DON'T TRY SO HARD!

From the time we are babes, we are taught to try hard, keep going, don't give up or give in.  It becomes instinctive - dig down deep and get it done!  For a lot of challenges and situations in life, that's not bad advice.  Life can be tough and most of us come to realize that we will have to work hard to get ahead.  I think that is one of the lessons my Mom and Dad instilled in me; certainly, it's one of the examples that they lived out.  And, to be truthful it's a good lesson to learn when we are starting out.  It has served me well for most of my life.

My second experience of a silent retreat earlier this week was an example of the opposite being true.  I learned in a short span of three days that sometimes the outcomes we seek are more easily achieved when we don't try so hard.

This time around, the retreat I was seeking was not only silent, but quiet.  I knew that I wouldn't have trouble quelling my tongue; the challenge for me would be subduing my mind.  And so, when we finished lunch on Tuesday at the retreat centre and descended into days of silence, I was conscious of the need to let my mind un-focus, disconnect and drift.  Some might call it a form of surrender, a willingness to be empty of plans, questions and answers...to just "chill".

It worked; the experience was completely different than my first retreat.  My overall feeling was one of relaxed tension, of openness or emptiness (I'm not sure which).  It was like being on a river and letting the current take me where it wanted, with no effort on my part to steer.  It was a time of release.

In modern life, opportunities to surrender my will are rare; to drift can even be dangerous.  Yet, in doing so, it's possible to experience something that is close to freedom.  It's an interior freedom that can thrive while all around me is the push and pull of busy-ness. 

What a liberating gift is surrender.

Pat

Take This Thought Away With You

" When the student is ready, the Master appears."

~ Buddhist proverb ~