Not Needed, Yet Of Inexplicable Value

Buried within the lines of Mary Oliver’s The Buddha’s Last Instruction, there three lines I hung on to:

“clearly I’m not needed

yet I feel myself turning

into something of inexplicable value.”

It occurs to me that one begets the other, that we first need to understand we are “not needed” (humility) before we can attain “inexplicable value.”  No new thought here, this recurring theme in all great philosophies and religions — to win you have to lose, to attain you have to give up, to reap you have to sow, to hold on to you have to let go.  You’d think I’d/we’d understand this a bit better by now.