You Are IT

But, I have no self except everything which is happening, and it sees itself from all the different standpoints called sentient beings.

– Alan Watts

When the inward and the outward are illumined, and all is clear, you are one with the light of the sun and moon. When developed to its ultimate state, this is a round luminosity which nothing can deceive, the subtle body of a unified spirit, pervading the whole universe. Then you have the same function as the sun and moon.

– Liu I-Ming

When it’s time for a child to start walking, a mother needs to let her child walk. She needs to let the child lose his or her balance, fall down, and then find balance once again. Alone, the child needs to get up and stand on his or her own two feet.

Although children need protection, we need to have confidence in their potential to flourish. We don’t want to hold them captive by our own fears and doubts—this creates the unhealthy dependence we have been talking about.

Letting children immerse themselves in a challenging situation or obstacle for a while gives the child confidence. It gives the mother confidence, too. It’s one of the early steps a mother takes in letting the child become a citizen of the world.

– Dzigar Kongtrul, “Old Relationships, New Possibilities”

I rest on the bank of a stream
Whose water is calm and clear.
After rain, the wisterias are clean,
The ancient rocks beautiful in the clouds.
The new green leaves are lovely,
And the falling flowers
Are still charming.
Green rocks equal embroidered
Folding screens,
Blue moss replaces a silk cushion.
I wonder what else is needed for a life.
Sitting with my chin in my hand,
I forget to return
It’s lonely, the sun sets
Above the mountain,
And evening smoke rises at the
Edge of the forest.

– Choeui Eusoon (1786-1866)

In Tibetan there is a word that points to the root cause of aggression, the root cause also of craving. It points to a familiar experience that is at the root of all conflict, all cruelty, oppression, and greed. This word is shenpa.

The usual translation is “attachment,” but this doesn’t adequately express the full meaning. I think of shenpa as “getting hooked.” Another definition, used by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, is the “charge”—the charge behind our thoughts and words and actions, the charge behind “like” and “don’t like.”

Here’s an everyday example: Someone criticizes you. She criticizes your work or your appearance or your child. In moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a familiar taste, a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever. That sticky feeling is shenpa. And it comes along with a very seductive urge to do something.

Somebody says a harsh word and immediately you can feel a shift. There’s a tightening that rapidly spirals into mentally blaming this person, or wanting revenge, or blaming yourself. Then you speak or act. The charge behind the tightening, behind the urge, behind the story line or action is shenpa.

– Pema Chödrön, from “Don’t Bite the Hook”

Gain and renown are hindrances
To students of the Way;
They taint our purity of heart.
Uncentered,
How can we comprehend Tao?

– Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)

This is work that is alive,
Effervescent, free, liberated,
Gloriously enlightened,
True, and great.
Do you think it can be attained
By people who shut the door
And sit quietly with blank minds?

– Liu I-Ming

Its boundary is wider than the world,
But where to find a trace of it
Once relativity is broken?
Only fools examine their own hearts
It’s like measuring the sky or binding the wind.

– Chunkyung Haewon (1691-1770)

I live beneath a green cliff
The weeds I don’t mow flourish in the yard
New vines hang down all twisted together
Old rocks rise up straight in precipitous shapes
Monkeys pick the mountain fruit
Egrets catch the pond fish
With one or two of the immortals’ books
Beneath the trees I mumble, reading aloud.

– Han Shan (c 730)

Do not remain in the dualistic state;
Avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
Of this and that, right and wrong,
The Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
Do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
Nothing in the world can offend,
And when a thing can no longer offend,
It ceases to exist in the old way.

– Seng Ts’an (d. 606)