🚀 go-pugleaf

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Deborah McCarter wrote: <<Once I found myself sitting in a field full of white
daisies in full bloom.  After a few minutes of quitely observing the flowers near
me, I noticed a hum in the air and my mind went in search of the source. My eye came
to see a bee on a near by flower and fear and panic rushed to my mind as I then
looked beyond my immediate surrounding to take in the whole field of bees.  It took
everything in me to not run screaming in terror because you see as a young girl I
had been so badly stung by bees my back swelled like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

I sat still with my breath and fears but noticed the reality was the bees were not
bothering me and noticed I could sit calmly and observe the sight and sounds before
me.  There was a great stillness inside me, my mind was still, there was no
thinking, there was no calculating and no self reference, there was freedom and a
sense of wonder.  And it's mine, and yours, and everyone's, just for the asking.>>

Tang: <<Thank you, Deb, for your story.

As you say: "the reality was the bees were not bothering me and noticed I could sit
calmly and observe the sight and sounds before me.  There was a great stillness
inside me, my mind was still, there was no thinking, there was no calculating and no
self reference, there was freedom and a sense of wonder.  And it's mine, and yours,
and everyone's, just for the asking."

In Buddhism, one binds oneself, nobody binds one, and one frees oneself, nobody
frees one. One is fully responsible for oneself, in bondage as in freedom. And
without full self-responsibility, one will never be free.>>

Deb: <<The asking I speak of is of oneself.>>

Right, Deb.

One has all in oneself to walk the path and attain to the end-goal. And the path is
purely purgative, in that it does away and does not heap up, builds down and does
not build up, so that one experiences the world and oneself with Adamic innocence.

Tang Huyen