With Purity Like a Lotus

For most of us, at least those who find themselves here on this path, we want to do something about delusion and suffering;  both our own and that of others.  We spend our time at the beginning of practice, developing the capacity to recognize distraction, see it for what it is, let it be and return to the place we choose to place our attention.

In our work to end delusion, this is a very big deal.  In essence we are deluded when our mind sees or weaves a reality that is something other than what is actually going on around us.  As we develop this capacity, so to do we work to end delusion and reduce suffering.

In practicing this, the ground is sewn with the potential for great compassion.  It is on this feild that I am encountering some of the hardest or sharpest edges of my own practice.  On this ground, I find it realitively easy to be compassionate towards those I love, those I don't know and even towards myself.

Where it often breaks down for me is how to practice and manifest compassion towards those people who irritate me, anger me, and (in my view) don't seem to give a damned about anybody else.  What compassion looks like when these situations present themselves is hard to pin down.  In my irritation and anger I tend to see them as a villain, as eveil, as someone who is setting out to be a jackass.  In this disturbed state, I can imagine no other way that it could be.

But what I forget, what I need to cultivate is the very awareness that lead me to practice in the first place.  

Delusion and suffering abound.  I should do something about it.

In these dark and red moments, I fail to see that the being in front of me also lives in the grips of delusion, assaulted by the pull of greed, anger and ignorance (each to their own extent of course).  Like myself, their own conditioning might run so deep that I may never make an impact on it, but knowing that there is darkness and suffering, how can I not try to help?  It doesn't really matter if it is helping myself, my child, that guy, or THAT guy.  We all live in the midst of the muck and the darkness, but in practice we see that it does not have to define who we are or limit our capacity to respond.

At the end of Oryoki (the meditative meals taken on sesshin) we chant: "May we exist in muddy waters, with purity like a lotus..."

Not "may exist apart" or "May we exist protected from".  To alleviate suffering, we aspire to exist IN muddy waters.  We aspire to exist there, because that is where we find the beings most in need of the alleviation of suffering, including ourselves.

Today, as I step out the door, I set the intention to not have blind spots in which some of those beings might hide.

May compassion and peace abound.

Ease off and Pass Through

Rinsen Sensei suggested that we post some of our thoughts on the text we are reading this Ango.  In the Canadian sitting group, we have been taking turns selecting a passage and reading it to the group just before we sit, and then discussing it during tea at the end of our practice time.  As a result, we have been moving through the text in a less than linear way.

As I move though the various chapters, I continue to come back to a portion of the introduction.

"By the examination of his own thoughts, emotions, concepts, and the other activities of mind, the Buddha discovered that there is no need to struggle to prove our existence, that we need not be subject to the rule of the three lords of materialism.  There is no need to struggle to be free; the absence of struggle is in itself freedom. This egoless state is the attainment of buddhahood."

For me, this passage has been part of an ongoing reminder, that we make, or at lest feed our own problems.  We worry;  we imagine arguments and worst case scenarios.  We create barriers.  We build gates.

The world we encounter is just as it is.  We apply the judgement and drama.  Sometimes, things need discernment.  Action based on clear judgement is required.  However, we tend to over do it.  Through a lens that is clouded by worry about the past and future and imagined transgressions, we judge and discern in ways that are excessive and unskillful.  

When we...

release the tension / stop the struggle / drop the story / stop giving our energy to the drama...

we can find our grounded center, even as it floats freely in the middle of the chaos.  Out of that center, we can act without struggle.

For a very long time, there were certain situations in which I could not stop struggling.  If I felt that I had been wronged by others, I would have an incredible sense of entitlement to my anger.  So strong an entitlement, that letting go of the anger was not an option.  It deserved to be nurtured.  It deserved to live.

However, when I would meet with these people, I would more often bring kindness, forgiveness and honest presence.  All the anger and fighting was reserved just for me, when I was alone in the dark hours.  Far from any sense of healthy indignation, this anger fueled a one man war, of which I was always the primary casualty.

I recognize the feeling of this shift much more easily these days.

Like a sigh.

Like easing into a hug as you realize you just can't do it anymore.

Like redirecting the tension and pivoting when uke comes in hard and fast.

Like the moment you release from the first stretch of the day, while still lying in bead.

This is not giving in.  When the struggle stops, it is not because we curl up and wait for death.  These struggles are often our attempts to make the 'then' or the 'now' be what IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE DAM IT!  When we stop the struggle, we can be present to what is actually true in the moment.

Right now, beautifully, it is the calm quiet just before we put the kids to bed.