Corral the Wild Horse
Okay. It is a brand new day. Sure it's Sunday... that rolls around every seven days without stop. But it's different today than it was yesterday. Yeah, all days are like that... one after the other, each one different from the other, the only thing making them the same is the name given to each of the seven days. Monday is always Monday, but within that six letter tightness, a difference is there, between each letter.
So what makes this Sunday any different from last Sunday or the Sunday before that? It's another rambling Stream... nothing new about that. But the ideas, the thoughts that run endlessly through the head (our heads) are constantly changing, shifting like the sands, (even the clouds could be used as the metaphor... it makes little difference does it?).
"When the way comes to an end, then change -
having changed, you pass through" - I Ching
having changed, you pass through" - I Ching
Is Christianity the same as it was yesterday? How about Judaism? Hinduism? Has Buddhism changed since last week? Who really cares about such questions? I do. I find such questions revealing, even tho they don't matter much in the scheme of things that probably matter to most. (What is most and what matters within this percentile? Damn questions!). Followers of such religions use (read 'interpret') the words written to stop the questioning of mind. But given the fact that there is one Bible, from that one many others are but interpretations... new words to re-describe the old. Those old words, despite dedicated followers need to assure themselves that the words are from God himself, refuse to acknowledge that interpretations change. Why has Christianity, to name one, become a religion of many names - Episcopalians, Protestants, Baptists and on and on? No agreement with the One Book. Different interpretations. Same with Islam - different branches, same tree... or is it? Some insist on planting their own religious tree assuring their followers that the seed their tree came from came from the One Truth tree. Interpretations.
The same could be asked about politics: has the U.S. Constitution changed from last year... 2006 to 2007? Many could argue that our President has done is best to bring changes to this document. But the words of the original document have not changed. This we know. What has changed in over 230 years is the interpretation of what the Founding Fathers meant. It means so many different things, in so many different levels of importance, that despite the words being the same, yep! the interpretations take on different importance to different people.
"We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want"
- Tao Te Ching
Interpretation is the changing influence of today from yesterday, from 2006 to 2007, from interpreting the books of wisdom to the interpretation of Constitutions of countries, our interpretations shift and seek answers to allow our questions to stall the mind. We need answers to bring calm to the search for answers, even if they are temporal (and they always are). - Tao Te Ching
Religions, politics, sciences, philosophies... these subjects are attempts to, if not stop, certainly curtail further questioning about anything we question. How a feeling of contentment surges in us when we find the satisfactory answer to a problem (aren't all problems questions without answers?). We may not recognize that whatever answer we have accepted is the final answer for it never quite is. We indulge our ability to think, to question, to ask not only ourselves, but others, their answers to questions we pose. Mental gymnastics. Like taking a walk, we have no destination other than returning to where we began. It's the exercise that matters.
"Catch the vigorous horse of your mind"- Zen saying
Yes, the vigorous horse of our mind. Once we 'catch' the mind, then we can domesticate the wild beast. We can see mind as the tool it is - a work horse for our own use. Once we master mind we become our own masters. Once we become our own masters, we need not rely upon interpretations of others, or even interpretations of our own. We can live as we know and not as we presume. If we know ourselves, (our Self), there is little need to take orders from others, including religions, politics, sciences or philosophies. Reducing (if not dissolving) these things from mind, we more closely resemble our original face - that which is before we became victims of our interpretive world. "Barn's burnt down - now I can see the moon" - Masahide
Now we can see the moon. There is so much beyond our limited view (mostly self-imposed), that we forget that there is so much more to our being than mind and it's creations (barn), that to see and sense life, all that sustains, entertains and gives freely, is what life truly is - non-interpretation, what is is what is. Some call this mindless. They are correct. But those that speak of this 'mindlessness' are stuck in the mind, but not mindful. They have a vigorous horse running wild in their heads, corralled by their mind's interpretation, eager to be free, but happy to be tamed. Given nourishment and love, we can calm the horse down, tame mind to better our sense of Life - our ability to return and sustain the beauty, the goodness and the rewards that Life has given us. Mindless is not the inability to think, but the ability to be beyond mind. Beyond mind interpretations cease. Static becomes fluid and fluid becomes static... duplicity is the Tao (the Way).
"The Way is not difficult; only there must be no wanting or not wanting" - Chao-Chou
Cecil
07 Enero 2007
Frog on Metal Chair... but not
photo: cecil
photo: cecil
