"Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do? The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?"
--Wisdom of the Desert
Sometimes I sit to write this journal and nothing comes. I'm satisfied with that. I would rather dwell in silence than to try to artificially impose meaning or description to a life that is much more complex than my ideas or words can contain. The challenge is, can I accept what arises for the rest of the day, without imposing myself on the world? Can I act without doing, see without looking, speak without saying a word?
There is far more than what can be said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
I sense in you an anger which I believe comes from your frustration of not being able to control the world around you. I can emphasize with you since this is what my life experience has been since I was able to recognize what I was in control of, and that which I was not. Funny it seems though, we have more control than our feeble minds are able to withstand, and thus we give rise to the outlet of frustration for that we cannot control. We ‘trick’ ourselves into the churning and burning, the wondering and wandering, the highs and lows, the complete and utter frustration of that we have no control over; all in an effort to distract ourselves away from that we can control, because we are afraid of what such control might teach us (and, Oh! How successful we are at this little trickery).
My suggestion and hope for you is this: let yourself BE. No more, no less. BE who you are at this very moment, any moment. You have more control over YOU than you believe to have. And the funny thing is that in the end you really control nothing, the nothing controls you; but that is going of the topic I believe is bothering you at the present. However, being who I am, I must let me be and have no other option but to talk to you about control. Control is defined as 'To exercise authoritative or dominating influence over'. Now, I would imagine this is not what you have in mind when you are frustrated about whatever it is you are frustrated about. I don’t see you as an “authoritative, dominant being”. I do see you however as a caring being. Between dominating and caring expands the abyss we so many fall into; we are not wanting to control, we are wanting the end result WE see as the better for all those concern. Yet we must understand that OUR result is the result of ourselves, and not the result of those we are hoping OUR results on. There is an old saying that I believe is misunderstood in present time that goes “let sleeping dogs lie”. My translation to this saying in this commentary would be “let them be them, and let you be you”. Nurture them with you, and let them nurture you with them. We are all human in kind and God like in spirit; and no one can aspire to more with out the minus of another.
I will close with the wise words of my friend, whose leaves cover again his yard as they do mine:
“Every experience inspires some judgment on the part of the mind, whether the experience is good, bad or neutral, and one comment connects to another comment creating an ever-flowing stream of judgment and assessment.…the great breakthrough actually happens not when we stop judging others or judging our experiences, but when we stop judging ourselves for judging”
Post a Comment