on the way back from the preceptors gathering at padmaloka, i took a couple of hours  to visit the velasquez exhibition at the national gallery. one painting in particular moved me, christ in the house of martha and mary. painted, unbelievably, when velasquez was nineteen.

a young woman prepares a meal in the kitchen, absorbed, you could say lost, in what she’s doing. and old woman catches her arm, trying to bring her attention to the scene through the window. in the next room, is the scene from the bible, when martha complained to christ that while mary sat listening to him she was left to serve the meal alone. jesus replied: 'mary has taken that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' (luke 10, i believe)

there’s the obvious theme: the young cook and, next door, martha, lost in the utilitarian, miss the spiritual story unfolding.

but the painting itself goes beyond that dualism. the young cook doesn’t see it, but velasquez shows the pottery, the fabric, the fish, the eggs, the youth of girl, the skin drawn tight over the bone of the woman, all seen so clearly, with so much attention and care that  the catalogue describes velasquez’s painting of the everyday as ‘almost sacramental’.

as i was looking at the painting, two recollections.

one was a discussion on the recent preceptor’s weekend, about the tong-len practice, about how the traditional practice points you in two directions. on the one hand it opens you to the suffering of the world. on the other connects you the spiritual depth, even the spiritual resources of the yidam. you’re not responding to suffering out of your own limited, personal resources.

the second was remembering earlier that day, riding on the circle line from liverpool street to embankment, reading master sheng-yen’s hoofprints of the ox. dan stevenson, in his preface, quotes the 8th century master mazu daoyi, who says that ‘the everyday mind is itself the way’

but the cook doesn’t see the kitchen as the kingdom of heaven. (continues below)

in the preface, stevenson goes on:

this all sounds quite natural, quite appealing, in this unconditional affirmation of our spiritual self worth.... and yet one of the first lessons is that we are anything but ‘natural’. whatever revelation we may posses by way of native endowment is distorted beyond recognition by the timeless habits of craving,aversion and deluded thinking...

for buddhanature to manifest requires nothing short of a revolution of the mental habits through which we process our daily lives. such a transformation, in turn, requires direction, commitment, a lifetime of persistence and discipline, and – last but not least – structure.. it is no secret that when mazu claimed ‘the everyday mind is the way’, his remarks were directed to a monastic community whose lives were regulated by the most intensive of regimes.

hoofprints of the ox, page x, sheng-yen, oxford