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The Middle Way - Chapter 11: Burning and Being Burned
Today we continue to practice slow walking meditation with “each step touching the ground of reality,” each footstep must truly touch the earth with mindfulness and concentration. When practicing walking meditation, place your mind under the sole of your foot, keep your mindfulness on the wooden plank—the crystallization of rain and sunshine, the wood becomes a miracle, called “earth-conducting miraculous power.” There are many supporting gathas such as:
- Each step on the earth manifests miraculous power
- Breathing in and out, deep and slow
-
Mind on myriad paths, the Zen road is peaceful
Each mindful step nourishes mindfulness and concentration, bringing happiness and healing right in the present moment.
In sitting meditation and daily activities, we practice the breath with two basic exercises:
- in and out (inhaling and exhaling)
-
calming (soothing the body formation)
then continue with the third exercise, joy (joy and happiness from the present moment), and the fourth to embrace and calm suffering. Each in-breath recognizes body and mind, each out-breath takes care and heals, generating the energy of mindfulness to serve deep healing.
Chapter 11 of the Middle Way Treatise, the topic “burning and being burned,” uses the terms:
- Agni (fire)
- Indhana (fuel)
- burning (the act of burning)
-
being burned (that which is burned)
to clarify that fire and fuel, action and actor, cannot be separated. From there, we see non-self, dependent co-arising: there is no separate self apart from action, nor is there action existing outside of self.
