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
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.