Knots

  

We are sinking and drowning so that to this very day we don't know how our bodies and minds are in knots or how to go about untying them.

Ananda , from the Shurangama Sutra 

I have tears in my eyes this morning as I sit here. I don't understand it but I am certainly allowing it.  It is a release of some of  that pent up energy within me...some deep, stuffed  samskaras are making their way up and I know it is healing.  My knots are untangling and that which they have been constricting between their tight threads is loosening and becoming free. One knot at a time. I just had to stop pulling on either end of the scarf of Self in my frustration to be free. I needed to stop believing that I needed to know each knot by name and how it got there before this mess inside could be untangled. Maybe we do not need to label, analyze, and understand the details of our tangled knots...we just need to be willing, open and appreciative of their releasing. 

Instead of dwelling on each specific thing we have stored in order for it to be released, we just need to allow the top layer to loosen and the rest will untangle. 

The knots and their release have a common cause.....The knots must be untied successively. When the six are released [the Buddha had tied six knots to a scarf to show Ananda], even the one ceases to be.

The Buddha, Shurangama Sutra

We instead often make the tangles worse by pulling and tugging on the scarf. We create "problems" where there is no problems. 

As Buddha said,

With your own mind, you grasp at your own mind. What is illusory turns into illusion.  If you don't grasp, there is no non-illusion. 

We need to stop working so hard to figure it all out and instead just open our hearts and allow it all to untangle. ..

All is well

The Shurangama Sutra from https://langnghiem.com/en/shurangama-5/