Another strong meditation today.  Or how to put it?  A meditation in which I felt the strength of the body, the mind, and the spirit, unified in a way that seemed to me at least a faint echo of what I know of the Tao.  And this sense of what was happening was remarkably persistent and very little disturbed by thoughts—which in any case did not coalesce into thinking.*

In the midst of that consciousness, or lack of it, a sudden understanding: so many of the thoughts that routinely disturb my meditation are driven by fear.  As I said in an earlier entry, it is that desire for control over feared outcomes, or the drive to any particular outcomes, that fuels most of the distracting thoughts that prevent wholeness in the meditating moment.  The end of fear would be the end of distraction from the Way.

I fear what will happen to my new husky pup when we go to the Vermont cottage, with its extensive lakeshore, open fields, and deep unfenced woods.  Will we have trained him fully enough by that time to stay with us no matter what the enticing distractions?  If not, will I tie him out with sufficient effectiveness that he can’t break away?  When there were random thoughts “in my way” today, such fears were the driver.  Of course I want to keep my dog safe, and must do all in my power in that regard. 

But there is so much that isn’t in my power.  So much that, with the best and wisest efforts in the world, I can’t prevent.  I understand a little better now where wu-wei, non-action, comes in to daily life.  If I could sustain that wisdom, I would do all I can, and do it well, to keep my dog safe.  Beyond that, I would accept without effort that there is so much in the world I can’t control, including his staying with me for a whole long life.  I would act, quietly and calmly, to the extent of my means; and I would surrender all the rest, all that might happen against my will, peacefully to the Way, because the nature of my attachments would have changed.

For non-action is not—it can’t be said often enough—not acting.  It has more to do, perhaps, with the acceptance of outcomes, even terrifying outcomes, we cannot prevent.  The fears that drive my emotional life so much more than I knew before I began to meditate are also the triggers of action unbounded, action with which I imagine I will determine what happens to me and to my loved ones.  To work in a spirit of wu-wei, there must be a release of fear, and with it, of course, a release of attachments.

And yet my readings, chiefly of the Tao Te Ching, suggest that when we do work in that spirit of non-action we often wind up attaining ends we had set aside…

*I will have more to say about James French’s Trust Technique in a future post.  This distinction is his.

11 March, 2024.