We often see our lives as full of impediments or
hindrances. When we look at our
life in a linear way and with a progression of development, what we most notice
is what gets in the way of that development. We worry about these blocks, we fight all of our obstacles
and wish for them to go away.
What we are not seeing when we fight with our obstacles, is
the boundless vastness of life itself that appears in each moment. In the strictest sense, there are no
impediments. I remember Daido
Loori’s booming voice announcing during sesshin, “Be the barrier, be the
barrier.”
Suzuki Roshi has written, “So if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature,
everything appears to be in the form of suffering. But if you understand the background of existence, you
realize that suffering itself is how we live and also how we can embrace our
lives just as they are. … The true purpose is to see things as they are, to
observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control
in its widest sense. Zen practice is to open up our small mind and find the
mind that is everything.”
How can we feel this flow in our lives? How can our pure awareness of the
source in everything make us more relaxed and able to see our life more
stablely and clearly?
From “Cultivating the
Empty Field, The silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi”
Translated
by Taigen Dan Leighton
"Vast and far-reaching
without boundary, secluded and pure, manifesting light, this spirit is without
obstruction…. Subtle but preserved, illumined and vast, also it cannot be
spoken of as being or nonbeing, or discussed with images or calculations. Right
in here the central pivot turns, the gateway opens. You accord and respond without laboring and accomplish without
hindrance. Everywhere turn around
freely, not following conditions, not falling into classifications. Facing everything, let go and attain
stability. Stay with that just as
that. Stay with this just as this.
That and this are mixed together with no discriminations as to their
places. ….. This is how truly to
leave home, how home-leaving must be enacted."
Face everything, let go and attain stability.
We have to step out of our sense that we can control what is
arising or what is going to happen next.
This is stepping out of leading our lives from our desire system of like
and dislike. When we acknowledge
that we are not in control, our deeper spirituality is born. This is the “don’t know mind” of
Zen. This is beginning to see the
“bothness” of life. We are both
the flow and the hindrance.
Humility is the acceptance of being human and learning to live with and
take joy in the reality of Bothness.
Now we can find peace and harmony with our own imperfections
and those of others and begin to live with spiritual security.
Hongzhi continues:
“Settled, without a
grasping mind, the matter of oneness may be accomplished. Only do not let yourself interfere with
things, and certainly nothing will interfere with you. Body and mind are one
suchness; outside this body there is nothing else. The same substance and the
same function, one nature and one form, all faculties and all object-dusts are
instantly transcendent. So it is
said, the sage is without self and yet nothing is not himself. Whatever appears
is instantly understood, and you know how to gather it up or how to let it
go. Be a white ox in the open
field. Whatever happens, nothing
can drive him away.”
Labels: hindrances, Hongzhi, letting go, obstacles, spiritual stability., Suzuki Roshi, the boundless vastness of life, things as they are