We would not know warm without cold nor hunger without satiety. We live in contrasts and it is in them that we can take up conscious response ability. What do we neglect and ignore and are cold about? What do we love and hold dear and warm with attention? This is worth daily study.
Phrases posted on Facebook, April 2018
Too much momentum and a crash will come. Too much meaningless talk somehow turns into a numb silence. Taking anything to the brink will bring its opposite. It’s a law of nature.
The dignity of non-reactivity at a time when we are dealt a nasty put-down
creates a wondrous contrast and a sense of wholeness within us.
Isn’t it a mysterious and truly wonder-full contrast that one can experience sitting in meditation seemingly doing nothing and so much transformation takes place?
How we love contrast in our food: a little cayenne in a chocolate bonbon, salt and sugar combined (very popular in Scandinavia), oil and vinegar–yum in a salad. Perhaps in life we can be more daring and let some otherness that we are a little afraid of bring more wholeness to what is familiar. It can turn out to be surprisingly good.
Saying to someone a hard truth lovingly is an awesome contrast and can be a source of healing. Here’s an example: Wavy Gravy, the famous clown, goes into the children’s ward of a burn unit in a hospital. He finds a kid who has been there a long time and is bored beyond belief. Wavy puts his face close to the burned face of the child and says, Hi Ugly. Want to play? Stating the truth and being compassionately human with each other makes grace visible.
You will know this contrast. In a contemplative sense when we open up to boundlessness, the infinite wonder and on-going-ness of existence it usually happens by fully experiencing some concrete enchantment in the here and now such as an infant’s first smile, red leaves cascading down on a sunny autumn day, the look of love and complete acceptance in the eyes of a pet. Infinity and finitude as one.
Our wounds are the very place where love can have its most wondrous impact. The contrast is huge. Where we were hurt is the exact place where love and healing can bring us into wholeness and return us to life and love once more.
Leading with the mind we analyze, plan, invent, solve problems, etc. With the heart we commune, care and give. We think in a different way. This is a contrast surely. When the two are joined the atmosphere around us becomes “heartmosphere”, a great word coined by someone with insight. How much we need to live in “heartmosphere these days!
Things are made visible by contrast. To grow we need to include what is different from our preferences and fiercely held opinions. Instead of being in conflict with difference we could realize as in the yin yang sign a little spot of white in the black part of the sign–a little spot of black is in the white part of the sign. that we are bigger than our small definitions and made more whole when we can be more inclusive. The survival of our world may depend on the ability to see contrast as a value rather than a threat.
We are enthused. We make a good plan. We do our best to execute the plan and then BAM!!! . . . . . . . Something stops our forward motion. The contrast between our hope and enthusiasm verses the blockage can be hard to take. That blockage lays us bare to an invitation to practice acceptance and a redirection that sometimes brings about a better outcome than we could have imagined.
Holding a contrast with deep respect and not choosing one truth over another is a difficult spiritual task that many face. Here’s a constant CHALLENGE that will humble us for certain . . . on the one hand to hold the necessity of accepting what is, exactly as it is, and on the other hand lending our love and effort to make things better while not in the process making things worse. It’s a razor’s edge!
Why do we so want to divide the world into this and that over and over again? “I hate this. I love this. This is good. This is bad.” Yes, we need contrast in order to choose, but don’t we also need enrichment in order to grow? Any time there is a contrast before us there is an opportunity to learn and expand. We don’t have to slam the door. We can look, taste and see.
