Woke up early this morning as usual, the clear pre-dawn air still chilly. I had planned to head out for a morning of Aikido, only to check what todays class schedule was and find that there was no class for some reason.
I could have meditated, read some liturgy or gone for an early morning walk. Instead I had a coffee, applied for two jobs and had a chat with a couple of friends back in the UK.
Some days, like today, I don't feel in the least bit like observing the mind, engaging in spiritual discipline, or anything related to it, and instead the mind turns naturally towards practical issues like how I will feed and house myself, and the enforced salesmanship of a competitive job market saturated with graduates all vying for position. A distasteful but necessary chore that plugs in to the survival circuits and overrides other considerations in the hierarchy of needs.
What has this to do with the way? Everything. Lots of us are unemployed or soon to be, even highly qualified people. Great patience and perseverance is required. I've found the experience a lot like fishing; you cast the hook, occasionally get a bite, it looks good and you start to reel, and it gets away, and you cast the hook again, perhaps adjusting the bait or picking a better looking spot. The thing is, you can't force it, but have no choice but to wait patiently, with no sense of certainty.
This I think is quite an important life lesson, the lack of certainty. Life is continuous change and flux, even when things appear to be in balance, much like the procession of the seasons that we mark today at the vernal Equinox. Nothing stands still but is in constant motion, flux and reflux, rising and falling on the infinite ocean. So, casting off expectations or any sense of entitlement that may reside in the heart settles the heart and cools the mind. Just watching, seeing what comes up, and aspiring only to move in harmony with the seasons of the year and the greater seasons of life, listening as ever to the silent guide whose invisible hand guides you along the way. Patience, perseverance, humility.
Whatever will come, let it come. I am already given over to the forces that govern life, and will lead me eventually to my death. No reason to despond, nothing to fear, the way of the universe is wide and clear and one tiny life can only see part of it, as a boat on a river does not appreciate the whole, but only the current strait, much less the eternal ocean beyond.
