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..sayings used in a nation, mark its character….William Blake And so it is with us.  America First. Me First.

 

The Tree Buddha                                                           FLY 2018

 

 

The world is quiet, my darling. In waiting. Waiting for the rainy words to stop drenching the airy wind and muddy earth. The Sun to rise comes to the bench to dry the lichen; those harmless, slow growers.  A standstill time when flowers drop petals and trees set free the leaves. The winds lift and slip through bushy branches waiting.

The big tumult, the loud noise goes; darkness follows. Crawls off the stage and under cover, weeps.

 

This Common Occurrence Leads to Freedom and Vigor

As old age and solitude express themselves I am clearer on the wanting and suffering in the saying, ME First. There is a clear crystal behind this veil, my darling. This veil of ME FIRST is the agony of mankind. Of me. Of you.

Anytime I am caught in moods and mind states, I realize the root energy comes when I put ME first. It comes dressed in shabby, distorted memories, ideas and images of drab colors.  A starving sorry doll, handmaiden of the mind. I wander and slip into the fullness of the big tumultuous tease and the loud noisy lack. The sorrow goes ‘round the world.

ME first comes full of fantasy and imaginings disguised as trying to figure something out or wanting to repair something that is gone wrong or congratulations on being right. No quiet. No rest comes from ME first. The sorry doll, a waste and a drain.

I know the Way – and the Way is the Truth. But I forget these truths –

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Drive your cart over the bones of the dead. Blake

The bones of my dead conditions, our dead conditions arise from the cemetery of memory, fantasy and imaginings. These Ghosts haunt and freeze us in fear. When I know where I am, when I know I am in danger of the haunting ghosts in the mind I drive my cart over the dead bones by steering the wheels towards what is right in front of me; putting my mind on where I am in things eternal.

When I go for a walk and am blocked by a menacing neighbor, when a crippled baby squirrel, mauled by cats, struggles up a tree in fear, and when meeting a guy with a flat tire. All coming from emptiness, all immanence of eternity.

Each moment a demanding eternity.

The death of a tree, hot water running over my cold fingers, a clap of thunder, the painful moan of an old dog, the smell of rain, the fog, a white cloud bulging overhead, the sound of the furnace, a shiver, making a bed, putting on my shoes, spring, summer, winter, fall, night, day, the sun, the moon, the stars.

I stop the spinning of the wheels in the mind. I stop looking at ME. I see when I feel lack and want more of something I make up fantasies and imaginings and project them upon the world. I cast the dead bones that veil the realization of the emptiness and immanence of giver, receiver and gift. Knowing this – knowing the emptiness, knowing the immanence of giver, receiver and gift I stop blame and guilt. I stop the pathetic ME first.

It is as William Blake points out. If my perception was cleaned up from these made up images, everything would appear as it is – infinite. And it does. But I must be willing to look beyond the veil of the material world. To drop body and mind and meet what shows up without attachment; without my finger prints. I must be willing to let go of the memories…the blame…the guilt…the shame…the unnumbered wounds. Then, I see the truth of being linked into the network of eternal life.

If the doors of perception were cleansed,

Everything would appear to man as it is,

Infinite. Blake

Renunciation of these ME images is the practice. Realization of knowing and seeing the mind turning towards a ME First brings sinkhole moods. A place of perishing for the spiritual adept; and for a nation.

The America First, Me First propaganda is equivalent to a brute force that veils our psyche into thinking this here, this material realm is all there is. We think we are sovereign. And when this happens we suffer. And we become willing to fight for AMERICA FIRST, ME FIRST. We fail to see this suffering comes from a stained and cruddy perception.

Imagine that!

It deludes. Propaganda deludes us. We end up perishing behind its veil. We enter a perishing selfie; paralyzing divisive moods of fear and worry. Isn’t this what is going on? We exclude. Divide. Fight.

America First, just like Me First will never bring true satisfaction and inner peace; which can only be won by renunciation.

Imagine that!

Imagine letting go of the propaganda. ME images, ME fantasies and ME ghosts.

“Letting go” is the key word of the Buddhist path, the fading away of desire. Ayya Khema

We get caught because we are taken in by a sense of lack which makes us worry about ME. In order to let go, I fight my way through the jungle of imaginings to realize “more” is not “better.” You see, my darling, I must realize that these fantasies and imaginings are making promises of how things should be or should have been or were. They are full of glitter and gold, worry and fear. And I must let them go. But letting them go comes from a realization of knowing I am complete – not the ego, not the mind, not the intellect, not the body – no, but who I am is complete, right in the moment.

Most of what comes up in the mind is junk. Just junk. I need to junk it. It includes much of what is being said in the nation. Most of it is junk. The nation needs to see it for what it is and junk it. Not judge it. Condemn it. Debate it. Change it. NO! Just junk it; a great swooshing sound of letting go.

When we realize we are perfect – when we see for our self that the Way is about letting go of the self, the ego-body-mind complex we begin to see clearly. This Way is similar to what Christ said to his disciples – “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

In other words, you, my darling are perfect; complete this moment just as birth is complete this moment, death is complete this moment, life is complete this moment. Dump the muck that tells you otherwise. Dump it all. Don’t believe it.

Be complete by letting go of attachment to the mind, the body, the ego. Take care of them, but do not think for one minute that the mind, the body and ego are real. You know already they don’t last. They grow, age, wither and die. Don’t get snookered by the mirage, but be complete in the sovereign being that goes beyond body and mind. No material trinket will add one fathom. Relax all the striving. Labor without seeking reward; meet what shows up, engage directly without a shadow of ME.

Take the attitude of nothing in it for ME.

A compelling attitude. Different than one might expect; different from our cultural conditioning. There is an arc from this material brinkmanship to a mystical path — a discovery made with oneself, requiring a no-matter-what practice and training of attention and self-discipline. At the very least an inclusive attitude, open to what comes as an awakening moment; as an immanent arising.

Remain open; do not draw a conclusion or set up a new category. Don’t believe this as gospel.  Armed with strength, vitality and contemplation, practice letting go.

Good luck, my darling. Good, good luck.

May this encourage all beings to discover what is always there; the dearest freshness deep down things. Hopkins

Humming Bird

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

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

With a lot of help from Ming Zhen Shakya, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ayya Khema, William Blake, Evelyn Underhill, Seamus Heaney, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī.

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Doing It Right

Earlier this summer, I took vows to live my life as a Zen monk. In a dawn ritual, my head was shaved, I received a hand-sewn robe and a new name, Old Fire Skyward. I was welcomed by the Buddha and by my teacher into the Contemplative Order of Hsu Yun.

The following day, a five-hour drive back to southwestern Wisconsin, a region of small towns, deep river valleys and high ridges with views of family farms and woodlands stretching to the far horizon. Three miles from town on a ridge-top meadow where I live with my husband B. and our dog, I began a new cycle of spiritual unfolding, nourished and guided by vows and name, robe and haircut.

Several weeks later I read a beautiful essay, “A Plumb Line for Our Lives,” in which John Backman asks, “Am I doing it right?” Reading his thoughtful reflection was a revelation. It seems there are others in addition to me who ask this question of themselves as they travel the path of solitude, silence and spiritual seeking. Backman’s question reminds me of the child’s game of hide and seek. The “seeker” searches for where the hidden players might be. I remember the thrill of the search, the possibility of discovery around every corner, in every closet, and the frustration and doubt that set in as the minutes ticked by and my seeking was still in vain. It helped to have a witness who could say to me, “You’re getting warm! Really warm!” With the reassurance offered by this witness, I could carry on my seeking, knowing that I was on track toward uncovering that which was hidden.

Seeking the Divine can be similar. Sometimes there is doubt, sometimes I want to know that I am getting warm. For the likes of early Christian monastics, the boundaries that established the Path of the seeker were solid and uncompromising: three windows, open at precise times. A modern version of monasticism, the one in which I have been trained, is that of the householder monastic. Living life as an ordinary person, I do the dishes and feed the dog, weed the gardens and build a rain water collection system, go for groceries, help neighbors harvest the garlic.

A Zen monk lives her ordinary life as a spiritual practice, each task and each encounter an opportunity to listen, to see, to pay full attention, to seek what is hidden in plain sight, in everything that arises. In this context, the witness, the clarity of one’s seeking rests within the structure provided by the ever-changing present. Fully giving oneself over to this place and this moment, without any coming or going and with full acceptance of all that is coming and going: This is the Way, this is, “You are getting warmer.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The here and now of my life takes place in a re-purposed travel-trailer. This tiny dwelling-place is off the grid, running on solar electric power (fridge and lights and electronic devices), propane (cookstove and heater) wood (stove for second heat source) and plenty of human muscle. We haul water in 3-gallon jugs and a pull-cart across the ridge-top on a grassy path from the well. Groceries and dog food, bird seed and propane tanks are hauled in too. Garbage and laundry are hauled out, gray water is hoisted onto plantings, humanure and kitchen waste are carried down the hill to an enclosed composting bin. 

Cellular data affords easy internet and phone connectivity; hence we are well-connected to the secular world while and also retreated from it. Far from streetlights and highways and the imperative to lock our doors, we live within the cycles the sun and moon and stars and seasons make. We are reminded of where we are by the bird migrations, the oak saplings, the young fruit trees and the flowers seeded in June, all growing toward their maturity, the skeletons of old trees falling, then cut up for firewood. We endure bugs and their biting, wind and terrible storms, heat and humidity, cold and mud so that we can be a part of life on this ridge-top, so that it can shepherd us through the bitter sweetness of everything changing, everything.

 

Six hundred feet to the southwest dwell our closest neighbors and dear friends, M & E, who own these twenty-seven acres. In their cozy compound can be found more amenities of daily life including a shower, a freezer, an air conditioner, jam-making, problem-solving, shared dinners. Around their house are abundant tree lines to break the wind and sun, flower and vegetable gardens, berry bushes and fruit trees from generations of farmers and gardeners who have called this land home.

This is my window into the larger world: our house on the meadow and off the grid, the larger farm and the community of people and pets who live here. The next ring expanding out includes the grocery and hardware stores and all the other stimulations of town, my large extended family, a half-hour’s drive away including aging parents and an assortment of siblings, cousins, their offspring and their aging parents.

Every day, whatever else is happening out the door, down the driveway and on the device screens that beckon us into the material world, B & I follow a routine of meditation, spiritual study and writing, silence and solitude. We set up an altar each morning at the table that also serves as our dining table and desk. Candle and incense, chimes and bells come off the shelves to take center stage with the flowers and the statue of the Buddha that live permanently at the heart of our tiny abode.

I go back and forth between early mornings at the altar, seeking the Absolute purity of timeless awareness, then breakfast, followed by time to write and reflect. A mid-day work period can find me weeding, hauling, building, repairing, driving to town with a list. After lunch and rest, another period of solitude and silence or study before the evening meal. Here on the high meadow, using the events around me and within me as fuel for the proverbial old fire within, I seek the light of wisdom, rising skyward.

I sit in the middle of the fear I felt when a torrential two-day storm caught me alone on the farm with just my dog for company. I grapple with my tendency to make every aspect of life part of my drive toward accomplishment, whether tending gardens or making a meal. I struggle to share this life with B, the constant navigation of small spaces, the compromises, the carving out of solitude and silence in two hundred and forty square feet. I watch all the ways my body, now well into its sixth decade, is diminishing in its capacity to perform the physical tasks required of life here.

From this fluid flow of absolute and particular, I search within the pain, fear and difficulty of my life for what lies hidden there. I practice opening to the suffering as an offering, pointing me toward the delusion that this body and mind are who I am. There is great spiritual power in Just This, this here and now, unencumbered by the self-motivated habits and misunderstandings of a lifetime.

Within the cycle of delusion and suffering leading towards insight and nourishment are those moments when I lose my confidence in the process of this unfolding. Insight seems unreachable. Certainly (it feels) I am getting colder, not warmer. I forget to trust the seeking without finding. I forget the profound simplicity of “stay right here.” Behind my question, “Am I doing it right?” is the precarious perch I balance on, the human form I inhabit and the spiritual being I am in a groundless dance, no place to land except Here.

Powerlessness, the turning away from drive and toward open receptivity, the trust that IT is everywhere around me, this quality of light is new to my eyes. While I need to orient towards renunciation, instead, my usual bend is towards sturdy self-reliance, that pioneer quality of dependence solely upon my own faculties, my agency and my purposeful seeking. Herein lies another source of my questioning, “Am I doing it right?” On the ridge, I can see when my work bears fruit, and when I cannot see, I have the work itself to sustain me. My pioneering self is not familiar with waiting, alone, without a sign, in the open stillness.

My teacher and guide on this path, when I ask her, “Am I getting warm?” she says, “Relax.” Without thinking, without measuring, she says, just meet what comes and relax. So, as the summer winds down and all the multitude of life that has been growing, pushing upward around me responds to the diminishing light by sending out its final fruits, I turn my focus toward slowing down, calming down, relaxing the push. The grasses dry and bend, the apples drop from the trees, the milkweed and butterfly weed wear fat pods full of seeds and bright red berries adorn the fence rows. I look as if seeing with new eyes.

I see myself reflected in a mirror or window and I know that my vows and my new appearance are telling me of a ripening at the core of my being. That which I seek lives within me. The shaved head declares this truth, previously hidden even from myself, like the seeds in a still-closed pod. My seed-pod monk-hood now displays its wealth of fertility. I have come out of the Buddhist closet. 

“I Am an Ordained Buddhist Monk.”

My now-visible status is an offering to my own seeking spirit: I have been welcomed into the Way. I have been embraced and I am being guided.

 

 

There will be groundlessness, it will get dark. And within every cycle there are the fruits that ripen to feed my hunger. In the wealth of the autumn, here I am. With gratitude for the harvest, and for the seeking.

Humming Bird

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

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REMIXED – Who Are You?

Sinner – Emerging Buddha?

OK. You’ve Made Mistakes. You Feel Like a Failure. You’re not alone; small comfort!

Who are you?

I can’t say for certain, but maybe the religious leaders of the world find themselves wondering how to respond when they face the question, “Who are you?” Oftentimes we answer this question from the perspective of the material world using role labels. Mother. Father. Wife. Husband. Woman. Man. Doctor. Lawyer. Carpenter. Student. The list goes on.

In Zen, however, the question “who are you?’ is a profound koan used to burst the balloon of self-delusion. To ask the question in a serious manner can take a spiritual adept to sudden awakening. You see, the question demands the practitioner to doubt all the self-constructed identities in order to see clearly who they really are.

Who are you?

According to the BBC there are 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide; a sizable number of adherents. When the then new leader of this prodigious religion, which claims 18% of the world’s population was asked in an interview: Who are you?

He responded.

“I ​​do not know what might be the most fitting description…. I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” Pope Francis, 2013

Pope Francis’ announcement to the world is a proclamation of a disciple of Jesus Christ, the redeemer of sinners. The word ‘sin’ however, often brings chills down our spine leaving us with an impulse to shake off the term. Most of us would not respond to this universal question announcing to the world, “I am a sinner.” But all spiritual adepts know that the mud covering our life from the harm we have done is the first stage of spiritual work. It can’t be skipped. And yes, it risks getting caught in guilt and shame. If you go with “I am a sinner” – Hallelujah. It takes a fair bit of spiritual strength to know this about oneself and openly admit it.

Pope Francis understands the depth and spiritual poignancy of such a personal and public admission. It is unlikely it was said with any sense of regret but rather a piercing sense of personal recognition that accompanies those who realize the resolve and commitment of a disciple on a spiritual quest. Perhaps Pope Francis is saying to the world ‘I, Jorge Mario Bergolio need to work on virtue in order to resist the illusions and lures of the world.’ His simple admission of his spiritual place.

Yet, in the 21st century which is a predominantly, scientific and technological zeitgeist, the word “Sinner” does not easily find a place in our personal lexicon; it is not understood and is often misunderstood. It renders an indictment against us that leads to a feeling of fearful condemnation: ‘Man the sinner is no good and will go to hell unless he is saved.’ The word “sinner” brings to mind images such as a pointed finger jutting out of the heavens scolding us. It tends to carry with it the old dogma of a moralistic cabal. Understood as such, it gives limited help and drives us away from the essential shake-up of realizing the ego of man is unable to make it to the peaks of spiritual awakening. We feel queasy with the guilt, shame and blame which accompanies the word “sin.” The ego latches on and is wounded by these subsequent mind states giving birth to the identity of a ‘victim.’ We don’t see it as a condition, a stage if you like, and like all conditions and stages it is subject to change.

The ego, time and time again, overtly and covertly wants self-gratification (pleasure) and claiming the role of ‘victim’ is as much self-seeking pleasure as any other identity The ego doesn’t care since it is both surreptitious and blatant in the pursuit of personal gain and comforts. The ego self-centered position remains predominant.

And yet, this profession of “sinner” does have an aim, doesn’t it?

Pope Francis does not suggest he is a “victim” or that he is riddled with guilt, shame or blame. He is confessing some interior reality of suffering which he describes with language from his tradition. Using the word “sin” is rooted in the historical context of his membership in the Roman Catholic enclave.

Sin is a reality, however, even for an emerging Buddha. It is not a label of the ego-self but a motivation – a drive to be and get something somewhere. A label merely irritates as a small stone does when it is stuck in our shoe. A declaration of “I am a sinner” is a recognition of a spiritual condition as well as a motivation to change without guilt, shame and blame. Motivation, as a necessary requisite for a spiritual awakening, is a matter of life and death.

Our dear and late Dharma brother, Da Shi Yin Zhao, captures the spiritual significance of motivation in his reflections on an Aesop fable. After reckoning with his suffering he wrote:

One day a hound, out hunting alone, flushed a hare from a thicket and gave chase. The frightened hare gave the dog a long run and then escaped. The hound was disappointed, but he held his head up as he trotted home. His attitude irritated a passing shepherd. “You’re supposed to be such a fine hunter,” he sneered. “And you couldn’t even run down a hare that’s a fraction of your size.”

 “You forget,” replied the hound, “that I was only running for my supper. The hare was running for his life.”

 Whether hare, hound, or human being motivation is everything. What is the goal… and how badly do we want it? The rabbit wanted to live more than the hound wanted to eat. The rabbit tried harder.

At this point another definition of “sin” is worth considering. Sin defined as an archer failing to hit the target, missing the mark. The archer draws back his bow, takes aim and releases the drawn bow only to see his arrow in flight fall short of the intended target. The archer, no doubt, feels a prick of disappointment when he sees his spent arrow lying on the ground before the target. He may be red-faced and embarrassed by his inability to strike the bull’s eye. Missing the mark (sin) does not send the archer into a place of self-damnation that drowns him in unworthiness. Blame and shame do not arise. It is not a dishonor or a disgrace to miss the target; it is a recollection, a reminder to the Zen archer of two spiritual requisites.

(1). A fallen arrow points to a need for discipline and training and (2) There is no mark to hit.

The first of these requisites is easy to understand. The archer who is sincere in his spiritual pursuits will keep going despite his fallen arrows. His missing the mark shows him he needs discipline. The arrow that misses is not a claim against the archer in terms of guilt, shame or blame it is merely spiritual feedback from a spiritual condition. It tells the archer, as any good messenger does, continue. This archer is a disciple and continues to train.

The second requisite points to the Truth of the illusionary world. There is nothing to get in the material realm that will satisfy the archer’s thirst. If the archer loses heart to train, if he thinks there is something to get he needs to seek help. Any Master worth his salt knows when a disciple is despondent from a fallen arrow he has not yet seen his true condition but continues to rub and buff the crest-fallen ego. The despondency is a messenger. This disciple needs to reflect on his commitment and resolve. Something continues to block his emerging Buddha self. It’s not a time to give up; it’s a time to reflect. I offer, first this reminder from Bonhoefer as well as a recommendation.

 

    REMINDER

…The person who hears the call to discipleship and wants to follow, but feels obliged to insist on his own terms…is no longer (in) discipleship but (in) a program of [his] own to be arranged to suit [himself]. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship

    RECOMMENDATION

 Study renunciation and eternal life in  Matthew 19:16-25

 

If the disciple is more interested in arranging things to suit his desires, he is not resolute about his conviction for spiritual ascendancy. He merely wants to be in charge. He’s a seeker with an ego-centered attitude. Seekers need training. Strong and fierce compassion must be offered to awaken those wanting to be in charge and wanting to be a so-called ‘disciple.’ Arrogance and pride are the main culprits prohibiting the seeker from entering the Dharma gates of an emerging Buddha Self.

The amount of time spent seeking spiritual heights does not matter a tittle when it comes to spiritual awakening. What matters is the conversion of the mind and heart.  The disciple must be willing and able to see the death of the ego-self as essential to his spiritual awakening or he will spend his time polishing his illusionary ego-brick.

If we find we are in this predicament, don’t give up! Get ready to work; to drop the nonsense of the ego. We must remember we are an emerging Buddha despite the miserable sense of disappointment we may cling to in our ego identity. STOP!

We must stop going over and over the mistakes and sorrows as though it is a canker sore in the mouth. We need to clean-up our act. There is no shame in cleaning things up. It is a worthy and necessary spiritual activity. Don’t shun it.

Most of us know the story of Angulimala, who was known as the “Finger Necklace” monk. After killing a victim, he would remove a finger, thread it onto a string of other fingers and hang it around his neck. He allegedly killed close to a thousand villagers during the Buddha’s lifetime.

Angulimala’s great fortune was encountering the Buddha directly. With this meeting he stopped his murderous lifestyle, repented and became a devoted disciple. He didn’t quibble, complain or bargain with the Buddha. He didn’t whine. He stopped. He dropped his old ways. He gave up his criminal identity. His emerging Buddha arose within him.

He was struck by the Dharma. But it wasn’t easy for this former killer. He made lots of enemies. He faced the consequences of his unseemly conduct. We’d expect his previous crimes to catch up with him and they did. An angry mob of villagers who knew him before his noble birth of his Buddha Self found him and ostensibly stoned him to death. The Buddha reportedly explained that although Angulimala killed many and was killed violently himself he died a converted man, an emerged Buddha self.

He “cleaned-up” his act and faced the consequences of his dreadful actions. There was no shame, no pride, no “yes, buts” from Angulimala. He accepted willingly the Dharma gates of his life. He stopped the ego-finagling. It was for Angulimala, as it is for us, a matter of life and death.

Again Da Shi Yin Zhao, in his own words, sums up what needs to be done:

One day, with tears in my eyes, I sat on my pillow and prayed. I knew at that point that I couldn’t cope with the world without the Buddha’s help. I also realized that I had to help myself by approaching Zen with an honest effort, with a Right Effort, that in all ways I had to “live out the life of the Buddha Self.”

 I picked a meditation method, worked hard to get the method right, and stuck with it. I changed my attitudes towards the material world. I began to see what was important and what wasn’t. So, finally, I began to approach Zen as the hare being chased by the hound; I approached Zen knowing that my life depended on it.

 Whether we see our interior condition in terms such as I am a sinner, missing the mark, or as a hare being chased by a hound it is when we know it is a matter of life and death that we approach Zen with an honest effort to “live out the emerging Buddha Self” with no blame, shame or guilt.

 

Who are you?

Humming Bird

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

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

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A Plumb Line for Our Lives in Solitude by John Backman

…for Our Spiritual Practice.

“Am I doing it right?”
I ask this question a lot, particularly in terms of the solitary life. Maybe it’s because I don’t have an official sanction to be a solitary, or because my life doesn’t look particularly eremitic—I live with my wife in a house in the suburbs. Whatever the cause, I need a plumb line to help me assess my life in solitude.

Every time the question arises, my deepest self draws me to the image of anchorholds. Many people know anchorholds as the type of cell that Julian of Norwich inhabited: typically a small room, built onto the side of a church, with three windows.

Anchoresses (they were mostly women, and most numerous in medieval England) were walled into such a room upon becoming solitaries, committed to a cycle of prayer and contemplation that took up most of their days.

It is those three windows, and the interplay between them, that speak to me.

Take, for instance, the “squint”—a slit or side window that opened onto an altar in the church. Through it, the anchoress could take part in the Church’s rituals directed to God, especially the Catholic Mass.

The squint reminds me of our blessed capacity to connect with, and draw nourishment from, the Divine Source of all things (whatever name you use for that Source). The squint’s size reminds me that a glimpse of the Divine is all we get. The vast Mystery is always utterly beyond us.

The “house window” usually opened onto servants’ quarters. The servant would pass meals through the window to the anchoress; the anchoress would send her chamber pot the other way. So we have a whole window devoted to the most pedestrian details of life: eating and drinking and pooping. The house window reminds me that these too are part and parcel of our lives, not somehow separate or less than. For us suburban solitaries, even cleaning the house and mowing the lawn are part of our call.

Finally, members of the community would come to the “parlor window” to receive counsel and wisdom from the anchoress. I look at this window and see my practice of spiritual direction, the correspondence from seekers in different places, my friends who need a listening ear. Yet curiously the parlor window was to be smaller than the house window—a reminder that service to others, while important, is not everything.

At the center is the room that binds the windows together. In that room is the pulse of the anchoress’s vocation—prayer and study and reflection and especially solitude. The solitude, and the Divine Spirit who moves within it, feed it all. The anchoress brings to each window the wisdom and treasures she has received in her anchorhold.

She also brings what she has experienced at the other windows. So her talk with a distressed parishioner goes with her to the squint, where she presents him to the Divine for mercy. The dailiness of the house window gives her a keen sense of her own humanity, which she uses to stand in solidarity with supplicants at the parlor window.

Many times, when I ask myself whether I’m “doing it right,” I worry that I’ve become too self-absorbed, or out of balance, or unproductive—or even too solitary. The anchorhold reminds me that the spiritual life is a never-ending flow, from the Divine to the daily to others to self to prayer and back again and over and over again. If I look at my life and see the flow, I can take heart that, in Julian’s famous phrase, “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Humming Bird

About the Author
John Backman is a spiritual director and author of Why Can’t We Talk? Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as
a Habit of the Heart (SkyLight Paths).

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

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It’s a Jungle of Faith

 

Shraddha – Confident Faith

We take in our life through our sense doors. We see what is there and we see what is missing.

When I contemplate my parents I know I do not see them anymore. What was visible disappeared. Where they lived changed and is gone. I no longer hear their voices or smell them or touch their bodies. My thoughts about them are distorted and irregular. If I ask my brother he remembers differently than my sister and I remember differently than both of them. Pictures stir up mirages.

My parents were born, appeared and rose up and then shrunk down and disappeared. Much of the trajectory of their lives I did not see or know about. It is a story.

When I meditate I sometimes can see into the living room – through the bay windows where my father sat in a kitchen chair in front of the TV. It was there. I think it was. Now it is gone. An illusion.

Soon enough it will be true of this place – this house- this body – the thoughts in this mind will vanish and the intellect will stop. What appears to be me will vanish. Name and form are not real.

You might ask what does this have to do with faith and confidence. Well when I have confidence in the apparent world of body, mind, intellect I suffer.  When I remember it is fleeting, not real – I feel free of any fear. I let go of any worries or anxieties because I know the result – I know the body will vanish, I know the mind will stop cognition and the intellect will go quiet. Name and form don’t last. Never have.

And I also know that I will continue – there is a something that does not stop, does not vanish. I know that. In fact, the Source moves these fingers finding letters on the keyboard, putting together these words. All of this (I wave my hands in the air) is coming from that, the real deal. I know that.

I forget it though when I identify with the passing show – of body, mind and intellect – when I try to catch the fleeting world I get caught in the distraction of it. I think it is real and important and think there is something there. In a way there is something there but it is an illusion, a temporary distraction. If followed, the illusion causes some semblance of suffering.

Every name and form of the Source is laden with death, in clear words it is deadly. It helps me to remember that truth because it frees me from my stupid attempts to nail down something and try to make what is fleeting real. I stop taking things so seriously personal. LOL

An example of this freedom comes when I look at the fleeting world of politics as exemplified in the WH today and the recent news of sexual abuse reports regarding vowed celibate RC priests. These two situations confirm the same truth I see when I look into the living room where my father sat watching TV – both are part of the fleeting transient world and I don’t need to get involved with it at all. I see the suffering, and I see the root of the suffering I could get into if I begin to take either of them seriously real. That is ignorance. Knowing it is ignorance is not a condemnation, it is freedom giving greater capacity to listen and pay attention without dividing things up into good or bad. Either side of the division leads to suffering.

Ignorance leads to all sorts of suffering. Ignorance of the Source – ignorance of knowing the real you, the eternal nature that flows through all the forms and names continuously – I see the suffering’s root and open to offering what comes from the Source. My capacity to open to it is what is most important. To be clear of opinions and the three poisons.

We, Americans, and those who are Roman Catholic, need not be downtrodden by the ignorance – not afraid – because the Source is never and has never been contaminated by our ignorant shenanigans. I know this firsthand.

Now it does little for anyone who does not know except perhaps as an encouragement that others have gone before us who know the Source as a beacon of reassurance to continue seeking confidence in the Source.

We don’t rest our confidence in man-made stuff. When we do, suffering is sure to follow.

With great encouragement for you,

FLY

 

 

 

Humming Bird

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

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

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Looking at the Cloth and How it is Put Together – Finding the Flawless Silk

 

 

I see you look only at the constructions of the I-ego and end up thinking and believing that those constructions are who you are. But that is a superficial examination of who you are. There is some apparent truth in doing that – the constructions do appear but they are not what is real. They are reflections of the mind in the mind. Anything, any reflection in the mind is apparent truth. It doesn’t last. And more times than not it is flawed–meaning it is murky. The murkiness covers what is real.

 

 

 

Think of it as a patchwork quilt, an old fashioned one. It was sewn out of rags, bits and pieces leftover from a variety of worn out clothes. You use the patchwork quilt to keep you warm or as a decorative wall piece, prettied up or to show off your skills – this is much like how you use the ‘I-ego.’ Little kids do this and so do you. You use your ‘I-ego’ to keep cozy, sometimes you feel boastful and proud, sometimes you show off, sometimes angry and hurt. All of it being fabricated out of rags; leftovers from various bits you learned. This fabricated ‘I-ego’ is not real because it is impermanent.

 

Time and time again you go back to the bits of rag to explain your behavior, to defend how you got to where you are and to protect your positions in everyday life. We all can see this fabrication. But spiritual work asks of you and me to set aside that quilt in order to see and know and realize the flawless awareness that is the emanation of the threads of all the fabrications.   

 

Right now the best I can tell you is that the emanations are like the silky threads that surprise us. What I mean is that most you have walked into a spider web – and although the spider is exponentially smaller than your body mass you get caught in the unseen, sticky silky threads. The flawless is like that – to see and realize the silky web in the emptiness of the space without covering up with the fabricated quilt. You are afraid to uncover.

 

When you find yourself touched by the web, your reaction is to struggle to get out of it – usually the silk feels annoying and you want to get it off your face & hands and be on your way. What I am trying to say is the mysterious and often unseen silk rising out of the belly of the spider is the emanation of the threads of all the fabrications of the world. BUT you think these threads are either an irritation or a boon depending upon your conditions. You miss, altogether, the emanation in the emptiness of space because of your focus is on your bits of rag that you have put together.

This leads to a be-damned attitude with all the other silky threads. You strengthen your separate, frail apparent ‘I-ego’ and enter the realm of suffering. You cry out in all manner of ways about your little self.

Self-examination is essential if you are interested in finding liberation – not the liberation of dogma and doctrine or denomination but the ineffable, indescribable emanation of emptiness. When St. A studied wisdom deeply she discovered that the bits and pieces of the ‘I-ego,’ i.e., form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and self-consciousness are impermanent her suffering stopped. To think otherwise, leads to the mark of existence which is suffering. 

With great encouragement for you,

FLY

 

 

 

Humming Bird

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

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

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The Capacity to Open

 

 

We all have some capacity to be open, to both give and receive. Sometimes, however, we close down and are unable to give and receive. This closed down state often says, “I know that!” or it thinks “I get that!” or “I have that!” or “I don’t need that!?” Sometimes this closed state refuses to follow or wants to do things in a way that disregards others or the teachings. And yet, the universal mark to “open” is still there even when the parochial I-ego mind appears to shut down the universal openness.

 

 

 

This capacity to open is never tainted by the I-ego shenanigans, but it does get more difficult to discover this universal quality of openness when the “I-ego” is running the show. When the “I-ego” is running the plays it is very difficult to receive and even more difficult to give. When I speak about “giving” I include many things, not just physical gifts…but qualities such as an ability to “listen” and to “pay attention” and “to follow” directions; to receive the teachings with a confidence in them….confidence that is trusting and not belligerent. There are many reasons the openness to receive and give gets cut off – sometimes it is fear or arrogance, sometimes an ugly righteousness forms over the open heart that looks like a know-it-all. But most of these reasons are straw devils — but even though they are straw devils they can run amok in sidetracking and ditching the spiritual aspirant into a phony security.

I hope you see from this short teaching that ‘the capacity to open’ is important to any spiritual work. And that over time, if we continue the work, continue to stay the course, that you will see this for yourself. See when you close down and stray into the petty field of the “I-ego” of thinking all sorts of crazy self-centered thoughts about your accomplishments and your prideful doors that keep you closed down in a mind that “thinks it knows.”

I encourage you to examine what you cling to and what identity you carry that leads you astray. The universal mark of suffering arises from that conditioned identity that you believe is a lifeboat. So there is work to do. Of course there is much more that can be said – but this is enough, a bite of the bread that nourishes the spiritual quest.

I hope you will use what fortitude you have to examine your constructed identity and begin to take down the ridgepole that holds it up. Freedom, the universal open freedom is never apart from you.

With great hope for you.

FLY

Humming Bird

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

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

Image Credit: Photo by Mikey Dabro from Pexels

 

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Seeking Truth by Ming Zhen Shakya

 

 

People who write homilies and other spiritual tracts have a wish list:

We’d like a license to skew our grammatical constructions to allow for amphiboly. Ah… to be as oracularly correct as Delphi. Think of it: A Greek general, contemplating war against the Persians, asks, “Which side will win?” Quoth the Oracle: “Apollo says, ‘The Greeks the Persians shall subdue.'” It’s the sort of advice the CIA usually gives. That’s why they’re never wrong.

Also on that wish list there’d be a safety net that would catch us before we went into self-contradictory free fall – as when we rhapsodize about a spiritual experience, claiming that it is absolutely ineffable, and then plunge into the murky depths of pages trying to describe it.

We’d also like to call something ‘utterly unambiguous’ and be able to describe it in the photographic flash that that description suggests.

It would be wonderful to wish into existence a writer’s right never to be wrong and always to be succinct and clear.

Sometimes an essay is like putting a message in a bottle and casting it adrift. We’re never quite sure if, or when, or where it will be read and what effect it will have upon the reader.

I was sitting in a bordertown cantina, doing what folks generally do in a bordertown cantina, when I was approached by an off-duty Mexican motorcycle cop. He was young, handsome, fluent in English, and pleasant; and if this were not enough to induce conversation with him (and it certainly should have been) he regularly read our webpages. He had a question for me regarding the Lex Talionis essay: he wanted to know how to qualify and quantify desire. “If desire is so integral to the process of like-retaliation,” he asked, “what happens when we do the right thing for all the wrong reasons?”

Good question. I tried to look knowledgeable, wanting to say something oracular, like: “The Buddha says, ‘Desire must a man destroy.'” For, oddly enough, amphiboly provides the means for ruthless self-examination. The I Ching works so well because it is precisely so ambiguous. I could maybe let this police officer read into the answer the solution he was seeking. Stalling for time, I asked him to give me an instance of the problem. What specific experience had made him ask the question?

It seems that while he was on crowd-control duty outside a stadium, stationed there with several other police officers, four American tourists exited the stadium. One of them, a woman, was carrying a camera. Another, a man, had signaled a cab and called to the others to hurry and get into it. The woman asked him if he spoke English and when he said that he did, she asked if he would be kind enough to take the camera to the lost and found. She gave him the number of the seat under which she had found the camera and also a general description of the man who had been sitting in the seat. And then she hurriedly left.

The camera, he said, was a Hasselblad… and it was in mint condition. Immediately one of the other officers whistled enviously at his good fortune. Heaven had opened, and a very valuable camera had fallen into his lap. He was an amateur photographer. This was a crisis in faith.

He said that a variety of thoughts crowded into his head at that moment. “First, we have a saying, ‘For every peso another officer lets you get away with, he will demand payment of a hundred pesos later.'” He looked around at the three other officers and knew that if he kept the camera, sooner or later they would demand of him that he ignore much more serious misdeeds of theirs. He did the math and it was staggering. For the price of this camera they would own him, body and soul.

Still, the lost and found office was a quarter turn around the circular stadium. He could say that he was going to turn it in and then simply hide it in his motorcycle bag. No one would know. But, naturally, sooner or later somebody would find out that he had a Hasselblad and the truth would be out.

As he stood there examining the camera, one of the other cops said that if he turned it in, the attendant who accepted it would keep it for himself – the real owner would never get it one way or the other. And then he thought, yes… and if the attendant who accepted it didn’t keep it, one of those officers could easily send a friend to claim it. They all had heard the seat number.

So he righteously announced that he was going to turn the camera in and started off on his cycle; but once out of sight of the other three officers, he again considered hiding the camera. If he didn’t want to be caught later with a Hasselblad he could always take the camera into the U.S. and hock it. Then he said he disgustedly thought, “Jesus… why don’t I just hold up a bank and be done with it.” And so he dismissed that idea… and by this time he was at the office.

Very officiously, he proceeded to document the transaction. He demanded proof of identity of the attendant and he recorded it in his log book. He obtained a receipt for the camera… and on both the original and the carbon, he made the attendant write the seat number and description of the owner and the details about the camera’s make and style. “In short,” he said, “I covered my ass.”

But then, as he drove back to the others, satisfied that he had done the honorable thing, it occurred to him that honor had had nothing to do with it. “I should have done my duty because it was my duty. I shouldn’t have even considered taking the camera. This is the new Mexico. I’m proud to be a Mexican police officer, and there I was ready, willing, and able to act like a ladron, a common thief. So I did the right thing… but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of being glad to do right, I was just afraid to do wrong.”

Yes, Hamlet, Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

Fortunately there is a point at which we cease having to confront ourselves with the advantages and disadvantages of doing our duty, a point at which we do what is right because to do otherwise is simply unthinkable. That point comes when we figure out the common sense of religion and when, armed with that information, we revalorize the people, places and things of our lives. We acquire this strength of character in stages.

In the beginning of our Dharma journey, our ability to make ethical decisions can be calibrated on a scale of 1 to 10. A “1” usually thinks it is incumbent upon him to express moral judgments about everything. He’s read somewhere that Buddhists are non-violent and so he’s firmly against capital punishment. Not while he was around could anybody drive a stake through Count Dracula’s heart. Let the world swarm with vampires. The Buddha said we must not harm living things, and the un-dead surely qualify.

And beginners also have trouble with discretion: when to keep their mouths shut and when to speak out. I remember years ago when laws against marijuana possession were way out of proportion with the nature of the offense and a young man had been caught with half a kilo in his possession – and for this faced ten years in prison. I was in the jury pool waiting for the first group of temporarily seated jurors to go through the Voir Dire process, when one young man in that group haughtily informed the prosecutor that he was a Zen Buddhist and, further, that he thought the laws against marijuana possession were unconstitutional. He was immediately excused and as he walked past me out of the courtroom, I remember thinking, “Kid, if you were seated in that defendant’s chair, you would have wanted somebody like you on the jury.” I later wondered if he had ever bothered to learn that the boy had been convicted. Yes, discretion is always the better part of valor.

In matters of morality, we are like people standing by the edge of a lake noticing a drowning man. Always our first impulse is to jump in to save him. This is the natural inclination of Dharma. It is in the second moment that we should calculate our ability to accomplish the rescue. If we are strong swimmers and if we’re prepared to handle the panic of a drowning man, we can dive in. If we’re not strong or if we are ignorant of the facts of panic – that panic and ethics don’t co-exist, that panic prevents constructive thought or genteel deference, that a drowning man will push down his rescuer to stand on top of him to get air – then if we go out there, we’ll drown with him. (Of course, he just might save himself at our our expense – the First Aid equivalent of turning state’s evidence.) Weak, untested resolve soon gets us in over our heads.

A friend wants a slightly illegal favor. We say, “What the hell…” and then get sucked into the vortex of his swirling troubles. Later we’ll lament our lack of foresight.

But instinctively, if we keep our priorities in mind, we’ll learn to evaluate morally dangerous situations. With habit, we do the right thing automatically. It comes with having a cerebral cortex.

But suppose, I asked the motorcycle cop, he had kept the camera and one of the other police officers had come upon a wallet that contained a lot of cash… or a stash of cocaine… and that officer wanted to keep it. Having already compromised his own integrity, how would he have responded? Or, if after he turned in the Hasselblad, one of the other three police officers had asked a friend to claim it. When he learned about it, what would he do? Would he sacrifice a friend for the sake of a camera’s worth of integrity?

He assured me that he had been unable to think about anything else since that wretched gringa dumped the problem on him.

But he, in effect, had already “pre-emptively” answered his query. I pointed out to him the obvious: he had turned in the camera because it was the right and honorable thing to do. He had taken the attendant’s name to deter him from becoming a thief. He had obtained a receipt to protect himself and the owner of the camera. He had carefully recorded the transaction in order to discourage the other police officers from attempting to exploit the opportunity to get the camera. “When you got back to the others,” I asked him, “did you tell them exactly what you had done?”

“Yes,” he said, a little amazed that he had been so judicious.

“Then what makes you think you did the right thing for all the wrong reasons?”

The Buddha’s Five Precepts are eminently practical. If we don’t cheat on our faithful wife, we’re not likely to get AIDS. If we don’t get drunk, we’re not likely to drive off a cliff while intoxicated. If we don’t lie, we not only don’t have to remember what we said, we’re not likely to be convicted of perjury. If we don’t steal, we’re probably not going to be shot as a burglar. And if we don’t hate, we won’t murder… and then have to get bankrupted by the legal system.

But he insisted that especially when our actions involve persons whose friendship or loyalty we value, the ethical abscissa remained… the line on which confusing and conflicting negative and positive desires existed. “How do we clarify the ambiguities and decide which is the correct course to follow?”

We use our brain and force ourselves to become aware, to consider every aspect of the problem, and if we’re smart we anticipate the worst. We do just what that police officer did. Cynically, we play the Devil’s Advocate. We remember Hsu Yun’s story of the man who stole food for his family and his friends in order to gain their love and admiration. Many ate well and often; but when he was caught, none came forward to make restitution or spend a single night in jail for him. Worse, they all condemned him for being a thief.

We take a child through a toy store, and everything he sees, he wants. We know that if we yield to his desires, we will harm him psychologically. We want to be generous parents, but how do we say “No”? This is a drowning man problem. If we are strong swimmers and can handle panic, we’ll jump in. We’ll stop and talk to the child and reach an accord. He can pick one toy not to exceed a specified price. Does he understand? Sometimes he’ll astonish us and respond, “Can I have two toys that add up to that amount?” “Yes,” we’ll say, envisioning, “My son, the Secretary of Commerce!” An incompetent Dharma swimmer would yank the kid’s arm, scream at him, make false promises, and eventually drown with him.

But if, after all our analysis and expectation, we are still confused, we can rely on our instinctive ability to supply intelligibility even to the most enigmatic presentation of conflicting choices.

Philologist Benjamin Whorf once examined the logically absurd expression in English, “The exception proves the rule.” What does it mean? It was once a clear statement: “to prove” used to mean “to put on trial” and the saying indicated that an exception tested the validity of a rule by demonstrating its merit or lack thereof. But then came a semantic change: “to prove” no longer meant “to put on trial” as it did when the expression originated. “To prove” now meant “to establish the existence of a fact.”

We could have dropped the expression as being meaningless; instead we examined it and discovered new sense in it. So that when we now say, “The exception proves the rule” we mean that were it not for the exception we wouldn’t be aware that a rule even existed. It would be as if every baby at birth measured exactly 14 inches in length. Who would bother to measure the length of babies? It would have been as superfluous a bit of information as stating that Mrs. Jones gave birth to a humanchild. But not until someone delivered a baby that was a startling 18 inches long would we have realized that this exceptional child was exceptional precisely because he did not follow what was, for us, the rule of 14 inches.

Just as we know what is meant by “The Buddha says, ‘Desire must a man destroy,'” the Buddha’s audience, assuming that he ever made such a silly statement, would also have instinctively known that the “negative” element was desire and that the imperative was not that desire ought to destroy a man, but rather that if a man didn’t destroy desire, it would likely destroy him.

The man of conscience considers his actions and acquires the strength of character and the skill to handle any thrashing temptation. But if, on occasion, he still feels confused, he knows that with effort he can find insight into deeper meanings, just as he can calibrate desire.

If he repeatedly scans for intuitive insight into compromising situations, he’ll find that it’s rather like learning music well enough to get a billing in that great theater in the sky. He will find clarity in ambiguity.

The confused tourist asks: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

The wise New Yorker answers, “Practice! Practice!” 

Humming Bird

 

Author: Ming Zhen 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

 

 

 

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Advanced Teaching: Living Without a Storyline!

The field of boundless emptiness (unconditioned love) is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies (to construct a story) you have fabricated into apparent habits (stories). Zen Master Hongzhi

Live Without Desire

 

 

Awakening has the quality of surprise, not the type of surprise that excites or frightens but the type of surprise that goes beyond space and time and the stuff imagined in space and time. It requires a leap from ordinary consciousness to awareness of what we fabricate in consciousness. The leap is to purify, cure, grind down or brush away the tendency to make up and believe in our stories.

How about THAT!

What do we fabricate in consciousness? Stories.

Our stories like all stories are fabricated out of images, forms, names, memories, feelings, and desires. All fabricated into “I-ego.”

To look and see into consciousness itself as it rolls along reflecting on space and time requires a leap of transcendence. We leap away from belief in the fabricated story in the mind as true and real.

It makes sense doesn’t it?

In ordinary life, in the daily activity of the consciousness we use, we need to step back or step away from the rolling, moving activity and look into what we are doing.

Stepping back is a small move of purifying the mind awareness. We use awareness to look at the fabrications which is a leap of transcendence that goes beyond space and time. We stop being convinced of our stories as true.

Most of us have had a tiny taste of looking at our activity in this way. It is those times when we exclaim “What am I doing?” It is sudden awareness of seeing into mind. Seeing what script we are following. 

In order for it to be spiritually illuminating we need to recognize that the story line is not real and not true. This vision requires that we have gained some disenchantment with the story and are willing to disentangle from it.

What I mean by entanglement is a reference to thinking and believing that whatever the mind has fabricated is real and true. This shift is a big deal and takes practice. 

You see, we need to know that what our ordinary consciousness displays is a story. We can know this because we tell “our” story to others. It is a common occurrence filled with distorted embellishments that tend towards making things look better than they were or worse.

We put together things we remember in such a way to look and appear in a particular way. Of course all of this is laid out on the Wheel of Life and Death which shows us our story begins in ignorance every time. Now this really isn’t a “bad” or “good” thing, it only becomes a troubling thing when we think and believe the story is real and become identified and attached to the story.

You and I can have stories, but they are not real. They come and they go. They are distorted as well as under the influence of change. Believing and thinking that the stories are true are the fabrications of the mind; part of the illusory world.

These illusions are quite interesting to us. When we get too convinced by them as true and real they hinder the Light of Transcendence. All sorts of difficulties arise from these illusions in the mind.

We tend to take a stand for or against. We tend to think we are right and someone else is wrong. We tend to fixate on these illusions to the point we suffer from them.

Our feelings around these stories glue them together. Our feelings drive the story which of course drives our life to look like the story we tell ourselves.

It is very much like watching a movie. The story line is driven by a pull  or a tug on our feelings. When we realize the story or script in the mind like a movie is not real. Realize it as a story. we have the potential to let them go and not be hindered by them. 

Since most of us are attached to our stories letting go is a struggle. What is helpful here is to recognize the story for what it is – not true, not real. It is important not to get into the content of the story. Getting into the content strengthens our grip around the story and hinders the Light of transcendence. 

 

Silence and solitude help us see the concoctions we cook up. We have to learn to be quiet and let go of running the stories. When the stories are cleared out the present moment is lived. It makes sense doesn’t it? If you are running a concocted story all the time, everywhere you go, you are not living in the present moment. You are living in the story line in your head. Whatever storyline you got going is what you are making of your life. To study the story line is part of practice, to know that you run storylines is a realization. To let go of the storylines is transcendence; transcending space and time. And it is there you will find out who you are, for real.

How about THAT!

 

 

 

Let’s see if we can run through simple story; just a one-liner story.

“I AM ALONE.”

Simple enough, but many, many repercussions can follow this simple story the “I-ego” wants to fabricate.

Immediately add, this story is not true. This story is not real.

Notice what happens. Does an interior battle begin? Do you begin to enumerate evidence for the one-liner to be true. Or do you enumerate against the one-liner? Either way, you are making up more stories and falling into the content.

STOP!

Drop the one-liner.

Notice how you put the story together? Did you use comparative thoughts? STOP comparing.

Drop the one-liner?

Is there a residue of feeling sad or happy left behind?

Know the one-liner is not real, not true. It is a ghost in the mind.

Step back and watch the fabrications.

You see, you can live without a story. It is an awakened life worth living. You meet what shows up moment in moment meeting, empty of fabrications.

Humming Bird

Author: FaShi Lao Yue

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

 

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Please WELCOME A NEW MONK!

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.