Tune, Tune, Tune

In 2015, I kept having dreams in which my grandmother told me to go to the Greek island of Patmos. I decided to make a pilgrimage there in real life. When I arrived, however, I was dismayed to find that I felt nothing special. Worse, a few days later, I got into a motorbike accident on the island that left me unable to walk properly for weeks.

But that night, as I sat in the harbor with my legs bleeding, a strange feeling came over me: that I was okay, that I was guided, and most importantly, that the life I wanted was the one I already had.

What stands in the way of developing faith are our stories about what faith is for. We think we need to figure out how to find a partner, make an impact, get enlightened. Then we place our beautiful intuitions into that story, not realizing that the story itself is an expression of our suffering and disconnection. As Rumi said, we use a jeweled sword to cut rotten meat.

In reality, the best thing that could happen is for our prayers and pilgrimages to fail, that we might come down from the head and back into the body.

The word the Buddha used for a spiritual seeker means, “one who is in tune.” In other words, spirituality isn’t about making your life turn out a certain way. It’s about playing along artfully and joyfully with your destiny: the bankruptcy, the divorce, the illness you didn’t see coming.

The test of faith isn’t whether all your dreams come true, but whether you wake up to what your body is trying to say, moment by moment.

This is why breath meditation is so important. The breath isn’t a metaphor for something else. It’s the main event, in which you can see a whole life’s pattern of tension and release.

And if you faithfully ride that pattern with your awareness, as a surfer might ride a wave, you’ll know contentment.

To everything, tune, tune, tune

Nicolas Poussin, "Landscape with Saint John on Patmos" (1640)