Dear Fellow Flowers in Life's Garden ...
We continue with the remainder of Chapter 6 (The World of Self Unfolds), from p. 92 "Self Settling on Itself" to the end.
This chapter contains examples of Zen Buddhism radically affirming the uniqueness and incomparability of each individual self (each a special jewel in Indra's Net), all while also radically affirming that there is not individual "self" at all, and new ways to encounter our "True Self" ... all at once, as one.
I so much care for the flower analogy. In your own life, are you getting better at seeing violets as violets, roses as roses, red thing as red, blue things as blue? It sounds so flowery , but I believe it is a very important lesson on seeing you as just you without the excess competition and comparison with others that so many people are prone to these days. Every flower has its own place in the sun.
I also believe that a flower analogy can help with the next section of the chapter, on "non-self" and "interdependence." This past week in the forum, some folks said that they still struggle to get their head and heart around such descriptions. yOU way to see your life like a flower in that both are constantly changing and growing, even when we think things appear still and solid. So, one might say that there is no fixed "flower" there, just an ongoing process. It reminds me so of those time lapse films on the nature channel ...
Another way to approach this is that the single flower can suddenly realize that it is not only a single flower, but is an expression of the entire garden in which it grows. We see ourselves merely as single flowers, but can we also come to see our true self as the garden too? When we do, we see that we are also all the other flowers in the garden ... for they are the garden, and we are the garden, so all is just the garden.
This also helps us understand the famous Zen teaching of "no birth no death" that folks struggle with. How? Well, one way to look at things is that flowers come and go in the garden, born from seed, growing and then dying ... just like all life. However, if the flower is just the garden, then the garden goes on and on transcending the life and death of individual flowers. Part of our Zen practice is to learn to radically drop the sense of separate self (separate flowerness) and find our ultimate "gardenness" growing and flowering on and one and ...
Is this a picture of many individual flowers, or is this a picture of one whole, lucious and intergrowing garden? Who are we? YES!
Whenever I start talking like this, I am reminded of this great book and movie ...
Gassho, J
SatToday (then worked on getting the garden ready for spring)
We continue with the remainder of Chapter 6 (The World of Self Unfolds), from p. 92 "Self Settling on Itself" to the end.
This chapter contains examples of Zen Buddhism radically affirming the uniqueness and incomparability of each individual self (each a special jewel in Indra's Net), all while also radically affirming that there is not individual "self" at all, and new ways to encounter our "True Self" ... all at once, as one.
I so much care for the flower analogy. In your own life, are you getting better at seeing violets as violets, roses as roses, red thing as red, blue things as blue? It sounds so flowery , but I believe it is a very important lesson on seeing you as just you without the excess competition and comparison with others that so many people are prone to these days. Every flower has its own place in the sun.
I also believe that a flower analogy can help with the next section of the chapter, on "non-self" and "interdependence." This past week in the forum, some folks said that they still struggle to get their head and heart around such descriptions. yOU way to see your life like a flower in that both are constantly changing and growing, even when we think things appear still and solid. So, one might say that there is no fixed "flower" there, just an ongoing process. It reminds me so of those time lapse films on the nature channel ...
Another way to approach this is that the single flower can suddenly realize that it is not only a single flower, but is an expression of the entire garden in which it grows. We see ourselves merely as single flowers, but can we also come to see our true self as the garden too? When we do, we see that we are also all the other flowers in the garden ... for they are the garden, and we are the garden, so all is just the garden.
This also helps us understand the famous Zen teaching of "no birth no death" that folks struggle with. How? Well, one way to look at things is that flowers come and go in the garden, born from seed, growing and then dying ... just like all life. However, if the flower is just the garden, then the garden goes on and on transcending the life and death of individual flowers. Part of our Zen practice is to learn to radically drop the sense of separate self (separate flowerness) and find our ultimate "gardenness" growing and flowering on and one and ...
Is this a picture of many individual flowers, or is this a picture of one whole, lucious and intergrowing garden? Who are we? YES!
Whenever I start talking like this, I am reminded of this great book and movie ...
Gassho, J
SatToday (then worked on getting the garden ready for spring)
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