108 Faces of Buddha

Picking up a speck of dust...???
My partner and I read to each other from a book called Wind Bell... it gives us teachings from the San Francisco Zen Center 1968-2001.  We are reading right now a teaching that Suzuki Roshi gave... called "One Particle of Dust."  With big mind, we look at this lesson... from my take on it, it is about doing something about the situations that need attention... Roshi calls it picking up a speck of dust... it can be a little speck, but at least pick it up... do something... it is so easy to say, "that it is not my problem... there is nothing I can do about that."  Well, that is not picking up the speck of dust and remaining uninvolved.  Is that the right action?

There is more... the teaching also reminds us to be selfless in this action... not to have any intention beyond helping the person or the situation... and he also says that we can usually expect what I would call the yin and yang of it... be prepared to accept the bad along with the good results.  

We really enjoy these teachings... we laugh, we reread, we remember... thank you...

Here is the link to this particular teaching...One Particle of Dust:
 http://books.google.com/books?id=qUjpwK593a0C&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=picking+up+a+speck+of+dust&source