The Red Reticule, Works in Process
How to Survive the Collapse of the Silver Lining
Only the Truth and Nothing But the Truth…
So Help Me
All created things are impermanent.
That’s really quite a mouthful. But I’ll continue.
All created things are suffering.
Well, that too is true.
I am a created thing.
Do you know that is true for you.
I am impermanent.
We constantly forget about our upcoming death.
I am suffering.
When I foolishly attach to all these temporary things such as mind and body.
Huh.
Stick with this.
So revealed.
Read it again.
A liitle gasp.
That is to be.
And then, well there you have it.
Confession at last.
And like a bag of hot air deflated.
Humph.
So, NO worries.
It’s time to go to work.
Walk.
Sit Down.
Breathe.
Lungs fill and empty.
Chest moves.
Hands tap the keys.
Head a little tilted.
Smiling now.
All accepting.
www.asinglethread.net – www.zatma.org
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May you be willing to study your actions and practice.
Accept and Appreciate
Acceptance
No matter what you think about anyone else’s mistake
Keep it to yourself.
Don’t mention a word of it even into your own ear.
You are not flawless.
You keep trying to build up merit by stabbing the backs of others.
How high do you think you’ll stand in that bloody place?
Wash your hands of it.
Walk around outside. Sniff the Spring air.
Withdraw your get-even claws.
Mimic the ancient buddhas – Stay still.
Watch the flow of clouds pass over head without harming the wings of a bird.
If there is too much hot air, find the source and cool it down.
Spray it with oceans, cover it with mountains.
There are no trophies to win.
No showcase for your mouthy exhibitions.
Don’t even consider a retort.
Shake out your witty insults.
Fall down at once and drop your self-importance.
Do Not Talk About the Mistakes of Others
Are We Killing the Tree of Life?
When we judge another we are judging ourselves. That’s all! Every time we judge another we reveal ourself. We are judgemental.
Every word uttered from our mouth comes from within ourself. NOT the other.
When we use disparaging words we are finding our disparagement within ourselves. It cannot be otherwise.
All we have done in the world is:
“…we have normalized fear of, hate of, and disparagement of the other.”
When we fear, hate and disparage we show the disrespect that resides in us.
We attack the other. Cut them off. Shut them up.
These traits reveal our tendency and habit of self-degradation and self-inferiority showing our reservoir of hate, arrogance and ignorance. These qualities exhibit a lack of rational knowledge.
There are very few of us who are willing and able to see this truth within ourself. We are more comfortable blaming, shaming, hating and belittling the other.
Most of us are unwilling to study our ego-centric tendencies and habits prefering to demean the other. This tendency is to divide and separate others into two categories; Them and Us.
We forget to be wise. We forget we are spiritual beings in an impermanent body. We ignore the harm done.
We rarely recognize that everything and everyone is under these same truths: suffering, wanting to end suffering, to find ways to end suffering and living to end suffering. Study yourself and you will see how you as well as everyone else is dealing with some form of suffering.
These truths are available to all, not just those of us who fall into self-confused fear and hate to divide and separate.
Everything returns to the ONE and the ONE returns to everything.
We are essentially not separate. Yet, we act as though we are. We tend to root out the other rather than root out the underlying contempt we have for the other.
The basis of disparagement comes from several problematic, internal tendencies.
- Fear which is rooted in hate.
- Arrogance which is rooted in a belief of superiority.
- Ignorance which lacks knowledge and wisdom.
- GREED which is rooted in money and all the having and getting ahead.
- DELUSION which is rooted in believing the world is real.
The solution is to see the roots and work to free ourselves from them. Then we are able to STOP disaparagement.
Stop! Stop talking about the mistakes of others.
Our problem is that we love to talk about the mistakes of others. YEAH! That love shows us the roots of our craving. We love to gnaw at the other’s behavior and reputation! Often it is done in the guise of concern.
Yet, the truth is that it causes harm.
We all have done this…the cure is to study the roots in us and STOP!
STOP talking about the mistakes of others.
STOP finding fault. That is the cure.
Are you willing to STOP?
www.asinglethread.net www.zatma.org
Here is a link to an array of criticism by others as a public example of villifying and dividing others into THEM and US. The video is one of many videos presenting a divisive rhetoric. If you are up for a challenge to your ego-self, then, take a look. Watch what happens to yourself. Watch what happens to your spirit. That is what is important. NOT the content…but your reaction and for some, your response to it. Study yourself. Watch the judgements and criticisms of others. Do you take sides?
May you and all beings be safe from harm and free from suffering.
Do You Think You are Better Than or Worse Than Someone Else?
Equanimity, is the Antidote to Jealousy, Envy and Thinking You Are Better or Worse Than Someone Else
Equanimity is the wisdom to know the transient nature of everything.
I will begin with the state of humankind in every period of history. Bold, I know. But please bear with me while I point out the underlying cause of our blindness. It is selfishness, our self-centered desire.
We dig in and take a position for or against on whatever may be the subject of the day thinking and believing that whatever is happening is intransient. For or against is rooted in self-centered desire. A mental position and attitude that refuses to collaborate.
Sound familiar?
An intransigent position is rooted in delusion (ignorance of reality). And…self-interest.
Now more to the point.
I was struck by Dr. Cox Richardson’s quote from William English Walling, a journalist writing about a mob incident in Springfield, Illinois in 1908. It came after the lynching of two Black men by a White mob. The White citizens were outraged that the Black citizens had forgotten “their place.” Walling heard the White citizens exclaim more than once this incredulous comparison:
“Why, they, (the Black citizens), came to think they were as good as we are!”
Leaves one speechless!
But…
The opposite of such a declaration is just as shocking and just as poisonous. It is the mind that compares and measures oneself in negative terms:
But…
The opposite of such a declaration is just as shocking and just as poisonous. It is the mind that compares and measures oneself in negative terms:
“Why, does anyone… come to think they are not as good as others!”
The reason is conditioning. Each one of us is conditioned right from the start of our life. And many of us remain in a conditioned state until the body and mind departs. Conditioning is the habit of training and measuring the results of training according to the specific conditioning that occurs. It is also bound to making comparisions from one child to another, from one family to another and so on.
Such comparisons strike a familiar chord heard round the world. Worth repeating and repeating as it sounds the alarm of how much the world operates from measuring difference.
From high profile to everyday encounters.
Most, if not all of us, have had the disrespect to think we are better than someone else. And many, if not all of us, have believed ourselves as being less valuable or less worthy than others. Much of this comes from our conditioning.
We, humankind, tend to measure. And we tend to measure ourselves as either better than or worse than some imaginary, constructed other.
This tendency is based on descriptive words that we have been conditioned to believe. In short order, we not only believe the conditioning but we identify ourself as the conditoning. We measure everything according to our mental conditioning in termos better than or worse than.
Living life in endless loops of comparison is the equivalence of living on a roller coaster and never getting off. It is a precarious and harmful approach to life.
Sometimes we are on top and sometimes we are on the bottom. A precarious place to live. Have you ever asked yourself:
Why do I compare myself to anyone else? And…why do I say the things I say to myself?
We think comparison protects our rights to get, to have, to keep and to fight off the other who threatens these rights.
But our strong-arm measurement is a fabrication of mental instability.
We 21st century adventurers use heavy, old, mental structures that keep us stagnant. We protect the mind from change and continue in our familiar mind state, whatever that may be. We stay chained to the old identity by our mental bias about others and ourselves. The reason we do ourselves this injustivce is our attachment to our conditioning.
Time and again we make this error. The error of comparative judgement which we are conditioned to believe in and live by.
Advertising propaganda continuously lures us to get the best, have the best andkeep whatever we have gathered to be our property.
If we look back to 1908, Walling found this tendency in full working order.
Sad, but true.
The world and the world leaders have over time lived with jealous and envious mental structures which we tend to call progress, competition and get it while you can.
Telling a nation that it is the greatest is…I have no words to explain it. Is it a mental trap that we are told we are the best?
Why don’t we just tell the truth?
The truth is that everyone one of us are subject to all the vagaries of life. We are not better than or less than the “other.” The “other” being someone we see as different from the mental conditioning in our mind.
Life is not a race against the other! It is not a race at all although we call it the “rat” race. We are more likely to feel trapped when we compare ourselves to anyone.
There was a time when we were taught that it is how you play the game that matters, not whether you win or lose. But it appears to have changed to:
It does not matter how you play the game; it is all about winning no matter what.
Have we forgotten that our existence challenges us to face aging, sickness and death which comes to us and the other. Life for even the oldest among us is short in duration. Has our self-interest and all the propaganda about competition and being the “best,” “first,” “greatest” made us forget this truth?
We need to stop measuring ourselves and the other according to the competition in the world. This requires acceptance, to receive our life with an attitude of calm-abiding without the specious judgement of ourselves and the other.This acceptance is equanimity.
It is a calm-abiding, a tranquil state of mind that turns away from thinking, and believing we are the “best” or the “worst.” The attitude of mind is all acceptance. It is an attitude of knowing that we humans are not in charge and that everything here is transient. There is nothing to get, to have, to keep. Nothing.
TWO STORIES
The first story is of a woman who murdered her ex-husband and his new wife. This is a woman who felt abused and abandoned by her former husband. He left her for another woman. A tough blow and a blow that broke the camel’s back. For she took a gun, broke into the house of the new pair, then shot and killed them both.
Later, when on trial, the woman defended herself by saying she was startled and said something about the gun going off and that she could not stop it from firing. She was found guilty and went to prison.
Jealousy, the sense of feeling threatened and fearful of losing one’s position, was certainly at play. It may also be true that envy, a painful sense of wanting a possession that someone else had also incited her actions.
A calm abiding mind state was unavailable to her. Her self-centered rage was at the forefront.
The next story is about a professor who dabbled in a spiritual Buddhist practice. She called it a hobby. Her attitude, however, changed when she found herself pointing a loaded revolver at her husband, a man who was cheating on her. And she, much like the first woman, was about to kill them.
With pointed gun she released the safety on the revolver to shoot both of them, but the sound of the gun made a “click.” Just one click and this woman woke up to what she was about to do in a state of rage. She STOPPED.
The “click” awakened her and she STOPPED.
It was at that point she no longer thought of her spiritual practice as a hobby. It became for her, dead serious. She turned to a deep, spiritual practice.
Equanimity
Equanimity is the antidote to our up and down mind state. A transcendent wisdom that brings poise. The mind is composed and undisturbed. It is a mind of appreciateion and all-acceptance for what shows up in life.
Most often we are not poised or stable with experience but rather disturbed by it. We fall victim to what shows up in our mind. We correct what we think are the wrongs in our lives and seek praise for what we think are the rights. We blame the external world of circumstances, and we blame ourselves.
Whether we think it or say it, this disturbing measuring causes harm. No manner of rational thought can nullify or validate the effect it has on the mind of the one who thinks and believes they have the right to mete out a selfish, self-righteous, self-glorifying or self-important judgement upon others or on themselves.
The direction of the measure does not make a difference.
Vanity is vanity.
Excessive pride and excessive worthlessness are both self-centered and both limit our capacity to know our true nature.
It is best to stop the measuring altogether. STOP!
Clear it off from the brain pan. When we think we are better than, less than and judge another we are caught in our self-ego of “I” “ME” and “MINE.”
Our attachment to our conditioned mind states is a serious roadblock. It is where we find a fortress of self-centeredness. “I” wants to be right! “ME” wants to remain in this fabricated stronghold.
Much like the second story, we must STOP thinking our practice is a hobby and instead make a commitment of renunciation to STOP measuring and comparing ourselves to anyone. Instead, we turn our energy towards setting ourselves free from our identification with our conditioned mind. We study ourselves without measuring ourselves with anyone else and head towards forgetting the self altogether. Then, we head for liberation.
Author: Fly
Old Moon
Zen Contemplative of the Order of Hsu Yun
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
See notes below.
• Envy is “the painful feeling of wanting what someone else has, like attributes or possessions.” i.e., Wanting to be young again, rich and so forth
• If you’re jealous, you feel “threatened, protective, or fearful of losing one’s position or situation to someone else.” Feel threatened.
• Envy is “the painful feeling of wanting what someone else has, like attributes or possessions.” i.e., Wanting to be young again, rich and so forth
• If you’re jealous, you feel “threatened, protective, or fearful of losing one’s position or situation to someone else.” Feel threatened.
A Poem to Take to Heart
The Third Position: Neither Here, Nor There
Then, Once and Now…
EF Hulsizer, 2004
It is just a matter of hitting the bell, closing the door, lighting a candle.
In the past IT abides,
In the future IT abides,
In the present IT abides.
But don’t ask, “What do you mean?”
You seek an answer with a hammer,
Pounding on the fog you think you will make a break and see through.
Stay still and turn.
Make the turn and hear the echoes of habits and wishes.
Feel the striving gut that wants something more.
Wait.
Don’t hurry away.
It is the Way.
Endless turning until
the floor of the mind collapses.
Stop the hunt for the other.
Stop the chase.
You stalk a reply.
Respond without worry.
When you smell smoke, yell, “fire!”
When you see the table holds the cup,
See the cup hold the tea!
Look through,
See, neither here, nor there.
It is the buoyant cheers of scorpions and pigeons,
That you kill and stuff with your conclusions.
You cry, “How do I help?”
No hands, no harm.
You cry, “Have I gone too far?”
Neither far, nor near.
You cry, “what is the point?”
The sun, the moon and the stars.
When you give up the wish for something else, something more
You are home.
Then, once, and now there is nothing that escapes the past, the future, the present.
Your plans show the hidden tenants,
“Me, My, Mine.”
Safety boxes and storage houses overflow with false ideas.
You pound your hammer with great desire and fail to hear the wondrous voice.
When you realize the heart drums without a score and the ear hears without direction
you sit near the edge of the flowing river.
When wishes for and against subside
And the nose smells without form
The bees suckle the flowers and
Gestures of life wave
To awaken the unfilled.
Author: Fly
Old Moon
Zen Contemplative of the Order of Hsu Yun
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
We play at Paste, By Emily Dickinson, 1862
We play at Paste –
We play at Paste –
Till qualified, for Pearl –
Then, drop the Paste –
And deem Ourself a fool –
The Shapes, tho’, were similar,
And our new Hands
Learned Gem Tactics
Practicing Sands –[1]
F282 (1862) 320 Emily Dickinson
Play Leads to Learning
Poetry, like spirituality, is personal. Both require our willingness to study and reflect and search for the message within our mind. We search for our own connotation in the poem and in our life experiences.
Some readers consider it a poem about childhood and maturity, others consider it a reference to love and love affairs – in this piece we will see it as a spiritual message without rebuke.
The title, We Play at Paste. suggests that ‘we’ refers to each of us. A claim of universal play.
Play, Leads to Learning sums it up. We play with Paste is not a fool’s game although we may think it is. It depends on how we understand it.
‘Play’ has several connotations from amusement to engaging with a thing. We have indeed amused ourselves and engaged with things that we later realize are Paste. This realization comes from experience not from any sort of rule or belief.
Nothing goes to waste even when we value it as fake. Fake meaning specious, deceptive, and fraudulent. Everything comes to awaken us. We all yearn to know and find the real gem, but often are unable to do so.
We all have been fooled one time or another.
Being fooled is a universal experience just as spirituality is a universal awakening.
Paste in this context refers to a heavy, clear material used to make an imitation gemstone. It looks real, genuine but it turns out to be an imitation. If we are not attentive, it fools us. It is meant to fool us.
Playing around rests on our lack of attention that comes from desire. The desire clouds our ability to realize the Paste we play with is costume jewelry. It may glitter, it may look good, but it turns out to be a fake.
We get bent-out-of-shape when someone else suggests we have been “fooled.” Sadly, we are often the last person to see the truth of our foolhardiness.
Hold on! All is not lost. We need experiences such as playing with Paste to wake up. Yes, indeed it is a blessing in disguise. Apparent misfortune, if understood, teaches us to look for the real gem.
We recognize that we have played with what is not real. Real meaning things that are impermanent; that which do not sate our desires. Yes, there is disappointment that follows this realization but that is short-lived. The awareness far outweighs the sense of being a fool. The Playing was in the end a necessary experience.
We play at Paste –
Till qualified, for Pearl –
Then, drop the Paste –
And deem Ourself a fool –
All the foolish playing around with an imitation qualifies us to find a real gemstone.
What a relief that there is no wasting of time. Playing with Paste comes to awaken us, to teach us even when we think otherwise. We do not need to judge or measure the things we do. If we realize that everything awakens us, whether painful, foolish, or idiotic, we find a bit of gold.
But as we all know, gold is hidden ‘in them thar’ hills. There is work to do. Knowing that the gold is hidden requires a willingness to mine the gold. We must extract value from the experience of playing with paste till qualified for Pearl. What did we learn?
Once we recognize that we were practicing with the paste to qualify for handling pearls, a tiny light comes on. The light gives us the wherewithal to study with the next line, Then, drop the Paste – which translates to:
…give that foolish activity up, straight away. STOP playing with paste.
This requires that we do not harangue or criticize ourselves or others. We accept the situation. We see that playing with paste requires dropping the fooling around with the fake stuff of the world.
Drop the Paste. Even though we tend to blame ourselves or the costume jewelry. If we go into agitation in the mind, we find thoughts of self recrimination. Discard all blame and begin to dig for the gold that is hidden there.
The fifth line is a gem!
The shapes, tho’, were similar is a strong explanation of what leads us to mistake the material world as the real deal. It looks like the real jewel! We get confused by the glitter and promises of the material realm and find ourselves caught in consuming more of a thing thinking it is real.
As we accept playing around, as we accept that we were fooled, we study the gemstones and see how easily we were caught unawares. Fake jewels look very much like the real thing. When we know we have been fooled, we acquire new Hands. And with this new skill we recognize we need to learn how to manage real gemstones.
Nothing is wasted. No one is blamed. No one is ultimately a fool when we recognize that we require practice.
Everything IS practice. Playing with Paste leads to learning Gem Tactics!
Author: Fly
Old Moon
Zen Contemplative of the Order of Hsu Yun
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
Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage
Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage
By Shitou Xiqian
I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it’s been lived in–covered by weeds.
The person in the hut lives here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in-between.
Places worldly people live, he doesn’t live.
Realms worldly people love, she doesn’t love.
Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms and their nature.
A Mahayana bodhisattva trusts without doubt.
The middling or lowly can’t help wondering;
Will this hut perish or not?
Perishable or not, the original master is present,
Not dwelling south or north, east or west.
Firmly based on steadiness, it can’t be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines —
Jade palaces or vermilion towers can’t compare with it.
Just sitting with head covered all things are at rest.
Thus, this mountain monk doesn’t understand at all.
Living here he no longer works to get free.
Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instructions,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don’t give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations.
Are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
Don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.
TRENDS
I read this morning that the early Christian church took on the laws and structures of the Roman state. It was when persecutions of Christians ceased and mandatory affiliation as a Christian became the norm which led to persecutions of non-Christians. It was an ancient trend that is re-rooting in the United States. It is an old trend, in revival mode. Alongside this revival of an old trend of persecution and violence is a constancy of spiritual and religious freedom for all.
*****
Trends are nothing new, groups form and share what is attractive or fashionable and trends take hold. There are, however, some who feel the new impetus of violence, and force should be the national structure of the United States. Any religious regime for violence and hate, although growing, is not favorable for spiritual awakening.
Spiritual realization is a personal matter. Not subject to trends and drifts of forceful elimination of religious freedom.
Each of us, in our own way, seeks to return to Our True Original nature. Each one of us does that in our way of life whether we exclaim that is what we are doing or not. Experience is a powerful teacher which constantly gives us an opportunity to hear and know the Dharma.
Each one of us came from One Source which we cannot speak or define with our human limitations. Yet, despite our limitations, we seek to know our True Nature which is buried beneath our conditioned identity.
No one is to judge another – despite our tendency and inclination to do so.
When we judge, we “miss-the-mark.”
Where are we – those of us that practice the Dharma?
Our spiritual work is not a trend, although Zen Buddhism seemed to offer a flashy alternative for those who wanted to be in a chic, fashionable spiritual practice. Eastern traditions, however, offer more than fashion and style.
The “churches” whatever that might mean today, continue to struggle with ancient laws and the old structures of a Roman state. Although to affiliate with a particular denomination or religious dogma is not the norm today. Neither is it popular from a worldly perspective to study the Dharma unless it is hip deep into psychology and brain science. These new interests may be all the rage in Buddhist and Christian circles but they do not serve the spiritual seeker, and they may not be a favorable environment for spiritual liberation.
You see, the ego-self is happy to be in a dalliance with modern ideas, a romance with impermanence followed by suffering. For all ideas are fleeting, passing coquetry. We flirt with them to our detriment.
In such an affair, the ego remains strong, frivolous and the center of our lives. As long as the ego-self holds a central position our ability to know the Dharma is blocked.
- “What is the environment that matches an inner longing to awaken for you?”
- Is it to continue where you are, as you are?
Or is there a sense of seeking that is not quenched by the material world of psychology, science or even religious laws and dogma?
It seems there may be a sense of foolishness that conflicts with an inner sense of purpose and we get stuck on this ledge. It is on this ledge, we battle and may live out the short life we have been given in an inner skirmish between the ego and the Dharma.
We do not want to be as fools, but we do want to know our purpose. The ego bangs the door shouting, “You fool!” when we consider devotion to the Dharma as our purpose. It may come in the form of others berating such a purpose or it may be doubts of one’s devotion that weakens conviction and commitment.
Devotion of this sort requires guts and a keen sense of inner loyalty to this devotion. This type of devotion is not understood by the material world.
“Where is your allegiance?”
This work demands a greater honesty than psychological analysis, where defenses are reworked and rebuilt in more “appropriate” and “healthy” ways. A mask of defenses is still a mask and it disguises and blocks knowing the Truth.
As human beings, we tend to relate to everything as “mine” and this masquerade although often acceptable in the material world is a death mask in the spiritual realm.
_____
Here is an example.
When we are alone, feeling blue or lonely we tend to want to find a way to get rid of this feeling. We hunt for things to make this feeling go away. The dispelling of the feeling often takes the form of a thought such as what can I do to feel better? Call a friend? Do something? The sense of “me” is central. This is the human condition and is normative in the material world.
“What about “me?”
“How do I look after “me?”
If we seek help from the material world, we will get directions on how to get what we need or how to get what we want so we will not feel “lonely” or “blue.” We can barely imagine another way, a way that looks for the Dharma of the feeling, of the moment, of what is actually going on in a given circumstance.
It is similar to being in the darkness, when we are in the darkness we hunt for a light switch to end the darkness. What if we remained with the feeling, facing whatever it is as the voice of Dharma trying to get our attention. Would we listen to the voice of the Dharma rather than react to an inner impulse to escape the feeling?
What if we met it, met the feeling as part of our interior landscape without rationalization or even reason, but just meet it. It requires an allegiance and devotion to seeing everything, the whole panorama of inner experience as the voices and sights of Dharma and letting go of the topography as “ME & MINE” It means accepting whatever is happening, wherever we are, as our life.
This inner geography is our spiritual life, whether we see it or not. It requires relinquishing the fantasy for something to be better. Just accept what shows up and experience it and see what comes.
This practice is an expedition of leaving “ME and MINE” and crossing into the unfamiliar spiritual geography of solitude, silence and wholehearted engagement with the diversity of the Dharma, the assortments of existence and experience.
The ancient teachings of this practice do not rely on violence, mandatory affiliation and dogmatic laws. It focuses on the study of oneself in all the array of diversity and practice. It requires dispassion.
Author: Fly
Old Moon
Zen Contemplative of the Order of Hsu Yun
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