What would it be like if you took the day off from becoming
someone or something different? Or just a few hours? Or moments?
To set aside the grand project to improve yourself, heal
your past, be someone different, or to learn something new. To figure something
out, to manifest new things or experiences for yourself, to replace what is
here for something different. To dare to allow in the life-shattering
possibility that nothing is wrong, nothing is truly missing, and that your life
is not a project to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
To take a walk on this new day knowing that you are already
fully connected. That there is nothing you must first learn or solve or
understand or even heal in any conventional sense. To allow in the implications
that you might not need to improve this moment. For these implications are
revolutionary.
To allow in for just a moment the possibility that you have
everything you need to fully participate here, in the sacred word that is all
around you, with all of its glory, confusion, excruciating hopelessness, pure
hope, causeless joy, and shattering heartbreak.
It can be exhilarating to allow this in, to give yourself
to this, for just a few moments. And also quite disorienting. The mind will
scramble to find the reference point of a problem, to orient around and to
defend against the utter spaciousness of being. It’s so open here.
But the mind contracts in response to so much space. Wait a
minute, there’s something wrong, isn’t there? I could have sworn something is
wrong? There must be something that needs to be fixed, healed, shifted, or
transformed; some more growth, understanding, insight, more realization which
must first occur before I can fully show up here, fall to the ground in awe and
gratitude, and commit to this life.
It’s just an experiment. Just for a few moments. Don’t
worry. You can return to the life of there being a problem later on today, if
you’d like. And attend to what must be attended to. But for now, look up into
the sky, rest on the muddy earth, touch the water, feel your heart beating. You
are alive. You are here. Everything that has ever happened, everyone you have
ever met has brought you to this moment. By some miracle of grace, love has
come into the world of time and space as you, as your life, exactly as it is,
as an expression of the great mystery.
The breath is coming in and out now, whether you believe
that you deserve it or not. The earth is unconditionally supporting you; you
are not falling through space. But the breath will be gone at some point,
usually much sooner than we’d all like. Breathe deeply now. And attune to the
miracle. You need not postpone your participation here any longer. We never
know if we will be given another opportunity tomorrow.
The Way of Rest summer retreat – registration open now
New book – The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – to be released in April
