the question is answered by the very actions that arise from the great embrace.
Similarly, if there is some part of ourself which we want to change or be different, the best strategy is actually to completely embrace that part instead.
As an example, let's say we're feeling self-doubt and wanting to replace that with confidence, etc. Of course we can always feign confidence, repeat a mantra about how confidant we are or whatever, but those things are like putting a fresh coat of paint on a rotting structure.
The paradox is that we must first see that self-doubting part of us as something to be loved and embraced. Then, in the space of no longer pushing away self-doubt, in fact being perfectly happy that it's there—which is not the same as buying-in to its message—that-which-is-an-absence-of-self-doubt arises by itself from nowhere, and moves by itself in confidence.
As mentioned before, every entity in this universe, including those parts of ourselves that we tend to reject, wants more than anything else to be loved and accepted. To take our example, that self-doubting part will keep attempting to rise up in consciousness so it can be noticed and accepted. The more we keep trying to push it away and replace it with something else, the more it will keep coming back.
Only when we love and accept that part will it be able to find peace and rest. And again, loving and accepting something doesn't mean buying-in to it. We don't have to—at all—buy-in to self-doubting thoughts in order to love and accept them and be perfectly happy to have them be there.
Once we truly accept these unwanted parts of ourselves, accept that they are there, embrace them as friends, they become like a beautiful melody that a bird is singing. We can listen to that melody and appreciate it as simply another beautiful part of reality, without needing to buy-in to it at all.
Then, in that surrender, in that embrace, actions arise by themselves. We tuck in the children, we bake the bread, we serve, we "take action" of one kind or another. And yet nothing is being done; nothing needs to be done. All is happening by itself, as itself, of itself. The flower is already perfect and yet, on this sunny and beautiful spring day, we can love to water it.
—jim sloman, 3.30.03 for 7.25.03
|
