Three Clues, One Three-Part Exercise, to Open What’s Closed

I have for you three clues, or, if you will, a three-part exercise. Any of the parts could move you closer to certain comprehensions, but it’s my hope and belief that your taking all three, in order, together, will create an even better chance of that happening for you:

1. In the context of Zen Buddhism, this has been called “Chasing the Tiger’s Tail.” Alone, in a quiet place, try to pick up a sound as soon as it enters your hearing, then stick to it, following it until you can no longer hear it at all. For this, sounds that last more than just a split-second are best. It might be a dog’s extended yowl or the sound of a passing car on the highway. Do this for ten minutes, or longer if you like.

2. Read the text below, John 3:8 (King James Version), slowly, with great attention (not squeezing any mental muscles or trying to “figure it out”), just trying to absorb the words and the meaning of the text as it unfolds for you. Do this at least three times, but do it as many times as you like.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

3. Pick a major decision or change in your life, as recent a one as possible, and try to think of every reason and factor that went into it. Take your time. Try to think of many such things as you can, until you feel that you’ve thought of as many as you can for now, or until and unless the point of the exercise reveals itself to you. Then try to think of all of the results of that decision or change, all of the things that it led to or caused.

I haven’t given you these because they’re part of a program, or because they’re necessary steps in some preordained process. I’ve taken them from my own life, and I can testify that each one of them, and all of them together, helped move me toward a reality that I longed for without knowing what it really was, until it opened for me.