The Unshakeable Signet Ring

(The reflection begins)

Peace be with you.

We have read a peculiar promise this morning. A promise given to a man named Zerubbabel, through a prophet named Haggai. And it is a loud promise, isn’t it?

It’s full of... shaking.

"I am about to shake the heavens and the earth."

It’s full of conflict and collapse. "I am about to overthrow the throne of kingdoms... destroy the strength of the kingdoms... overthrow the chariots and their riders... and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade."

This sounds like our nightly news, does it not? (A gentle smile.) It sounds like our deepest anxieties about the world. We see the kingdoms of this world, the great and powerful structures we build—our economies, our political systems, our ideologies—and they all seem so very fragile. We see them shaking. We see nations rising against nations, and we see the "sword of a comrade," the bitter infighting, the polarization, the confusion that turns neighbour against neighbour.

And in the middle of all this noise, this terror, this shaking... the Lord says to one man, "On that day... I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant... and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you."

A signet ring. What is that? It is a seal. It is a mark of identity, of authenticity. It is the one thing that remains firm, that bears the true image, while all the world around it is overthrown.

The mind, in its cleverness, hears this and immediately divides. It says, "Ah! So, the world is divided into two groups: the shaken and the chosen. The overthrown and the signet ring. There are the 'bad' kingdoms, and there is the 'good' Zerubbabel."

And just like that, as the Hsin Hsin Ming reminds us, "Make the smallest distinction, however, and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth."

This preference—this sorting of the world into 'saved' and 'lost', 'us' and 'them', 'shaken' and 'still'—is the "disease of the mind." It is the shaking. The shaking is not just 'out there' in the world. The shaking is the mind that sees division. The "thrones of kingdoms" are the rigid opinions we hold. The "chariots and riders" are the angry, fearful thoughts that thunder through our hearts. And the "sword of a comrade" is the war we wage against ourselves every day, when we judge a part of ourselves as unworthy, as "other."

We spend our lives trying to build a house, a kingdom, an identity, on the "sand" of these preferences. We say, "I will be happy if this happens," or "I will be at peace when that person is overthrown." We build our house on the sand of "like" and "dislike." And so, when the rain of reality comes, and the floods of circumstance rise, and the winds of change blow... our house falls. And great is its fall.

This is the source of our deepest suffering. This is the plank in our own eye. We are so busy trying to judge the speck in our brother's eye—or the speck in the world's eye—that we do not see the entire, un-hewn log of our own dualistic, preference-filled mind, which is the cause of all our misery.

So, who, then, is Zerubbabel?

Zerubbabel is not a special person, chosen over others. That is the old way of thinking. Zerubbabel is the name for the "Inner Kingdom" that is within you.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," I have said, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Who are the poor in spirit? They are those who have no preferences. They are those who have stopped building kingdoms on the sand. They are empty of "longing and aversion." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Who are the pure in heart? They are those whose minds are no longer split in two. They have merged the circles. They no longer see 'good' and 'bad', but only what is.

Zerubbabel is the part of you that is not shaking. It is the "treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy." It is the "rock" upon which the wise man builds his house. The promise is not that God will rescue one man from the shaking. The promise is that God will reveal the part of you that is unshakeable.

This is not a new idea, this discovery of the still point in a collapsing world. This wisdom echoes.

Look at the wisdom of the Hindu path, in the Bhagavad Gita. A young prince, Arjuna, stands in his chariot between two great armies. He is about to fight his own family. This is, quite literally, "the sword of a comrade." The "heavens and the earth" of his entire moral universe are shaking. He collapses in despair.

And what does the Lord Krishna, the divine charioteer, tell him? He does not say, "Don't worry, I'll destroy them for you." He says something far more profound. He points within. He tells Arjuna of the Atman, the true Self. He says, "The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead... The Self is never born, nor does it ever die... Weapons do not cut it, fire does not burn it, water does not wet it, wind does not dry it."

This Atman, this unshakeable Self... it is the Signet Ring.

Both Haggai and the Gita are set against the backdrop of total war and the collapse of kingdoms. Both offer a divine promise of an eternal, unshakeable identity. But where Haggai's promise sounds like an external political rescue, the Gita makes it plain: the rescue is internal. It is the realization of the Self that was never, ever in danger. It is "Wisdom in Action"—to live and act in the world, but to be founded on the unshakeable rock of the eternal Self, unattached to the fruits of the shaking.

Or consider the story of the Buddha. As he sat beneath the tree, resolving not to move until he found the truth, the demon Mara came to him. Mara is the 'god' of this world, the king of illusion, of ego. He is the "strength of the kingdoms of the nations."

First, Mara sent his beautiful daughters—Lust, Longing, Aversion—to tempt him. This is the mind of preference. The Buddha remained still. Then, Mara sent his armies. Chariots, riders, demons with weapons, shaking the very earth with their terror. They were Haggai's vision made manifest. They were sent to "overthrow" him.

And what did the Buddha do? Did he fight back? Did he demand "an eye for an eye"? No. That would be building a kingdom on the sand of 'right' and 'wrong'. Instead, he practiced the "Higher Ethic." He did not "resist an evil person." He simply sat, filled with boundless compassion and non-preference. He let the 'like' and 'dislike' wash over him. He held "no opinions for or against anything."

And because he did not fight them, because he did not prefer that they leave, the weapons of that great, shaking army turned to flowers. The "strength of the kingdoms" was "overthrown" not by a greater strength, but by a perfect stillness. The Buddha became the Signet Ring, the unshakeable, and Mara vanished.

Here is the secret: Haggai's text says God will "overthrow" the kingdoms. The Buddha's story shows how. When you stop resisting the "kingdoms" of your own mind—your anger, your fear, your judgment—they overthrow themselves. When you "love your enemies," when you bless the parts of you that curse you, their power dissolves.

My friends, we live in a time of great shaking. Every time you turn on the television or look at your phone, you are invited to see the "thrones of kingdoms" shaking, the "chariots and riders" of opinion and anger clashing.

This week, you have surely seen news of some great "shaking"—a political crisis, an economic fear, a terrible injustice, a global conflict. And the mind, the "disease of the mind," immediately wants you to choose a side. It wants you to build your tent on the sand of "for" or "against." It wants you to be angry. It wants you to fear. It wants you to judge.

And I say to you, "Judge not." When you see that event that makes your heart pound and your blood boil, "first remove the plank from your own eye." See the shaking in your own mind. See your own preference, your own anger, your own fear.

Do not be that anger. Do not be that fear. That is the way of the foolish man who built his house on the sand.

Instead, enter the "narrow gate." Find the "Inner Kingdom." Be "poor in spirit." Let go of your preferences about the shaking. Just for one instant.

When you do this, you will find something quiet, deep, and still. You will find the part of you that has been watching the shaking all along. The part of you that is not afraid. The part of you that is pure, peaceful, and meek.

That is Zerubbabel. That is the Atman. That is the Buddha-mind.

And that is the Signet Ring.

The promise of the text is not that you will one day be given this. The promise is that you are this. "I have chosen you." You are already the Signe Ring. You are just... (a small chuckle)... pretending to be the chaos.

This truth, of course, is "Beyond Words." "Words! Words! The Way is beyond language." You cannot think your way to being the Signet Ring. You can only be it.

So in the midst of the shaking of your life, in the midst of the noise of the world, be still. Let go of longing. Let go of aversion. And the Great Way will reveal itself. The "kingdoms" of your mind will be overthrown. And you will discover, as you always were, the unshakeable peace of the Signet Ring.

Peace be with you.