Everyman's Journal 2011, #5
© 2011 Rev. David Seacord
January 6, 2011
A favorite line from the Robert B. Clarke translation of the ancient text called the "3rd Zen Ancestor" (or Hsin Hsin Ming) reads:
One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, for the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
These core ideas continue teaching me newly each time I visit them, especially "being without anxiety about non-perfection". I suppose that may be because I am prone to that kind of striving. In any case, I am glad that I have installed Hsin Hsin Ming in myself deeply (it's nearly memorized) as a safety net guarding against excessive perfectionism. I guess you'd say it is programed to bite me in the butt if I go to far in my demands that God do it 'my way'.
The 'one thing/all things/intemingle' opportunity today was to attend my first local 'street potluck' a few houses down the road. It came into existence a few days ago with the discovery of a xeroxed note left in the mailbox inviting the neighborhood to come remeet each other (as most of the winter residents of this 'snowbirdville' region have now returned). I made a recognizable and simple offering, and slowed my pace to match my Mother's caneless journey as we traversed the block. As if on a signal that had been awaited, other doors opened and we were joined by various neighbors, creating a small procession to the hostesses back patio. Someone put out a strip of nametags and a magic marker and I took on the job, my social-wit-flag flying. Soon the psychic consensus reached 'EAT' and nobody had any problem figuring out what to do for a while.
I watched, looking for clues to who my immediate community of neighbors were. As I had assumed would be the case, most were already retired, but a couple were still working. There was little deep sharing, but a pleasant energy was present.... I'd call it a 'non-polluted space', like nobody was interested in being or causing disharmony. The interest was more 'let's get along socially, and at the same time, leave each other alone'.
It is the American 'Way of Privacy', each man/woman with their own little castle, expressing up to legal limits their own version of egoic heaven as best able or affordable. For me, it was a good lesson is being nobody special. I was just the son of the recently deceased slightly odd retired pastor who had lived on their street for the past 12 years and whom many had known.
And it was my Mom's chance to receive attention (as a new widow) from those same neighbors. It was good to see her setting in a circle of listening women as she told her version of how things had happened with Dad. It was a small thing, but the more consciously I awaken, the more I realize that there are no small things, really. For 'relative importance' is always only a reference to the ego it is relative to....
Although the 20 or so persons sharing this little local gathering appeared as completely ordinary on the surface, each was actually secreting the scent of a deeper mystery.... if there was interest. But the real space of the space was created because no being interested was required.
This is where I see I have been growing of late... though I had not noticed it: To be at peace means to make no demands of others to make my 'Me' anything special. To be at peace is to be willing to allow all things to be as they naturally are unfolding.... with all sentient beings as equals, and all of us knowing ourselves, from our direct memories, as equal Heirs of the Great Original LightSource.
I think this is what Hsin Hsin Ming is saying, in its reference to 'intermingle, without distinction'.
Namaste,
David
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
www.davidseacord-everymansjournal.blogspot.com
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