how to: live

here is a functional question that's been bothering the hell out of me: I want to live free from suffering, which means unattached or unbelieving of the drama that plays out before me. At the same time, I want to be dynamic and successful in my life.

The paradox is that if I am unattached, then everything is OK. From the point of view of the witness, there is no problem, nothing that needs doing.

But the mind needs to believe in its power to change things for the better, for it to have the motivation to do so. I think.

I guess what I'm struggling with is the dichotomy of free will verses predetermination. People keep telling me that all is as it should be, and everything is already decided. Everything that happens was inevitable, and was in fact for the greatest good. A nice point of view to sooth the pangs of feeling like a failure, feeling that you are doing something wrong, that something is fundamentally wrong.

But at the same time, it feels like that belief cuts my legs out from under me. If everything is fine, then nothing needs changing. If everything happens perfectly, than nothing can be changed...

hmm, could that be it? everything is perfect means everything is perfect. Any possible rout you could take. Not quite it I think.... It's one of those paradoxes that needs resolving my going to a higher level, a bigger point of view, that includes both without contradiction. Paradox is only the experience that one thing cannot exist at the same time as another, so the solving of the paradox is simply to experience the opposite: both existing at the same time. Then it is no longer a paradox.

And that is the answer to this question: just look at your experience: I feel like there is no control on my part, that life just flows, and any attempt to control that just results in my swimming against the enormous power of natures movement, and suffering, and inefficiency. At the same time, I do have that choice, to swim against that flow, ineffective though it may be. I don't have control of the outcomes of my actions. That is certain. Sometimes I get the desired result, sometimes I don't. But at the same time I am always choosing. Surrender or Control. This or that. And in that apparatus of choice, reduced to it's simplest component, is the answer to this question, for me.

When I try and locate "my self" I fall into an abyss of mystery, that shatters words and is beyond understanding, beyond my ability to see what it is. I think someone once called it "the cloud of unknowing." So that is all I can find, when I look for myself. At the same time, when I look for the connection between me, and action, I end up at the same place. I get an image, as I sink there, of falling from white light into blackness, fingers of the blackness shining into the light as the space surrounding me gets more dark, until I can't see anything, not even the nose in front of my face. There's nothing I can say about this place. People have suggested that this is the self, the absolute, the ground state of existence. That makes sense, from inference and logic, looking back at it with a functioning mind. As does the reasoning, "well, that must be what I fundamentally am." But when I'm deeply in it, no such thoughts or certainties are possible. And even that's not true. Anything that can be said about this seems to immediately negate itself.

In any case, that is where I end up when I look for what does the deciding, as well. There is nothing specific then, that I can find, which is either me, the actor, or the decider.

The questions, then, are answerless, at least for now. Perhaps even meaningless. What is it that I really want, in my search for whether I have free will or not? I think I'm just looking for the security to say, "I am in control" or "I am not in control" and know who to blame, when things go wrong, and know who to trust, and know what to do. And all these different lusts for understanding stem from one basic desire, to feel comfortable and safe, to be happy and purposeful.

But I never get these questions answered in an absolute way, a way I can trust completely, because they are not absolute questions. There is nothing I can say, that is absolutely true, as far as I've found, as far as I can conceive of. There is something I can be, that is real. So what I really end up looking for is just whatever it is that will grant me peace from my constant fear and pain.

Who cares if I have free will or not? What does that even mean? Show me the way to love, to fulfilment, to peace. And you know what? My mind can't do that. My mind is just the burger boy, in this case, being asked sagely questions. The one that has the answers is God, is my Heart. And my heart doesn't have to explain it's self. it just knows.

It says: surrender, because you don't have control anyways, and trying to control what you can't leads to suffering and inefficiency.

And it says: act as though you have free will, because acting as though you don't leads you to complacency, confusion, and depression. Act as though there is right and wrong because acting as though you don't makes your heart sad. And when you do something or something happens that you think is bad, something you don't want, look closer at it, because if you look close enough to see what is actually there, you will find nothing but beauty and perfection and gifts, and the only thing that can hurt you is thoughts, believed in.

Control is irrelevant, free will is irrelevant. What is relevant, utterly relevant, is what makes your heart sing, and what is your experience of reality. My experience of reality is a wondrous mystery, and learning to listen to and trust my heart is the journey I'm currently on, along with unwinding all the knots that keep me closed down and suffering.