LIVING by Vow: The Heart Sutra pp 156 - 194 (Stop at Emptiness in Practice)

[Tairin]

Have you had a preconceived idea about a person, place or thing and have it be completely wrong? How did it feel? Was it freeing or did you find yourself trying to defend that idea?

Definitely and all the time. Things, people, places, events get built up in my mind in anticipation. It is rare than reality matches up with my preconceived ideas and I very much recognize that it is a waste of effort getting too invested in these preconceived notions. It doesn’t mean I learn though .

An important phrase that conveys the spirit of having tea together in the tea ceremony is “Ichi go ichi ye.” The phrase ichi go means “one time,” “one occasion,” or “one life.” Ichi ye means “one meeting.” Each meeting or encounter happens only once. We cannot meet with the same person twice. Each meeting, each moment, is very significant and precious because it is unique. To see things as phantoms or dreams doesn’t mean they are not important. Because reality is like a phantom or dream, we have to appreciate it. Since everything is changing, since nothing stays forever, this is the only time we can meet. We have to savor each moment

One of my closest friends, also the best man at my wedding, no longer lives in he same city as me. We are both busy and only get to see each other maybe once or twice a year. I just saw him last week when we went out for supper. It struck me after I talked with him that the first 10 or 20 minutes is spent “catching up” which is really an abbreviated getting to know you (again) session. Yes it is the same person I know and yet he’s had perhaps 12 months of experiences that has changed him.


Warren
Sat today

[Michael Joseph]

I really like the idea of 'Ichi go ichi ye' – each meeting or encounter happens only once. You never meet the same person twice. But what about people who have repeatedly been abusive? You wouldn't suggest someone let go of preconceptions of a tiger and walked straight up to one; so there must be some common sense about people too. If someone is physically or emotionally abusive, it's not necessarily safe to let go of preconceptions and meet them as if for the first time. And generally we need that level of understanding of the world to navigate and avoid danger otherwise we'd be in a childlike state...you wouldn't say 'Ooh that fast moving lorry looks friendly, I'll go give it a hug'. How do we hold these two views at the same time?

Hey Lucy,

I love this question and have been living with it since I first read your post several days ago. What I can offer is what I try to practice: an openness to the nature of conditions without an insistence on any particular perspective. You may never step into the same river twice, but you should avoid that tangle of barbed on the west bank each time you step in. In other words, from our perspective, if we don't insist that a person always be the same in each encounter, we allow that person the freedom to change, but it would be unwise to insist that just because each encounter with that person is "new," all conditions constituting that person have changed. To me, acceptance of the nature of conditions does not require that I accept the conditions of a particular person. Just my thoughts.

Gassho,

Michael

ST

[AlanLa]

I am a university professor. Every class i teach is different from the same class I taught before. Each student is different at the end of the semester than he/she was at the beginning, as am I. it is expected. It is fine. Every day or time I meet with students, they are who they are that day and that day alone, but at the end of the semester they are different, as am I. It's all good, expected, a wonderful experience of impermanence in the long view yet each encounter between student and myself, student and fellow student, student and course material, is unique unto itself, thus not waxing or waning, etc. I treat my courses as a process, and my students treat them as fixed entities. I try to get them to see the process, and they try to get me to see the outcomes, the fixedness of it all as in a grade or series of distinct grade items that accumulate into another fixed outcome grade. Neither of us are wrong, nor are either of us right. To each our own bounded view of reality. My Buddhist practice helps me to see the boundlessness of it all, yet I also accept the bounded day-to-day realities of it all. Again it's all good, it's all Zen.

[Shugen]

Hello all,

I am in the middle of a cross country move. We are at our new location and in the process of unloading furniture and figuring out where to put everything.

We will pick back up next week and also pick up the pace a bit.

Gassho,

Shugen

Sattoday


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[Mp]

Hello all,

I am in the middle of a cross country move. We are at our new location and in the process of unloading furniture and figuring out where to put everything.

We will pick back up next week and also pick up the pace a bit.

Gassho,

Shugen

Sattoday


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Sounds good Shugen, glad you all made it safe and sound. =)

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[Amelia]

Enjoy the change!

Gassho, sat today, lah

[Meitou]

Hello all,

I am in the middle of a cross country move. We are at our new location and in the process of unloading furniture and figuring out where to put everything.

We will pick back up next week and also pick up the pace a bit.

Gassho,

Shugen

Sattoday


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Hope it all continues to go well for you Shugen. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of this; I admit I've been distracted with Rohatsu and now Jukai, so next week, after all the excitement, I'll be in back-to-school mode

Gassho
Frankie
satwithyoualltoday/lah