I am not sure how much of this came directly from Stephen Gaskin who was the original driving force behind the commune my wife and I lived on in the early 70’s and who died last year and how much he was passing on, but these were a couple of things often heard there. Maybe I’ll share more in another post.

“Don’t hold somebody to a place.”

Give people room to grow and learn. This is good relationship and personal advice. In addition, holding anything to a place is not living in the now. If you think you know exactly what and where it is, you are not in the moment and you fall in to the trap the Diamond Sutra warns us about: believing in a permanent person soul or entity rather than the impermanence and foundational role of change which is one of the core understandings of Buddhism (and I would maintain science as well).

“One man [sic] one karma.”

Well this was some 50 years ago and using “man” as in mankind was still common (and avoiding it is still a linguistic challenge some times). Should be one entity or one being one karma. Nyogen quotes Maezumi Roshi as saying kids have their own karma. It’s the same idea. Sure you are an integral part of everyone else’s Universe, especially those close to you as family, friends, co-workers, sangha, but also extending out to fellow citizens, bio-geologic creatures, the earth, the sun and solar system, the galaxy, the galaxy cluster, dark matter, dark energy, the deep quantum energy foam, the brane, the essential information and energy organizing Mind, etc., with more distant relationships having less impact, but still, each has a momentum and so a path of it’s own, it’s own decisions (if sentient) to make. Just be compassionate and do your best, don’t try to own what you don’t, can’t and wont. It is selfish and self-serving. What you do with your four dimensional brain and perceptions is your karma, use it wisely, but I is limited. The relative (as in the Sandokai, the identity of the Relative and Absolute) is, when dealing in the rule set of the relative, well, relative. That’s the trick. That is the proving ground.

Now of course, one could consider One Being, One Karma, as no separation, that in the largest view our puny minds can handle, we could consider this Whole Thing One Thing and Karma is unfolding as a fractal blossom, the Universe Evolving; that kind of works as well.

But the context I heard it in from Stephen and Nyogen (and by his comment, Maezumi) is don’t think it is all about your little brain and four dimensional perceived world, your agenda and what you think is best is always best, that the people around you, even those you love and cherish the most, are there as part of your show. Their show must go on as well.