Her name, she told me, was Sophia. Sophie for short. Over the next year, we met often. With the easy patience and imagination of a true teacher she would discuss with me the ideas which she felt were central to living wisely and which have found their way into this book.
I would sometimes come away from our discussions with the feeling that I understood, but unable to verbalize that understanding. It might take days for it to work its way to my conscious mind, as if a seed had been planted in a place where only brief periods of light reached it each day. That caused a problem. I can be overly analytical and our conversations would often never move beyond her first statement as I attempted to analyze and categorize it from every angle to be sure that I understood what she was saying. The most frustrating thing for me was that I always felt that she was holding back on me. The things that we discussed were so basic and were things that I had already read about years ago.
Looking back, I understand now that I was looking for a mystery. I had the common misconception that if something was true, it must be hidden. If true, then it must be difficult. Understanding which came too easily must be only partial understanding. What she would teach was so simple, so common and mundane that I would almost dismiss it out of hand, or begin to look for deeper meanings by picking it apart analytically. Through these conversations, she would never become flustered or short which ironically left me feeling as if she was patient with me the way you are patient with a small child, because they don't know any better. Because of my misconceptions, insecurity and anxiousness, I soon felt as if I were getting more confused rather than enlightened. I went through a period of feeling that I was simply not wise enough to understand what she was really trying to teach me. We didn't discuss this dynamic of our conversations, until one day I expressed my frustration to her. In the middle of her sentence, I interrupted....
"I understand all of that, but there must be more. I hear everything you are saying, but none of it seems to be the real answer to what I am looking for. There must be some perspective, some overriding understanding that is foundational to all of this, that I am missing. Some key truth that you haven't shared with me yet. Something that will make everything we have been discussing real in my life. I feel like you're holding back on me"
Sophie looked at me the way that you might look at a child who has just asked why the moon doesn't fall out of the sky. As if the question were so wrong that she didn't know where to start and
had to completely re-orient herself to the thinking that could have prompted it, before she could answer. After a long time of silence her eyes brightened and she said,
"It sounds like you are looking for ‘the secret’, and that is what is messing you up. There is no secret. There is no magic to any of this. Real wisdom is deep, but it is also simple and apparent to everyone. It is the end of , the culmination of all understanding. Wisdom is not an anxious incantation, nor does it reassure itself through constant reinterpretation and argument. Wisdom is rest. It is known by it’s simplicity. It is man who complicates ,turning simple truths into mysteries for his own self assurance. In a sense, wisdom is the destination, the pace of rest, the place which is beyond expression, beyond the need for expression. It is the place of simply being. Everyone must make their own journey since we ultimately recognize the destination by the understanding gained from the trip. These things we have been discussing are the road to wisdom, and they too are uncomplicated and unhidden. That is how it must be. Look at the birds in the trees around you. God gives them everything that they need without partiality. Wisdom is essential to living well, don't you see that it must be available to everyone without partiality? The simplest of men must be able to grasp it. This is no hidden esoteric way for only an elect few. God isn't like that. True wisdom is simple and apparent to everyone. In the same manner, the path to wisdom must be able to be walked by anyone who desires to do so. These things that I am sharing with you are that path. This is not about working hard to earn a special understanding. It's moving without effort, staying in the present, avoiding becoming overly focused on the goal rather than on the journey, realizing the incredible significance of the moment right in front of you. You say you want to understand more, but the problem isn't that you don't understand. It isn't that you don't know what to do, it's that you don't do what you know.
When I speak to you of simple, even obvious principles, it is not a prelude to the real stuff, they are the real stuff. You are frustrated because you like things to be complicated so that you can figure them out and feel good about your ability to do so. That can be a strength, but like every strength it is also your weakness. You want to figure everything out until you have reduced it to nice, neat, predictable laws. Your need for order is keeping you unsettled because you see that life is not always orderly. My advice is that you loosen up and try to be a little more childlike. The paradox of wisdom is that it is both destination and journey."
She had said it all with a gentle smile and a twinkle in her eye. There was no recrimination, no judgment, just a clear recognition of my reality. I knew she was right. I was complicating things in order to avoid the responsibility of applying them. When she told me to be childlike, she was being literal. Suddenly I saw that and from that day on, I resolved to try and do just that. Not always with great success, which Sophie took great care to bring to my attention.
