This period of my life seems quite busy. I was thinking about what the notion of "letting go" really means when a person is caught up in a life of abundance. And tonight, after the meditation, I watched a video of Master Sheng Yen where he talks about how taking on responsibilities can be a gain in merit as long as the intention is pure. If on the other hand, the motivation for doing many things is a kind of personal fame, then there is an opposite 'subtraction' effect going on. Sheng Yen compares it to taking money out of one's own bank account. There might indeed be a benefit, but it's only short term.
Does this discussion imply that a person just take on more and more for the sake of other beings? Is there not a limit to what one can or cannot do? I think the correct attitude might be to be willing to do many things, but not to be attached to any results. If I expect certain things to be completed or resolved by certain fixed times, then taking on more responsibilities only adds to the burden of expecting quick results. But what happened if I simply let go of expecting any result whatsoever? I think that in that case, the giving would be what is needed in the present moment, and would not be dictated by any future reward that one might perceive.
If there is a comparison I can think of, it might be that of a child. A child rarely tires of anything, unless there is some sense of duration or finality imposed upon it. For example, have you ever seen the way children delight in the simplest things? Children often live in a timeless state, because there isn't that added pressure of trying to gain a result or even finish a project. Perhaps children have sense of something being enjoyed for itself rather than as a means to something else. It isn't that the child is not busy, but that she is not attaching any meaning to what she does, let alone other motivation. In this way, the child can be very busy but not attached to 'a self being busy.'
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