One thing, all things,
move among and intermingle without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.
Now we reach the end of my commentary on the Hsin Hsin Ming. I hope you - those few who read my blog - have enjoyed the commentary and have found it helpful in your practice and understanding.
This simple truth, this realization of non-duality, is the heart of Zen. All that hard work comes down to something so simple. It is not magic, It doesn't imbue one with any special powers. But, it is a life changer. Even to have the smallest inkling of this truth and to begin Zen practice has changed our life. To fully experience the non-dual and live in this understanding is liberation from anxiety and confusion. Not that this makes us live up to any ideal of perfection, only that we no longer worry about perfection. There is neither perfection nor non-perfection because in this seamless Universe everything is just what it is and could not be anything else and yet was and will be something else.
I know, I know. Us practitioners from the Soto School are saying that practice is the heart of Zen. Well, I am not going to quibble, practice is also the heart of Zen. There is much more practice then deep realization and then even after you have had a realization you realize that both practice and realization work together. But then true practice is to practice the truth of non-duality. Real practice is to forget the individual self whether on the cushion or out in daily life.
Oh, some of you are thinking the Bodhisattva spirit is the heart of Zen, well of course it is. Again I am not going to argue because the Bodhisattva spirit is a manifestation of the non-dual. It arises in each of us when we forget our selves. It is just the other side of our realization. It is actually what we practice both on the cushion and off the cushion. But I think you should be careful about any ideas you have about what it is to be a Bodhisattva until you have realized non-duality. It may not be what you think.
Thinking about the Bodhisattva brings me to the idea of faith.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
I gave a talk about faith recently and I found a lot of resistance. How can we have faith when we see so much wrong in the world? We should not have faith is something so irrational. This way of seeing the world comes from a narrow dualiistic, selfish, perspective on the world. We see such a small slice of things. We are filled with self centered desires. And we see so much suffering. But, think, how all this has comes into being from the chaos of original creation. Think how we have all been give this gift of conscious life and the joy of this life. It has arisen out of seeming chaos, lots of suffering but also lots of joy. It is a gift. But whose gift is it, and who was it given to? Think of this gift from the perspective of the Non-Dual. It is the Non-Dual's gift to itself. It is all quite amazing, miraculous.
The other day a friend who is a poet conveyed to me his resistance to the current scientific idea that the Universe started with a Big Bang. He does not like the idea of a beginning. He also does not like the idea of an impersonal Universe ruled by impersonal laws of cause and effect. I don't have any problem with the current scientific point of view. I studied physics in college. But still it is miraculous that from an impersonal Universe self conscious beings have arisen. And then going a step further these beings even have the potential to experience Universal Self consciousness (enlightenment), identifying with the Universal Self the Non-Dual. But from the perspective of this Universal Self awareness all of THIS is not exactly a miracle, there is no outside agent like a god causing the miracle. There is just THIS but it is in the nature/structure of THIS that the gift of self conscious life is evolving. From this perspective it is possible to perceive the benevolence of the Non-Dual. It is possible to perceive the functioning of the Non-Dual as the activity of the Universal Bodhisattva moving us towards complete Self aware liberation. And then we understand that we as individuals partake of the Universal Bodhisattva's activities as individual Bodhisattvas working for the liberation of others and the betterment of society.
Whether of not we perceive the Non-Dual nature of THIS, whether of not we function with selfish intentions, we and our functioning are still within the Non-Dual. But if we perceive non-duality then everything changes. It changes because we now understand that our individual self is a sort of illusion. It changes because we see that our true self is the Universal Self. It changes because understanding this we are no longer bound by our individual desires and we are no longer bound by fear of death. It changes because now we can free our natural compassion to function as the benevolence of the Universal Bodhisattva
move among and intermingle without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.
Now we reach the end of my commentary on the Hsin Hsin Ming. I hope you - those few who read my blog - have enjoyed the commentary and have found it helpful in your practice and understanding.
This simple truth, this realization of non-duality, is the heart of Zen. All that hard work comes down to something so simple. It is not magic, It doesn't imbue one with any special powers. But, it is a life changer. Even to have the smallest inkling of this truth and to begin Zen practice has changed our life. To fully experience the non-dual and live in this understanding is liberation from anxiety and confusion. Not that this makes us live up to any ideal of perfection, only that we no longer worry about perfection. There is neither perfection nor non-perfection because in this seamless Universe everything is just what it is and could not be anything else and yet was and will be something else.
I know, I know. Us practitioners from the Soto School are saying that practice is the heart of Zen. Well, I am not going to quibble, practice is also the heart of Zen. There is much more practice then deep realization and then even after you have had a realization you realize that both practice and realization work together. But then true practice is to practice the truth of non-duality. Real practice is to forget the individual self whether on the cushion or out in daily life.
Oh, some of you are thinking the Bodhisattva spirit is the heart of Zen, well of course it is. Again I am not going to argue because the Bodhisattva spirit is a manifestation of the non-dual. It arises in each of us when we forget our selves. It is just the other side of our realization. It is actually what we practice both on the cushion and off the cushion. But I think you should be careful about any ideas you have about what it is to be a Bodhisattva until you have realized non-duality. It may not be what you think.
Thinking about the Bodhisattva brings me to the idea of faith.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
I gave a talk about faith recently and I found a lot of resistance. How can we have faith when we see so much wrong in the world? We should not have faith is something so irrational. This way of seeing the world comes from a narrow dualiistic, selfish, perspective on the world. We see such a small slice of things. We are filled with self centered desires. And we see so much suffering. But, think, how all this has comes into being from the chaos of original creation. Think how we have all been give this gift of conscious life and the joy of this life. It has arisen out of seeming chaos, lots of suffering but also lots of joy. It is a gift. But whose gift is it, and who was it given to? Think of this gift from the perspective of the Non-Dual. It is the Non-Dual's gift to itself. It is all quite amazing, miraculous.
The other day a friend who is a poet conveyed to me his resistance to the current scientific idea that the Universe started with a Big Bang. He does not like the idea of a beginning. He also does not like the idea of an impersonal Universe ruled by impersonal laws of cause and effect. I don't have any problem with the current scientific point of view. I studied physics in college. But still it is miraculous that from an impersonal Universe self conscious beings have arisen. And then going a step further these beings even have the potential to experience Universal Self consciousness (enlightenment), identifying with the Universal Self the Non-Dual. But from the perspective of this Universal Self awareness all of THIS is not exactly a miracle, there is no outside agent like a god causing the miracle. There is just THIS but it is in the nature/structure of THIS that the gift of self conscious life is evolving. From this perspective it is possible to perceive the benevolence of the Non-Dual. It is possible to perceive the functioning of the Non-Dual as the activity of the Universal Bodhisattva moving us towards complete Self aware liberation. And then we understand that we as individuals partake of the Universal Bodhisattva's activities as individual Bodhisattvas working for the liberation of others and the betterment of society.
Whether of not we perceive the Non-Dual nature of THIS, whether of not we function with selfish intentions, we and our functioning are still within the Non-Dual. But if we perceive non-duality then everything changes. It changes because we now understand that our individual self is a sort of illusion. It changes because we see that our true self is the Universal Self. It changes because understanding this we are no longer bound by our individual desires and we are no longer bound by fear of death. It changes because now we can free our natural compassion to function as the benevolence of the Universal Bodhisattva
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