Two lines from a poem by the fourteenth century Persian mystic Hafiz,
"this place where you are right now,
God circled on a map for you."
(trans. Daniel Ladinsky)
Days that are going well--sure. I can dig it. But when something
happens that feels like it somehow shouldn't be, well, that's a challenge. Those lines are meant to stop us in our tracks,
which is where we go, over and over.
Tracks. Habitual grooves. Our souls bear these track marks.
But if we can we just stop for a moment to consider that this place
right here, right now, is where grace unfolds. Grace is always unfolding here and now. This is the moment when you know you
exist fully here and now, not in some fantasy thought bubble.
"When you know yourself, your "I-ness"
vanishes
and you know that you and God are one and the same."
~Ibn 'Arabi
Meditation allows us to enter this sacred space all the time, as
this space is where you are right now. God circled it.
Ok let's say you can't wrap your head around that phrase, or it
just doesn't do anything for you.
Being right here where you are is simply to cut through your
own melodrama. It's tapping into a deep trust trust that as a situation arises out of you will come what is necessary to deal
with it. You don't have to keep holding on to anything to be free and happy. God is simply that space of peace and ease
in your heart right now. You are were never lost, never forsaken.
When you stop identifying so much with your stuff, anxiety starts
to fall apart. You start to see yourself as a flow pattern. Whatever comes along is just more "grist for the mill"
of your happiness and joy.
"My daily activities are not unusual,
I'm
just naturally in harmony with them.
Grasping nothing, discarding nothing...
Supernatural power and marvelous activity
-
Drawing water and carrying firewood ."
~Layman Pang-yun (China, 740-808)
