Finding The Miracle

We all want life to be miraculous, and it is. We pray for miracles, seek miracles, listen to stories about miracles, and think miracles will happen someday in the future, or happened thousands of years ago. So few realize that the great miracle is happening in our lives, right now. It is necessary to simply wake up, so we can see the miracle in front of our eyes, give thanks and live with it wholeheartedly.

Centuries ago, a physician, faced daily with death and suffering, sought out the guidance of a famous Zen Master, living quietly, inaccessible, in a mountain hut. The physician climbed the mountain, searched for the hut, and after many days, found him raking leaves at the side of his tiny house. The teacher did not look up when the student arrived, but kept raking slowly.

"I have come to understand the essence of life," the physician proclaimed.

The Zen Master looked up for a moment, his eyes piercing the student.

"Go home and be kind to your patients," the Master replied. "That is it."

Finding Your Miracle

Most of us find life to be complicated, filled with questions we cannot answer. We address these questions to our rational mind, seeking information we can get our hands around, answers to quench our thirst. We yearn to know and do what's right in the the unending complications life presents. Then we search for authorities, assuming someone out there has our answer This search can become a mania, as we run to teachers, doctors, psychologists, Priests and Rabbis in the belief they have the answers we hunger for. Wars have been fought and lives sacrificed in the effort to discover and protect the "right " response.

However, our true answers to life's questions cannot be found by thinking, talking, strategizing, or finding an authority upon whom to rely. A true teacher will simply prod, kick, yell, cajole, love and shove you into realizing that no one else has your truth. To find the answers to your life questions, you must look within. Nothing less will do. Nothing more is needed.

As we look within we learn to honor the head on our own shoulders, the heart that's beating inside of us, right now. As we turn our search around, we learn how to trust the wisdom that waits for us within.

"Don't put a head on your own head. What's wrong with the one you have?"

By stopping our mad search in the external world, by turning within we take back all our scattered power and energy which we have given to the thousands of "authorities", we begin to realize that our head is on our own shoulders. We do not have to look for it anywhere else. Then we are finally able to walk on this earth with our own two feet, to live the life given to us and see the miracles waiting for us everywhere. We are able to laugh when we laugh, cry when we cry, become whole-hearted and without deception.

Eat When You're Hungry, Sleep When You're Tired

Rinzai was the founder of one of the main schools of Zen. He said, "When I'm hungry, I eat, when I'm tired I sleep. Fools laugh at me. But the wise understand."

Being able to eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired is itself a miracle. How many of us can really eat when we're hungry, or sleep when tired? For many it is difficult to even recognize hunger for what it is. When we're hungry we talk, search for love, diet, or gobble down all the wrong food. When we're tired we push ourselves to work harder, run, dance, or fall into bed and toss all night with difficult dreams. How many can really taste the food they are eating, appreciate and digest it? How many know sleep that truly refreshes, innocent sleep like a little child?

When we reclaim the basis of who we are, let go of external projections, learn to look within and accept what we find, our life unfolds on a different basis. We then can resume our natural rhythms, know what we feel, who we are, and live a life of wholeness and simplicity, refreshing all we meet along the way. Then every moment becomes a miracle to relish and unnecessary questions fall away.

This is article is based upon Zen Miracles (Finding Peace in An Insane World), by Brenda Shoshanna, Wiley.

Living by Zen (Timeless Truths for Everyday Life)

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