Hello and welcome to another episode of Mindfulness Plus.

I'm your host Thomas Mconki. Thanks so much for listening today.

I want to talk about being the host of every situation.

This is a teaching from the Chan tradition, early Chinese Buddhism.

It didn't originate in early China, but it came into a more full-throated expression in Chan Buddhism.

To talk about what I mean by being the host of every situation, I want to read a passage, a sutra from the early canon, the Shurangama Sutra of early Buddhism.

I'll give it to you a couple times so you can relax, enjoy,

even hit pause and jump back to hear it again and again if you'd like.

Just to clue you in, the first word foreign dust in this sutra, it's referring to that which moves in consciousness, that which comes and goes, as opposed to that which does not come or go.

Foreign dust is like a guest who stops at an inn where he passes the night or eats something and then packs and continues his journey because he cannot stay longer.

As to the host of the inn, he has nowhere to go.

My deduction is that one who does not stay is a guest, and one who stays is a host.

Consequently, a thing is foreign when it does not stay. Again, when the sun rises in a clear

sky and its light enters the house through an opening, the dust is seen to dance in the ray of light,

whereas the empty space does not move.

I deduce that that which is still is the void,

and that which moves is the dust.

Consequently, a thing is dust when it moves.

So a couple images, a couple different metaphors going on in this sutra, complementary to one another,

but I want to focus on the first one with the guest and the host.

One more time.

Foreign dust is like a guest who stops at an inn where he passes the night or eats something

...