Yes or No?

By Jayden Kyryluk

Yes or no. Yes or no. Our lives are ruled by these three and two letters words. Oh how incredible they are! Our choices and decisions lie on the path between yes or no. A thought comes! Yes, or no? Shall I act on this thought or not? A decision must be made! We are creatures of action living in a world of effervescent movement. Yes or no! A decision must be made! Sitting in the train station with so many other creatures all thinking the same thing - “yes or no?” Is this my train? Yes or no? Will I make it? Yes or no? We’re all trapped on the path between yes or no. The path is a moment that always leads to another like a train leaving one station for the next. A infinitely repeating moment unique to each of us. 

Yes or no? A decision must be made! “Always be moving forward” our peers tell us. “Where you are now is not good enough” they tell us. “Always put one step in front of the other” we are told. The present must yield to the future! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no! Make a decision! That's how you move forward! In that train station there are thousands of unique little creatures, each of them the centre of the universe. A universe of their own making on that quaint little path between yes or no. An ever changing universe where each yes or no clings to the next set of yes’s or no’s. Without failure! But must yes and no cling to one another by a path? By a straight line? Must the train be restricted to left or right? “One or the other” we’re always told. Is there nothing in between? We ask ourselves “who am I?” We say “I’m either that or not that.” I’m “this or that!” But how could you be one but not the other? By saying yes aren’t you saying no to its opposite? If I say yes to life, I’m saying no to death. Each yes or no is contained within the other. 

In the union of opposites, the union of yes or no, each event of yes or no is conditional upon the preceding event of yes or no. Remember Newton’s Third Law of Motion? Every action has a reaction. Nothing can exist unconditionally. No matter if we choose yes or no, it will always lead to another yes or no. If I choose life, I also choose death. Ah so, the cycle repeats. Thus are we not the whole union of both yes and no? What in fact we are, if only our rational minds would allow us to think it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total recognition of the blessed reality of non-duality. Somewhere within that sheer silence between yes and no lies the place where I, no longer me, is We, no longer you. It is that place where we must no longer “make a decision!” It is a floating river inescapably flowing with the bliss of a flower blooming after the first rain of spring. A river flowing so gently that you, sinking in that river, flow in it and through it with the conscious awareness that yes and no are two sides of one whole. They are the river itself; with each yes you say no, with life comes death, and so the wheel turns.  

Originally written on April 24, 2023 in Pokhara, Nepal