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Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Flowerpot

I was writing this morning about how dualistic thought arises: people take in to themselves values and ideas from others without consideration of how they themselves are actually affected. They take the ideas on, not provisionally, or as an advisory, but as absolutes. Then their world becomes full of "imaginary icebergs" and they are run by fear and desire.

So I thought of a metaphor of how I got free: a flowerpot. The flowerpot can hold any sort of plant. It does not have a self in the sense of preferring something or rejecting something. I was willing to empty myself of the views and tendencies that I had developed over my life, to take on ideas from someone else: my Guru. The method was that those "seed" ideas from her would be how I could develop a more... Wow. I was about to write "correct".

The dualistic tendency is so prevalent that even in trying to just set it down there is inherent bias and preference. Not only that I unconsciously prefer or whatever, but deeper than that: it is hard to even notice or remember something without contrast and difference. We remember things as their difference to other things. So saying what I set out to do contained a built-in bias: I wanted to improve, and I thought that someone else's ideas would help with that. Yes, sure, but also, keep the bias and predetermination in mind, not just throw myself in to the fire and hope for the best!

Anyway, I wanted to improve, which is already a state of pre-judgement. I was willing to empty myself of my views and preferences and divest myself of my things, as much as I was able. Like dumping out a flowerpot, the old plant goes on the compost pile, the dirt goes in to be mixed with other dirt, and new soil and seeds are planted.

Then, over long time, very long, patient work, something new emerges. Years of bonsai: trimming, watering, adjusting, seeking the best light for this particular plant, the best window, when to put outside, when to bring in... A plant takes shape. Grows. Becomes beautiful. One day...

A Bloom appears, and opens.

This is a new thing. A never-before-seen light. The patience and willingness has paid off. The desire in the beginning for we-know-not-what has led to an opening of awareness. Then, more blooms. Now we know for sure that the process worked. The payment of time, things, letting go, has produced something that could not have been before, in the old soil and conditions. This plant can bloom in other places, it can be moved and bring light elsewhere. "Bloom where you are planted", yes, but as a flowerpot, be willing to be emptied, refilled, then be moved.

The empty flowerpot of itself had the wisdom to see a new possibility that was not obvious. It had the hope to proceed in darkness, and the endurance to be emptied, to have basically everything taken away, and then be reused for a new end: to hold an emergence of beauty and love. Not because someone else knew better and managed the process, not even from faith. But purely of its own nature, the ability to be a Container. To hold and nurture new life.

What we are is empty. We are possibility. A shape to hold things that could be. The shape of time. The form of emptiness. We are not a thing. We are not what is. We are the light that moves through and makes what is. But not even that. Just an arrangement. The product of time and energy, which is infinity, all from nothing. Just be willing to be emptied of whatever you thought was "you". It is not. Every conception is already wrong.

The only right thing is to be worked. Allow time and circumstances to work and see what comes of that. Nothing permanent, that is for sure. A bloom, a blossoming tree. Perhaps.