"One"
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, the
Buddha’s birthday is celebrated on April 8.
According to myth, just after his birth the infant pointed up with one
hand and
down with the other and said, “Above the heavens and below the
earth, I alone
am the world honored One.”
One way or another, Buddhists, no matter what the
tradition, seek to find this
One. Out in the world, we see countless forms and within ourselves, we
see a
steady stream of ideas and feelings. If all is One, it isn’t
apparent. All the
same, it’s not uncommon for people to have an intuition that all
is One, that
everything issues from and returns to a mysterious and unnamable
“something” –
A One, a common origin.
The intuition may be very subtle, but for some,
it’s strong enough to demand attention,
and if we compare this subtle intuition to a flame, it tends to grow
brighter
when we give it our steady attention.
Ideas describing the One fill volumes, and there are
countless names for the
unnamable “something.” But though we may tend to complicate
things, it’s in our
power to be simple. And it’s far better to be simple when
you’re looking into
the nature of One. Divide the One into two and we’re already
lost.
What is the something that the idea, One, is naming?
If we wish to fully
discover it, the idea itself, ultimately, cannot help us. An idea will
just
give rise to another idea. Where does the idea One (or any idea for
that
matter) come from? To investigate that, the eye naturally turns and
looks
within. And within, we find ourselves in the midst of a river of ideas
and
feelings. These ideas and feeling are ceaselessly being born, passing
by and
disappearing from view. Where is this river coming from? With patient
and
devoted investigation, the source – forever present in the here
and now –
presents itself.
It is said the Buddha proclaimed “I alone am
the world honored One.” He could
have said as accurately, “You alone are the world honored
One.” Right here and
now, the One is shining. It is just waiting for you to look. It is a
simple investigation
to discern the source from which your perceptions flow.
At the very least, our
investigations can reduce the burden of our accumulated
knowledge, allowing us to travel more lightly and more at peace.
Happy Buddha’s Birthday
"Alexander’s
Solution"
This morning the story of the Gordian knot came to mind. As you may
know,
Alexander the Great was given the challenge of untying an impossibly
intricate
knot. No one before Alexander had been successful at untying it, so
Alexander
rose to the challenge. One version of the story is that it was
prophesied that
the one who untied the knot would rule Asia. I
imagine Alexander struggling as he began the task, trying to discover
the
beginning or the end of a strand, a starting point to begin the
unraveling. In
time, finding it impossible to undo it in the conventional way, an
inspiration
came to Alexander: He drew his sword and sliced the knot in two. In an
instant
the knot and the problems it posed vanished.
We all have our great knots: Its strands are made of
our knowledge, of all we
feel and imagine. All experience - our past, present and future - are
its mass
and complexity. If we wish to simplify our lives and to make order and
sense of
its tangles, there are countless ways of attempting it.
Some of them can help neaten the troublesome or chaotic aspects of the
knot, at
least for a while. But if we wish to be done with the knot once and for
all,
draw your sword and follow Alexander’s example. The prophecy in
this case is
that with success in cutting through the knot, you discover that
wherever you
stand is the True Place.
And in this True Place,
you enjoy perfect peace.
Simply put, mindfulness meditation is like a stroke of a sword that
cuts
through the appearance of things so we may look without distraction
into the
place of their arising. We may call this “place” your
Heart-Mind. Master Mumon
said, “If you look into it with great devotion, behold! A single
spark and the
holy candle is lit.”
Letting Go
Here
at year’s end, all’s
well on Endless Mountain. We’ve
completed Thanks
Giving Sesshin, our final intensive of 2009. Lately, we’ve seen
signs of winter
with frosty mornings, thinning light and beautiful grey skies.
Stillness and
quiet is settling over things and soon we’ll be in the midst of
our
12th winter.
Last night, we completed a series of classes at Bloomsburg University. One of the students
gave us
a book that included a version of a classic story that tells of 2
monks, (one
young, one old) on a journey. They come to a stream where
there’s a woman
who can’t cross over, and without hesitation, the elder monk
offers to carry
her on his back. He puts her down on the other side and the monks
continue
their journey alone. Sometime later, the young monk blurts out with
annoyance,
“How could you do that? The rules prohibit us from touching a
woman!” The elder
monk replied, “I put her down an hour ago. How is it that you
still carry her?”
When we hear this story, everyone gets the point. We
see the
foolishness of the young monk, and we see how simple the problem is.
And I
think we know that we are more like the young monk than the elder, and
that our
enjoyment of this journey would be greater if we were not lost in
thought and
emotional complexity, if we were not weighted down by the useless
things we
constantly entertain. If dropping the weight were as easy
for us as
opening the hand and letting it fall away, we’d all journey
joyfully, light as
drifting clouds, allowing things to take their course the whole day
through in
effortless freedom. But such, most often, isn’t the case. And
thus, we
practice.
So what’s the journey like for the elder monk?
To know that,
we must find out for ourselves. If someone were to ask the young monk
that
question, he’d spin a great web of speculation and spiritual
thought and hand
it to you as though it were the truth. It is far more fruitful to look
into the
origin from which these ideas flow.
There’s a patina forming on Endless Mountain
Zendo. There’s
a Buddha statue on the hill in the woods behind the residence. It used
to be
stark white, but now, moss and lichen have made their home on its
surface and
have softened things with color, beautiful greens and browns. Someone
commented
that there’s an aura of zazen intensity in the meditation hall
even when no one
is sitting, the spirit of many sesshins past.
Soon the zendo will be illuminated in candle light
for the
turning of the year, a wonderful way to spend the Eve of 2010. We hope
that
things go well with you. You are very welcome on Endless Mountain,
so please don’t hesitate to come. Meanwhile, here’s a gift
from Master Mumon:
The Spring
flowers, the autumn moon; Summer breezes, winter snow.
If useless things don’t clutter your mind, You have the best days
of your life.
May All
Beings Attain True Peace.
-->
Who Dreams?
We go to sleep and a dream appears. It could be anything: Familiar and
unfamiliar people come and go and interact with us. We may see
landscapes, cities, distant galaxies, or a busy market place. We
converse and we react to things that are said and done, and we may
experience emotions of fear, happiness, love, or hatred - anything is
possible. From our point of view, the scene has color, sound, depth and
breadth. And, as in our wakeful consciousness, we experience the people
and places of our dream as separate from ourselves. We haven't a clue
what will happen next and - the beings we encounter are
unpredictable. We can't see into the minds of our dream
companions. They seem to operate independently of us just as in daily
life. And then we wake up and think, "I had a dream."
We've just experienced a 3-dimensional world with
color, sound, and feeling. We've experienced the relationship of
subject-object - the dreamer and the dreamed.
But if we look at our dream and ask, "Where did that
dream happen?" we realize, in spite of appearances, that it happened
nowhere. Our dream had no dimension or location. The solidity of the
dream beings and places we experienced were equally insubstantial. When
awake, we know that our dreams are baseless and empty. We know the
sound and color was pure imagination with no vibration, physical light
or spectrum - No ear to hear or eye to see. And if we ask, "What about
our perception that there were others, that there were people and
places outside our self?" we can see that the "others" in our dream
were not separate from us at all. They were our mind. They happened in
one consciousness, an indivisible mind perception. It played out in a
colorless, soundless, dimensionless consciousness where separation
cannot
be. And all that happened in this dream happened without effort
or struggle; all was weightless, empty and spontaneously born in
emptiness. Without doer or volition, things were done and someone or
something appeared to do it. All was absolutely convincing.
So it is now in this world of wakefulness. All is
absolutely convincing. We look out into the world and are conscious of
it, but we feel that we are visitors in a place external to ourselves.
We can see it, hear it, feel it and occupy space within it, and only to
that degree do we experience integration. But the twain between
self and others, we think, can never meet. The division of things is
fundamental to our ordinary way of
perceiving
things, and we accept the reality and solidity of experience
without question. We take for granted the view that "I am" and
"things are as they appear to be".
But all is dream, and all that we may say of our
sleeping consciousness is true of the wakeful one. Nothing is fixed in
thought or in the external world. Nothing abides. All is in constant
transformation like a drifting cloud. Something, a dreamer, imagines a
world of depth and breadth, of sight and hearing, of heat and cold, a
pageant of endless possibilities. Ideas come up, and the dreamer clings
to them. It is in this activity of grasping and holding that a sense of
self is born; for an "I" to be, there must be an "other". Thus, in
grasping and naming, the indivisible essence of Mind is divided into
two - here and there, real and unreal, being and non-being. In
naming the manifestations of consciousness and abiding in this sense of
knowledge,
we are lost in its complexity and subject to its fortunes
and misfortunes. As things arise, we, the witnesses, bind ourselves to
them, and, thus, we suffer.
If we doubt that things are as they appear to be the
question is, "Then, what are they?" If we doubt that things are as they
appear to be, we find we cannot resolve our doubt by relying upon the
appearances in question. That is, if we want to know who is behind a
mask, it won't help to keep looking at the disguise. It has to be
removed. If appearances are of no use, discard them: Appearances are
all things known either external or internal. Find the one who dreams
and thinks, the one who is watching, naming and knowing.
Leave
thoughts and knowing alone.
If we look into our minds to find the one who is
thinking, we will discover there is no one as such to find, that the
essential one is elusive. But still, something perceives. What is it?
In time, we exhaust our tendencies to seek it in form and reasoned
explanations.
See the thoughts and appearances that drift in
consciousness as clouds obscuring the light, and search your mind for
their origin. Our habit of grasping and self-identification is deep
and, thus, our efforts at uprooting must be firm and dedicated. As we
investigate, cutting through the resistance of habit, we become clear
and open and our tendencies to name and grasp weaken. We become aware,
having a view independent of the empty play of thought and phenomena.
Long cherished attachments lose their attraction
and
so, too, the suffering and discontent that comes with wandering
about within them. Still, we look dispassionately into mind, discarding
whatever trace appears. The clouds vanish allowing the light to shine
unobstructed. In this light of Wisdom, we discover that there is no
one, no past, no future and no present between. All plays out in
emptiness. This understanding comes all by itself. Life and death
are the insubstantial fabric of dream. All is one Mind. We are
the "something" we have sought for all along.
Ordinarily, we seek special circumstances that bring
happiness and relief from suffering and discontent, and we spend our
days struggling to patch things up. We try to control the flow of
things, not realizing that there is no one in control and that those
things happen as they will. We resist the "what is" of life, and it
becomes a battle. We think we know what we are and we have the
knowledge to make our way, however haplessly, through time. We love and
hate and wish to possess things that we know may slip away. We are
fearful beings and jealous. The love we find causes pain. Happiness and
satisfaction are fleeting. It is, to put it mildly, a precarious dream.
The things we find the deepest joy in are the things
that bear some indication of a greater truth. They are those things
that hint of something profound, that shake us from our habitual
self-centeredness to reveal a
taste
of the unconditional. In these moments we forget ourselves and,
perhaps, intuit the truth that all things are united and feel a sense
of transcendent compassion or have a glimpse of wisdom that wakes us up
for at least a moment. These are gaps in the play of form, gaps that
indicate that things are not what they seem. In whatever way these gaps
and glimpses come, they are pure grace, the grace of the unknowable. If
you wish to know your true teacher, your guru, listen to its wordless
voice. Look into the gaps. Find the dreamer.
Endless
Mountain Zendo, 104
Hollow Road, Stillwater, PA 17878
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