Putting Out A Fire

As I've mentioned at various times over the past few months, I've been facing some fairly stiff challenges in my life. About 90% of it has been squarely out of my control. I am powerless over people, places and things. Not an appetizing perspective, but an honest view.

The new result is that, while I can make my best effort in response, I sometimes feel like I've had a 600 mile forest fire to put out and only a glass of water to use. The question is, when things seem to be so far out of one's hand, what do you do then?

I remember hearing Robert Thurman tell a particular story on several occasions. In the story, it's about a vast forest fire. As the fire rages, a bird who has lived in the forest all its life, see its friends running and fleeing, hoping to get out. But the bird from it's vantage point in the sky see's that they are trapped, if left on their own. Feeling a deep and boundless compassion the bird wishes it could do something to save its friends. The bird glances down and notices the lake. Without a thought, it dives down into the water, taking it into its wings and shakes it over the path of its friends. With relentless determination it does this again and again and again. Eventually the bird exhausts itself and perishes, but because of this Bodhisattva act, his friends go free.

On the surface it would seem that the story ends there but it doesn't. Because the bird made such a compassionate effort, in it's next life it was reborn as a human being. The reason for this is that the human body is considered the most advantageous form in recognizing final enlightenment.

When I was at Spring Sesshin back in March. Genko Kathy Blackman Ni-Oshō repeatedly said, "Exhaust yourself completely. Don't hold anything back." She said that time and again. Hearing her expression I knew that she really meant it, in every sense of the word. She has that Way.

Though I have my own fires that on certain fronts seem so difficult and hard to put out, I will exhaust myself. I will never give up, never give up, never give it. And my reason is not that I feel like I could be a Bodhisattva, but rather as Eido Tai Shimanao Roshi would say, "There is nothing else you can do, but give fully to the moment and challenge. This is also the Bushido Mind."

So there is difficulty, uncertainty, doubts and anxiety. But there is also an opening in everything. An opening that allows for a kind of, "This challenge and problem can and will be resolved, there are no hopeless situations, there is no-one who is beyond redemption." But to get there, we must be able to go beyond the understands and views which we normally see and the only way to do that is to exhaust ourselves and put the fire out.

In Gassho,

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
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