With palms together,
Good Morning All,
As a student, the second patriarch asks Bodhidharma to pacify his mind. An odd sort of question to ask of a teacher, don't you think? Well, maybe not. Today Zen Teachers and Therapists are both asked the same question, framed differently: how can I be happy? or I need something, I mean I really need something and it's out of my reach. help me reach it!
Old Bodhidharma asked this student to search for his mind and bring it to him, he would then pacify it.
So off the student goes, searching for this mind to be pacified.
The search is a turbulent one. Where is this mind that is sooo demanding? Today, students and clients do the same. Good teachers and good therapists ask their supplicants to search out that which is driving them crazy. And of course, they come back with the same line our second patriarch did, "I cannot find it."
There, says Bodhidharma, I have pacified it.
To understand this story we must see the source of distress. Distress is not "out there" somewhere to be found. Distress is a personal thing originating in the very mechanics of our bodies. We seek what we imagine and like the ends of rainbows, imaginings are ever illusive. The moment we see the fundamental truth of this is the moment we are free of it.
A good teacher, like a good therapist, gives the student what the student needs, but not necessarily as the student first perceives it.
Be well.
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