The true basis
of the universe is stillness,
its real condition, for out of it comes
all activity. The ocean, when the wind ceases,
is calm again, as are the trees and grasses.
These things return to stillness,
their natural way.
And this is the
principle of meditation.
There is night, there is day,
when the sun sets there is a hush,
and then the dead of night,
when all is still. This
is the meditation
of nature.
(1876-1968)
Let me remind you who you really are: You’re an immortal freedom fighter who longs to liberate all sentient creatures from their suffering. You’re a fun-loving messiah who devoutly wants to help all of your fellow messiahs claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright.
Try to remember. You’re a vortex of fluidic light that has temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins. And why did you do that? Because it was the best way to forge the identity that would make you such an elemental force in our 14-billion-year campaign to bring heaven all the way down to earth.
I’m not speaking metaphorically here. You are a mutant deity in disguise — not a Buddha or a Christ exactly, but of the same lineage and conjured from the same fire. You have been around since the beginning of time and will be here after the end. Every day and in every way, you’re getting better at playing the preposterously amusing master game we all dreamed up together before the Big Bang bloomed.
Lately, I must admit, our work has seemed almost comically impossible. Many of us have given in to the temptation to believe that everything is upside-down and inside-out. Ignorance and inertia, partially camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround us. Pessimism is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.
So no, at this peculiar turning point in the evolution of our 14-billion-year-old master game, it’s not easy to carry out our mission. We’ve got to be both wrathful insurrectionaries and exuberant lovers of life. We’ve got to cultivate cheerful buoyancy even as we resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and seductively packaged by those messiahs among us who bravely volunteered to play the role of know-it-all deceivers.
We have to learn how to stay in a good yet unruly mood as we overthrow the sour, puckered mass hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as “reality.”
Maybe most importantly, we have to be ferociously and single-mindedly dedicated to the cause of beauty and truth and love even as we keep our imaginations wild and hungry and free. We have to be both disciplined and rowdy.
A day
so happy. Fog lifted
early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over
honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing
on earth I wanted to possess. I knew no one
worth my envying him. Whatever evil I had
suffered, I forgot. To think that once I was
the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain. When
straightening up, I saw the
blue sea and
sails.
The world is
full of half-enlightened masters.
Overly clever, too “sensitive” to live in the real
world, they surround themselves with selfish pleasures and
bestow their grandiose teachings upon the unwary. Prematurely
publicizing themselves, intent upon reaching some spiritual
climax, they constantly sacrifice the truth and deviate
from the Tao. What they really offer
the world is their own
confusion.
The true master
understands that enlightenment
is not the end, but the means. Realizing that
virtue is her goal, she accepts the long and
often arduous cultivation that is
necessary to attain
it.
She doesn’t
scheme to become a leader,
but quietly shoulders whatever
responsibilities fall to her. Unattached
to her accomplishments, taking credit for
nothing at all, she guides the whole world by
guiding the individuals who come to her. She
shares her divine energy with her students,
encouraging them, creating trials to
strengthen them, scolding them to
awaken them, directing the
streams of their lives
toward the infinite
ocean of the
Tao.
If you
aspire to this
sort of mastery, then
root yourself in the Tao.
Relinquish your negative habits
and attitudes. Strengthen your sincerity.
Live in the real world, and extend your virtue
to it without discrimination in the daily round.
Be the truest father or mother, the truest brother
or sister, the truest friend, and the truest disciple.
Humbly respect and serve your teacher, and
dedicate your entire being unwaveringly
to self-cultivation. Then you will surely
achieve self-mastery and be able
to help others in doing
the same.
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