While waiting for my ride to the herder’s home, some 200km away from this town I’m staying right now, I have this moment of clarity, credited partially to the forced wait, partially to a note from my sister about Yi-Ching, The Book of Change. Actually, I don’t really like that translation, because Yi conveys a lot more than just change. It’s about cycle, about adaptation, about changing around the core of something unchangeable.

The world in its circular movement is perfect. It is that intertwined circle of Ying and Yang, the dark and the bright forces that work together to form the world. A world of everything nice and positive will be a world of stagnation, and non-existence. In order for something, anything to be alive, both forces have to be in motion. When you feel the positive force, it was because the negative force was pushing, and one should be prepared to feel that negative force to come next of what you are feeling right now. The other way around works the same way. If you feel the negative force, it was because something positive had been developing to the point of its reversion, and that once the negative force has also developed to its own point of reversion, the positive force takes stage. In that, there is no positive or negative thinking, optimism or pessimism, both are thoughts that get caught in the one sided struggle for stagnation, both are a form of avoidance of the basic rule of nature.

We let the rule of nature flow through us. Going against it causes suffering in both the body it is carrying through and the bigger world around. Stay in accordance with the flow of nature, from that and only that, we can start to build our little speckle that we oftentimes project as the world around us, but a mere illusion our senses have made us believe is the truth.

Accept the world as it is, that is the only way to move, and without movement, we cease to exist. Acceptance though, is not the same with agreeing with everything that is going on. It is the base, the core to start from to add values to the things we want to see improving, knowing fully that our actions will bring out both the dark and the bright forces as well.

We need the force that goes against our current momentum to move. No river flows in a straight line. It needs the forces from both riverbanks to flow forward. So, whenever you feel some barriers and resistances, be thankful that without which, you wouldn’t be able to make it to the next bend down the course. A life with many bends is a river that flows.