Autumn is a Time of Return

Vol. 43. September 20, 2023

As summer draws to a close, autumn is a time of return.

Children return to school. Songbirds return to warmer climates. TV stations return to their fall schedules. Return is natural.

Even in a galaxy far, far away, there was The Return of the Jedi.

Did the Jedi read the Tao Te Ching? It teaches the spiritual wisdom of return. Chapter 40 says, “Returning is the motion of the Tao. Yielding is the way of the Tao.”

To put ourselves in harmony with the Great Tao, we need to return to a state of simplicity.

Uncomplicated. Unpretentious. Natural. Quiet. Pure. Innocent. Ordinary, like an uncarved block.

In Buddhism, we arrive at this state of simplicity when we meditate, clear our minds and return to Holy Thus-ness. Buddhism is a return to the Original Mind.

Perhaps a story may illustrate.

One day a student came to Hui-neng, the sixth patriarch of the Zen school. He said, “Please teach me the Dharma.”

Hui-neng said, “Relax. Sit down. Meditate. Do not give rise to a single thought. Then I will teach you.”

The student calmed down. He cleared his mind.

Then Huineng said, “When you are thinking of neither good nor evil, what at that moment is your original face?”

The student felt thunderstruck. The dark clouds of dualistic thinking were blown away by the winds of wisdom.

The moral: Nothing can separate us from the Original Mind, except our free will.

American Dharma bum Jack Kerouac put Zen truth to verse:

Return those shoes to the shoemaker.

Return this hand to my father.

This pillow to the pillow maker.

Those slippers to the shop.

That wainscot to the carpenter.

But my mind,

my tranquil and eternal mind,

Return it to whom?

My eyes look west. My eyes look north. My eyes look east.

But my tranquil and eternal mind,

Which way?

This autumn put yourself in harmony with the Great Tao.

Return again, again and again to the Original Mind.