Always at Ease

"The Tao is always at ease.

It overcomes without competing,

answers without speaking a word,

arrives without being summoned,

accomplishes without a plan."

Tao Te Ching, Verse 73

Imagine living your life in a constant state of ease, no matter what is happening around, or within you. All of us, at least from time-to-time, have wished for a little more ease in our lives, especially when things get a bit challenging. Whether it's flowing more easily through life's up's and down's, or just experiencing a greater sense of harmony on a moment-to-moment basis, the longing for a greater ease can bring us up against the places in our lives where we are feeling tension and resistance to this natural flow. As we look honestly at these areas, what we might find is that, it's usually not the situations themselves that cause us to feel this undercurrent of stress and unease, but our thoughts about what is happening.

For instance, we might be late for an important appointment, and as we rush out of the door, we find that our car has a flat tire, and all hope of reaching our destination on-time is now impossible. In that moment, perhaps we feel utterly deflated (literally!), and begin telling a story of how everything is against us, and nothing ever goes right in our life. In this story, more frustration and anger arise, and we feel even more cut off from the ease and joy that we long for, not to mention that we may even create further conditions that will frustrate us. The alternative to this negative reaction is to simply see, and accept the flat tire as part of the reality of the present moment; get out our cell phone, and call AAA and get the tire fixed (and if you don't have AAA, you change the tire yourself!).

Of course, I'm using the example of the 'flat tire' as a metaphor for any challenging situation that may arise in our lives, and the ability we have to choose a different response and flow with whatever presents itself. In this flowing, we find that living from a greater space of ease and joy is never a matter of everything going the way the mind thinks it should, but is based on our willingness to move in the direction Life is already taking us. As we 'move with Life', we find ourselves experiencing a greater ease, and opening to the reservoir of inner-calm and joy that is always available in the present moment, no matter what the circumstances might be.