Transformation

With palms together,

Good Morning All,

It is late in the morning for me at 5:57 as I sit down to write to you.  The air here in the desert is cool and the sun has yet to peak up over the mountains to the east. My usually slow Wednesday is sandwiched by two appointments.  The first, at 8:00 AM, is with my personal physician.  The second, at 7:00 PM, is with the director of the perpetrator’s program at our local domestic violence shelter. In the former, a check-up; in the latter, a planning meeting to see where I might fit into their curriculum.  

Our small study group met last night and we discussed “rites of passage” in terms of transformation in relation to our practice,  It is interesting to me how we distract ourselves from our inevitable death.  So, when confronted with it’s imminence, we are both surprised and frightened.  More, we are unprepared.  As a result everyone in our sphere of influence suffers. Yet, my sense is that such suffering is part and parcel of our human nature.  The resultant struggle makes possible a transformation.  What we become is impossible to say, but if we stay in the moment by moment expression of our lives, as they are,  we will be just fine.  

Now, by “just fine” I do not mean everything will be ‘lightness and light,’ no, I mean the sort of just fine that comes with serene reflection meditation within each breath.  Its a sort of deep acceptance, I suppose, that soothe our fears and normalizes the surprise. 

As we sit we realize the impermanent  nature of all things.  We witness the coming and going of our thoughts, feeling, and breath.  We also see the deep interconnected nature of the universe and realize in this witness that we do not exist as individuals, but are instead,  expressions of the Buddha Nature in each moment.   

Yet, these are just words.  Forget them.  Heed the words of our Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng:

Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky.  Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger.  The finger can point to the moon’s location.  However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger.

Be well.

Daiho