COMPLETION MAJOR ARCANA XXI   REVERSE
RECEPTIVITY QUEEN OF WATER: MASTERY OF EMOTIONS	THE FOOL MAJOR ARCANA 0	CHANGE MAJOR ARCANA X
REVERSE		REVERSE
ADVENTURE PAGE OF RAINBOWS: MASTERY OF THE PHYSICAL

COMPLETION

Here the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle is being put into its place, the position of the third eye, the place of inner perception. Even in the ever-changing flow of life there are moments in which we come to a point of completion. In these moments we are able to perceive the whole picture, the composite of all the small pieces that have occupied our attention for so long. In the finishing, we can either be in despair because we don't want the situation to come to an end, or we can be grateful and accepting of the fact that life is full of endings and new beginnings.
Whatever has been absorbing you time and energy is now coming to an end. In completing it, you will be clearing the space for something new to begin. Use this interval to celebrate both - the end of the old and the coming of the new.


This is the way of Zen, not to say thing to their completion. This has to be understood; it is a very important methodology. Not to say everything means to give an opportunity to the listener to complete it. All answers are incomplete. The master has only given you a direction ... By the time you reach the limit, you will know what is going to remain.
This way if somebody is trying to understand Zen intellectually he will fail. It is not an answer to the question but something more that the answer. It is indicating the very reality ... The buddha nature is not something far away - your very consciousness is buddha nature. And you consciousness can witness these things which constitute the world. The world will end but the mirror will remain, mirroring nothing.

RECEPTIVITY

Receptivity represents the feminine, receptive quality of water and of the emotions. Her arms are extended upwards to receive, and she is completely immersed in the water. She has no head, no busy and aggressive mind to hinder her pure receptivity. and as she is filled she is continuously emptying herself, overflowing, and receiving more. the lotus pattern or matrix that emerges from her represents the perfect harmony of the universe that becomes apparent when we are in tune with it.
The Queen of water brings a time of unboundedness and gratitude for whatever life brings, without any expectations or demands. Neither duty or thought of merit or reward are important. Sensitivity, intuition and compassion are the qualities that shine forth now, dissolving all obstacles that keep us separate from each other and from the whole.


Listening is one of the basic secrets of entering into the temple of God. Listening means passivity. Listening means forgetting yourself completely - only then can you listen. When you listen attentively to somebody, you forget yourself. If you cannot forget yourself, you never listen. If you are too self-conscious about yourself, you simply pretend that you are listening - you don't listen. You many not your head; you may sometimes say yes and no - but you are not listening. When you listen you become just a passage, a passivity, a receptivity, a womb: you become feminine. And to arrive one has to become feminine. You can not reach God as aggressive invaders, conquerors. You can reach God only ... or it will be better to say; God can reach you only when you are receptive, a feminine receptivity. When you become yin, a receptivity, the door is open. and you wait.
Listening is the art for becoming passive.

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.

CHANGE

The symbol in this card is an enormous wheel representing time, fate, karma. Galaxies spin around this constantly moving circle, and the twelve signs of the zodiac appear on the circumference. Just inside the circumference are the eight trigrams of the I Ching, and even closer to the center are the four directions, each illuminated by the energy of lightning. The spinning triangle is at this moment pointed upward, toward the divine, and the Chinese symbol of yin and yang, male and female, creative and receptive, lies at the center.
It has often been said that the only unchanging thing in the world is change itself. Life is continuously changing, evolving, dying and being reborn. All opposites play a part in this vast circular pattern. If you cling to the edge of the wheel you can get dizzy! Move toward the center of the cyclone and relax, knowing that this too will pass.


Life repeats itself mindlessly - unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel. That's why Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death - the wheel of time. It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death, death is followed by birth: love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love: success is followed by failure, failure is followed by success. Just see!
If you can watch just for a few days, you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern. One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good and so happy, and another day you are so dull, so dead that you start thinking of committing suicide. And just the other day you were so full of life, so blissful that you were feeling thankful to god that you were in a mood of deep gratefulness, and today there is great complaint and you don't see the point why one should go on living .... And it goes on and on, but you don't see the pattern.
Once you see the pattern, you can get out it.

ADVENTURE

When we are truly in a spirit of adventure, we are moving just like this child. Full of trust, out of the darkness of the forest into the rainbow of the light, we go step by step, drawn by our sense of wonder into the unknown.
Adventure really has nothing to do with plans and maps and programs and organization. The Page of Rainbows represents a quality that can come to us anywhere - at home or in the office, in the wilderness or in the city, in a creative project or in our relationships with others. Whenever we move into the new and unknown with the trusting spirit of a child, innocent and open and vulnerable, even the smallest things of life can become the greatest adventures.


Zen says truth has nothing to do with authority, truth has nothing to do with tradition, truth has nothing to do with the past - truth is a radical, personal realization. You have to come to it.
Knowledge is certain; the search for personal knowing is very, very hazardous. Nobody can guarantee it. If you ask me if I can guarantee anything, I say I can not guarantee you anything. I can only guarantee danger, that much is certain. I can only guarantee you a long adventure with every possibility of going astray and never reaching the goal. But one thing is certain: the very search will help you grow. I can guarantee only growth. Danger will be there, sacrifice will be there; you will be moving every day into the unknown, into the uncharted, and there will be no map to follow, no guide to follow. Yes, there are millions of dangers and you can go astray and can get lost, but that is the only way one grows. Insecurity is the only way to grow, to face danger is the only way to grow, to accept the challenge of the unknown is the only way to grow.