Xin Xin Ming: Aversion and Affection

How can I fully be myself and not harm others?

Xin Xin Ming: Reversing the Light

Reversing the light is looking. It is Xin being conscious of who we are, of what’s arising, of what’s going on. It is the clarity of the witnessing of our being.

Those of us who come to this practice, we set aside a lot of time to practice, to try to tame our brains, to try bringing ourselves with some kind of alignment with the universe and emptiness, to try to find the source of our true Buddha nature – not even knowing what it looks like, really. Sometimes struggling to let go of the forms and practices and things that we come to lean on to keep our minds tamed and in line. To make it not hurt so much.

In every situation where there’s an impulse to do something and the mind is still and that falls away—that, by definition, is freedom.

Living from a heart of service clarifies the interconnectedness that is the truth of reality, which is why the embodiment of it over time clarifies delusion and leads to liberation and awakening.

To be free, be absolutely still.

Our relationship to our ancestors is complicated because we may have ancestors that engaged in violence, we may ancestors where one group of the ancestors actually treated the other group of the ancestors badly. We may have difficulty honoring ancestors, even though they have given us everything.

We have to take seriously the vows of the precepts, we have to speak them often – again and again.

We are healing ten thousand years, transforming ten thousand years. We are working through this relational suffering that has shaped my isolation, my disconnection, and my individualism.

When we come together, with all the trauma bodies in the room, it’s not just me, it’s not just Ian, it’s not  just us – it’s all of the ancestors, all the people that came before us.