Abandon

Posted February 2nd, 2010 by Daniel Doen Silberberg

One thing I hope you all do is devote yourself to this practice with love, with a wild abandon and passion.  You need that love to really be able to fly.  Love for the practice, love for each other, love for yourself, love for your teacher.

As Maezumi Roshi always said, “appreciate your life!”  And I hope you appreciate it with a burning, fiery love.  Really let go into your life and really appreciate it.  Cultivate a certain potency, a loving warriorship, and choose a path with heart.

Fling yourself into the practice, into your life.  This is physical and it’s emotional.  Let go of your inner critic.  Be like the Sufis described a Man of God:  he’s like a moth.  He knows the flame will destroy him, will burn his ego to ashes, but he goes straight for it–because he has no choice.

You’re just passing through.  If you abandon yourself to the practice, to appreciating your life with real gusto, you’ll never look back and regret it.

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7 Responses to “Abandon”

  • Annette Says:
    February 3rd, 2010 at 11:08 am

    One situation came to my mind reading especially about the moth: Doing this practice once felt like I had opened Pandora´s box and I didn´t know how to cope with what was coming out of it. There was a thought like “maybe it would have been better never to start it” but I also knew that this had never been an option, I just had to do it, whatever may happen. And there is no way to stop it again, I´m on my way into the flame and I don´t even know why. And isn´t that true for our whole life?
    The only choice we seem to have is to really appreciate it and do our best to fly or to spend the rest of our days complaining.

  • Shani Says:
    February 3rd, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    leonard cohen Passing Through http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Eog9_TRHs

  • mark Says:
    February 3rd, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    Thank you daniel. I very much apreciate your postings here.

  • Liz McCoy Says:
    February 3rd, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    Fabulous post and comment. Thank you Annette for your thoughts. For me, they resonnate perfectly.

  • Peedee Says:
    February 4th, 2010 at 10:30 pm

    I love this post and the imagery is stuck in my head- a Diver with perfect form going head first into some gorgeous body of water. Thank you Sensei! The comments are great too so far! Hi Annette, Liz, Mark and Shani!

    Ciao,
    Peedee

  • Rebecca Says:
    February 5th, 2010 at 12:00 am

    I agree with the other comments. There is something so poignant about the idea of that little moth going into the flame because it simply MUST do it. The practice brings on a kind of heart-aching love that I just cannot walk away from because THAT feeling is the deepest most alive “living” I’ve ever done. Thank you to Doen and the other students for sharing this feeling and making it even stronger by your inspiration and example.

  • Chris Says:
    February 5th, 2010 at 3:25 am

    Don Weed once said, if you make mistakes, make them loud. I’m one of these people who rather don’t move, or say or do anything at all because I might do it wrong. I guess that’s one of my favourite mistakes. I’d stand on top of the cliff thinking about how to jump correctly, without getting hurt, and without injuring one of the seals or fish that might be swimming below.
    If I’d jump at all, I’d continue to ask myself if my jumping technique was good enough and if the landing was going to hurt. This would inevitably lead to what we call ‚Bauchplatscher’ in German (when you don’t dive into the water, but land hard on the surface with your belly first, is it a belly-flop? It’s ‚outch!’).
    In his TED-conference talk, Tim Ferriss says, „it’s what you do, not how you do it, which is the determinant factor. This is the difference between being efficient (doing things right) and being effective (doing the right things).“ And I go, yes, that’s cool. How can I do it? I’m feeling worse than Don Quixote. He just mistook windmills for monsters. I’m fighting windmills and monsters that don’t even exist. I’m my own limit, and I can see it, and the most difficult thing for me is to smile and try again instead of getting desperate and angry. But I love Tim Ferriss.

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