Saturday 9 January 2010

If life appears to be a question

So, it was the last day of 2009, I had finished a session of meditative dance and there was this pain around my heart.

It was a familiar physical/emotional pain that I've known in many forms for many years. Not a sign of medical emergency, but a well-known pang that was dull and sharp all at once.

And in that moment I didn't like it. Not one bit.

The familiar questions arose to accompany the familiar pain:

Why do I feel this pain and tenderness again?

What can I do to make it go away?

What is wrong with me?

And then, as if by magic and certainly by grace there was a shift, something softened and I realised that (and this doesn't really make sense to the mind) the pain/tenderness around my heart was the answer. It wasn't a problem, it was what I was looking for. The following words arrived as I walked home through the snow and picked up my pen to write...

The pain in my heart is the answer.

The sound of my breath is the answer.

The snow melting on my tongue is the answer.

The sound of my pen writing is the answer.

The page of my notebook turning is the answer.

These words appearing are the answer.

And they would be so if they were written in Chinese...

...or indeed a language long-forgotten that no-one understands anymore.

~

If life appears to be a question
Then life if the answer.

~

Why does my heart feel tender again? Because it does.
What can I do to change it? Nothing.
What is wrong with me? Nothing.

~

There is only what's happening.
The why is not important.
"Why?" presumes that you need to understand something, which you don't. Not really.
It refers to the past with reference to the future.
It is functional.

You don't need to understand something to love it.

You don't need to know why.

You just do.

Because you are.

~

You don't surrender in order that you might get what you want.

You surrender in order that you might want what you've got.

And you don't surrender.

But surrender may happen.

~


If life appears to be a question
Then life is the answer.

With love

Daniel

2 comments:

  1. Hi Daniel,

    Thank you for sharing from your heart. The snow and cold seems to be slowing the pace at which we walk and think. Good to go one step at a time...

    What you wrote reminds me of the wonderful quote from Rainer Maria Rilke:

    “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions”

    Enjoy your Sunday

    x Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Sarah. That's lovely!

    Daniel

    ReplyDelete