In our ordinary lives, we may struggle at times, are happy and content sometimes, distraught and hurt at others times. We are ensnared by all the constructs, narratives, and ideas we create about ourselves and the world. Thus we create discord, sometimes angry and disillusioned, sometimes righteous and right. Believing our discriminating mind, attached to being right. Thinking that this teaching is better than that one. Deludedly, chasing the finger pointing to the moon. This can be called self-attachment or self-referencing, clinging to a construct, believing it to be who we are. Thinking, “I am this and everything else is not.” This is the dream, a delusion. We are not the construct. It may be that the question arises, “If I am not who, what I think I am, who am I?” This can be an important shift in perspective. However, the problem is, the question cannot be solved by the construct! How can the dream know reality? No matter how much effort you put into seeking what you are from what your not, you are still dreaming. We have to know what we are not. Then, what we are can naturally appear. Our original face reveals itself.
Can we live effortlessly? What if there is nothing to get? Before identification with all our constructs, there is what in our Zen practice is called Orginal Nature. It is also called Emptiness. It means Not-Two. An analogy might be the nature of water. The essence of water is wetness. No matter what form it takes it always has the quality of wetness. The discriminating mind is the wave, we are the wetness or nature of water. Water can quench thirst or it can cause damage; people can rob you or help you. Water can be still and peaceful or powerfully destructive. We have to be clear about the causes and conditions that shape our experience. However, the nature of water is the same. We don’t have to be attached to our discriminating minds, cling to our dualistic thinking of right and wrong, or use our concepts of the Dharma like a measuring stick to judge others. Self-righteousness is not being clear. Projecting your idea of reality is not reality.
Life provides an opportunity over and over again, from moment to moment, to see that our deluded actions based on being self-attached, clinging to an outcome, an idea, or a construct is not who we are. That is our practice, waking up, free to be what we are and always will be. Not-Two.