Conditions

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

We are in a chilly, overcast Memphis. I forgot just how cold damp air can feel. So, now I'm reminded and it can go away anytime!

This morning's mail brought up a few things for me. It seems we all like to learn and one of the ways we learn is by reading. Some of us read to gain a certain feeling, create an internal environment such as the warm, fuzzy sort of thing we get from reading Thich Nhat Hanh.

Some of us read to get something hopeful, something positive in our lives. For the same reason we might watch Oprah on television.

Yet, I wonder about this. Such reading and watching is not practice. Its like getting some mind candy. Such reading and watching is like wrapping oneself in a warm blanket. It feels good, but we don't get an accurate sense of the actual temperature of our world..

Zen is not like that. While Buddha taught us to plant the seeds of compassion, of kindness, and so on, he also was a realist who taught us a way to see clearly. Wrapping oneself with external supports actually works against this. Instead of seeing things as they are, we see through eyes warmed up by soft, warm fuzzy words. Our compassion must be real. Our kindness must be an expression of our true self.

When I read, I notice the feelings the author's words are creating in my body. I sense the mental construction being built. Sometimes these structures are very seductive, so wonderful and such that I hate to put them down. We want to be like the author! So, while these are all teaching, like my words to you, they can be dangerous to a clear mind.. Buddha asked us to test his words. This means a reality check, a taking off of the blanket, a closing of the book, and a stepping out into the real word as it is.

How do we know what our true self, in this true world, actually is if we load it up with the words, thoughts, and feelings of others? We practice.

Here in Memphis it is damp and cold. I know this because I experience my environment, yes? No! I am cold and damp because my mind compares what I am currently experiencing to a memory of my environmental experience in New Mexico. Cold and warm are relative terms and thus have no independent meaning apart from the meaning we make.

So, cold and warm are dependent conditions. Clear Mind Zen asks us to live in the condition of no-condition. What is the condition of no-condition? The condition of the present moment.

Be well.