Accepting Whatever

“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” – Zhuang Zhou

Being present in the moment requires a level of surrender that my mind doesn’t easily achieve. So I trick it with the odd mundane task like picking cherry tomatoes or deadheading the geraniums or some such thing. It’s in moments like these that I finally reach the ultimate. It won’t last, but my mind and heart sync for a few beats.

Now is more easily achieved when hiking through a quiet forest or paddling across still water. In these situations the vastness of the universe shrinks down to the immediacy of the next step or the next dip of the paddle as drops of water sprinkle down on you from the opposite, raised blade. Your restless mind has no say in the matter in such moments. It’s just you and whatever you are doing.

I should think that I might never reach some of the things my mind wrestles with. I should think I’ll pass one day having left too much on the table. I may curse the folly of an unfocused mind in that last moment, or celebrate the stillness that awaits me. You aren’t free until you realize that that moment is now.