On being ice or water...
A Zen analogy to help us awaken our dormant potential
It’s been approximately 5 days since I asked what 2025 would be for you.
Before the week is out, I want to ask it again.
This time, from a different angle. So…
What will you be in 2025?
And, where will your doing be driving from?
A beautiful Zen analogy talks about man being a block of ice.
Ice is rigid, stuck in one shape and locked into a form.
And yet, ice has all of the properties of water.
It holds the immense potential of water.
Water is intelligent, responsive, adaptable and alive.
Water is fluid, meeting each moment and allowing the information of the Now to inform its course of action.
Sometimes it moves ever so slowly, sometimes is recedes to travel within the sand, sometimes is disperses through the air to support its fall, and other times it rushes with such force that it rips the earth bare.
Water has the courage to trust all the forms it takes, knowing that it is always moving back to the ocean.
Water is life.
It is the currency, it creates the banks and it is the liquid life force moving us.
Holding all of this in mind, which state will you choose this year - this moment - this now?
Are you willing to waste another moment pretending to be one version of water… ice?
Or, is the bravery big enough to surrender into the depth of your true nature and let the water flow?
According to Zen, the real game is finding the right tool to apply the right heat so that we have no choice but to melt, alchemise and re-member.
Similar to Yoga, the game is to increase the internal intensity so that all the limiting beliefs (frozen aspects of mind) are melted away - revealing the one, dynamic and living truth.
So then, what tools will you be using this year?
The same ones that have been in the arsenal for the past how ever many years?
The ones that have become apart of the ice blocks shiny image it shares with the world?
The ones that deep down we know aren’t working, yet they lighten the perception of suffering just enough to justify keeping them around for maybe one more year?
Or, is time to bust out the ice pick, call on the flame thrower and light some limits up?
There is no half way in this game for freedom.
We are either free or we are not.
Staying as the ice block, reshaping it to look like a swan, or becoming the worlds best ice sculptor will only provide a short term fix for a very long term itch.
So how about this year becomes our year for true change?
What will it take for you to say yes?
Are you willing to be brave and choose new tools, ones that are time tested, that feel scary - but will actually melt the ice block that’s been holding you back for who knows how long?
We have but a tiny, fleeting moment to live this life in this physical form…
To me, that tiny string of moments we call being alive is crying out for our full attention.
Are we willing to melt into it?
I know how I want to be living and where I want to be living it from.
How about you?
***Next week I’ll talk about the recipe for change