So after the recognition about having an opportunity to focus next year on enjoying and ‘sharing the fruits of my labour’, I did a thing. I posted this to my online colleague network:
‘After a tough year of political discord, my wish and intention for 2020 is to learn and share more widely the tools of consensus, consultation and collaboration.’
This sums up exactly how I feel. I am heartily, bitterly, painfully dismayed by the way our country’s politics have been hijacked (via outright lies and manipulation of minds by crucial mass media outlets) by hostile forces who would serve themselves and their peers before they serve the (often vulnerable) people they have persuaded will be better off by voting for them. This is to put it all mildly.
On the other hand, part of me knows that the alternative, redistributive socio-political consciousness – upon which scorn has been poured passim in this country in past weeks – is simply the future waiting to unfold, and that that future is based on consensus, consultation and collaboration, from which will arise greater unity, equity, fairness, abundance, for people and planet. I see this consciousness already naturally arisen in the younger generations. I am so moved that they can ‘see’ with greater clarity, purity and selflessness than their older peers.
So, in other words, I am instructing myself not to retreat into judgment or bitterness or fear or, most importantly, silence about our political landscape. But rather to use each impulse of sadness as a prompt to deliver out there the tools of consensus, consultation and collaboration that I use in my work.
Shall we read? Penultimate chapter of the Tao Te Ching…
-80- In a small country with few people: Though there are machines that would increase production ten to a hundred miles they are not used. The people take death seriously and do not travel about. Though they have boats and carriages no one uses them. Though they have armour and weapons, there is no occasion to display them. The people give up writing and return to the knotting of cords. They are satisfied with their food. They are pleased with their clothes. They are content with their homes. They are happy in their simple ways. Even though they live within sight of another country and can hear dogs barking and cocks crowing in it, still the people grow old and die without ever coming into conflict. (The Tao Te Ching 80)
Interestingly, in his commentary, Stenudd writes that he has ‘problems with this chapter’: ‘It describes what Lao Tzu regards as a dream society, but I find it kind of boring. No travel, no visions, no aspirations, and no curiosity. Nothing but the routine of everyday life. It’s certainly peaceful and secure, but isn’t it also dull?‘ At the end of the commentary, a reader posts a comment:
‘I keep coming back to your page to read the Tao Te Ching over and over. Through my years of practicing Buddhism this verse makes more sense now than it did even just 10 years ago. When we lose the desire to see what others have, how things are in other places, what’s on the other side of the fence, we have reached a state of inner peace. The longing for more, more places and things has been put to sleep. It is not until we have that inner peace that we can bring peace unto the world. This is how I am interpreting what he says in this verse. May all beings be at peace.’ Jennifer Mandarino (my emphasis).
And Jennifer’s comment helps me pin down the theme you can spot within the chapter that I have been riffing with recently in my own head. I’ll go back and bold the key phrases in Lao Tzu’s text:
- satisfied with
- pleased with
- content with
- happy in their simple ways – and as a result they live…
- without ever coming into conflict
The antidote to conflict truly is an inside job and it arises from fostering feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, contentedness and happiness with ‘what is’ – though it be so very simple. This is almost the definition of inner peace. In this sense, the ‘small country‘ is the independent self.
So, can you be satisfied, pleased, content and happy with the political landscape of your country? Or must you remain in a state of conflict towards it?
Fascinating. Here’s the nub of things! If we see something as ‘bad’ do we reject it? Or do we instead work out where our judgment comes from…? And surely our judgment comes from fear which comes from our defensive, protective, judging ego. What does A Course in Miracles (ACIM) say about this? I seem to recall ACIM leading me to the understanding that absolutely nothing needs to be judged or feared…. Yes, look at this:
M-10.3. The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. 2 This is not an opinion but a fact. 3 In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. 4 One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. 5 And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. 6 Who is in a position to do this? 7 Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself? (https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-manual-teachers-10-judgement-relinquished/)
I recall better now how ACIM talks about ‘relinquishing judgement‘ for exactly the above reason (and with much more context too, lest it should be taken as a simplistic approach).
May I learn again to relinquish judgment and to see the perfection in ‘what is right here right now’. May I slough off the urge to point to the ‘sins’ of others and instead occupy myself by receiving, appreciating and sharing – in a state of ‘satisfaction, pleasure, contentedness and happiness’ – the perfection of each moment life brings me. I get it… I think. The understanding that to give up our restlessness is possibly our greatest gift to ourselves, because it is to give up our ‘wanting’… that is quite possibly the source of our suffering. Wanting… change, difference, recognition, love, movement… As opposed to receiving, in astonishment, good grace and appreciation, all that is, right here, right now.
Where are you, precious voice of my soul?
Right here, right now. Ever present, and ever vocal, and ever in communication with you as the infinite intelligence of your being.
I sense you quieter. What’s happening?
A shift – more power to your voice. This voice blending with your voice. The binary nature of the dialogues melding into a new unitary voice. The distinction between the two, less distinct.
Why?
For use in Sharing Tools, your next Project. For use with love, care, attention and dedication. So that you make speak with the authority of your inner knowing. It is well known that when you relax your mind and your eyes and your face, the words spill forth into the receiving platform of your mind, one at a time, for dictation. This continues in the next Project. What fosters the relaxed state? A complete satisfaction with the perfection of the moment. A resting state, a receiving state, an observing state of complete contentedness and peace. To the degree you can slide out of restlessness, wanting and chafing in judgment, will you become a channel of simple knowing.
So: relinquish judgment, and appreciate what is, right here, right now.
If Life came with a users’ manual, this would be the only guidance in it.
I will work with this. Thank you. One more session… What will it bring?
Perfection.
I am relinquishing judgment and appreciating what is, right here, right now.