Serenity and Coming Home

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Tao Te Ching, Verse Sixteen as transalted by S. Mitchell from http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching16.html

I love this and it applies so beautifully when we are talking about training our minds...so beautiful  and poetic.

I love the word "serenity"...I love the way it sounds, I love what it means, I love the way it makes me feel to say it.  It is just a word but it hits me in the same way "Namaste" does.

I prefer Mitchell's translation to James Legge's.  It is more relevant I suppose to this era. 

This verse speaks to the power and joy of mindfulness, of embracing teh now, of meditation...of going beyond thought to peace...beyond mind to heart...beyond the turmoil of running off to the coming back to the Source.  This coming back is serenity. 

Serenity is a coming home, a returning to that place or no place from which we came.  It is a remembering who we are beyond these bodies and minds. 

How important is it to remember where we came from?

We often feel "confusion and sorrow" because we do not realize from where and from Whom we came. So busy, are we, stressing,  seeking, straining, fighting, grabbing, clinging for things that are external to "home" and that do not satisfy this longing for home because we do not know that it is home we are longing for. When we "remember" we naturally and so easily become more tolerant of life and others...we are in awe of Life but not attached to the "things" it provides.  We are kind and giving without a thought for self ( like a grandmother).  Yet we are "dignified like a king" because we know our worthiness...becasue we know who we are...expressions of God or the Tao.

When we are immersed in the wonder of our spiritual beingness, our presence, our essence we can deal with what external life brings us.  We do not need the outside world to change...to be anything it isn't.  We accept what is.

And we are not afraid of death as we know. it  We are not afraid to shed the physical form because we know it is just a well used outfit we were wearing that no longer is needed.

Sigh!  How beautiful, is that?

All is well in my world.