Yielding

Rather than embracing the love in the world and opposing the hate, I seek to enter the flow beyond good and evil.

I yield to the mystery.

If I do not trust I will not be trusted.

I once knew a boy who never talked around others, not so much as one word. I heard it said that his father and mother thought he was slow-witted, perhaps, or just plain dumb. I understand that when this boy started school he surprised his teachers by being able to read words and do arithmetic at a much higher level than any of his peers.

Though we never spoke I enjoyed being around that boy. We seemed to have a connection that went beyond words. We spent several summers playing together. We made ourselves understood to one another simply by a motion of our hands or an arch of the eyebrows. He carried a notebook in which he would sometimes scrawl messages but I had trouble reading his writing and so I never wrote back to him. I would just nod and smile.

The other boys at school made incessant fun of him. They called him Dummy and other names not nearly as nice. Though he tried to yield to them those other boys only took advantage of his quiet nature. Many times I saw them punch him in the stomach before walking away as if nothing happened as he lay curled up in pain on the floor. I wanted to stand up for him but I was too young to know what to do so I just stood by as he was bullied.

By the fourth grade his parents had taken him out of the public school we attended to enroll him in a private setting more in tune with his skill sets. Though I thought of that silent boy often I never saw him again.

As a teenager, I had no friends. It wasn’t that I desired to be alone. Like anyone—like that boy who never spoke—I wanted to belong to something. But I never seemed able to blend in easily like the others I saw around me.

I felt drawn to those who like me walked on the edge of the darkness, the ones who like me sat in the back row of the classrooms, the ones who like me shunned authority, those who like me always ended up failing at everything they attempted. Once in a while some of those kids allowed me to hang around with them but we were never close.

Schoolwork came easy to me, however, so I was placed in an advanced class along with other students with whom I had nothing in common other than getting good grades. I noticed how hard they had to work at achieving while they noticed how easily achievement came to me. They shunned me. By discovering my idiosyncrasies they abused me for them.

Rather than draw attention to myself, I let them win at everything. The boys in particular seemed bent on competition and so I yielded to them thinking perhaps to ingratiate myself. But I only succeeded in humiliating myself. I discovered that to yield isn’t to give in lightly.

As for learning, I found it was best to practice the art, to just do it; listening and reading words was second best; to teach others was next. To do none of these was an uncommon practice.

Seeking for it in order to cultivate it, thinking on it in order to refine it, achieving fame in order to venerate it, working ceaselessly in order to finish it, these can be called a love of learning. This type of learning is only good for passing exams and determining rank.

These are friends without heart.

This is not the way of the mystery.

Walking down the road one day I saw a car approaching. A boy leaned out the passenger window with a rifle in his hands. I knew this boy as one of my abusers. I didn’t know if it was a real gun or merely a toy. I did know that this boy had no love for me; I also knew I had none for him. He raised his arms as he pointed the rifle at me. His finger was on the trigger. A mean light was in his eyes as he centered me within the sights of the rifle. An evil grin was on his face.

I smiled at him and waved hello. Or perhaps I was waving goodbye. I knew it could be either one and at the time it didn’t much matter. He put the rifle down and the car drove on. I continued walking down the road. I told no one of what occurred.

When I am confronted I yield to my tormentor. Thus I overcome. To travel in a straight line I seek the curvy roads. Thus my journey is a pleasant one. When I empty my mind I am full of nothing. Thus I do not justify myself. When I have little I gain the world. Thus I am distinguished. When I have much I am confused. Therefore I embrace the source of experience and set an example to all.

People who love books but fail to yield to the mystery are like a bookshop. Those who love to talk but are confused about the mystery are like jingling bells. The mystery has no purpose. It does not corrupt. It is without exaggeration. Corruption results in disarray. Exaggeration results in the conventional. There have been those who strayed from the purposeless path and gradually gained purpose but no one has ever walked a path with purpose and discovered the mystery.

By not putting myself on display I shine forth. By not boasting I receive recognition. By not bragging I never falter. By never quarreling, no one quarrels with me. I yield and I overcome. I am whole and all things flow to me.