Being so long accustomed to the oppression (of the intellect), the mental inertia becomes hard to remove. In fact it has gone down deep into the roots of our own being, and the whole structure of personality is to be overturned…it is no pastime but the most serious task in life; no idlers will ever dare attempt.
Suzuki
We are all finite, we cannot live out of time and space, inasmuch as we are earth-centered, there is no way to grasp the infinite, how can we deliver ourselves from the limitations of existence?
Suzuki
Isn’t that what we all want? To come back to life? Suzuki argues the finite is the infinite, and vice versa. These are not two separate things, though we are compelled to conceive them so, intellectually. If this is true maybe I need to worry less about schedules and deadlines and more about my ultimate goal? Liberation from self-limiting beliefs, undergoing interior reconstruction, and maybe a little distancing from unhealthy influences. This is part of our unalienable rights ~ life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!
Hum…water, sun, miracle grow are life-giving properties. That might be the program I’ve been looking for? Water, sun, and Mai Tai’s! Maybe I should book a trip to Hawaii?
Freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimuli from many directions at once and, in this pause, to throw one’s weight toward this response rather than that one.
Rollo May
By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world. Suzuki
I woke up the next morning staring at the same view of the thriving and diminishing garden. Reminded me of my lungs, one working, the other ailing but functioning in the same body. Suzuki says no amount of wordy explanations will ever lead us into the nature of our own selves. The more you explain, the further it runs away from you. It is like trying to get hold of your own shadow.
I close my eyes and visualize what the garden could be, making a mental note of the necessary supplies, plants that will flourish in the sun, and ones that prefer the shade. Working in the garden is an act of humility and love (reminds me of my friend Cat). Enabling life is always more satisfying than watching it decay? I’m learning that before I can offer my humble love to the world I must offer it first to myself.
Angel Kyodo Williams says for us to be transformed as individuals, we have to allow for the incompleteness of any of our truths and a real forgiveness for the complexity of human beings. Looking at the languishing yard and knowing what it could become gives me hope that I too can look towards a more lush and developed future self.
Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things and there is nothing else like it.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
—
Previously Published on cheryloreglia.com
—