Blooming As Yourself

daisy a day
Originally uploaded by jude.

A snippet of a dharma conversation, here reproduced.

...Getting over one's delusions of being a tulku--or a departed zen celebrity--is part of the larger project of becoming free from the background noise of paralyzing mental formations, in order to function wholeheartedly in life, as the precious nothing-special person that you are. That was rant #1.

Rant #2 was about functioning wholeheartedly, expressing your full brilliance as a person, doing that thing that only *you* can do, unfettered by fear of success--or notions of inferiority, vulnerability etc. See? Not contradictory. Same rant.

Evan at the monastery told me the story of the great rabbi who carried a pebble in each pocket. On one little stone was written "I am the pinnacle of G-d's creation"; on the other, "I am dust and dirt." Or something to that effect. Depending on the situation, one pebble or the other would be a necessary reminder.

Maybe a more relevant set of pebbles for the likes of you and me would be one that says, "I will not shrink from destiny and greatness"; and another that says "Just do what's right in front of you."

You know that Mary Oliver poem, "When Death Comes"? She's overexposed in Zen circles, but that's because she's so good. Our life is as common, as wholly unique, and as fleeting, as a flower's....


When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.