Welcome to Oneness with Life,
A Taoist Reflection.
Just take a moment to simply arise.
And just allow yourself to become aware of where you are.
Find your comfy space warm and cozy.
Allow your shoulders to soften.
Your hands are resting easily.
And just become aware of your breath.
No need to change its rhythm.
Just notice.
You are breathing.
Your breath arise.
And your breath needs.
Wrath arriving.
And breath leaving.
There is something so beautifully simple about this.
Life is already breathing through you.
So Taoist wisdom speaks of the Tao,
The great natural way of life.
It's not something that can be truly captured in words because it is something separate from us that needs to be understood.
It is here.
The TAO.
In the movement of your breath.
In the beating of your heart.
In rivers that are flowing toward the sea.
Clouds that are gathering and dissolving.
In seeds that are opening beneath the earth.
In the turning of the seasons.
And in this very moment,
You are part of it.
Take a deep breath in.
And slowly release,
Letting go of any stress or tension.
Now you see yourself walking through a quiet landscape in the early morning.
The air is cool and fresh and the world has only just begun to wake.
Ahead of you,
A path winds gently through tall grasses.
Drops of dew catch the morning light.
And somewhere nearby water is gently flowing.
You follow the sound.
And soon you come to a river.
It's a wide gentle one.
And its surface captures fragments of sky.
The water is moving steadily around stones,
Past reeds,
Beneath overhanging branches and it's never needing to hurry.
You find a comfortable place beside the water and just sit quietly.
For a while,
Yes,
Simply listen.
Listen to the water moving.
The leaves staring.
A bird calling somewhere in the distance.
Nothing here seems to be trying to become anything else.
The river is simply river.
The tree is simply tree.
And the bird is bird.
And for these few moments,
Maybe you can allow yourself the same freedom.
No need to improve yourself.
No need to become calmer.
No need to become wiser.
But you are simply here,
Breathing,
Listening,
Alive.
You realize that we spend so much of our lives feeling as though we are standing apart from life.
Maybe observing it.
Managing it or planning it.
Or trying to work out.
Where life is taking us.
We say,
My life.
As though life were something we possess.
But the Taoism offers another possibility.
What if you are not simply living a life?
What if you are life?
And that's the same life that is moving through the trees and it's moving through you.
The same water that falls as rain flows through rivers.
Moves through oceans and also moves through your body.
The breath you release returns to the world around you and the world breathes into you and you breathe back into the world.
Where then?
Do you truly end and life begins?
Take a moment to notice your next breath.
Just feel the air entering your body.
Perhaps it's cooler as it moves through your nose and then warmer.
As it gently leaves.
And for thousands of years,
Human beings have breathed this same air.
The animals,
They breathe it.
The forests breathe with it.
And oceans help to create it.
So here you are participating in something so ancient with every single breath.
And so you have never been separate from life.
Not even for one moment.
Beside you,
The river continues flowing.
A leaf falls from a branch above and lands gently upon the flowing water.
For a moment,
It just rests there and then the current catches it and it carries it downstream.
The leaf does not know where the river is going.
It does not need to.
It just simply moves with the water.
And there is a terrorist wisdom in this.
Because sometimes we want to know.
Exactly where the river is taking us.
We want certainty,
Guarantees.
We want to see around the next bend.
And sometimes life simply doesn't show us.
So the tale invites us into a different relationship with uncertainty.
Not giving up,
Not becoming passive,
But learning when to steer.
And when to allow ourselves to be carried.
Maybe there is something in your own life right now that you have been trying hard to work out.
And you don't need to name it or solve it.
But just imagine for one moment placing it gently upon the river.
And just let the water hold it.
And quietly remind yourself,
I do not need to know everything yet.
I can meet life as it arrives.
Across the river stands an old tree.
Its branches are stretching outward toward the sky,
While beneath the earth,
Roots reach deep into darkness.
And the tree belongs to both earth and sky,
Stillness and movement,
Light and shadow.
All of it belongs.
And this is another secret of oneness.
We sometimes imagine that being at peace with life means only embracing the beautiful parts.
The easy days,
The laughter,
The moments when everything makes sense.
But life,
It contains everything.
The joy and the sorrow,
The beginning and the ending.
Holding and releasing,
Sunlight and rain.
So,
The Tao does not divide these into what should and shouldn't be,
It just allows the whole river to flow.
Think of the seasons.
Autumn does not apologize for letting go.
Winter does not worry that nothing will ever grow again.
Spring does not force the first flower to open,
And summer does not cling to its warmth forever.
Each season arrives,
Lives fully,
And then makes way for the next.
And maybe we can learn to trust our own seasons too.
Because there are times for moving forward,
Times for resting,
Times for creating,
Times for healing.
Times for holding close and times for letting go.
You don't always have to know which season comes next.
You only need to be present for the one that you are living right now.
So just take a moment to reflect on your oneness with life.
With the air.
With your being.
Good.
So just place a hand gently over your heart.
Feel the warmth beneath your palms.
And sense your heartbeat.
This quiet rhythm has accompanied you through every season of your life.
Through moments you thought would last forever and moments you thought you might not get through.
But still,
Your heart continued,
Beat after beat.
After breath.
Life continuing to move within you.
So you notice now the boundaries around you are becoming a little softer.
It is softening.
You hear the river.
But instead of listening to the river.
You begin to feel that you are part of its movement.
Hear the wind in the leaves and you feel your own breath moving with it.
The warmth of the morning sun touches your skin.
And for a moment You realize the river,
The tree,
The sky,
You,
That there is simply life.
And this is what oneness really means.
It's not losing ourselves or becoming something mystical or distant,
But it's remembering our belonging.
Remembering that we are woven into something so much larger.
Than our own individual stories.
So we belong to the earth beneath us.
The air around us,
To the countless lives that have touched ours,
To every kindness that we have received and every kindness that we have offered.
And we really do leave traces of ourselves everywhere.
And that can be in a smile.
I wouldn't.
A hand held at the right moment.
A seed planted.
A creature cared for.
Love given freely.
So everything touches something else.
The Taoist teacher Zhuangzi wrote of the Ten Thousand Things.
The countless forms through which life expresses itself.
Different,
Yet arising from the same great mystery.
And you are one of those expressions because you are so unique,
So beautiful and you are inseparable from the whole.
So take another gentle breath in.
And just breathe in life.
And as you breathe out,
Just give yourself back to life.
So you receive with the breath in.
And you give with your breath out.
And this is just the flow.
The trees are moving gently in the breeze.
A bird lifts from a branch and disappears into the open sky.
And you are here participating in it.
You are here in this moment.
You are here noticing.
You are here breathing.
You are here to love and you are here to live.
So today just carry one small piece of this awareness with you.
When you feel the wind against your face,
Remember that you belong.
When you hear rain against the window,
Remember that you belong.
And when you look into another person's eyes,
Remember that they too are traveling through their own season of this mysterious,
Wonderful life.
And when you feel alone just come back to your breath.
Because every breath quietly reminds you.
That you are connected.
You are participating.
And you are here.
So slowly now notice the room around you.
Feel the support beneath your body.
And just gently roll your shoulders if that feels good.
Give yourself a gentle stretch and just allow your breathing to deepen naturally.
Softly and gently open your eyes.
And as you continue with your day.
Just take this quiet understanding with you.
You are not standing outside the river of life.
You have always been within it.
And life,
In all its changing,
Mysterious beauty,
Is moving through you now.
So may you walk gently with life.
May you trust the seasons that come and go,
And may you remember your connection to the Earth.
To the sky.
To others and to the quiet mystery that holds us all.
And above all.
May you remember you belong.
So thank you so much for sharing this time with me.
Until next time,
Breathe gently,
Walk softly and let life meet you exactly where you are.
Namaste,
My friend.
