Every Saturday I meet with a study group at the Buddhist English Library of Seoul consisting of Cheong Go Seunim (seunim means “monk” in Korean) my friend Marcus, and a few other seeking souls to discuss “No River to Cross” by Daehaeng Geun Seunim. This is a gem of a book and it’s provoked quite a bit of reflection and discussion. Her message is simple yet ambiguous and bewildering: just entrust everything to your true nature and let go. Then move forward.
This paraphrase is basically her prescription for all of life’s problems. But what does it mean to “entrust and let go to your true nature.” Well, here’s my take on it after wrestling with it for weeks.
“True nature” is a an oft bandied-about word in Zen Buddhism. It’s not a mysterious thing. It’s this experience as it is. It’s our ordinary mind and life. It’s this texture of being now — whatever texture of being, of isness, you feel right now, that’s our true nature. What else could it be? It’s not something removed from us nor something we have to find. It’s this moment exactly as it is. Because this moment now is all we have, all we ever had, and all we’ll ever have. Period. If you can think of something else that our true nature is, notice that all you came up with is a thought. Now, what’s more real — that projection/thought or this now-ness, just as it is?
So, how do you entrust to this?
Let go.
If you get a sense of the texture of your being, just the physical sensations of life itself without commenting on it, it can feel quite good. Ask yourself how much of your life you’ve been responsible for? Being born, the body, personality, genes, location, upbringing, parents, food, air, water,… none of that you’ve been responsible for. It arose from somewhere somehow. That’s the fundamental ground of being. Some call it God or Amida Buddha or Source or Consciousness — whatever, but this beingness has taken care of us from the moment of our conception. We’re basically cradled in Being like a newborn baby in her mother’s arms. Even our desires were given to us. I didn’t desire to be interested in religion, ping-pong, and gold Casio data-bank watches… if you could’ve asked me what I wanted to be interested in, I’d say money, of course! What’s more practical: banking or medieval Islamic theology? But, I simply have no interest in making money and I never have. So, my point is, when we look at our lives, we’re being supported every second by the Source, our true nature and we’re really not in control, though we maintain that illusion.
So, why not give it up to the Source? Like the fundamentalists said in my Baptist youth camp: “Let go and Let God! Give it up to God.” That’s exactly the dynamic that Daehang is talking about. “Let go, man. You never had control in the first place. There’s something bigger than this little ‘you’ that you think you are!”
I resonate with this teaching because I just want to give up. Taking a metaphor from Ramana Maharshi, I feel like I’ve been on a train going across the United States, we’re just crossing Idaho, and I just noticed that I’ve still got two suitcase in my hands and am wearing an oversized backpack.
Let go and let Amida. Let go and let God. Just let go.
What about the “move forward” part? That’s simple. You can’t ever go into the past. Even one second. It’s gone. Any clinging to the past is nothing but mental confusion. This present is all we have. We have no choice but to move forward.
When I remember this teaching, I feel a spaciousness open in my chest area, a deep relaxing. A sigh usually escapes.
Ahhhh, home at last.
