Category Archives: Teachings

Buddha’s Kesa is Lived

On this day:

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I didn’t look out for the Golden Gate Bridge, or view the impressive skyline from the Bay Bridge. No, I was reading this booklet. It is inspiring. It is about the Buddha’s robe, the kesa. It is about The Tradition of Sewing Practice in the Shunryu Suzuki-roshi American Lineage. I’d just bought it at the Berkeley Zen Center.

In one of the Forewords to the booklet Mel Weitsman speaks thus:

When we had the first Lay Ordination at Zen Center in 1970, I remember Suzuki-roshi saying: “When we receive lay ordination, it’s not that you’re receiving something that makes you better than other people. We don’t receive lay ordination just for ourself, but we do this to encourage other people, to encourage everyone. And we do it to encourage each other’s practice.”

On this day:

Lots of other stuff happened; a wonderful vegetarian lunch near the Civic Center, visits to the Fo Guang Shan temple, to Lacis–Museum of Lace and Textiles (they sell stuff too), to the Berkeley Hat Shop (replaced hat I’d lost in Seattle) and then to my companions workroom. There to be found tankas’ he’d painted, magnificent altars, statues he’d painted, inspiring books, inspiring thoughts. And good tea brewed by his wife.

This was a day, of everydays, when the Buddha’s kesa lives. Many thanks Mike, you are inspiration. And an encouragement since before Buddhism found me.

Please know that you can buy the booklet I refer to in this article by going to Buddha’s Robe Is Sewn.

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Niyama

This is my ‘Word Wednesday’ posting.

According to Buddhism there are five orders or processes (Niyamas, accent over the first ‘a’) which operate in the physical and mental realms and explain why things happen. One of the laws or processes is the law of karma, a much misunderstood teaching. As Narada Thera says rather poetically in A Manual of Buddhism:

As surely as water seeks its own level, so does Karmma, given opportunity, produce its inevitable result–not in the form of reward or punishment but as an innate sequence. This sequence of deed and effect is as natural and necessary as the way of the sun and the moon.

Other references to the Five Niyamas, or the Five Laws of the Universe, can be found here:

Zen is Eternal Life, Rev. Jiyu-Kennett
Chapter 2, Basic Original Doctrines Essential to Zen.

An Introduction to the Tradition of Serene Reflection Meditation
Sixth article in this booklet is titled, Five Laws of the Universe

A Manual of Buddhism, Narada Thera
Chapter 11, Karma. The five niyamas are listed and explained at the end of this chapter in answer to the question, Is Everything due to Kamma?

A Buddhist Approach to Patient Health Care, Kusala Bhikshu Urban Dharma website.
Within this article can be found an explanation of the five niyamas. Also in this article is information relevant to hospital chaplains, staff and others about Buddhist patients and their particular care and needs.

This evening we talked about the five laws (niyamas) during the class which follows the meditation period. The thing to keep in mind is, quoting directly from Kusala Bhikshu:

There is no ‘One Thing’ that determines anything in Buddhism it is always the interconnected and interdependent flux of many things.

As I mentioned to the group this evening, it’s great having to do classes because it makes me study stuff. For the most part I don’t have need to think about Buddhism during my day.

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Great Ocean of Meditation

The chapter of the Shobogenzo On the Meditative State That Bears the Seal of the Ocean (Kaiin Zammai) is a line by line analysis of a poem attributed to Shakyamuni Buddha. This chapter is thought to be the most subtle discourse in the entire Shobogenzo.

The Buddha once said in verse,
Simply of various elements is this body of Mine composed.
The time of its arising is merely an arising of elements;
The time of its vanishing is merely a vanishing of elements.
As these elements arise, I do not speak of the arising of an ‘I’.
Previous instants and succeeding instants are not a
series of instants that depend on each other;
Previous elements and succeeding elements are not
a series of elements that stand against each other.
To give all this a name, I call it ‘the meditative
state that bears the seal of the Ocean’.

In essence, and quoting my Master, …within this very arising and vanishing is the stillness of the Great Ocean of Meditation.

This posting is for those who came to the Sunday Dharma Talk at the Priory when we talked about a small section of this chapter. It is also a call to all of us to accept, and know, that the arising of our humanity is within the Great Ocean, never apart.

This chapter
can be read on-line at the Shasta Abbey website.

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In a Care Home

We visit a just-turned 89 year old woman, newly ensconced in a Care Facility. Noisy place. Wheel chairs crowd the long corridors. People call from their rooms. Care assistants roam. A woman reaches out as I pass. It’s like a movie. Wheelchair exercises. Few join in. The piano strikes up a tune as we wait for her daughter to pick us up to go for lunch. Watching the world go by….she sang along.

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Mother and daughter talk at a diner.mother_and_daughter_hands_open.jpg

We were reduced to tears when we said good by. Don’t worry about me dears, she said. I’m happy here.

Watching the world go by (watching the world go by)
Under a sunny sky (sunny sky)
Strolling ’round the park on a Sunday afternoon (Sunday afternoon)
Oh how the moments fly (oh how the moments fly)
Watching the world go by (the world go by)
When you’re with your love
Life is a beautiful tune (life is a beautiful tune)
Dean Martin lyrics

For Maggi and her daughter, and extended family. Was that really only last Thursday. Oh how the moments fly…

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Is That Bad?

I shouted, The cat is outside!
She shouted back, Is that bad?
I paused….
Then I said, Well it’s not ‘good’!

Every day,
in the heat of a moment,
making an effort
to verbally navigate
duality.
While catching a cat.

The cat’s a character, she comes to the call of kibble shaken in a can.

Later, needing to illustrate a point I was making about dualistic thinking, I asked her if she heard what I’d said. No sorry, I’m hard of hearing! Then I forgot to repeat it!

Oh well, never to mind.

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