021 - Until the Water Runs Clear and the Right Action Arises by Itself

Until the Water Runs Clear

and the Right Action Arises by Itself

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water runs clear?  Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?

I'm Adela, and this is Just Breathe....You Are Enough™. Together we will deepen our connection with our ourselves, strengthen our relations with others, and re-think together how we connect with our world.

If yelling back when someone yells at you was going to work, it would have worked by now. Thank you for joining us as we explore the potential of patience.

“The ancient masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it.  All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful, as someone crossing an iced-over a stream. Alert as a warrior in enemy territory. Courteous as a guest. Fluid as melting ice. Shapeable as a block of wood. Receptive as a valley. Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action rises by itself?

The master doesn't seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things.”

It is Verse 15 of the Tao Te Ching, one of the foundational texts of the Chinese wisdom tradition known as Taoism. Its writing is accredited to the master Lao-Tzu who lived in the axial age of human philosophy, around 500 BCE; he and was a contemporary with Gautama Buddha – founder of Buddhist tradition - and Pythagoras, among other ancient Greek philosophers.

This afternoon someone asked me, “May I come and talk to you? I need you to help me figure out if I should do this or should I do that? It's a big decision. There are so many variables to consider. I am hesitant and confused…I don't know what to do."

If we don't know what to do, if the mind is in a turmoil - there are so many choices and so many possibilities and big consequences to consider – among the options is patience. Have the patience to wait, until your mud settles and the water runs clear; remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself.

In Buddhist tradition patience is considered to be an antidote to aggression.

Sometimes the waters that get stirred - and the mud that is churned happens in a way that is heated - and we express aggression to others or ourselves - or others express and show aggression to us.

Buddhist psychology tells us that patience is an antidote to aggression.

I sometimes have felt that I have learned about patience by having so much experience of impatience. Of the various ways that it's possible to express aggression in relation to the inside world, or in relation to the outside world, impatience is probably the one I am most familiar with:  wanting things to be other than they are. The situation in my inside world, or the situation in my outside world, should somehow be different. There must somehow be something wrong. This should be finished already! How could this not have happened yet! This is happening now! How could this possibly be happening now! He did this in the past. She did this in the past. They said in the past. How could they have done that!  The past should have been different. The past should not have been like that.

There is just something wrong.

The instinct to push way is one very basic understanding of aggression: I do not want him or her, or this or that. This should be different!  That should be different! I want my world to be other than it is. I do not want to be with my experience as it is. There should be a different now.

The antidote to the form of aggression that is impatience is to be patient. Can we be patient with ourselves, with other people, our situation, our lives?

If nothing else has the ease of being choiceless. Some things are so much easier to do because we must.  Experience now. We can wish now, or the past, or the future to be different.  Push away and wish it to be different if we want to, but wishing it different does not change the taste of now.  Now tastes of now.

To taste the taste of now does imply trust. Can we trust that now is enough?  Now has everything we need.  It – like us – has resilience, wisdom, insight  and strength.  If we just breathe, and be with it, it is OK.  It will show us what we need to do.  The answers are all there, behind the surface and beyond the drama.  The more we can just breathe and be present with now, the more we develop the taste for it, and the better we are able to recognize it when we are there.

Just breathe:  let go and relax. Can we be patient, until your mud settles and the water runs clear, until the mind stops churning, and we stop punching and kicking and fighting the choiceless ever-presence of now.

Just breathe:  let go and relax.  Be patient; the waters will run clear, and what we need to say or do will come to us, will show itself to us.  Chase after it too hard, and we can chase it away.

Do we have the patience to wait, until our mud settles, and the mind runs clear, and the right action arises by itself.

The wisdom traditions of China, or India, or Tibet have a strong appreciation for wisdom.  This includes the wisdom of common sense.

It's very good to have the patience to wait until the mud settles from a place of basic safety. If what we want to be different in our current situation is something that is taking away from our experience of basic safety, please do what is needed to be safe.  The mud settles so the waters can run clear only if we are basically safe.  Fear – like doubt – stirs the waters.

If it is a question of working with aggression, with our own or that of others, direct aggression in its variety of forms, passive or manipulative aggression in its variety of forms, aggression that is pre-meditated, that is unintentional, that is imposed because we can, that is acted out because we cannot stop ourselves…. 

First, please be safe.  If we are the ones acting out, press pause.  Then, consider applying patience.  It is old medicine.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles, and the water is clear; can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?

If yelling back, when someone tells at you, was going to work, it would have worked by now.  Responding to aggression with aggression will increase aggression: it is based in fear; it must feed on fear; it will generate more fear and tighten the trap for everyone.

If someone is pushing away a now – a person, a situation, a behaviour, a thing – that they don’t want, sometimes what they most want is for someone to push back, to engage in the conflict.  If someone yells back, we can become distracted by that yelling – entertained by that drama – and be protected from tasting the taste of now.

Aggression burns like a fire.  If someone pushes away, and meets someone who will push back, then we have fuel for that fire.  Often when the person yells – in the infinite ways we have of yelling – what they most want is someone to yell with and then someone to yell back.  It is such strong protection – in its drama and distraction – from the taste of now.  The trouble is that now is all there is; it is the only thing that is real.  We can live life only in the now that is every breath.

Be patient.  Be present.  Hold a steady mind with one’s self.  Be generous enough to be patient with one’s self, the other person and the entire scene, and the mud settles.  The water runs clear.

We can trust now.  Now is enough.  Reach into it directly enough, deeply enough, and it is kind and wise and strong, sufficient, absent of absence:  now contains what we need.  Be patient.  Remain unmoving – offer space to ourselves, the other person and the situation as a whole – and the right action will arise by itself.

“The ancient masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it.  All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful, as someone crossing an iced over a stream. Alert as a warrior in enemy territory. Courteous as a guest. Fluid as melting ice. Shapeable as a block of wood. Receptive as a valley. Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action rises by itself?

The master doesn't seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things.”

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness