Trust in Heart-Mind III

​More on lines from Trust in Heart-Mind attributed to the 6th century Zen teacher, Seng Tsan:

The arising of “other” gives rise to self; giving rise to self generates others. Know these seeming two as facets of the One Fundamental Reality…

To put your trust in the Heart-Mind is to live without separation, and you are one with your Life-Source.          

“Facets of one fundamental reality.”  Lots of people are feeling more isolated, lonelier, more cut off, than ever as “shelter in place” enters its third month. Seng Tsan reminds us that regardless of what happens, each of us is one sliver of a multi-faceted reality that is much bigger than each of us.

I wanted to punish the bus driver responsible for my friend’s horrific accident which resulted in her leg being amputated. I was like the 16th century Chinese Zen poet, Chu Han, wrote,

How I wish to kill!

How I wish not to kill!                                 

The thief I have caught

Is my own son.

But my friend, who was not even a meditator took a few deep breaths, rose up in her wheelchair, pointed to the expanse of Lake Superior out the window of her rundown apartment and exclaimed at the marvelous view.  It seemed that she had opened to the One Fundamental Reality. When I asked about the bus driver who ran her over, she expressed deep concern for his well-being as if he were her own son!

This is what the Taoist sage Lao Tzu calls “having a spirit,” which is in a condition of security:

When a drunken man falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people’s; but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear and the like cannot penetrate his breast, and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existence. If such security is to be got from wine, how much more is to be got from the Way?

My friend was like Chuang Tzu’s drunken man who had let go of any picture of himself or how he should be.As she sat there breathing naturally and deeply, her demeanor reminded me that all we have to do is trust in our own heart/mind and we will return to our natural condition of security quite naturally.  In ancient Greece, to be in good spirits was considered to be in good breath since the two words have the same etymological origin.

But whether we are in touch with our breathing or not, whenever we allow our mind to drop directly into our heart center, we live without separation and are one with our life source. If that’s not security, I don’t know what is.