Returning to the Ordinary World

A koan:

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

While I'm certainly not claiming enlightenment, my travels in the East are coming to a close. I'm returning to America in a few days. I'll be resuming the training at the San Francisco Zen Center.

But first I'll be visiting New York. Back to the city I called home for 28 years.

Back to the ordinary world.

In the Chinese Zen collection Wu men Kuan, Chao-Chou asked Nan-Ch'uan: "What is the Way?"

Nan-Ch'uan answered: "Ordinary mind is the Way."

Japanese Zen Master Bankei maintained that the enlightened "Unborn Mind" which is the holy grail of every meditator is, in fact, just our everyday, ordinary mind.

Suzuki Roshi endlessly pointed to the ordinary in his embracing of "Beginner's Mind," while his contemporary, the Korean Zen master Sueng Sahn preached "Don't Know Mind."

New York, like anywhere else, is ordinary. It is luminous.

So I was riding on an intercity bus yesterday and the AWESOME '80's song from Duran Duran called "Ordinary World" came on the radio and it struck me that they were singing a love song to Zen. Here's the chorus:

But I won't cry for yesterday, there's an ordinary world,
Somehow I have to find.
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world,
I will learn to survive.