Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I would like to wish you each a generous year. Generosity, our willingness to share is the cornerstone of our practice. Generosity is openness. A willingness to live in the world without fear and with great compassion. May we all practice this through the coming year and as a result, have a less fearful, more magnanimous and caring world.
When I first approached this practice two themes ran around my head. First, I wanted to show my Teacher just how advanced I was. Second, I feared dropping away me self protecting devices: anger, self-centeredness, and the need to be recognized as really smart. I worried that if I dropped these devices along the way, I would be vulnerable and constantly attacked. Of course we equate vulnerability to attack in our world. We are taught nearly from birth that this is the true way of the world.
It isn't so.
The true way of the world is mutual aid to create mutual benefit. We are a complex world, deeply layered, vastly interconnected and totally interdependent. I hurt you, I hurt myself. You hurt me, you hurt yourself. This is the true meaning underlying the Golden Rule.
When we open ourselves and reveal our generosity, some might take advantage. OK. So? They are showing their need, their fear, their dark side. We, on the other hand know that nothing we "possess" is ours to begin with. So there is nothing to really "protect". Our wedding to things must end in divorce or death, always, with no exception.
In giving we demonstrate a way to be in the world that is healthy and courageous.
So, in this year, we vow to free all beings; we vow to extinguish all delusion; we vow to master all Dharma; and we vow to follow the Buddha's Way completely.
May we do these together as one.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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