Fully engaged is sometimes how practice and enlightenment are
described. Do whatever you do, fully engaged. O and remember with the object at
hand don’t overdo it. Your engagement must not be too much and must not be too
little it needs to be just right! Presto! You are fully engaged! You don’t
strike and light a candle with too little spark or too much, too little and
there’s no ignition, too much and the match head flies off and everything
remains dark. If you are in the dark, it might be a matter of engagement.
This spiritual instruction reminds me a little bit of
Goldilocks. You remember her, she was the little golden-haired girl who ate
Baby Bear’s porridge and slept in his bed. The original character, however, was
not a little girl the original character here told was an old woman. And she was more a prowler in the woods
looking for trouble than an innocent little girl who wanders upon the house of
the three bears. She was rather a tramp, a drifter or perhaps like the many
homeless old women seen pushing grocery carts full of trash and newspaper and
odd bits and pieces. She is homeless, hungry and looking for grub.
She doesn’t just come upon the house in the woods but is
searching for something and when she comes upon the house she knocks and when
no one answers she trespasses. Once inside the house of the three bears she
begins to rummage around for what she might eat. You know how the story goes she finds three
bowls of porridge on the table. She was hungry so she tastes the porridge from
the first bowl only to exclaim it is “too hot!” From the second, she cries out,
“too cold!” And with the last she exclaims, “O this is just right” and licks it
clean. She makes the same assessment with the chair and a bed. With each inspection the whines follow until
low and behold she exclaims, “It is just right.”
OK. Was Goldilocks fully engaged when she found what she
liked? Was her exclamation of “just right” a matter of finding what she liked?
Many, many of us think this is the way to go through life. If we check things
out and keep looking for what we like, for what we want then we too can
exclaim, “Just right!” We may even misunderstand this search, this maneuvering
of looking as the choreography of being fully engaged. But before we go on I want you to recall the
fate of Goldilocks.
The three bears
return and find her in Baby Bear’s bed. When Goldilocks wakes up she screams in
fear and high tails it out of the house never to return again. It actually is
this last bit that is the secret to full engagement. Although you might think
checking things out according to your desires of what is pleasing or not
pleasing is the basis for self-emancipation, it is in all honesty the charm of
the jail keeper’s incantation. The jail keeper in this case is your own craving
heart that charms you into thinking getting what you want is the basis for no
suffering. It usually comes in the form of a wish that goes unnoticed as a wish
and is experienced as a necessity. And since Goldilocks does find a bowl, a
chair and a bed she liked she thinks finding and getting what you like is it. You,
too, are suckered into thinking getting what you want is the way to make
yourself happy just like Goldilocks. You forget that the three bears show up to
wake her from her sleepy dream. Frightened from sleep by the real owners
Goldilocks leaps from the window in a panic.
We can readily imagine Goldilocks is once again wandering in
the woods looking for what she wants. It’s an endless cycle for her and she is
willing to resort to trespass and theft to get what she wants because she most
likely thinks it is here for the taking and she needs it.
Let’s face it, we are more like Goldilocks than we want to
admit, especially the original character. We drift around the world hungry
looking for things to satisfy a need. We split things into good and bad and chalk
it up to the way things are done. It’s very hard for us to admit that it is a fairy
tale or even that all of our worldly actions are played out on a stage. We take
very seriously our roles and performances as real and substantial. We all know
fairy tales are imaginary which may seem to make them harmless. But perhaps
Goldilocks and her antics are imaginary much in the same way as a deluded heart
is. She thinks only of her hunger, her wishes and her likes and dislikes and
pursues them. This is not a moral tale, although there is that, it is a tale
that expresses her fruitless discernment. She is able to discern what she liked
and did not like which clouded her judgment. She enters the house uninvited
which is trespassing. But her actions further her unrewarding approach. It is unrewarding because it does not release
her from her struggles and does not show her how to discern that she needs to
be fully engaged. She is caught in her wishes and as long as she is caught in
her wishes she remains jailed by them.
Goldilocks wasn’t satisfied with the first bowl or the
second even though she was hungry. No, the porridge needed to match her wishes.
She used a very human approach, trial and error. She tried each bowl of
porridge until she found the one that matched her wish. It’s quite common and
often passes for happiness. But anyone can tell you that it leaves one wanting
and as long as there is wanting you remain captive to the wanting. It can
literally lead you around in circles. And the intermittent reward of sometimes
finding the right bowl of porridge reinforces the wandering around.
The everyday greeting
of saying “hello” offers us an opportunity to use the mundane greeting ritual
as an expression of full engagement. In other words, it is a magical word among
many magical words. But if used as a
wish fulfilling jewel, it can incarcerate you.
As most things magic, you need to handle it with care and not enter it
uninvited or trespass against it.
Saying “hello” is a “great dharani.” Dharani is a sanskrit word with an original meaning
of spell, incantation and mystical power. You may be skeptical but hold off
drawing a conclusion.
We say “hello” countless times throughout a lifetime, on the
phone, on a walk, in a store, you name the place and we probably have said
“hello” there. But maybe you said it
half-hearted, rote or perhaps you were buttering someone up or schmoozing when
you said “hello.” Maybe you were trying to make a “good” impression or avoid
someone you didn’t like so your “hello” casts a spell to fulfill your wishes.
It has power. We all have felt the care and kindness of a sincere “hello” or
the brusque, curt push of “hello” that feels like get lost!
You use this magical word to fulfill your wishes much like
Goldilocks. Your wishes lockup your heart each time you follow your like or
dislike. You are confined by your judging thoughts and self-interest and say
the word “hello” from a dungeon of preconceptions, wishes and desires. You are
either too enthusiastic or too wooden which dampens the engagement. And you do it repeatedly.
Your “hello” casts a spell which may release you from your
struggles to make your wishes come true. But what does it require? It requires
a clear realization.
My personal experience with this spell casting came during a
period where I found myself on a low-heat back burner. It was a simmer but it
was a simmer of anger. It was as though I always felt it but could never
discern the cause. Fortunately it was during a time when I had the opportunity
to visit a Zen monastery where I was given the chance to speak with a Zen
Master. I remember I had to crawl and scoot on my knees across a threshold into
a small, darkly lit room. I had to sit upright face to face quite close to a
man I did not know and who was quite still sitting in robes.
There we were, eye to eye, breath to breath sitting in
silence.
I remember I said, “I
am angry.”
That was all I said when he replied, “Suppose you are
walking down the street and two of your friends come towards you and begin to
pass by. Do you say hello? “
”Yes,” I said.
Instantly he added in his calm even tone, “Know you say
hello.”
I know it doesn’t sound like much but believe me it was
plenty. I got it immediately. I bowed and scooted and crawled my way back to
the threshold. As I turned to bow out I noticed the Zen Master looked at me in
astonishment.
Know you say hello is the great dharani, the incantation
that casts a spell. Whether you say hello, kiss cheek to cheek, handshake, hug,
bow, salute, curtsy or slap someone on the back, know it. Know it without
rationalization, without like or dislike, without restriction or hesitation or
rules of conduct. It is not a matter or right or wrong, or like or dislike, it
is a matter of the power of intention to know it. To know it is the top of the
mystical peak, the striking of the sound before and after the hammer is truck.
Pure awareness knows.
Hold it! As in most fairy tales and magical spells there is
a cautionary warning. Don’t imitate. Don’t imitate Goldilocks in an
anti-Goldilocks scheme or pro-Goldilocks method. Don’t imitate saying “hello”
in a sundry of impersonations of your image of a good, compassionate or
friendly hello. That’s covering the wolf with a lambskin. Know you say hello
and live with knowing what effects arise. The action purifies the mind because
it receives the effect. Don’t try to escape it. It is a harbinger.
Don’t imitate what you think you should do. Devote your
intention to ways that show the absolute right in the middle of saying “hello.”
In other words, own up to your intention, adjust and modify according to
relinquishing likes and dislikes and don’t give up. Owning blunders dissolves
the grip of prideful arrogance. Humility requires an ability to face the
blunders and press on. Devotion rests on your intention.
Saying hello is a surrogate for devotion. It bears the
message of “know every move you make, every breath you take.” This devotion is
full engagement. Be trustworthy in small things. It requires courage since it
requires a non-thinking, non-scheming leap from a hundred foot pole.
Some
time ago a friend of mine told me about an incident with her cat. Early in the
morning the cat went nuts. It attacked her sister, and then jumped on her and
bit her, making a puncture wound that required antibiotics. The cat was
so vicious that it needed to be locked in a room. My friend called the Vet.
The
function of a ghost is to fill an empty space. Without attention, the absence
of the missing "thing" becomes, itself, a living thing. It
takes root in the mind, grows, and flowers into grief. We feel sorrow and
heartache when a beloved creature dies; but those feelings do not have to
blossom into interminable woe and lamentation.
