If you’re doing what the Universe needs done,
the Universe will support you.
Years ago I read this by the thinker and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, and was really impressed. He went on to say that if no support is forthcoming, you’re probably not working on what the Universe needs, and you need to change direction asap.
My own teacher says something similar:
A practitioner is someone who is merely running errands for the Dharma-realm.
I’ve found practicing like this has so many amazing aspects. One of the first is the feeling, the change in focus when I quietly ask, “What does the Dharma-realm need done?”
Life also has a different feeling of worth when things are no longer about what “I” want, or just entertaining my desires. And I’ve found that when I’m making an effort to live like this, what I need seems to naturally appear. [Need, not want :-)! ]
One of the effects of this is sometimes I’m called to do things or go places that don’t fit into “my” plans, or that “I” can’t stick an explanation onto. Sometimes I can later see why that was needed, but other times I still have no idea what was truly going on. Just that I met people I would never have met otherwise, or shared a kind word with someone I wouldn’t have encountered had things happened according “my” plans.
Of course, I have to be careful that I’m not just listening to my karma, (the precepts are real handy here!) but the analogy that comes to mind is water. You can’t make a hole in water for more than an instant, because the water all around it responds and fills in the hole. Likewise, you can’t pile up water, because where there is extra, it spreads out and automatically goes to places that need more. I suspect that we also become like this as we learn to work on behalf of the whole, and dissolve the barriers of “I” and “mine” that imprison and cut us off. With this wall gone (or at least weakened!), if we lack something it flows to us, and when we have extra, we naturally send it where there is lack.
working on behalf of the whole
doing what the Universe needs done
running errands for the Dharma-realm
These seem like such wonderful guides – please share your experiences!
Wake Up and Laugh! 
There’s no “I, my, me, mine” in the Dharma-realm – that’s for certain!
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This is absolutely timely for me Chong Go! What a great “reminder” to not resist where Life goes, but to be willing to go where Life leads…. Like a leaf on the water. We just go – and do what is called for… Thank you!
Buckminster Fuller also said ; “I don’t know who I am”, how could he talk about a universe. And what is a universe? It is so huge, it is just crazy.
“if no support is forthcoming, you’re probably not working on what the Universe needs”- then it would be true that all those businesses who destroy environment, conquerors throughout history (who killed alot, (but considered heros by their countries)), and inventors of weapons of mass destruction, all are doing that what universe needs, because they are/were successful. Really?
Our bodies function on the principle that there is “mine”, your immune system is based on protection of what is yours, otherwise you would die. You cannot pile up water, but you can pile up snow, also water is made of numerous H20, which are in turn something which is nothing.
In math the laws that are true on a small scale are totally irrelevant on the bigger scale.
You can follow your dreams and make them reality. It happens to many people, yet many don’t have that. Some talk about “God has a plan for you” or about “support of the universe”. And when things go up your alley, you feel all the support there might be. But at some point everything might become meaningless. Everything then starts to point toward one thing – it is to know who I am. What is a universe anyway? Maybe it is not some thing and I am in it, in some world, but rather it is mind that creates the world, the universe, so individual is not really existant, more like delirium “particle” of mind. Some people can pick up on other people’s thoughts just because there is one mind, like one big pot of soup. And individual is like some perception crystalized into existance and everything just repeats itself like in fractal geometry.
In my experiences, everything guides me toward knowing who I am, my terrible suffering and my extraordinary experiences (which are less numerous than suffering), herds me towards knowing mind, renunciation happens automatically, like when you loose interest in touching hot iron or sticking your fingers in electrical outlet, and also while on your “journey” you “take along” others, you help them towards the same, often without even knowing it.
Hi Tanya,
Within our bodies, each part and life has it’s own role, but they work together. Not working together, each one off on it’s own, is what cancer is.
About conquerors and evil actions by companies, a really interesting book for me was “Wild Swans” by Jung Chang. It’s about her life in China during the cultural revolution, and one of the things it showed me was that there was no one “evil” group doing everything throughout that time. Each “level” or group that perpetuated those evil actions was destroyed/killed/sent to a death camp by the next level of people. So although it looks like the evil lasts a long time, the individuals who make it possible are fairly quickly destroyed. I realised that I’d read the same thing in Khruschev’s memoir. Each generation of the communist party was consummed by the next. A few people like Stalin and Mao seemed to last a long time, but they all died miserable deaths, and are still subject to karma. Likewise companies and people that generat hate and harm will in turn have to suffer the effects of their own actions.
I wouldn’t get too hung up on the word “universe.” I don’t think that he meant a bunch of planets and empty space, but rather more like “all creation.” Daehaeng Kun Sunim uses the word “Dharma-realm” or “Dharmakaya” which includes all visible and invisible realms and the truth by which they function. I think this is what Fuller was trying to express.
Again, I think this happens because we are all fundamentally connected. As Daehaeng Kun Sunim says, we are all inherently sharing the same life, the same mind, the same body, working together as one, and freely giving and receiving whatever is needed.
Hi Chong Go,
It’s as if you are responding to a question I have been asking myself for the past few days! Thank you for this, I too have been needing this! 🙂 We go before the city council again in a week.
I have been pondering why we are even trying to build a house with all the opposition and challenges? Yet, when we want to walk away, the universe seems to be saying, “no”, as no support has been given for any of our ideas to walk away, and other issues to address pop up that prevent us from walking away.
I have questioned, “Is it my karma of wronging all of these people in a past life that now I need to endure their anger and try and change it into love? Or is it that I need to be the one to not dive into the, “pool-peeing” that has been happening to this group of people since before we ever moved here, and give love to help clear the water?” The “I” doesn’t have the faintest idea, yet, it seems that whenever I start wanting something for what I want or out of desire, I get slammed down. So, I need to let go, trust and see this as not, “my” creation, but a creation that will be as it will be.
So, thank you for your words, this is good timing for me. I will let them settle and see what will be…
Chong Go,
I would also like to say that the posting, “The pillar of all work on behalf of Buddhism is harmony” is the one that helps me A LOT! I also really like your analogy of, “pool-peeing” and your ramblings, as they have also helped me! So, maybe your ramblings on seem to be ramblings to you, but to me, they were words that have much meaning, the universe filling in a hole perhaps?