(This is Part 14 of a series. Go back to Part 13.)
Similarly, if in trading I resist the reality of the market, insisting that I'm right and therefore not quickly getting out of losing positions, I suffer. But again, the suffering is being caused by my resistance to the market's reality rather than the reality itself.
In my experience, all of life is like this. If we experience whatever we're experiencing, internally and externally, but have no resistance to it then we're basically in bliss regardless of what's going on.
And the funny thing is that action and change still do happen, but they come from a different place. They arise from some kind of deep inner thing. I call it "inner guidance" but all sorts of labels could be given to it.
And the interesting thing is that it seems to arise by itself. Actions appear—but they're no longer driven by the sense that, "It has to be this way." It either will be or it won't be.
In my experience, the actions that arise from this inner guidance are vastly more effective and harmony-tending than actions arising from a weighing of "decisions" in the mind. Whatever the inner guidance is, it appears to know vastly more than "I" do.
At this point I gave my friend a question that she could pose to herself if she wished. Here it is:
How could I appreciate reality just-as-it-is, internally and externally, if I wanted to?
The part about "internally" is quite important. When things show up in the mind—thoughts, sensations, feelings, whatever—we can react to them in various ways. We can push them away, buy into them, deny their existence, act them out and so on,
But actually, nothing needs to be done with them. The contents of our minds show up in reality just as a tree shows up or a rose shows up. Nothing needs to be done with the contents that show up in the mind. We can just let them be there without doing anything with them.
In that non-resistance to the contents of the mind, they're no different than a cloud floating across the sky or a leaf floating down the stream—something simply to be observed, even appreciated.
A rose could spend all day long every day bewailing that it's not more like a tree, tall and strong. And a tree could spend all day long every day bewailing that it's not more like a rose, soft and fragrant.
But both are perfect. It's easy to see that with a rose and a tree, but what about the thoughts in our mind? What about the various situations of external reality?
Maybe in some unfathomable way it's all perfect, and when we perceive that we begin to partake of that perfection, we begin to partake of reality's magical song that is eternally singing.
We partake of it anyway—how could we not, since we are that?—but now we hear that melody eternally singing, we see that beautiful light eternally shining.
(This is the end of Part 14. Go to Part 15.)
—jim sloman, 9.9.03 for 9.12.04
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