..续本文上一页people around us

　　 If we start the day with a shower we are no sooner under the shower before we are thinking about what we want for breakfast. We start eating our breakfast and after the first two mouthfuls we are then off planning the day. So we tend to live in this unmindful and disconnected way. We see in this dramatised analogy that Seijo was like a ghost, living with her parents at home and not knowing she was at home. We often split off from this present moment, wanting to be somewhere else, dreaming of the ideal mate, or wanting to be something more than we are. We are ghosts to our children when we are preoccupied by our careers, mortgages, or even preoccupied saving the planet.

　　This is obvious when we try to engage in this simple act of sitting on our cushions, and being aware of our breath, when something from the past, some fantasy, some soap opera, will pop up and take over and suddenly we are up off our cushion and spend the next twenty minutes wandering around in our head.

　　If we look at our lives, how many roles do we pide ourselves into

　　 Parent, partner, career/job, member of a sangha/community, peace activist, student - no Hollywood movie director would cast any actor in so many roles, yet we taken on these roles daily. Seijo was a wife and mother of two children in a far city. Seijo was a sick daughter at home. When we split off or pide ourselves from the present moment we drain our vital energy and are basically ineffective. In this story Seijo was completely laid low.

　　If our attention is not focused we are no longer congruent. We may be thinking one thing, feeling another, saying something else, and doing something entirely different. If we look into our own emotional and psychological split, what emotions do we encounter that are difficult for us to be with

　　 We often avoid or suppress unpleasant feelings and sensations. To be with them and include them in our zazen is our growing edge. In the very midst of our pain and difficulties lies a great freedom.

　　So our practice of mindfulness is to bring us home to this moment, moment after moment, to heal the splits in our psyche and to let go of that psychological conflict. The dawning of the heart and the steady light of insight will emerge by gently and faithfully returning to the practice of being with the way of things just as they are.

　　If we are worried about the future or preoccupied by anger or fear, although our child may be standing in front of us, the child will not really exist for us. She or he is like a ghost and we may be living like ghosts too. If I want to be with my son, I need to return to the present moment, hold him in my arms and connect with our breathing, then I naturally awaken that precious playfulness and dance of the love of life.

　　If we look deeper we find (as Yasutani Roshi said), "The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that "I" am here and "you" are out there." This fundamental delusion of a separate permanent self is the root cause of much of our suffering. We get caught by the dualistic concepts of subject/object, self/other, oneness/emptiness, true/false, body/soul. Seijo is not simply limited to this body and soul and we are also not limited, we are this great life that is neither one nor two.

　　If we see from the Bodhisattva”s point of view that the actuality of our daily lives and the essential world are intrinsically one and the same, one inpisible whole, then our daily actions, driving the car, feeding the kids, cleaning the house are all manifestations of the Tao. The clouds, colours, sounds, smells, feelings and thoughts are the interconnected net of Indra and the very texture and body of the Buddha.

　　Another major way in which we hold onto our separation is by attachment to our fixed opinions, views and beliefs.…

《Seijo and Her Soul Separated》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…