– Are you still waiting? Have you not found the tranquillity you long for?
– Not yet. I am trying, but I am still waiting, yes. I would not want my most important ideals and concepts to wear thin with frequent repetition, and I don't even know whether to dwell on them, or rather to let the important questions rest?
– Don't you think it may be the waiting itself that bars the way to tranquillity? If you are waiting for a great breakthrough, you will not notice the small enlightenments.
– Possibly… but I would not want to walk past the great opportunities.
– I understand, but be like the dog, which wants much, yet is content with little.
– Not a bad example. So I am to be a dog – if I did not love animals, your example might even put my nose out of joint.
– Hm, in the spirit of tranquillity? In any case, this is an ancient parable about what one can learn from the various creatures.
– Why, what else is there besides the dog?
– No, let us stay with the dog a while! The dog's other good qualities are sleeping deeply yet waking quickly, fidelity to its master, and courage. Put like that, it is not so bad, is it?
– Very well, I accept. But to return to tranquillity, I can tell you that my basic tranquillity is there, because I know that everything is going its own way, and not badly at that. Only I do not know whether it is still my own wanting that drives me, or whether I have already managed to attune myself to the laws of the universe?
– That is not so hard to tell. If you decide and act according to self-interest, that is not yet harmony, but if you can already decide according to values, you are drawing closer to the truth.
– The other day I looked at the ledge where I had put up a bird feeder back in the winter. At that time I put out seed regularly, and the little creatures came to visit every day. I learn a great deal from the birds… In summer, though, the feeder is closed. Now and then, perhaps from sheer hope, the little birds do fly over to it, then flit away with empty crops. I cannot give them real care, and so they do not dare to come closer either.
– But the birds get by in summer, don't they?
– Possibly, but that is not what I mean. If a greater love dwelt in me, they might venture closer. The birds do not come for my sake, but for the food. My tranquillity is like that too. It is there, and it is not. There is something, but it works only in times of want, and it is not there when perseverance or constancy is the measure.
– In times of want help is more welcome, while in plenty it may not be needed at all.
– In a way I think so too, and yet… At the same time I believe, I deeply believe, that the contest of light and darkness, the wrestling of good and evil, was decided at the very beginning. The birds fly in, then flit away; they have no need of an empty feeder.
– Do not try to justify yourself by having songbirds settle on your hand. They are flighty anyway, and far too timid. It is enough to believe that the aura of peace creates peace, and lets in the peaceable of heart. Goodness creates the aura of peace, but you should long not for the shell but for its source, the cause that creates it.
– Justify…? I could not justify myself anyway, and it does not interest me. Let people think what they like…
– Well, if your conduct is spotless, then it truly no longer matters who says what, who thinks what. Tranquillity is wisdom too. A king does not run, he proceeds. A sage does not rush, he acts. A saint does not ask, he gives himself over to the service of God and of men. You too must proceed, act and offer sacrifice. That in itself is tranquillity. Not resignation, but the trust that order reigns in the universe, an order that holds for you too. And no one is lost. No one, ever, is lost.