Do you have the trust to be effortless in life?
I was out cycling in the countryside the other day. At one point I stopped on a bridge over a fast flowing river to enjoy the wonderful scenery. As I looked below my eyes were drawn to a shoal of fish some large some small, feeding in the current off the plentiful morsels of food drifting by. It was just one of those awesomely ordinary moments of mother nature and whilst I drew no particular inference from it at the time, the scene reappeared for me in meditation...

I noticed the smaller fish darting from place to place their attention apparently drawn to every piece of food in that part of the river. However the larger fish had a much different strategy. They gently held their position in the stream and every now and again, with an effortless swish of the tail, collected the food as it came into their immediate range. The words ‘don’t have to try too hard’ sprang to mind.

A comparison was drawn between the fish and the true self. The river of life’s experiences will flow past us but rather than chasing experiences and tiring ourselves out, if we are being who we truly are, then we will find the exact right place in the stream for us and those experiences that we are meant to have will appear directly before us. All we then have to do is gracefully pluck them out.

“In pursuit of experience we do more and more each day,
in pursuit of the way, we do less and less each day.
We do less and less until we do nothing at all,
then there is nothing that is undone.”
Lao Tzu

So as another day in the river of life’s experiences unfolds, what will your strategy be?