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by akomtu 794 days ago
The word "mindfully" at the end carries too much meaning that can't be unpacked without reading a bunch of books. This story looks identical to many stories told in the dzogchen branch of buddhism. The basic idea is that normal life is full of earthly activities: chopping woods and carrying water. An average mind gets distracted by those activities and is dragged passively from one distraction to another. An enlightened mind watches these earthly activities with full attention, like you would watch colorful butterflies, but is not carried away from deep realisation that these butterflies come and go as simple decorations of the neutral state of mind, which is often called "emptiness". When these two qualities meet - emptiness and clarity of perception - the mind enters the natural state and if you can stay in that state while chopping woods and carrying water, you're enlightened. If chopping woods carries you away from that natural state, you're said to be "distracted".
1 comments

This was a very approachable explanation, thank you. Do you have any particular resources you'd recommend for learning more about this?
"The Essence of Dzogchen in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet"