The planet is awakening to the fact that nothing is primary and all else is secondary. “Do you know how to do nothing?” asked Lao Tsu in The Sutra of the Way and its Power. He was asking if we know how to align ourselves with the power of the divine intelligence so that when nothing is done, nothing remains undone. Zen master Michael Elliston: “If you can sit and do nothing, then you can do virtually anything.”
Brevity is potency. If your prayer was one word, what would it be?
Life is a play about love. We are currently watching what happens when love is thwarted, repressed, personalized, nationalized, militarized. When love is turned in on itself, when it becomes selfishness, it explodes.
This is a hard sell in a culture where the answer to every problem is more. But consider: Our basic biological needs are few, modest and easily met. If we have more than we need, we have too much. Craving sensory stimulation, we chase more and better experiences—more of what we don’t need. Craving is slaving. Every form of wanting, every anticipation, alienates us from the beauty and power of the inexhaustible now. Jesus to the cultivated rich kid: “Sell everything, give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven.” Which is nowhere other than now.
Suspended between wonderment and regret, the man asked, “Why did I do that?” Well, if we are a mystery to ourselves, we do not know ourselves. Knowledge is power. We cannot change what we do not know.
Men's Work 