The proper response
to conflict, whether it lies within or
without us, is disengagement.
Whenever we allow ourselves to be drawn off balance, away from the strength of quiet integrity, we are in conflict. It matters not whether the confrontation is between competing values in one’s own mind or with another person: it is the inner departure from clarity and equanimity that leaves us with feelings of despair and vulnerability. The only remedy is to disengage from the problem and return to quiet contemplation of what is correct.
Conflict provokes strong feelings of doubt, fear, anxiety, and impatience to resolve the situation. If you act under the influence of these inferior emotions, you will severely complicate the misfortune. By following the prescription of the Sage and returning to a position of neutrality, acceptance, and detachment, you are able to meet opposing forces halfway: not recoiling in anger and condemnation, not pressing forward for some unnatural change in things, but waiting calmly in the center until the Higher Power provides the correct solution.
The I Ching teaches us that all conflict is, in the end, inner conflict. When you see it beginning, you are obliged not to pursue it, for this only compounds your own misfortune. If you cannot regain your equanimity on your own, then seek the assistance of a just and impartial person in resolving the difficulty. The only way to live free of conflict is to hold steadfastly to proper principles in all things. Through balance, patience, and devotion to inner truth we rise above every challenge.
The I Ching, or Book of Changes
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i have arrived, i am already home
All we have to do is
be ourselves, fully and authentically.
We don’t have to run after anything. We already
contain the whole cosmos. We simply return to ourselves
through mindfulness, and touch the peace and joy
that are already present within us
and all around us.
I have arrived.
I am already home.
There is nothing to do.
Aimlessness, nonattainment,
is a wonderful practice.
leaving the way to the way
hexagram 43, kuai / breakthrough (resoluteness)
Forget all ideas
of accomplishing something —
in your practice and everywhere
else. Everything is already
accomplished.
If this sounds
like a tricky idea to you,
the flaw is in your understanding
of reality, not in reality
itself.
Allowing nature
to manifest is the way
of the Way. By setting aside
our ambitions and leaving
the Way to the Way,
we perfect the
Way.
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one who meets daito face to face
As with the classical
Chinese teachers of the Tang dynasty,
Shuho maintained that awakening was central to
Buddhist practice. In a document called Daito’s Testament, he
reminded his students, “You have come here not for food or clothing
but for religion. As long as you have a mouth, you will have food;
as long as you have a body, you will have clothes. Don’t concern
yourself with these. Be mindful throughout your waking
hours; time flies like an arrow, don’t waste it with
concern over worldly matters.”
He went on to tell his disciples
that even if they were to become the abbots
of wealthy monasteries and received the respect of
the laity and nobility, even if they were rigorous in their practice
of meditation and ritual activities, but they lacked awakening, they were
no more than members of the “tribe of evil spirits.” Conversely, if they
were poverty stricken, lived in a ramshackle hermitage, and ate
only what wild food they gathered in the forests and
yet they were awakened, then they would be
“one who meets me face to face
and repays my kindness.”
years of hunger beneath gojo bridge
escape into the coals of a furnace
In times past
there was a monk who asked
an old adept, “The world is so hot, I don’t know
where to escape.” The old adept said, “Escape into a
boiling cauldron, into the coals of a furnace.
The multitude of sufferings cannot
reach there.”
This is my
own prescription for
getting results.