Playing with latent possibilities was important and helpful.
When I got stuck with something and was wheel-spinning to make it happen, I said to myself, “On the bright side, it’s possible that…” – and I heard the sentence completed with phrases like:
- I’ve moved on from this
- I’m in a new paradigm now
- This is no longer relevant to me
- I’m free from this now
Very releasing. Very affirming. Very consoling.
So. We’re going on holiday today. We’ve found a cottage, just a couple of hours drive away, near the sea and the moors. Astonishingly, with one last push this morning, I will finish my work mountain. I’m so glad and relieved and proud of all that has been covered in the last two weeks.
Let’s read.
-20- How great is the difference between “yea” and “yeah”? How great is the distinction between “good” and “evil”? Must I fear what others fear? How silly! Everyone else is joyous as if enjoying the greatest feast, or going up the terraces in spring. I alone am drifting without direction, like a baby who has not yet smiled. I alone am moping as if I had no home. Everyone else has more than they need, I alone seem in want. I have the mind of a fool, how confused I am! Other people are bright and clever, I alone am dark. Other people are alert and self-assured, I alone am dull and muddled. I am unsettled like the waves of the sea, like the restless wind. Everyone else has a purpose, I alone am stubborn and awkward. I am different from other people, Even so, I am nourished by the Great. (Tao Te Ching Chap 20)
Such a change of tone – anguished! Stenudd says it’s considered this may not even be Lao Tzu’s writing.
But I can go with this line happily: I am different from other people, Even so, I am nourished by the Great. Or even simply: I am nourished by the Great. What’s the thinking on this then, dear Soul? What is my learning today?
Meditate, dear one. Settle. Settle. Listen softly.
*****
It’s vital, the mid-DoD Med, isn’t it? To tune in to you. I’d lost that a bit, since stopping hand-writing my diaries. Ok, so what I found arising in the meditation was this: I am nourished by No-Thing
Nu? What would you have me know, dear heart of my soul, dear soul of my heart? Educate me this day.
The reading for today speaks of how the writer watches those people who are thrilled by their physical life: ‘Everyone else is joyous as if enjoying the greatest feast, or going up the terraces in spring.’
Or going on holiday by the seaside in August…!
…Which shall be deeply enjoyed by you – not because of the ‘things to do’ but, as G says, because of the ‘nothing to do’. No thing to do. So you are being invited this day to embrace the ‘No-Thing’ to do. Unhook the urgency turbo charge, decommission the accelerator pedal, redirect your eyes inward at the very same time as they are richly delighted by the outward..
So, hang on… The sights, the activities, the sea-walks, the blustery moors, the ‘cream cakes’. Are they to be dismissed..?
No! Now, you know that already. You know that they bring delight because they are the Always-So! On holiday, you are dipping into the Always-So with no purpose, or perhaps more easily understood, no ‘agenda’. On holiday, there is no money to be earned, to end to be achieved, no people to meet or impress. This is nourishing. The No-Thing of holiday is sweet, innocent, rich, precious, flowing – Tao-y. Bring the No-Thing of Holiday home with you, and you will see how much easier, smoother and heartier your everyday life becomes.
Ok. Cool! I hear you. I see you. Here goes No-Thing! 🙂
I am nourished by No-Thing