And That’s The Way It Is
When I was a kid, Walter Cronkite, dominated the TV evening news. For nearly two decades, Americans turned to this renowned CBS Evening News anchor for his earnest portrayal of the day’s events. While he came across as stern, he also seemed genuine, loyal, and trustworthy.
We ate dinner with Walter almost every night. The four of us gathered around a round table eating the simple Italian meals that my mom and dad grew up eating in the Apennine Mountains of Emilia Romagna, Italy. Walter joined us, a little fuzzy, on a small black and white TV screen in the corner cabinet of our kitchen/dining area.
Often, we ate in relative silence to give him our rapt attention. We counted on him to end the segment with his trademark, “And that’s the way it is.”
As a teen, I was not very interested in adults nor terribly trusting of them. However, I was immediately star struck when Walter came to visit the family my parents worked for, a family that owned and published the New York Times. I was sitting on the floor in their living room playing black jack with my best friend, the daughter of the publisher, and in he walked. Mr. Cronkite came over to us, introduced himself, and gave me a shy, sweet, kind smile. We exchanged pleasantries, which included something witty that made us laugh. Then, he went off in private to talk politics with my friend’s dad.
I’ve never forgotten that moment or that smile. How could one who reported with authority and firmness on national and global tragedies, such as JFK’s and MLK’s assassinations and the Vietnam War, be so tender, and even a little awkward in the presence of teenagers.
As I’m getting ready to launch my book To Be Like Water—Cultivating a Graceful and Fulfilling Life Through the Virtues of Water and Dao Yin Therapeutic Exercises in September, I’ve been thinking a lot about Walter, seeing him as a kind of everyday guru, which I would not have recognized then. His daily reminder, “And that’s the way it is,” is a foundational tenet of Daoism.
The Dao, in the simplest of terms, is a path or code of behavior that is in harmony with the natural order of the Universe. Daoism offers that everything, no matter what, is just as it ought to be, right here, right now. There’s nothing to change. Nothing good nor bad. No mistakes. The Dao invites us to be present to whatever is here, now.
One of the constants in my book is ‘the body scan’ which asks readers to simply pay attention to how their body feels before and after the movements. Many of the dao yin movements involve some kind of physical restriction, be that holding an in-breath as we move, or restricting our movement somewhere in the body. These constraints reveal our unconscious and automatic response to them, usually a sense of discomfort. Once we let go and relax the restraints, and then do a body scan, we notice there’s more ease. As a colleague of mine says, “Patterns of tension lead to patterns of release.”
Whether while holding the breath in during dao yin or simply moving through life in general, we often feel stuck and suffer when we struggle against what is. Additionally, as you may have experienced, there’s a certain freedom in accepting what is.
This concept is easily relatable when explained in the context of another Daoist tenet, being like water. Water literally goes with the flow, no matter the circumstances. Water flows into available spaces in its path—perhaps it seeps in slowly, like water percolating through dry soil, or rushes in with force as in a flash flood. It has no judgement about where it goes. And then it moves on or transforms into another state of being—solid, liquid, or vapor— again, depending on the circumstances. It doesn’t hang on to what was, or contend with obstacles. It meets what’s here, interacts and moves on. That’s the way water is.
Accepting 'what is does not mean giving up or conceding. On the contrary, once we accept what is, we can explore and experiment with options. We get to decide how to move forward. That’s the way of acceptance.
Summer calls me to spend time in or near the water. This year, I’ve been playing with my experience of the water as I swim in our local river. If I stand above it and look down, it feels as if the water and the river banks are separate from me. When I immerse myself in it, feel it all around me, its buoyancy and fluidity, and look at the water and the surroundings from its level, I get an entirely different perspective. It’s as if I am part of the water, its movement and environment. This is a much more delicious experience than when I sense myself apart from the water. This reminds me, instead of looking at events as something separate from or outside of myself, I can shift perspective, connecting myself with the world around me. This changes my entire attitude and response.
When I experience something tragic or dreadful, my first reaction may be one of horror and resistance. “No, No, NO!!” Anxiety, anger, fear, worry, criticism, or grief pop up almost instantaneously. If I can stay with the experience, however, and remember this is just what is happening now, that everything changes in time, it’s easier to settle myself. My mind begins clearing and I can relate to that stress with a greater sense of ease and resourcefulness. This also helps me have more compassion for myself in the context of my experience, as well as for the situation itself.
Maybe that’s how Walter was able to be such a positive presence in the face of some of the most tragic events in our American history. He lived what he said, night after night, year after year, “And that’s the way it is.”
