This meditation is an attempt to look at “don’t know mind.”  Creating the space, the container, for my fears, my anxieties, which are derived mostly from “not knowing.”  I do not know how this will all work out.  I do not know how crazy the lines will be at the stores today, let alone what the world might look like in a week or months, and how it will affect my own habits, the habits I like or the ones I dislike.

Finding a comfort level with “don’t know mind” is a basic tenet of Buddhism.  Thay called it “letting go of our notions” and suggested the use of the mantra “are you sure?” (I happen to prefer the wording “am I sure”).

This meditation was inspired by the phrase in the Heart Sutra that says:

Because there is no attainment,
the Boddhisattvas grounded in Perfect Understanding,
find no obstacles for their minds.
Having no obstacles, they overcome fear,
liberating themselves forever from illusion,
realizing Perfect Nirvana.

Thay always emphasized that the Heart Sutra teaches us how to be fearless.  This sentence s giving us the instructions: The prerequisite to overcoming fear is to have no obstacles.  The prerequisite to having no obstacles is to accept no attainment.

“No obstacles” in the Chinese is 掛礙, Gua Ai.  Gua means hanging or suspended, but also connotes worry.  Ai is a hindrance/obstacle.  It is composed of the character for stone and the character for doubt together.  Our obstacles come when our worries and doubts get “set in stone” in the mind.  To release that consolidation of worries, the Heart Sutra gives the remedy of “n attainment,” to let go of needing to gain.

So this meditation is about looking at what I am trying to achieve, gain, and also what I am trying to avoid (meaning wanting to gain the opposite), and offering it enough space so we can loosen it and release it.

We start with establishing our Shamata practice: calming and stopping the habitual mind, by coming back to our breath,  This offers us the basic space in which we can look (Vipashyana) at attainment/no attainment and our obstacles.

In the first exercise I see myself as a corkscrew floating on the ocean, playing with the waves, being carried by the waves.
I feel the light and unencumbered.
This furthers the space established by awareness of our breathing.

Once I feel there is plenty of space within me I can practice the second exercise:
Keeping this perspective of a corkscrew floating in the ocean, I look at my fears, resistances.
I ask what do I want to gain in this life that I have?  What do I want to accomplish?  What are the things I am afraid to lose?
I hold these questions with regard to themes in my life.  I may have things I want to accomplish at this moment, and there are also things I want to accomplish that keep coming back as themes in my life.
I just look at these themes with the energy and space of the feeling of floating on the waves.

The third exercise is to look at myself from the perspective of space, from stars far away.
I see the corkscrew floating, and I also see the fears, the anxieties, desires, hopes, loss, in a vast ocean.
I then see that there are threads, or ripples, vibrations that connect infinite space and the the corkscrew.  the movement of the stars can affect the corkscrew (me), and the corkscrew can influence the movement of the stars, even if rarely or by millimeters.

In the fourth exercise I look at myself from the perspective of 300 years from now.  I will by then be bones and ashes.
I see that in time there are also ripples, and that my actions and thoughts have vibrations that can reach the future, just as the past has ripples that affect me in the present.

In the fifth exercise I see myself again as just floating on the ocean.  I allow the contemplation of vast space and time to permeate my mind:

In 300 years I will be gone, but the ripples of my actions will still have resonance.  Some ripples might reach across time and space.
The ripples, the threads, of love, of peace, of serenity, reach out through tie and space.

In the sixth section I am floating on the ocean waves accepting that there is no ground, there is only movement.
I dwell in not knowing.
I surrender to just floating, playing with the waves, finding freedom.
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May you be well, may you be safe, riding these turbulent time with the freedom of a corkscrew