THE ONLY FAILURE IS NOT TRYING

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

What is there to lose by trying and failing? 

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to our courage (as opposed to our possessions).

When we hold our hand before our eyes, we can conceal the greatest mountain, just as our little earthly life hides from our glance enormous lights and mysteries of which the world is full. The person who can draw this little earthly life away from before his eyes, as one draws away a hand, beholds the greatest shining of inner worlds.  

We must be our own teachers. To teach is an act of love. In ancient Indian tradition, the teacher was placed at the very apex of the hierarchy. Even the King consulted teachers for advice. When nothing is required of us and we can do whatever we want, who are we?

A few years ago I decided to go on a trip alone. I wanted to leap into the dark, into places I had never been. Every stranger and every street beckoned with mystery.

I read about a woman who gave herself ten articles of clothing to wear for one year and decided that would be me for three months: unencumbered; finding as much as possible in as little as I could.
The trip meant taking a risk. I did not know if I was going to be lonely or struggle with the unknown and the unfamiliar. I wasn’t sure if I could find my way by myself. How can we know if we don’t try? 

The further I went, the more ‘out there’, the more I was unmoored and the more I wandered, the stronger my inner anchor. I grew secure by getting unfastened. My travels took me to extremes. The clarity of the extremes is that the center is within. From inside emerges the balance and it is always back and forth, back and forth: going out and returning in.

When I returned people asked me all kinds of questions like how much it cost; wasn’t I lonely? Wasn’t I afraid to travel alone? The most common – and most annoying - question they asked was, “Where did you like best?” 
My answer was “inside”. 

We learn to walk new in the world when we step out. How can we prevent disappointment and protect ourselves from injury while being pioneers? The path of discovery is a razor’s edge. It can be fraught with danger and uncertainty. 
Growth is a redrawing of boundaries so that we include more of the outer world and the inner world. It makes us less secure, more fragile. In the end it makes us more stable.

We must be willing to live ‘imperfectly’. 
The practice of going within frees us to live the kind of life we desire which is to be pointed to the horizon, toward whatever appears; to penetrate and probe and venture forth; to express our chest where the heart resides. Ultimately, we draw a golden thread through all we witness and pass through.

SHIFTING SANDS

Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible.

-       Anonymous

One summer children were digging in the sand on a nearby beach and uncovered the head of a whale. First they exposed the tip of a smooth white bone that turned out to be part of its skeleton. Everyone thought the whale probably washed ashore during one of those mythic Cape Cod hurricanes, maybe forty years before. Scientists came to do carbon testing. They determined the skeleton was at least five hundred years old. The entire head weighed four hundred pounds! Sand, blown by the wind over centuries, covered – and then uncovered - this leviathan that for generations was waiting to be revealed.

Pain is the constant chaperone of living. Everyone I know has it: back pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, arthritis pain, headaches, heartaches and loss. We cannot always change this but there are ways to live with courage. Get the hang of being still; stillness that does not depend on what happens. Let a new wind blow in without knocking us over.

Spend time on any beach. Shifting sands are real. The beach where I live in the summer has gone from being covered with sand to being covered with rocks and is now morphing again to sand. We are that beach. Who knows what will be revealed over time that for the moment is hidden? It could be a whale of a thing!

THE ONLY THING YOU GET WHEN YOU LOOK BACK IS A STIFF NECK!

Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out. 

Can we imagine walking backward through life? If we want to go forward, do we take steps backward? If we want to see what is ahead of us, do we look behind? There are no eyes in the back of our heads.  In fact we have to swivel our necks to see what is behind us. And we know how tired our necks can get from looking back.

Who has not heard the saying 'that for every door that closes, another opens; that sometimes a disappointment can lead to a new road?'

 How can we see the door or the new path if we are turned around; if we are not looking ahead and instead thinking about the past?

We live on the front part of our bodies. Everything about us points forward: our eyes, our nose, our mouth, and our shoulders, hands, and chest. Surviving the challenges of life has to be eyes straight ahead. We have to go onward without looking backward. At the same time we must not drag the past into the present.

The past inspires the present. We are never really without our past and never without our future. In Yoga in the great warrior poses, the back leg is the ‘brain’ of the pose. Keeping the back leg strong and articulate gives stability. Then we move forward with intelligence and grace, balanced and secure. There is no need to look back: we have a strong leg like an anchor to rely on.

Our eyes look ahead to see what is ahead. A sailor steers by keeping the horizon in sight. The horizon is always moving (there are only twenty-two miles to the horizon no matter where you look.)
Mostly we are pointed in predictable directions, straightforward and positive, but there are more difficult times. We need more attention and care to keep from stumbling. Sometimes we need to side step or be still.

There are special features in our human necks that enable us to keep our heads still (but not stiff). This gives us an advantage: it helps us avoid falls and injuries. Stillness is pause without rigidity or going in reverse.

Do not be like Lot’s wife. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back. We do not want to be a pillar of salt or have a sore neck. We not want to be ‘stiff necked’.

The past, present and future are not today what they were or what they will be. These are the mysteries. Go forward one step at a time. Without looking back.