01
We all are carrying a load. Complexity, conflict and contradiction have their way with us. Balance and harmony are rarely present for long. Making peace with our life was out of the question years ago, and we have settled for making it through another day, one day at a time. Finding our life and living it doesn't make it into our top 100 things to think about, and going through the motions is the best we can manage most days. It is the same old same old everywhere we look, and all we look for is something to take our minds off the business of being alive. We turn things around by being quiet for five minutes five times a day. Silence is the sure cure for what ails us, but first the pain and anguish, sorrow and sadness. We meet it all in the silence, waiting for us to reconcile ourselves with everything that has been. We don't live this long without stacking up grief beyond measure in the quiet darkness of memory and remorse. And we live to forget what can't be forgotten. And won't go away. Jon Kabat-Zinn recommends gathering it all into our awareness (without addressing everything at once, or being hijacked or kidnapped by any of it), in a "This, too. This, too." kind of way. Acknowledge it as it comes up, and welcome it to its rightful place in your life. Promise it its time with you in due course, and return to the silence of here and now, and what now, and what next. Learning to be still and quiet with the all-ness of our experience is the turning point from the past as it has always been, to the future as it might yet be. We are the fulcrum between old and new. Being quiet and open, present and receptive, is the key to the door to our life as it still might be. "Here I am. I'm sorry to be late. Let's see what we can do, even now, even so," quiets the accusers, the remember-ers, the grudge-bearers, the critics, and all those who want their time with you, and puts you all in the present with "Here we are, now what?" to deal with at last. All that has been has its rightful and necessary place in the work to create what can be. Nothing is to be dismissed, ignored, forgotten. Everything is of value in doing what needs to be done. We have been nurturing wisdom into being all this time, and now for its realization and application in the service of what lies ahead-- to be revealed and revered in the silence of wonder and amazement, moment by moment, day by day the rest of the way. Sit still, be quiet for five minutes, five times a day.
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02
Relax into your life and go with it as though it were your own idea. Stop striving to control and direct, to compel and prevent. Look for ways to cooperate and assist, to participate and take part. What is being called for? What would be helpful? Proper? Most fitting to the occasion? Do that! Help things become what they are trying to be! Live--not to serve your way-- but to be a source of grace and blessing for the time and place of your living-- of each here and now-- without judgment or opinion, but with a genuine desire to be good for the things and people that come your way. Such is the mark of a life well lived!
