No cliffs for me. Too dangerous. But I would like to sit in an Adirondack chair in the sand watching the sunset. I think I’ll put the stuff I want to let go of in a bottle, and set that bottle in a little balsam boat with a paper sail and let it sail away. Although, most likely I’d need to be looking East in the morning as that’s the way the prevailing winds blow.
I can not tell you the two things I would put in that bottle. Suffice to say they would change my life quite dramatically, and I am not ready for that yet. I may never be ready for that. Sometimes one might feel compelled to choose between two loves, and perhaps it is not so good to force yourself to do that.
To choose is to hurt. Letting go of one aspect of oneself can hurt the side one does not choose. There is no telling, in advance, if that is a good choice. A better choice. In fact, the Zen philosopher in me says that I should not choose. I should just continue and whatever happens, I should choose to enjoy that and appreciate it and then it will become the fulfillment of my life.
It is a Western thing to let go, I think. This idea of oneness or otherness but not bothenss or not completeness. I think that in many of our answers so far, we have seen a resistance to this image of letting go. Perhaps people instinctively realize they are whole as they are, together with longings and blockages as well as with aspirations and dreams. We do not need to let go. We can embrace the things that might hold us back, and change our way of seeing. Perhaps we are not being held back at all. Perhaps this is exactly where we want to be!
The American way is to pick a goal, and to charge towards it. If we don’t reach the goal, we see ourselves as failures.
I challenge that idea. I challenge us to see ourselves as perfect as we are. To be happy with ourselves and our places. To be happy with internal conflict. To enjoy the play of desire within us, yet not have to move in any particular direction unless we feel like we will be more comfortable if we do so.
Don’t get me wrong. I love desire. I love wanting something. But I don’t feel I have to have it, any more. Wanting is a delightful state, all on its own. Gratification is wonderful, but many times it is a disappointment. Desire can not be a disappointment, and it creates delightful anticipation and hope and despair. Yes, despair. Despair can be delightful, too.
I appreciate this invitation to meditate on my state of desire at this particular time in life. I especially appreciate it because it reminds me of what I learned in the last few years about desire and judgment and of why, exactly, that cliff is so dangerous to me.
When I see things like cliffs, the choice is so stark. I know I am a failure. The only reasonable choice is to jump and dash myself on the rocks below and hope to hell I die.
So I avoid cliffs. I avoid seeing my life in such stark terms. I prefer to look broadly, and see all the difficulties and all the challenges and to appreciate them as problems to be solved. I try to see the patterns—all the complex patterns created by the sand and the waves and the wind and the rocks, and I try to see from all places at once, and maybe some day I will see how everything relates to everything else.
Maybe some day, I will see it all as a whole—intellectually as well as spiritually. Maybe some day, I will be able to see it as a God, knowing exactly where to push in order to make precisely the changes I want to make. Then, if only I will have the right fulcrum, I’ll be able to push the lever and move the world.
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