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Return to Your True Home
*After each journey or after a long, tiring day, “coming home”—like the feeling of “home sweet home”—awakens an inner zone of safety, a place where we can take refuge and dwell in peace. Simply by “following the breath,” we “return to take refuge in the island within,” as the Buddha taught. When we open the doors of our senses, “sounds and images, like gusts of wind,” can disturb the mind, so it is necessary to close the five sense doors, return to the room of consciousness, and “breathe gently,” creating peace and warmth. Within our inner world, there are also “birds, trees, streams, butterflies, flowers, blue sky, and white clouds”—the beauties that arise from “the seeds we have sown in our own mind.”
- Close the five sense doors, practice mindful breathing for a few minutes to isolate “that room” from the outside world.
- Create “clouds,” generate “sunshine” within, nourish the moon of peace from inside, not depending on the world.
*Right and wrong, good and evil, are pairs of interdependent opposites, but the nature of truth transcends all dualities. During meditation, reciting the gatha “when the three karmas are at peace, all disputes end” helps us let go of discrimination between right and wrong. The Dharma body, “a symbol of pure truth,” is not bound by good or evil; “letting go of all views” allows us to continue our spiritual growth. For example, a blind person touching an elephant only perceives a part; each view is limited; only by letting go of all views can we see the noumena of all phenomena.
- Right view, though “right–wrong,” is still relative; “ultimate truth” is beyond right and beyond wrong.
- Non-attachment to views is the foundation of ethics, preventing violence born from the attachment “only I am right, others are wrong.”
Part of the following collection
The Order of Interbeing and the Voice of Peace