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Mindfulness Journal — random entry 1–2020/04/28
Thoughts about non-dualism. I’m reminded of that thing you (J, our Zoom meditation facilitator) read us from (Shunryu) Suzuki, well, two things actually. One was about Big Mind, but I don’t remember the exact words of it. But I picture Big Mind as the mind expanding out of its little shell in the head and filling the whole body, and then I think Suzuki (or J?) said when you make the mudra with your hands put your whole body (or whole mind, they’re the same!) into it.
You know how Zen is not supposed to be a religion? And how religions partly exist because we know we are going to die and try to make sense of that place and time beyond where our present consciousness can go? Zen has a sly and indirect way of doing things, with all its koans and jokes and non-striving.
First you see that meditation and walking are one, that meditation and stretching before and after meditation are all the same activity, that cooking is mindfulness if you do it mindfully, etc. Beyond that you see that the body and mind are one. That your body and mind and my body and mind are one. Then that humanity and animality and plant-based life forms are all one. That the earth and system and galaxy and universe that it resides in are all one. And since my mind is all one with all of these, I and the universe are not strangers to each other, not adversaries. All of…
