Let everything be
- Especially me.

Many people say that accepting things - letting them be - is the most enlightened approach to life. We are advised to accept people for who they are, to accept difficulties in circumstances, to accept a rainy day, a cold day, a hot day, a grazed knee, a bumped head, a crashed car. We can do all this, but if we do not accept ourselves, it will be as if we haven’t accepted anything. It is our thoughts, our reactions, our feelings and beliefs that cause us to have resistance to the things outside of us, to external circumstances and objects. And it is that same resistance that would have us reject ourselves. Our problems are not that it is raining, or that we are hurting, or even that things aren’t going our way. Our problem is that we want them to be how we want them to be so much that we reject what is there. If we are angry, that is fine. If we are angry but don’t want to be, and don’t accept it, then we suffer. It is good that we try to improve ourselves, and often this resistance comes from that seed, but the mistake we make is that we do not accept ourselves as we are. It may seem as though acceptance would mean we wouldn’t change and grow and improve, but actually that isn’t the case. It’s a subtle change and one that has to be experienced to be understood. You can still prefer this or that, you can still want to be better at golf or faster at running, or to act out of anger less, and accept yourself and your thoughts as they are.

It means this: I may or may not want this, but I’m ok with it.

As you can see, my Aloe Vera plant has spawned a baby plant! I had heard about this sort of thing happening with Spider plants, but hadn’t considered whether my aloe vera would do a similar thing in terms of reproduction. It is certainly pleasing to me to see that it is healthy enough to be doing such things, and it’ll be nice to give it a new home in its own pot at some later date (once I find out how to go about that).

The interesting thing about this is that it nearly never happened. When the plant first sprouted out, it looked like a weed. It had two leaves, both rounded, and being unsure about where the soil might have come from when I re-potted the Aloe Vera, I considered it likely that it was a weed got in there. I nearly picked it out, but somehow I decided against it. It was no threat, so small a thing, and I was curious to see how it might turn out.

Days later, new leaves grew on it, and these leaves were sharp and spiky. “Aha! Now I know what you are, you’re an Aloe Vera too!” I guess those little rounded leaves were early ones, just to get some photosynthesis going, and I figure they’ll fall off at some point.

It was a good lesson. We may think we are picking at weeds, pulling them out and getting rid of them because we don’t want them. But how often do we consider why we don’t want them? How often do we ask ourselves if they could be of value if we keep them? Getting rid of something too early can be a disaster, and this is often shown in throwing away things that we later think “Oh I wish I hadn’t thrown that away!”, or when we quit a project or a hobby because we think we can’t do it or it isn’t for us, and then later regret it.

In life, it is ok to weed out the things that do not serve us. In fact, I would say it is a good thing. But sometimes it pays to let something grow just a little, at least until we can identify whether it really is a weed or not.

Whenever we feel unhappy it seems that the first thing we try to do is figure it out. Why are we so unhappy? Or why are we bored or restless? Seeking this answer, we only add to our suffering. In fact, this seeking is what creates our suffering. We may search and search for a reason we feel like this, as if everything is simple and if we could only figure out what is making us unhappy we could remove the problem and rectify the situation and feel better. But some things are too complicated. Some things cannot be reasoned out. When it comes to how we feel, who can say there is a reason at all?

We meet this same sense of figuring it out when we are faced with a decision. Some decisions are easy, and we make those almost without thinking. But when a decision is more complex, or there is a lot at stake, we can become paralyzed by those decisions. We think and think and think, trying to reason out a solution, trying to find out what would be best, or what decision is the right one. Again, it may be that it is too complicated, there may be good points and bad points and a system of pro’s and con’s simply doesn’t resolve it with any satisfaction. We must go beyond logic then, we must going beyond reason.

These difficulties do not mean that we cannot find solutions to our problems, or gain insight into how who we are and how we function. It does mean that certain parts of us are ill-equipped to perform certain functions, just as our eyes could not be expected to hear things for us. The important thing is to know what to use for each situation. Whenever we are suffering because we are trying to ‘figure it all out’, the key is to accept it, not flog ourselves into coming up with an answer. Let it go, don’t spin it around and around and around, because it is at exactly this time that the answer comes. The second we let go and stop chasing an answer, accepting our situation for what it is instead of what we want it to be, insight slaps us in the face with a truth as immediate (and maybe as painful) as the sharp sting of hand against cheek.

Breathe in, breathe out.
Repeat as necessary.

There is the greatest joy in the body performing a vital function. Breathing, pissing, shitting, these are perfect moments and perfect actions and we can taste some of that perfection if we bring complete awareness to them. Our bodies are a blessing, a portal into the nowless of life, and our means for acting in the physical world.

This, then, can be a simple meditation that we can use at any time, particularly at times when we find ourselves waiting, or restless, or bored. Someone once said that “patience is having something else to do while you’re waiting”, and what better thing to be doing than simply experiencing our bodies, experiencing life going on within us and all around us?

A bird’s silhouette against a brightening sky;
Morning has broken.

Few things spell for me the morning like birds singing before the sun is up. There is a sense of mystery in seeing silhouettes, a reminder that not all things need to be seen to be believed, and that there is great comfort in the dark and in shadow. There is such peace there, before the world awakes, and before the mind begins its daily chatter.

I thought I’d share the progress of this bonsai here. The other pine tree I was growing died from the trauma of re-potting, which I think was premature on my part. This one has had no such problem, as it was originally planted in this much bigger cool-looking square pot. Compared to the other species I’ve been growing, this one has grown incredibly quickly, and gives a much greater tree feel than the others.

I really like this photo here, especially the light and the shadow. See how it looks like it is reaching towards the shadow? But it is not. This is the illusion that can often flummox us in life as well. What is right and what is wrong? How can we be sure? Cultures have differed over the ages on moral standings, and what has been wrong in the past has now become right, and vice versa. A book I recently read, “Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals”, by Robert Pirsig, shed some interesting light on this subject, most notably in marking a clear difference between social morals, biological morals, and intellectual morals. As is so often the case, we get into difficulty when our definitions of words don’t match those of the person or people we are talking to. The answer then, is to think twice before we make assumptions about what people mean, and especially when judging whether someone is moving towards the light, or towards darkness.

If Life loses its meaning,
Give meaning to Life.

From time to time, something happens to us that makes us question whether there is any meaning in our lives at all. Sometimes it is a sense of injustice that causes it, the premature death of someone close to us, or something bad happening to a good person. Sometimes we just wake up one day and wonder what is going on - things are the same, and yet now they are boring and routine and pointless, whereas before they felt good and wonderful.

What are our choices when this happens? We can seek out meaning, trying new things, hoping that they will bring back Life’s meaning. Or we can ride it out, continue our life even without the meaning, trusting or hoping that the meaning will return.

In either case, we treat this meaning as if it is something lost from the outside, as though something outside of us has taken it away. This is not clear seeing. It is up to us to bring meaning to Life through our actions and intentions. Where else could it come from? Meaning cannot be taken, it can only be given.