Surrender Dorothy

Surrender Dorothy, referring to the skywriting by the Wicked Witch in The Wizard Of Oz, is one of my favorite mantras. Although meant as an end-game curse, it became the saving grace of Dorothy’s journey home. Surrender allowed Dorothy’s inner strength to manifest in the seamless flow of serendipitous opportunity. We are in this state when we are sincere. A Taoist proverb states that supreme sincerity evokes resonance. Resonance is simply the feeling of free flowing Chi. We vibrate like a gong when we strike the heart of surrender because it’s at this time that we embody the supreme state of doing-not-doing in the free flow of stainless awareness.

What’s being written in the sky of your mind during T’ai Chi Chih practice? Perhaps what seems like a terrifying shadow message will be transformed into the healing medicine of surrender. By noticing and not clinging to the smoky message in the sky, we shift our weight in luminous emptiness. Then the whole world becomes medicine; we neither have to toil or spin.

Webster defines sincerity as honesty of mind; it’s derived from the Latin, sincerus (clear, pure, and sound). Teachers and students often expend energy talking about TCC’s benefits. We pile up personal experiences and testimonials, and we perhaps sell the results as sincerity. Seriousness is not sincerity; it’s the wicked step sister of sincerity. We become sherpas of seriousness, traveling the craggy pathways of our expectations, paving a path with shoulds and shouldn’ts. But as the saying goes, “When you see through the origin you may spontaneously burst out in a laugh.” That means as sincerity and clarity unfold, you see how you bind yourself and it gets funny. Sincerity is full of playful laughter.

As Justin says, “If it isn’t fun, it’s better left undone.” That was an almost unbearable koan when I first heard it. I don’t have to suffer or strive for this? I can just resonate with the all-pervasive Chi? Remember, Dorothy didn’t plan to melt the witch with water in The Wizard of Oz. It was a spontaneous gift of circularity and grace in action. Isn’t every moment when we are not judging, when we are clear, pure and sound? Through TCC we melt the veils of self-inflicted delusions and reveal radiance. Or not. The most important thing is to show up in the space of surrender. There is no place like home – right under your feet. Let that knowledge fill you with the gratitude of sincerity and a smile grace your face. Now surrender surrendering.