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There is a wonderful Zen story about two monks who had sworn chastity. They vowed to not even touch a woman. One day they were with a group fording a river. In the middle of the river, a tiny woman suddenly lost her footing and was in danger of drowning. One monk waded over to her, lifted her, and carried her across the river. He set her down safely, and walked along his way. His companion walked silently for ten miles, getting progressively more agitated. Finally he blurted out -- "How could you! You know that we have vowed to not even touch a woman!" The monk replied "I only carried her halfway across the river. You carried her 10 miles."
Knowing how and when to put something down is a key to living a more serene life. Sometimes I feel like a woman with a backpack of rocks. The backpack can feel like the world on my shoulders. You know that feeling, don't you? Why not just put it down? Why, indeed!
I think we all carry stuff around with us that has no business in our spiritual backpack. Perhaps it is worry -- worry over those things that we cannot control. If we can't control the outcome, what good does our worry do? Take a breath. Set down some worry on the far side of 2008 and try not to carry it forward into 2009 with you. Leave it on the shore of the river.
My worry can sometimes take the shape of keeping me from acting. That of course makes it possible for me to worry even more. Those steps I could take wait for me to stop worrying long enough to take them already!
Do you fret? Make a worry list. Ask yourself sincerely what on that list you have the ability to impact. Put that on another list -- a "To Do" list.
Scratch off any item that you cannot impact. Worry does not change anything except your ability to act effectively and healthily.
Then act on what you can.
So, worry is among the "stuff" in my backpack. What is in yours? What stone have you carried far too long? What guilt, what secret fear, what grudge, what tired old tale, what unforgiven acts, what nagging obsession, what unhealthy repeated behavior, what forms the rocks in your backpack?
Lay them down. Take off the burdens. You don't have to carry all of them -- some can just get left behind.
Life is full of responsibilities we must shoulder for ourselves and others. The "To Do" list is real and growing. But those items in the backpack can be carried by more than just us. Those items, those real issues that we have to tend to, that energy that we must expend can be shared by family, by friends, neighbors, G-d, the universe. We are not in this life alone.
Carry what you must.
Share what you can.
Leave what you cannot change behind.
Travel light, my sisters, as light as you can. The world needs us to stay as nimble as we can, as light of heart as we can. Joy waits outside our burdens, clamoring to be let inside. The world needs our healing energies in its every corner. Discard what keeps you from being all you can be, all that keeps you from loving as much as you can, living as fully and responsibly as you can. Lay down those burdens that you can, and walk into 2009 with the radiance of a new hopefulness.
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Melanie talks about laying down burdens and transformation:
I don’t know if that applies, or how that applies to issues of faith. Laying down burdens seems to be a spiritual principle. I guess it matters exactly where you lay them down. And which burdens exactly you can lay down. Perhaps the burden that you lay down is not necessarily the same burden you pick up again. The process of laying the burden down before God gives Him a chance to transform it. Or perhaps it is not the nature of the burden that changes at all. The person that laid the burden down is not the same person that picks it up because God has transformed them.
Kimbah talks about the role of meditation in this area:
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