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.