Category: salt lake city
Dharma Talk October 6th 2013
The Color Gold
The Color Gold – excerpt for River of Fire River of Water by Taitetsu Unno
Though Shin Buddhism improvised a radically new form of practice, its goal is one and the same with that of Mahayana Buddhism The goal is to awaken to the true self as a manifestation of dharma or “reality-as-is.” What this means may be illustrated by some popular metaphors in the Pure Land tradition.
The lotus flower, the second metaphor, reveals the distinctive meaning of suchness or thatness. The lotus has been an important religious symbol in the Asian world for more than five thousand years with different signilications. In the Pure Land tradition it represents the uniqueness of each person, or each reality-as-is, distinct from all others each with its own uniqueness.
The multiple colors of the lotus blossoms, each radiating its distinctive luster, creates the glory of the enlightened realm. This is the realm of the Pure Land, the world of enlightenment. But this world is not a given; it is to be realized through undergoing a radical transformation.
This transformation is suggested in the third metaphor of transformed rubble, based on scripture that reads: “We who are like bits of rubble are transformed into gold.” All-embracing and nonexclusive, this path accepts everyone, even the lowliest who are considered nothing more than “bits of rubble” in the eyes of society. But no matter who or what one is, everyone is transformed through the power of compassion to become authentically real as an awakened person. “Bits of rubble” is the realization of those who, illuminated by Immeasurable Light and Immeasurable Life that is Amida, are made to see their essential finitude, imperfection, and mortality. This realization may not sound too inspiring, but affirming one’s basic reality is the crucial factor in the transformative process. To bring about such a transformation is the sole purpose, of the Primal Vow of Amida, the working of great compassion that courses through the universe.
This metaphor of alchemical transmutation is based on the Mahayana teaching of the nonduality of samsara and nirvana, delusion and enlightenment, rubble and gold. This is not a simple identity, for it involves a dialectical tension between the two poles, between limited karmic beings and unbounded como passion. The two remain separate, yet they are one; they are one, yet always remain separate.
The Metta Karuna Prayer
Oneness of Life and Light, Entrusting in your Great Compassion,
May you shed the foolishness in myself, Transforming me into a conduit of Love.
May I be a medicine for the sick and weary, Nursing their afflictions until they are cured;
May I become food and drink,During time of famine,
May I protect the helpless and the poor,
May I be a lamp,For those who need your Light,
May I be a bed for those who need rest, and guide all seekers to the Other Shore.
May all find happiness through my actions, and let no one suffer because of me. Whether they love or hate me, Whether they hurt or wrong me,
May they all realize true entrusting, Through Other Power, and realize Supreme Nirvana.
Namo Amida Buddha
You are….
You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.
.
Alan Watts
The Four Noble Truths
When the Buddha rose from the Bodhi tree he arose awakened. He discovered the Four Noble Truths of existence, which are:
1. The Truth of Suffering
The Buddha declared that this world if full of suffering; that actual existence including birth, decrepitude, sickness and death is suffering and sorrow. This is called the Truth of Suffering.
2. The Truth of the Cause of Suffering.
The cause of human suffering lies in ignorance and Karma. Ignorance and its resulting Karma have often times been called “desire” or craving. The Buddha declared:
Verily it is this thirst or craving, causing the renewal of existence, accompanied by sensual delight, seeking satisfaction now here, now there – the craving for gratification of the passions, for continual existence in the worlds of sense.
3. The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering.
The extinguishing of all human ignorance and Karma results in a state known as Nirvana. This is the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering.
4. The Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Suffering
The Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Suffering is the Noble Eight-fold Path.
Some have said that Buddhism is rather negative since the FIrst Noble Truth is that Life is Suffering. I would whole heartedly disagree. During our next Dharma gathering we will discuss as a group we will discuss our engement with this truths and how they inform our daily practice.
The Greatest….
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
Haiku
只頼め頼めと露のこぼれけり
tada tanome tanome to tsuyu no kobore keri
simply trust! trust!
dewdrops spilling
down
Call me by my True Names
I love this poem from Thich Nhat Hanh
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive….
I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving….
Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.[9]
Life comes to us as a great, eternal calling….
Life comes to us as a great, eternal calling, reaching out to us, unfolding around and inside of us, while at the same time holding us, in our entirety,from the unnamable past to the unknowable future. Life’s eternal truth is our truth, just as surely as our temporal clinging and attachment to the dance of self and ego is our truth. The Buddha’s teaching emanates from deep insight into the unending mix of pain and promise that is human life. Buddha sees what we cannot see, sees that we cannot see, and out of unfathomable concern for our well being, calls out to all humankind with the equally unfathomable message of our liberation from self-imposed restrictions, anxieties and turmoil. The Nembutsu tradition, more broadly known as Pure Land Buddhism, understands the whole of the Buddhist teaching and its history as Buddha’s entreaty, Buddha’s call to us to awaken to this eternal promise, a call carried by the compassionate movement that is life itself.
– Jerry Bolick