Using Circumstances
Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 6:06AM Yesterday, I discussed the current array of challenges that I've been facing. I've been holding it in the context of two questions that are essentially the same. The first is was asked my my teacher. He once asked me, "With no mind and no body, how would you sweep the floor?" The second is from what I mentioned yesterday about the person up a tree.
"Imagine climbing up a tree at the edge of a thousand-foot-high cliff. We grab hold of a branch with our mouth, since we cannot get a hold with our feet and are unable to pull ourselves up with our hands. Just at that moment, a man at the bottom of the tree asking, ‘Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?’ At such a time, were we to open our mouth to answer the man, we would lose our grip and forfeit our life. Were we not to answer, we would make a mistake by failing our responsibility to help all beings. Speak up! What, for goodness sake, should we do at such a time?"
We are always in the heart of a difficult circumstance. We are suspended between past and future, Itself. We may not always feel it... smell it... taste it... notice it... but we really are always there. I'm not stuck in a fog bank on that one. No illusions.
The recent tsunami of being caught between various responsibilities and then being forced to make rapid choices and decisions to fit the immediacy of circumstances has been a walk of unifying my heart. For me, what is important if not more so it the motivation that fills me. It's having the intention to help others and to do so as selflessly as possible. To do it with a heart-mind that is not theorizing about being caring and open, but actually engaged in the process within that moment.
Zen Buddhism is not designed to help us escape our life challenges and problems. If you think or feel that that's the purpose, your going to be very disappointed. Zen which is the experience of unifying our heart-mind is something all together different. For some near 19 years, it has been the process of learning to meet my life circumstances well. Even before my teacher asked me, "With no mind and no body, how will you sweep the floor," life Itself had been asking me the very same question since the day that I was born. Life is constantly asking us to choose... decide... make the choice...
We can use our day-to-day challenges... circumstances... to edge ourselves forward and express the person that we really intend to be.... or not. We can use this moment to as Eido Shimano Roshi used to say, "Improve upon the silence..." or not. We can use this moment of being to express caring... or withhold it. We can use this instance to be the solution... or we can be the problem. We are choosing, deciding, picking and making choices, like it or not.
How are we using circumstances day-to-day? Are we confident that we are capable of meeting them well? I could say that you are, but it means nothing, if you don't believe it yourself.
Love All - Serve All - Every Single Day,
Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO
Reader Comments (3)
Jaye,
Perceptive, thoughtful post. Thank You.
I like both questions and the encouragement to choose consciously from the heart, as we navigate each individual moment's opportunity to love and serve in the life we live every day.
Gassho and Bow for your thoughtfulness and connecting words.
Warm Smiles,
~Seiho
Yep, it's all grist for the practice mill, isn't it?
deep bow,
marguerite