Finding Resilience, Part Two
(Following up on Part One of Finding Resilience from the previous post)—
And it is this experience that leads us to the Second Paradox Of Wisdom: when we stop clinging to the illusory importance of things past, we are freed from the illusion of our own present self-importance. And it is this insight that leads us to harmonize with the underlying harmony of the world. And it is this confluence of our own stream of attention with the single river of life’s attention that leads us to meaningful success.
Water seems soft and pliable, so when we say its nature is Resiliency, this seems to imply a kind of weakness or yielding quality—as if we were saying that attention should follow the line of least resistance because it is too weak to endure hardship and suffering. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. One look at the Grand Canyon, for instance, should dispel any such misconception: stone itself must give way before the unrelenting onslaught of flowing water.
The nature of Water is enduring patience, just as the nature of attention is infinite fortitude. Water follows the line of least resistance, using gravity to penetrate every gap and to wear down every obstacle—just as attention follows the line of least resistance, using the force of will to perceive every opportunity and outlast every obstruction.
But when traumatic events occur in our lives, they seem to change us forever.
This is like a great oak that has grown into an unnatural and contorted shape because a small rock lay atop it when it first emerged from its acorn centuries ago. Never mind that the rock was an obstacle not much bigger than the acorns that the oak now puts forth every year. Never mind that the shape the oak has taken possesses an air of majesty and strength perceptible to all. What we want to keep in mind instead is that the oak has flowed around the rock like slow-motion water, turning an obstacle into grace, dignity, and originality.
Is it the rock that made all this possible? Or is it the earth itself, its soil, its rain, and its life-giving light that daily falls from the sun? How quickly we turn to hardship as the defining element in our development, ignoring the millions of positive events occurring before and after our negative experiences.
The effects of negative experiences seem to last a lifetime, in other words, while the effects of positive experiences seem to evaporate in a matter of days, weeks, and months.
Yet we all know of someone who has had true suffering in their life but rebounded from it in a way that exceeded our expectations and defied our explanations. While they themselves may not be able to fully explain their own Resiliency, they often speak of rising to the challenge that life presented them. Not in the sense, we should keep in mind, of ignoring or denying their own suffering, but of having passed through it authentically and having defeated their own willingness to feel defeated. A large part of wisdom, it seems, is the power of an indomitable spirit to defeat its own willingness to feel bad. For such people, obstacles are always on the inside, challenging their innate right to thrive despite any hardship.
For others, however, who shrink beneath the weight of past adversity, the risk of future pain, loss, or defeat presents an insurmountable obstacle to further advancement. Rather than responding to difficulty with grace, dignity, and originality, they close down psychologically, fail to perceive opportunities when they arise, and simply try to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of life. Rather than moving like a ball on flowing water, they allow themselves to become trapped behind the dam of dead memories: holding back from the living moment of attention, they cannot find their way back to the path of good fortune.
Because suffering is relative, we can respond to it by putting it in perspective, keeping our tendency to exaggerate it in check. Keeping in mind that the suffering of others is far worse than our own allows us to let go of any specialness we might otherwise attribute to our personal traumas. And by not fixating on any one heartbeat of the past, we free our attention to keep pace with the never-pausing pulse of life.
Exercise One—Visualize yourself as a ball carried along on a swiftly-moving stream. As you sense yourself flowing along on the surface of the rushing water, repeat to yourself the catch-phrase, Keep Moving. As any particular thoughts, emotions, or memories arise, visualize each as a rock or branch sticking out of the water that you bump into and then flow around. With some practice, visualize yourself flowing around them before even reaching them. With more practice, hold on to this sensation and carry it around with you in your everyday activities, keeping your attention moving with the present moment. Whenever something threatens to capture your attention and hold it back, return to the sense of it being an obstacle in the stream that you are flowing around as you repeat the catch-phrase, Keep Moving.
Exercise Two—Feel your pulse. Sense this unbroken string of heartbeats as the stream upon which you are riding. Lean forward psychologically into the next heartbeat, not allowing your attention to linger on the one just passing. Bring your attention to the living moment and it will eventually stop returning to revisit the dead memories of individual heartbeats long passed. As you cut the anchor holding you in place against the current of your own ever-flowing awareness, repeat to yourself the catch-phrase, Next…….Next……Next……
Please keep in mind that freeing the attention from fixation is not the goal of this training—it is just the second step on the path of inner transformation. Enter into this training regimen with patience, keeping in mind how diligently musicians and athletes train in order to achieve peak performance. And study your attention closely, keeping in mind that its dwelling on things already past is, on a moment-to-moment basis, the principal obstacle keeping you from fully experiencing the spontaneous, adaptable, and confident sense of self that you came into the world with.
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The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.
If you’d like to learn more, visit the website: http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/
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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.
Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.
