The Holy Approximate: The Grace of the Circa

A Reflection by Jesus the Zennist

(The Teacher enters, perhaps holding a map or a compass, looking at it with a mix of amusement and perplexity.)

Friends, I have been watching you. I see how you live your lives, and I am struck by your obsession with the destination. You are a people of the "Estimated Time of Arrival." You treat your spiritual lives like a GPS. You punch in "Enlightenment" or "Salvation," and if there is a delay, if there is a detour, you panic. You scream at the heavens, "Recalculating! Recalculating!" You want the exact coordinates of the Kingdom of God. You want to know if you have arrived at 10:00 PM precisely, sharp, finished.

But I say to you: The Kingdom does not own a watch.

We are gathered here to speak of a different time zone. We are here to speak of the Circa. The holy approximate. The grace of the "around."

I have given you a new scroll, The Gospel of the Gateless Gate. It is a strange title, is it not? How can a gate be gateless? It is because the barrier you think is keeping you out—the barrier of your imperfections, your doubts, your unfinished business—is not a barrier at all. It is the path itself.

Let us walk through this text together, for the water is warm, and the river is moving.

I. The Temple that is Building

You are the "in-between." You are not the dust of your past—those failures you keep in a jar by your bed to look at when you cannot sleep. Nor are you the vapor of your future—that fantasy self who is ten pounds lighter, infinitely patient, and never yells in traffic. You are here. You are the holy Now.

The text says: "Do not mourn that you are a work in progress. The temple that is finished is a tomb. The temple that is building is alive."

Look at the world this week. We have seen the great Notre Dame in Paris open its doors again. For five years it was a ruin of charred wood and melted lead. The world wept. And now, it rises. But is it "finished"? No. A cathedral is never finished. It breathes. It settles. It requires care. If it were perfectly finished, sealed in plastic, it would be a museum, a dead thing. But because it has scars, because it has history, it is alive.

Your soul is a construction site. There is scaffolding everywhere. There is dust. It is messy. And I tell you, it is beautiful. The Pharisee in you wants the stone tablet—the rigid rule, the "fixed point." But the Taoist sages knew better. They spoke of the Uncarved Block, the Pu. They taught that the vessel is useful only because of the emptiness inside it.

Lao Tzu, the Old Master, said: "The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to." Water does not have a "fixed point." It flows around the rock. It is "circa" the rock. If the water tried to be the rock, it would stagnate. You are trying to be the rock of certainty. I say to you: Be the water. Flow around the mystery.

II. The Cage of "I" and "Mine"

Now, why is this so hard? Why do you crave the exact coordinate?

It is because of the Cage.

The text warns us: "The one who is always concerned with himself is trapped in the iron cage of 'I', 'Me', and 'Mine'."

We build this cage every day. We forge the bars out of our preferences. "I like this." "I hate that." "I am a Democrat." "I am a Republican." "I am a success." "I am a failure." With every label, you weld another bar. You think you are defining yourself, but you are imprisoning yourself.

You carry this cage everywhere. You even bring it to prayer! You say, "Lord, bless me, bless my plans, validate my opinions." You are like a man sitting in a prison cell, asking for better curtains, when the door is unlocked.

The text says: "To realize the Truth, you must dissolve the cage. Not by hating the bars, but by seeing that they are made of smoke."

This is the great merging of the rivers. The Christian mystics cry out, "Deny yourself!" The Buddhist sages smile and say, "What self?"

Think of the great Sufi poet, Rumi. He knew about the Circa. He knew that the rigid definitions of the legalists were just dry leaves in the wind. He wrote:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there."

That field is the Circa. It is the space where we stop keeping score. It is the space where we stop asking, "Am I right?" and start asking, "Am I loving?"

When you are in the Cage of "I," you are obsessed with being right. Look at the news. Look at the paralysis in our global politics. We see ceasefires proposed and broken, talks that stall, leaders who would rather burn the village than lose an argument. Why? Because they are terrified of the Circa. They are terrified of the middle ground. They think compromise is weakness. They think that if they let go of their "I"—their national ego, their party line—they will disappear.

But I tell you, the only thing that disappears is the wall between you and your brother.

III. The Anxiety of Optimization

I see a sickness in your time. It is the sickness of Optimization. You are told that you must be the "Best Version of Yourself." You track your steps, you track your sleep, you track your calories. You treat your soul like a software update. You are terrified of being version 1.0 when version 2.0 is available.

The text says: "You strive to polish the mirror of the soul, hoping to see God. But I say: Smash the mirror."

Stop polishing! Stop preening! The more you look at yourself, even your "spiritual" self, the less you see of God. When you are looking in the mirror, checking your halo, you cannot see the neighbor who is shivering at your gate.

I recall a story of a monk who came to the Master and said, "I have emptied my mind. I have no preferences. I have dissolved the ego. Now what?" And the Master slapped him and said, "Now go wash your bowl."

The "Now What" is not a glorious state of transcendent power. It is washing the bowl. It is changing the diaper. It is listening to your friend's boring story for the third time with patience. That is the Higher Ethic. It is not about floating on a cloud; it is about standing on the earth, fully present, without the baggage of "How do I look while I'm doing this?"

IV. The Great Reversal

And so we come to the Paradox. The Great Reversal.

"He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it."

This sounds harsh to your ears. "Hate" my life? No. It means to hate the mask. It means to be sick of the costume.

Imagine you are an actor on a stage. You have played the role of "The Victim" or "The Hero" or "The Manager" for so long that you have forgotten your real name. You are terrified to take off the costume because you think the audience will leave.

But the text promises: "This True Self is not a thing to be possessed... It is the face you had before your parents were born."

When you drop the costume, you do not become nothing. You become everything. You become the space in which the stars spin.

Let us look again at the world. We see conflict. We see the polarization of "us" versus "them." We see people shouting across chasms. What would happen if, just for a moment, we entered the Circa?

What if, in our arguments, we said, "I have a strong opinion, but I am circa the truth. I am hovering around it. I do not own it."? What if, in our judgments of others, we said, "He acted cruelly, but he is a work in progress, just as I am circa righteousness."?

To live in the Circa is to live with a soft heart. It is to know that your neighbor is not an "other." As the text says: "To strike him is to strike your own limb."

If your left hand is hurt, your right hand does not say, "Well, that's a 'you' problem." No. It reaches over to heal. Because it knows there is only one Body.

V. Step into the Mystery

My friends, do not waste your time trying to grasp the ungraspable. You cannot catch the wind in a jar. If you catch it, it ceases to be wind; it becomes stagnant air.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a destination you put into your GPS. It is the hum of the engine. It is the road beneath the wheels. It is the fellow traveler in the passenger seat.

So, enter by the narrow gate. Why is it narrow? Because you cannot take your baggage. You cannot take your pride. You cannot take your "I was right." You cannot take your "I am a holy person."

You must leave it all at the threshold. You must come naked, empty, and open.

Step into the Circa. Hover like the hummingbird. Drink the nectar of the mystery. And know, deep in your bones, that you are not required to be perfect. You are only required to be present.

For here, in this holy approximate, the two circles—the human and the divine—have already merged. You are not waiting for God to arrive. God is the one looking through your eyes right now.

Peace be with you. Now, go wash your bowl.