Now is the time for the world to know that every thought and action is sacred. This is the time for you to deeply compute the impossibility that there is anything but grace. Now is the season to know that everything you do is sacred.
--Hafiz
This teaching from Hafiz, that everything we do is sacred, has been coming up in group discussions at the Monastery in recent months.
The mind protests…
Wait, everything we do is sacred? How can that be? Surely things we do while unconscious – harmful, dangerous, unskillful things – aren’t sacred! Hafiz must have meant that everything we do when we are present is sacred, and all those unconscious acts are profane, right?
To me, Hafiz is pointing to a place of non-duality so marvelous that it defies imagination. We know the experience, however fleeting, when we connect with the unconditional love of the Mentor…or dissolve into happiness for no apparent reason…or give of ourselves beyond anything we might have thought possible…. Everything just IS.
To live “Everything is the Buddha,” it seems we have to let go of our interest in duality altogether. The Guide points out that our ultimate addiction is to egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate. For me the dualistic nature of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate holds the addiction in place. It has kept me striving for “holiness” and falling back into “sinfulness” (insert your own addictive duality here) for decades, if not lifetimes.
From a conditioned perspective, it is entirely understandable that we seek “good” over “bad.” The difficulty is that dualities only ever lead back to the other side of the duality. From a place of expanded awareness, we already ARE in well-being, happiness, and bliss, even if the circumstances are those of grief or pain.
It always seems to come down to staying with…staying here.
Hafiz offers an exit ramp out of dualistic thinking. This is the time. Now is the season.
Gasshō,
Rebecca