When the mind is at peace
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality, not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.

**

My daily affairs are quite ordinary;
but I’m in total harmony with them.
I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything;
Nowhere an obstacle or conflict.
Who cares about wealth and honor?
Even the poorest thing shines.
My miraculous power and spirited activity;
Drawing water and carrying wood.

Layman P’ang (740 – 808) was a celebrated lay Buddhist in the Chinese Zen tradition. He was a successful merchant whose wealth allowed him to study the Buddhist sutras. After he retired he began to worry about the spiritual dangers of his material wealth and so placed all of his possessions in a boat which he sunk in a river. Pang is considered a model of the non-monastic Buddhist follower living an exemplary life.

If you want to walk the spiritual path is it necessary to find a cave in the mountains, join a monastery or ashram, devote your life to serving the poor like Mother Teresa? The example of Layman P’ang says no. In fact, he says he is “just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.”

That work is enlightenment and for the spiritual traveler it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the crowning achievement of a life of work or meditation, the summa cum laude in the school of life. But all of these analogies reveal how the ego sees enlightenment as a goal, something to attain, something that will make us special, important, rare.

But enlightenment occurs only when the ego is dissolved – and if “I” am gone, who is it that will be enlightened? Then what happens? How will I live? What will the world be like then? What changes?

P’ang describes the enlightened life: Not holding on to the world, nor becoming lost in the spiritual. Not being wise or holy. Not accepting nor rejecting. In other words, enlightened people wash dishes, go to work, make their beds. In historic terms, they chop wood and carry water. They are the valleys, not the mountains.

Truly spiritual people are humble because ‘they’ do not exist any longer as separate. P’ang’s last words were: “I ask that you regard everything that is as empty, nor give substance to that which has none. Farewell. The world is like reflections and echoes.”