December 2018
Dear Friends,
As we come to this year’s celebration of Buddha’s enlightenment (and any other celebratory events that will be taking place in your lives this month!), I would like to offer up these words from the great 12th century Chinese Zen Master, Ta Hui:
“If you can truly be an ordinary fellow who’s understood things, then what mudballs are Shakyamuni and Bodhidharma, what a warm bowl of noise are the teachings of the canon of the Three Vehicles! When you have your own faith without doubts in this method—and it’s no small matter—you must make the raw ripe and make the stale fresh to begin to have a small share of Accord with This Matter.”
But what is this “understanding”? And what is this business of “making the raw ripe and the stale fresh”? Trusting in the mind mirror’s wisdom, we find the mist rising and falling among the trees. Setting ourselves free of every one of the stale, dogmatic roads, we attain this moment’s Path that has been ours since the beginning, aglow with wonder.
Wishing you joy and peace in the dharma light,
Jeong Ji
