"We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want." -Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11)

More from The Tao:

"When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever."


I'm not sure of why I feel the need to post these writings today. Some days all the quotes in the world mean nothing to me, while other days every word flies off the printed page and hits me right where I need to be struck. The yin-and-yang of life is in full swing for me right now. I am so conflicted with feelings and facts. Today I am trying desperately to follow my intuition and stay in the flow. And yet that statement alone sounds clingy and may be a major trigger for some more self-induced suffering.

There is one major aspect of life I'm most grateful for: having choices. I shy away from words like decision. I prefer the word choice. When uttered aloud, you cannot keep from smiling when you position the mouth to express the word. Choice: this word can spring from my subconscious another word: rejoice. Follow this one further down the linguistic rabbit hole and you come to the word joy. 

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”  

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Yesterday a wonderful yoga class was where I found a place for my breathing to anchor itself. The instructor told us that the mind was not invited to play in this activity. He must have reminded us a hundred times to focus on the breath, to stop thinking, and to pay attention to the body. Yoga without awareness of breath is just stretching. Yoga is a Sanskrit word that is often translated as union. After I left yesterday's class my mind and body felt more united with the world around me. As new experiences present new difficulties I must remind myself that I have places to go during turbulent times. Yoga, meditation and some simple acts of stillness can serve as the shift my overactive mind so desperately needs to get out of suffering.


Mark Twain once said:

"My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes... most of which never happened. Life does not consist mainly, or even largely of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one's head."

Forever appreciative that FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS,
Carl

"Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls." -Maya Angelou

While listening to a podcast on patience this morning, I found the following to be very interesting (from Zencast, August 12, 2012 speaker: Andrea Fella):

"There is an aspect of patience that is related to a tolerance of difficulty: patience under insult, sometimes it's said. So this kind of patience can have an active quality to it. Martin Luther King spoke so beautifully of this kind of patience and how it relates to love. Here is an excerpt from his famous 1963 speech about the philosophy of love:"

"There's another thing about this philosophy that says you can stand before an unjust system and resist it with all your might, and yet maintain an attitude of active goodwill toward the perpetrators of that unjust system. The ethic of love can stand at the center of the non-violent movement.

Theologians would say that this is the love of God operating in the human heart. When one rises to love on this level, he loves every man. He rises to the point of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that that person does. I believe this is the kind of love that can carry us through this period of transition.

So in many instances we have been able to stand before the most violent opponents and say in substance: we will meet your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and as difficult as that is, we shall still love you. 

But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And one day we will win freedom. And we will not only win freedom for ourselves, but we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

Living freely... and patiently,
Carl