Roads Analogy & Rushing

Chapter 1, page 3, book page 13.

I reflected on the feeling of rushing and comparing oneself to others achievements - partly to avoid meditation.¹ It's clearer to me now how that comparing mind can be done with skill but when it's done without awareness and equanimity it is unskillful.

Then it is misery.

We do not know what will be successful and what will fail. We can only try our best.

But that impulse to strive, rush, is not skillful. I picked up the book in an effort to avoid meditation a second time and page 3 sailed in:

Before you read you might like to take a moment relax, to take a deep breath and let it out naturally. If you're rushing just become aware of that, no judgement, it's an invitation for your body and mind to relax. (This kind of suggestion used to really pi*s me off... ² )

And another breath. "Reeeellaaax... to the maaaaax."³

Breath in.

Breath out.

May you feel the relaxation, joy, and steady, calm, easeful slowness of the following...

We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on "good" rather than "time" and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes.

...

roads where groves and meadows and orchards and lawns come almost to the shoulder, where kids wave to you when you ride by, where people look from their porches to see who it is, where when you stop to ask directions or information the answer tends to be longer than you want rather than short, where people ask where you're from and how long you've been riding.

It was some years ago that my wife and I and our friends first began to catch on to these roads. We took them once in a while for variety or for a shortcut to another main high-way, and each time the scenery was grand and we left the road with a feeling of relaxation and enjoyment. We did this time after time before realizing what should have been obvious: these roads are truly different from the main ones. The whole pace of life and personality of the people who live along them are different. They're not going anywhere. They're not too busy to be courteous. The hereness and nowness of things is something they know all about. It's the others, the ones who moved to the cities years ago and their lost offspring, who have all but forgotten it. The discovery was a real find.

I've wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn't see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned, perhaps, into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.⁴

But once we caught on, of course, nothing could keep us off these roads, weekends, evenings, vacations.

... I know that passage will be interpreted in different ways by different people; what I take from it⁵ is the feeling that you can get to the same destination but in very different ways and with a different experience.

Specifically that you can relax into the present and flow with it and if it's going to work out then it will, you need to work hard but you don't need to work stressed, rushing.

Take for example a project like WikiSim. One could spend a whole bunch of time wondering if it will work out or not. But if it's going to work out, if it's aligned with some aspect of reality, if it's true, then if we keep showing up then it will be successful. All that energy spent wondering, worrying and rushing is entirely wasted time and energy.

Dependent Origination

Just like the fire triangle shows us that when we have the 3 dependents of fire in place: fuel, oxygen, and heat, then fire does not only arise, it is the very definition of fire. It's not optional.

In the same way, when the dependents of success or failure are in place then success or failure must arise, must originate. It's not optional. That's a very relaxing insight to perceive.

Stop Rushing; Take the Zen Roads

It'll be fine. We can stop rushing, we can keep doing the work and it will turn out just the way its meant to turn out.

Common Counter Argument - Which is Counter Intuitively Wrong

But it's only because I rushed last week that I got X in on time! If I hadn't rushed I would have missed the deadline.

True in the sense that you needed to do work quickly to meet the deadline.

But did you need to do it in a rushed way?

You might have seen someone literally rushing to get somewhere like to catch a train, or make an appointment on time. And if you observe them you realise there's all this wasted energy in the rushing. Someone else next to them, trying to catch the same train, running at the same speed, but not rushing, no anxiety, no stress, just a calm knowing that if they miss their train, then they were bound to miss it. No use rushing. No use feeling sad or dejected.

And a calm knowing that if they will make their train then they're going to make it, they're running as fast as they think they can and need to. Again calmly, joyfully, no use rushing.⁶