Inn Along the Way/Chapman Farm; Damariscotta, ME
The follower spoke to the Sage, "I've sought to practice the surrender you have talked about. Where does this lead?" Replied the Sage, "To surrendering your surrendering."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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July 2006 - "Seasoned"
Seasoned... interesting. George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Quakers, or Society of Friends, wrote to fellow Quakers about being seasoned by Grace. I was intrigued by the thought of spirituality as being given flavor.
Seasoned - like a friend years ago spoke to me of the spiritual person being marinated in the Presence. If this is so, spirituality being seasoned, or marinated, two essentials arise to me: patience and surrender.
Being seasoned is just that: being seasoned. I, then, know myself as one who must say "Yes" to an action done to me, as Jesus, the night of his arrest, said "Yes" to the action to be done upon him. I cannot be a self-made person. Indeed, my effort can hinder being seasoned by Grace for Grace.
I am to live, above all, as a surrendered man; to be this, I know little of what is happening to me. I relinquish even my mistaken right to know. I am not to aspire to be what I want to be, but to have my wanting to be yielded to the Light. Herein, I am positioned by Grace for Grace, oneed with a process mostly hidden to my intellect and the seeing of others, except by the fruit such seasoning produces in and through me.
With this, I am content, but, again, by Grace and for Grace. And for this, I am summoned to Silence, to a Love hidden and quiet, wherein is the union of two intimacies, the prior of Life and that of Life manifested within and through me in Love. And is not this Grace, Love to me?
"Yes," I say, "Yes" to this "Yes" of Grace, for Grace gives the "Yes." And from "Yes," my life becomes moment to moment response. How this happens, I know not. That it happens, mostly I remain unaware, for the naturalness of Love negates a self-consciousness of spontaneous Presence happening and acting upon me in its secret workings. How could I want more?
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"When you prescribed a year at this place for me, you told me I would find great joy," a student said to Suzuki Roshi, as they sat sipping tea in Suzuki's cabin at Tassajara. "To find that great joy, I will first have to lose the will to live, won't I, Roshi?"
"Yes," he said, "but without gaining a will to die."
*David Chadwick. Zen is Right Here.
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August 2022 - "Yes"
To yield yourself to be acted upon... This is a death and life you do not choose - this is not about physical demise or continuity. You relinquish your choice about dying or living. You cannot even claim the "Yes" is your "Yes," and the "Yes" becomes so hidden it cannot be spoken, seen, or known to anyone.
Any external "Yes" becomes a shadow of the unspoken, unknown "Yes." Your life becomes a return to this "Yes" over and over, and you live in it more and more. It slowly becomes your natural habitat.
Yet, for union with the "Yes," there is a time and place where your first "Yes" arises, whether spoken or not. The "Yes" is always first unspoken, for the "Yes" does not arise from any where and any time. After the first "Yes," your "Yes" slowly dissolves in the radiant spaciousness of the secret "Yes."
This "Yes" is pure, hence free of "No." You enter into this purity not as a moral purity but of freedom from a life determined by contrast and conflict. We must be conditioned slowly to tolerate this purity, and the "Yes" is the way to this progressive inclusion of the fullness of Life, which is Life drawing us into Itself. Hence, to say "Yes," is for Life is already, always saying "Yes."
Life is saying the "Yes" it is. Hence, spiritual practice leads us to drop our "Yes" into the hidden, unspoken "Yes." Then, the "Yes" can show itself to us and through us more and more, and with surrender to Life, we enjoy resting in peace and contentment amid our everyday movements and actions. When we stray from this rest, we know we have moved from the "Yes," and we kindly, gently return. Loss of peace is always a sign of moving from the "Yes," and peace is always a sign of the return.
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2022.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and notation of title and place of the photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
