What Is Our Purpose Here? Part 2

Just Listen
by Nancy O'Hara

(Page 2 of 2)

Trust Yourself

For one week, take note of some of the more difficult choices you face. If a decision can wait a day, spend the evening writing and meditating on it before choosing. If not, take a few moments, go for a walk if you can, pay attention to your breath, and ask for guidance. Trust yourself. Then go back and choose. Write about it that same night, or right there and then if possible.

Carry pen and paper with you to record the things your mind and heart offer up to you during the day. If you wait until later, you may lose them. Catch them when they come, and look at them later. You might be surprised at the gems you've written. You might not recognize your own voice. Well, there it is. Start getting used to hearing it. The process is working.

Taking Risks

A risk not taken is an opportunity missed. Most of us would like to know the outcome of any choice or decision we make before we make it. We want to know the future. We read tarot cards, consult psychics, have our palms read, or look for our daily horoscope to know what lies ahead of us. Playing it safe is a way of life for some of us. We think we would be happier if we could know the future. We'd even be happy to know some of it, just the repercussions of this choice or the rewards or pitfalls of that one.

But we can't know our future, so our job is to arrive at some peace with the unknowing. Some things, of course, we can be reasonably sure of, and this little bit of knowledge often confuses us and deludes us into thinking that more must be knowable. So we sit and wait for the future to speak to us, and before we know it we are in the future. Whatever choice we were grappling with was either made for us or has become irrelevant and we are on to the next. This is avoidance living, and many of us do it.

When you wake up each morning, consider that everything you do, every choice you make, is a risk. Then, all risks will become equal, surprise will await you at every turn, and you will no longer concern yourself with the future. Simply place yourself in each moment, moving to the next only when it arrives. This is not to say that you should walk through your life like a zombie, unprepared and foolishly naive. You should try to walk through your life in a state of awareness and heightened anticipation. Walking across a busy street is as much a risk to some of us as quitting our jobs and pursuing our dreams is to others. The first only seems less risky because we may do it so often. So if we begin to take bigger risks in our life more often, they too will become easier.

My aunt Ruth was close to eighty when she, my aunt Edna, and my mother came to visit me in New York City. I escorted them to a holiday show at Radio City Music Hall in midtown. When Aunt Ruth was confronted with crossing the Avenue of the Americas, she was quite timid and a little scared. She came from a small town in Rhode Island, and all the streets she had to cross in her life were quite negotiable. But this huge, busy, noisy, crowded avenue in New York was quite another matter. I, on the other hand, never gave it much thought, often crossing against the light if there was time, as most experienced New Yorkers do. As I led the way across the street, the Don't Walk sign started flashing and I kept walking, knowing that we had enough time to cross before the traffic began to move. But my aunt refused to leave the curb. So we waited for the green, Ruth holding onto my arm for dear life, and then proceeded on our way. Aunt Ruth enjoyed the show but was happiest when she was aboard the bus that would take her back home, where she knew how to cross the streets.

Crossing the Avenue of the Americas was a genuine risk for my aunt. She never returned to New York, but if she had spent more time here crossing the streets, the risk factor eventually would have subsided and she might have ended up wondering why it once scared her so. Yet it remains that it is risky to cross the busy streets of Manhattan. But New Yorkers do it anyway, forgetting the risk. This is how we should approach anything that seems like a risk, especially if we know that fear is the only thing holding us back. Do it anyway. Chances are you will make it to the other side of the street. And even if the trip is fraught with fear, it is better than standing on the curb stuck in fear, paralyzed, wondering what it would be like to cross, wishing that you had the courage.

As you go through each day, become aware of all the small risks you take and the ones you avoid taking. If you have some indecision, waiting for the future to be foretold, go to your Quiet Corner and sit on it. By now you will be closer in touch with your inner voice — and this, rather than some fortune teller, is where you need to go. Your inner voice may not be able to tell the future, but it will let you know in which direction to move. It will help you either to put aside the question at hand or to move forward, take the risk, and deal with the fear. Your true self will always be there, supporting you and guiding you. And each time you take a risk, with your inner voice as guide, you will build up your risk-taking experience so that next time will be easier. Before you know it, other people will be lauding you on your bravery while you simply take it in stride, one precious moment at a time.

Concentration

For one week, pay attention to the small risks you take and those that you avoid. Write about them at the end of each day. Observe your behavior and your state of mindfulness each time. How present are you in each circumstance? Are you more present for one than for another? Which makes you feel better about yourself? Whose voice decides for you what is risky and what isn't?

Some years ago on TV was a game show called "Concentration." Contestants were asked questions, and a correct answer would reveal a letter to a phrase or sentence that was hidden behind a large wall panel. For each correct answer, a square with a letter on it would be turned over to reveal yet more of the puzzle. As more was revealed, the contestants would try their luck at deciphering the clues. The first to guess would win the prize. My friend Steve, who is in a twelve-step recovery program, recently described to me how this game reminded him of his life. He says that he continues to get clues about himself and is closer to putting together the mystery of his life each day he shows up for it.

Think of your inner voice as this "Concentration" board. Each of the suggested exercises here will turn over a square and reveal one more thing about you and your true nature. Each exercise will give you a clue to deciphering who you really are.

Excerpted from Just Listen by Nancy O'Hara. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Nancy O'Hara was drawn to Zen Buddhism in the mid-1980s, after the death of her father, and found solace in the profound stillness of silent meditation. In a Jukei ceremony in 1992 Nancy committed to the precepts of Buddhism and was given the dharma name of Myochi, which means “wondrous wisdom.” All of her books offer spiritual guidance for everyday life based on her own experiences and the teaching of Zen Buddhism. Nancy conducts meditation classes and workshops, and corporate seminars and retreats on mindfulness at work. She lives in New York City. Visit her at www.nancyohara.com