The Moving Finger Writes

51
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

-Omar Khayyam, translated by by Edward FitzGerald

Commentary

This is an excerpt from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. It is verse 51, one of the more popular quatrains from this work.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on:

In modern translation, “Shit happens.” That is to say, what happens happens. The only thing we can do is accept it.

This poem invites us to be in naked contact with What Is. That is, reality itself without any judgment or interpretation.

This is what mindfulness and meditation practice prepare us for. But mindfulness in everyday life is one thing. Acceptance of a tragic loss or untenable situation is another. This is when reality demands we stop interpreting everything. We are invited to step into The Now without any defenses. To be with What Is.

nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The worst thing about What Is is that it can’t be cajoled into being different. No amount of goodness or treachery can change it. No matter how much we beg and plead to God or The Universe or whatever we believe in, it doesn’t change. It simply is what it is.

But that is also the magic of it. Because here’s the thing:

Whatever version of the divine we find ourselves praying to in order to intervene in What Is is a creation of our own limited minds.

The actual divine is found right here, in the now. In What Is.

The divine is the totality of existence, and is by definition beyond our understanding. Trying to change What Is is trying to fit the divine into the tiny container of our own minds. It would be a disservice to all involved.

Thus, the greatest heartbreaks of our lives turn to doorways to this naked contact with the holy. We can no longer ignore life’s persistent invitation to be with What Is. We must either accept it and experience its sharp beauty, or decay into numbness and dissociation.

If we accept, we slowly begin to melt around the edges. We begin to identify less with our mind’s persistent tricks, judgments, and interpretations. Less with our particular personality. We become larger than ourselves.

A fall breeze blows through the valley and we are the wind and the leaves falling from the trees. Our dog barks in our busy household and for a moment, we are the flow of a family’s daily life together. We look up at the stars and we notice we are looking at ourselves.

This is the gift of being with What Is. That could also be called acceptance. But acceptance is not passivity. It does not require non-action, detachment from life, or sitting down in the face of injustice. Rather, it is the choice to be with What Is right in this moment. Then, we can respond however we need to from wholeness rather than from resistance.