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Today's
Meditation:
I'm
often torn between the desire to have pleasant things stay
as they are and finding new things in my life that may be
even more pleasant. In some ways, Richard's words
bring to mind someone who is intolerant of change, but in
other ways I see someone who is quite content with things
just as they are and who is willing to let life be life,
for life is good to him.
Much
of Zen philosophy is based on the concept of accepting
things as they are rather than trying to exert our will on
anything to try to get it to change into what we think it
should be. And when we accept things the way they
are, their beauty and their uniqueness are clear to us,
and we don't feel a need to change them for our sake.
When
I think of a walk through the woods, I know that all of
the sights and sounds that I experience belong right
there, right where they are. Though there seems to
be no order or rhyme or reason to the way the forest is
set up, it's still perfect just the way it is. The
trees wouldn't be better off in straight rows and columns,
and the wildflowers wouldn't be any more beautiful if they
were in a garden.
Letting
life be is a unique skill that we all can learn.
When we can give up trying to see how things can be better
and accept them just as they are, just where they are, we
make ourselves much happier and we make those who are with
us much happier, too.
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