From the Hoi Polloi Tarot, the Page of Pentacles; from the I Ching Pack, Hexagram 47:
And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
― Rainer Maria Rilke
I can relate to this young man, not just because he loves learning, but because he learns by doing. I might acquire information, but I never actually embody it until I practice it. I also embrace the Buddha's teaching not to simply accept wisdom that comes from an elder, a teacher or a sacred book. As he encourages, I test and see if what has been stated as truth is true for me. I talked to a woman recently who told me meditation didn't work for her. "I tried it once," she said. Now to me that is like taking a couple of antibiotics rather than the whole prescription and then telling the doctor the pills don't work. I need to sufficiently evaluate something before I decide it's of no use.
Hexagram 47 represents Lake over Chasm; its image is that of a body of water that has been drained when a crack opens beneath it. Both these cards together remind me of my spiritual search conducted over a period of many years. Each philosophy I studied seemed a perfect fit at first, but it was drained dry as soon as I bumped into ill-fitting doctrine. It seemed I would never find what I was looking for, until I realized I was tossing out something valuable along with the dogma. The tree in the drawing still bears fruit even though the lake is empty; there are nutrients in the soil that are useful even though the lake is gone.
As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life — delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay — I hold this question as a guiding light: 'What do I really need right now to be happy?' What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection, and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way.
― Sharon Salzberg
I had a neighbor once who loved "going". Downtown, New York, didn't matter. Her husbands theory of travel was "I saw a tree, I don't need to see another one".
ReplyDeleteI think it may be a matter of one enjoying the journey and the other just wanting to arrive at the destination. :)
DeleteI have discovered over the years, a few things that didn't work for me before, really resonate with me now. Ever changing.
ReplyDeleteI think perhaps that is the natural way of things. :)
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