Investing in Loss

Yielding is yielding.
Loss is loss.
Yielding is loss.
Loss is yielding.
In yield is attack.
In attack is yield.
In loss is gain.
In gain is loss.

All is ego, fear, anger, compassion and wisdom. When I don't yield, I am stuck in my own self-importance. When I don't accept loss, I am mired in my fear. When I don't accept that in my lack of yielding I am meeting my inability to attack and protect. In that place, if I remember to do so, I can see I am stuck in the delusion of believing that nothing ever changes. When I do not accept gain I am caught up in an inflated ego that descends into false humility. When I cannot yield, loose, attack or gain, I am in stagnation - depression. Yielding is softening. Loss is melting. Attack is weakening. Gain is illuminating. Yielding, loss, attack and gain contain softness, weakness, illumination and flexibility. All are contained in the breath and the thought. They exist somewhere in the lungs, the belly and the bones. Not in the clever mind, they inhabit the mysterious territory of the wisdom mind. They can be heard in the heart, our open, soft spot of vulnerability. The ability to stand up straight, poised, at ease, with a confidence in every pore and fibre yet with a soft and open heart that listens to the silent signals of the flow of blood in the veins, listens to the sound of nature and hears the heart wishes of our fellow beings, that is yielding, this is loss. It is a yearning and sadness that contains the light and the meaning of life: happiness.

I am still searching. I have yet to understand yielding. I have experienced loss and have yet to understand its beauty and gift. I continue to practice, to reflect, to live, to seek. I attempt to soften, be weak, generous and open. My stagnation and deep, deep sadness makes my body stiff, my spirit unyielding. My mind, not my body, pushes me into the future, back into the past and stubbornly refuses to allow me to witness the present, the place of each and every breath of my short, stagnant life.

Yielding and loss is found first in the muscles, bones and sinews. The explorer travels fearlessly deeper into the tissue's secrets, awakening to an awareness of the habits that are patiently structured into lives over years, a gradual on-going building site with its foundations cemented deeply into the daily struggle to get out of bed and into the air, into life. Sometimes, and unexpectedly, the wider lighter picture of existence is glimpsed. Then the transparent luminosity of yield and loss becomes the breath in, the breath out of the universe. Of which we are a part. It is a blissful place, I have glimpsed this land when I have forgotten to remember and allowed the present to reveal its utter abundance.