Anyone familiar with Zen sand gardens?

To use the Zen sand garden metaphor, the rocks could be said to represent those upsetting weaknesses in our personal character. They are rough, heavy and virtually immovable, and though the sand between is more spacious, even and peaceful, there is no escaping the imprint the rocks make in it.

Now let’s say you are the sand raker in that garden. You might wonder why the rocks are even there. You might feel at a loss for exactly what sort of order you could possibly hope to make with these seemingly randomly placed rocks in your way. But eventually, since your task is to rake a pattern in the garden, you begin anyway.

You don’t really think about it, because as far as you know there is nothing really to think about anyway. But by the time you have covered the entire surface of the sand and look back, you find yourself in awe of the order that you see in the sand, like it was all meant to be that way in the first place. What would our lives be like if we accepted the presence of our own rocks? Our own failings or defects? And just lived our lives anyway.

You would learn that the rocks are not in the way. They are part of the design, balancing the soft and the rough. Yes, and you wouldn’t make the rocks into a problem that they don’t have to be. People think whatever their failing is, it’s a horrible thing, just absolutely unacceptable, and because they do they show it to everyone, make it mean everything. They roll their rocks up every hill possible in an effort to break them, which breaks nothing but your own heart.

Do you feel like you can accept your own failings?

I think it is not impossible. Does acceptance mean being governed by? No.

I offer that if you cannot accept your own failings, you will be more completely governed by them. You lose power to anything you view as powerful. Anything that just has to be an issue, becomes an issue, and then where is the room to feel alive?

Can acceptance be as simple as identifying them? It does need a bit more. Identifying them and a willingness to leave them alone.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~