Encouragement to follow the Middle Way. Writings, March 2025
In these times there are many provocations for those of us who seek to maintain the integration of wisdom and compassion. When we encounter disturbing events it is very easy to enter into judgement, reifying those whom we take to be the source of problems and then enjoying the dualising egoic pleasure of examining their faults. Then our own responses merely fuel the delusions underlying extreme behaviour.
It is vital that we see each and every situation and each and every sentient being as being devoid of inherent existence. With the help of the Heart Sutra we can sharpen our clarity and see that all seemingly independent and autonomous entities actually arise in dependent origination. They have no defining essence of their own, no private individual source within themselves. They arise as aspects of the interactive patterning of the field of illusion we inhabit. Both self and other manifest and impact each other yet they have no defining essence of their own. Our thoughts and feelings cannot catch the empty essence of sentient beings. Our liking and not liking ourselves and others are just transient reactions to our interpretations and have no real entities as referents.
Free of bias in favour of those we take to be friends and against those we take to be enemies we can offer kindness to all. We can manifest the relative kindness of offering support without collusion and this can be our daily practice. We can also abide in the infinite or absolute kindness of not reifying the sentient beings we encounter. This compassion or kindness is inseparable from the emptiness or absence of defining existence in all beings. When we say ‘beings’ we are actually referring to ‘becomings’ or ‘co-becomings’ or ‘co-emergent becomings’. All appearance is grounded in the unborn ground. Keeping this view clear and alive within us will protect ourselves and all others from reification and judgement.
When we get caught up in reactivity and want others to be punished for the harm they do, we can make use of the practice of dokpa or repelling the provocations we experience. This is not retaliation or revenge. It involves no aversion or anger. We merely refuse to accept and absorb the negative intentions which are projected by those caught in the binary of winning and losing. Without malice, we return to the sender the harm that they project so that their selfish intention can be challenged and collapsed by its return.
Please make use of the Heart Sutra and the Repelling all Troubles texts and never cease from sending love and good wishes to all. Love is the free gift that pours forth from our own dharmakaya nature.
May it awaken all beings to their pure ground, the inseparability of appearance and emptiness!
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Encouragement to Follow the Middle Way
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