To be ordinary is already a miracle. Not striving to be someone is already a miracle. Let naturalness be your course. Follow it.
One day Bankei, the Zen master, was working in the garden. A seeker came and asked Bankei: “Gardener, where is the Master?” Bankei smiled and said, “Behind the door, inside, you will find the Master.”
The seeker entered and saw Bankei sitting in a chair, the same man who was the gardener outside.
-Are you being childish? Free your chair. This is sacrilege. “You cannot help but respect the Master,” said the seeker.
Bankei got up from his chair, sat on the ground and said: “Now you will not find the Master in the chair, because I am the Master.” It was difficult for the seeker to accept that the great Master was so simple and ordinary. He went... and missed.
Another day, while Bankei was quietly preaching, he was interrupted by a priest from another community. This community believed in the power of miracles. The priest boasted that the founder of their religion could, standing on one bank of the river with a brush in his hand, write the holy name on a piece of paper held by his assistant on the opposite bank. Then he asked: “What miracles can you do?” Bankei replied: “Only one thing: when I am hungry, I eat, when I am thirsty, I drink.”
The only miracle, the impossible, the incredible miracle, is to be simple, ordinary. The desire of the mind is to be unusual. The ego craves recognition. And it is a miracle when you can be simple, when you do not ask for recognition, when you can exist as if you are not there. Strength is never spiritual. People who perform miracles are not spiritual, in any case, the affirmation of miracles in religions is simply dangerous.
Your mind will say: “What a miracle this is: when I’m hungry, I eat, when I’m sleepy, I sleep.” But Bankei was talking about real things. When you feel hungry, the mind says: “No, I am fasting.” When you don’t feel hungry, when your stomach is full, the mind says: “Let’s go eat, the food is so delicious.” Your mind is always interfering. Bankei says: “I follow nature. Whatever my whole being feels, I do it. This is not controlled by my fragmented mind. I know one miracle: let nature choose the direction, follow it.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru