The Question of Form

The question of form has been very prevalent in my mind at the moment, which has been spinning in circles trying to figure it out! What is the best way to live the Dharma in one's life? It's a big question! I found a beautiful article "Hunger and Gladness" by Sallie Jiko-Tisdale, exploring this dilemna. Here's an extract;

 "Imagine a path into a forest. You’ve heard rumors about beautiful and secret places in that forest, along that path. You know it’s a long road, but you set off, full of ideas about what these beautiful, secret places might be like. After a while, with some dismay, you come to a fork. No one mentioned a fork! No one said there were two paths! Left or right? There aren’t any maps; there are no guides standing by with helpful advice. Many people in such a position are paralyzed for a while, with no idea how to proceed. A few people even turn around and leave the forest, for they are so afraid of making the wrong choice, or, ofchoosing itself. Facing such moments, most of us do proceed. We may wonder for a while if we made the right choice, but we quickly stop worrying about it because the path itself captures our attention. Then we come to a meadow, and then a lake, a lovely distant view, a place of small, hidden flowers. What a good choice we made! What a nice path this is, with its beautiful and secret places. After a while, you begin to glimpse other people in the distance. You hear steps, you see a passing shape, not so far away. A person waves to you from across the lake, and you say to yourself, “Hey, that’s the other path! Hey, that’s a nice view! I’d like to see that view. Dang! Maybe I picked the wrong path. Maybe those people, over there, are getting to see a lot more of the secrets than I am.” We are beset by jealousy and fear even as we walk our chosen path.

More time goes by, more time on the path, and after a while, we realize that this path isn’t all easy and nice. There’s a certain amount of slogging, some mud, a few bogs full of mosquitoes. Then, it rains. The trees are scraggly, and the mountain completely disappears from view. Then, we’re sure that the people on the other path are having a lot more fun...

At the beginning of this talk, I said that some people are paralyzed by the fork in the road and some retreat. But these are choices, too. You have to choose. Each of us is stuck with the fact of being alive. Teachers are like trail guides, people who have walked it before. But most of the time, these trail guides do a lot less than we want them to do. The guide says, “Watch out for that rock — I just tripped on it.” The guide says, “Hey, it looks like it’s going to rain.” The rest is up to you.

We come back, then, to the great dilemma: “Oh my god, I’m missing something!” I’ve been saying in various ways that I’m not, you’re not, no one is missing anything. But of course, we all are, because we are all missing “the other path.” We only get one at a time. Every life is “missing” every other life. Learning the lessons and receiving the gifts of my particular life, I miss all the lessons and gifts of a hundred thousand lives. You can never see what you’ve missed. You can never see what has gone behind, what might have been. There is grief in this, but no recourse. The key to “I’m missing something” is to know that it is true. I am missing something, and I have to accept that and know at the same time that I am not — I cannot be —missing something essential. I know, I know, deep in my heart, that the only difference in our paths is the point of view. No point of view is complete. No point of view contains everything that can be seen. In the end, no path is harder or easier or longer or shorter. The Buddha Way stands open wide.

I feel myself bobbing and flowing in the froth of life’s river, filled with a sense of beauty and fullness and richness in this river. This froth of air and water gets worked into a meringue of wet light everywhere, and this is true, no matter which path I’m on, no matter where or who I am."

http://www.prairiewindzen.org/prairiewind/Winter05/winter05.pdf