The great Zen master Suzuki Roshi advised us to cultivate beginner’s mind. By that he meant approaching each moment with curiosity, with awareness, and without judging it, without ideas about how it should be, without the need or desire to control it.
By Hans on Pixabay
In looking back over the decades gone by, I am more certain now than ever before, that I have no control over what happens, though the illusion of control continues. Certainly, if I were in control, there would have been no pandemic. There would be no climate emergency, no racial inequity, no gender bias, no financial hardship, no ageism.
I am not in control of those events and relationships.
I am in control of how I respond to them and how willing I am to engage with them and to transform how I am, how I live. I am in control of my commitment to change, to harmony, and to love. I can approach each day, each breath, with beginners’ mind when I engage with an open heart.
The illusion of control came very clear to me at a young age when I heard the fragments of my parents’ story as holocaust refugees. And yet, I believed I was in control of my life.
The illusion of control came very clear to me as I demonstrated against the Viet Nam war, or the right of women to have control over their own bodies, and yet, I believed I was in control of my life.
The illusion of control came very clear to me as I succeeded and failed in various career choices, and yet, I still believed I was in control of my life.
The illusion of control came very clear to me as I fell in love at 72.
I no longer believe I am in control.
By Ben Kreckx on Pixabay