A Human "Placemat' (but not a "Doormat")

  We had our meditation in the Second Floor Meditation Room this time, due to a visiting teacher in the Quiet Room tonight. At first, two Muslim women came into the room and asked me if something was going on--to which I replied that we have a Buddhist Chan meditation event. They then went outside the meditation hall to do their prayers. Later, when another co-facilitator arrived, she suggested that the two women could have prayed in the same room, since we don't use up a lot of space for our event. It then dawned on me that this entire room is big enough for everyone, so why was there any need for the women to leave the room to do their prayers? I told myself that next time, I would invite the women not only to "join meditation" but to pray with us as well.
   An analogy I would like to explore is the idea that the mind is like a gigantic placemat. If you ever remember times when you were a child and the placemat was a flat piece of plastic that was placed on the table which allowed you to make any kind of mess you wanted, without too many repercussions. Could the mind be seen in this way as well? I believe so, but the trick is not to think that your mind is 'better' or 'worse' than someone else's. In fact, it's all the same mind, so why differentiate one mind from the other? The same goes with emotional states and personalities. If I am making a space for everyone, I don't distinguish "my way" as being superior to someone else's. Rather, my practice is to allow every way to simultaneously operate in unison, much like those monads that the philosopher and mathematician Leibniz conceived of in his principles. When I am really committed to this practice, I don't worry about what I need to do, since I am only a placemat through which others will have their agendas or meanings to uncover for themselves. And I don't insist on one way being the "correct way". If I have such a mindset, I can never be at peace in any situation, since I insist that things be one way. What if I just let go of the idea that there is "any way" to begin with, instead realizing that all ways lead to one (or to none at all)?
   This is not the same as subscribing to an ethical relativism or a kind of weak-minded doormat philosophy. A "doormat" is someone who simply succumbs to every wish, believing (at times) that acquiescence leads to some form of reward. Sometimes, it's the opposite way, in the sense that people can be giving and being drained by a person who doesn't know the limits to what they can give. A "placemat" seems a more apt metaphor to suggest that all relations are experiments in give and take, where we create shared space upon which we can create all kinds of art works or, conversely, "messes".