I love this word

Dear Yogis,

No Monday morning class!  All other classes on regular schedule.

Words are powerful.  Each one holding its own distinct energy.  Able to make us laugh, cry, burst with pride or able to wound us to our core.   Words can spur us into action or stop us dead in our tracks.  To me if feels like each word has a personality.  So I love to find new ones!

In our meditation group we are currently reading and discussing “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” by Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen master.  Now a 45 year old book, it is still one of the best known and most read books on Zen.  Each chapter is taken from one of his talks and contains a teaching.  This month we read and discussed a chapter titled – Constancy. 

Constancy.  I love this word.  And the more times I repeat it to myself, the more I resonate with its vibration. 

 

Constancy.  A way to live.  A way to be.  A  path to being with each moment exactly as it is. 

Suzuki tells how he always said that you had to have patience to learn and understand Buddhism, but that he was searching for a better word.  Constancy is what came to him.  The word patience implies that there is something on the other side that isn’t quite right. That somehow you are “putting up” with it, or hanging in there until it changes or goes away, or until you “get there”.   But constancy is purely internal and not dependent on the outer world.  It is.....well, constant.

Discipline, which could also be used in place of patience, feels to me like a lot of effort. Too harsh.  Consistency, another option, feels too vanilla.  Bland.  Superficial.  Others….perseverance, diligence, persistence, tenacity…..none of them feel quite as full, as deep or as substantial as – constancy.

Constancy implies that whatever it is that you are guided to do in your life should simply just continue to be done.  Through the ups, downs, twists and turns.  Doing them when they are easy and when they seem hard.  Not forced…….Not “I have to” or “I know I should”…..but done with simplicity and contentment.  They just feel right. Always.

Constancy is especially useful on the spiritual path which can be like a roller coaster…… and this week the word helped me on my ride.  At times I feel connected, vibrant, alive, clear and moving forward.  Like nothing can stop me.   Then, just like that……..BOOM.  Suddenly separate, unclear, unsure of myself and of which way to go.  And it’s amazing how quickly the mind begins to tell stories.  Causing doubts.  Questioning everything.  But then I remembered the word.  I could feel it begin its rhythm in my center.

Constancy.  Movement without attachment to outcome.

Letting go.  Surrendering to what is here right now.  Not being “patient” until this too shall pass, but instead choosing constancy.  Continuing to do my daily meditation and yoga practice, drink my teas, sit in the garden, write and watch my breath.  Doing it all because it is what I am guided to do.  Doing it all because it is who I am.  Being right here.  

Constancy……an inner current.  Riding with it through all of the twists and turns that life offers.  None of them inherently good or bad – they just are.  And I just am.  I like that.

My very first Passionflower bloomed this week!

ps.. I waited to look up the definition until I had finished this writing.  I just did and constancy is defined as “enduring and unchanging”.  I love it even more now!

This moment is exactly as it is supposed to be,

SARAH