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An ancient once said - Part 1
These are ten sayings of a Zen Master:
1. Don’t wish for perfect health. In perfect health there is greed and wanting. Soan ancient said, “Make good medicine from the suffering of sickness.”
2. Don’t hope for a life without problems. An easy mind results in a judgmental
lazy mind. So an ancient once said: “Accept the anxieties and difficulties of
this life.”
3. Don’t expect your practice to be always clear of obstacles. Without hindrance
the mind that seeks enlightenment may be burnt out. So an ancient once said,
“Attain deliverance in disturbances.”
4. Don’t expect to practice hard and not experience the weird. Hard practice that
evades the unknown makes for a weak commitment. So an ancient once said,
“Help hard practice by befriending the demon.”
5. Don’t expect to finish doing something easily. If you happen to acquire
something easily the will is made weaker. So an ancient once said, “Try
again and again to complete what you are doing.”
*Kyong Ho
It is exactly in trying to simplify our lives that we complicate it.
Terminal avoidance eats away your mind and your energy.
Confronting all those miserable things that make our lives
difficult instead of trying to swerve out of there way makes
for lessons learnt. When things are smooth and easy the
tools we need to assist us in our daily lives are not there
when we desperately require them. I will speak on only one
of these five and that is health. Not having it has taught
me more about myself, my life and other people than a hundred
years of good health could ever have taught me. I do not
embrace my ill health. I do not think we can ever embrace
those things that complicate our lives and saddens us.
We can embrace what it teaches us, because somewhere along
the road that knowledge becomes applicable, usually when
you expect it least.
25 March, 1997
