Throwing Away the World?

I love this poem. Especially the lines,

“Is the world throwing me away? Am I throwing away the world?”

It reflects so powerfully, the way walking a spiritual path with dedication often feels to me and to others with similar lives.

It was written by Zen Master Seung Sahn, around the time when my soul was becoming bound in this flesh (I was born a month early, 8 months later).

I’m a weirdo to so many of my friends: I wake up early every day to practice, which I never feel is enough. I read texts, I drop into silence, I have an existential view of the world, I have a strange and uncommon relationship to my emotions and to other beings. I’m constantly in some sort of retreat, either at a center or in my own home (and often just in my head!). I LOVE to party, to dance, to sing, and at the same time there is this other, exterior view of the whole life operation that I keep coming back to. In that place, it’s silent – and endlessly vibrant.

Thankfully there are other weirdos like me, in the wider Sangha (community of meditators or similar practitioners). Is the world throwing us away?

Are we throwing away the world? I think, Yes. Because the world here means the noise, the constant thought chatter, the complication of emotional reactivity. It means the roles and identities we blindly wear as hand-me-downs from family and society. It means throwing away the life that is lived asleep, unaware, overly concerned with me me me, my problems, poor me, or awful you (which is right back to poor me again). What a remarkable thing, to wake up to this immense beauty all around! And here is where I’m weird… I see beauty in this world.

But I can only get there when I’m thrown away, throwing away, shedding, shedding… until there are just white clouds floating in the sky, clear water coming down to the ocean.

How unconventional it is, to “lie around the Dharma room, not caring about anything“. Although I believe Zen Master Seung Sahn didn’t mean it quite as it sounds. The Dharma room, whatever form that has for someone, is place of deep connection and release into something before all roles, identities, obligations… a sacred place. Lying in it, one feels that connection, that ease of being at home. That inner home, the true home. While in that place of complete calmness and being, there is nothing to care about, all is as it should be. There is an order to it all that is beyond comprehension, and little me, no matter how important I think I am, really has nothing more to do that my best to be open and loving to it all. Just surrender my whole life to them.

It seems therefore, I am indeed immersing into the world fully, no throwing away necessary.

Thank you so much to Zen Master Hyon Gak Sunim for his tireless teaching and his commitment to continuing the teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn.