BASIC INSTRUCTIONS
There are basic instructions which need to be consistent and constant but adjusted to the ox in hand. It requires strong determination and confidence in the training. These qualities are necessary because we tend to believe we have a choice in the matter. And to some extent we do. We can decide to live according to the ego which is often equated to a stampeding elephant or a wild monkey.
If we are lucky enough to get a glimpse of the Source, we can choose to find a spiritual practice that we have confidence in.
If we come to spiritual practice with an open mind, we begin to see that it is far beyond the material realm of the many and the one which is indescribable, immeasurable and awe-strikingly difficult. Not many, at one given time, seem to have the aim to unite with the Beloved.
Most of us, if we are honest, want a good life.
Take any spiritual path and look for the highest aim and ask about it. Most, if not all, will exclaim the higher paths of union are not for the faint. It is full time and covers everything in life. There are no breaks.
Two images come to mind to depict this ever active commitment, the first is the rubbing of sticks together to get a spark and eventually a flame and the other is the cutting of a throat of a lamb.
The first one is more familiar. We may have actually tried to get a spark without it happening. As many of us know getting a spark requires constant, consistent effort of rubbing the sticks together. If you set them down, that’s OK, but it means when you return to the rubbing you begin with cool sticks all over again.
The second image of a cutting the throat of a lamb comes from the Sufi tradition of a 40 day solitary retreat which is quite arduous. Before the retreatant is locked in a small room for the 40 days the student and teacher do a ritual of killing a lamb and then cooking it and giving the meat to the poor. The retreatant recognizes the lamb was slaughtered on their behalf and it puts a strong impetus to stay the course when things get tough. And things do get tough.
Vows in a small way do the same. Vows in a spiritual life or marriage are commitments to a full time life of following them. There are no breaks from the vow.
The type of break referred to is similar to the likes of a vowed celibate priest. It would not be kosher for the priest to say to his superior that 5 days of the week he would be celibate and the other 2 days he would not be. This is not to suggest that there are spiritual police running after the spiritual seeker. No. That’s not it. But it is to have the mind with the aim clearly illuminated everyday….to know nothing is hidden from practice, nothing is hidden but everything is practice. To know the Source in everything wherever you are doing whatever you are doing. And to pay attention to IT and not to the stampeding elephant mind or the wild monkey mind.
Whether you are young in the practice, meaning immature, which requires different practices than if you are an old hand, hard-nosed working oxen that is well-trained -it doesn't matter when it comes to the aim.
The training is different, but the Source is the same.
Zen training is flexible and arduous. It recognizes what each spiritual seeker needs. What the Zen student needs to know, needs to face is all training that is valuable leads to the yoke with our true nature aka the Divine Source of existence.
Don’t give up. Keep going.
OM
🙏
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