INNOCENCE MAJOR ARCANA XIX
CLINGING TO THE PAST 5 OF WATER	THE FOOL MAJOR ARCANA 0	PAST LIVES MAJOR ARCANA XVIII
REVERSE
SLOWING DOWN KNIGHTOF RAINBOWS: MASTERYOF THEPHYSICAL

INNOCENCE

The old man in this card radiates a childlike delight in the world. There is a sense of grace surrounding him, as if he is at home with himself and with what life has brought. He seems to be having a playful communication with the praying mantis on his finger, as if the two of them are the greatest friends. The pink flowers cascading around him represent a time of letting go, relaxation and sweetness. They are a response to his presence, a reflection of his own qualities.
The innocence that comes from a deep experience of life is childlike, but not childish. The innocence of children is beautiful, but ignorant. It will be replaced by mistrust and doubt as the child grows and learns that the world can be a dangerous and threatening place. But the innocence of a life lived fully has a quality of wisdom and acceptance of the ever-changing wonder of life.


ZEN SAYS that if you drop knowledge - and within knowledge everything is included, your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others - if you drop all that has been given by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being - innocence.
This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your

CLINGING TO THE PAST

The figure pictured in this card is so preoccupied with clutching her box of memories that she has turned her back on the sparkling champagne glass of blessing available here and now. Her nostalgia for the past really makes her a 'blockhead', and a beggar besides, as we can see from her patched and ragged clothes. She needn't be a beggar, of course - but she is not available to taste the pleasures that offer themselves in the present.
It's time to face up the fact that the past is gone, and any effort to repeat it is a sure way to stay stuck in old blueprints that you would have already outgrown if you hadn't been so busy clinging to what you have already been through. Take a deep breath, put the box down, tie it up in a pretty ribbon if you must, and bid it a fond and reverent farewell. Life is passing you by, and you're in danger of becoming an old fossil before your time!


These tenses - past, present and future - are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind becomes the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future.
Past is that which is no longer before you.
Future is that which is not yet before you.
And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past ... If you don't cling to the past ... because clinging to the past is absolute stupidity. It is no longer there, so you are crying for spilled milk. What is gone is gone! And don't cling to the present because that is also going and soon it will be past. Don't cling to the future - hope, imaginations, plans for tomorrow - because tomorrow will become today, will become yesterday. Everything is going to become yesterday.
Everything is going to go out of your hands.
Clinging will simply create misery.
You will have to let go.

THE FOOL

Moment to moment, and with every step, the Fool leaves the past behind. He carries nothing more then his purity, innocence and trust, symbolized by the white rose in his hand. The pattern on his waistcoat contains the colors of all four elements of the tarot, indicating that he is in harmony with all that surround him. His intuition is functioning at its peak. At this moment the fool has the support of the universe to make this jump into the unknown. Adventures await him in the river of life.
The card indicates that if you trust your intuition right now, your feeling of the 'rightness' of things you cannot go wrong. Your actions may appear 'foolish' to others, or even to yourself, if you try to analyze them with the rational mind. But the 'zero' place occupied by the Fool is the numberless number where trust and innocence are the guides, not skepticism and past experience.

A Fool is one who goes on trusting; a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trust you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you. Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can corrupt it.
Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don't try to create a wall of knowledge around you. What so ever experience comes to you, let it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present, here-now, as if just born, just a babe. In the beginning it is going to be very difficult. The world will start taking advantage of you ... let them. They are poor fellows. Even if you are cheated and deceived and robbed, let it happen, because that which is really yours cannot be robbed from you, that which is really yours nobody can steal from you. And each time you don't allow situations to corrupt you, that opportunity will become an integration inside. Your soul will become more crystallized.

PAST LIVES

The hands of existence form the shape of the female genitals, the opening of the cosmic mother. Revealed within are many images, faces from other times. While it might be entertaining to fantasize about famous past lives, it is just a distraction. the real point is to see and understand the karmic patterns of our lives, and their roots in an endless repetitive cycle that traps us in unconscious behavior.
The two rainbow lizards on either side represent knowing and not-knowing. they are the guardians of the unconscious, making sure that we are prepared for a vision that might otherwise be shattering. A glimpse into the eternity of our existence is a gift, and understanding the function of karma in our lives is not something that can be grasped at will. This is a wake up call; the events in your life are trying to show you a pattern as ancient as the journey of your own soul.


The child can become conscious only if in his life he has meditated enough, has created enough meditative energy to fight with the darkness that death brings. One simply is lost in an oblivion and then suddenly finds a new womb and forgets completely about the old body. There is a discontinuity. This darkness, this unconsciousness creates the discontinuity.
The East has been working hard to penetrate these barriers. And ten thousand years' work has not been in vain. Everybody can penetrate to the past life or many past lives. But for that you have to go deeper into you meditation, for two reasons; unless you go deeper, you cannot find he door to another life; Secondly, you have to go deeper in mediation because, if you find the door of another life, a flood of events will come into the mind.
It is hard enough even to carry one life ...

SLOWING DOWN

The Knight of Rainbows is a reminder that, just like this tortoise, we carry our home with us wherever we go. There is no need to hurry, no need to seek shelter elsewhere. Even as we move into the depths of the emotional waters, we can remain self-contained and free from attachments.
It is a time when you are ready to let go of any expectations you have had about yourself or other people, and to take responsibility for any illusions you might have been carrying. There is no need to do anything but rest in the fullness of who you are right now. If desires and hopes and dreams are fading away, so much the better. Their disappearance is making space for a new quality of stillness and acceptance of what is, and you are able to welcome this development in a way you have never been able to before. Savor this quality of slowing down, of coming to rest and recognizing that you are already at home.


Meditation is a kind of medicine - its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life.
Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen.
Then what will be the quality? Watchfully, alert, joyously, unmotivated, centered, loving, flowing, one walks. And the walking is sauntering. Loving, alert, watchful, one sits, unmotivated - not sitting for any thing in particular, just enjoying how beautiful just sitting doing nothing is, how restful ... After a long walk, you sit under a tree and the breeze comes and cools you. Each moment one has to be at ease with oneself - not trying to improve, not cultivating anything, not practicing anything.
Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen,
Talking or silent, moving, unmoving,
The essence is at ease.
The essence is at ease: That is the keyword. The essence is at ease: that is the key statement. Do whatsoever you are doing, but at the deepest core remain at ease, cool, calm, centered.