Jesse Cardon here.
I've got another koan meditation for you.
You might say it's a meditation about compassion,
But it might be more accurate to say it's a meditation about inclusion of all the parts of life.
So if you can,
Find your body in a position that's relaxed,
But comfortable,
And preferably in a position where you don't have to give much attention to keeping it up.
And find a place where you can be uninterrupted for the next 10 or 15 minutes.
Here we go.
So just settling into yourself now.
Settling into your own experience of what's happening right now.
The koan for this meditation involves Guan Yin.
She's sometimes known in other cultures Kanon or Avalokiteshvara.
She's the Bodhisattva or the deity that's concerned with compassion,
Mercy,
Relieving the sufferings of all beings throughout all the realms of existence.
And in some traditions she's manifested as having 11 heads and a thousand arms so that she can comprehend and attend to all the suffering in the world.
And so our koan goes like this.
Taking the form of Guan Yin,
Find shelter for the homeless person.
Taking the form of Guan Yin,
Find shelter for the homeless person.
So the first directive here is clear.
You must take the form of Guan Yin,
A Bodhisattva of great mercy who hears all the cries of the world.
The second directive is slightly more mysterious.
Find shelter for the homeless person.
So just sit with that for a bit and see what rises to meet you.
What is this homeless person in your life?
What is this homeless person right now in this very moment?
And whatever comes,
See if you can include it.
Give it your attention.
Offer it your presence.
It might be something as simple as a sound that you don't want to hear or a sensation or an emotion that you don't want to feel.
It could be some problem in your life or a person.
Taking the form of Guan Yin,
Find shelter for the homeless person.
And maybe you think,
Well,
I don't have anything that feels like a homeless person in my life.
Well,
That's all right.
You can just find shelter for whatever is appearing inside of you and around you,
Moment to moment.
You might notice that when you sit with whatever's troubling you,
Your mind tries to reach out into the situation or into the person and tries to fix things,
Tries to deny things,
Tries to change the situation to suit some preference that you have.
And that's totally natural.
But also notice what that's like.
Notice what it's like to try to change someone who doesn't want to be changed or to fix a problem that doesn't seem fixable.
And just for right now,
You can experiment with just finding shelter for whatever it is that's disturbing you.
What's it like to just create a space to hold that thing in your heart and let it be exactly as it is?
And you might consider also that the homeless person might be inside you.
Your own reaction to a difficult situation.
Your own disapproving thoughts about somebody.
Your own wishes or fantasies.
Fears.
Secret shames.
You can create a place for those two.
And so in a moment,
I'll ring the bell to end the meditation.
But you don't have to leave your koan here.
It's alive anywhere that you take it.
Anywhere that you let it appear in your life.
Its light will shine.
And so take it everywhere with you.
Let it appear in line at the grocery store or the DMV,
With a difficult child,
Or your grief,
Frustration,
Your worry.
Taking the form of Kuan Yin,
Find shelter for the homeless person.
