Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame.
Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.
Translation of the Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchel
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In 2001 I wrote a margin note in my text of Mitchell's Tao: "Demanding from others is different from asking for help -- demanding is part of the old infantile rigidity and we have learned that to be rigid is likened to death. Asking for help is the supple, yielding part of our nature that allows us to progress as a flowing stream." These words came from class discussion and no doubt the realization of Tao 79 remains relevant as I read my own life practice and observe others in theirs. A sure bet in all this wisdom is that change in attitude comes slowly.
ReplyDeleteBright-Fey, Tao 79: "harmonizing great resentments and injuries requires a soft but steady equilibrium but even in a gentle balancing of the scales some friction and pain will always remain" and I say to that "oh, good, I can stop scrapping and scouring the tears off my heart." And,the residue stays in spite of the many sweepings of my attempts to rid my house of them -- the crumbs. It is time to let the un-removable, stay. Accept these crumbs that cannot be swept away. They fly through the sunbeams of my home and settle down again in a different spot. Crumbs, just crumbs. Never to be the whole sour cake again.
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