Love It All

This is so brilliant I had to share it! Thich Nhat Hanh is simply amazing to me. I've been pondering (for quite a long time) the role of duality in our lives. Now, of course, this is generally thought to be a primarily Eastern concept; the Yin and the Yang and other such natural dualistic constructions. Completely valid thinking. But, I assert that it is more than simply an Eastern concept, that it is actually the very nature of creation itself (though I suppose you have to believe in the notion to find truth in it, as with all such things). Ask yourself...what can exist without it's opposite? Nothing. Therefore, we should truly embrace everything and it's opposite with completely equal gusto - we should love the darkness and the light, we should love times of abundance and times of starvation; for without one, we can never, ever truly know the other. You see, we have been conditioned (in many cases) by our larger society to believe that one part of this "team" is "good", while it's opposite is "bad". But the reality is that tendency is just what I called it...a construction. It is illusion. It is falsehood. Ultimately what I'm getting at here, to use just one example, is that the darkness deserves the same respect and love as the light does. Love it all, and teach others to do the same.

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An Excerpt From: This Silence is Called Great Joy

By Thich Nhat Hanh

You are not static. You are the life that you are becoming. Because “to be” means to be something: happy, unhappy, light or heavy, sky or earth. We have to learn to see being as becoming. The quality of your being depends on the object of your being. That is why when you hear Rene Descartes’ famous statement “I think, therefore I am,” you have to ask, “You are what?” Of course you are your own thinking—and your happiness or your sorrow depends very much on the quality of your thinking. So you are your view, you are your thinking, you are your speech, you are your action, and these things are your continuation. You are becoming now, you are being reborn now in every second. You don’t need to come to death in order to be reborn. You are reborn in every moment; you have to see your continuation in the here and the now.

I don’t care at all what happens to me when I die. That’s why I have a lot of time to care about what is happening to me in the here and the now. When I walk, I want to enjoy every step I take. I want freedom and peace and joy in every step. So joy and peace and lightness are what I produce in that moment. I have inherited it and I pass it on to other people. If someone sees me walking this way and decides to walk mindfully for him or herself, then I am reborn in him or in her right away—that’s my continuation. That’s what is happening to me in the here and the now. And if I know what is happening to me in the here and the now, I don’t need to ask the question, “What will happen to me after this body disintegrates?” There is no “before” and “after,” just as there is no birth and death. We can be free of these notions in this very moment, filled with the great joyful silence of all that is.

Excerpted from: This Silence is Called Great Joy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shambhala Sun, September 2007.

PHOTO: Stained Glass Window, Lausanne Cathedral, Switzerland.