[cancer|writing] Wisdom is where you find it
by
I’ve been visiting with a dear friend these past few days. We’ve been talking a lot about both writing and life, each of those topics primarily through the lens of my own journeys.
A point that I keep coming back to these past few years is my belief that wisdom is where you find it. It’s been my experience that almost everything I needed to know was available to me almost all of the time. I just didn’t know that until I was ready to hear what the world had been whispering in my ears all along, and see what had been set before me the whole time.
The longest struggle for the wisdom of the mountain top sages is the one that takes place in our own chairs.
In writing: When I was the newest of newbies, and didn’t know standard manuscript format from a hole in the ground, the Slug Tribe had to show me. The information was a revelation to me. Yet it had been available to me all along, in Writer’s Market and Writer’s Digest books, at convention panels and workshops, through talking with more experienced writers. Until I was ready and listening, I did not hear.
That is of course the most facile of examples, but in its simplicity, the example is very clear.
In life: My convictions about kindness and opportunity [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] were always there. “Do as you would be done by” is an old, old rubric both in and out of the Bible, and that’s a slightly fancier way of saying, “Be nice.” Likewise, there are endless proverbs, sayings and stories about seizing opportunity. Yet I had to reach a certain point in my mortality before I could clearly articulate this to myself or anyone else.
The world is wise, and welcomes our attention. For each of us, the process is that of learning how to open ourselves to that wisdom and pay the proper attention.
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Jay Lake: [cancer|writing] Wisdom is where you find it: I’ve been visiting with a dear friend these past few d… http://t.co/OZFk5f0Wsp
Jay, that is so true.
Remind me to tell you about teaching tigers to eat
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Oooh, yes please, Sally!
Wisdom is where you find it | http://t.co/lD3WJhh16O http://t.co/RuBjh9KLBM / one of those blogs that I read every day.
RT @Ju_Summerhayes: Wisdom is where you find it | http://t.co/lD3WJhh16O http://t.co/RuBjh9KLBM / one of those blogs that I read every day.
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Almost all of us live in the dream world of our opinions, judgments, and preconceptions, nearly unaware of what is right here, neither hidden nor subtle.
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Sally, please tell us ALL about teaching tigers to eat. . .
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This reminds me of a quote from The Hollow HIlls, by Mary Stewart. Merlin at one point says: “I had been so used to God’s voice in the fire and the stars that I had forgotten to listen for it in the counsels of men.”
Ah just remembered to do this! ok! I was an AFS student to Thailand. I took a class or two of kids up into Khao yai (a jungle spanning several provinces) to teach them English. One of the other teachers was a very famous soldier monk: Ajarn Uum.
Uum and I sat out one night under the full moon. We had a fire to deter panthers and other critters and the kids sat around us listening. He had been on a very famous Buddist retreat. It is a cave where 8 monks only stay and they are often the most wise monks of Thailand.
People go there seeking wisdom from all over the Buddhist world (sorry I can’t remember what it was called!). I asked him what the hardest lesson he had to teach the people was. He thought for a moment and said “Teaching tigers to eat.”
I sat listening to the night noises. Tigers are pretty voracious eaters. They have huge appetites eating up to 40kg of food in a sitting. You hardly have to teach tigers to eat – it is what is natural and right for them. CLICK! so I asked Uum – “the hardest thing to do is to teach people to undertake what should come naturally? What is right for them?” He nodded, satisfied.
I discovered the loveliest haiku today, Jay, and thought you’d like it:
the world of dew
is the world of dew
and yet, and yet…
Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827
For me, you have to just sit still a second and think about what he’s saying. Really quite beautiful.
That is lovely. Thank you.