Inspiration from Lao Tzu

Always we hope
Someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you you know what you want.

There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.

Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.

Search your heart
and see
The way to do
is to be.


I LOVED THIS PIECE!  It points to carrying the wisdom within without really knowing we are doing it, with being right here, right now.  "This is it."  The going outside ourselves to find the knowledge and understanding is very like moving forward in time to "get" something we believe we need (OR looking back and believing that at some other time you had the understanding ....).

Have been moving pretty mindfully through these last days, taking in sound (and there is a great deal of it here in the city), and sights, tastes, and smells, and passing phenomena in my mind and body.  Things taste more vivid to me now, and sounds feel very bright and distinctive...  I closed my eyes at a Bach concert Sunday night, and I could follow each instrument of the group playing its part, as well as the exquisite harmonies occurring as the violins, violas, cellos, and so on, met up with one another.  This is a beautiful way to listen to music.  Just be in the music - no other sensations - or have the music be in you...  Having good conversations with each of the people I meet, even the man at the service center where I took my car!  And there is, I think, a small smile on my face much of the time.

"The mind creates the abyss
The heart crosses it."
-- Nisargardatta