Tengu House

A Buddha-like Politician?

I consider myself retired from political writing. It's just too divisive. But I do have a question, and I hope you can help me with it: What is this Buddhist infatuation with Barack Obama?

 

 

Seriously, folks – I can’t remember a time when I was less impressed with a politician, and this guy seems to enjoy the support of every Buddhist I know. I was even told yesterday by an absolutely gushing lay teacher in my temple that Obama is “like a messiah”, and that he has “never said a wrong word”. This opinion seems to be supported by the temple and the order itself (they’re the folks who got in trouble in 2000 for illagally donating all that money to Al Gore’s campaign, after all).

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It bothered me all night, which is right in keeping with the theme of my last post. I was unable to lay it down by the river. How do obviously intelligent, well-educated and highly thoughtful people fall so heavily for a well-spoken politician? Is verbal articulacy the only requisite for someone to be thought of as a god?

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Please don't misunderstand. I have no issue with someone not wanting to support the Republicans. That’s fine. Although I’m NOT an Obama fan, I’m also NOT a Republican (there are, believe it or not, other choices). And I don’t really care who you believe in, when it comes to all this. No problem here, if you don't agree with my politics. Again, this isn’t a political blog. It's just that the support I’ve seen for Obama in the Buddhist community is overwhelming, and I’m wondering why.

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Just a note: I’m NOT looking for your opinion about how great or how terrible Barack Obama is. We’ve all heard enough of that, and this blog isn't out to change anyone's mind about politics. But I would appreciate some objective opinions. Why do you think he enjoys such lopsided support among my fellow Buddhists? Is there a connection to the Dalai Lama’s stated affinity for Marxism? Or is it something closer to simple hero worship?

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Because love him or hate him, Barack Obama is simply human, and he does things wrong, just like you and I do. I've heard many misstatements from him, just as I've made many myself. And he is, after all, a politician. He is wrapped up in American politics. He didn't just appear by magic, and his policies are carefully calculated to garner the most popular support, not handed down by devine revelation - just as is true of any other politician (well, most of them, anyway).

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Maybe it's just me. But I don't get the impression from reading the Buddha's teaching that Shakyamuni Buddha would have been in the tank for Obama, the Republicans, or any other political entity. I can't imagine that he would have approved of his temple being used as a mouthpiece for one party or another, regardless of the intentions involved. And I can't, so far, understand what would make well-read Buddhist scholars think of such a career politician as "Buddha-like". 

Setting It Down By the River

NA MO O MI TO FO

 

You know the story of the young monk who was walking with his master. They came to a river, and there was no boat. They had to wade across, and a young woman asked for their assistance in getting across the river.

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The young monk refused, because there is a rule forbidding monks to touch a woman. But the old master picked the woman up and carried her across.

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A month went by, and the young monk couldn’t take it any more. “Master,” he asked, “Why did you carry that woman across the river, when you know that it is forbidden?”

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“Young monk” the master answered, “I only carried her for as long as it took to cross the river. You have been carrying her ever since.”

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Now we’ve all heard different versions of this story. Sometimes, the old master helps the woman into a boat, and sometimes years go by before the young monk confronts his master. There are lots of variations. But the moral is always clear.

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There are times when something wrong happens. There are times when things don’t go our way, or we are slighted in some manner. And in such instances, it can be counterproductive to carry those events with us. We must set them down by the river.

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This is part of letting go, part of being able to live in the here & now, not dwelling in the past or in the future. One teacher I’ve trained with calls it “returning to the room.” Others call it mindfulness.

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Recently I’ve had a brush with this myself. I won’t go into detail, because frankly it’s not worth it. But let’s say you’re snubbed in public by a habitually offensive co-worker, or unkind words are said about you by people you’d assumed were your friends. Hey, it happens. So there you are, young monk, standing by the river with a woman on your back.

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I know that you know what to do. If I said right now, “What do you do, young monk?” you would say to put the woman down by the river. But let’s back up. Who is the woman?

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Is she anger? Is she greed? Ignorance? Is she hurt feelings, bruised pride, a loss of esteem? She may be all of these things, and more. She may even be hate, or even worse. This woman – this thing on our back that should not be there – might be the kind of anger or hate that is motivated by a seething rage, something churning just below the surface. Something no one else knows about, something you don’t discuss with anyone. The person you know who said something stupid, just one too many times. That neighbor who needs a good ass kicking, and isn’t far away from getting one. The asshole who just rubs you the wrong way every time you run into him. And whenever he says something nasty, glances at you like you don’t belong, or does something in an attempt to make you feel petty and unwanted, like you're just someone to be trifled with, it’s there, stinging like hot water, waiting for an opportunity.

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Now, is it still that easy to set it down by the river, and walk away? Now that the woman has turned into something darker, more sinister, more emotional, can you still set it down? Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn tells us to smile at our anger, the way a mother smiles at her baby. Is this something we can do?

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I can say this. Lately I’m much more like the young monk, carrying the woman in my mind, than like the wise old master. It’s becoming less and less easy to set these things down by the river. I’m not violent like I was some years ago; I like to think that I'm not still the dangerous man I was then, when I could crush facial bones with my right hook. But today, even after my time in the monasteries, my various trainings and a few years of meditation, have I reached that point at which I can simply take such a burden of grief and anger, and simply set it down by the river?

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It's a hopeful question, isn't it?

Activism and Engaged Buddhism, Part 2

Although there haven't been any comments, I've recieved a number of emails on my Activism and Engaged Buddhism post. In order to address those emails, I've posted a Part 2:

I hope my treatment of this whole topic isn’t misread as a criticism of those who espouse “Engaged Buddhism”, and I hope anyone reading this would understand that I would never poo-poo the efforts of people like John Daido Loori Roshi or Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn.

My point is that there’s Buddhism, and then there’s activism. “Engaged Buddhism” is a nice idea, but I don’t believe it’s in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching, because I believe he taught that all of his Dharma was “engaged”. I can’t imagine the Buddha telling Shariputra that although all people are interdependent, and although all of our lives are intertwined, in order to “engage” your practice you’ll have to become a spokesperson for Greenpeace. Or that, although all things, beings and conditions rise and fall away, and nothing is permanent and possessed of an permanent, independent self, you still have to petition the government to force Wal-Mart to employ people who can’t do the job they’re hired for. Is this “engaged” behavior?

No, your practice is engaged when you enter into meditation and begin to cultivate your bodhi mind, and I think I will have support in this opinion.

 

In a previous post, I made the remark that one wouldn’t have seen the Buddha picketing private companies or marching on government offices. In response, someone pointed out that the Buddha didn't have to deal with the same social issues that we have to deal with.

I guess it's worth pointing out here that I recognize all this. When today’s Buddhist discusses current affairs and the state of our world, issues like corporate greed, ongoing and unpopular wars, global climate change and a flagging economy take center stage.

But how are these issues new? Was there no such thing as greed during the Buddha’s day? How about war? Do you think the climate wasn’t changing back then?

It would be delusional thinking to assume that in the time of Ashoka the Conqueror, no one was being tortured, no one was at war, and no one was starving while the rich feasted; or that social injustices were somehow less common during the heyday of the rigidly-enforced caste system than they are today. You know of course that the further back you venture in human history, the more human suffering you encounter in everyday life. This is what makes possible the modern improvements in our standard of living, even while we ignore the more important standards. We allow our own family structure to devolve into nothing, for example, while we complain that the government is making decisions that aren't in keeping with our Buddhist morals. See my dilemma? I will focus first on my own home and the standards of my own practice - and maybe then, when my own practice has attained perfection and has become crystalline, flawless and pure, I will turn my attention toward walking around downtown with a sign, in an attempt to coerce the government into changing its decisions based on a belief system that I know its people don't share with me.

If you believe that the natural environment is in jeopardy, there are things you can do that will help far more than “activism”. See David Suzuki’s website for tips on everyday energy and pollution reduction. Likewise, if you believe that American military activity in Iraq or Afghanistan is wrong, there are things you can do that will make a difference – things that will help. You can volunteer in an Iraqi hospital, for example. Sounds extreme, I know, but it does help. Trust me on this. Or, perhaps you can reach out in your own area, maybe become involved in helping Afghan refugees through the immigration process.

Of course, these are just suggestions. My point is that they’re not necessarily found in the Buddha’s teaching, and following these suggestions won’t make you a better Buddhist, any more than it would make you a better Christian or a better Jew, or whatever. What makes a Buddhist is Buddhist practice: meditation, study and belief. Do what the Buddha taught, and you will be a Buddhist. Engage yourself in activism, and you will be an activist. But don’t assume they’re the same thing.

 

The Buddha would have faced all of these problems in his lifetime. Wars raged constantly during those years, as they do now. Social injustice was endemic. And here’s what he did about it.

He meditated and taught. He changed the minds of the people around him, through the strength of his enlightenment. He achieved what so few people do, and he taught the rest of us how to also achieve it during our lifetimes, so that we may also change the minds of those around us, through the strength of our enlightenment. When people heard him speak, they followed him. They understood him, even if they didn’t understand his language. And through his own enlightened teaching, he helped violent, greedy and deluded people become gentle, meditative and introspective monastics.

When this happens, the amount of greed, anger and ignorance in the world is reduced, and the amount of love is increased. The number of deluded, self-obsessed people is decreased, and the number of devoted monastics, striving to cultivate within themselves a living embodiment of the Buddha's teaching, is increased. From this change comes a growth of interest in that teaching, as more and more people see the change that can take place within the individual - and the sangha grows further still. In my opinion, this is the proper activism, the properly "engaged" Buddhism.

 

Activism and Engaged Buddhism, Part 1

   

I was asked recently about my opinions on activism. I left a comment on Rev. Gyatso’s fascinating blog, A Monk Amok, briefly outlining my point of view toward “Engaged Buddhism,” or Buddhist-minded political activism. Although I consider myself a bit of a word nerd, I was unable to adequately express my opinion, and I’m afraid I left Rev. Gyatso wondering what I meant by a few of the things I wrote. So this post is my attempt at a more accurate and comprehendible conveyance. I should point out here that this is just my opinion, and I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. Also I need to point out that while I do have a strong opinion on this matter, this is not the same as having a strong opinion about the people who might disagree with me.

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I have nothing against activism, when it’s done right, and for the right reasons. Examples are Greenpeace’s campaign to free thousands of stranded turtles from sandy beaches, or petitioning the government for more federally funded AIDS research. I have personally participated in the former, and also in a number of right-action activities around the world.

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BUT there’s a line. I always get myself into trouble with my friends when I talk about this, but here goes: I do take issue with certain aspects of activism, and I sometimes resent Buddhist involvement in political causes. Sometimes it’s because my own political leanings don’t necessarily match those of most “Engaged Buddhists”, and sometimes it’s because I’m simply tired of hearing it. I became a Buddhist for reasons other than telling others not to drive SUVs or eat meat, if you know what I mean, and I’ve grown tired of being told these things.

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I hold nothing personal against Richard Gere, for example, but I can’t stand receiving politically-minded mass mailings about the Tibet Fund or whatever it’s called. This is not to say that I have anything against Tibet, or that I would side with China, or that I don’t care. It’s just that I am not active in that area at this time, and have committed by resources in other areas – and I can’t imagine any other reason for being targeted in that mass mailing than because I’m a Buddhist, and Buddhists are supposed to hold certain political beliefs. Right? You can see how there’s a stereotype at play here, because in some countries, the word “Buddhist” doesn’t carry with it any particular political agenda whatever. Somehow, during the last thirty years or so, being “Buddhist” in the US has become almost synonymous with being “hippie”. It’s used as an excuse to lecture, preach and pontificate about various (generally liberal) political causes from global warming to health care. More on this below.

It’s just not true. Buddhism is not a political movement. It is a religion, or more accurately, a collection of interwoven teachings, given to us by an enlightened man who lived a long time ago, and expounded upon by other enlightened teachers who lived along the path between then and now. The Buddha lived in a time when life was harsh. Men lived much harder lives then, and died much younger than we do, generally. He lived in a time of rigidly enforced castes and terrible social inequity. And the Buddha addressed this, pointing out that people should be treated with true equality. But he did not picket the principalities of his day, and he did not protest against their power, however wrong-minded that power may have been used. I like to think that he recognized the damage such actions would have caused to his credibility, and thus refrained. He found instead a much more fertile ground for effecting change: he found the minds of individual students, who, like him, preferred to fix things by fixing their own thinking, and then teaching others to fix theirs. This is how he taught Ashoka, among many others.

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When I talk about what I called “generally liberal” causes above, I mean those causes which generally attract the support and attention of those Americans who are more liberal-minded, politically. I don’t mean to pigeon-hole anyone or anything into a particular mold. For example, environmental issues, for the most part, are important to all of us, and I understand that. I recognize that it’s simply more sensible to reduce the amount of garbage I introduce into the world on a weekly basis (for example). But then, there are people who will protest against a landfill by chaining themselves to trees, or who will stand outside of a store and yell at others who’ve just bought stuff and carried it out of the store in a plastic bag. To me, this is not Buddhist. I have a hard time reconciling this with the image I have in my head of the Buddha in serene meditation under the Bodhi tree. Sorry, but I don’t think the Buddha was looking for an excuse to confront people for not using public transportation.

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A few years ago, I was vacationing on a beautiful, pristine island in the North Andaman region of Thailand. Folks who read my blog back then will remember how I raved and ranted about this unbelievable place (Koh Phrah Thong, or Golden Buddha Island). While I was there, I was approached by a hippie woman (read: American Buddhist) from California, who proceeded to berate me, right there in front of everyone, because I’d made the mistake of telling her that I worked for Halliburton (at the time). She didn’t care if I was a Buddhist, or a hospital volunteer, or an aid worker in Nepal; as far as she was concerned, I was the devil, and I needed to be yelled at until she lost her voice. She called me a mercenary, a warmonger, a hate-monger, and a war profiteer, and many other horrible things, in front of my girlfriend and all of our new friends on the island.

All of this was because of a campaign of misinformation that she’d bought, hook line and sinker. The image of anyone working for that company, especially in the Middle East, as a greedy profit hoarder connected with Dick Cheney and others, actively participating in the rape of Iraq for oil money, was so vivid in her mind that it had completely replaced the reality of where she was and who she was with. She was an activist blinded by anger and ignorance, and her anger was so powerful that it still bothers me today. It’s still an uncomfortable memory.

We can find dozens of books right now, in most bookstores, I guess, about how badly we’re treating the environment, foreign nations, ethnic minorities, wildlife, and a host of other victim categories. We can protest private corporations, government agencies, elected officials and media outlets until we’re out of oxygen and our arms fall off from holding our signs. All of this may have the effect of making us feel better, momentarily, but this isn’t what the Buddha taught us. The Buddha taught us to find the peace that is already within us, and then to teach others to find the peace that is already within them, if they want.

I don't mean to preach the Tathagata's teaching to you. It's just that I believe this is the kind of activism of which the Buddha would approve. Let's you and I sit together. We will never force the U.S. Government, Wal-Mart, Halliburton or Red China to act in a way that goes against their beliefs (trust me), but we can address the greed, anger and ignorance inside our own minds. And once we've done that, we can begin to make a real difference.

Serenity and Everything Else

 

Sometimes it’s difficult to find balance between total serenity (on one hand) and kicking everyone’s ass (on the other).

Not that we all aspire to hurt each other, of course. But let’s face it, there are times when our Buddhist mindset escapes us for a moment or two (or an hour), and we’re ready to strangle something. Even if it’s only a proverbial strangling, as opposed to a literal one, I think there are times when an angry reaction is only natural – only human.

Thich Nhat Hahn teaches us to smile at our anger, meaning to acknowledge it, nurture it is we would a child, and then let it go, let it turn into something else. But this takes a bit of practice. Until we learn to properly smile at our anger, our anger sometimes gets the better of us.

Last night, I spent about two hours in traffic, getting home from work. I missed yet another aikido class (I’ll never progress at this rate), and although I left the office shortly before 5, I didn’t get home until after 7:30. I was fuming. Now, here’s the problem: at whom was I fuming? I mean, was there some specific target of my anger?

If I’d been mad because the dry cleaner ruined a shirt or something (they did not), or if some idiot had cut me off in traffic (no one did), or maybe my boss had made me stay late, so as to make me late getting home (didn’t happen), then I would have someone to be mad at, wouldn’t I? But no, as it stands, I was just mad. At no one. So whose ass do I proverbially kick?

That is, unless you count the whole cruel universe. That’s right, I was mad at the universe for making me miss my class. Again. I end up spending a lot of time angry at the universe. Do you?

Is this something you’ve been struggling with? I mean, I’m not so much struggling with it as noticing it and beginning to work with it. But it is a silly thing to have to worry about, isn’t it?

 

So, it's serenity vs. everything else. Serenity vs. reality. Just because you're a Buddhist doesn't mean you're expected to never become angry again, does it? Of course not. But there are ways to deal with it.

Tell me what you think. What makes you mad at the universe? What sets you off, when there’s no particular person to get mad at? Is anger, in and of itself, wrong? And what does the Buddha's teaching say about all of this?

 

The Compass of Zen

 

Zen Master Seung Sahn's teachings provide a foundation for the doctrine of many zen centers in the west, including mine. Maybe "doctrine" is the wrong word - maybe it's more like "understanding" or "approach".

The West Houston Zen Center is holding a series of discussions on The Compass of Zen, Friday evenings at 7 (I think). Should be an interesting study.

Dharma Re-Post

I post this piece more-or-less yearly, and seeing as we're in a new year, it's time to post it yet again. I would like the topic of this post to become something of a theme for Tengu House- so if you take nothing else from this site, well, this is for you.

 

The Same Piece of Water

Part I

Sitting

So I’m sitting in front of the Buddha image, with a plain white candle and Japanese incense burning, having watered the bamboo and refilled the offering cup and rearranged my soft cushions.

I’m sitting in a kind of half-lotus with my hands in the cosmic mudra, but I’m not quite meditating. Something’s missing. Breathe in, breathe out, but still, no. I’m allowing my thoughts to wander, and as usual they’re wandering toward baseball.

Baseball. I have the unquestionable truth of the Dharma before me, and I’m thinking about sports.

So I breathe. Nothing else. Thoughts about baseball end with a sudden echo – I can actually hear a thought end mid-stream – and I breathe. My eyes are almost closed, but not quite. I no longer concern myself with whether my mouth or eyes are open or closed when I meditate. They just do what they want anyway.

No thoughts. No mind. Not searching for anything. No wisdom and no gain. Even the words it takes to describe the experience are absent during it. Perfectly free non-thinking. No gain and thus the bodhisattva lives prajna paramita…

BAM! I suddenly understand what the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh means by “interdependent co-arising.” This is one of the pillars of Buddhist thought – I wasn’t even thinking about it, but there it is, all of a sudden, rigth there in the front of my understanding.

Nothing exists by itself. We already knew that, of course, because of the great teachers, like venerable master Hsing Yun. But I can see, sitting here on my cushion, that the universe – all things, all conditions – are like the water in a bowl. No one part exists without the others, but also no one part of the water can move independently. If you disturb the bowl, does any one part of the water remain still while the rest moves about? Or does it all move in conjunction with the rest of it? There is no distinction between one part of the water and all the others. It’s all just one. Just water. To quote the venerable John Daido Loori Roshi, this is “Intimacy. No separation.”

Just Another Material Possession

The Buddha image, of course, is not the Buddha. When we put our palms together or prostrate ourselves before the Buddha image, we’re symbolically bowing to the Buddha nature within ourselves. The image exists to remind us of the Buddha nature, and was carved out of wood somewhere on the other side of the world, by a person who hadn’t been able to properly feed his family for some time, until he took the job of carver, making that serene expression I see on the Buddha’s face.

Again, no duality. No separation.

He and I are the same piece of water in the same bowl, and I move by staring at the face that he moved by creating.

I imagine that the man lives in a part of mainland China where clean water is rare, but satellite television is common. His children bathe in the river and have been sick for some time. But his brother helps by selling the Buddha statues he carves, and sometimes he gets a big order from a relative in Vancouver. Most go to California – the statues are popular in Chinese restaurants along Grant Street in Chinatown.

(More likely, my Buddha image was made by a Bengali immigrant working under sweatshop conditions in a machine shop in Manila or somewhere. I doubt that any part of this carving was done by hand. But that's not the point.)

This is no separation. This is interdependent co-arising. Not only is my Buddha image – my purchased product, my material possession – linked to this man, but my very existence, my very life, is linked to him. I would not exist without either him or the combination of factors that led to his existence.

The same piece of water.

The Same Piece of Water

Part II

The Buddha Image

I bought the Buddha image at a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, back when I was setting up my home altar. I’d just returned from Iraq, and I needed a suitable central image to surround with the elements: a candle for fire, a plant for earth, an offering cup filled with water, and an incense bowl filled with ash for the purpose of holding an incense stick in place to represent the element of air. I’d done my research and I knew what type of image I wanted. I even had a good idea of what kind of wood it should be fashioned from (lighter or darker, smooth or a little rougher, polished or rustic-looking, etc). I had the image in mind, and I knew what I was looking for – until I went to this restaurant. The place was full of statues from Chinese history – Damo (Bodhidarma), Quan Yin (the bodhisattva Kannon), General Kwan, the Dharma Protectors. Some of the statues were resin, but most were of hand-carved wood, especially the smaller ones.

I asked about a Buddha image and was led into a sort of alcove that served almost as a back room, wherein I was shown a showcase containing literally hundreds of different images, ranging in size from about four inches to about eight feet tall. One particular six-foot image of a thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva looked as though it had been taken from a temple somewhere in either China or Tibet, and would have been right at home in any modern Fo Guang Shan temple.

The image that I chose was made of a light-colored wood, which I called “blonde,” for lack of any specific ability to identify it. What do I know about different types of wood? Was it birch? No, I don’t think so. Maybe pine? Yeah, maybe. But really, it didn’t make any difference, because that wasn’t the image I ended up with. The point here is that, after all my research, mulling-it-over and decisions, I still became connected to some particular man in (I imagine) China, by buying his Buddha carving, even though it wasn’t what I was looking for at first. But of course, I was connected to him long, long before I ever dreamed of finding an image of the Buddha for my altar.

The Same Piece of Water

Part III

Consciousness

All consciousness is connected in the same way as water in the same bowl. If left to evaporate, where does the water go? It goes into the air, to gather in the atmosphere and eventually return to the earth as rain.

As water.

So even the water in the bowl is impermanent, in its own way, and will not respond to your efforts to hold on to it. It’s like a dollar bill, because you can be assured that you will see it again – but you cannot mark it, like you can with a dollar bill, and then recognize it again later. You can color the water in the bowl with blue food coloring, but it will still evaporate and leave the blue color by itself in the bowl.

Consciousness is like this. Life is like this. We are also like this. Even when someone dies, we know that we will see them again, even if we don’t recognize them.

Once the water evaporates, and then eventually falls back to earth as rain, what happens to it? It will eventually be gathered again, in a different bowl. The bowl may be the ocean, or it may be a culvert or a rain gutter. But the water will be gathered, will be collected, and will repeat the cycle.

Connecting It All Together

Now, remember the bowl that we talked about in part I. Let’s say that by now, the water from our original bowl has evaporated, and has rained back to earth. Let’s say that the bowl held one liter of water, all of which has completed its cycle and is now once again part of the earth’s water supply. Can we see exactly where that particular water is? Of course not. But we can know that the water from the bowl is now water in several different places. And after the water has gone through several million such cycles, where is our water from our original bowl?

After that many cycles, it is everywhere. It is in every bowl, every ocean, and every puddle on earth.

In this way we can easily see how all water is connected, and how no water can exist without the existence of all the other water in the world. The same is true of all life, all consciousness. This is interdependent co-arising, the “existing together” nature of all things.

And the same is true of people. I have become connected with the man who carved this Buddha image that I have on my altar, but this was really only a re-connecting, a re-co-arising. I have never met him, and yet he and I were interdependent a hundred million lives ago.

And this connection that can be made, re-made, revealed, realized and explained through this story of the Buddha's image, happens again and again with everything that happens. Every time any person does anything at all, from lying down to sleep, to fighting in a war, to reading a single word from a book, that person becomes in yet another way connected to yet another hundred or thousand people. In buying that image when and where I did, I became connected to the man who created it, to his children who are sick, and to his brother who sold it for him. But also I became connected to the shipping rep at the import / export company in Shanghai, and the crew of the vessel that ferried it across the Pacific to Vancouver, as well as the restaurateur who ordered it and had it shipped to Houston, so that it might sit in his back-room alcove until I happened to wander in and buy it.

There were many, many people involved in the creation of this object and its subsequent transport to my altar. But there were many more people involved in the creation of those people (parents, grandparents, etc), the existence of their jobs, their widely varying reasons for doing what they do, and for being where they were at that moment.

And we are all the same piece of water, in the same bowl.

The Same Piece of Water

Part IV

Relevenace – What All This Means

So what relevance does the water analogy have to us, here in the real world? How do we translate this to our daily lives?

We translate the analogy by reading it with an eye toward transposing ourselves into the story. We translate it by living it.

When all the water was in the original bowl in the story, that was us. That was you, reading this, and me, writing it. That was my grandmother and your uncle, the young woman who made my latte this morning and the guy sitting in the car next to you in traffic. We were all in that bowl – but that was many, many lifetimes ago. So when we see a monk sweeping the steps at the Fo Guang Shan temple, or a bus driver ferrying workers across town in Kuwait City, we can know that they were once all in the same bowl.

When the Buddha sat in the deer forest at Issipatana, he was surrounded by his closest disciples, many of whom were very young. Once, two of them were angry at each other and were not speaking. The Buddha saw this and told them all a story about a deer, a turtle and a magpie. In the story, a deer was caught in a hunter’s trap, and it took a magpie to distract the approaching hunter and a turtle to pry the trap open with its powerful jaws, to free the deer.

When the Buddha finished telling the story, he asked, “Now, who among you bhikshus was that deer?”

Some raised their hands.

“And who was the magpie?”

Others raised their hands.

“And who was the turtle?”

Still others raised their hands.

The Buddha saw this and said, “Bhikshus, many of you identified with the deer, who was saved by the teamwork of the others, while many of you identified with the brave magpie or the strong turtle. But all of you raised your hand, identifying with one animal or the other.

“Bhikshus, if each of you was one of these animals, and each of these animals was once many of you, then either you knew each other long ago, or you were each other long ago. Either way, how can you now be angry with each other?”

Conclusion

Each of us is connected in ways we cannot see, or even in some cases understand. But we are truly all parts of the same whole, and we have common, shared experiences. We’ve known each other before, and have been each other before, as each of us has lived hundreds, thousands, or even millions of lives.

We’ve all been the same piece of water for a long, long time. What we do to others we are, in reality, doing to ourselves.

And in this way we can see one of the ways in which the law of karma, or causality, works. If I were to drop blue color into a bowl of water, it would dye all the water in the bowl, not just one part. For me to strike another living creature with my hand, is the same as one of my hands striking the other. What we do to other living creatures we also do to ourselves.

We must live in accordance with the Dharma, thus creating a wholesome and positive life for ourselves, thereby benefiting all creatures. We must follow the Noble Eightfold Path, thereby creating Right Living for ourselves and for all creatures. If all the water is one piece, then dirty water in one place means dirty water everywhere – and we have the ability to keep clean, to live cleanly.

And in this way we can see how the interdependence of all things makes the Noble Eightfold Path so important. We must practice these steps in order to bestow them upon all other living creatures, all the water:

Right thought
Right understanding
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration

This interdependence is also what makes the five poisons what they are. When one poisons oneself, instead of following the Noble Eightfold Path, one affects all creatures. To practice these poisons is to impose them upon countless generations of all living things:

attachment or desire
aversion, anger, or aggression
ignorance or delusion
pride or arrogance
envy or covetousness

It's only after we begin to accept that we're all connected in this way, that we can truly begin to understand the importance of living the Path and avoiding the Poisons. We begin to see the importance of the Dharma itself, and we begin to realize our true potential under its refuge.

Going Beyond Buddha

 

What you see…Is this important? Is it as important as what you hear? And, have you learned to listen?

Zen Master Dae Gak discusses listening, and learning to listen, in this book. Zen Master Dae Gak is an American, who I think lives in Kentucky (correct me if I’m wrong), and was a student of Zen Master Seung Sahn, in the Korean Zen tradition.

Zen Master Dae Gak also has a background in clinical psychology, which gives him valuable perspective on the nature of reality and its myriad perceptions. Sometimes it’s how we perceive what we hear that makes all the difference…

I should point out that I've been honored to sit a one-day retreat with Zen Master Dae Gak here in Houston, and I found him to be a wise and patient teacher. If you have an opportunity to hear his teaching, I recommend that you take it.

Buddha Is As Buddha Does

Probably the best book I've read in a long time, on transforming one's attitudes and overcoming the everyday obstacles to one's cultivation of true buddha nature.

I've been reading it a little at a time, on the bus, at lunch time, even at my desk when the battle that is my job dies down for a while.

And ya know, this is a testament to my own ignorance. Because Lama Surya Das is hardly a new writer. He's been around for a while, and has spent more than thirty years studying zen, yoga, Tibetan Buddhism and other forms of cultivation - all of which means that he was at this when I was a small child.

But I've only "discovered" him and his teaching in the past week or so.

Nevermind all that. My point here is to recommend this book. I will, I'm sure, find my way to delve into his earlier books as well, once I've thoroughly digested - and incorporated into my practice, to some degree - this one.

Peaceful

Looks like the Andaman coast in Thailand, except that I think the water's too blue. I remember the water there being greener. So I guess this would probably be somewhere in the Carribbean.

Doesn't matter, though. The point is to post a peaceful image. While I'm here, though, it occurs to me that this might notbe as peaceful a scene for everyone as it is for me.

So what's your idea of a peaceful image? Do you have a picture in your mind, perhaps some samsaric illusion, that you return to for peace, for decompression at the end of the day? What's your peaceful?