A Single Thread –Contemplative^[1] Order of Hsu Yun

 

The Third Position: Neither Here, Nor There

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.

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,

Neither this, nor that.

It is all around you.

When you stand or sit, it is there.

It is 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 unfulfilled.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right Understanding.

Let me begin with a definition of right understanding. It is a teaching of the Eightfold Path and is considered the root in the ground of the Lotus. It is embedded in the mud of the world of being. In each and every one of us this root is there. We are asked to discover the truth of it for ourselves. In the simplest language it means everything comes to awaken us.

How generous life is when we realize this truth. Everything? Yes, everything comes to awaken us. It is the recognition of being in the infinite possibilities of Our Supreme Nature. In the image of the Lotus it is the nutrients of the stem that grow and rise up through the water as a Lotus blossom.

All of this process occurs in us. It is not something just in a book. It is to be realized. Our first hurdle is to overcome our unwilling nature. Below is a common example of our unwillingness to practice the infinite possibilities of realizing everything comes to awaken us.

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A few days ago, someone came to me and complained. The complaint consisted of protests and gratitude; the protests of boredom and feeling stifled and stagnated and the gratitude for the teachings that brought him out of the burning house of suffering.

I listened. I knew this student. I knew he was and may still be unwilling to follow a teacher; to sit down in front of someone who is ahead of him on the path and bare his sense of helplessness.

Instead, he complained.

I wondered what was happening inside the heart of this person; in the place where the invisible presence of being exists. The speech, all those words that came up were words of protest and dissatisfaction coupled with a conditioned sense of gratitude for past offerings.

How did the wind blow this dust together for this student?

My response was simple but ineffective and dismissed.

I told the person that he needed to find someone ahead of him on the path; someone who he was willing to follow under all circumstances. In other words, someone he could bow down to before their feet and surrender his need to be independent and right and smart.

You see, this fellow lacked humility and reverence.

Pride and arrogance and probably many other intellectual and emotional conditions held him captive in his complaints. His odd-shaped gratitude of self-interest was an exterior excuse to cling to his pride. He could not imagine that he could find someone to follow in the way of humility and reverence. It was anathema to him. He did not admit it but it appeared to be that he felt superior to most and to all those he had met.

Perhaps I needed to say what I am about to say now.

This fellow is not ready to commit to his practice. Not able to relinquish his complaints and his conditioned gratitude. You see, he is not able to see how he is stuck in the conditioned selfish self – which is the part of his being which wants things to be different…wants things to satisfy him…wants something more or less. His difficulties are boons but he is unable to work with them in such a way that he can find the Way.

His habit of protesting and thanking is long-lived – and he gets incensed when someone suggests he needs to follow someone from the position of humility and reverence. How dare anyone who might suggest he follow in the footsteps of another!

There are many, many, many who are in this position. Not many want to take up the role of student. Fewer still want to take up the aim of god-realization, satori, nirvana, kenshō; of coming to his immortality.

Perhaps this fellow is familiar. Perhaps he is you. If you do not have the willingness to surrender in humility and reverence, you are not ready to head towards that aim of knowing that which is invisible, unborn, undying, and immutable; that everything comes into your life to awaken your true nature.

Yes everything! This is Right Understanding. When we realize this reality, we surrender. We become supple. We recognize we need help. We become willing to bow down.

I am ever grateful for Ming Zhen Shakya. For all those who walk ahead on the Way of enlightenment. For the teachings of the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha; for all teachings of Wisdom. I am grateful to be able to realize that everything comes to awaken us; to show us the Way.

May we, with all beings, realize the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver and gift.

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

 

 

Don’t Be Fooled

We are not alone. We have never been apart from the One although we take many forms. Whatever we do, we offer that action to the One. Whatever we give, we give to the One. When we make our bed in the morning, go for a walk or make a cup of tea we contribute the action to the One. The One is never any other Way. 

 

You are never alone right where you are. If you think you are, you have been fooled by the psychology of the constructed ego. It is an idea inside of you, built from the ground up in the family and culture you were raised in. The work is not psychological, the work is transcendent. 

Maya, mara, demons, the devil…whatever name you label it, is the covering over the Truth. It appears to be substantial, appealing, alluring, inviting us to get entangled in a way that always ends in suffering. It uses all the resources of accusation, fear, greed, need and an endless array of tactics to trap us and blind us from the Truth.

The Truth is at hand, right there where you are. Don’t get confused by the mumbo-jumbo of psychological inquiry, by your social standing in the world, by the mounds of worry threatening your stability to face the day. 

Modernity, this post neo-modern world of maddening attainment and progress foils our spiritual life again and again. We are harnessed to a team of horses called greed and hate that pulls us into every sort of ditch again and again. Like and dislike are flowery tops rising up from the roots of greed and hate. They look good and right…which is part of the cover-up. We tell ourselves we have a right to like and dislike, forgetting that likes and dislikes are non-essential in terms of spiritual transcendence. Really. No joke here. No latitude. 

Likes and dislikes are non-essential and are especially devious because they seem so harmless. But, let us remember, picking and choosing makes the Supreme Way difficult. Even a hairsbreadth difference sets us worlds apart from awakening. 

Think about it in your life, right where you are. The mind goes around in a circle of delusion when it wants something, anything whether it be a thing to get or a thing to remove. It comes in small ways and big ways. Small ways like wanting the house tidy, or the dog to stop barking or wanting to remove the ban on social isolation or head for the hills. 

Psychology offers minimal help to our human condition, leaving us to reduce ourselves and others to critical labeling. It focuses on the body and mind. Even positive psychology of today reduces our mind into wanting what makes us happy and removing what does not. 

I once was at a big gathering where a spiritual adept was giving a talk on how to be happy. At the end of the talk, he opened to taking questions. I asked a question about going after happiness. His first response was: “Don’t you want to be happy?” Actually, my answer is no. I want to be free. To be awake. Happiness is as fleeting a state as sadness. It is a feeling that comes and goes. 

In order to be free, we must be stable in our practice, never letting it be a thing done sometimes and not done at other times. We must devote ourselves in such a way our mind is saturated with what is real, true and transcendent. Now I hear the cry of…that’s not easy… only to suggest that those who want easy versus hard have divided the world according to personal likes and dislikes. And although oh so very human, and oh so very understandable, dividing the world along those lines is not essential along the Way. Discard them and see what happens. The lines between easy and hard disappear and you begin to see life as it is. And when we see life as it is, we respond to what shows up from our spirit and not from our psychological self-invested ego. 

The drumbeat changes. When the self drops away, we see that everything comes to awaken us. We devote our attention fully. Taking care of what we meet in the shrine of our daily lives.

Don’t be fooled.

Proceed from the One and return to the One.

IT is you, you are not IT.

I was once dubious about working with a teacher,

but after a lifetime of practice, and working with Ming Zhen

I see the need and recommend to you

that you find a teacher.

Author: Reverend Master Yue

Image credits: Fly, 2020

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

I once heard someone call the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah,” a guy you’d never invite to dinner.”

Why’s that? I wondered.

Well, Jeremiah was one tough cookie when it came to speaking his mind. He dared to tell the Truth because he saw the Truth. He was the mouthpiece of Divine knowledge.

Imagine sitting across from him over a slice of pizza?

He’d likely burn through your persona and façade and delineate all your selfish faults. In the mistaken defensiveness of our ego, we’d feel hurt and wounded. Refusing his gift of knowing the truth, we’d reject his ability to burn through our ignorance in order to set us free. Most of us would feel scorched and misunderstood and run off miffed declaring “Jeremiah is a guy you’d never invite to dinner!”

But…Jeremiah is a man worth listening to when it comes to the human heart. Remember his mission in life is to speak the Truth of divine knowledge. He’d go for the juggler of ignorance in the instinctual human heart.

Let us remember the instinctual man is us. It is when we get caught at the level of a person who goes after the things of the world without regard for anything but his own wants and desires. Most of us at one time or another react to life from this level. We do well to remember that this is the place where most of us begin. Life is all about ‘me’ when we are babies and we are subject to this instinctual level until we begin to grow up and awaken. We need to be trained and taught to recognize that life is not all about ‘me.’ Some of us never get very far from the instinct of all about me; leaving us at the mercy of our wild selfishness.

The opposite extreme of the instinctual man is the dogmatic one. Dogmatic mind is when we think, believe and function with the axiom, my way or the highway. The dogmatic mind is filled to the brim with our rules and our laws that become as hard as cement. It is what is known as a hardened heart – a heart of weights and balances used to judge ourselves and others. This stage also needs teachings and trainings to soften the defenses. Often, however, the hardened heart struggles with listening to teachings and trainings because this mind state is filled with thinking, believing and functioning written in stone: MY RULES ARE RIGHT! MY LAWS ARE RIGHT! Those caught in dogma have a great deal of difficulty listening.  There’s no room to listen or hear anything. Adolescents, often a rebellious phase, are often filled with such hard, monumental thinking. But it comes from ignorance. There is a tendency to believe “I don’t need any help. I, alone, can do it.”

Those of us, however, who live according to some level of moral and ethical decency or a level of spiritual aspiration are still subject to mutability – meaning that even decent, spiritual seekers can be overtaken by the mind states of the heart. Here is where we might want to invite Jeremiah to dinner. But this willingness to burn off our ignorance comes after knowing the sage, prophets and divine incarnations reign from the throne of goodwill, a goodwill of wanting to liberate us from suffering. And yet, very, very few are willing and open enough to invite Jeremiah to dinner.

A teacher is helpful in this regard simply because the teacher’s job is to point out when we are going into a ditch and to help us to get back on the path.  Jeremiah’s words are warnings against falling into the ditch. When we are in a ditch – filled with greed, hate and delusions of all sort we need the likes of a Jeremiah. But even then, the question remains “Will we heed his wisdom?”

In Zen Buddhism the teacher acts as a verification of the spiritual condition of the student. This verification may seem ominous or perhaps even unwanted, but I assure you it is a boon to one’s spiritual life. In my experience it is fire – a hot blaze that shows us the Way. We decide whether or not we are willing to use what is offered. It is not a mandate, but an offering. We can take it or leave it.

Jeremiah, I imagine, could point out who was who – being that his job was to speak as from the mouth of God. Here’s a sample of God’s mouthpiece exhorting us about ‘trust.’

Blessed are those who trust the Lord; The Lord will be their trust.  They are like a tree planted beside the waters. That stretches out its roots to the stream. It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves Stay green; in the years of drought it shows no distress. But still produces fruit. Jeremiah

Wonderfully, Jeremiah’s exhortation is very much a Zen Buddhist urging.

Here’s what it sounds like in Zen Buddhism:

I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha.

The teacher is not the refuge but helps the student with how to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha with practices – such as:

Plant yourself like a tree in silence and stillness… Water your roots in the teachings of going against the stream. Don’t get jazzed by the heat or cold of the material world; there is no escaping the changing weather of life. Stay put. Don’t fret over the changes. Stay still and see what comes up. Something of some sort is inevitable.

This small smattering is a sample of what we need, whether we follow the words of a prophet, or the teachings of a Buddha. We need the constancy of exhortations to strengthen our resolve.

The caveat.

The LORD proclaims: Cursed are those who trust in mere humans, who depend on human strength and turn their hearts from the LORD. Jeremiah

What Jeremiah exhorts as cursed is in an ultimate sense true, only the unborn, undying eternal Beloved is to be fully trusted.  But until we awaken, we need confidence in the teachings in order to make the climb to the summit.

OM NAMO GURU DEVA NAMO

 

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

Image credits: Fly, 2019

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More tortuous than anything is a human heart. ,Beyond remedy; who can understand it.

 

This exhortation covers a lot of Zen ground. Here are some samples of what I mean.

Put no head above your own.

Of course, your head must be engaged with the unborn, undying divinity or you risk going off the rails. Composure, calm-abiding and steadfastness to stay on the spiritual mountain path (plant yourself by the waters, root yourself and don’t be afraid) are evidence akin to no fear and green leaves in drought.

There are many a Zen Buddhist story that address this staying-put and staying the course. Begin and continue in Zen, no matter what. And what is said as an encouragement to keep going and continue to practice. …more tortuous than anything is a human heart – beyond remedy without the Beloved and mysterious Truth – and who can understand it? A sage, a guru, a prophet, a master, a teacher. 

There’s help for this tortuous heart but be careful where you go for help.

And finally, Jeremiah goes to the penultimate.

The LORD proclaims: Cursed are those who trust in mere humans,

who depend on human strength and turn their hearts from the LORD.

In Zen Buddhism, take the backward step away from the world of things. Go against the stream.

 

Human beings by nature will disappoint one another. Our nature is frail until we awaken to the Lord of Truth – to the Truth of the Unborn, Undying Eternal. It is our plight. Our frailness is our unfortunate situation. Jeremiah speaks in no uncertain terms the mistake we make is when we put our trust in human beings rather than in THAT which never changes.

This truth guides and chides us towards a strong practice. But we must be willing to seek the Noble Truth. Knowing the wisdom of disappointment makes disappointment a boon – like a harbinger, a signal to take a look at the direction you were headed when you got disappointed.

When we disappoint ourselves and others, when others disappoint themselves and us. What do we do? Stop and answer this question for yourself. What do you do when you are disappointed?

Disappointment is a beacon of Light breaking into the mundane world giving us a glimpse at the truth of the Absolute. For many of us we get downhearted when we experience disappointment. Our inner views collapse around us and if we are lucky we remain standing in the rubble of our own desires for the world to be different than it is. But this type of collapse comes from blindness – a type of ignorant blindness of the world. The world, and all those things in the world which includes other human beings, are unreliable by nature. So, if you begin to see the nature of the things of the world you have a chance to see what really happens when you experience disappointment.

 

In short, our desires and wishes we project on the world have caused this inner turmoil. It is our attachment to wanting it to be different that brings up suffering. But if we see the world as it is, then we calm down. We calm down all our wishes and desires for the world to be different without bitterness.

 

In fact, when we experience disappointment in others, in ourselves we get a firsthand look at out real situation. Jeremiah, the prophet knew this truth. Tells us. What a gift.

 

One final note. The directive to labor without reward will serve any of us well and keep us out of harm’s way of a tortuous heart of another. We are being like the tree – no matter what, we work – we labor – we offer what we have to offer. We do the next thing. We do what the Grass Roof Hermitage Sutra by Shitou Xiquan ends with –

 

If you want to know the undying person in hut,

Don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.

OM NAMO GURU DEVA NAMO

 

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

Image credits: Fly, 2019

ZATMA is not a blog.

If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,

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

…the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world.

Underhill

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The writing was taking such great effort, and the pages of words I sent on to my spiritual teacher said nothing.

Wait,” she said, “Stop writing and wait.”

I did not want to wait, but I couldn’t see another way to be while the writing went into hibernation. Reluctantly, I turned toward waiting even though it seemed less glamorous than writing; a pale and uninspiring alternative.

Days became weeks. Still I waited. But I yearned to write. I began to hunt for topics to write about, something from which to build a narrative, some idea with life in it. But nothing took hold.

Waiting was what showed up, every day.

Then, I remembered a poem about waiting, and turned to it for guidance. It is by T.S. Eliot, from The Four Quartets:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

This became my mantra: “Wait without hope, wait without love, wait without thought.” The mantra helped me. I felt the wisdom in hope, love and thought being hope, love and thought for the wrong thing. I could see how my pushing and yearning were bound to lead to writing that was nothing more than useless words on a page.

Still I could not let go of the hope for a speedy return to writing. The mantra could not hold back my desire. It gnawed at me, this hope that my wait could end. It sent me into more rounds of thinking: “Maybe this idea? Or this one?” My inner world became a battlefield where hoping and thinking and wanting joined forces to vanquish waiting. But waiting kept quietly showing up each morning, while I sat, pen in hand. The tension was painful and confusing.

One cold morning, huddled around the wood stove, I felt the deep depletion of the inner battle. I craved rest, an end to the pressure, an end to the obligation to write. I could not see that I alone was causing this pressure. I believed the pressure was coming from the outside.

I composed a letter to my spiritual teacher in my mind. “I am so tired. I need a break from writing. I will not be working on writing projects until further notice.” But then suddenly I remembered that I had already been instructed to WAIT. I could just WAIT. It was perfectly OK to wait.

The tension released, the battle was over. In the relief I felt as a small piece of suffering let go, I saw that waiting is always right here, when I surrender ideas and feelings, the ingredients of my self-concept.

I saw that the urgency to write, not wait, is my ego’s impulse to flee from no hope or thought. The push to know, to be in control, to find the right words and solve the mystery, this driving force topples me into thinking, feeling and suffering. I struggle to let go of knowing. I cling to being clever, being in charge.

I sing praises to the pain and frustration of the struggle that comes when I cling. I bow in gratitude to this living force of nature, the power of difficulty and the mystery that is veiled within it. Together they move me beyond what I can know, beyond what I could hope for without this terrible wonderful mysterious fulfilling power.

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

T. S. Eliot

 

Author: Lao Huo Shakya

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

Old Fire

Lao Huo Shakya

 

We are happy to welcome a new monk (unsui) to A Single Thread | Contemplative Order of Hsu Yun. The Dharma ceremony took place this month in Evanston, Illinois, USA. It was a beautiful ceremony where the monk received the robe and transmission into the lineage of Linji/ Yunmen at A Single Thread |Contemplative Order Priory.