“In times of great struggle, when there is nothing else to rely on and nowhere else to go, it is the return to the moment that is the act of faith…From that point, openness to possibility, strength, patience and courage can arise. Moment by moment we can find our way through.” Sharon Salzberg
All winter, the catalogues arrived; they had me thinking about seeds. I imagined zinnias; tall and sturdy colors to grace my dinner table! And cucumbers: we’ll make pickles! And lettuce and spinach and radishes for salads!
I bought lots.
In early spring I spread them here on my kitchen counter in their teeny little envelopes, dry and boring and lifeless. The zinnia seeds were just flimsy brown wisps; lettuce seeds only black bits of dust. And the radish seeds: they were so tiny, so dry and brown. The catalogues had said there was a radish in there!
My mind rebelled; my mind insisted: that cannot possibly be true! No green and living thing could possibly be hiding in a place so obviously dead and empty and barren. Further, I was instructed to bury these lifeless things? In dirt? That can’t be right; how can that possibly work? Am I not required to DO something more actively to make a radish?
My daily mindfulness practice offers me a similar wonder. How can patient awareness and sitting quietly day after day with loving presence, doing (apparently) nothing: really now, how can that lead me steadily to happiness, to an awakening into freedom?
It’s a puzzlement…especially today, when my practice seems kind of empty: when my back aches and my emotions offer fear and overwhelm and grumpiness, when my mind lurches between riots of thinking and a sludge of sleepiness. What is the point and where is the harvest? Am I not supposed to DO something more actively here?
The seeds remind me and invite me into faith and magic. I remember the long-ago delight of my kindergarten class and the green unfolding of those mysterious white beans. I first learned about faith, then, and about presence and patience and balanced effort. There were just a few simple actions that were required: together our little hands were guided to wet the blotter just a bit and to carefully tuck that tiny and dead-seeming hard white thing between the soggy wetness and the glass. After that, there was not a lot to DO. There was, simply, an invitation to watchful presence and trust.
Well, there was wise effort: we did take turns each day to make sure it stayed moistened and not moved too far from that light filled counter…the one next to the puppets and the lined-up storybooks. The seed, however, had a mysterious life of its own; given the right care, it simply awoke.
My teacher, John Welwood taught that kind awareness works in a similar, seemingly magical, way. “Unconditional presence, he wrote, “(is)…the most powerful transmuting force there is, precisely because it is a willingness to be there with our experience, without dividing ourselves in two by trying to “manage” what we are feeling.”
Yes. I learn it daily. My willingness to be present with what is, with a loving and compassionate awareness of body and mind is like the gift of water and warmth on that little seed resting deep in the darkness of earth. Presence simply, kindly, knows: “It’s like this now.” Over and over, I learn to trust in a kind and patient awareness of what IS – letting go of my opinions about my rumpled past, releasing my fantasies of control of an uncertain future. This mindful presence allows me to patiently discern and nourish a deeper quality of awakeness found at the core of my being, of all being.
Like my care for that little bean seed, there are, of course, a few things that I can do that are skillful. But doing most other things: not so much. It requires presence to discern all of that. What is simply true: how is it – here, now? What, if anything, is needed here; what is mine to do? With awareness there is discernment and choice. I can choose which thoughts to pay attention to. I can choose my internal words. I can discern which actions are wise and which simply bring more stress to myself and others. I remember faith and that seeds planted by me and others will unfold in wholesome (or unwholesome) ways, depending largely on the conditions that they are offered. Even with all of that, I am not in charge. Everyday mindfulness invites me again and again into practice – and reminds me that simple awareness is what guides and rules.