Trash Collectors

From our friend, Irene C.

Trash Collectors

“Who are you? And where do you wish to go?” said the caterpillar in response to Alice’s request for directions in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Each of us confronts these same questions, often multiple times. The caterpillar’s pithy advice to the confused Alice has been condensed to this observation:

“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

In other words, first you have to know yourself well enough to have an aim about where you want to be. The 12th century Persian mystic Al Ghazali suggested that we “make the divine present your destination.” To be sure, divine presence is not a place, rather it is a state, and it is always right here, right now. So, how do we “get there?”

Try using a “Work ‘I’,” which is a simple word or phrase recited for the purpose of helping us be present by clearing away the clutter of our many ‘I’s, i.e., our trash collection of identifications, imagination, formatory thinking, etc. Work ‘I’s may come from lists of suggested Work ‘I’s, or you can use your own. Find what works for you.

The best work ‘I’ is the one that works. — The Teacher

For me, just saying Be (internally, to myself) reminds me to be present when tempted to follow a train of thought out of the here and now. The Work ‘I’ Drop quells negative ‘I’s in turmoil about something—this creates internal space for divine presence.

If an ‘I’ judges someone else, a Work ‘I’ says just like me right after the judgment: “he is so rude (just like me).” When judging myself, I have tried “sentencing myself” to literally picking up trash in a local park. Performing that physical work without words is a meditation—even trash collection can be done in the state of presence.

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Caterpillar Smoking, John Tenniel, (1865, colored version from the Nursery Alice in Wonderland, 1890)