On November 19, 2016 Ming Zhen Shakya died.
This is in remembrance of her generous and fearless teachings.
Thank you. Thank you, for everything you offered.
OM NAMO GURU DEV NAMO

Beyond the Mundane Comes

She sits and offers her hands as gestures of the direction to go. Could any of us be any luckier than to receive  even one gesture that comes from beyond the electronic magic of gigabytes and satellites.

Every day we keep losing our connection to the dirt in thinking and thinking and thinking. Our heads are too full of thinking, so full we cannot remember what stillness is or the comfort of silence or the smell of the dirt. Our minds are packed with passwords, apps, and screenshots.

Numbers reign. Codes and robots abound. When we reach a human voice, hear the old words, “How may I help you?” we rejoice. There is the tension of wading through repetitive music and dead, stifling words of “The wait time is 47 minutes.” The setup is to give us an option to receive a callback or promises to callback. The situation is either we hang on the line, wait for a call back or worst of all, the repetitive tiresome dictum to go online and figure out how to maneuver through the maze of screens for a solution. The instructions are worse than the solution. Rest assured, going online should be the last option anyone should attempt. Most of us start online and never find the answers we need in the tangle of screens.

Sadly, when we have done the unpaid work for the organization for an hour and sometimes 5 hours on the phone waiting for a voice, we get a person who is not well-trained or has such a thick accent that the words are unrecognizable.

I wonder what the motivation is of the makers of such snarls. What we need is simple, clear and to the point. We need human contact!

Is it intentional. Is this a perverse way to offer customer service? Will we be worn down to try yet again the absurd structure of the screens. Is this approach to service a way to generate more revenue for the sellers?

Whatever happened to instructions? Simple, step-by-step instructions?

Gone! There are few instructions and much of what passes for instructions does not really help solve whatever problem we might be having.

Those of us who use electronic gear of any sort end up at one time or another becoming a temporary employee for the manufacturer and seller. It is not just boxes, phones, and internet routers but medical assistance, banks, libraries and most service and transportation organizations.

Have we lost our mind, yet?

Is it harder and harder to remember what it is to put pen to paper in our own hand? Are we forgetting how to read? Do we even know how to be civil and courteous? Or are we already living in a digital imaginary world of looking at others, animals, and nature. Have we forgotten the images are not real? Believing what you see is suspect since all of it can be digitally manipulated.

With the recent pandemic the digital world increased in political hype along with politically motivated censorship. Without old-fashioned newspapers and old-fashioned news casters, we suffer from opinionitis. Pundits abound. Pundits spin the stories this way and that way. What is true, what is exaggerated?

Am I showing my age? You betcha? With age, if we practice, wisdom comes. But even this truth is subject to those who want to euthanize the old. Let me say that again – there are those with power who want to euthanize the old. In this very town they are doing programs to explain the benefits of aging – why would we need that training? It certainly suggests we do not value the wisdom of a long life and need to learn how to value aging. But this situation is very odd indeed. Right along with devaluing aging, advertisements bombard us with how-to stay alive for as long as possible.

All is suffering. All of it. Dukkha. The misery of the world never disappears, it merely changes. The change can be an awakening. But it always remains suffering. For those attached to the things of the world, the digital expression of a global community looks fascinating. Fascination on the one hand and the status quo on the other; both are suffering. All of it Dukkha. Yes, there are moments of peace and moments of fear. the past, the future and this moment is dukkha.

This human experience is not paradise. It is not nirvana. The transcendent is beyond the human experience. It is beyond the screens, the pundits, the exhaustion of using digital communication and even beyond ideas. There is a that beyond which we no longer are divided by right and wrong. It is not a physical place; it is beyond this ever-changing physical world of things.

It is freedom to separate ourselves from the bondage of things. All that the world offers are suffering and bondage. It may appear to be otherwise, but that is part of the illusion. We know this truth on some level, but we humans are willing to subject ourselves to the restless, confusion of wanting, having, knowing, and keeping things. We go as far as to identify ourselves as a thing! We take pride in claiming what we have accomplished, what we know, get, and keep. We squirrel away our stuff for? For what? To show our prowess, to pat ourselves on the back, to puff up, quarrel over a countless number of miseries.

And now in the 21^st century, we are tempted by the things on a global level! We are exhausted by our need for temporary jobs with a host of companies. We attempt to repair a glitch of something or another, needing various bits of information for a product or service we have and feel we need. We now have more to look after: computers, phones, routers, passwords, and the barrage of advertisements. Our privacy certainly is a part of history.

Despite our fatigue, despite the temptations of wanting, getting, and having, and despite our identification with the things, there is a Way to freedom. Yes, even in a worldwide, digital madness. Chan Master Hongzhi puts it succinctly.

Separate yourself from disturbance and face whatever appears before you.

Followed by devotion of: Mother! Yes, you got it right. Mother! Not the human mother but Mother of Everything and Beyond.

Many names are used for Mother, but we will focus only on one used in Buddhism and Hinduism and that name is Maya. Maya was the name of Buddha’s mother and is known to be the Mother of the Universe in Hinduism. She is no ordinary mother. She is “illusion and reality all at once.” She is the One that holds the world as an illusion until we are ready to turn away from our misapprehension of the world as being paradise. It is not paradise. It is an illusion, an artifice and shall we say, “a sleight of hand.” It is an apparent reality. And we get deceived by it repeatedly. LOL, I hope you can laugh for it is a relief to know firsthand that this world is a passing show. When we can see Mother’s handiwork, we are able to experience the liberation and realization of what and who we are.

Everything proceeds from the One.

All the misery of this global digital illusion is just that – an illusion. Don’t fret. Don’t sweat. Don’t get entangled in it as if it is the end-all and be-all of existence. Don’t get fascinated and attached to a thing.

Don’t take life so seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive, anyhow.

Turn to Mother! Recognize the power of Mother! Humbly request Mother’s signs and gestures beyond the satellites and screens. Hand gestures and stances that speak louder than the signals of on and off, off and on. Gestures that cut off our incessant desires, likes, dislikes and disagreeableness. Seek fearless generosity. Forget the selfish attachments of me, my and mine.

When we forget our attachments, the underlying mental formation that stokes up the fires of not getting what we want, we experience freedom. When we go at life such as going at the digital world, we often go at it with a sense of deserving or a sense of entitlement. We believe we have the right to get whatever it is we want. The attachment brings suffering.

When we can recognize attachment, we benefit from the gestures of Holy Mother who raises a sword to cut away all this selfishness held in the head. And when the sword strikes, it leaves us with the gesture of fearless generosity. In other words, we will be OK despite the difficulties and miseries of the digital age.

We, like every other generation, can learn to cut away the attachments to be fearlessly generous. It requires a recognition that there is nothing in it for me, my or mine. These gestures sum up the teaching “ALL ACCEPTANCE. This includes everything in every moment.

Author: Fashi Lao Yue

A Single Thread is not a blog.

 If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,

please contact editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

A Tale for the Disenchanted

Getting Out of Entanglement

Here is the ticket to get out of entanglements:

be ready to participate fully devoted to what comes next with reverence.

Let us call this holding Dharma.

Holding Dharma

When we can hold Dharma no matter what arises we will not fall apart. Now, I realize that the sentence is not enough explanation. You see, and of course I hope you do see, that there is work involved when the wind blows, and we find ourselves entangled.

To hold onto Dharma, we need to develop the capacity to stand our ground in stillness and silence when desires arise. Let me repeat what we need to develop. We need to develop the capacity to stand our ground when desires arise. Desires refer to our reactive thoughts, feelings, impulses, and perceptions of the entangled mess we have made within ourselves. The key word is reactive.

These reactive mental formations arise to drive back something that our senses have experienced. Reactions, however, when acted out verbally or physically cannot be called back. It is very much like mixing two chemicals together; once they come together there is no separating them. An example from household cleaning is baking soda and vinegar; once the two substances come together, they form a new substance called carbon dioxide gas.

To practice the capacity to stand still we need to use our power to drive back the inner mental formations to prevent harm to others as well as diminish our mental selfishness that rises. It is helpful to understand that we have the power to drive back our mental reactive patterns before they turn into something toxic. It is called, repercussive or repercussion. Most, if not all of us, have experienced the repercussions of our actions.

Our actions and the results of our actions are our closest companions. Check for yourself. What pops up in the mind? Mostly the repercussions of our actions. Repercussions echo and reflect our tendencies and attachments. The echoes remind us of our work to be done. When we react, we are no longer holding Dharma, we are reacting to our selfish ego that wants something.

Even the strongest desires will not overtake us when we have developed our capacity to stand our ground in still silence. There we are holding Dharma, in stillness and silence.

There we have IT. We are not guided by dogma or doctrines, but by clear, straightforward truths about the Way. We are not to worry that at present we pick and choose and like and dislike. Not at all. In fact, we all find ourselves on the roulette wheel of for and against. Recognizing that we spin between striking-it-rich and striking-it-poor in terms of getting what-we-want and not-getting-what-we-want. We begin to see the roots of our disenchantment. The roots being reactive tendencies and the repercussions thereof.

We react and experience the repercussions and then we experience disenchantment. Spiritually, disenchantment is a step on the path of the Way. An encounter of disenchantment gives us the possibility to let go of wanting it our way. Letting go of our enchantment frees us from our compulsion to repeat the same mistake repeatedly.

Let me clarify.

Each one of us is conditioned to go after something or someone in life. At first, as children we go after all the things in our environment, but because we lack discernment we need to be watched as a baby.

Otherwise, we may injure ourselves or even go after something fatal to our existence. As we grow-up, we expand our horizons from the playpen to the outdoors and school and other children. And as we all know we then seek self-sufficiency regarding the things that help us survive in our social environment.

Each development comes with the paired condition of for and against. There are many paired condition sets which all have the underlying truth of being seen as both separate and opposite, i.e., right, and wrong, good and bad, mine and yours.

We have many, many opposites because our human nature tends to divide the world into one of two categories: good or bad. Because we are conditioned it is difficult to contemplate giving-up like and dislike and picking and choosing. Yet, the teaching tells us:

 The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose.

Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.

 Now many of us may feel that the Perfect Way teaching is impossible or harder than picking and choosing and liking and disliking. The reason it seems harder is we have fabricated our tendency to pick and choose, like and dislike. Every day we are asked to choose, to pick, to like or dislike. And since we may believe it is impossible, we give up our practice of this teaching. But we do not need to give it up because we already practice it even though we may not like it or in some cases, we do not recognize that we already practice letting go of these hindrances.

Let me explain.

In life, we choose repeatedly to accept or reject what comes into our life as our life.

It does not mean that we give up in despair or melancholy or run wild in an ecstatic stupor. No, we do our best with what shows up. We devote ourselves to excellent, thorough, and complete effort with what shows up without measure.

The words that define this the best is all acceptance or devotion to what shows up. We, however, cannot offer devotion without giving up the opposites of selfish picking and choosing, and selfish liking and disliking. We cannot, in meeting what shows up, meet what shows up with selfish interest. When we have ideas in our mind such as what’s-in-it-for-me, we are caught by like and dislike.

The Perfect Way may seem harder than picking and choosing, but that is not true. It is far easier to love without judgement and measure with all the things that come into our life. There is a line from a film that seems to point to out Perfect Way in simple terms; one worth memorizing.

                         “It is so much easier to love what you have…”

than to complain, judge and measure what you did and did not get,

what you do and do not like.

The Perfect Way is easier for those who do not pick and choose.

Author: Fashi Lao Yue

A Single Thread is not a blog.

 If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,

please contact editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

[1] Hsin Hsin Ming: On Trust in the Heart Attributed to Seng-ts’an, the third Patriarch of the Dhyana Sect

[1] Hsin Hsin Ming: On Trust in the Heart Attributed to Seng-ts’an, the third Patriarch of the Dhyana Sect

We are looking in the wrong place. Our senses face outward. We first sense the external world. It is an easy mistake to think we are all the stuff that we see, hear, taste, touch, smell. We forget that all that stuff falls apart. This is the great delusion and wonder of humankind.

We think we are the body and mind even though that too, is the stuff that falls apart. We can see it. It is visible. But we do not believe we will fall apart. But when we think we are the body and mind – we live in a constant state of fear and insecurity. Because we know the body and mind will fall apart. The body and mind stuff changes. It is unreliable.

But who is seeing it? Who is the one that sees itself diminishing? That One who sees is untainted by the stuff that is falling apart.

You are not bound; you just think you are because you identify with the stuff that falls apart. You want to get free of birth and death – because you identify with the body and mind; the stuff that falls apart.

The mistake of thinking you are the body and mind is what frightens you. Affliction comes when one’s viewpoint is not empty of self; the self being the center of attachments. When the personal- self runs the show, we suffer from thorns of things and bump into walls wherever we go, making suffering inevitable.

Consider, please. The personal-self is delusion. It is the center of suffering, a stronghold of suffering. An actor on a stage. When we know the personal-self as delusion, we stop making attempts at getting, having, keeping what the personal-self wants. We stop picking and choosing. We no longer demand that life in the body and mind will fulfill us.

Now you have heard. The body and mind are temporary. We can see this everywhere we go.

Does the personal-self function as a thief to steal the devotion. Making everything about me, my and mine? Does the personal-self want the glory? Want to do this and god-forbid, not that!

An ancient tale might be helpful here. It is about the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha. It is a brief description of how the Buddha begged for food. His two beloved disciples also begged for food but in extreme ways. Subhuti begged only from the rich because he loved rich food. MahaKasyapa begged only from the poor because he practiced austerity. Buddha, however, begged from everyone. He did not pick and choose this house over another. He went straight through leaving no one out. His begging is the middle Way; no personal self-doing, no picking and choosing between one house or another. Just begging at the next house; no personal-self. Buddha was impartial.

It is sometimes called sequential begging. We might want to call our work-as-devotion as sequential work as devotion. Just do the next thing without the imposing personal-self that wants to do this and not that. Do not take the bait of desire between one activity or another. Work-as-devotion is impartial. Do the next thing without seeking merit or credit for yourself.

We need to give the body and mind something to do…to tame it, train it, calm it down from rifling through stuff, looking for something to steal. Looking to measure. Looking for expectations and fulfillment in stuff that falls apart.

Help yourself to concentrate and focus on what the next thing is. Remember you have the power to decide and the power of concentration. Use these powers to concentrate and focus on the next thing. Pretty simple decision.

Accomplishing activities is wisdom in Buddhism, when done as devotion as an offering. In other words, work is spiritual wisdom when accomplished as devotion. It is an offering. Given without seeking reward. Yes. Right there. Mopping the floor. Folding clothes. Paying a bill. Nothing in the world is hidden from work as devotion.

Watch how your attitude changes with the quality of the work that is at hand. Do not let that happen. Stop the mind from measuring one thing from another. All work is the same. It comes to awaken. Comes to help. Be a sequential devotee. Just do the next thing with a steady hand.

Just doing the next thing requires you to study the personal-self to the point you able to forget the personal-self. Then just giving without taint arises. Go with the activity. Flow with courage.

Don’t give up.

Author: Fashi Lao Yue

A Single Thread is not a blog.

 If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,

please contact editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com