The Métro is packed with returning. The babies and small children seem particularly weary and agitated.
Everyone, though, looks like they want and need something.
I wonder what that might be. I wonder where they have all been, where they are all going.
And me?
I like this verse from Layman Pang:
»What I do every day
Is nothing special:
I simply stumble around.
What I do is not thought out.
Where I go is unplanned.
No matter who tries to leave their mark,
The hills and dales are not impressed.
Collecting firewood and carrying water
Are prayers that reach the gods. »
The life of a monk.
What would then be then be the life of a monk????
Pang’s life and words are nothing more than a manifestation of what really matters, the basic truth that whoever, whatever, wherever we are, the only thing to renounce after all is self. Then, without a trace, we are fully engaged in the world.
A beautiful woman in rags is still a beautiful woman. So why does she spent an hour or more dressing up?
Life’s essence is present in every moment and there’s nothing we can do to make it grow or to make it go away. So why do we struggle with it? What are we striving for?
Is this what Pang is saying?
Live a simple life.
Do not try to be special, a enlightned one, a sensei or a roshi, the one that has resolved all koans.
Just be and be yourself, an human being, living a simple and normal life, with all that your life is presenting to you.
Is this what Pang is saying?