It is good to remember that while the work in Africa is a clear example of service, everything in practice is service. Indeed, it is only through practice that we are available to serve.
In March we welcomed the first of our volunteers from the Sangha, who are here to practice at the Monastery and help prepare for retreat season. It is grand to have extra hands to paint, build, cook and clean. And, it is clear the greatest service they, and any of us in Sangha, provide is doing the work of going beyond ego.
The fundamental source of suffering is being confused about “who I am.” When I believe I am egocentric karmic conditioning, I am identified with its “wants and needs.” It is a full-time job to attempt to satiate those desires since, of course, ego does not actually want them sated; it wants the suffering created by the human attempting an impossible task. When I remember that I am Life, or better said, that Life is all of me, there is no need separate from Life, no separate self. There is no “I” standing outside of Life to decide what it needs and attempting to get that. This movement opens the door for Life to take the lead and for the human simply to be an expression of Life living. Life living seems a good definition of service. And it was certainly Life living that brought us to a small community in Zambia, 10,000 miles from our home here at the end of a dirt road in California.
In gasshō,
Jen