#20 Zen and the Art of Lost and Found

20

Zen and the Art of Lost and Found

So it seems that life is something that happens to you while you are busy thinking that you are doing something else.

Following simple rules of the road … can help … they helped me …

·      First … Find your humor and hang on … go for the ride … strap yourself in … this is life … and as you do … do something with the experience of being here.  Anything is fine … just don’t be passive … be active and subjective … have an experience … get involved … do something … I was asked one time what God’s voice sounded like … and that was one of the easiest replies … it jumped right out of my mouth … it is the sound of laughter … true unbridled laughter!

·      Second … If you lose your peace … break with the situation … take the time to find your center … your sense of self … walk around the block 20 times if you have to … take a time out … God never intended for you to disconnect … disconnection is an old trick you learned very early on in your existence here on the face of this world … it is a defense strategy gone wide of the mark.

·      Third if you need to speak with God … pray … right now … simply do it … Ask … then listen … that last part is the most important.  If you are going to take the time to ask … then have the courtesy to listen … you may be pleasantly surprised by the nature of the reply you receive … in fact some of you may be surprised that you receive a reply at all … especially when you consider that you never considered a reply to be possible.

·      Fourth … Never assume … this one is a killer … it personifies self-destructive behavior by all those who presume to know and practice the art of assumption.

·      Fifth … Practice rigorous honesty … practice it in and on whatever it is that you do … practicing rigorous honesty is particularly important in what you say and how you say it.  Know this there is a considerable difference between honesty dumping and practicing rigorous honesty … like it or not … your voice has authority in the universe.  It will affect others … be a co creator with God …

·      Sixth … Watch-out for soldier gathering … proving a point through recruitment of others … it is a variation on a theme of Might Makes Right … no matter what the presumed reason or good cause for it … it is always a form of manipulation and the results will always come back to haunt you in some form … so simply don’t … manipulation and power mongering don’t work … they may seem to at times but in the end they don’t.

·      Seventh … Know this … that the truth has a knack of standing up all by itself … just practice it … that is all that counts … but first Trust God … and trust that He knows how to run His universe … that one helps … otherwise you will spend a lifetime tiding up after His supposed mistakes … the ones that you notice.  Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be … the problem is most of it does not agree with me … but who said it was supposed to … besides me.

·      Eighth … In what ever you do … simply do the best you can at the moment you find that something needs to be done … that best you can may vary from day to day or from moment to moment … but it is the force necessary that I need to exert to over come the forces of entropy in my life … those forces that I need to overcome to simply get on with the journey that needs to be walked.

·      Ninth … Know this … your best is the only output you need concern yourself with … not what you think but what you do … it is an action … that’s all … just action made manifest in God’s universe in the service of the Creator …

·      Tenth … if you do … adhere to the above … then no ghost-like thingies will come back to haunt you.

Neil Douglas-Tubb (RCC)