“Spring water is pure in an emerald stream
moonlight is white on Cold Mountain
silence thoughts and the spirit becomes clear
focus on emptiness and world grows still.”
-Han-shan
Throughout history monks and enlightened persons have left behind the distractions of the world and retreated to the mountains and rivers of the wild places. There they reveled in the unfolding of the natural world and in the ecstatic life of being fully engaged in reality, the clarity of realizing the integration of the world and themselves as one.
It seems like a dream! Most of us deal with the mundane reality of day to day living. But there is a glistening jewel in the midst of this mundane living and we may experience it whenever, wherever we want to.
What we see as objects and call experiences “out there”, out side of ourselves, is actually ourselves appearing as projection of mind. We are mostly unconscious of doing this and mistakenly call it “out there” or objectify it and separate ourselves from reality. This is creating separation. As we become adept at zazen, we begin to become aware of this and this idea/action begins to disolve. As that dissolution grows as integral to our view, pure awareness arises. This is a primary aspect of emptiness.
The experience of our original nature, our pure nature, is distorted by the filter of intellectual “understanding”. A vague feeling of separation from our true nature arises as an emotional sense of free-floating uneasiness, restlessness, a sense of being unsatisfied. When we practice zazen well, we pierce the veil that creates separation and as it dissolves we relax naturally into our true selves, experiencing the “not-two” of our original nature.
When the veil blocking our clarity drops away we have a view of ourselves in the mirror of consciousness. We see “ourselves” as we actually are; constant movement, constant change, nothing stagnant, like a flowing emerald stream, like the moonlight on Cold Mountain. Dualistic conceptualization fades away; stillness and movement become one and the same. When we recognize our ideas of us-and-them, me-and-you, this-and-that as our erroneous, self-centered, personal mythology, those mental constructs drop away quite naturally.
Purity of mind is our easily recognizable natural state. It’s the same inseparable state of being that Gautama Buddha realized. He didn’t create it, he just recognized it, transcending all self-doubt. The original mind is you and you are already the original mind. It is only thinking that separates you from the reality of it. When a Zen master laughs at everything it is the realization of original mind. When Han-shan writes of Cold Mountain’s magical illusions it is the realization of original mind. Isn’t it everything, no-thing?
When you open your eyes in the morning, pull on your shoes, drink your tea, drive your kid to school, make your art work, notice the cranes flying overhead, laugh, feel sadness, sate your hunger, engage with desires, feel pain, all of it, you are experiencing your original mind. Trying to eliminate, or refine the original mind is what veils it. Wholeheartedly embrace the experience of what is arising moment by moment with out mental manipulation, just seeing it, this is the glistening jewel.
It’s just not necessary to entangle your mind by clinging to ideas that there is some enigmatic goal to achieve or an evaluation that needs to be done, or that you are not what you should be, or what you want to be, or what you need to be, or what someone told you to be; when mind is entangled the clarity of life that is available to you, right before you, right now, is overlooked.
Every breath is an offering, an opportunity to “touch life” as Thich That Hahn said. Breathing in awareness, breathing out compassion for all beings. This is the practice of being awake. This has always been the practice of all Buddhas and bodhisattvas. So simple. Always available to us. Together each of us can clearly experience our original, pure nature by seeing what is and knowing it’s you; knowing it’s you and seeing what is.
This is dwelling in Han-shan’s still world.
SCHEDULE 1/28-2/3
Issan and Zenho are out of town Monday-Thursday this week.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 6:30 AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Andy opening
Friday: 6:30 AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Issan Sensei
NOAH’S POEM
This winter
Brings weeks of rain
I step shyly
Into puddles on the blacktop
This winter brings
Days of snow
And I slide
With caution on leftover ice
The plants are healthy by the train tracks in the backyard
And I listen to the heater’s hum and drink hot tea
And wrap myself in my humanness like a blanket
When I’ve exhausted myself from aspiration for the day
-Noah Seltzer
No Gate Zen Center 