|
April
Guide 2003
Hanamatsuri,
April 7
Bathing the Baby Buddha
The founder of our Center, Ven. Dr. Thich Thien-An, often said
that the
Buddha’s birthday is everyone’s birthday. Please join
us in bathing the
baby Buddha as we celebrate the Buddha’s birthday in Japanese
style on
Sunday, April 6, followed by a potluck luncheon in the Zendo garden.
Please
bring a vegetarian dish or drinks to the lunch. If you would like
to bake a
birthday cake please call the office to let us know.
The historical Buddha was born 2645 years ago in a garden at Lumbini
in the Himalaya mountains, as Queen Maya was attempting to get
from Kapilavastu to her parents’ home in Devadaha. She held
onto the branches of a fragrant sala tree and gave birth to the
prince, who was bathed by the gods with sweet waters and flowers
falling from the heavens. Legend says that he took seven steps
as lotus flowers bloomed under each footfall, and raising his
right hand towards the heavens and his left to the ground, declared,
“Under heaven and above the earth, I am the most honored
one. This is my last birth. I will put an end to the suffering
of birth, old age and death.”
While the traditional day observed differs from school to school,
we observe
the Japanese date of the Flower Festival Hanamatsuri. In May we
celebrate
the traditional Vaisakha (the triple blessed day of his birth,
enlightenment
and death) with a retreat. The Hanamatsuri ceremony ends with
all of us
reenacting the bathing of the new born prince.
Pot Luck Lunch for Abbess’63rd Birthday
This year our Abbess, Ven. Dr. Karuna Dharma, turns 63, so we
are holding a party for her on Sunday, April 20, following our
Sunday service. If you have any talent, such as singing, dancing,
playing a musical instrument, flower arrangement, poetry reading,
martial arts, etc., call our office at (213) 384-0850, and we
will add you to our talent lineup that afternoon. The party will
begin at 1 pm with a potluck luncheon, followed by a lineup of
cultural activities. The program will run until 3 pm. Please bring
drinks or a vegetarian dish to share. Gifts are not necessary.
108 Bows Ceremony
On the first Sunday of every month we perform the 108 Bows ceremony
, which
venerates the 88 Buddhas whose names we know. This month the ceremony
is
being led by Rev. S’unya Karuna. The ceremony is from 10
- 1030 am. It is a
good prelude to the Sunday service which begins at 11 am.
The Householder
a talk given at IBMC by Rev. Ksanti Karuna on February 23
I didn't know where this topic would lead when I answered Rev.
Karuna's
call about speaking. I just knew that it-the householder-had been
circling
me for a while and that usually means I should focus on it.
On the weekend of our ordination retreat, in September, on Saturday,
we were
supposed to finish our kesas. Technically we are supposed to make
them, but
if that were the case we would probably still be sewing and resewing
and who
knows when we'd finish. Fortunately there were two really good
'seamstresses', Rev. Vajra and Vimila. You may know her she's
been
associated with the temple forever. And she's a lay person, a
householder.
The two of them got into a lively discussion of Buddhist history,
myth, and
Dharma. It was a regular quilting bee. And it was one of the happiest
afternoons of my life. Everything seemed in balance and good.
In the Vimalakirti Sutta there are also lively discussions between
a monk
and a layperson. It starts like a Marx Brothers movie. The Buddha
has
heard that Vimalakirti has been ill and wants to send a monk to
inquire on
his health. Panic ensues. Every monk has a story about his encounter
with
Vimalakirti. One where the monk is crushed in any debate on the
Dharma.
Finally Manjusri, the wisest and most knowledgeable monk, agrees
to go.
Word spreads and from all over the universe thousands of Bodhisattvas,
gods
and goddesses, disciples gather to listen to the Dharma. Vimalakirti
senses
their coming and says "Now may this house be transformed
into emptiness" and
it is. There are a lot of magical moments in this sutta. When
they arrive
Sariputra (the same guy from the Heart Sutta) thinks "There's
not even a
single chair. Where are these disciples going to sit?" Vimalakirti,
who
could read thoughts as well as make things disappear, said "Venerable
Sariputra, did you come for the sake of the Dharma or did you
come for the
sake of a chair?" Then magnificent chairs appear.
Besides an explanation of Dharma, the sutta is also about lay
practice.
Vimalakirti is a deeply awakened layperson. One of the themes
of the sutra
is that being deeply involved in the day to day can lead to awakening.
Vimalakirti says, “Noble sir, flowers like the lotus, the
water lily, and
the moon lily do not grow on the dry ground in the desert, they
grow in the
swamps in mud. In the same way, the Buddha "going out into
the great ocean it is impossible to find precious, priceless pearls.
Likewise, without going into the ocean of passions one cannot
reach the mind of pure knowing."
But going into the ocean can be perilous. And Vimalakirti was
extraordinary. It's good to know that living in the world can
be a way to
awakening but how. And even if awakening is not your goal, how
should one
live in this world qualities do not grow in living beings who
are already awakened, but in those living beings that are like
swamps and mud of negative emotions.
"In a similar way, a seed does not grow in the sky, but on
the earth. So
the Buddha qualities do not grow in those who are already saints,
but in
those who seek awakening after having built a mountain of egoistic
views as
high as Mount Sumeru (the mountain which holds up our universe).
"Noble sir, by the same token, one can understand that the
family of the
Tathagatas includes all our passions. For example, noble sir,
without going
out into the great ocean it is impossible to find precious, priceless
pearls. Likewise, without going into the ocean of passions one
cannot reach
the mind of pure knowing."
The Buddha was a great teacher and in the Sigalovada Sutta lays
out a
foundation of ethics as profound as any I've encountered.
Sigala was a young man who used to worship the six cardinal points
of the
heavens -- north, south, east, west, nadir and zenith -- in fulfillment
of a
promise made to his dying father. He hadn't a clue as to why he
was doing
it or how to do it -- but he was a good son and so he did it.
The Buddha
saw him performing the rites one morning and asked him what he
was doing.
And then the Buddha begins a detailed lesson on how to live in
this world.
The six points of the heavens are really --- east: parents; south:
teachers:
west: spouse and children; north: friends, relatives, and neighbors:
nadir:
servants, workers, and employees; zenith: religious persons. It
is the
world we live in and we are asked to worship it as something sacred
and
worthy of respect. How? By acknowledging the duties and responsibilities
owed to each.
Parents are to restrain children from evil and direct them toward
the good,
educate them, and at a proper time hand over their inheritance.
Children are to support the parents, keep up traditions, offer
alms for
departed relatives.
To friends one is to be generous, offer help when needed, and
be
supportive., never neglecting them in their time of need.
To employees adequate wages should be paid, medical needs should
be
provided, occasional bonuses should be granted. (Given the status
of our
economy and the suggestions of the current administration perhaps
we should
send a copy of this to Washington.)
But the sutra goes on offering wise and detailed advice on how
to navigate
this life. Things like the "six doors of dissipating wealth".
The "four
persons who should be reckoned as foes in the likeness of friends".
The
"four motives of evil actions."
And all of this is not an onerous task but as something done with
love.
We are all interdependent and all equal. On all levels-from the
mundane to
the ultimate. The six points actually form a cube -- every side
is needed
or it fails. It is the box we live in. And we all must face inward
and
face each other. To look away, to pretend that this isn't our
situation, is
a fantasy, a delusion.
The First Noble Truth is life is suffering. We sometimes like
to sugarcoat
it and say life is unsatisfactory. But face it. Nobody gets out
alive.
Accepting the first truth is an act of liberation. Now put yourself
in the
box. It doesn't matter which side you choose.
In the Sanyutta Nikaya it says: "It is not easy to find a
being who has not
been your mother, or your father, your brother, your sister or
your son or
daughter."
So you're there. With suffering in the middle. Now what? You can
fall for
the traps: sensual desire -- get laid as often as you can, sloth
-- the
"whatever" approach, fretting-wringing hands always
works, or skepticism.
But all that does is tie you to your wall. The Buddha showed a
path away
from that, the Eight-Fold Path --
Right understanding -- recognizing the unity of things and how
suffering,
impermanence, and no self play out.
Right thought -- keeping it clean and kind.
Right speech -- refusing to lie, back stab, and gossip. And not
to mislead
or incite (another missive for Washington)
Right action -- basically following the precepts: no killing,
stealing,
telling lies, having meaningless sex, getting blitzed.
Right livelihood -- working at something that aids and does not
harm.
Right effort -- cultivating good, eliminating evil, and benefiting
sentient
beings.
Right mindfulness -- being constantly aware of what's going on
in you, with
you, and around you.
Right concentration -- being totally involved with what you are
doing NOW --
however mundane.
On Urban Dharma. org there's an ebook of ten lectures by Jack
Kornfeld on
the Eight-Fold Path for the Householder.
But between that and the Sigala Sutra you get what to do. But
to do it you
have to keep to the impulse to do it, the motivation for it all.
The Dalai
Lama said:
"I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.
That is
clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes
in this
religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better
in life. So,
I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness."
So if we look across our box, or above, or below and smile to
ourselves in
recognition of our common fate and in recognition of our common
spirit --
our Buddha nature -- what is there to struggle against or struggle
for?
Shouldn't we allow our innate compassion to guide us? The Dalai
Lama said
that aggression is the result of human intellect not human nature.
I guess this is really about the Householder and Happiness. That
living in
the muck and mire of our daily life can be a good thing if we
use the
Eight-Fold Path as a guide toward understanding. But we need to
let our
innate impulses for compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic joy
and
equanimity energize us on our journey away from suffering and
toward
happiness.
Zen and Asceticism
given as a talk at IBMC. March 3, by Rev. Vajra Karuna
Asceticism will be defined, as the partaking of the self-discipline
required
in order to practice something that is not natural to us and is
very
difficult to practice. In Zen there are a number of practices
that are
ascetic in nature. Among these is the asceticism of aloneness
or
innermonkhood, of humility, of otherness, of sitting, of faith,
of time,
and of the beautiful.
Zen teaches that before any one of us can be truly accepting and
comfortable
with others we must learn to be accepting and comfortable with
and by
ourselves. If we are not, then we are just using others to calm
our fear of
aloneness. But aloneness in Zen does not just mean not using others
as a
crutch, but not even using God as such. For unlike Western religion
that can
talk about never truly being alone since one always has God, Zen
does not
offer this solace. This, of course, is true not only in life,
but also in
death. When it comes to aloneness perhaps our greatest fear has
to do with
death which, if there is no God, is the ultimate aloneness. Also,
since
unlike Western religions there is no promise in Zen that upon
death our
souls eventually will join together with others souls in an eternally
blissfully heavenly community our aloneness in death must be eternal.
This
emphasis on aloneness may seem existentially pessimistic, but
it is not. For
where Western religion has God, Zen offers the realization of
the Eternal
Now, as well as the realization of the Interdependent and Mutually
Interpenetrating Phenom-enon of all life. These two elements,
as we will
see below, give to every person that unconditional worth in this
very life
that no mere mortality can deny us.
Another way of defining this Asceticism of Aloneness is through
the term
inner monkhood. A monk, technically speaking, is a celibate person
whose
primary interest in life is religious practice. This is certainly
the
definition of the earliest Buddhist Bhikshus or religious beggars.
It is
also still the definition for all East Asian Buddhist clerics
except
Japanese ones who are allowed to marry. This celibate life style
is that of
outer monkhood. Inner monkhood is the realization that everyone
is a
complete or whole personjjust as he or she is. This is part of
the Zen
understanding that everyone has the unconditionally inherent worth
called
Buddha-nature. This means that we do not need others to make us
complete.
Single or partnered we are fulfilled already and having, or not
having, a
partner can neither add nor subtract from our Buddha-nature. We
may want a
partner or mate, and there is nothing wrong with this wanting,
as long as we
understand that we do not need one. In other words, inner monkhood
is the
clear ability to distinguish between sexual need and sexual want.
For lay
persons the realization of inner monkhood leads to a sexuality
born of faith
in our Buddha-nature. That is a very different sexuality from
the one that
is born of self-alienating ignorance or doubt in our Buddha-nature.
Such
ignorance or doubt essentially reduces sexual desire to an attempt
to use
another to escape from one's own inaccurately perceived incompleteness.
The
absolute conviction or faith that "as a lone individual I
am complete" is an
important aspect of Zen enlightenment. There is one warning, however,
concerning this aloneness or inner monkhood. This is that the
concept should
not be taken as a justification for subordinating the spirit to
the flesh.
To be a true monk, outer and/or inner, one's religious life should
always
have priority over one's sexual life. In other words, if for whatever
reason
one's sexual and spiritual desires can not be sufficiently harmonized,
it is
expected that the sexual will be have to be subordinate to, or
even
sacrificed for, the religious until the conflict is resolved.
If this is not
done then one's religious practice would be corrupted.
A true Zen practitioner must always be aware that metaphorically
speaking
enlightenment or satori is a jealous phenomenon. It demands more
or less
complete commitment to it. This in Japanese is called Kokorozashi,
the
willfor truth. It is the intense ambition for enlightenment from
now until
death; and, of course, to have this intense ambition one must
be willing to
commit oneself totally to one's practice and if necessary sacrifice
almost
all other desires. Without this satori is almost impossible to
gain. This is
one of the reasons that the majority of serious practitioners
adopt a
monastic life style. The primordial Buddhist example of the jealous
nature
of satori must certainly be Gautama's need to abandon his wife
and his newly
born son for the sake of enlightenment. Satori, besides being
of a jealous
nature, is also a somewhat unfaithful phenomenon in that just
because you
are totally faithful to it, this does not guarantee that it will
be faithful
in coming to you. This is part of the accidental aspect of Zen
sudden
enlightenment.
In a gradual practice you are more or less guaranteed a slow,
but steady and
very faithful progress towards spiritual attainment. Sudden practice
differs
from this in that you could, as in very rare cases, gain very
good
attainment and very soon after starting the practice; or as is
more likely,
it could take years before attainment; or again as in very rare
cases,
attainment could never happen. The very fact that satori might
not be as
guaranteed to you as you may be to it can only be tolerated if
one can
undertake the Asceticism of Humility.
Humility is rarely mentioned in Zen literature, nonetheless, it
is an
important element in Zen because of the very lack of any guarantee
in sudden
enlightenment. In other words, the asceticism of humility is the
willingness
to work on attaining enlightenment, while accepting that it may
or may not
ever come. This humility is none other than the courage to surrender
the
self or to sacrifice the ego that is necessary to attain enlightenment
in
the first place. Of course, this surrender is only made possible
by the
faith that not attaining enlightenment still can not lessen the
value of
one's Buddha-nature. To our advantage, once this faith and humble
surrendering of self is established , it in turn , actually l
facilitate s
our chance fo r enlightenment.
Closely related to the Asceticism of Humility is the Asceticism
of
Otherness. This asceticism is undertaken when you acknowledge
the sacredness of others and the need to express compassion towards
them, especially towards those who are hostile towards you. This
asceticism, while arising out of the Mahayana Bodhisattva concept,
goes even beyond it. It is more
than the requirement to show compassion towards all others. It
is the demand
to absolutely acknowledge the Buddha-nature, or unconditional
worth in
everyone, friend and foe alike, and as such it is the ultimate
act of Zen
holiness. The Zen concept of acknowledging the Buddha-nature of
one's
enemies must be distinguished from the Christian commandment to
love one's
enemies. The Christian commandment to love one's enemies is totally
tied to
the first century belief that the Kingdom of God was to manifest
itself at
any moment. Once this happened the Christian would be duly rewarded
for his
love while all non-Christians (i.e. one's enemies) would be excluded
from
the kingdom as punishment. This would seem to have given a hypocritical
aspect to such love, since one was showing love towards one's
enemies while
at the same time hoping for and expecting their damnation. In
other words,
Christian love is based first on loyalty to God and only on loyalty
to one's
fellow man to the degree that they serve God's purpose. The Zen
unconditional respect for others, not being dependent on a Western
style
deity, is first and foremost human oriented. One must have faith
in the
absolute worth of all others in order to have faith in one's own
Buddha-nature. Therefore, unlike the Christian form of love, the
Zen
asceticism of otherness does not depend on the expectation of
a future
reward for oneself nor on any expectation of a divine vengeance
towards
others.In order to genuinely practice any of the above asceticism
there are
three other forms of asceticism one must undertake. These are
the asceticism
of sitting, of faith, and of tiThe Asceticism of Sitting or Zazen
is
certainly the one most Zen practitioners first encounter. Anyone
who has
practiced intensive zazen knows how physically painful it can
be, and how
much anxiety it can generate. To practice this successfully requires
a large
sacrifice of time and energy, and a willingness to put-up with
a great deal
of frustration and even anxiety, none of which is natural to any
of us. This
asceticism is especially true for the shikan-taza practice in
Soto Zen. Such
asceticism can only be sustained through the initial faith that
it in some
way is related to authentic enlightenment. In other words, that
it will
bring one to a realization of the Buddha-nature. Such faith would
seem to be
something that should come natural to all of us. Certainly most
people, even
if they do not care about the Zen term Buddha-nature, nonetheless,
would
like to believe that they are capable of being enlightened. But
what would
normally appeal to our pride can be deceiving. As appealing as
the Zen
teaching about each of us already being enlightened ones or Buddhas
is, we
are also cursed with a strongly held skepticism or doubt about
this which is
born of ou r rational or dual thinking.
This makes anything but the most superficial belief in our Buddha-nature
nearly impossible to accept. Yet it is just such an unnatural
belief or an
Asceticism of Faith that we are called upon to undertake if we
are going to
have the will power to genuinely commit to zazen, and in the case
of Rinzai
practice, to struggle mightily with the koan. All of us who has
spent any
real time struggling with a koan know how much suffering comes
with it.
Because of the existential doubt involved in the koan practice
we must at
the same time have total faith in our Buddha-nature, or the doubt
will
overwhelm us and all hope of manifesting our enlightenment will
vanish. To
simultaneously cultivate both the great doubt contained in the
koan, and the
great faith in our Buddha-nature is far more psychological self-torture
or
asceticism than most people will ever be willing to undertake.
To have to
undertake all of the above forms of asceticism concurrently even
for the
hoped for reward of future enlightenment can be an brutal task
and the only
way it can be sustained is by not thinking of how far into the
future this
task must be sustained. Such living in the future is guaranteed
to lead to
very quickself-defeat. This is why still another ascetic practice
must be
added to all the others, namely the Asceticism of Time. This asceticism
means undergoing the very difficult practice of learning to live
in the Now.
To live in the Now can be incredibly difficult because we have
been so
conditioned, even brainwashed, into living in the past and/or
future.To
sacrifice this familiar other-than-Now living for the totally
unfamiliar
living exclusively in the Now is to sacrifice our very time-bound
sense of
self or ego. Yet it is also an essential part not only of the
path to
realizing our Buddha-nature, but of that aspect of enlightenment
called the
Eternal Now or the Deathless. This aspects of enlightenment along
with the
realization of the good or absolute faith in the universality
of the
Buddha-nature, plus the realization of the Beautiful make-up what
Zen
considers to be the fullest state of enlightenment.
This brings us to the final form of Zen asceticism. That is the
Asceticism
of Appreciating the Beautiful or the Realization of the Aesthetic
Continuum.
There are few people in the world that would claim that they do
not have an
appreciation of the beautiful or that some degree of such appreciation
is
not perfectly natural and pleasurable to them. But when Zen speaks
of the
beautiful it does so in an entirely non-dual fashion. When unenlightened
persons state that such and such is beautiful they naturally mean
that it is
to be distinguished from what is ugly. This is the beautiful of
dual
thinking nd, at best, it is a superficial appreciation. The non-dual
appreciation of the beautiful makes no such distinction. The enlightened
mind according to Zen must be able to perceive even in what others
usually
regard as unbeautiful, perhaps even repulsive or horrifying, as
being
beautiful in some manner. This is because everything is Interdependent
and
Mutually Interpenetrating Phenomenon. It is because phenomenon
is not thusly
understood that most people usually regard death as the ugliest
and most
horrifying of all things. Yet Zen might say that one of the few
things that
would qualify as ugly is our unenlightened repulsiveness of death.
Still, to ask the individual who is beginning to undertake Zen
practice to accept the beauty of his or of her own death seems
a violation of the very will to live. This is what makes it
such an unnatural and difficult, hence ascetic, practice.
It should be clear by now why authentic Zen has always been a
religion of
ascetics, whether within or outside of a monastery. If any person
is not
willing to whole-heartedly undertake the asceticism of aloneness
or inner
monkhood, of humility, of otherness, of sitting, of faith, of
time, and of
the beautiful his or her commitment to Zen must remain merely
superficial.
April Events
Sunday Talks
4/6 A Seriously Irreverent Look At An Aspect of Zen in America
11am Rev. Jñana Karuna Vajra
4/13 The Turning of the Wheel
11am Rev. Kusala ratna Karuna
4/20 The Miracles of Buddhism
11am Rev. S’raddha Karuna
4/27 The Every Day Miracle
11am Ven. Dr. Karuna Dharma
Classes at IBMC
Tue Vimalakirti Nirdesa sutra
7:00 Rev. Karuna Dharma
Wed Engaged Buddhism
7:00 Rev. Kusala Ratna Karuna
Thu Elementary Sanskrit
6:30 Dr. Warnisuriya, Library
Fri Meditation
7:30 Rev. Kusala Ratna Karuna
Special Events
4/6 108 Bows Ceremony
10am led by Rev. S’unya
4/6 Hanamatsuri
11am Potluck luncheon
4/20 Birthday Celebration
12:30 Potluck luncheon
Meditation times:
Wednesdays: 7-9 pm, led by Rev. Kusala
Fridays: 7:30-9 pm, led by Rev. Kusala
Tuesday & Thursday mornings, 6:00-7:00 led by Rev. Hanasi
IBMC web page is found at: IBMC.info
Ven.Karuna’s email: Karunadh@earthlink.net
Ven.Karuna’sweb page: currently under construction
Ven.Shanti’s emai: Hshanti@earthlink.net
Rev. Kusala’s email: Kusala@kusala.org
Rev. Kusala’s web pages: www. kusala.org; www.UrbanDharma.org
Rev. Vajra’s email: Madmonk88@aol.com
Rev. Jñana’s email: Lsipe@usc.edu
Rev. Chitta's email: Kchitta@yahoo.com
Rev.Maitridasi’s email: Mira@MiramandMango.com
Rev. Sunya’s email: Heartlandzen@Yahoo.com
Rev. Ksanti and Rev.Sraddha’s email: Victortom@aol.com
Rev. Hanasi’s emal: Abhayakaruna@dslextreme.com
CBS web page: Kusala.org/ratanasara/college.html
CBS email: Hshanti@earthlink.net
|
