Doing Without Alternatives

 

 

It’s very difficult to talk about the practice of the Way.

What way is it, anyway?

This way? That way?

 

Anyway….

I have no advice to give away, but there might be a few suggestions available.

I don’t know how I know this; maybe it’s because I don’t, really.

Here it is, anyhow—

This:

First, observe your own mind, but don’t stop there— observe your mind observing your mind, and ask yourself: “Who is observing whom?”

Second, await developments before taking action.

Third, notice all the things that awaken a sense of recognition within you. I guarantee that these will turn out to be important things.

Fourth, approach life with the intention of ‘figuring things out’ and when you are puzzled or confused, just keep on trying to figure things out.

Fifth, appreciate grief. (Yeah, I know…. what the hell does that mean?)

Last, (not really, this list continues to propagate quantumly…)  Look outward from behind your eyes. All the things worth seeing are out there, and it isn’t always useful to pay attention to ourselves.

 

So what do I mean by “doing without alternatives”? I’m not sure, but somehow I know it’s really, really important. I’m trying to talk about it without saying “Do this,” or “Do that.” That’s because those phrases represent alternatives. It would be even worse if I made a recommendation to believe one thing over another. And the most awful would be to hold opinions that are so strong that they prevent us from observing our own minds, and cut us off from the self that observes the self. That’s when we would become utterly blind, unable to recognize one another.

That space of recognition is where Love lives, and if we are so distracted by alternatives; by opinions; by one impossible imperative after another; well then, it’s possible that we will come to overlook the fact that we already know how to love each other. It’s how we are made.

 

Let’s parse it out:

“In God we live and move and have our being” and “God is Love”.  

So, why not say: “In Love we live and move and have our being.”?

At some risk of seeming impenetrable, let me suggest that Love is not just an action, or a feeling, or an intention, it’s a space. A ‘formless field of benefaction,’ to borrow from the Verse of the Kesa.

In that Space, no alternatives exist.

Love encompasses all things. It’s the vital force that underpins the whole of reality.

So bringing it down to the practical, how the hell do we ‘do without alternatives’?

We stop making up absolutes.

We remember to love each other.

We observe the activity of our own minds, and carefully discern whenever we exclude; whenever we condemn; whenever we are afraid— and pay particular attention to what exactly it is that we fear, so that it no longer huddles in dark corners waiting to ambush us.

We sense how Love moves through and between us: in glances, in laughter, in mutual undertakings; as well as in the wind and the weather and the call of wild geese over our heads.