You are the guest of joy, you cannot impose yourself.
*Jean Klein. Who AM I?: The Sacred Quest.
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November 20, 2018, Georgetown Island, Maine, the a month after moving from the SE United States, walking a path through the wood alongside Back River -
Walking the snowy path again this day, I am reminded again. Relax. Let all of this give itself. Among these gifts of Nature, Nature gives itself. Each gift, being the giving of this all.
I am learning, here, more of what the way of contemplation has been teaching me for these many years, and what I have reminded others of through my teaching and writing, that nothing of lasting value is ever gotten, only received by Grace.
To have communion with this Life, known in all I see and feel on this path, this day, I must not reach out to receive it but simply relax and allow the room for it to bless me with itself. And, in this giving, it gives all of itself, even as I, in receiving, receive with all of myself. This wholly happening, holy.
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March 9, 2025 -
The Way is a making of space within ourselves to receive. This "making" is returning to the inherent, luminous spaciousness already our nature.
This is like air in space. For a long time, scientists theorized air was an absence. Air is not empty. Air finds itself within space. Air is a movement. Space is the silent emptiness receiving all things, air or otherwise. Space does not change regardless of a breeze, a tornado, or a hurricane. Similarly, your basic nature, silent, still, and welcoming, effortlessly hosts all the traits arising from causes and conditions and making up your particular appearance of a self.
Thus, Buddhists teach "effortlessness," a paradoxical way of saying, not that we do nothing, but not to grasp, push, and strain. Buddhists engage in practice. So, they practice doing-nondoing. Yet, who can get the balance just right consistently? One is better not straining to get it right, for if one does, they have stepped outside effortlessness.
Effortlessness is trusting the fundamental nature - what we called in the last writing the Unborn - as a bird and mountain trust space. One flies in the sky, one is grounded on the earth and extends into the sky, but each is present due to space. Without space to receive and host, there would be no bird, mountain, or you.
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The Tao Te Ching speaks of the valley spirit -
The spirit of the valley never dies [ceases]. This is called the mysterious female. The gateway of the mysterious female Is called the root of heaven and earth. Dimly visible, it seems as if it were not there, Yet use will never drain it.
A valley is compared to the feminine. The valley receives and hosts like the vagina and womb. This receptivity, our natural state of spacious spirit, allows regeneration on all levels of existence. Without receptivity, the masculine is helpless. The feminine represents the spaciousness. Jesus represents the valley spirit, the feminine, in saying to the Father, the masculine, "Your will be done, not mine."
Hence, the Way relies on our offering ourselves valley-like. This does not mean getting over-welcoming so to negate the masculine. The masculine doer is essential.
So, again, effortlessness implies effort, just not effortfulness. When the masculine takes on too much power, the feminine is blocked, and vice versa. Without effort, there is no effortlessness. Grasses and trees are the adornments of silence.
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Now, what of this something called grace? A reply is all based on your view of Reality. Of course, if you are a materialist, there is no Reality, only stuff.
Anyway, when I was walking that path in November 2018, I was not interested in such questions. Grace happened then and happens now. That is enough for me. If you love someone, do you need to understand that love? Why would you? So with grace.
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Peach blossoms do not try to understand the stream that of itself bears them along in wisdom and gracefulness. They do not ask, "What are you? Where are you from? Where are you taking me?" And, they do not fuss with other peach blossoms about what the stream is. One group of peach blossoms does not tell others they do not belong. We would do well to see we are all peach blossoms and follow their example -
Li Bai [Li Bo] (China, poet 700s) -
The peach blossom floats away on the stream, carried far by the water.
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(C) brian k wilcox, 2025
*Li Bai citation, from Holyoak, Keith Holyoak. Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu.
*Tao Te Ching chapter from Dereck Len. The Tao Te Ching.
