Shared by Dev
There are many excellent Zen texts. One of them contain the song of the jewel samadhi, which in my opinion is beautiful, obtuse and complex at the same time. I’m not reading the poem here but highly recommend it. One of the phrases contained in it is: “A hairsbreadth’s deviation will fail to accord with the proper attunement”. Seems like something a rocket scientist would say ! I also wonder how it was originally written in Chinese and what got lost in translation. Despite that, this is very precise advice from millennia ago. Hairsbreadth attunement!
Btw, I’ve lazily shortened that to “find hairsbreadth’s attunement” on the path by removing the double negative. But my understanding may not be right and the choice of words may have some purpose.
Anyway, so how do you find it ? Is it possible to find this fine attunement? Maybe it’s easier to answer how we don’t find it. Since it requires hairsbreadth attunement, it must be easy to miss and in my experience that is true.
My favorite example is driving since we do that so much in our daily lives and its serves very well to show how we react to different situations we face on the road. Some of these situations can be quite challenging and we frequently react negatively. I realize my getting angry at another driver who might have cut me off or he’s not driving fast enough or In my way when I have an important meeting does not help the overall situation, however justifiable it might feel at the moment. Also this realization frequently comes later and it’s a very small voice that you have to listen carefully. Some days I am actually that driver who is doing the wrong things on the road though I might have some reasons that I can justify to myself ! These justifications are related to my attachment to some ambition, expectation or preferences.
One thing is clear that people on both sides of this equation Suffer. Another thing is clear that this is not how you find attunement.
Conversely, I’m sure we all have those rare days when we are courteous and empathic drivers, maybe after a Zazen session ! The ego is subdued and drive is without suffering. That’s good attunement ! We have an expanded awareness of needs of the others on the road. This is also active action here where we share the road equally. This does not imply we give pull Off to the shoulder to let everyone ahead. We are letting the universe flow as it wants to without grabbing out to feed our ambitions, expectations, preferences. It’s also more than the official rules of the road. It’s a compassionate contract with all the other drivers. This is atleast good attunement
The important thing is to always have a path to this state of mind. That can be difficult during certain situations and further these 2 states are, finer is the attunement you need to go from one to another. Sometimes we might not believe it’s even possible but the path is always there, it’s a matter of finding it with good attunement, maybe even Hairsbreath attunement.
Hakone Zendo 