It’s funny how often recently when I’ve been reading other people’s Dharma blogs that I’ve found that the only thing I can contribute by way of a comment is a simple smile.
So often something in their posts just ‘hits the mark’ and words are really inadequate to express what I feel in response. And, more than that, they are not just inadequate, but they would also falsify what I feel.
It’s like a recognition going on, of one person seeing into something, and that resonating with my seeing into something, and across this seeming divide of internet, blogs, beings practicing on other sides of the world whom I’ve never met …. there’s a moment of recognition … a meeting …. and …. a smile.
Scott Hutchison – A Moment of Recognition
How wondrous that moment of recognition is. And how full the smile.
Nothing to add to other people’s posts, nothing really to say, just a smile …. a smile of recognition, and a smile of profound gratitude. Greatful for the post, for that persons sharing, and grateful for the compassion of our teachers, who have so skilfully mapped out the path, and given us the opportunity to discover each step along the way for ourselves … aided by their unfailing signposts.
Sometimes you make choices in life which seem as though they are going to have huge consequences. Sometimes it seems as though they are going to define the parameters of what will be possible and what will be for many years to come. From a conventional point of view, it seems obvious that if you do this or that, then this, this and this will be the consequences. Such a choice awaits me now … but what will the consequences be?
Consequences Painting by Jennifer Pankratz
Who knows? How can we possibly know what the consequences of our actions will be? How can we know if we make a certain choice, then this, this and this will happen with any sort of certainty?
When we look to the future, and entertain our thoughts about what may come, a whole story tends to play out, envisioning, and mapping out the consequences. That story seems real for us. We imagine what will be said, who will do what, why they act as they do, and often lose the sense that this is just thought, it is a vision of what could be, but only that. It attains a hardness, a sense of reality it truly doesn’t have.
Despite our stories life is endlessly surprising
But things unfold in life in the most surprising of ways. When there’s a letting go, there’s also a great gift of an opening to the preciousness of each moment, however it is. When that weight of expectation and thinking/planning is allowed to drop, there’s a real appreciation of people and events which doesn’t discriminate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, between ‘wanted’ and ‘unwanted’.
Truly, it’s impossible to see where choices where lead, except with the broadest of broad brushstrokes. But beyond that, the experience of the future is never coldly conditioned by what we think will come about. Even when certain events we predicted do transpire, they do not need to be, indeed, they never are experienced subjectively how we imagined we would experience them.
This, this and this …. no need to plan, to fear, to judge, to cling …..
Allowing life to unfold
Trusting in mind, and good action, we can allow life to unfold, born from the wellspring of our naturally wise and compassionate hearts, and dwell at peace as each moment unfolds, with whatever seems to arise in mind.
