Which Is About Letting Go of the Illusion of Complete Control

05/05/2006 7:22 AM – 7:51 AM

It isn’t about fighting desire. It’s about leaving desire behind, for a little while at least. It’s about looking down into the bottom of the deep well and seeing yourself curled and sleeping in peace. Where is the sun? Where is the moon? They are not in the words. They are there in the sky.

There is nothing wrong with studying, but studying is not experiencing. Forget your good sitting posture; forget what part of the chest that you’re supposed to be breathing from. Just sit and breathe. Do you damnedest to just sit and breathe. When you sit and write, do your damnedest to just sit and write. When you stand at the counter and work with a patron, do your damnedest to just stand and work. Living is a whirlwind. Mindful living is noticing the whirls. You are not whatever you are not. You are whatever you are. It isn’t about doing it well, it’s just doing it. There is no such thing as living well. There is only living. So you might as well enjoy it.

Delight yourself in the mundane as well as the exceptional – time and chance happen to us all. When there is sorrow, morn, but let it go. It is not a sin to be alive. It is not a sin to desire, but desires arise and fall away. You will desire because you are neither a myth nor a God. Do something and enjoy it. Do something and delight in it. There is just this. This is just being alive and sentient. If you try to capture it, you’ll find that there’s nothing there to grab. Let go of trying to capture it. You’re just here for the ride. I’m not saying that you’re existence is entirely passive; I’m not saying that time and chance are the only forces at work, but I am saying that they are a part of the system. How large a part? I don’t know. I think God is probably in the mix too. I don’t know how, but, for some reason, I think he is. Time and chance, effort and God – is this the whole of the working matter? I don’t know. You don’t need a to understand the system to live in it. Just live in it and accept that some things will happen that you didn’t plan and some things will happen that did. You’ll be doing something as long as your alive, so enjoy it. You’ll never be in complete control of your existence, but you can do some things, and whatever you hand finds to do, do it with all your heart, for this is the task that God has given man all the days of his life.