Category Archives: Teachings

Teachings, This and That

Entering Into Faith

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I’ve been talking about the Flower Sermon. This is the teaching from the time of the historic Buddha which is at the heart of the practice within Zen.

“I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma Gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahakasyapa.” Shakyamuni Buddha.

As I see it the ‘flower’ is constantly being raised before us throughout the day. It may not look attractive and at first may not be seen for what it actually is. These flowers are however no less the flower held up by Shakyamuni Buddha and we can smile in recognition. This is where faith enters in, or there is an entering into faith.

In the spirit of holding up the flower I thought you’d be interested in this small dog in a Japanese temple who has learned to copy the priest it lives with.

Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha’s Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.

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Daily Life, Out and About, Teachings

Pain Remembered

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Pain. So many thoughts on pain. So many stories about personal pain. Killing pain, pain that kills. Numbing pain, pain that numbs. Tolerating pain, accepting pain. Having the confidence to be in pain. Pain as a gift and a teacher. Pain that never goes away. So very many stories about pain while I’ve been in Edmonton. Not because Edmonton is any more pain filled than anywhere else, it just happens to be where I am right now. There’s always going to be pain where people are, where there is sentience.

Last evening there was a phone call from a congregation member. We’d said good by two years ago not expecting to meet again. I’m on a four hour leave from the emergency department. I need to get my bank business sorted and call relatives to let them know where I am. I’m due back at 8.00, he said. Err, is this really REALLY serious? Nah should be sorted in a couple of days, or so. Hopefully. We met again briefly, perhaps for the last time. One never knows. Here’s a man who does pain with great dignity. Others carry their pain with a smile. With tears. With silence.

Today I saw a cause of pain, a cause from my early life. Minds remember and bodies remember. Body and mind are not separate, thus it’s body/mind remembering. Places carry memories and photographers record those places so they, and the pain they carry, are remembered. That’s what I intended to do as an aspiring young photographer, in the early 1960. Thankfully there are photographers in this world who do that, are doing that. Right now. In Cambodia.

There is a difference though. Between being in pain and being in suffering.

Thanks to Michael for the link.

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Teachings

As We Are

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As_our_young_friends_see_us.jpg
As seen and drawn by an eight year old friend.

Admiring the drawing I remarked that my young friend had drawn me with no hair. Her mother replied, Of course, she draws things as she sees them.

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Films/Books, Teachings

The Perfect Slime Trail

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In_Flight.jpg

On the ‘plane I watched The Bucket List in which Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play the lead roles.

A billionaire and a mechanic who meet in a hospital ward for terminally ill patients decide to make an escape and set out on one last trip to fulfill all of their dying wishes.

While the two men wait for news of their flight to Everest, climbing Everest was on their Bucket List, they are shown visiting a Buddhist monastery. It was all gloom, flickering lights and incense smoke. The Jack Nicholson character, ever the skeptic, ponders on the concept of karma and rebirth. I just don’t get it, he says. I mean, what does a slug have to do to get a good rebirth, leave a perfect slime trail? This is fairly typical of the popular view of karma and rebirth. (And of Buddhist monasteries too!) Which runs fairly much along the lines of, be good and you will be reborn into better circumstances. Lead a bad life and you’ll end up a short lived, squashed, fly. Truth is bigger, and more compassionate, than this.

I liked this film. It brought the subject of action (and that’s what karma translates as) into the realm of action, and out of the world of speculation and popular interpretations. There was reflection on past actions and the seeing into the unwisdom’s of those actions. There were scenes depicting the struggle to see those actions for what they were and then scenes which looked at what that means, right now. In short the two men were brought to look at the consequences of their actions and come to an understanding and acceptance of their lives. Find joy in your life, were the dying mans words to the Jack Nicholson character. He could have said, Live life, forget the ideal of perfection, of leaving a perfect trail of slime behind you!

Written for Kevin. This, in part, is my answer to your question. I hope you get the gist of what I’m pointing out. Other teachers in our Order might well see this film and interpret it differently. So be it, there’s no argument.

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