Good Thursday to you!
I had a lovely day off with Ashley Mazurek yesterday and today I start teaching HLC3. This is one of my favorite courses to teach.
We have a great group of students joining us for the next six days, so I’m looking forward to sharing my love with my students again and empowering them with new levels of understanding about the complex nature of their client’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain.
Today I thought I’d share the following Tao-Te-zen: Finger Pointing Causes Trouble
None of us likes to be wrong. None of us likes to fail. It’s important to remember that each human being is doing the best they can to love themselves and to love others with the training they’ve received from parental, familial, and societal upbringing.
Finger pointing goes in every direction.
No one right, no one wrong
We all live in life together
Have you ever seen Mother Mary pointing her finger?
Have you noticed that blame travels in circles?
A hunting dog points in the direction of the deer
Yet that is not a kill But the direction of the food
When we point to water,
we help each other
When we are lost,
a true guide points the way
TAO-TE-zen practice is as a finger
Pointing to the rake
Rakes are for leaves
Creeks point the way to rivers
Rivers point the way to the ocean
The wind points the way across the sea
TAO-TE-zen practice is for mastering the self
The mastery of which shows the truth of you In zen,
Self points to self
Only as a means of showing the way to the center
Once there you see no one pointing but you
In zen, all finger pointing is to offer a healing hand
With rake, bucket, hoe, and pot
We all know what to do together
That is to live zen
The simple way
Finger pointing goes in every direction. No one is right, no one wrong. We are all in life together.
That means that everywhere you go, there are people finger pointing. Just because someone is pointing the finger, by no means, means that somebody else was wrong.
Almost always accusations are based on incomplete knowledge.
You’re probably well aware that our tribal system has broken down.
Our family systems have broken down. We’ve lost the wisdom of our elders and most people sadly suffer from the negative programming effects of most religious ideologies.
This particularly is the case with religions of Abrahamic origin, which are chock-a-block with “Thou shalts”. The circumstances highlighted in the news these past few days speak of this graphically.
Know that when someone is finger pointing that it’s a fear-based reaction. It’s almost always because somebody else doesn’t want to be wrong.
In zen, “Self” – your higher self – points to your lower self, only as a means of showing the way to the center. Once there, there is no one pointing but you.
This line directs us to the fact that once you have a satori experience, you become everything.
In the grandest sense of the word, enlightenment is the realization that all creation, the universe, is all one living being, one living organism, and you are to the universe as a finger on your own hand.
To the degree that the you have the urge to point a finger, one must become conscious that the finger is pointing to a piece of themselves that needs help.
Be at peace with your truth and allow that other person to express their truth, and move forward productively from there.
There is nothing to do here except to tend to the garden and make it more beautiful. So if we keep focused on creating together instead of accusations and criticisms, then we’d make a lot more progress.
That is zen, the simple way.
Have a great day, I know I will.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
