Posted inHenry's Messages

Message from Henry: Samu or Work Practice

September 5, 2017

I and Thou. Hence we take good care, the best we can.

All life is samu.

Samu is to take care of what needs to be taken care of. That is our life and practice. Taking care of the life of beings, and the life of all things. That is this life. That is what it calls for.

Taking care of each being with whom we come into contact, allowing it be as it is and grow as it grows, in its own natural time. Except “contact” is not the right  word. “Relationship” might be better. As Martin Buber put it, “I and Thou.” No longer “I and It.”

Everything, each thing, is just waiting to be met. The tiny crumb-sized shadow on the wall right beneath a little unevenness in the plaster-work: it has a reality, a power of existence, which if met brings us into communion with the whole of creation. Let’s not despise or ignore it. We may have to open ourselves more than is familiar, but isn’t it worth it?

Toward all things: I and Thou. Hence we take good care, the best we can.

 

Message from Henry is from our September 4, 2017 Newsletter
Image: Koala by Holgi, CC0 Public Domain, from Pixabay.com

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