Marge will be facilitating our sangha gathering this Sunday. In our sitting and walking meditation and our dharma sharing we will explore businessless, 'nothing to do and nowhere to do.'
Master Linji, the Zen master who founded the lineage from which Thay comes, invented the term “businessless person,” the person who has nowhere to go and nothing to do." This was his ideal example of what a person could be. According to Master Linji, the businessless person is someone who doesn’t run after enlightenment or grasp at anything, even if that thing is the Buddha. This person has simply stopped. She is no longer caught by anything, even theories or teachings. The businessless person is the true person inside each one of us.
When we learn to stop and be truly alive in the present moment, we are in touch with what's going on in and around us. We aren't carried away by the past, the future, our thinking, ideas, emotions, and projects...Insight can't be found in sutras, commentaries, or Dharma talks. The person who has nothing to do is sovereign of herself. She doesn't have to put on airs or leave any trace behind. The true person is an active participant, engaged in her environment while remaining unoppressed by it. Although all phenomena are going through the various appearances of birth, abiding, changing, and dying, the true person doesn't become a victim of sadness, happiness, love, or hate....In doing nothing, in simply stopping, we can live freely and true to ourselves and our liberation will contribute to the liberation of all beings"
So our practice is simple: 'breathing in, I know I am breathing in [with nowhere to go] and breathing out I know I am breathing out [with nothing to do.] And each of us will still have to find our own way: 'nothing to do and nowhere to go' in the middle of the experience of an unpleasant emotion of physical sensation or a daydream, or deep peace, or an agitated mind or a happy mind.
We can't be businessless all the time, but we can make space for that in our lives - time to just be.
Social Event This Sunday after Sangha
Let's enjoy a mindful meal together as a community after our practice together Sunday. If you wish to join us, let's meet at 6:30 at the Loving Hut Restaurant at 1905 El Cajon Blvd. (in the little strip mall on the south side of the street). The parking lot fills up, so you may have to park on the street.
practicing mindfulness in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.
Meeting in person: SUNDAYS 4-5:30 pm PST
Bard Hall at
First Unitarian Universalist Church (UU)4190 Front St, San Diego CA 92103
Parking is provided in the Ace lot with a church pass (available onsite)