Those who donated to our crowdfunding Indiegogo campaign last fall are getting daily e-mails this month as a thank-you and part of the May Sit. We wanted to share these with everyone, though they are a day or so later. This was the May 15 offering.

The first text in italics is from Cultivating the Empty Field by Zen Master Hongzhi, translated by Taigen Daniel Leighton with Yi Wu. The commentary following it is from one of the teachers at Dharma Rain Zen Center.

With the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright. Even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and now shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. Then you must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth. Outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretexts for merit. Carefully discern that naming engenders beings and that these rise and fall with intricacy. When you can share your self, then you may manage affairs, and you have the pure seal that stamps the ten thousand forms.

Let go, let go. Then stop and let go again. There is always more to do, this practice never ends. What a gift! Our minds constantly discriminate: this, not that; that, not this. Always we strive to do more, to be more. To be better or more skillful. We cannot know the effects of our actions, however pure our intentions. Hongzhi reminds us to abandon such strivings and to move effortlessly amidst the myriad things. Take the backward step and look inward; empty the self so you can share yourself freely.