Happy Thursday All!
I’m taking the day partially off today to rest, catch up on some client and colleague correspondence, and then some quiet time. I’m working with a client all day tomorrow and so I’ll enjoy every minute of Dr Quiet today :-)
Please enjoy my Tao-Te-zen sutra: Wheel Rolls Round The Table
Have you seen the stars?
How they roll through space and time – as a wheel?
Who is driving? Who is meeting at these roundtables-is it you?
At the head of every roundtable is Great Mother. She directs men and women.
Humanity, they are her Stars.
Efficient is the wheelbarrow
Joy is the cart; the right pressure keeps the tire rolling.
Zen practice is as a river stone
Going wherever the river goes, torrents make it soft and smooth
Nice to hold in your hand
Beautiful in your garden.
Pressure is the man pushing ~ the woman pulling.
Do you want to move?
Equanimity brings rest, peace, stillness.
Zen is “moving stillness” in your garden
Leaving lines of rhythm and flow, in which the wind knows where to go.
Zen honors the morning breeze as an aid to rake and leaves.
Zen is the rounded stone
Assuring the water it’s never alone.
Zen is the roundtable its axis is your home.
Let’s practice zen together.
Wheel Rolls Round The Table encourages us to observe that just as the river stone loses its edges and rough spots through both the challenges and caress of the flowing water of stream or river, our challenges may encourage us to bring our best to the situation.
Challenges help create healthy individuality, for each lesson we learn is unique to us as individuals. To the degree that our challenges cultivate awareness and wholeness within ourselves, we become clearer as to the truth of life.
That means that we learn the importance of relationships, be they our relationships with nature, or people or things. When we keep an open mind and are willing to hear the opinions of others, we become a true participant in the roundtable.
The table is round because it symbolizes equal contribution from each member, as each spoke of the wheel.
Those who have spent any significant time riding a bicycle know that the loss of one spoke out of 32 can destabilize a wheel. When a wheel becomes destabilized it will become deformed. It is
considered to be “untrue”.
A crooked wheel only gets more and more crooked with each rotation and is likely to fold sooner rather than later quickly becoming useless. We are each center and sum of our own inner-government.
When we can govern ourselves honestly, living virtuously, we are known to be true to ourselves. When we are true to ourselves, we at once become useful as a spoke in any collective wheel, round table, or government.
Confucius said, “The government always reflects the people.” Therefore, to the degree that we deem our government ineffective, manipulative or dangerous, we at once see our own reflection,for the whole is made of a collection of individuals.
Remember, it only takes one broken spoke in 32 and the wheel loses its true!
In zen, practicing awareness of our own individual “true” is essential to being in touch with reality” essential to seeing and experiencing life as it really is.
Only when awareness and our experiences of life are authentic “coherent ” can we contribute to any other round table.
Being true-that is zen.
If you are being “challenged” at this time in your life, this sutra is an invitation for you to examine your life, how “true” are you “being?”
This sutra implies that just as the wheel must be both maintained and be optimal for the task at hand, the round table only rolls out solutions to the degree that its members are chosen correctly for the task at hand.
This is true for your Dream Team. They must be governed such that each spoke in the wheel of the round table allows individuality and collective contributions are healthfully maintained.
May you enjoy your practice.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
