Rest in this Ordinary Mind, rest in the Way.
What is Ordinary Mind?
The Third Gyalwa Karmapa said, “In ordinary mind there is no rejecting and accepting, loss and gain.”
When the great Zen Teacher Nansen was asked about Ordinary Mind he said to Joshu in return, “Ordinary mind is vast, open, and empty like space, how can it be reduced to thoughts, judgments, activities, and feelings?”
Ordinary Mind is this unclouded, everyday mind right now.
Relax and turn awareness within.
“Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.”
― Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Everyday, Ordinary Mind is the Way
Please visit the homepage at sweepingheartzen.org for an updated, online practice schedule.
You can download the Third Gyalwa Karmapa’s teaching on Ordinary Mind here.
May you and all beings be healthy, free from fear, safe, and at ease!
Very best wishes,
Mark
