Monday, May 23, 2022

The Tao of How

 


To and fro goes The Way, the Buddhists say,

and we are meant to find balance

in the in-between. Yet how

(that "how" again) do we keep our balance

in a hurricane? Or when the skies

open and dump a lake where our houses

are, now appearing like apparitions

in the flooded land? Breathe in peace,

breathe out love, a smiling monk advises.

I'm looking for how to meet this moment,

of flux, of distress, of injustice, of seeing

"Other" where we are meant to see "Us". 

Of seeing disappearing rights where

we once had dreams. Everything - other than

human reason - so extreme, we do 

the best we can.  I suspect the How

of Tao is simply muddling through,

with such grace as we can muster. 

The wise ones say, when we are speaking

of hatred, division, war on climate and

war on each other, the only possible antidote

is love. How to make that leap?

It would feel like the frog escaping

the boiling pot into a pond

of cool, clear river water - ourselves

and Mother Earth thrice and truly

Blessed. But, Observer of the Tao,

Please tell us how?


For earthweal: the Everyday Extreme


11 comments:

  1. 'the frog escaping
    the boiling pot into a pond
    of cool, clear river water' - I love that image! Are we trying too hard to let in and out the love we already hold in our hearts?

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  2. Yes, I think we are very lost. It's almost like we don't know how to live together as a species anymore. We must learn from the birds who squabble at the bird bath but co-exist anyway.

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  3. How to meet the moment--we are all struggling. Love seems far to fragile to defeat what we are up against.

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  4. It is hard to find the way at present. For me it is a daily task, Suzanne - Mapping Uncertainty

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  5. muddling through,
    with such grace as we can muster... truly that's the best we can do right now. Love is fine, but love alone cannot solve the mess we have made...i think.

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    1. Yes, i am floundering for words and balance, with everything so terrible.

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  6. Excellent wrangle of the question -- just how the Tao? Much of the old faiths went extinct with modernity (of course, we are harrowed now by their ghosts) but the Way finds one, is it, precarious as that might be today -- "Such grace as we can muster." Frail assurance maybe, but what else have we to hold on to, having supposedly outgrown (or disrupted) all the rails? Fine work Sherry - B

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  7. Balance is extremely difficult these days. My heart is heavy, I wonder ‘how’ but, then i look around and find a reason to feel blessed.

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  8. I feel your impatience with all that sorting out my own inner peace stuff. The planet is dying because of greed and exploitation. We need action, immediate and painful, and sitting in the lotus position communing with our navels doesn't help one iota if it's not accompanied by radical changes in diet, leisure activities, industrial production etc etc. I rant, but I'm angry.

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  9. Words of wondering! I fear we have lost balance, have lost The Way. The world has become a nightmare.

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