Flow

Sakyamuni Buddha taught that there are four great human virtues: sitting, standing, walking, lying down. All other virtues arise from these four,  because right action flows spontaneously from a relaxed and natural body.

To relax is the most radical teaching, the most revolutionary commandment. When we truly relax, without falling asleep, something quite profound happens. All that is compassionate, all that is healing, flows from that restful alertness.

What could be easier than to relax? Yet it is difficult for most of us. And even when we do, we fall asleep. Then we cannot taste our own delicious Being, the source of every virtue.

Why can't the body relax? Because the mind is not relaxed. Why can't the mind relax? Because the “I” won't relaxed. Why can't "I" relax? Because the ego can’t say, “I don’t know.”

Why can't the ego say, “I don’t know”? Because "I" won't stop clinging to opinions. Why won't "I" stop clinging to opinions? Because "I" fear Emptiness.

Why am "I" afraid of Emptiness? Because "I" resist death. Why do "I" resist death? Because death is boundless.

Why fear boundlessness, which is simply returning to the natural condition? Because the Infinite loves to frolic and play, and "I" am afraid to frolic and play.

Why? Because to frolic and play, the Void needs a body. Am "I" afraid to be in a body?

Now here is the problem. Spiritual seekers resist embodiment, believing that the body is an obstacle to liberation. They say that, to realize the One, it is necessary to know, "I am not this body." Yet this distinction between "I" and "the body" is the very duality they claim to transcend.

How could those who fear the body, deny the body, and seek separation from the body, ever relax and be natural?

O friend, your body is the Buddha-nature at play. Your body is none other than the Void, and the Void is none other than your body.

Every photon of your body is the sparkling effulgence of ever-expanding bliss. Every atom of your body contains the spaciousness beyond the galaxies. The vastness of your body is not limited by any phenomenon that whirls within it. Your body has no edges; it just ripples out in ever more subtle fractals, touching the most distant stars. Even your pain is a fierce contraction of the formless, calling your attention to the bliss solidified in its sensation.

O friend, if you resist your own body, you fear everything that happens. But if you welcome your body, just as it arises this moment, you are a Warrior of the Dance. You fear nothing.

Relax into your body. Be natural.