The snow is a beautiful tonight, and there were few cars on the road. I reflect: this world really is as pure as snow.
The mind, just like the snow is pure. We only need rest in the moment, knowing that snow melts and turns into spring again.
The cold will become warm and then cold. Being aware of these cycles will help us to become whole.
Why do we fail to be inspired? We take this moment as something that has happened before. And we start to think there is someone walking this treadmill. The belief that someone is born and dies is the root of all this tossing and turning. If, for a moment, we can turn to the witness that is in all things, then there is no sense of having to do something or complete something to prove one's worth or individuality.
The desperate drive to become something or someone can take all kinds of forms, solidifying into the need to be visible or counted in some way. We even measure our worth in terms of our output or how we wish to please others. But in this moment, the mind is not born or destroyed. It doesn't come into being as a result of achievements, and it doesn't arise as a result of being evaluated as having worth. All of these latter events are conditions created by the mind.
Some people might still treat "being in the moment" as a kind of goal. For instance, a practitioner remarks "I want to live in this present moment all the time", as though there were any other moment to live in! When we stop making an achievement out of anything, we realize that we have always been "this moment" all along, and there is nothing to achieve even in that. Then we can truly relax into whatever state of being arises.
Even the idea of "unconditioned" can be taken to mean something opposite to the causes and conditions of the mind. But truly unconditioned mind goes beyond all dualities. Thus, the unconditioned mind is not something that ever requires achievement, and it does not need to be affirmed. It just is, and we can rest in it. We don't need to grasp it or achieve it in any way.
Shifu's Dharma talk today is called "Different Levels of Sensual Happiness". I am inspired by this talk to consider how to engage the world more joyfully, with a mindset of happiness. While Master Sheng Yen pointed to a bouquet of flowers, he remarked on how the way we arrange flowers has become an art in itself--something we can appreciate in terms of its forms. Others in the group shared how the one thing that gets in the way of seeing daily beauty is the ego, and its desire for control.
When you really look deeply into the flower, you will the the whole universe is in the flower. Seeds, soil, sun, wind and rain are all contained in it, so it's already complete in itself. Pan out even further and this "arrangement" points to an elegantly connected cosmos. Everything has its right place because the mind is able to recognize it and give it its full due. What divides art from non-art is that art factors the mind as reflecting all the forms. The flowers are never isolated from our eyes or our mind. When we take out a reference point, everything just is: it's no longer siphoned through a wanting self.
It's funny how easy it is to forget the beauty that is in all things. Look deeply at anything without desire or striving and it becomes a perfection. But if we still see imperfection, we only need to let go even further, zooming out to see there is no self in it, no striving or will. Like a beautiful canvas, we only fail to connect to its beauty because we see from the filters of desire or craving.
This kind of happiness has no face. The moon has different phases--some bright, some dark---but we can still accept it fully for what it is, beyond its individual forms. Even in defining something as beautiful is limiting to a prescribed form: something we expect to see and feel that is an object. But what's beyond those forms? There is a question we must continually engage.
Link to Video:
Different levels of sensual happiness (GDD-899, Master Sheng-Yen)
