Seeds for Understanding

 

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to learn and understand some concept it just eludes you.

Years ago I attended a Buddhist class on "The Dharma of Mind Transmission" taught by a monk in Chinese. I have no formal education in Chinese but understand spoken Mandarin and simple Chinese characters. The course notes include the sutra in Chinese with explanation written in layman Chinese by the teacher , below each paragraph in the sutra. Though I got the broad ideas it was quite a struggle. To help me I downloaded the English version of the sutra. Every week before the lesson I would check the Chinese dictionary and read the English version so I could follow when the teacher read from the course notes. It did help but it was a struggle. Still my takeaway from the course was I had to try my best to understand this sutra as I believe it would help me a lot in my life journey. Years past and the course notes gathered dust.

A few months back I picked it up again. I remembered I told myself this Sutra will help me live my life skillfully. At the same time I wanted to learn Chinese to stave away from dementia. So I decided to plough through paragraph by paragraph checking the dictionary and reading the English version at the same time. However there are certain texts which no matter how hard I try to understand (sometimes turning to internet for other interpretations) I just have to give up and move on. 

"故但契本心，不用求法；心即法也", This paraphrase is an example.

The English version is " However if one can attain silent and unspoken understanding, one knows that because the mind is Dharma it is, therefore, not necessary to seek Dharma."

I know what the text is saying but not what it truly means.

Then last Sunday while I drifted into a "flow" mode while doing Taiichi, in a momentary connection with the surroundings I caught a glimpse of what the text means. 

默契 - silent and unspoken understanding

Learning is a process, laying seeds for understanding when the conditions are right. Determination is good but struggle is uncalled for. Move on for the time being when it seems dark and await a glimpse of light.