When we were teenagers, a group of us spent a week at Lake Powell. Water skiing wasn’t that big a deal. We did that frequently at Lake Mead. The best part of Lake Powell was the cliffs. We camped at a different site each night on a constant quest for higher cliffs and new challenges. As the cliffs got higher, we learned to point our toes so it didn’t hurt our feet (eventually, we just wore our tennis shoes ... it also made the climb back up the cliff easier). Then, not to let our arms spread out because the water really slapped your arms if you did. We learned to go in as straight as we could. It also hurt if you got off sideways. We learned to spread our arms and legs out after we got into the water so we didn’t go down too deep. By the end of the week we’d decided to forget that, stay straight as long as we could, and see how deep we could go! The goal became to go deep enough that you couldn’t see the surface ... absolute darkness. It’s amazing to put your hand right in front of your nose and not be able to see it. No hint of light anywhere! Of course, at that point you don’t know which way’s up ...
Life took care of me. I sat at the top of the cliff with my buddy, Mike, watching stupid teenage boys jumping into the darkness. I asked him (because he was the only one there), “If you can’t see the surface, how do you know which way to swim?” Mike was an accomplished trampoline gymnast. Looking straight ahead and with absolute calm, he said “You curl up in a little ball and wait. You’ll start to float toward the surface and you swim in that direction.” I was shortly really grateful that Mike had been there that day and that I had thought to ask the question.
When I realized I’d accomplished my goal ... no visible surface ... no light ... I panicked a little. I remembered what Mike had said, but wasn’t serene enough to really “curl up ... and wait”. I just kind of hesitated until I thought I could feel myself floating and then started to swim. I expected to start seeing light sooner than I did and questioned the direction I was swimming. I didn’t have a lot of faith in my ability to hold my breath for long, so when I hesitated again to try to “feel” up, I didn’t really “curl up ... and wait” the second time either. And naturally, the panic increased. When I thought I could feel myself floating, I committed to that direction, closed my eyes and swam as hard as I possibly could. When I broke the surface of the water (at about a 45 degree angle, flailing, gasping, panicked) I was greeted by a dozen teenage boys laughing so hard they could hardly breath. I must have been a sight. When I settled down enough to think about it, I realized that I had worked a lot harder and swum a lot farther than I’d needed to because I hadn’t been relaxed enough to really “curl up and wait” to be sure I knew which way to go.
Years later I learned about the Tao and realized that life had provided me with an incredible lesson about being that day. “You curl up in a little ball and wait. You’ll start to float toward the surface and you swim in that direction.” Life knows what we need and will take us there if we allow it. We only complicate things by imposing our will. Like the symbolic fish that are the Yin/Yang, things work best for us if we are at peace enough to feel the current and swim in that direction. Be still. Be aware.
Phil Jackson: “The trick is to experience each moment with a clear mind and an open heart. When we do that, ... life takes care of itself.”
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