Monthly Archives: August 2015

BALANCE, WONDERFUL BALANCE

 

Nik Wallenda crossing the GrandCanyon on a tightrope, without safety harness

Image of Nik Wallenda crossing the Grand Canyon by Lance Walton

 

Balance is always to be desired

 

Imagine two tightrope walkers. One believes that he can fall; the other has no fear.  Which one has balance? Only he that imagines he is always walking on secure ground, for whom the possibility of falling does not exist.

The next time you stand on a balcony, holding onto the rail and admiring the views, imagine how differently you would feel if the rail was not there. You would not go anywhere near the edge, and you would not be able to enjoy the views. The possibility of falling is introduced by the absence of a rail, and now you are ruled by fear.  You may feel dizzy or even nauseous.

 

VLooking down from twenty stories high, with no railing

 

Balance cannot exist where there is fear. Absence of fear and balance go together. In reality they are part of something wondrous that is larger than each one of them, smaller ideas entwined into a larger Idea. The mind likes to break everything down into parts, and parts again. So everything is partial, since you train your mind this way.

What if you let your mind go back the other way, unifying, unifying, unifying? Absence of fear and unshakable calm are just features of balance, as balance itself is just a feature of something larger, into which it blends as a drop in the ocean.

 

A drop of water caught in the moment of rebound, looking like a tiny figure

 

All that is good must exist together. Peace cannot be separate from forgiveness. Calm cannot be separate from patience. Stillness cannot be apart from clarity. All must exist together, or each loses its meaning.

 

Detail of tree trunk twisting around itself

 

The more connections you make between parts, the more clearly do you see the whole. And thus do we attain balance unshakable in the absence of any opposite. As fears are shed, and then disappear completely, so does attachment to outcomes evaporate, and balance becomes a state so natural you will cease to need a word for it.

 

All that is good co-exists

 

A beautiful canal lined by established trees, projecting peace

 

HALF MAN, HALF BEAST

 

Statue of a satyr, half beast and half man, looking down on humanity, with a pitying yet calculating eye.

 

I am a satyr, half man, half beast. I feel my man as a beast. I am tied to it, yet I long to be free of it.  I long to be untethered from its galloping goatish legs, its lusts, its desires, its ridiculous tendency to take offence, and worry, and be afraid, and try to control outcomes and protect its poor self. As much as I feel the emotions of my man part flow through me, so much more quickly do I wish to be rid of them. I want no more time for guilt, or jealousy, or any little subtle gradation of fear.  I want none of it.

 

Figure of a man, hand to brow, deep in thought.

 

Half human

 

Is there a way to live in a human body, in time, and to be at peace?  Is peace possible? That is the question.  Is it conceivable? Let us start on the level of personal experience, because what else is there? So, in my experiential world, is peace possible?

 

A night scene of islands in the ocean, underneath constellations in the heavens.

 

Do you think you can imagine something that couldn’t exist?  Are you more than God? What is not possible that you can think of?  If you can imagine it, it exists.

 

Infinity is all around, in directions you don’t even know of.  Peace, of course, exists.

 

A mother duck with her six downy chicks in a row alongside of her, all contemplating the water. A picture of contentment.

 

How do I manifest peace?  Because that, really, is the question. What else would I want to know? With peace, comes everything else I could desire: a sense of completion, of rest, of having no more desires, of escaping time, of releasing outcomes, of surrender.  With peace, there is nothing more to want.

How does one have peace?

 

Mahatma Gandhi in old age, with a smile on his face

 

By choosing it over every other thing. By refusing to pay attention to complaining, to superficial matters, by refusing to spend time arguing about details, by refusing all forms, however subtle, of ego and fear. You have fought with them long enough, and they have decimated you. Now lay down all your weapons, leave the battlefield, and from this moment forth, become peace.

 

I will fight no more forever

Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

 

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, in ceremonial dress, hand over his solar plexus and serious, faraway aspect in his face.

COMPLAINING: YOU DON’T NEED TO LISTEN

 

 

Life is full of stories.  How much attention you pay to any of them is up to you.  Complaining does not have to be listened to.  By listening, you only validate it. It asks you to make judgments all the time.

 

Sad looking donkey

 

All you hear when you listen to complaining is, “This is bad, that was terrible, I hate how they acted, that was wrong, I am angry about something, I am afraid of something.”  As painful as it is to listen to,  the more you listen to complaining, the more of it do you invite into your experience.

Who would do this?

  Resist not evil

 

Two wrestlers pushing hard at each other

 

When you see something in your experience that is unwanted, you push back, which creates resistance and conflict.  Rather, when you see something unwanted, withdraw your attention from it.  Endure no negative feeling-states surrounding it.

 

Deny the weeds of discord

 

Deny the weeds of discord any of the water of your attention.  When you resist evil, you are paying attention to evil, treating it as though it were real and worthy of your attention. That is why it is better to resist not evil.

Would you invite discord and depression into your experience?  If you knew you had invited them, would you not choose instantly to invite differently?

I would like to uninvite discord and depression from my experience. I would like to disable them completely.

You do that by withdrawing all attention from their direction.  Where attention goes, experience follows.  Think of complaints as negative little harbingers of grief and sorrow, poor little mine canaries heralding woes to come.  Send these sad little birds away when they try to alight.

 

Photo by Mehdi Sepehri on Unsplash

 

Do not embrace complaining, indulging it with your attention. Starve it instead.  Do not take its concerns seriously.  Remember its only purpose is to distract you, to keep you endlessly involved in ego’s web.

 

Neither do you get angry with complaining, and go on campaigns and crusades against it, complaining against complaining. No, the only way to disable complaining, as anything else you may want to eliminate from your experience, is to lovingly withdraw your attention.

 

A girl meditating outside with bird of paradise plant in the background

 

Say the conduit prayer over the situation, and then dismiss it with love. Do this each time a negative feeling tries to land on you. Very soon, they will stop trying.

Complaining is the language of decrease;

gratitude is the language of increase

Frances Scovel Shinn

 

Peaceful evening scene in northern Arizona