Dear friends,
A Zen teacher once said, “When you bow to the moment, the moment bows back.”
I didn’t understand that initially. I thought bowing was something monks did in temples. I didn’t realize it was something life itself was asking of me, quietly, every day.
I learned this one afternoon while waiting at a stoplight. I was late for an important appointment. My jaw was tight, my shoulders were stiff, and my mind was rehearsing complaints. Suddenly I realized that nothing I was doing inside myself was helping the situation. The light wasn’t going to change any faster because I was irritated.
So I took a breath. I felt my hands on the steering wheel. I noticed the blue in the sky above the traffic lights. And something softened.
That small softening was the bow.
Bowing doesn’t mean liking what’s happening. It doesn’t mean giving up. It means acknowledging what is before trying to make it something else. It is the difference between fighting the moment and meeting it.
When Ajahn Chah taught, he rarely told us what to think. Instead, he showed us how to bow inwardly—to fatigue, to sadness, to confusion, to joy. He had a way of respecting experience without being ruled by it.
When you bow to anger, it becomes energy rather than poison.
When you bow to sorrow, it becomes tenderness rather than isolation.
When you bow to fear, it becomes aliveness instead of paralysis.
Life keeps asking us a single question: Can you meet me as I am?
Every breath is a bow.
Every yes to the present moment is a gesture of freedom.
And when you begin to live this way, something remarkable happens—the world stops being an enemy and becomes a teacher.
With metta,
Jack
*This article was inspired by themes from my new book out now, All In This Together: Stories and Teachings for Loving Each Other and Our World.
