Touching the Earth
In the great myth of the Buddha’s journey, there came a point when he is completely overwhelmed. As he sits meditating under the Bodhi tree, the devil Mara sends temptations to distract him from the wish of his deepest essence. Mara flashes images of the Buddha as a great leader, as a huge success in business with mountains of money, surrounded by beautiful women. He shows the Buddha that can make India great again if he would just give up his quest to awaken, and get up and do something. The Buddha will not move.
When temptation doesn’t work, Mara tries fear, conjuring visions of terrible armies howling for his blood. These armies are external and also internal, legions of anxieties and fears. But the Buddha does not flinch. Slowly, he reached down and touched the earth. The classical explanation is that he is asking the Earth itself to bear witness to his many life times of effort. Not his blinding brilliance or his unique talent, mind you, but his effort, his perseverance, his willingness to show up no matter what. His willingness to fail and fail again. “Ever tried. Ever failed,” writes Beckett. “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” The Buddha understood what the Christian author G.K. Chesterton meant when he wrote, "Everything worth doing is worth doing badly."
Touching the Earth symbolizes humility, coming down out of our thoughts, out of the busy hive of ego, to join the rest of life. The Latin word humus, the rich living earth, is related to the word humility. When difficulty arises, it creates a clearing in the deadening trance of habit. We remember that what really matters is not the list of worries and desires we spend so much time thinking about every day. What matters is much more essential. Being alive, for example. Taking part in life, having a chance to give and receive in the most elemental ways, taking in the beauty of the world and giving back where we can.
At moments when the ground gives way beneath our feet, it’s good to remember the power of touching the earth, descending from our racing thoughts and fears to an awareness of the present moment. When words fail, we can sometimes discover a new voice and a new kind of determination. We can rise up rooted, like trees.
Tracy Cochran is editorial director of Parabola magazine. She has practiced meditation for decades, and is a teacher at the New York Insight Meditation Center and the founder of Tarrytown Insight, a weekly meditation group in Westchester, New York. The reading above was excerpted from her blog on determination.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does touching the earth mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you experienced touching the earth? What helps you remember to be rooted when the ground gives way beneath your feet?
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7 Past Reflections
On Nov 8, 2019 jimmy wrote :
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On Apr 18, 2017 Tim Buchanan wrote :
Dirt under my fingernails from Sunday's yard work. Dirt in the Central Valley is to be cherished. You can crawl in it with pleasure, soft, sandy, forgiving. We take much for granted but the soil here is the reason the Central Valley is the agricultural center of the world. My dirt, your dirt, the neighbors' dirt, we are all in separable, and we all owe our existence, in part, to the dirt.
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On Apr 18, 2017 Liz Mitten Ryan wrote :
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On Apr 15, 2017 Jagdish P Dave wrote :
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On Apr 15, 2017 david doane wrote :
To me, touching the earth means staying grounded, present, humble, and not going off into ego-driven grandiose desires and goals. I experience touching the earth when I stay in the present, responding to what is happening in me, in the other, and in the situation at hand, and staying true to myself. What helps me remember to be rooted, when I do remember, is trusting the process and not be hypnotized by an ambition or outcome I want to accomplish. Attachments unroot me.
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On Apr 14, 2017 Abhishek wrote :
From a desire to fly high, my intent has moved to being rooted to the earth.....my Mother the Earth is what holds, what sustains when the winds change direction....
Being rooted, I try and experience my one-ness with everyone and everything else rooted in that same mother-energy.....I feel home.