Interactions with Mind, Sad Farewells

Today was the Venerable’s last major event in Toronto, before he takes a new posting in Taiwan. And I felt a little sad. It was an occasion of bittersweet recollections. On the one hand, my sadness comes from not quite being at a point where I am confident to continue the principles and practice that he promotes. I always feel that I am not quite ready to fully understand his very profound teachings. On the other hand, I have understood from his teachings that there is no person who isn’t one’s teacher. This is because a) we don’t interact with ‘persons’ to begin with, and b) we always interact with our own thoughts. Therefore, it is very easy for anything arising in mind to become one’s teacher.  What stops that from happening? Only mind itself.

One thing I continue to make use of is the Venerable’s concept that there  is no interaction between this thought and the previous thought. And this evening, in my last discussion with him, he pointed out that one should not even try to interact with calmness, since this is still a dualistic attachment. I start to realize that there are so many, many mistakes I make in my thinking. But on the other hand, it is really only the mind that I interact with, so there is no need for me to upbraid this previous thought for its mistake.  That previous thought has already gone.

If I were to boil it all down to one statement that I need to practice, it would be learning to see the stranger as my own mind. Strangers can reveal to me all the ways in which I shut down or cut off from others. I make the mistake of thinking I (or this body) is separate from another beings’. And I need to trust that the mind is everything and everywhere. I don’t need to limit my views to protecting this body or my previous memories. This seems to be the only antidote to self-centeredness or guardedness. If I can learn to trust the phenomena as part of mind, do I need to attach to my comfort, my body, or my thoughts? It’s critical for me to grasp this point, or else I am only practicing to find calm in the chaotic world.

It is not easy to practice this point, but I think I can start by asking the question : when I am in a social situation, am I looking only for personal gain/support/protection, or do I genuinely see that all this in front of me is the true mind? If I am able to see that all the phenomena I experience if fundamentally mine (my mind), then what need is there for me to cling to this body and its feelings? Is there a need for me to cling to old habits, when I have a whole universe of choice in front of me? These are not easy questions to consider, but it is enough for me to reflect deeply on them, and how they might revise the way I see myself in relation to the world. In fact, ‘self’, ‘world’ and ‘others’ are just constructions of mind. Knowing that such is the case, could I loosen my grip on these concepts?