The gift of giving…
Once again my dear teacher and friend Wilbur Mushin May Sensei gave me something to put up on our website. I hope this holiday season you give it much thought as the energy of giving is everywhere and you and the gift are one inseparable. So choose the gift wisely. ~Shokai
Dana-Giving
“To give is non-attachment.
Not to attach to anything is to give.”
To give-dana-is the first of the six Paramitas. In giving yourself completely all 6 are realized.
In life we always take up positions: me/other.
Judgments follow.
When we wake up, we are right in the middle of it all. You are giving to all—all are giving to you.
Mutual interdependence.
No more reference points, no time for space perceptions.
In zazen you give yourself fully. Just sitting you realize: No me/no other.
In the Mumonkan there is a koan (case 49), Shakyamuni and Maitreya giving to each other. Tell me, who is that other? There is no other.
When all of the “other” or objectivity is cast away, all of the “I” the subjectivity is also gone. And when this happens, the Only True One is finally manifested. Then you see with the eyes of another, feel with the hands of another. The “fact is: When you see, what you see is not separate from yourself. When you hear, what you hear, is yourself; when you think what you think is yourself then everything is yourself, and you are stripped and released by the threefold emptiness of giver, gift, and receiver.
To grasp this and live this experientially is not easy.
Concluding with a poem:
“A cuckoo sings.
Its rare song
I have forgotten the dream
I had just now.”
“The dream” here means I-myself, the universe and everything.— in gassho, Mushin