The Open Hand

There are two distinct approaches to living life:
Open hand living
or
Clenched fist living

Our hands are an expression of our heart and mind, our inner self.
As an artist expresses the inner self . . .
As a warrior expresses the inner self . . .
As a villan expresses the inner self . . .
As a thief expresses the inner self . . .
. . . Through the hand,

So do we in our every action and re-action
To people and to life

“Think of the difference between being confronted with a clenched fist and being offered an open hand. The clenched fist signifies threat, rejection, arrogance, exclusion, refusal, anger and violence. The open hand means friendship, help, peace, sharing, communication and connection.” (fr. Vivian Boland)


Clenched fist living contrasted with open hand living

Clenched Fist	Open Hand
Threat	Invitation
Hidden	Revealed
Uptight	Relaxed
Defensive	Inquiring
Stagnation / Entropy	Open System
Barrier	Connection
Sees Limits	Sees Possibilities
Energy Bottled-Up	Energy Released
Closed Mind: knows all, opinionated, full of certainty	Open Mind: always learning, inquiring, anticipating
Closed Heart: guarded, controlled, fear	Open Heart: embraces change, diversity, people
Conquers / crushes risk and the unknown	Embraces the unknown and seeks new possibilities
Competition	Collaboration
It is all about ME	It is all about ALL

A Significant Paradigm Shift for me

As you can see by my use of the Open Hand throughout my blogging, this image, concept, and guiding principle has deeply changed me. It has changed me deeply in every aspect of me...

Open Hands is an expression of an open mind, an open heart, and an open will. How do I live my life? Grasping for what I want, long for, desire? Tightly gripping what I have or had? Groping for satisfaction, answers, and meaning out there somewhere? Griping when I don't get what I want?

Living with Open Hands means that we allow the good and the bad to come and go and appreciate it when there is a pause and a connection is made.

Living with Open Hands is realizing that we are exactly where we are meant to be, lacking nothing, living in a world of abundance.

Living with Open Hands is recognizing that nothing is permanent, everything is temporal, and that everything and every person is with us temporarily. Nothing is MINE. Everything belongs to all of us. Everything and everyone ends. None of us get out of this thing alive.

Living with Open Hands is to nurture things and others with a life-giving, unconditional touch of gentleness without expectation rather than grasp or grip things or others which suffocates and destroys them.

Living with Open Hands is realizing that whenever we hold on or cling to things or others, we are succumbing to a fiction, a false story that says that this is mine.

Living with Open Hands is seeing the mystery of life with wonder and awe; embracing uncertainty, seeing that certainty is a fiction, a story in the mind trying to convince that we can know things for sure.

Living with Open Hands is knowing that material possessions will never satisfy; but rather that life itself is our satisfaction and death is simply a part of the cycle of life.

Living with Open Hands is accepting that life is what it is, not what we want it to be.

Wanting, longing, and desire are simply other forms of grasping and groping our way through life. We must learn to just stand and walk on accepting all of life as it comes, while changing that which we are able.

"Something good happens, good! Something bad happens, good!" (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching)