Throwback Thursday - Everyday Mind
Furuya Sensei posted this to his Daily Message on March 4, 2004.
Hei-Jo-Shin (平常心): Everyday Mind
This is a very popular phrase in Zen and the Japanese arts and is what is aspired to as the epitome or ideal mental state. "Everyday mind” implies to our modern minds as "nothing special," but in Zen, nothing special means "everything is special." As everything is special, everything becomes equal in value and position and therefore, once again, nothing is special.
In this respect, it is not to pick and choose or take this and that in our lives and make it something what we deem of lesser value or importance, but to take the total whole of our lives, leaving nothing behind, and taking it one more step to a higher level.
As in the tea ceremony - the ideal is like the hishaku (柄杓) or “water ladle” which can be used freely between hot and cold water without discriminating between the two. The hishaku’s "universal" state makes it universally important and useful. This is what is known in Zen as "freedom."
In Zen, discrimination is not particularly wrong or condemned, it is only within our discriminating mind that we are so restricted and limited as we swing back and forth from one side of the scale to the other. The goal is to have heijoshin or a mind which, like the hishaku, doesn’t discriminate so that everything is at the same time special but also nothing special and thus just everyday.