With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
On being yourself.
The most difficult aspect of being ourselves is letting go of our concern about what others might think. What others think is always not very far away as we behave during the day. We expect it of ourselves and others and often think of it as a conscience. On most levels this is a good thing.
To let go of our concern for the opinion and judgment of others seems to suggest living without a conscience at worst or lack of care at best, but I don’t think this is so. In the Ten Ox-Herding pictures, those famous depictions of an ox herd’s path to awakening, we see in the end, a man with a broad smile, at ease, and bringing joy and life to the world around him. He is ’free and easy in the marketplace’ but in the marketplace he is.
When we shed our mind’s eye and see with a clear mind, our service truly begins. There is no self to be protected, nothing to be concerned about regarding ourselves, and so we are completely present with our environment. Conscience becomes an artifact of an earlier stage of evolutionary development. Community, which is to say, everything, unfolds without separation and our touch, which is not ‘our’ touch, but is our touch, is in-service to well-being.
We might call this residing in “shin nyo” or “thusness.”
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
On being yourself.
The most difficult aspect of being ourselves is letting go of our concern about what others might think. What others think is always not very far away as we behave during the day. We expect it of ourselves and others and often think of it as a conscience. On most levels this is a good thing.
To let go of our concern for the opinion and judgment of others seems to suggest living without a conscience at worst or lack of care at best, but I don’t think this is so. In the Ten Ox-Herding pictures, those famous depictions of an ox herd’s path to awakening, we see in the end, a man with a broad smile, at ease, and bringing joy and life to the world around him. He is ’free and easy in the marketplace’ but in the marketplace he is.
When we shed our mind’s eye and see with a clear mind, our service truly begins. There is no self to be protected, nothing to be concerned about regarding ourselves, and so we are completely present with our environment. Conscience becomes an artifact of an earlier stage of evolutionary development. Community, which is to say, everything, unfolds without separation and our touch, which is not ‘our’ touch, but is our touch, is in-service to well-being.
We might call this residing in “shin nyo” or “thusness.”
Be well.
No comments:
Post a Comment