Here and Now

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Summer comes slowly to us here in rainy Oregon. It often rains right up til the fourth of July. Everyone wonders, sick of the dark rainy days and wishing for the sun, when and if it will ever happen. Yet it always does.

 

Lots of death coming to lots of people we know – partners having major strokes, dads dying of cancer one week after diagnosis, old friends on their way out into the great void. It reminds us that things can change in a moment. One moment we’re riding high, the next we are on our knees. It happens to everyone. As the famous country singer Hank Williams sang, “No one gets out of here alive.” But really, we would rather it come another day, another moment.

 

Laozi says:

 

Heaven and earth or not benevolent.

They treat all things as straw dogs.

The sage is not benevolent.
She treats all other beings as sraw dogs.

The space between heaven and earth

is like a bellows.

It is empty yet never exhausted.

Always in motion,

yet always producing more.

Fewer words are better than many.

It is best to abide in our true nature.

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As Daoists, we don’t believe in a personalized godhead who will take care of all our troubles if we just go down on our knees to him/her. We realize that Dao is deeply impersonal while we live in a deeply personal world. Nature is impersonal, it doesn’t really get too worked up when it delivers a flood or a tornado. Straw dogs were used in ancient Chinese ritual, thrown into the fire to take away the negativity of the people. All that negativity going up in flames, leaving behind the positive clearness of the now. Of course the next moment can be filled with negativity yet Dao is always in motion, never exhausted. Our lives are but small drops in an infinite sea but when they are over we are the sea.

 

Don’t talk too much, says the Old Boy. Use fewer words, less energy, long and deep breaths, no sense in asking for more than we can handle, no sense in trying to control every minute of every life. Best to abide in our true undying nature. That way, we never suffer loss but embrace it willingly.