Only Dead Fish Go with the Flow

“Ritual and Dogma have a place, but only after you comprehend that they are only ritual and dogma. Ritual and Dogma provide nothing but associations to a way of being” – Unknown

I had this ongoing argument with a friend who was a “meditation teacher” who insisted people not only need to be led they want someone to follow. I always argued that people are capable of seeing their own genuine being and didn’t need to be led anywhere. Just encouraged by sharing our explorations with each other. Yet, I’m starting to see he may have had a terrible point.

People will mindlessly follow whatever someone in authority says or does and I had one participant in a retreat respond this way when I asked her what she thought her Sangha needed in order to be healthy. “I don’t care what I think, I want to know what the Buddha said!” She was making my friends point. Yet the only reason she responded in such a way is she’s heavily conditioned to disregard her own intuitive knowing in leu of endless listening’s to what some “wise guys” said in the past. (Also “wise gals”)

We are so conditioned to sit and listen to someone tell us how to live our lives that perhaps we have lost that willingness to travel alone in those inner spaces, those spaces only we can explore by ourselves. We have the cell, the lock, the door, and the key, after all we built all of it, and we don’t need a prisoner telling us how to escape. We don’t need to follow all the rules, read all the signs, be good little boys and girls, and follow all the instructions. When we follow blindly we will always be someone else’s versions of how to act and what concepts and ideals to live by and express to others. We will never establish knowing our own genuine grounded self, unless we go to the edge of the spiritual cliff, and step off into freefall. (Where we exist anyway!) Nothing to hold or cling upon, only your own deepest knowing, accepted beliefs, and willingness to treat others like you want to be treated, expecting nothing in return.

Do you want to diminish your own dis-ease and sufferings? Stop listening to all those Guru’s and Teachers and do this:

Ask yourself these Two questions:

Am I suffering right now?: No? Good – Yes? Go to the next question.

How am I causing myself to suffer?

Once I find the answer to how I’m causing myself to suffer or be uncomfortable, the next action will rise.

Now I’m aware that we don’t “cause” all of our own discomforts in life, we don’t cause all our own sufferings. Yet, and this is just life, we are the only ones who can diminish the suffering that we are causing ourselves, all other sufferings and irritants may be beyond us to change. Or add to the existing suffering in trying to change them. So we learn to be accepting and patient. All while seeing how we can end our own uneasiness and suffering in the moment, at least ending the parts that are self induced. I didn’t get this from some spiritual leader or teacher, I and some fellow spiritual explorers did some inquiry and the two questions dropped in. Simple, uncomplicated, direct, and to the point, easy to remember, easy to do.

If you decide to try this out for a day or so I’d be interested in hearing about your experience.

Take care today, see those things that you can change, focus attention on what you can do.

Bryan Wagner

If you find this post helpful please repost and share.