Which is Further Contemplation on the Problem of Perceiving Innate Tranquility

03/08/2006 6:20 AM - 6:46 AM

The problem, if it is a problem, becomes: if one learns to be content in all things, if one discovers the tranquil silence beneath the buzz of all existence, why do anything? But there I go again. I’ve asked this question many times before. Embrace our dual nature, I think I’ve said before. But if we reach down to the tranquility that we were searching for, the mind becomes tranquil, the body becomes tranquil and existence resembles a smooth ocean, equal in all directions. Why move?

If one discovers the tranquility under the surface and syncs up with it, I suppose that one would be able to do whatever God wanted them to do. But we already figured out that we can’t know what God wants in a particular sense. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your heart. But there are so many things a hand could find to do. I could clean the bathroom for days and still find more to clean in there. What do I want? Does it differ from what God intends? Is there any way to tell? I know that there is a general set of rules for determining the rightness of action: avoid harming others, help others, love God, love yourself. But how does one ascertain the direction for a life?

A life of learning not to be manipulated by others and stories start to lose their pull. “Ah, this scene is supposed to make me feel this.” Then you don’t feel it. Good writers can sneak it up on you. Great writers can make you feel it in spite of yourself. What am I supposed to be doing with myself? What do I want? I want to live in a cabin in the woods and read and meditate and contemplate and make pictures and write and make things out of wood. Play in that, I’m-old-and-my-body-doesn’t-heal-as-fast-as-it-used-to sort-of way. I know the goal. But I’m not sure of the way. By writing? By working a jobby job? Robbing a bank? Okay, probably not the last one, since that would seem to violate the “do no harm” clause. I’m not sure. And yet I am content. Strange. I will contemplate. That is what I do. I’ll watch the steamy exhaust twirl out of the tailpipes of passing cars. I’ll sit. I’ll go to work. I’ll read. I’ll watch some TV. I’ll go to sleep. I’ll wake up. And maybe I’ll write. It is what I do. Te deum.