July 2009 Archives

Puuhonua o Honaunau is one of Hawaii's most sacred historic places. The center piece of the park is the Hale O Keawe Heiau which once housed the bones of important chiefs. A heiau is a Hawaiian temple, usually dedicated to treating the sick, making offerings of first fruits or the first catch, offerings to start or stop rain, even offerings of human sacrifice. Often offerings were made seeking success in war.

All week I have had with me a recent translation of the Lotus Sutra by Gene Reeves, very well done. It contains this many words by the Buddha such as the following which, if we stretch them just a little, might just contain all religions in some way. Perhaps all religions, in the end, have that same kernel of Truth at heart ...

Knowing that living beings have various desires and things to which they are attached, I have taught the Dharma according to their basic natures, using a variety of causal explanations, parables, other kinds of expression, and the power of skillful means. Shariputra, this is so that they may obtain the complete wisdom of the One Buddha-Vehicle.

Okay, well, granted, the practice of human sacrifice and such may be a bit hard for the modern mind to wrap itself around. It certainly does not represent a Buddhist value, and I am very, very glad that it is not a part of Buddhism! I would rather have a religion that emphasizes respect for all life, and non-violence. So, that is certainly a form of practice I can do without! I can also do without using religions practices as a means to obtain success in war (although that still goes on in our modern world). I can do without that too.

But, even so, I sat today with the human religious heart ... which I think is common to most of us, though with many difference expressions and voices.  Each seeking in its own way to be at one and in peace with the world. 

a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)

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I am on the 'Big Island" of Hawaii. The ocean is found in all directions. Today, I swam around a little reef near shore, borrowing my son's mask and snorkel. Fish were everywhere, yellow, bright red, blue and black. Even a big green sea turtle. None seemed the least bothered by me, and I certainly was not disturbed by them.

I often feel that Zen practice lets humans recall and recover the naturality and balance, the "just going about one's business"-ness, that those little fish embody without thought ... but which we have largely forgotten.  Without concern for past or future ... they just swim where they swim. Master Dogen once wrote, in a poem called The Buddha's Essential Functioning ... 


No separation of sea creatures and the sea ... Do you know that you too are the life of the world?

I am reminded of another line by a favorite Indian poet, Kabir ...

a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)

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I mean Buddhists are allowed to have fun too ... and frolic on the beach sometimes. It's not all about 'suffering' you know (though even a beach can be 'suffering' if one is attached to being there ... or forgets the sunblock ... unless at one with a sunburn)

Anyway, being a Zen Teacher is a high stress job with no future or benefits (no past either, of course, nor demerits), and I really need to get away to relax sometimes ...  (yes, of course, there is 'no place to go' ... but if ya find a good air deal, why not head out of town?). Even the Buddha must have had a week off now and then from Buddha-ing. 

a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)

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Gassho, Jundo

(video below)