So?

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

We both use our mind and set our mind aside to be bodhisattvas. Our mind creates time, visualizing a past, creating a present, imagining a future. When we set aside our mind, we live in the exact present. We both, therefore, grow old, and do not grow old. We are born and not born. We die and don't die. So, "growing", "birth", "death", these are ideas of mind.

If I say I hate growing old, I am speaking from duality. I am not old. I am not young. I am not sick or well. I am this moment as it is.

So what?

Don't you just love the so what of things? We can get so fascinated with the language of Zen, its mystery, contradiction, esoteric quality. We can be philosophers. It is most important to know that if we are these we are asleep. "So what?" is the bell of awakening. Never forget it, always ask it.

Plan when it is time to plan Master Dogen teaches in his Tenzo Kyokun, Instructions to the Cook. It is not that we are not to use our mind, we are, but we are to know we are using it and not abusing it. We do not use our mind to avoid or fear the present moment.

"So what?" brings us back to our true moment, this one. My fingers touch the keys as I speak to you. Here, now. The so what is the sharing of our lives. We call it being human. Others call it being bodhisattvas.

Be well.