Please find your most comfortable posture as you wish.
Settle,
Move,
Groove,
Bring ease to the body,
Temple.
For I have a story,
A parable for you.
Maybe the eyes are closed to evoke even more detailed imaginings.
Or maybe you sip some tea.
Recognition.
The master,
The gardener,
And the guest.
So the man went around and came inside.
He saw Banqui sitting on a throne.
The same man who was the gardener outside.
The seeker said,
Are you kidding?
Get down from this throne!
This is sacrilegious!
You don't pay any respect to the master.
Banqui got down,
Sat on the ground,
And said,
Now then,
It is difficult.
Now you will not find the master here because I am the master.
It was difficult for that man to see a great master could work in the garden.
Could be just ordinary.
He left.
He couldn't believe that this man was the master he missed.
Everybody is afraid of being nobody.
Only very rare and extraordinary people are not afraid of being nobody.
A Buddha.
A Banqui.
A nobody is not an ordinary phenomenon.
It is one of the greatest experiences in life.
That you are,
And still,
You are not.
That you are just pure existence with no name,
No address,
With no boundaries.
Neither a sinner nor a saint.
Neither inferior nor superior.
You are just silence.
People are afraid because their whole personality will be gone.
Their name,
Their fame,
Their respectability.
All will be gone.
Hence,
The fear.
But death is going to take them away from you anyway.
Those who are wise allow these things to drop by themselves.
Then nothing is left for death to take away.
Then all fear disappears because death cannot come to you.
You don't have anything for death.
Death cannot kill a nobody.
Once you feel your nobodyness,
You have become immortal.
The experience of nobodyness is exactly the meaning of nirvana,
Of nothingness,
Of absolute undisturbed silence with no ego,
With no personality,
With no hypocrisy.
Just this silence.
And these insects singing in the night.
You are here in a way,
And still,
You are not.
You are here because of the old association with the body temple.
But look with yin,
And you are not.
And this insight,
Where there is pure silence and pure is-ness,
Is your reality,
Which death cannot destroy.
This is your eternity.
This is your immortality.
There is nothing to fear.
There is nothing to lose.
And if you think anything is lost,
Your name,
Your respectability,
Your fame,
They are worthless.
They are play things for children,
Not for mature people.
It is time for you to be mature.
It is time for you to be ripe.
It is time for you to just be.
Your somebody-ness is so small.
The more you are somebody,
The smaller you are.
The more you are nobody,
The bigger.
Be absolutely nobody,
And you are one with existence.
Itself.
There is the parable.
Here is some further reflections.
The longing of the mind is to be extraordinary.
The ego thirsts and hungers for recognition that you are somebody.
Somebody achieves that dream through wealth.
Somebody achieves that dream through power,
Politics.
Somebody else can achieve that dream through miracles,
Jugglery.
But the dream remains the same.
I cannot tolerate being nobody.
And this is a miracle.
When you accept your nobody-ness,
Then you are just as ordinary as anyone else.
When you don't ask for recognition,
When you can exist as if you are not existing,
To be absent is actually the miracle.
This story is one of the most beautiful Zen antidotes.
And Ban Ki is one of the most superb masters,
But Ban Ki was an ordinary man.
Once it happened that Ban Ki was working in his garden.
A seeker came,
A man asked in search for a master,
And he asked Ban Ki,
Gardener,
Where is the master?
Ban Ki laughed and said,
Wait,
Go through that door,
And inside you will find the master.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Let your breath and thoughts blend.
What was sparked?
Was there a clear insight and takeaway?
Was there any confusion?
Did your ego and personality have a hard time hearing this story?
Of the power of nothingness,
Of absentedness,
Of wealth?
How do we feel about that?
Nothingness is so expansive.
Think about it.
You can be in the center of a city.
There's all these incredible places to eat,
To shop,
All the financial buildings,
Beautiful architecture.
And then you go to a lake or an ocean,
And there's just the element of sky,
Water,
Earth.
Technically there's like way more nothingness around,
But do you feel the difference,
The expansiveness,
When you can lose your identity,
Lose the reason to even have money,
Lose the reason to have a phone,
A computer.
Less is more.
Nature is my space.
Yes.
Some say the best things in life are free.
Different circumstances.
But can you feel your richness,
Your eternal nature,
When you forget your wallet at home,
When you forget your phone,
When you are required to look people in the eye,
To notice the texture of a flower,
Of a tree.
Nothingness is somethingness.
The play on words,
The illusions beyond space and time.
At the same time,
There's no reason to beat down and abuse the ego and the personality.
It is just a tool,
Our monkey mind,
Our face,
Our clothes,
Our titles,
Our money,
Our technology.
It is a tool.
There's no need to bash and beat it.
It is a tool.
Can we detach and shift gears and be aware of the illusion so that there is less of the struggle when it is our time to leave the body temple?
Nothingness is so freeing.
Can we work on that in our life?
Bit by bit,
So when it's our time for the great continuing,
It's just a simple.
.
.
Nothingness is so freeing.
How can we combine nothingness with goals and helping others?
That's a good inquiry.
It comes down to the attachment,
Not being attached to the goals when they start to bring agitation into you.
Then there's physical pain,
Emotional pain,
And friends and family stop recognizing you.
Again,
There's nothing wrong with desire and specific detail.
When you stop smiling,
Laughing,
Eating,
Sleeping,
Then you know there might be a bit of a situation there.
So have goals,
Dream big,
Be passionate,
Help people.
When there's disharmony,
Resistance,
Then it's telling you to check yourself.
Beautiful.
For being unearthed,
Untethered to the labels and material things is so liberating.
May we all find that space daily in our own versions of meditation to lose these associations and to remember your true nature.
Let's breathe that in and let it go.
Let it flow.
Flow into the abyss of oneness,
Which you are.
You are the seed,
A very distinct,
Beautiful incarnated artistic expression of the divine.
But you also bleed in the tapestry.
You can be both.
Just remember.
Play the game.
Remember your phenomenon of universal frequency.
Ah.
