Finger Traps

 Today is my birthday, and I am reflecting on what kinds of things I have learned in the past. There is an idea that I picked up from an old Philip K. Dick novel (it was probably Valis) and it is something to do with the Chinese finger trap: the more you struggle to resolve the dilemma, the more crushing and confining the trap is on one's finger. Some might attribute this to be a form of karma, but they might be missing the point of why the trap is designed in such a way that one emerges from it only by letting go of the idea of a problem to be resolved or fixed.
  A lot of people might even approach contemplative practices very similar to the "finger trap": they frame meditation as the potential solution to all their problems, and even approach meditative practice in the way that one consults an oracle at Delphi. In other words, we have a tendency to regard the value of meditation as lying in a kind of "solving of riddles". But in my own experience I have found, to the contrary, that the value of meditation lies in that little cubby space between the bookshelf and the wall, where a book or magazine accidentally becomes wedged. In dislodging the awareness from attachment to thoughts, we find ourselves simply in the middle of the mess, of the displacement, and yet we are able to authentically be and rejoice in those in between spaces. In that way, there is no longer any sense in resisting or struggling. Even the idea that this is "Making It" or a kind of accomplishment also needs to be let go of.
   To "solve" the finger trap is to stop seeing it as a trap in the first place.