After this month away from writing here, I return with the essential:
As Master Dogen said, « Why give up your own seat and wander about in the dusty realms of foreign countries? »
If we don’t practice here, where will we practice? If we don’t practice now, when will we practice?
The essential seat
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
Who is free and not free?
Who suffers and laughs?
Who reads and writes?
Who is asking, anyway?
Again Dogen:
To study the way is to study the self
To study the self is to forget the self
To forget the self is to be confirmed by the 10,000 things.
If we don’t practice with what is giving joy here and now,
we miss an opportunity for the enlightening of the heart.
If we do not welcome whatever is beautiful in ourselves and in the world,
we miss the presence of the heart of power.
Where is this heart? Look no further, beyond inside and outside,
in the groundless experience of living this light.
Ting: I don’t know what is hurting, only that it hurts and that it is not so bad. This time it came with some king of bittersweet feeling of sadness/love, mixed with a sense of freedom. With it came also a urge to escape it and close, and thus miss also this love, this fragility, this humaness. What you say makes totally sense to me. It’s not about escaping from suffering, it’s about welcoming and living it. It’s not about tragedy but celebration. Let’s laugh!
What is hurting? Man, I’m so glad you asked!
In fact I am the main character in my next novel with the working-title:
“The Tragic Story of My Life So Far (volume seventy-six)”
But don’t show compassion!
Spit the truth into my face instead, laugh at me.
Wake me up!
(Or at least inspire me for the next chapter in my book:
“The Gross Insults and the Heartless People I Encounter”)
I am not making fun of you Tomas.
But sailing the boundless ocean of suffering, we will never be free. We will be drifting on waves of emotion endlessly.
Seung Sahn said it in his book (“The Whole World is a Single Flower”):
“If you want to cross the ocean of suffering, you must take the ship with
no bottom.”
Penetrating this “Noble Truth of Suffering” (practicing with it like you say, and welcoming it) and having a good laugh at it I would like to add.
What do you say?
If we don’t practice with what is hurting here and now, we miss an opportunity for the softening of the heart.
If we do not welcome whatever is hurting in ourselves and in the world, we miss the presence of the heart of compassion.
Where is this heart? Look no further, beyond inside and outside, in the groundless experience of compassionate suffering.