Wake-up Sermon says Don't Make Anything!

When you understand, reality depends on you. When you don't understand, you depend on reality. When reality depends on you, that which isn't real becomes real. When you depend on reality, that which is real becomes false.... everything becomes false. When reality depends on you, everything is true. -Bodhidharma, the Wake-up Sermon

What the crap does that mean?! Well, I don't like to look at these words as a logic proof. After we are done playing with ideas, we each must bathe or cook or sleep or make love or pay our bills if we can. My experience is that if we are to gain anything from being on path with teachings like these, we must apply them to the every day. Otherwise, we're just making new schemas. I think part of what Bodhidharma is saying in his quote is that when the mind is in balance, we can be in relationship to these daily activities without getting caught up in the idea of them.



There are many ways to understand paying a bill: writing names and numbers on a small piece of paper that gets mailed; acting to prevent a future action (losing electricity); maintaining an agreement, etc. These are all just ideas, and some are sometimes more helpful than others. Still, when we have hope and fear around these ideas, we're living in the future based on our perceptions of the past. This is not a great way to rest the mind. Neither is avoiding action for the same reasons.

Sylvia Boorstein has a saying that comes to my mind often (if inaccurately). It's something like, "when the mind is at peace, one's behavior becomes impeccable." I think that's true. And I think it's worth saying that impeccable has to be free from any idea of right or wrong, or even of impeccability. I never knew him, but I think Dae Soensanim (Zen Master Seung Sahn) might have expressed this idea by saying something like, "Mind is clear, behavior is No Problem!"

I highly recommend imagining what it would be like if you were an actor hired to play (insert your own name) in a "reality" TV show. You're just being you, responding to what comes next in the script. Does your perspective shift?