Every Which a Way

In my Qigong class, we have been concentrating not only on moving forward, but also stepping backwards and shifting side to side.  I am finding these movements fascinating. I think most of us have a tendency to look and move forward, and walk in straight lines. Efficient?  Yes, but too often, this efficiency can lead us to forget to look around at our surroundings, unless we are about to cross a street. Yet, life occurs around us in all directions. Furthermore, our structured pace is generally aimed at getting where we want to go, but may not be helping us to be where we really need to be, which is right where we are.  Eknath Easwaran writes: 

"The Compassionate Buddha had a rather mischievous saying: 'Not to have that which we want is sorrow; to have that which we do not want is sorrow.' We have conditioned our nervous system to one-way traffic only - away from what we dislike towards what we like. This is all right as long as everything is going our way, but unfortunately, all too often things are going someone else's way instead... Most of us respond to this by putting up bigger and better one-way signs: 'Stop! Do not enter! Go back! This means you...' For a long time in meditation this is what most of us are doing: reconditioning the nervous system to accept two way traffic."*   

  

*Like a Thousand Suns, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 2, Eknath Easwaran, p.81-82.         

         

 

This piece is entitled "Every Which a Way". Both my parents used the phrase to describe a situation that was definitely not moving in an orderly fashion, at least as far as we could understand.  

  

photograph: San Leandro, May 2021. Yes, the beautiful tower of jewels are in bloom.