Becky Chambers quote

I don’t feel as though I have to confine myself to the subset of thoughts in the Pali Cannon or prescribed thoughts. Maybe there's nothing Dharmic about it, but this passage struck today, from A Prayer For The Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers (p. 141);

"You don't have to have a reason to be tired. You don't have to earn rest or comfort. You're allowed to just be."

The story is about a monk who travels around a provides tea. She is joined by a robot who has come out of hiding. The robots hid from society in the wilderness, but this one has become curious about humans again. The monk and robot strike up a friendship and share experiences, and reflect together.

The monk is struggling in that she somehow struggles not to accept the above quote, she internally resists that, she feels obligation to her raising and to others. She feels like a leetch if she is alright with just existing.

There will be a harsh punishment for letting go of the protestant work ethic. The struggle is internal, too.

As a side note, this "lack of ambition" also leads to being single often, maybe not all cases.

Another struggle for me in the spiritual life, a terrible concepts makes me feel so precious, is the mating mind. Being single also lets go of the mating mind.

Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer

I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woods,
and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught-

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth, 

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in the bank,
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.


(By Mary Oliver, p35 Long Life)