It’s very humbling for me

It’s very humbling for me when I come to understand something more deeply which I had
thought I already understood well, realizing that I actually had no inkling. A great problem that I’ve had in the spiritual life is looking for “the secret,” or “the answer.” I suspect that many others, have this problem, too, especially intellectuals.

I just realized that in spite of all my spiritual study and practice, including the “no-mind” of Zen, and the mental quietness of meditation, my mind was insisting on figuring out the answer to “no-mind,” and trying to think of how to stop thinking! What a waste! In retrospect, it seems so ironic that even when I thought I understood, I never did understand the simple stuff that all the teachers say, “take no thought for tomorrow…” and “there is nothing to understand.”

Suddenly it hit me. Just as Jesus said, this is the “easy yoke”. Spiritual awakening is not a strenuous realization of any concept, doctrine, belief, state, or anything at all to understand or hold on to. It’s no more useful to understand God (as if it were possible) than to understand air, and it’s just as useless to try to “hold on.”

Just breathe, and you are blessed!

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