Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Being Present

With palms together,
Good Morning All,
 
It is late evening as I sit down to write to you. The rain is gently snapping against the pebbles on the ground outside our apartment window and there is an occasional flash of lightening followed by rolls of thunder. It is perfect weather.
 
Perfection is always about being present. When we are fully present, regardless of what is happening or what we are thinking and feeling, the moment is perfect.  How could it be otherwise? 
 
Imperfection is something we add. Perfection, too, is something we add when we think of perfection, imagine perfection, rather than exist completely with the present. The present is always complete. There can be nothing lacking. We might wish there was something else in our present, but this, too, is something we add. Just being in the present moment is enough and complete, and as a result, perfect.
 
Some of you wondered what I was thinking when I said change was an illusion in an earlier post. Just so, some of you might wonder just what could I mean when I say everything is always perfect. The key is in understanding that our mind is not reality, it is a function of our brain. Our mind creates what we call reality, it puts a color to it, a taste to it, a smell to it, a texture to it, and a thought about it. But the universe is not our mental construction before our mind exists to perceive it.
 
What is it?
 
Like that koan about your face before your parents were born, what was it?
 
Can you be without thought? Before perception? What would be perfect or imperfect there?  What would change there?
 
And now it is no longer raining. Also perfect.
 
Be well. 
 
 
 
Be well.
 
 
Team Zen:


Rev. Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. 
May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
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