“Once there was a man who loved two things above everything else in the world. One was his son and the other was a pony. One morning, however, the man awoke to find that the pony had run away. A search party was mounted, but the pony was nowhere to be found.
'You must feel terrible,' a neighbor said when he heard the news.
But the man looked calm. 'It's not over,' he murmured.
The next day the man woke up, and not only had the pony returned, but with him came a magnificent white stallion. When he heard the news, his neighbor said, 'You must be overjoyed. You have your pony and a new horse that's twice as beautiful.'
But the man looked calm and said, 'It isn't over.'
The next day when his son was out riding the white stallion, he fell off and broke his leg. As the boy was carried into the house moaning with pain the neighbor said, 'What a terrible accident. How much you must be suffering to see your poor son hurt.”
But the man looked calm and said, 'It's not over.'
The next day the army came. They were taking away every able-bodied young man to go to war, but when they saw that the man's son was laid up with a broken leg, the soldiers went away and left him behind. The neighbor rushed over and said, 'How fortunate you are. Every young man has to go to war except your son.'
But the man only shrugged, 'It's never over.' "
The Western world is turned-off to the way of non-attachment, because it is commonly believed that non-attachment would take away the mind-reeling dark chocolate velvet pleasure of the moment. However, I believe that the truth is quite the opposite: practicing non-attachment increases your enjoyment of life and of the present.
My guru Syl Carson calls it coming to a place of witness. In this place, there is no need for worry and suffering. This place inside of you is like a calm, still temple that is surrounded by howling winds and torrential downpour.
So how do you find the neutral mind inside of yourself? As soon as you recognize that you are becoming emotionally entangled with the world, trying to control things outside of your control, simply decide to accept what is. Accepting what is does not mean that you do not take efforts to change an unpleasant situation. It only means that you recognize that you do not know where any given road will actually lead and you trust that it will all will work out. As they say, everything will be okay in the end. If it isn't okay, it isn't the end.
Envision yourself as a peaceful witness, observing all of the turmoil that your ego is involved in, saying “Ah, interesting. My ego is afraid to surrender.”
Often, the addiction to get swept into the storm is so great with a given situation that it requires divine intervention. At these times, I recommend a prayer or meditation in which you focus on becoming a peaceful witness, and on accepting what is.
"God grant me the serenity-Reinhold Niebuhr
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
No comments:
Post a Comment