Happy Day to All~
I made it to Cancun, and from there to Tulum, what a place!
My son Paul jr met me after he arrived last night and today we are off on adventure to Chichen Itza to see the great pyramids there.
Check out: https://www.chichenitza.com/ to see the magnificent complex.
Wheel Rolls Round Table
Have you seen the stars?
How they roll through space and time—as a wheel?
Who is driving? Who is meeting at these roundtables!is it you?
At the head of every roundtable is Great Mother. She directs men and women. Humanity, they
are her Stars.
Efficient is the wheelbarrow
Joy is the cart; the right pressure keeps the tire rolling.
Zen practice is as a river stone
Going wherever the river goes, torrents make it soft and smooth
Nice to hold in your hand
Beautiful in your garden.
Pressure is the man pushing ~ the woman pulling.
Do you want to move?
Equanimity brings rest, peace, stillness.
Zen is “moving stillness” in your garden
Leaving lines of rhythm and flow, in which the wind knows where to go.
Zen honors the morning breeze as an aid to rake and leaves.
Zen is the rounded stone
Assuring the water it’s never alone.
Zen is the roundtable its axis is your home.
Let’s practice zen together.
“Wheel Rolls” and “Round Table” are both independent sutras, as well as expansions on our previous sutras.
“Wheel Rolls” reminds us of the awareness cultivated in Sutra 6, Six Spokes Is Half A Wheel.
To keep a wheel rolling requires that it be “true”, properly pressurized, and used for the tasks in which its design is best suited. An off-road wheel works best in the dirt, but will not give the best performance on a paved road, yet the best road tires are nearly useless in the mud.
Can you adapt your “wheel of self” to the terrain as you enter new territory, new relationships, new experiences?
“Round Table” represents the system of Native American government, in which the women were the principle governors.
The principle of the round table in Indian government was one in which each person invited to the table had a chance to speak their truth.
Since many of the native nations were matrilineal, the head woman did not allow any derogatory commentary from the men, nor from the other women; she knew that negativity never helped create positive solutions for collective problems.
If any man did not have the ability to remain focused on the collective objective, the head woman would have him removed from the round table as a necessity of keeping the objectives clear and the collective
working to that end in harmony.
This sutra implies that just as the wheel must be both maintained and be optimal for the task at hand, the round table only rolls out solutions to the degree that its members are chosen correctly for the task at hand.
They must be governed such that each spoke in the wheel of the round table allows individuality and collective contributions are healthfully maintained.
In zen, practicing awareness of our own individual “true” is essential to being in touch with reality—essential to seeing and experiencing life as it really is.
Only when awareness and our experiences of life are authentic – coherent – can we contribute to any other round table.
Being true!that is zen.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
