Embracing Uncertainty

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself…”

~ Jesus, Mark 6:34 of the Bible

 

The last two weeks have flown by, laden with summer activities – from lazy afternoons spent on lakes and beaches to rigorous treks through forests and over mountains.  It has given me the chance to take in the glory of this season, and the time for the lessons I have learned to make the transition from head to heart.

 

One of these lessons has been to find that state of balance where I can desire a good thing without being attached to it.  In this I must humbly disagree with some of the great sages who have spoken of the hindrance of desires, claiming that we must let go of our desires – even the desire for enlightenment – in order to be in harmony with the workings of the universe.  This is true to a certain degree; many desires lead to the kind of division that I wrote about in my last entry, in which one person seeks to possess more than another.  But some desires – like the desire to act for the good of all people and not just the good of the self, or the desire to know the Truth or attain enlightenment – are of a different sort entirely. 

 

Verse 41 of the Tao Te Ching says that “when the best seeker hears of Tao, he strives with great effort to know it.”  In other words, such a person – the best kind of person, according to the text – desires to know more of the Tao.  So not all desires are hindrances to enlightenment after all.

 

But there is a distinct difference between desiring to know the Tao and being attached to gaining knowledge of the Tao.  To strive to know Truth is a healthy desire.  To attempt to control how swiftly that knowledge is gained, to force one’s own will upon the process of enlightenment, to be so blinded by attaining knowledge of the Truth that one becomes unbalanced and moves out of harmony with the Tao itself…  this is taking a good desire too far.  It would be far simpler to strive to know the Tao and to allow that knowledge to grow naturally and organically, attaining that knowledge as it is revealed, rather than chasing after it and being frustrated in the lack of progress or, worse still, discovering something that is not Truth but calling it Truth regardless.

 

To put it in more relevant terms:  It is like desiring a romance with a charming, intelligent, and devastatingly beautiful woman, and allowing that romance to grow and blossom naturally instead of prematurely forcing it into being, and being able to enjoy a deep and simple friendship should the romance fail to evolve.  Indeed, such a friendship may turn out to be better than the romance could ever have become. 

 

Zen Master Seung Sahn once said, “People live their whole lives with the hope that good things will always come to them…  For all their lives, they go around and around and around, chasing good things, avoiding what is unpleasant.  As you practice the Way, you have to give up this human route…  Don’t want anything.  Then your true self will be realized naturally.”

 

It is the acceptance of the fate that is meant to be, trusting that whatever comes to pass is in harmony with the greater symphony of the cosmos and is therefore the best of all possible worlds. 

 

It is the delicate balance of desire without attachment, of striving for that which is good while allowing destiny to play its part in shaping that very desire.

 

It is nothing less than embracing uncertainty.