A New Years Rsolution?

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river in you, a joy."  - Rumi There isn't  a teacher in the world that has not been asked one time or another, "How do I know?"  I have learned that there will be many events in one's lifetime that even the teacher may ask, "How do I know?"  We all want to know.  However most of us never find satisfaction not because no one knows, but because we look for the answer to the question in all the wrong places.  Some of us will look in our Faith, some in a book, a motivational speaker, a priest or rabbi, or science.  Not that any of these sources don't have a clue, but the best and only source to ask, "How do I know?" is YOU. We are living in times of great uncertainty, or at least it appears that way. But what are we uncertain about?  The future?  We've always been uncertain about the future.  No one knows for sure what the next hour will bring, let alone tomorrow.  Perhaps our beliefs?  Once again we shouldn't be surprised because a "belief" is nothing other than an "idea" we agree to be true.  Something for which there may be no proof.  Perhaps we have become cynical about our institutions we have relied on for so long, for direction?  Government?  Academic?  Religious?  Once again I suggest we shouldn't be surprised by that, institutions are made up of individuals who may share in our uncertainty. If we are lucky we may find ourselves "uncertain about where we have placed our trust".  This is the most important uncertainty!  You and I have been conditioned by many sources to "not trust ourselves".  We rely on the news media, the retail media, government officials, psychics, prophets, priests, rabbis, and of course New Age Guru's to tell us what's best for ourselves, our family, our nation.  Somewhere and at some time in the course of our lives we stop looking in the right place, and from that moment until maybe someone helps us wake up, or some event shakes us enough to consider once again a fundamental Zen-Buddhist teaching, (and I would suggest Christ teaching also), "You are the Dharma..You are the Light.  Rely on yourself!"  "You will never find God or his Kingdom anywhere, for they are within you!" We can spend a lifetime following Guru's, and endless therapy, in order to figure out when we started to mistrust ourselves.  (In the end that is the fundamental question.)  What really matters is when will we wake up and see that the problem was the direction I looked in whenever I asked, "How do I know?" We may change our beliefs, affiliations, careers, addresses, even our lovers in our lifetime, however a fundamental Zen teaching explains that the one thing that never changes is our basic humanity, who we are, what Rumi called, "The Soul."  What the Zen Masters have called, "Your Original Face." Rumi's quote suggests to us that we always have a way of knowing, "When you do things from the soul, a river runs in you, a joy."  A good example of the meaning of this might be, "If you want to be happy and really successful, do what you love, and don't concern yourself with what others may think."  It is a fact that the most successful people in the world are people who "do what they love doing".  My two year old daughter, my Teacher, finds joy in the simplest things and runs with it, even if Daddy says, "Slow down."  She is always seizing opportunities everywhere to "do what she loves" doing.  So where I am going with this?  Well first you need to make sure that you "really want to know".  We can minimize, even eliminate, the fear of uncertainty by establishing a practice of re-learning how to listen to "the river running in us".  If you haven't yet but decide to come to Pine Wind one day, if nothing else you will leave knowing that "I love what I do!"  When I'm doing it, all doubt drops away and, yes a joy fills me.  If you ever get to see me with my daughter, you'll know, "I love her!"  "I am glad she is my Teacher."  When I am with her all doubt drops away about what really matters in life.  And when I am in the act of loving another, even when it has been painful to do so, "I know exactly who I am and where I'm going." So we need to develop a practice whereby we can remember "who we are", and the power we inherently possess within us to not only "get by", but "to shine our light on the mountain top and brighten the darkened corners of our world."  Maybe we can make this our New Years Resolution! So I started this with Rumi's words and think I'll end it for now the same way -  "You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl?" I Love You, Seijaku Roshi