A Bag of Shells
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Early morning isn't the same if we are up too late in the evening. Far from being fresh and enticing, it is alien and challenging: I want to go back to sleep. Yet, here I am at this gateway to you.
There is a chant that serves as our after meal prayer. It goes like this:
In this world of emptiness
May we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus
Nothing surpasses the boundless mind
Thus we bow to Buddha.
I have always loved this little poetic reflection. A world of emptiness means a world of change and constant transformation. In such a world, how does one live?
As a trauma survivor, I have asked a similar question: if the world is a dangerous, unpredictable, and inherently unfair place, then how do I live?
Some of us live as dangerous people. Some live asleep, in denial, with the use of chemicals. Some of us assume an unfair world is OK and we even take on that assumption as our mantra. I don't know: the varieties of life in such a world are infinite.
Our Buddhist chant offers a hint, however,
A lotus resides upright, in elegance and with grace. A lotus rises. A lotus has its feet in the mud, its trunk in the turbulence of the water, but its bloom opens in the sun. Darkness, light, and movement are understood to be its ground.
When we live in a Universal Mind, we may be said to embrace all things, but this is not quite accurate. It is more like we recognize all things are us. If I enter the Universe, I am the Universe, and the "I" that perceives such a thing must cease to exist in independent relation to the Universe. In such an existence there is no inside, no outside, no up or down, no right or wrong...yet there are.
Martin Buber, the great 20th century Jewish philosopher, used word pairs to express this: I-Thou and I-It. I-Thou is Big Mind, I-It is Little Mind. In Zen, we see that these are actually not two, but one and they exist simultaneously. We see I, Thou, and It as one in the same, at the same time, always. This is boundless mind. This is Buddha Mind.
In such a world everything is sacred, everything is profane. As such, concepts are seen as they actually are: inventions of a human brain with no existence independent of that brain.
Good and bad, are manifestations of a discriminating mind. Two sides of life's coin, they have existence, but this existence is dependent and conditional, not independent and absolute. Does such a world mean that everything and anything is OK? While it may seem so, in truth, the answer is, of course not. We live in a relative world in a relative body with a relative mind and we use this mind to live. We cannot live without choice.
Yet, at the very same time, it is always important to keep in mind, this choice exists within a boundless universe. If we are lotus plants, we live upright. And if the water in the pond is flowing, we don't resist the flow, we yield to it. But we are more than lotus. While we yield, we also work toward stabilizing the stream, Its not a question of being passive, but rather a question of attitude toward life as it presents itself.
There are clearly occasions when we each are in desperate need of an attitude adjustment. For this, see your cushion.
As an old friend used to tell me, life is a bag of shells.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Early morning isn't the same if we are up too late in the evening. Far from being fresh and enticing, it is alien and challenging: I want to go back to sleep. Yet, here I am at this gateway to you.
There is a chant that serves as our after meal prayer. It goes like this:
In this world of emptiness
May we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus
Nothing surpasses the boundless mind
Thus we bow to Buddha.
I have always loved this little poetic reflection. A world of emptiness means a world of change and constant transformation. In such a world, how does one live?
As a trauma survivor, I have asked a similar question: if the world is a dangerous, unpredictable, and inherently unfair place, then how do I live?
Some of us live as dangerous people. Some live asleep, in denial, with the use of chemicals. Some of us assume an unfair world is OK and we even take on that assumption as our mantra. I don't know: the varieties of life in such a world are infinite.
Our Buddhist chant offers a hint, however,
A lotus resides upright, in elegance and with grace. A lotus rises. A lotus has its feet in the mud, its trunk in the turbulence of the water, but its bloom opens in the sun. Darkness, light, and movement are understood to be its ground.
When we live in a Universal Mind, we may be said to embrace all things, but this is not quite accurate. It is more like we recognize all things are us. If I enter the Universe, I am the Universe, and the "I" that perceives such a thing must cease to exist in independent relation to the Universe. In such an existence there is no inside, no outside, no up or down, no right or wrong...yet there are.
Martin Buber, the great 20th century Jewish philosopher, used word pairs to express this: I-Thou and I-It. I-Thou is Big Mind, I-It is Little Mind. In Zen, we see that these are actually not two, but one and they exist simultaneously. We see I, Thou, and It as one in the same, at the same time, always. This is boundless mind. This is Buddha Mind.
In such a world everything is sacred, everything is profane. As such, concepts are seen as they actually are: inventions of a human brain with no existence independent of that brain.
Good and bad, are manifestations of a discriminating mind. Two sides of life's coin, they have existence, but this existence is dependent and conditional, not independent and absolute. Does such a world mean that everything and anything is OK? While it may seem so, in truth, the answer is, of course not. We live in a relative world in a relative body with a relative mind and we use this mind to live. We cannot live without choice.
Yet, at the very same time, it is always important to keep in mind, this choice exists within a boundless universe. If we are lotus plants, we live upright. And if the water in the pond is flowing, we don't resist the flow, we yield to it. But we are more than lotus. While we yield, we also work toward stabilizing the stream, Its not a question of being passive, but rather a question of attitude toward life as it presents itself.
There are clearly occasions when we each are in desperate need of an attitude adjustment. For this, see your cushion.
As an old friend used to tell me, life is a bag of shells.
Be well.