There is a story from the Zen tradition that goes like this:
One teacher asks another, “Where do you come from?” (Sometimes a trick question.)
The second replies, “From the south.” (Ah, a safe answer.)
The first asks, “How is Zen practice in the South these days?”
The second responds, “There is lots of discussion.”
The first states, “How can all the discussion compare to planting the fields and cooking rice?
The second asks, “What are you doing about the world?”
The first replies, “What do you call the world?”

Many of us are committed to taking care of the world. We work hard to take care of our financial world, our family world, the world of sickness or poverty, our internet/phone/electronic worlds, the world of our friends, our communities, the world of our body, and sometimes our spiritual worlds.

Each person we meet is like their own world. Each experience we have can be its own world. Every organization is its own world. Sometimes each moment can seem like its own world; when we slow down enough to notice.

The question that this dialogue raises is – What really matters? In what way is our activity helping, or not? What about the world of being, the world of just doing the simple, mundane things; things like planting the fields and cooking rice; things like meditation and other less goal-oriented activities; things like taking care of our children, or tending to our lives and the lives of others. What about taking care of these?

What are you doing about the world? What do you call the world?

With best regards,

Marc

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