Sue Bender in her wonderful and insightful book entitled, Everyday Sacred A Woman’s Journey Home, described her spiritual journey by the use of a beggar’s bowl. Based on the example of the Zen monk’s daily routine of going out into the world with only an empty begging bowl, Bender discovered that if a person approaches each day afresh, with our bowls waiting to be filled, we will find at the end of the day extraordinary things – some so small that we may be tempted to overlook them – have come our way.
My favorite reflection in Bender’s book is “The Story of Three Bowls”. See if the following rings true in your spiritual quest. The author writes:
“I heard a story about three bowls.
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| from "Everyday Sacred" |
“The first bowl is inverted, upside down, so that nothing can go into it. Anything poured into this bowl spills off.
“The second bowl is right-side up, but stained and cracked and filled with debris. Anything put into this bowl gets polluted by the residue or leaks out through the cracks.
“The third bowl is clean. Without cracks or holes, this bowl represents a state of mind ready to receive whatever is poured into it.
“Sometime I am the first bowl, so busy being ‘productive’ that I don’t notice when the very thing I want presents itself. Sometimes I am the second bowl, with such a fierce judging voice that focuses on what’s not working that I am unable to see or appreciate all the things that are going well.
“And sometimes, wonderful times, I am the third bowl, able to be present and absorbed in what I am doing, whatever it is.” (Everyday Sacred A Woman’s Journey Home, pages 12 and 13).
Where are you today, dear reader? Is your bowl inverted? Right-side up but filled with debris? Or clean and present to what may come your way this day? I pray the third way will be for all of us as we journey life’s path this day.
Love One Another - Brian
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