Now And Zen: Communing

When groups of people gather together to share ideas and teachings it is said they are communicating. Communication is an essential part of the human experience. If we live to long without some sort of interaction with other people we slowly loose the ability to rationally communicate our feelings, needs, and wants to those other people. I'm thinking of the countless homeless living on our city streets who have lost the ability to have a rational conversation with another person. To them the world has become a closed circuit of survival and anyone that enters that space is a threat to their personal safety. The world has become focused to that small space. Essentially that person needs to find him/herself in order to regain a larger community. They need to find sanity in their irrational world.

A Zen master sits upon a rock and lifts a flower high for his followers to see. He says nothing only looks upon the crowd watching and smiles. Out of the possible many people in the area only one of his students understood, bowing slightly, smiling back, and getting up leaving the room. The master then puts down the flower and says, "Of course." Both of these men has understood and in a brief moment communicated that understanding in the face of the irrational. They have eliminated the illusion.

Christ fed the masses many loaves of bread, fish and wine that he transfigured from a small basket of food. This is called Communion, communication of the higher order. He fed the many illuminating the irrational from their sight.