Chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu says:

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together.

Difficult and easy complement each other.

Long and short contrast each other;

High and low rest upon each other;

Voice and sound harmonize each other;

Front and back follow one another.

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.

The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,

Creating, yet not possessing,

Working, yet not taking credit.

Work is done, then forgotten.

Therefore it lasts forever.

In 2009, Jeffrey Yuen discussed that non action does not mean sitting on our couch and doing nothing.  Nor does it mean we do not take responsibility for our actions.  Rather, we grow non attached to what we do or do not do.  We recognize the world is perfect as is, and that everything that needs doing will get done.

Sometimes the beginning of anything can be daunting or overwhelming.  How to take that first step?

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

Other times, being in the middle of something you can feel so lost. Surrounded or inundated and not sure how you got there...

"The middle path is the way to wisdom." -Mevlana Rumi

Sometimes, though hindsight can be 20/20, you can't figure out how to get back to where you were, or how to move past what has already passed on by...

"I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn." -Robert Frost

The answer is always the same.  Be present.  As my teacher Jeffrey Yuen has said, "there is no end to suffering, but perhaps we can find an in to suffering." Once we soften and step inside it, a whole new world is waiting...As Gary Zukav writes, you can always choose in every moment between trust and love or fear and doubt.  What will you choose?

Pocket Full of Sunshine Link

And other times, there may not be any answer.  It is ok not to know.

Unwritten Link

xoL

In The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book Two, sutra 40, Sri Satchidananda says, ” If we take only the surface meaning we might be misled.  For example, take the offering of fruits at the altar.  Who wants those fruits?  Do you think God is going to eat them?  It means offering the fruits of our actions to God.  We are trees growing in nature; and all our energy, our actions, our thoughts, our words are the fruits of our lives which we must offer for the benefit of humanity. . .this is where the term “forbidden fruit” in the Bible comes from.”