I was out on the rock face at about 11,000′ enjoying the view. The climbing was fairly straightforward, and flowed easily, even though I didn’t know the way.
My climbing partner was 100 yards below me and to my left in a narrow cleft. He was trying a different approach and it wasn’t going well. I could hear him grunt… and swear from time to time. And occasionally I’d hear the scatter of rockfall.
After nearly 45 minutes of struggle, my partner emerged below me, conceding at last that the route that I was on was the right one.
I’ve thought of this scene countless times over the years. Usually, when we’re trying too hard – whether in the mountains or in life – we’re off route.
The right way is not always without difficulty. But there is a natural flow and unfolding when we’re on the path we should be on.
“We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life,” writes Charlotte Joko Beck. “In flowing forward, a river or stream may hit rocks, branches, or irregularities in the ground, causing whirlpools to spring up spontaneously here and there. water entering one whirlpool quickly passes through and rejoins the river, eventually joining another whirlpool and moving on. Though for short periods it seems to be distinguishable as a separate event, the water in the whirlpools is just the river itself.”
Suffering, Joko Beck suggests, arises when we pretend that we are not the river; or when we wall off and dam up our own small eddies.
I think suffering arises when we paddle upstream.
Years ago, I took my boys to Disney’s Blizzard Beach. Encircling the outside of the park is a “ride,” a gently flowing river. You sit in an inner tube – and float along.
I’m not very good at Blizzard Beach. I get antsy. I want to paddle. Maybe even change direction. If there were Blizzard Beach police, I might go to jail.
Many of us like to pretend we’re in control. That we own the river. That through cleverness and craft, we can navigate and forge the way. Maybe even force the way.
But constant paddling saps the spirit and tires the soul.
Dan Millman writes, “Surrender involves getting out of our own way and living in accord with a higher will, expressed as the wisdom of the heart.”
What if we didn’t have to struggle?
What if we could trust the river, surrendering to the Great Flow of our lives?
What if the easy way was The Way?
