Originally Posted by
Martin
Taigu
I simply do not understand how realisation can depend on what we wear. I cannot understand why, or that, the universe should care.
Taigu, Shohei, sewing the kesa is your practice, pricking your fingers time and time again, being confronted again and again with your impatience and inadequacies.
Today, as I do all week, I helped two warring parties stitch together a settlement, pricking the bubbles of my ego time and time again on their hurt, being confronted again and again with my impatience and inadequacies. You work your work, I mine, and each of us, theirs. I’m not a good Mediator, and perhaps you’re not good sewers, (perhaps you are) but whatever, the kesa is sewed, and the case is settled, and the tea needs to be made. And next week there’s more to sew, and another five cases to be settled.
The Buddha sewed a kesa, and sewing the kesa is the work of the Buddha. The Buddha helped to settle disputes, and helping to settle disputes is the work of the Buddha. I don’t know if it’s recorded that the Buddha made tea, but making tea, too, is the work of the Buddha.
We all work our work, and I cannot understand how stitches in fabric, and stitches in a settlement, nor tea in the pot, if each is done with the mind of zazen, are different, nor how you can judge the mind with which others work their work.
Gassho
Martin