What’s a good bonfire?

Good Bonfire is a reference to the book Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki. To paraphrase it for now, the message is

Whatever you do, burn yourself up completely in it, like a good bonfire.

In other words, leave no trace. In other words, don’t leave strings attached all over the place. For me traces would be: qualifiers, anxious explanations, apologies, nagging doubts, gossip, assessment. Usually, those traces take the form of fear, resentment, judgement.

E.g., the difference between singing, and singing while thinking about how your singing is going, what if you screw up, sound bad, get discovered…

What if how you do is none of your business? Instead, your mind could be on engaging the person, place or thing in front of you. And that’s it.

Be a good bonfire and have a great day.