May 2001 Guide

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Vaishaka Retreat to be held

May 11-13

IBMC will be holding its annual celebratory retreat to mark the triple
blessed day of Sakyamuni (His birth, enlightenment and death days all
occured on the full moon day of May) with a weekend retreat. A weekend is
only the beginning to deepening the state of samadhi, or one-pointed
concentration, that allows us to have insights into our true nature. The
process of meditation is to watch, see, accept and let go. If we spend time
on the zafu every day, changes will occur in our life. And when three days
are spent in meditation, the process speeds up.

The focus of this retreat is sitting and walking meditation, Mornings begin
at 5:30 am with our daily practice of chanting the Veneration of the 88
Buddhas, zazen and chanting the daily service. We will do about ten hours of
meditation on Saturday, interspersed with talks, study and Zen work and we
retire by 10 pm. The monks at IBMC will take turns in leading the sittings.
At the end of the retreat we will be giving refuge to people who sat the
retreat and who would like to publicly affirm that they are living a
Buddhist lifestyle. If you are interested in taking refuge, please let Ven.
Karuna know by May 5.

Please call us by May 5 to let us know that you will be attending. Fee for
this retreat is $75, $50 for full members. You will be expected to stay at
the Center for the entire retreat. Work exchange is available for those for
whom cash is tight right now. Please wear comfortable clothing and bring
your bedding and other personal items. Food is vegetarian and there are
ample amounts of it.

Although we prefer people to sit the entire retreat, we will allow for
shorter periods of sitting, if you clear it with the Abbess before hand.

Monks’ Class begins with the retreat

Every year the monks hold a special class in order to strengthen their
practice. It will be held on Tuesday evenings beginning May 15 and going
until the middle of August, ending with our Ullumbana service for the dead.
If you are a serious student or are thinking of becoming either a Dharma/Zen
Teacher or a monk, we invite you to join us for this class. This year we
will study the Lotus Sutra as part of the class.

It is required in all of Buddhism that its monks take out three months to
strengthen their own practice with less teaching and more personal practice
for themselves, in order to enrich their practice, which, of course, returns
to you.

Marking the Sima

At the beginning of the Vaisakha retreat on Friday May 11, Ven. Karuna will
lead us in marking the sima, or temple boundaries, at 7 pm, within which
monks’ training is going to take place. This ceremony is performed only once
a year. We hope that you will sit the retreat and join us in this ceremony.
You may attend the ceremony even if you are unable to sit the retreat.

108 Bows Ceremony

The 108 Bows ceremony will be led by Bro. Sunya on May 6 from 9:30 to 10:30
and will include Daily chants as well as Veneration of the 88 Buddhas.

Mother’s Day Celebration

This year we are celebrating Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 13. Ven. Karuna
will give the talk that day. We will all wear flowers to honor our mothers:
white for the mothers who have died and red for mothers who are still
living.

We urge you to bring a photo of your mother or mother figure to place on the
special altar. Also, this is the chance for you to share something special
about your mother or mother figure. We encourage you to join us as we honor
our mothers.

Guest Speaker

We continue to introduce our brothers and sisters who have taken the first
step toward becoming monks. This month Sr. Hanasi Abhaya Karuna will speak
on the topic The Orange on May 6 and on May 20 Bro. Jñana will speak on What
Is Practice? In February Bro. Sunya displayed and discussed his art work; in
March Bro. Ksanti spoke about Zen and the Art of Dishwashing ; in April Bro.
Sraddha spoke on Faith. In June Sr. Maitri Dasi will give the Dharma talk,
and in July Bro. Ksanti will read a Dharma talk from Bro. Jyoti Priya. It is
nice to hear their first Dharma talks. We hope you enjoy them as much as we
have.

Prisoners Become Brothers

As you are all aware, IBMC has a very energetic prison outreach program.
Back in February we gave refuge to 25 prisoners upon the conclusion of their
studying with Ven. Karuna for a year, answering questions over Zen
Philosophy, Zen Practice and Taking Refuge, in lieu of their sitting a
weekend retreat. We have received back lovely letters from them expressing
their gratitude. But as Ven. Karuna says, “They give me so much pleasure. It
is a real honor to act as their teacher. I think that this prison work is
among the most important work which I have done.”

We have currently also given eight precepts to three men as their first step
toward becoming monks. They now bear the title of Brother. We gave the first
of the brother positions four years ago when Ven. Sarika urged Ven. Karuna
to perform the ceremony via telephone for her student in Ohio. He was named
Gunaratna Sarika (The quality of the Jewel).He takes her name as his last,
indicating who his teacher is. He continues his ministry in an Ohio prison.
A year later a Japanese Zen monk gave him precepts as a novice monk.

On March 11 we gave eight precepts to a young man who sits on Death Row in
Arkansas. Many of you have heard of him. He is Damien Echols and was found
guilty along with two accomplices of trumped up charges of murdering three
young boys in Arkansas.. The “evidence” against them was that they were
Wiccan (hence practiced Satanic rituals; something that Wiccans never do),
quoted Shakespeare and listened to punk rock music. Damien has become a
cause celebre and two documentaries have been produced about him. Rock
groups have held fund raisers and are funding his appeals. Two weeks ago the
Arkansas Supreme Court heard his appeal for a new trial. It is questionable,
however, that they will grant it, given the attitude of the authorities
there. If Arkansas turns him down, the appeal will be made to the Federal
Court, where it has a good chance of being granted, since there is new
evidence about his innocence.

Damien became converted to Buddhism by Frankie Parker, whom he met on Death
Row. Frankie had become converted to Buddhism when the guards threw a copy
of the Dhammapada into his cell since they could not find a Bible. Arkansas
requires that a prisoner in solitary confinement must be given a book to
read. It is ironic that this gesture of contempt turned this troubled youth
onto the Buddhist Path. He became Damien’s first teacher. In spite of the
Dalai Lama’s appeal for clemency, he was executed three days after becoming
a Zen monk. Damien became a student of Ven. Karuna’s last year after taking
refuge with a Japanese Zen priest who had come from Japan for that purpose.
In the eight years since his conversion, he has studied a great deal and has
profound understanding. He wrote to Bro. Ksanti, who corre-sponds with him,
that since he became a Buddhist, “I wake up happy every morning.” Ven.
Karuna named him Jyoti Priya Karuna, Lover of the Light Compassion.

On April 8 we gave eight precepts to another prisoner via phone, Stasys
Baltrunas, who is serving time in Indiana for armed robbery. He was named
Ananda Abhaya Karuna (Happiness Fearlessness Compassion). He was named for
Lord Buddha’s cousin monk and personal attendant and after his first
teacher, Rev. Abhaya, who became a fully ordained Zen Dharma teacher last
year. His last name is Karuna, indicating who gave him ordination.

He has turned his life around so much that the Christian chaplain at
Branchville Prison and the prison authorities are recom-mending immediate
release. He is having a hearing on that issue in mid May. You read part of a
letter in the March Guide that Stasys wrote Ven. Karuna. He would like to
come train at IBMC before he begins a Zendo in Indiana to minister to the
homeless and helpless there.

When Ven. Karuna spoke to the chaplain at Branchville, he told her that he
would be happy to help Stasys take precepts. “He is a very special prisoner.
I will do whatever I can to help him.”

So, now three very deserving prisoners are on their way towards becoming
monks. In addition, a student of Ananda’s is also asking to take eight
precepts. Ven. Karuna says that that is at least a year away, as he has more
studying that needs to be done first, although he has good understanding.
(You can read excerpts of a letter of his on page 4.)

May Events

Sunday Talks

4/6 The Orange
11am Sr. Hanasi Abhaya Karuna

4/13 Who Is Your Mother?
11am Ven. Dr. Karuna Dharma

4/20 What Is Practice?
11am Bro. Jñana Karuna Vajra

4/27 The Yellow Robe
11am Ven. Havanpola Shanti

Classes at IBMC

Mon History of Zen Buddhism
6:30 Rev. Vajra Karuna

Tue Lotus Sutra & Monks’Training
7:00 Ven. Dr. Karuna Dharma

Wed Applied Buddhism
7:00 Rev. Kusala Dharma

Thur Basic Tenets of Buddhism
6:30 Dr. Warnisurya

Fri Certificate Course in Buddhism
6:30 Dr. Warnisuryal Dr. Karuna Dharma


Special Events

5/6 108 Bows Ceremony
9:30 Bro. Sunya

5/11 Marking the Sima
7pm Ven. karuna

5/11-13 Vaisaka Retreat

5/13 Honoring Our Mothers
11am Ven. Karuna Dharma

Meditation times

Friday 7-8 am

Mon, Sun evenings from 5:30-8:30 pm, led by Rev. Sakya Bodhi

Wed evening: 7-9 pm, led by Rev. Kusala
Fri evening: 7:30-9 pm, led by Rev. Kusala

IBMC web page is found at:
InternationalBuddhistMeditationCtr.org
You can email us at: IBMC@InternationalBuddhistMeditationCtr.
Rev. Karuna’s email address is: Karunadh@earthlink.net
Karuna’s web page is:
www. home.earthlink.net/~karunadh.
Rev. Kusala’s email: Kusala@kusala.org
Rev. Kusala’s web page: www.kusala.org
Rev. Shanti’s email: Hshanti@earthlink.net
Rev. Prabuddhi’s is: Prabuddhi@yahoo.com
Rev. Vajra’s email: Madmonk88@aol.com
Bro. Sunya’s email: Sunya2@Earthlink.net
Bro. Ksanti and Bro.Sraddha’s email:
VictorTom@aol.com

Excerpts from a Letter from a prisoner

Dr. Karuna Dharma:

My negative actions that have caused my being incarcerated were my ill-will,
craving, attachment and desire that rooted from my ignorance of not knowing
the ripened results that would occur. I was always escaping life by
indulging in meaningless activities that caused suffering for many precious
human lives. I would escape by taking intoxicants like pills, marijuana and
hallucinogens. I had always reacted with selfish motives and only cared
whether something was beneficial for my pleasaure or not. I was a very
greedy person trapped in a life of attachment and crime. I am here convicted
of burglary which is a class C felony in Indiana.

How foolish the life I led then and the things I cared about then! I was a
very angry individual and treated my problems and suffering with anger which
made my moments of being even worse and more painful than they were. I was
always looking for material gain and profit from things I now realize have
no permanent value or value whatsoever. My karmic tendencies have caused me
to lose a wife and son, plus many other materialistic items I thought were
valuable. Buddha-Dharma has taught me to let go and move on and deal with
the situation skillfully.I remember the first time I introduced myself to
Dharma or the first time Dharma introduced itself to me. I was in great pain
and suffering and couldn’t let go of it. I felt as if I didn’t want to live
and I wasn’t going to make it in prison. I had lost everything, including my
sanity at moments throughout the days. I was very determined to understand
why I felt the way I did and find release. My mind was very weak and
unstable. I knew the only way out of my old lifestyle was either prison or
ending up dead. I used to say to myself, “ As long asI stay out of trouble I
will be okay.” That wasn’t hard to accomplish since I was still in a state
of shock at the time. That worked out for a little while but I still felt
angry and disturbed. I see now that I was still clinging and suffering over
attachment due to my igno-rance. The problem then was that I wasn’t doing
anything to change my old habits and purify my karmic formations that I
created ignorantly.

While searching in the library here at prison I was looking for something to
help me understand better and make myself a better person. I was in the
self-help section and came across many Buddhist texts. The first books on
Buddha Dharma that I read were Inner Strength and Skill of Release. I
became very interested in the material and consulted with Ananda Abhaya
after I read a few chapters of the books. Ananda introduced me to meditation
and invited me to attend the Sangha. I was looking for a way to gain relief
and make myself a better person because I recognized the harm I caused
others and myself. Ananda has helped me out a great deal in overcoming my
delusions and ignorance. He showed me the door and as determined as I was I
walked through and found the path was the goal that I needed to transform
and tame my monkey mind that caused so much suffering. . .

I have been very determined, dedicated and disciplined in cultivating a pure
mind not only through meditation but living every day life with mindfulness
and aware-ness. Practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, the Ten Perfections and
understanding the Four Noble Truths with sincere motivation to become
enlightened has made my mind stable and balanced to where I have confidence
and understand the need not to act with an impure heart. . . I understand
the law of cause and effect. I no longer crave for materialistic phenomena
or attach myself to any labels. . . I practice patience to overcome my
anger; I practice generosity to overcome my greed; I practice loving
kindness to overcome my selfishness . . .As for suffering, at the moment we
learn not to resist it, but let it rise like the moon and sun and watch it
fade away. The intention of practitioners is not to create any more
suffering, but benefit others towards enlightenment and happiness.


Zen and God part II

by Rev. Vajra Karuna, Thich Tam Thi, in a talk given at IBMC on March 25

The Zen concept of the sacred or what can be called God is radically
different from that of other religions. This Zen concept is the end product
of a history that began in India and was finalized in China. The closest any
other tradition comes are a belief that God can best be defined as the
aesthetic continuum.

The term aesthetic continuum means that the world as a whole has an
aesthetic quality to it. In other words, that the world is essentially
beautiful. To define God as the beautiful is not the same as saying God is
beautiful. Most majors religion do the latter. What radically distinguishes
Zen’s definition from other religion’s definitions is the characterizing of
God as the impermanent. Impermanence is the source of all the world’s
creativities. It is the Universal Creative Flux, and that for Zen is the
sacred or God. God is life and death, and the beauty of them both. In other
words, what makes something the aesthetic continuum is the very fact that
its existence is impermanent or temporal.

In the West the beautiful is usually thought of as something that should be
as permanent as possible, and nothing could be defined as more permanent
than the Western God. But for Zen this definition fossilizes both beauty
and God.

Beauty implies the wish to experience, and even be, richer, fuller, more
complete, more a part of the whole. It is a desire to be more worthy than
the pitiful little ego with which we usually identify, and this can only be
acheived by being a part of what we normally preceive as being other than
ourselves. Beauty is the wish to be one with the highest good. To speak of
God as the beautiful or as the highest form of the good is not to naively
deny evil in the world. Rather it is to say that evil is the ugliness of our
self-centeredness. This is important, because when conceptualizing what is
beautiful it is ease to misconceptualize what is ugly. Ugliness is the
product of human dual thinking. If the beautiful is to be contrasted with
the ugly it must be with the ugliness of the foolish human desire to hold on
to things and to crave for permanence. This means that, above all else,
ugliness is the fear of the death, which is the ultimate self-centeredness.

Death is one of the most essential factors in making life beautiful. Death
is the complement to life, and vice versus. One can not be beautiful without
the other. Life and death are simply aspects of the universal flux or divine
impermanence.

The constantly changing shapes, colors, sounds, odors and feel of things
makes each experience of them a unique and rare event, and it is uniqueness
and rarity that gives all things their value and makes us appreciate life.
When we truly experience any one of these phenomenon with our whole body and
mind we lose our sense of self in them. Having lost that self, we experience
the dropping of the alienating pain that holding on to self entails. This is
not only a part of the realization of the impermanence of self, but the
sheer delight in that impermanence; and hence in the beauty of
self-forgetting sensual experiences. Yet to call these experiences of beauty
truely divine they must mean more than just forgetting self, they must
include remembering others.

Our ability to identify with others is the ultimate act of letting go of
self. No matter how close we are to other persons we can never known them so
totally that they cease to be an other-than-self or otherness. It is this
otherness that makes them sacred to us, and us sacred to them. For the
definition of the sacred is that which is an otherness, and a mysterious
otherness at that. As a mysterious otherness we are both attracted to, and
fearful of, others; and these very contradicting emotions are universally
accepted as an attitude towards the sacred or God. We can even say that the
greater our sense of otherness, even fearfulness towards others, the greater
the chance is of experiencing them as God. Since the greatest otherness we
can experience is towards those we preceive as enemies, it is in the act of
seeing our enemies as sacred, and even of trying to love them, that we lose
ourselves most fully, and experience all humanity as part of the aesthetic
contininuum or God.

It is for this reason that we must not define the beautiful only with the
enjoyable. Fear is not enjoyable, nor for that matter are many other
emotions. Yet just as a creative response to fear can bring us closer to our
realization of self and others as God, so can such a response to other
unenjoyable emotions such as sadness, grief, even physical pain. These
feelings are what inspire us to compassion for the suffering world; and this
is just another form of letting go of self and experiencing God.

Knowing the beautiful as the divine is a serious matter and, therefore, must
never be confused with the merely pretty. The fact that beauty is not always
enjoyable can help us separate it from the merely pretty. Pretty is almost
always enjoyable. If you have ever had the experience of viewing Picasso’s
painting Guernica, not only is it not pretty, it is in one sense hideous. In
diabolically cubist forms it depicts the beheaded and dismembered bodies of
men, women and children, as well as the animals, that resulted from the
German bombing of a helpless village during the Spanish civil war. If you
can get over the initial revulsion upon first seeing the painting, the very
horror of it makes you cry for the murdered victims. It is this ability of
Picasso’s work to call forth those tears of compassion that make his
painting, not only beautiful, but a painting of the face of God.

Picasso’s painting leads us to an important Zen understanding of art.
Painting, sculpting, music and dance in and of themselves are not
necessarily the beautiful that is the aesthetic continuum. They are only an
expression of that continuum if they encourage us to get out of our narrow
little egos and to allow us to identify with more than ourselves; in other
words, to feel a unity with all others and/or with the world as a whole.
When art does this it is contemplative art, and as such it is a vehicle of
God. When it does not, it is merely pretty. Contemplative art is joy because
it is our salvation from our alienation from self,others and the world; it
means to be truly alive which is to be a part of the beauty which is God.

Up to now I have talk about experiencing God in human form. Yet as Zen
practitioners, to have the total experience of the divine, the sacred, the
aesthetic continuum, we must have that experi-ence not just in the form of
self and others, but equally in the form of nature, especially in its
awesome quality. This awesomeness has the disturbing characteristic of
inspiring love, anxiety and even fear. When we lovingly hold a kitten in our
hands and know that we are incapable of creating anything like this, we must
feel a certain sense anxious inadequacy. When our attention is captured by
the sight of an extraordinarily brilliant and colorful sunset, we are not
only joyfully taken out of ourselves; but at the same moment we are
fearfully aware of how dwarfed in comparison we are to it. When we have gone
through a devastating storm only to have it followed by a glorious rainbow
arcing across the sky, we must acknowledge how vulnerable, how
insignificant, we are compared to the power and majesty of nature. These are
the terrifying aspects of the aesthetic continuum of nature as a mysterious
otherness. Hence just as the mysterious otherness of our fellow human beings
is proof of the sacred or God, it must be understood as equally so when it
comes to nature. The equal ability to experience God in nature as well as in
human beings is critical. The reason for this is that if we concern
ourselves too exclusively with what is human we are in great danger of
exaggerating pride in our own power and pity at our own suffering. To focus
away from these to what is far beyond either of them greatly encourages us
to let go of our delusion of being at the center of existence. This delusion
is an immense barrier to the Zen understanding of God.

Before leaving the issue of Zen’s attitude towards God in nature, it is
important to clarify something. In the West Zen is often labeled a form of
nature mysticism. This might be applicable to some forms of Daoism, but not
to Zen. The mystical or unitive experience in nature mysticism is
spontaneous, and involves no preliminary training or discipline with regards
to that experience. Also, no moral or ethical code need be involved with the
nature mysticism. The danger of nature mysticism is that in experi-encing
oneself as the sky, or a tree, or even a rock, upon leaving that experience
one may conclude that these have a value equal to that of human beings. Such
value leveling then may be an excuse for not ethically caring for one’s
fellow man. It is the two requirements ofdiscipline and ethics that make Zen
a religious mysticism, not a form of nature mysticism.

It is hopefully clear by now that Zen has a dramatically different approach
to God from that of the West or even of Hinduism. But in an attempt to make
sure of this clarity I will summarize these differences.
(1) The Zen concept of God can not be defined as any kind of personal
being, in fact, it can not even be called an impersonal being. Instead we
must refer to it as universal impersonal becoming or the Universal Creative
Flux.
(2) Very little of the human created concepts of good and evil can apply
to it. This is not to say that Zen is not concerned with god and evil. It is
very concerned with them. Rather it is to say that Zen does not regard
either good or evil as some absolute imposed upon us by some non-human
source. We ourselves must define good and evil in such a way that it
enhances our humanity and never becomes a something we rigidly adhere to out
of the terror of being eternally damned.
(3) The aesthetic continuum has no self-consciousness or self-awareness
of its own. Rather its self-awareness comes from what we give to it as
self-aware beings who are also aware of that continuum as God..
(4) Unlike some Western, and certainly unlike the Hindu, experience of
oneness with God, there is in the Zen unitive experience no sense of
human-transcending consciousness into which to enter. In this regard Zen is
a form of mystical humanism, which means that it is completely at ease with
us remaining ordinary human beings. The true Zen practitioner does not need
to lose himself in something trans-human because he enjoys being human. In
short, we do not need to become any more like God than we already are.
(5) No supernatural characteristic is even hinted at in this Zen idea of
God. In fact, unlike most other religions Zen is absolutely comfortable
with, and appreciative of, the very here and now natural world. We do not
need something outside of this to give life meaning.
(6) Perhaps one of the greatest differences between the Zen approach to
God (as the Universal Flux) and the Western one (of God as the ultimate
permanency) must be seen in their respective attitudes towards death. For
Zen to equate human impermanence called death with the divine is a very
alien concept to Western religion. The Bible teaches that death was a curse
the divine put upon mankind for his sins. Anyone who has become accustomed
to this curse belief can only find the possibility of death as good, much
less beautiful or divine, inconceivable.

Considering the significant differences between the Western concept of God
and the Zen concept it might be asked “Why should Zen even use the term
God?”. There are several reasons for this. One aspect all religions
attribute to God is that He, She or It has the characteristic of being a
unifying element to the cosmos. In that Creative Flux is synoymous with
Universal Unity, it is quite appropriate to call it God. Also, the term God
is a very convenient one to suggest something that stands for the highest
ideal, value or worth that the human mind can conceive. But even more so, to
be able to say that I and all others, as a part of this unity and value, are
God, is to be able to take a worshipful attitude towards the God that is
every human being, friend and foe alike. It is in this sense that Zen could
say that God deserves to be worshipped.

If the above reasons are not sufficient enough to justify Zen using the term
God, then another reason would be that it makes communication between Zen
and other religions easier, and possibly more productive. Since most other
religions consider some kind of a belief in God to be a minimum requirement
for an interreligious dialog, the Zen use of the term God can facilitate
such a dialog. This is especially true in that Western religion has
sometimes negatively equated the traditional Buddhist view, namely that life
is unsatisfactory, with a disbelief in God. This Western attitude is that
“Of course, Buddhists find life unsatifactory, for a life without a belief
in God must be miserable.” Buddhists, on the other hand, have often taken
the equally prideful attitude that an acknowledgement of God is a weak
minded belief in a fantasy. None of this name calling is productive. Every
person has something to learn from someone else’s religion, and if we do not
try to do this we end up oppressing one another, which is the ultimate
ugliness or sin against the aesthetic continuum or God.