(This is Part 11 of a series. Go back to Part 10.)
Another way of looking at the same thing is that we cease trying to coerce things. We don't need to force anything, now or ever. Everything that's supposed to happen, will. In fact, if it's supposed to happen we can't prevent it. At the deepest level, everything is happening by itself, and all is as it should be.
When we try to force something, we go out of the flow of the Tao, the flow of the One. This doesn't mean that there may not be hard work involved. There may very well be. Yet deep down there is a sense of alignment, compassion, surrender, flowing.
If we have to resort to coerceion, manipulation or cruelty to achieve our objectives—no matter how high-minded those objectives might seem—then something is out-of-whack. Because the actions that are aligned with the invisible breeze of the universe do have a kind of flow about them, a sense of non-forcing, even if a lot of hard work is involved.
Another hopeless contradiction, of course, because nothing that happens can ever be out-of-alignment with existence, merely because of the fact that it's here and it's happening and therefore partakes of existence.
Yet there is some truth in this notion of alignment too. So if we find ourselves trying to force something or other, maybe it's time to step back and ask if our path is really in alignment with the clouds and the seas and the silence of the Mystery.
That silence is our greatest teacher. Indeed, it is the teaching itself. Silence can teach us about the majesty of a June bug, the divinity in a leaf, the luminescence in a wintry night.
Sitting in silence is both a means and an end, both the means which takes us on the journey to the present moment, and itself the end of the journey. Because it is impossible to truly come to the present without having one’s heart broken open at the beauty of existence.
Greatly facilitating this is to slow down in our daily life. When we consciously take things at a slower pace, it begins to slow our mind down and we can tune in more clearly to the perfection that is already there, a perfection that exists whether our mind is being fast or slow, that exists whether our current state is joy or sorrow, and that exists whether or not we notice.
Slow down, great teachers have advised us. When we slow down in our daily life, we begin to partake of some of that stillness which is the ultimate teacher and teaching, that which opens the door to the heart that sees all things with love, clarity and gratitude.
The two work together, slowing the mind by sitting in silence and slowing the mind by slowing down in our daily activities. Ultimately, like all other dualities, they are one thing. We slow down in one process that is both inward and outward, and we begin to notice suddenly that existence is an unbelievable gift. And that we want to nurture it as best we can however we can.
Even if we die tonight, let's go out of this world with great gratitude for the privilege of having consciously been here, for the privilege of those moments when we felt the flow of the Mystery behind the surface of things, for the privilege of those moments when we were able to open our hearts in love and compassion.
Which, I guess, brings me to a final notion: In the last analysis, the mind has to give up. It cannot understand what's really going on; only the heart can. Only the heart is an infallible guide. Only the heart can lead us home, where we already are.
No, the mind will not understand, but that’s okay; the heart already does and always did. That is who we really are. That is who we were meant to be and always will be and are now, world without end.
When our child looks in our eyes, when the trees sway in the breeze, when the stars shine their majestic light, when the crickets sing in the night—that is God singing to us, that is we singing to ourselves, that is Itself singing a soft lullaby, always and forever to Itself.
(This is the end of Part 11. Go to Part 12.)
—jim sloman, 7.31.05
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