When our life is based on respect and complete trust, it will be completely peaceful. Our relationship with nature should also be like this. We should respect everything, and we can practice respecting things in the way we relate with them.
Suzuki Roshi
The way that we relate to our space and our objects is actually our Zazen practice outside the zafu (cushion).
The quarantine got me in Pirenópolis, I came to spend 3 weeks and I have been here for more than 5 months, I rented a loft in a condominium and this space became a small temple.
I participated in a Mugon sesshin with Sala Therigatha, it was a day of sitting and complete silence, without Dharma Talks or chanting sutras. The house became a zendo. The bells coming through the computer told me the time to sit, walk and eat.
When we take a day like this to do zazen with the Sangha, a magic happens. When we stop, we perceive and hear both our home which is our body and our home, where we live, they start talking to us. Speech can be the pain in the neck or knee, or thoughts, that come and go. And the house that shows itself with brightness and details that in general we don’t see. It was as if the walls spoke. Perhaps this magic happens every day, but we, in our day-to-day rush, do not hear.
My friend Maria Elena Martinez, a scholar of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, told me that in the Mayan language Tsotsil there is no object, it is just subject. Things are not “things”, they have a soul (ch’ulel). And when we are silent, we perceive that soul.
And you, how have you heard the soul of your home? Write, draw or photograph and post it here in the comments!
Carol Engetsu Lefèvre 