An opening in the stormy sea,
Gold deposited on bones.
Once accumulation has begun,
Take care not to interfere.
There is a fable about a pious man whose father had just died. A geomancer instructed the son to bury his father at the mouth of a sea cave. The sea opened at this spot only once in a hundred years, and a family who utilized it would experience great fortune. Although he had misgivings about this unorthodox location, the son threw the casket into the waters at the indicated time.
For weeks the son doubted what he had done. He eventually went to a competing geomancer, who, out of jealousy, advised the son to raise the casket. The son did so. When the coffin was brought up and opened, the man saw that a fine layer of pure gold had already been deposited on his father’s bones — a clear indication of the auspicious transformation that had begun. In regret, the son wanted to throw his father back in, but it was too late. There was no remedying what had been done.
Spiritual practice must be uninterrupted. We may be anxious because we see very little happening on a daily basis, but we must be patient until we can see what the accumulation of our efforts yields. Self-cultivation means steady, gradual progress. To stop prematurely would be more disastrous than never having started at all.
Learning builds daily accumulation, but the practice of Tao builds daily simplification. Simplify and simplify, until all contamination from relative, contradictory thinking is eliminated. Then one does nothing, yet nothing is left undone. One who wins the world does so by not meddling with it. One who meddles with the world loses it.
— Tao te Ching, 48. Lao-Tzu
The story is very Tao in that it illustrates the benefits of just leaving things alone and not meddling with them. That is pretty much how I feel about my spirituality these days. I practice being spiritual in my daily life by not meddling with things, letting things progress naturally as much as possible. My son wondered today how it was he came out ok without his parents meddling in his life like his other friend’s parents seem to do. I just smiled and laughed.
Children grow best when they are appreciated for who they are, allowed to grow in their own way and time. So it is with all things. Even with ourselves, we have to patiently cultivate our own spirituality, not dig it up by its roots or try to make it grow faster by adding a lot of fertilizer (dogma) or too much water (flooding ourselves with an insistence on immediate enlightenment) or trimming ourselves too much to fit another’s idea of what our spiritual practice should be. Everyone has to find what works best for them, and respect the choices of others for their own spirituality.
Be patient with others, and patient with yourself. Then you will see results.
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