Tools and Dropping

[will]

Re: Tools and Dropping

Just another possibility. Would you pick it up, please?

Yes. Absolutely

When I say I didn't know s***. Doesn't mean I know s*** now.

I see Taigu, and Taigu is Taigu doing what Taigu do (not two). _/_

"Anyway..." (said in the way that words can't say. If you were here I'd probably bow and say "I gotta go." with a smile that also has no expression)

Gassho

W

[Taigu]

Re: Tools and Dropping

Tank you, Will.


Gassho


Taigu

[AlanLa]

Re: Tools and Dropping

Ok Will, I ll explain in a different way, as Norman Fisher puts it somewhere, you can let go of the ego two ways: dropping it or turning it into everything. Your suggestion is very valid and perfectly OK and I just come up with another one, you may become and embrace others, pick them up rather than doing your own thing. You are right: we all waste far too much time and energy into stuff like: what does they think about me? Why?... And you may also listen to them like Kannon does and cultivate what Dogen calls grandmother Mind or heart. That is what Dogen told Gikai just before he passed away in Kyoto, as he was praising him for his understanding and practice he said: you still lack a grandmother heart. Your teaching, Will, is very precious for us all and I am often inspired by what you come up with. Thank you Will. Thank you so much for your posts. I know very little and have a very small experience of the path, I am just pointing out another possibility.
me and them might vanish if you invite them all in, extend me to all and everything.
Just another possibility. Would you pick it up, please?

gassho

taigu

This seems to be the difference between hinayana and mahayana; one is dropping everything and becoming one beyond one that way, and the other is picking up everything and becoming one beyond one that way, the Kannon way. Yes it is good to drop all those habits, as Will says, but that's small vehicle stuff that doesn't save the many beings. The bigger vehicle is to have that "grandmother heart" that picks up all the cries of the world in order to be with them as a means of saving them.

I listened to a great dharma talk last night on the Houston Zen Center website. In one part the speaker was talking about how the symbol for humans in chinese calligraphy has them in between the heavenly realm and animal realm, in both worlds, the middle way. To be just about heaven would mean to leave everything else behind, and this sounds like dropping to me. To be just in the animal realm is to be picking everything up without wisdom (I'm sorta extrapolating on her point here). To be human is to have the potential to be a bridge between the two realms, a bodhisatva.

I may not be getting the tools Will intended with this thread, and the tools I am getting don't seem to be for dropping, but they are valuable tools for me just the same. So thanks!!

[will]

Re: Tools and Dropping

What's important is "I". "I" gets in the way a lot of the time.

I want to do this. I want to do that. I think this. I think that. In my opinion... And so on.

However, we can't expect to drop "I" by normal means (by having an opinion about "I"). Practice without goal is essential.


Gassho