Zen is simply saying that you don’t have to be so confused. You can live your life in a simple way.
In our story this week, about the Fertility Miracle, a woman comes and she wants to get a miracle because she is infertile. Her mother had come to this spiritual master’s teacher and she ended up getting pregnant. So this girl, from when she was very small, believed in miracles and believed that she existed because of a miracle.
This is a really good story, because, don’t discount the urgency of this situation. Way back in the land of Zen, being a mother was the only a role that a woman had available to her. So if you are infertile, you are literally nobody. I don’t know the exact society that she was living in, but this could very well have meant that she could have been completely discarded, thrown out into the streets, if she couldn’t get pregnant. So this is a serious thing.
When you don’t know what to do about something. You are trapped in that situation. You are going to want a miracle.
This story is told in a lighthearted way, but in this particular situation it’s not lighthearted for this person who is really wanting a miracle. Think about how this fits into your life. Today there are so many things really are serious. What do you do?
Don’t Be Confused
You need to know who you are and the simplicity of life underneath any seriousness so that you can deal with it.
What the story is saying is that the first so-called miracle that happened was just a accident anyways. The spiritual teacher knows that that is the case. So she gets all upset about the fact that she wasn’t able to have the same “miracle”, but it doesn’t change the reality of what’s going on. The only thing that can change is the way that you can deal with it.
Whenever anything really bad happens you have two choices. One is that you can turn it into a wound. A giant wound, so that your whole life is consumed with this problem. This is very much what has happened to the woman in this story. It’s a serious thing, but she’s making it worse.
So you can turn your problems into a wound. Or you can learn from it, and become wise.
Again, I don’t know the details of the society that she was living in, but almost always in human society there is a need for wise people. So this woman was refusing to take the step to wisdom. Accept what is happening and become wise from it.
That’s life. It’s a hard thing. We don’t always get what we want. We don’t even always get what we really need. So being awake and aware and turning everything that happens in your life into wisdom, is really our only choice.
We don’t get to set the rules, do we?