Good Morning Everyone,
Zen teaches us how to relinquish our desires: we observe them for the wind in the flags they are. But then, what do we do with the flags themselves?
In a discussion on the Zen Living list I moderate, list member Enryu rightly points out, when the pot is empty, its difficult, if not impossible to let that emptiness go.
List member, Hsin says, when he is hungry, he eats. Yes, poetic reflection of an age-old Zen poem.
Yet, when hungry and there is no food? When cold or threatened and there is no house?
Zen vows, both the Three Pure Precepts, and the Four Great Vows, offer us a way of understanding this relationship.
We are to stop doing bad, do good, and bring about good for all, says the three pure precepts. We sit in paradox and contradiction when we accept the four great vows. In the first of these, for example, we are to free all beings, knowing we cannot free anyone, even ourselves.
States of mind versus states of being. When we think of something we should always keep in mind, the thought is NOT the thing. Acceptance does not mean remaining hungry or homeless or passive victims of a state sponsored war. Acceptance means being with our desire for food without having it lead us around by the nose. Sitting with it will help this, but it will not put food in our belly nor in our pot. Only getting up from our cushion and earning our food will do this.
If we want peace, we must earn peace: we earn peace by being peace. We should be peace --- even in the middle of strife. By being peace, we model peace; by modeling peace, we bring at least our peace into the world.
Paradox is purely mental. Its a phenomenon of mental constructs. Can light be both a particle and a wave at the same time? Can something be in two places at the same time? Yes, according to modern physics; no, according to this mind we use, hard wired as it is to reside in duality.
Zen practice busts us out of quietism when we see practice as life itself.
Happy bubble bursting.
Be well
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