Remember, you were warned, these last few pictures are long posts. This month is no exception. Take your time.

This month's picture is about being in the world but not of the world. It's a pretty common quote and we all have our own opinions about what this quote means. To bring us all to the same understanding, let's say in picture 10 this quote means how we move and act in the world with a mind that has been liberated from the prison of expectation, assumption, beliefs/opinions, and preferences.

Let's start by looking at the picture. The picture represents the marketplace. You can see straightaway that there's no foliage, this is the first picture where we're not in nature. Instead, we're surrounded by houses and buildings. If we were to see it in our time, we would be surrounded by cement, skyscrapers, grocery stores, strip malls, and gas stations. Here there's no path. There's no ox and the practitioner seems bigger and older.

The main point of these ten pictures has been to learn to be in ordinary life in an extraordinary (liberated) way. This practitioner represents this dichotomy. The practitioner is usually holding a sack that represents all that they have, which isn't very much, and yet, they seem very happy. Secondly, the practitioner doesn't seem to be well dressed for a person going out in public. Instead, the practitioner seems comfortable just as they are. This is the paradox of this whole practice. We are not trying to fit into the world the way the world says, or implies, we "should" be. We are not trying to fit into the world the way our own ego says or implies we should be. This extraordinary (liberated) way of being in the ordinary means that we accept ourselves just as we are including our flaws, limitations, and blemishes. At the same time we act and move in the world free, I think, from those very same flaws, limitations and blemishes.

Now we can take a look at the verse. To begin with, we move in the world barefooted and naked of breast. Our feet are extremely sensitive. They are the main trigger point map for all our organs. To walk around barefooted means that we are very sensitive to harm. Moreover, walking around naked of breast means we have let go of the filters/masks we use to hide from the world. By picture 10, we are living in the world from our authentic and true self. We no longer need to pretend to be something we're not. I think the ragged, dust-laden clothes point to the letting go of our egoic pretentiousness. Our culture demands that we spend more time guarding our ego than cultivating the wisdom for wise action. At this stage of practice, we no longer fall into this trap.

Cultivating the wisdom for wise action brings with it some gifts. First the gift of blissfulness. I am always shocked at how many people think that cultivating Dhamma will force them to become passive, inactive, indifferent beings in the world. That is so far from true understanding, it's laughable. The more Dhamma you cultivate, the more engaged you are with the world. It's just that you are not miserable in the world. You can discern what is truly dead and what is truly alive. Chasing after, obsessing over, and guarding dead things isn't forward leading. We end up putting a lot of energy in a dead thing that cannot reciprocate the energy back to us because it's dead. We are, in effect, giving away our energy without the benefit of having it replaced. Over a lifetime, our life force slowly gets stripped away until we die. All conditioned things are dead weight.

When we cultivate Dhamma, we see the distinction between what is alive and what is dead. We give our life force to what is alive and in return, we receive life giving energy back. Try this at home. Slowly cut an orange, or a piece of fruit you like, watching every move. Notice what happens in your mouth. Your mouth prepares for food. It communicates with food. It's because the food has life energy and our body needs that life energy to live. Now slowly cut a box or a piece of cardboard. Notice what happens in the mouth. Nothing, right? Your body knows that is not food. You can eat it and your body will go through the energy to digest it and dispose of it, but you will get no energy from that box.

Chasing after, obsessing over, and guarding conditioned things is like eating cardboard. Conditioned things are only alive in one moment in time. Once that moment passes, it dies. But we continue to chase after it, obsess over it and guard it as if it were still alive. This is the nature of habit mind (ego). We can't see with our ordinary mind's perception the conditioned nature of things. Ergo, we can't tell we're eating cardboard. The more wisdom we cultivate from the Dhamma, the more we can understand and perceive the conditioned nature of things/experiences. We learn to know something is cardboard and don't eat it.

The fruit in my example represents Dhamma. Dhamma, unlike cardboard, is alive. It is onward leading. It gives energy so it increases our ability to stay engaged with life. We are learning to consume Dhamma rather than conditionality. When we reach this stage in our practice, we have the capacity to discern what is Dhamma and what is conditionality. It has taken us a long time to come to this level of discernment. But, it is well worth the journey.

With a deep bow...

Tuere