Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Where Does It Lead?

Sometimes you make choices in life which seem as though they are going to have huge consequences. Sometimes it seems as though they are going to define the parameters of what will be possible and what will be for many years to come. From a conventional point of view, it seems obvious that if you do this or that, then this, this and this will be the consequences. Such a choice awaits me now ... but what will the consequences be?

Who knows? How can we possibly know what the consequences of our actions will be? How can we know if we make a certain choice, then this, this and this will happen with any sort of certainty?

When we look to the future, and entertain our thoughts about what may come, a whole story tends to play out, envisioning, and mapping out the consequences. That story seems real for us. We imagine what will be said, who will do what, why they act as they do, and often lose the sense that this is just thought, it is a vision of what could be, but only that. It attains a hardness, a sense of reality it truly doesn't have.

But things unfold in life in the most surprising of ways. When there's a letting go, there's also a great gift of an opening to the preciousness of each moment, however it is. When that weight of expectation and thinking/planning is allowed to drop, there's a real appreciation of people and events which doesn't discriminate between 'good' and 'bad', between 'wanted' and 'unwanted'.

Truly, it's impossible to see where choices where lead, except with the broadest of broad brushstrokes. But beyond that, the experience of the future is never coldly conditioned by what we think will come about. Even when certain events we predicted do transpire, they do not need to be, indeed, they never are experienced subjectively how we imagined we would experience them.

This, this and this .... no need to plan, to fear, to judge, to cling .....

Trusting in mind, and good action, we can allow life to unfold, born from the wellspring of our naturally wise and compassionate hearts, and dwell at peace as each moment unfolds, with whatever seems to arise in mind.

1 comment:

Chodpa said...

Hey Al

Big Grin :-)