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)
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