Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation XV

Wow, I've been wondering when this spate would end, how to end it, if it can end. After taking a few days away from thinking about this stuff, I ended up meditating on the idea, "Without tranquility as the base, nothing is certain." One of those endings that is a beginning or at least the space for a beginning.

Without a solid base, subtlety, intimacy, and motivation seem to lead one all over the place. In this way, practicing mindfulness and subtlety of awareness without a solid sense of concentration and the ability to intentionally relax can feel somewhat depersonalizing as well as removing one's foundations (however shaky they might have been anyway). Intimacy without conscious and chosen emotional resilience can feel mostly like vulnerability--especially if those with whom we allow intimacy do not themselves manifest tranquility. And motivation without courage and vision can often come across as simple selfishness, somewhat spastic impulsivity, or a willingness towards domination (the will to power, eventually corrupting).

One famous Zen koan asks, "The many return to the One; to what does the One return?" I don't believe tranquility is the answer to that question. I do believe that tranquility clears the space for pursuing this question, ingesting this question, digesting the question, and answering. It seems that tranquility allows everything. If everything is possible or allowed, what do you choose to do? What do I do? In Ramana Maharshi's words, "Peace is the state of utmost activity." Within that space where anything might occur, it seems that most people I've met--if not all--want a sense of vision, togetherness or communion, freedom, and liveliness. Without establishing tranquility as the base, we waver. When all movement is allowed, though, movement is flow. With tranquility as the base, there is no reason to be stuck in one place or in many, no need to even be stuck in tranquility itself.