Some Are Buckets and Others Brooms…

What if we never get what we want…?

What if we can’t? What if it isn’t possible? What if wanting isn’t “natural”? What if the purpose of the agony of desire, is to grow beyond it? What if, it could be ended…what would your life look like…without it? What if, when we get what we think we want, there is a mechanism that prevents satisfaction from being stable or enduring?

So many things come to my mind; if we didn’t “want” would there be anything like addiction? If we didn’t desire would there be anything like jealousy? Envy? Heartache? Disappointment? Emotional dependency? Approval seeking? Suffering? Or on the lighter side…if “wanting” were not behind us pushing with all its might, would we need goals? Passion? Purpose? Drive? Or Ambition? ….And what would life look like without them? Is it too scary to even contemplate, or take a sideways peek at?

As the demands of learning something I am not naturally good at has ebbed, and I am not stretched so gawd awful thin, I find a very interesting experience which I could not have anticipated, for all the tea in China – as they say – to have come, from the many months of solitude.

I feel little or no desire, toward anything at all.

You may not have the capacity to experience the sheer wonder of surprise, which that fact engenders in me. Unlike a good many people, I have met over my nearly six decades – who reported they “didn’t know what they wanted”, I have ALWAYS known exactly, precisely, specifically, what I wanted…or at least that is what my conditioned mind told me was true…and I wanted it fervently, and with great anguishing desire.

But now, I notice, that I do what is required of me…and even what is expected of me, with no resistance and no argument. I never look farther ahead than the task precisely before me, and even as I strive to figure out air conditioning equipment, and sit in rooms with over zealous and over competitive people…I merely do whatever is closest at hand.

I don’t “want” anything from my job, not even a paycheck. It is more like I understand that unless and until, I have taken the action that results in a response, that a check will not be deposited into my account, and thus, I take the actions and watch for the results. I have no other involvement in the job, I do it with precision and commitment, mainly because I have an agreement in place to which I am obligated. (My boss describes me as the most “dedicated” of our new group), I assume that is because every time he sees me, I have made significant strides in understanding and organization, but I am in no way emotionally involved.

At Tuesday’s meeting, sitting across from me was one of the youngest and most earnest among us, who was talking to an older gentleman who is not doing well. The older one said he thought his problem was he just couldn’t get his “head right”, and the younger said “man, I know what your talking about… but now, my head is right”.

The older said, “how so?” The younger said, “working for this company, man”. His zeal, fervor, and the gleam in his glassy eyes caused me to chortle, I couldn’t help it…and I swear, I meant no disrespect. In sales team circles, it could be said that he has “drunk the kool aid, man….”

I chortled, not at his expense, but rather at the recognition of the young, (myself included), who are taught to believe that the outer circumstances of life, if manifested just right, if believed in just so, if worked toward with dedication, if cared about deeply, will one day…as sure as the moon follows the sun…produce happiness and ever lasting satisfaction. I chortled at seeing the younger me, in him. And right behind that, I felt sorrow for the utterly inevitable let down, he will sooner or later face.

Anyone over the age of 35, who has the will and the courage to tell themselves the truth, knows that the outer realms cannot assuage the deep yearning we feel for wholeness and completeness. Which is why, so many, are in so much pain, as they round the bend toward middle age.

It’s not, just… that the dream will not come true, or if it does it will not provide the connection we hoped and longed for, it’s that the outer realms are not real in any effective way, at least not to the part of us yearning to return home.

Many years ago, my Teacher had an exercise that he would often do, attempting to explain the difference between the Real and the illusory. He would place a very strong spotlight on a thick chain and hook suspended from the ceiling, which then broadcast a very clear shadow hook and chain upon the wall. Then he would take a metal bucket and attempt to hang it from the shadow hook…and of course, no matter how many times he would stoop and retrieve that metal bucket from rolling at his feet, and return it to it’s position upon the shadow hook, it would not, and could not, be hung upon its projected hook.

Here is the lesson; every time, without exception, that we are looking to our future for some hoped for goal to be realized, some longed for outcome to be ours, we are projecting And just like my teacher’s metal bucket, once we attain or “manifest” our much-desired goal…our bucket will not hold and it will role away from us, lifeless and useless at our feet. The deeply stubborn among us, will turn away from the lesson that The Loving One is trying to teach…and pick a new goal and begin again, ignoring the truth that the weighted metal bucket, cannot and will not, hold to our shadow fantasies. a shadow hook upon the wall…and sadly, the only thing becoming successfully “hooked” is our mind and our sanity.

And in this way…a life ticks by… in the shadow realms, lost to itself, and using the drama of believing, and willing, and visioning, and hoping, and praying, and convincing others, that the grass is greener somewhere over there, and that all that must be done is traveling just a bit farther, just a little bit longer, just a little bit due North.

Here embedded in this believing, is the absurdity that made me chortle when the younger man held to the notion that he had found the one true outer place, where his mind could finally rest…

All the days of our lives we are like Dorothy in OZ, with our newly pinned curls, gingham dress, and sparkly red shoes…we click them together at the heel and wish and hope and pray for a return home, to Kansas.

Discovering that there is no Wizard, just an old man behind the curtain pulling levers and puffing smoke, is only the barest beginning of the long road home. It is equally necessary to give up the hope that Kansas, the familiar and understandable, holds the key either. It is necessary for full maturation to bloom, for us to pull our expectations all the way back inside, to the point at which we can win for ourselves the recognition that there never has been anything “outside” for us to attain at all.

There is only and ever, the capacity to open ourselves afresh to the current moment, to become willing to be vulnerable to the dying that is required at every moment and in every breath, to honor the sheer implausibility of our existence, and to rest in perfected trust.

You cannot win. Not now, not ever… There is no such thing…

If you can fully embrace that idea, it will release you from the bonds of the conditioned mind and set you free. Free to trust Life, free to feel the truth, free to see the simplicity, free to cherish the moment, free to truly live…and finally, to leave the shadow hook in the shadow realms. Once that is accomplished, then the metal bucket becomes a useful tool for carrying water, or building castles in the sand, or holding colorful marbles to play with, or bringing seeds to singing birds, or holding nails to frame an abode… or just a simple vessel…waiting, empty, and potentially useful, content in its “bucketness” and striving for nothing more than what it is, for reasons unknown and unknowable.

We are not the Author, we are merely the players, some are buckets and others brooms, some cups and others saucers, some low and some high, and how could any of that matter? … Even in the slightest…

Now, as my life matures and deepens, I see the necessity of examining my bucket in close and loving watchfulness, the dull gray, the rolled wire handle, the utilitarian value, the commonness, the usefulness, the emptiness, the lack of glory…and I am moved beyond words…in gratitude and thankfulness, in acceptance and recognition, in harmony and utility, in value and worth, and I say quietly to myself…”it is good…”

And more…it is enough…

Adayre R. Miller

4/23/11

Photo courtesy of Mattwarburg and flickr photo sharing to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link… www.flickr.com/photos/mattandmaggie/2403129235/