This week, until 15 November, Kevin Mayhew Ltd are offering 10 per cent off The Teacher, normally retailing at £14.99. That means a saving of £1.50 using the code UNFOLDING10 when ordering the book from the company’s website. Just type the code into the relevant box at the online checkout between the dates given.
Meanwhile, here’s the second of the sessions I’ll be posting this week from the book, to run alongside this promotion.
Contentment
I watched the advertisements, promising bigger, better, faster, tastier – each urging us to want more, to be dissatisfied with our lot, insinuating that something is missing from our lives.
I saw the crowds bustling in the shopping centre, teeming in the supermarket, filling their baskets and trolleys in the mighty cathedrals of commerce.
I saw queues at the lottery counter and people hurrying into the betting shop.
I saw youngsters self-harming, addicts seeking their latest fix, friends popping tranquillisers and antidepressants.
And I marvelled that so many have so much yet feel they have so little; that most of us are full yet at the same time somehow empty.
So I asked the Teacher, ‘Teach me the secret of contentment.’
And the Teacher answered, ‘How happy are those with discernment, able to understand what really matters in life. Their rewards are worth more than silver, the finest gold or the most priceless of jewels – truly beyond comparison.’
‘But wouldn’t I be happier,’ I suggested, ‘if I had both discernment and riches? If I were wealthy then I would be truly content.’
Then the Teacher said, ‘It is better to honour God and have just a little than to possess great treasure yet be in turmoil. Better to be poor and upright than rich and corrupt. And better to feed peaceably with your loved ones on dry crusts than to feast in a home racked by contention.’
‘You tell me that riches are no guarantee of contentment,’ I responded; ‘that we need to rest as well as labour, and live at peace with family, friend, neighbour and self. What, then, should I seek above all?’
And the Teacher answered, ‘I ask for two things only before I die; two things that I hope will not be refused me. To be saved, first, from being a liar and a cheat. And second, to be neither rich nor poor, but simply to have sufficient for my daily needs.’
Then I understood that a full heart is worth more than a full wallet, and a generous spirit more than a generous income. And I saw that nothing is to be more highly prized than a mind at peace with itself and others; a life at one with the world and the one behind it all.
And I recognised that contentment lies not outside us but within, not in what we might have but in what we have already: in living rather than striving.
I saw too that our frantic pursuit of contentment so often leads to nothing, our searching causing us instead to lose our way, our grasping to loosen our hold, our fretting to add to our disquiet. For we seek for trinkets among treasure, treading blossom beneath our feet as we pass unaware through a world rich in beauty.
Yet for the one with eyes to see, life already overflows, and for those with discernment each day already sings for joy.
The lesson, then, is this: instead of brooding about what you haven’t got, give thanks for what you have, for when we have learnt to be content in all circumstances, then we will be content in any.