In a given moment in life,
We tend to identify with the thinking mind.
We think that we are our thoughts.
In the words of the Shurangama Sutra,
This is equivalent to forgetting that we're the host and thinking we're a guest.
In this moment,
I want you to identify with open,
Spacious awareness.
Never mind if you think you know what that means or think you don't know what it means.
Just open up into a sense of spacious awareness,
So you're not focusing from the thinking mind,
Not focusing from thought or operating in thought,
But it's as if you fall behind that whole activity in an open space where you're simply curious to see what the next thought might be,
Curious to see what the next sensation might be,
Curious to see what the next sound might be,
The next sight,
Just curious about experience emerging moment to moment.
In other words,
As the host,
You're just curious about the flow of guests through the inn.
There's awareness,
Just openly curious about the flow of sensory experience coming and going.
If you are objectively safe in this present moment,
Like the self is not,
At risk of sustaining any injury or bodily harm,
The house isn't on fire.
Hope that goes without saying,
And you can remain as the host,
Just letting the guests come and go,
Come and go,
Be the host of this situation,
Sensory experience,
All of the guests streaming through the inn,
Some stay a little bit,
Some stay longer,
But all guests move like foreign dust,
All guests come and go.
The more we open up,
The more sensitive we become to the coming and going of guests.
When guests we especially mistake ourselves for as hosts,
They reveal themselves to be coming and going.
We think in our mind that we're a body,
But the sensation right now arising as the body is brand new,
Is a new guest just arriving.
And what sensation was present in the last moment is a guest already leaving.
We think we've always been this body,
But we're not the same flow of sensation in this moment that we were,
Say,
10 years ago,
20 years ago.
All guests are coming and going,
All conditions changing,
But you,
The host,
Awareness,
You neither come nor go,
As it says in the sutra,
Where could you go?
You're the host,
You're simply aware,
Open,
Awake awareness.
If we mistake ourselves to be an angry guest,
We feel angry and we're consumed by anger.
If we mistake ourselves to be a jealous guest,
Then we're jealous and consumed by jealousy.
A guest who feels lack,
We mistake ourselves with this guest and we feel like something's missing.
But when we remember that we're the host,
We simply see this fear,
This anger,
This lack,
This sense of lack coming and going.
They stay for a meal,
A cup of tea,
They stay for the night,
They stay for 10 years,
But they are not us,
They are not the host,
They are not the inn.
As the host,
There's room for every guest,
What does it feel like to not try to convince certain guests to stay,
Certain guests to leave?
Stay in this place,
Open,
Luminous,
Large-hearted curiosity,
As the host,
Which guest is on their way out,
Which guests are newly arriving,
Space,
The inn is completely untainted,
Uncolored by their coming and going,
Infinite space,
Freedom for them to come and go.
As the host,
Bring your awareness to a guest who's been staying a long time now,
And you've really wanted this guest to be moving on now,
And feel that there's all the space in the world for this guest,
Which is to say,
You can feel this way,
You can feel this presence,
But it's not who you are,
It's a temporary blip.
What about a guest who you hoped would stay,
A guest who left a long time ago now,
What would it be if you just let that guest go,
Because they're already gone?
It's not to deny yourself any feelings you have about this particular guest,
It's to just not be in denial that this guest is gone,
This particular condition you were attached to,
No more hostages,
No more shooing vagrants away,
All the guests are welcome,
They stay for what time they're meant to stay,
And then they go and move on,
And you are the host of every guest,
The host of every situation.
