Benedict’s Dharma: Finding Nourishment in a Glutted and Spiritually Famished World
Benedict in the title refers to Saint Benedict, who in 529 wrote a rule for his monastery. This rule is still used in monasteries around the world. The word Dharma refers to a Buddhist concept of universal Truth.
These two words become the title of a book: Benedict’s Dharma: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of Saint Benedict. The book basically transcribes an extended conversation between four contemporary Buddhists about the relevance of Benedict’s Rule in their daily practice. They take the Rule outside the monastery and apply it to householder life.
In this retreat, we will use a similar approach by taking a dip into Benedict’s Rule and hearing from four other Buddhists, an ordained Zen Buddhist priest and three trainees who will be ordained as Zen contemplative monks. They will take a selection from Benedict’s Dharma and apply it to their experience today’s glutted and spiritually famished world.
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The retreat begins on Sunday, February 18th with a presentation at St. Nick’s Church in Evanston followed by weekly discussions on Sundays at A Single Thread.
Each week a selection from the Benedict’s Rule from the book Benedict’s Dharmawill be the reflection of the study group. Four perspectives will be given each week from four Buddhists. The first reflection will be on the following quote from Benedict’s Rule:
Listen, child of God….attend to the message you hear and make sure it pierces your heart.
Each week participants will be able to go online and read the four perspectives on a selection from Benedict’s Rule. At the end of the retreat an E-book of all the reflections will be posted on A Single Thread.
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There are two options to participate.
Option 1: To participate in the local retreat beginning with the presentation at St. Nick’s followed by weekly discussions by four Buddhists at A Single Thread. All local participants will get access to the online material.
In 1989 I heard a story on the radio that changed my life. It was the story of a drifter in California who entered a schoolyard playground with a semiautomatic rifle killing five, wounding 32 others then killing himself. After hearing the story I sat down on a cushion and began to chant. Since that time I have become more and more engaged in a spiritual practice which includes being a Eucharistic minister at St. Nicks, a Zen Buddhist priest and a contemplative at A Single Thread. After the senseless, random violence in California nothing seemed to make sense except to pray for the world. Buddhism provided me with a practice that enriched my spiritual life and it continues to do so.
In August 2017 I was ordained as a contemplative priest in the Order of Hsu Yun at A Single Thread, a Zen Buddhist Contemplative Order. In 2007 I was lay ordained in the Order of Hsu Yun. In 1997 I was lay ordained in a Soto Zen tradition.
Author: Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di, A monk in training.
A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com
To contact the author: Please use the editor’s email; all e-mail will be forwarded.
This is an ancient method used in Chan practice. It is a question asked over and over again and in all circumstances, such as “Who am I?” The question, if done with sincerity, generates doubt and shifts the mind away from selfish mind content. Let us say, as an example, we are in a sticky situation, where the stress is on the rise and confusion is mounting. This type of scenario tends to cultivate self-protective and self-interest strategies making the mind vulnerable to various sorts of harmful errors. To move the mind to the hua t’ou provides a method of letting go of the dusky content in the mind that is gathering (making) the stress and confusion into a storm.
The method takes the mind on the path with words in the form of a question towards the Source of the situation at hand. It is a move backward towards the head of the river (the Source) and inhibits the mind from taking a leap into the rush of defilements and tendencies in the mind. In plain language, it interrupts reactions and habits leaving the mind uncertain.
It is used to generate doubt, an uncertainty of the nature of what is rising. In meditation the mind often travels along a path of self-interest and gathers steam around the particulars of self-interest where the hua t’ou acts as a detour and a return towards the Source. The doubt creates a gap which allows for the possibility of seeing beyond and through the dust of selfishness. The gap allows for a glimpse into what is the true nature of mind by clearing off the clouds of dust allowing a reflection of things as they are to rise even if it is for just a moment. This glimpse is wisdom that runs through all things which lifts up the mind heavenward.
A hua t’ou has the capacity to break up delusive thoughts and ideas about the value and tenacity of selfishness, in whatever form and by whatever name it may appear. It stops the grasping, reaching and clinging of the confusion in the mind as though the confusion is real and inhibits the tendency to make things permanent and fixed.
The Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun: Zen and The Martial Arts isn’t a blog. A problem that could use some Zen elucidation will get the needed attention. Contact us at yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com.
Remember, the Path’s two important rules: Begin and Continue. Print This Page
Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
—The New Testament
The mind is covered with dust; the dust of the concerns of the world. The ego is attached to those concerns and has become a stumbling block to self and others.
My teacher once told me a story about her practice. She was a disciple in a Ch’an Temple, the only woman amongst a group of male disciples. Her teacher was both beloved and tough. During one of the times she was with him and her fellow disciples, her teacher began to holler at her, “Get out! Get out!” At first she thought he was kicking her out of the Temple, as though she was not worthy to be there but then it dawned on her he was telling her to wake-up. Get out! Get out! referred to her attachment to her ego. Instead of being annoyed with her, he was encouraging her to wake-up.
The story “Get out! Get out!” reminds me of what Christ said to Peter when Peter challenged Jesus who had just revealed he was going to suffer, die and rise again with strong wake-up words as well; “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
When we merely focus on human concerns we are overcome by the dust in the mind; the dust of resentment, worry, greed, and the whole swamp of delusion. And when in this condition we are unable to see and hear the concerns of the Divine. Our ears are laced with the poison of self-concern and involvement with the disquiet and bottomless pit of human unease.
In both admonitions, Get Out! Get Out! And Get Behind Me Satan! An alarm is given, a warning that there is danger. Jesus makes it clear what the danger is when he says “those who want to be my disciples must deny themselves….” THAT is plain language to forget about the ego, about the disquieting and upsetting accuser, the hindering meddler.
Both these teachers instruct their disciples to get out. Another way to understand this rebuke is to stop whatever is blinding the Truth and to take actions that protect the clarity of the Truth; but we first have to know that the Truth is ever-present.
My teacher knew the Truth, which she endearingly called ‘The Boss’ and I have little doubt that Peter saw Jesus as the embodiment of the Truth on some level; that he knew that profiting from the world leads to the loss of his soul. He was, as many have described him, an impulsive man who was misguided by his desire to save Jesus. It is a common misdirection with spiritual insight and practice which rises in the shape of a desire to save others.
In the essay, Work: Karma Yoga by Ming Zhen, karma yoga, the union of action with the Divine rests parenthetically on one word, non-attachment. Peter’s misguided desire appears to be saturated with attachment for his teacher. His ambitious act towards his teacher is one of countless examples of attachment and entanglement with human concern.
In the same essay we learn karma yoga is the most difficult to practice and when we are negligent the consequences are quite severe as Jesus’ words exemplify. Calling Peter Satan was no small scolding and it shows that even a moment of human concern, even one that sounds genuinely consoling and caring of another person we may be subject to the ruthless effect of karma yoga. It is sobering and at the same a stern eye-opener.
At each moment the (individual soul) is subject to innumerable influences which from all quarters of the universe pour upon him.”
—Sir John Woodroffe
We don’t know what all the influences were for Peter, but we do know he did not like Jesus’ announcement of his impending suffering and death. Ming Zhen never mentioned specifically the influences pouring on her life at the time but we can be sure that they fell into the category of human concern and attachment to the self.
The strict and stern reproach given by these teachers to these disciples speaks well of both the teacher and the disciple. The teacher was aware of something that at the time the disciple did not see and was able to strike a blow strong enough to stop the disciple from grave mistakes. Both Ming Zhen and Peter trusted their teacher and were strong enough to hear the sword of truth in the words spoken. Both the disciple and the teacher need to be willing to stay, no matter what arises which is no small task. It requires strength and commitment on both sides. If one side falters, it falls apart. The teacher is aware that the soul faces innumerable influences and tells the disciple over and over again and in myriad ways to Get Out! of attachment to the drenching that comes to all.
The mind needs to be trained and in order to train the disciple he needs to be willing to guard the mind. When the disciple sees the influences of the world pouring upon him and arising from within he needs to avoid getting involved with the things that cause emotional upset and a straying mind. The disciple needs to shift away from the troubled world of human concern and keep the eye of the mind on the Divine. This requires non-attachment to make such a shift.
The contents of mind, thoughts, images, perceptions, feelings, impulses are power and we must look after this power.
When the mind perceives an object it is transformed into the shape of that object. So the mind [that] thinks of the Divinity which it worships is at length, through continued devotion, transformed into the likeness of that Divinity.”
—Sir John Woodroffe
Icons and images of the Divinity which are perceived in the mind serve to help this transformation. It is akin to Ming Zhen’s suggestion to discover or create a personified force (the Divinity within) i.e., kuan yin as the guardian of the mind.
We have to be able to concentrate so thoroughly that we can hold an inner dialog with this personified force (the Divinity), and we have to possess enough faith and trust to obey the wisdom that is imparted to us. This is no place for superficial Zen men. This is a place for believers, for devotees.”
—Ming Zhen Shakya
Her edict amounts to the same edict as given in Proverbs.
So as a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
— Proverbs 23:7
This pronouncement is a watch ward directing the disciple to contemplate what is in the mind and to clean it up when it is full of dusky involvement with worldliness. If the disciple is looking at a mirror of self-interest, whether it is worry about a loved one dying, so he will become….a self-involved, worried man. Peter exemplifies this as he thought to save Jesus from dying making him into the savior.
We have to avoid the causes of turmoil, protect the mind from the distractions in the world which weaken our concentration and disconnect from the concerns of the world. This requires non-attachment. Each moment we detach we are free to discover the Divine, to look at and turn to the personified force i.e., kuan yin and not to the self-involved ego. The wise disciple knows the folly of worldly concern and disentangles himself, tout suite.
The disciple is not left adrift to flounder, but is given oodles of instruction. Jesus apparently gives an added correction immediately when he says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself….” Strong medicine.
Here is another….
Set your minds on things above, (the Divine) not on earthly things (the transient).”
—Colossians 3:2 New Testament
When the disciple is able to see and hear these admonitions he recognizes the words of these teachers, “Get out! Get Out!” “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world….” as real. In other words, the disciple, when instructed, makes the turn away from the mess in the mind and looks immediately to the Divine within.
In the first yoga sutra of Patanjali we find a necessary instruction for the spiritual aspirant. It is simple and clear.
This is the beginning of instruction in yoga. Patanjali
That’s how it starts. And what is this beginning of yoga, it is to learn and practice a spiritual method to unite with the Godhead. And what is the description of the Godhead? It is the Reality that is in all things. In Christianity it is the mystic union. There are many, many takes on this instruction, but the basic teaching is to yoke or hook up our life every day in every moment to the Reality (the Source) of all things.
Unfortunately, this teaching is often taken to mean we hook up with the apparent world, the transitory, impermanent stuff of things in the hope of gaining a happy life. We mistake some thing as the aim rather than the True Source and Godhead of all things.
The first aim
Many years ago I was lucky enough to attend an ox parade in New England. There were teams of oxen yoked at the head. Each team had a trainer with a very small and narrow whip. For the most part, the trainer did not need to use the whip with the teams of oxen as they paraded around the track in an open field. When the trainer sensed his team wandering, he merely raised the whip in the air where the oxen could see it. These beautiful beasts were well-trained.
The training for the oxen requires the same virtues we need to hook up with the Godhead. The ox is a hard-nosed, strong powerful worker. Investigation, attention, willingness and effort are cultivations in training the Ox within. It requires patience and dedication to train the hard-nosed, strong, powerful workings of the Ox. These are the same cultivations for those who want to begin to train the mind to unite with the Godhead.
The very first instruction, however, also means to recognize what the aim of practice is. It is the instruction to unite with the Godhead, not to improve the self. The self that is concerned with what will I do, how will I look, what will I say, what can I get, will I like it, what will I wear, where will I live must be dropped. Each one of these concerns is a worry and a worry is a fear which is rooted in the poison of hate. These concerns are the voice of the self and suggest that the self is not interested in hooking up with the Godhead but hooking up with the things of the world. BUT….it is not to condemn the self as bad or good, or less bad now and getting better. No, that is not it. It is to train and practice with everyday entanglements by ascribing and returning to the aim of being hooked to the Source. When worry (fear) arises it suggests a need for training. That’s all. The training is to disclaim the self and to begin to recognize the Source of all things is not coming from the ego, but the underlying, ever-present, Reality of the Godhead.
Just as we are on borrowed time, we are living on borrowed creation. It may seem like an obvious reality, but it may be we have forgotten that we are not the Source of all things. Knowing that what we know is not of our making but an illumination of knowledge beyond our genetic codes and inherited past. In ordinary words, it means we do not claim credit or claim blame. We train the mind to be yoked to the Source over and over again.
The training is, at times, paradoxical. Just as one ox takes the training easily another ox may need more or less of something in order to take on the heavy wooden crosspiece. There are basic instructions which need to be consistent and constant but adjusted to the ox in hand. It requires strong determination and confidence in the training. These qualities are necessary because we tend to believe we have a choice in the matter. And to some extent we do. We can decide to live according to the ego which is often equated to a stampeding elephant or a wild monkey. Yes. We can let all of our ego hang out. Or if we are lucky enough to get a glimpse of the Source, we can choose to find a spiritual practice that we have confidence in.
Ultimately, whichever choice is made, the consequences of the choice follow the law of cause and effect which means that the choice for the ego is not really a choice for freedom from suffering but freedom to be met with the consequences of the choice. It is true for the spiritual seeker as well. The spiritual choice also follows the law of cause and effect which is often misunderstood to be an ideal in the seeker’s mind rather than the Reality that underlies all things. The ideal is usually a conjured image of something the spiritual seeker imagines as being good, e.g., earthly happiness of getting what I like.
If we come to spiritual practice with an open mind, we begin to see that it is far beyond the material realm of the many and the one which is indescribable, immeasurable and awe-strikingly difficult. Not many, at one given time, seem to have the aim to unite with the Godhead.
Most of us, if we are honest, want a good life.
Take any spiritual path and look for the highest aim and ask about it. Most, if not all, will exclaim the higher paths of union are not for the faint. It is full time and covers everything in life. There are no breaks. Two images come to mind to depict this ever active commitment, the first is the rubbing of sticks together to get a spark and eventually a flame and the other is cutting the throat of a lamb.
The first one is more familiar. We may have actually tried to get a spark without it happening. As those of us who have been campers know, getting a spark to start a fire requires constant, consistent effort of rubbing the sticks together. If you set them down, that’s OK, but it means when you return to the rubbing you begin with cool sticks all over again.
The second image of cutting the throat of a lamb comes from the Sufi tradition of a 40 day solitary retreat which is quite arduous. Before the retreatant is locked in a small room for the 40 days the student and teacher do a ritual of killing a lamb and then cooking it and giving the meat to the poor. The retreatant recognizes the lamb was slaughtered on their behalf and it puts a strong impetus to stay the course when things get tough. After all, the lamb was killed for the spiritual adept. And when things do get tough, the adept draws strength from the lamb’s death.
Vows in a small way do the same. Vows in a spiritual life or marriage are commitments to a full time life of following them. There are no breaks from the vow. The type of break referred to is similar to the likes of a vowed celibate priest. It would not be kosher for the priest to say to his superior that 5 days of the week he would be celibate and the other 2 days he would not be. This is not to suggest that there are spiritual police running after the spiritual seeker. No. That’s not it. But it is to have the mind with the aim clearly illuminated everyday….to know nothing is hidden from practice, nothing is hidden but everything is practice. To know the Source in everything wherever you are, whatever you are doing. And to pay attention to IT and not to give in to the stampeding elephant mind or the wild monkey mind.
Whether you are young in the practice, meaning immature, which requires different practices than if you are an old hand, or a hard-nosed working ox that is well-trained, the aim is the same. The training is different, but the Source is the same.
Zen training is flexible and recognizes what each spiritual seeker needs with the first instruction being a recognition that all training is leading to the yoke.
May all beings in all directions benefit from the merit of this practice.
There is a problem, central to religious life, which the Bible, with exquisite brevity, states for us in Luke Chapter 10: verses 38-42:
Now as they were traveling along, He entered a certain village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home.
And she had a sister called Mary, who moreover was listening to the Lord’s word, seated at His feet. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”
But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about many things;
But only one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Clearly, these verses operate at several different instructional levels. There is the obvious one: The first and greatest need is God, and no other need takes priority over this one. Mary was serenely seated at the Nirvanic feet of God. She had what was truly important. But Martha, instead of fixing her attention on the Divine Presence or on her service to that Presence, squandered her attention on Samsaric illusions.
Zen Buddhists, especially, can understand the situation. We plan to sit in meditation and just as we get our incense lit and balance ourselves nicely on our cushions, we become anxious about the mailman. Will he be late again today? Or we realize that we can no longer put off making the decision: should we have rice or pasta for dinner tomorrow night? We try to focus our thoughts on the chant our mouths are uttering, but all we can think about is an encounter we’ve recently had with a rude store clerk. Yes, we understand Jesus’ admonition. Nobody gets “worried and bothered about many things” the way a Zen Buddhist does.
But these words of Jesus have deeper meanings. Our attention is immediately drawn to His intriguing choice of terms: He speaks of ‘one needful thing’ which is evidently composed of several ‘parts’. We need to think about this. And we need also consider the difficult problem which the event, itself, presents: When do we work to serve those who seek our help; and when do we retire, seemingly to ignore their needs, in order to study or meditate or attend to other things which we believe are, at that moment, more important? How do we resolve the conflict between satisfying spiritual or personal needs and doing those chores that civilized life requires us to do? In order to eat, food must be prepared. Somebody has to do the work.
And so we wonder… Why did Jesus refuse to ask Mary to help Martha? Is Martha some sort of second-class devotee? Is it perfectly all right to let her do all the ‘scut’ work while her sister Mary gracefully reclines at the Master’s feet? There seems to be something unjust in this refusal. After all, we reason, Mary will get up to come to the table to eat. She will be dining, too.
On the surface, the Bible would seem to contradict Zen teaching. “No work, no food,” is always our monastic dictum. Were this anyone but Jesus speaking, we’d quickly reply, “Hah! My master would’ve hit Mary with his stick and sent her scurrying to the kitchen.” But men of Zen do not lightly dismiss a Bodhisattva’s pronouncements. So we scratch our heads and maintain a discreet but darkened silence, waiting for the Buddha’s lightbulb to start shining in our brains.
While pondering several seemingly unrelated events recently, I accidentally switched on a light which I believe illuminates these other meanings.
Not too long ago I had invited two bachelor members of my congregation to my home for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m a terrible cook, so the inducement wasn’t the food… it was the viewing of two classic French films which were subtitled in English.
My VCR and TV are back in my bedroom which is a very small place. In the room, besides the incidental bed, are chests of drawers, file cabinets, bookcases, CD and tape player with their stacks of CDs and tapes and, of course, my whole computer mishmash including desk and printer, etc. etc. Most bathrooms have more available floor space. Add to this some opened butterfly chairs and two people in the room defines congestion. Three constitutes gridlock. But what the heck. Bachelors don’t require refined accommodations.
We planned to eat buffet style while we watched the films because, frankly, my kitchen table is also a small affair, suitable for assembling puzzles of less than five hundred pieces… and really all that it is used for.
At the appointed hour, one guest arrived. He had work to do later that evening and so, after an hour of waiting in vain for the other guest to show up, we began to eat and watch the films. Then the other guest called. He said that he was with his landlady, an older woman, who was sickly. She was from the Orient and didn’t speak much English, but he was fond of her, and since it was Thanksgiving and she was alone, he wanted to do something nice for her. Would it be all right if he brought her to dinner? I said no.
I told him that he could take all the food he wanted home to her, but that in my cramped bedroom I had no room for three guests .. not even if they insisted upon being stacked vertically. Further, since the lady was unfamiliar with English, she could hardly comprehend a French film with flashing English subtitles. To entertain her and him, I would have to go to another room and leave my present guest in the bedroom alone to watch the movie. And this I would not do. If he had given me advance notice, I might have made other arrangements. I said I was truly sorry but that I had a responsibility to my present guest. Though obviously annoyed, he said that he’d be along shortly, but he never came at all and in fact never even came to another congregation meeting.
I received some criticism for this decision. Many people thought I should have been more generous. But I felt comfortable with my refusal although, I admit, I wasn’t exactly sure of why I felt justified in refusing.
Months later a friend of mine called to discuss a problem she was having. Her mother-in-law belonged to a religious organization which performed charitable acts such as giving rides to disabled or infirmed persons. One such person, an elderly man who was a kidney dialysis patient, lived in my friend’s neighborhood, and her mother-in-law, after talking it over with her son and obtaining his approval, recruited my friend’s services in driving this patient to the clinic for his frequent dialysis treatments.
Initially, my friend had protested that the new task would prevent her from doing her own Girl Scout volunteer work, but her mother-in-law dismissed her protests by saying that the kidney patient’s need was far more important, a matter, after all, of life and death.
My friend acquiesced and tried to comply graciously, but the task soon became an intolerable burden. She had children, and on the days she drove this patient into town and waited several hours for his treatment to conclude, her husband took the children out for pizza. Everybody – except my friend – thoroughly appreciated the arrangement. She was profoundly resentful. “Even without my Girl Scout projects,” she said, “I still have housework to do, and nobody helps me with it. They go out for pizza and have a good time. I come home to do laundry and mop floors. And when I complain, I’m criticized and told to be more generous and charitable. I feel like Martha”, she cried. “They get the good part – the pleasure. I get the work.”
Suddenly Luke, Chapter 10, verses 38-42 began to reveal this other meaning. The problem wasn’t work versus idleness. And it was considerably more than sitting in meditation versus attending to life’s nagging chores. It was a problem and solution characteristic of the religious life, itself. Recalling that the Bhagavad Gita addressed this very problem, I went to my bookshelf and searched for the text.
I also remembered years ago when I worked and my children had to help me clean the house. While I mopped or polished, they’d constantly come and ask me to help them find this, or reach that, or sort this; and I’d have to stop what I was doing to go help them until, annoyed by the interruptions, I’d shout, “Don’t help me by asking me to help you!” This, in a way, was at the core of the problem posed in the Gospel of Luke.
My Thanksgiving Day guest wanted to do something nice for a woman; but what he wanted to do nice for her was to bring her to me and let me do something nice for her. He was right in wanting to help her. But he was wrong in trying to pressure me into helping him to help her. I had my own “helping” agenda to fulfill. He wanted to be good and kind. Fine. Then to the best of his ability he should have been so.
My friend’s mother-in-law volunteered to perform a kind and generous act. Fine. But what she did by way of being kind and generous was to “volunteer” my friend, to impress her into service, to embarrass her into acting charitably.
These two people had decided that their charitable agendas were more meritorious, more worthy of attention, than the agendas of others, that they had a right to induce another into spending his time and resources in order to fulfill theircommitments. And in making this determination they showed that they had become, in Buddhist terms, “attached” to their image as charitable and resourceful persons. In other words, what was important was that their projects succeed and, by extension, that their reputations for being generous and efficient remain intact.
In Chapter 3 of the Song of God, the Vedanta Society’s beautiful translation of the Bhagavad Gita, there is a dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna in which we hear an echoing reference to that one necessary thing that exists in several parts. Arjuna asks Krishna, “Tell me one definite way of reaching the highest good.”
Krishna responds, “I have already told you that in this world those who aspire may find enlightenment by two different paths. For the contemplative is the path of knowledge: for the active is the path of selfless action.” And he goes on to explain this other path. “The world is imprisoned in its own activity except when actions are performed as worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally, and be free from all attachments to results… When a man has found delight and satisfaction and peace… he is independent of everybody and everything. Do your duty, always; but without attachment! This is how a man reaches the ultimate Truth; by working without anxiety about results. Your motive in working should be to set others, by your example, on the path of duty… It is better to do your own duty, however imperfectly, than to perform the duty of another person, however successfully.”
Martha invited Jesus into her home. She offered him a meal. Fine. But she should have performed her actions sacramentally, as an individual making an offering of her own individual labor, without worrying about the results, without demanding assistance.
Acting from love and performing our duty as we understand that duty… is having “the good part.” The one “needful” thing that Mary was doing was worshipping her Lord in her way. Had Martha performed her own service with as much love and attention and without anxiety or complaint, she would have done the same. The “good part” would also have been hers.
What, then, should we learn from these scriptures? We should learn never to sacrifice the Rare to the commonplace, never to work merely to enhance our public reputations and private bank accounts but instead, in our hearts, to offer our labor as service to the Divinity that exists in every man. If we perform our labor sacramentally, we will not lie or cheat or neglect to perform it well. And if we do not accomplish the results we sought, or if we fail to be paid, we will know that we, too, in serving God, received the good part which cannot be taken away from us.
And we also should learn never to press other people into fulfilling our charitable commitments or to let others press us into fulfilling theirs. But if we do freely undertake a charitable task, we should perform that task with loving attention, as if it were a religious ritual, a communion of our soul with God’s… which, in fact, it is.
Serving God with love and humility! This is duty. This, I think, is Christian Charity. This, I know, is Buddhist Dharma.
When something goes your way, do you ascribe it to your skills….to luck….to good fortune? When something turns sour, do you ascribe it to your childhood….to misfortune….to bad luck?
In any situation we tend to ascribe things to a source which is often something about our small self or some aspect of the material realm. Once we find the culprit we make some vow. When we make an error, for example, we vow never to do it that way again. This approach is common and workable on the material level, but most spiritual seekers recognize it as coming from a dualistic, functional understanding of life. And it tends towards blaming and shaming either the self or the other when something goes awry or boasting and tooting one’s own horn when things go well. Neither of which is recommended on a spiritual path.
Spiritual practice is daily practice with pots and pans, sheets and pillows, toothpaste and brush, with traffic and travel, with making a mess and cleaning up, with getting up and sitting down, with walking and talking, with changing diapers and putting on a coat, with sweeping and mopping, with paying bills and mailing them, with eating and sleeping, with laughing and crying, with giving and receiving, with asking and responding….and on and on practice goes.
And what makes it spiritual? Knowing that nothing is left out of practice, that nothing in the world is without Buddha nature (God, Brahma, G-D, the source of all things, the god with no name and form). It is not a belief, it is a practice with all things knowing not to pick and choose, love and hate. Spiritual seekers know practice with full attention to each thing we meet is the Way; without letting our attitude be influenced by our ego which wants to stamp things with some measurement of quality, i.e., bad, poor, fair, good, better, great. It is to treat things, whatever they are, as coming from the whole (holy). Nothing is left out. Nothing is hidden.
It is simple but it requires effort and determination to pay attention. Many times when students came here to sit, they kicked and threw the meditation cushions around. When instructed not to do so, they often got angry or felt put out or argued. All their backtalk showed was they needed to train to give their full attention to everything that came into their life. To do so requires effort and determination.
When we ascribe things to the Way, we are more likely to give full attention to it, and to actualize the Way Seeking mind right where we are. We can call the practice love or emptiness, but what matters is not the name or form, but that we no longer ascribe things to the self or to the other.
In the case of kicking and throwing cushions, the student often ascribed things as a personal affront or unnecessary. Again all this backtalk showed was the student needed training to relinquish the mind that takes things personally or feels put upon or wants things their own way and not the Way of a spiritual seeker.
Practice requires we meet what comes into our life without the ascribed self that takes credit or gives blame.
The material world is a world of measuring between all the opposites; it is a split view of the world. When we split the world we remove heaven from earth or the other way round, earth from heaven.
Our third Chan patriarch, Seng Ts’an in his poem Faith in Mind says it clearly….
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
Everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
And heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
He goes on to say….
If you wish to see the truth,
Then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
Is the disease of the mind.
All his wisdom takes us back to practice. Practice without love or hate, without picking and choosing, knowing everything is Buddha (God, G-d, undying, without name and form). Give full attention to all the work of your life right where you are.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
Nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views
Will disappear by themselves.
We are sometimes asked what are the most important sutras of our tradition? I often answer, which ones are not important? Everything teaches us.
Our roots come from Chinese Buddhism and our Chan tradition embraces all the sutras of the Mahayana, all the 84,000 practices of the Awakening Shakyamuni. All are the doors of the Dharma.
However, our Chan / Zen tradition, besides the essential Sutras, the Lotus Sutra, the Amitabhas Sutras, Nirvana, Avatamsaka and the wonderful Shurangama, we study what I like to call the Three Sutras of the Heart.
What are these three Sutras so often united in Chinese Buddhism? These are of course the triptic so dear to all our practitioners: the Sutra of the Heart, the Sutra of the Diamond and the Sutra of the Platform of the Sixth Patriarch.
Our Order is very proud to celebrate the anniversary of the ordination of the Sixth Patriarch, the book of the founders of our Order (Master WeiMiao JyDin Shakya and MingZhen Shakya) which can be found here: Empty Cloud: The Teachings of Master XuYun which was published in a special edition with the “Three Sutras.” It is a reference book for all our practitioners.
It was an honor that we had made the successor of the very Venerable WeiYin, abbot of NanHua Si at the time, and our first Chan master of Ming Zhen Shakya.
May the “Three Sutras” be three wonderful mirrors of our practice.
In the Zen tradition there is a ritual for tending to and disposing of the remnants left after burning a stick of incense. When the incense burns down it leaves a tiny bit of incense in the ash which is still in stick form. It is smaller but it is still of the same form and goes by the same name of incense.
The ash in the bowl after many burnings looks a lot like a miniature logging accident. There are tiny logs of incense scattered helter-skelter poking up throughout the ash.
The Zen ritual is to clean the ash by removing the remnants that did not burn and saving them until the New Year. At the New Year, the remnants along with the burnt matches are gathered and burnt in a ceremonial fire.
It is a simple, loving act of care with a deep message for spiritual adepts. The deep message is also a simple loving act of care but we need to know what to do and how to do it. In a very real sense we need to clean up the remnants of the seeds deposited in the form of old hurts and old grudges in the body and mind. It includes old loves and old wants; these bits of old attachments still floating up into consciousness that disturbs and harms.
When we look at anything whether it is in the external world of name and form or the internal world of name and form we look with attachment. Often the attachment comes disguised as wanting or hating. This attachment is the unburned bits, the remnants that continue to surface distracting us from what the eye has not seen or the ear has not heard. The eye cannot see and the ear cannot hear when it is looking at name and form that floats up from the past. These remnants veil our true nature.
In order to understand the deep message and in order to know what and how to find it for ourselves we need to look at one section of the Heart Sutra. Arguably there are many versions of the Heart Sutra in an ongoing, continued debate of the origin and the author, but for most practitioners there is agreement that form and emptiness as well as a negative approach is the common ground of this sutra.
In this sutra we have a saint who gives us the message and tells how to know it.
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva (Saint A.) when practicing deeply the prajna paramita perceived that all five skandas (the five heaps of stuff we call the stuff of the body and the stuff of the mind which include the remnants of attachment) are empty….empty of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness. That’s it. It is to practice seeing and hearing everything we meet without form, feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
A recent example is a trip to the Y to go for a swim. The pool is small, just 5 lap lanes. There are close to 9 million names and forms close by. During this time of year the pool is packed with these five heaps which includes this close-up bag of heaps in the shape of complaints…too many people…my lane…rude swimmers. If I go and begin to look at any of the remnants of the heaps, form, feelings, perceptions I go full and not empty. Full of concepts and judgment and wants and aversions and you name it. The fullness of mind remnants guarantees a blocking of transcendent wisdom.
That is what the message is…to go empty….without a hair breadth of desire…. then what we find is the perfection of wisdom. Empty the body and mind of attachment to the remnants of the heaps.
The word empty can be substituted with the word love. It could read from a connotative perspective….all five heaps of the body and mind are love, but when we look at just name and form we do not see it as empty or love. Name and form trick us into seeing it as something to want or something to hate, something to attach to and something to discard. Name and form conjure up old hurts and old desires.
If the face of someone we knew comes to mind notice how all the heaps come up along with all the attachments to one or more of the heaps. These are the remnants. And they are not to be attended to except to be gathered and burned up.
As we go along, it hopefully will become clear that this love is not the romantic, brotherly or parental love depicted in most art forms (film, books, paintings, poetry). Although parental love sometimes comes close it in itself is not IT. This love, this emptiness is not seen with eye or heard with ear. It is transcendent.
Now we need to clarify the method, the approach Saint A. used.
When we lose a set of keys, as a common example, we often go through rounds of searching for the keys which is certain to include a round of – no, not there – I didn’t leave them in the car even though we might have to double check that we didn’t. No, not there in my jacket pocket, no, not there in the junk drawer. This method is a familiar way of finding something. The familiarity of the search suggests we somehow intuitively know we have lost something or are separated from something we once had. This intuition is based on the waking up to the sense of something is missing. In the example, the keys are missing. For Saint A. transcendental wisdom was missing. When this awareness happens, many of us begin to look for what it is that is missing. Often we go through rounds and rounds of finding out no, not there. We all have a list of no, not there.
How many times have you looked for something you never had and never lost?
Saint A. practiced deeply looking for transcendent wisdom and found it. She did it. She saw and heard the emptiness, the love not seen with the eye and heard with the ear. And her method was very much rooted in – no, not there.
Saint A. found transcendent wisdom on a negative path which we all know. Saint A. was looking for something. There is some subtle factor that cannot be overlooked here. She looked because she had some intuitive sense she knew something was missing. And when something is missing we tend to rely on this negative, – no, not there – approach.
And with this approach she sums up where transcendental wisdom is not. The method is to be done not believed. Is the body where the eternal, unborn, undying is? Nah. It ain’t. The body is subject to aging, sickness and death. It is going to vanish and return to the dirt.
How about those feelings? Nope. Our feelings seem to be at times in a hyper state of change, especially if we fall in love. It’s that time when everyone waits for the lovers to sober up.
How about perceptions? Ah….it too succumbs. At one point in life we perceive a toy as our biggest treasure only to give it away, throw it away or store it in some dusty attic.
Impulses? HA! These little babies are on speed and not to be trusted.
Perhaps the hardest one is consciousness. This seems to be pervasive, prodigious and perpetual. Everything has consciousness. But wait. Does consciousness itself change and fall apart. Yes it does. Here is my example.
I was sitting with someone who was courteous in conscious listening until a bee buzzed through bombing any ability to concentrate and focus in a conscious way. What happened to their consciousness?
No form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness. All let downs as far as the transcendental. No, not there.
In short order we are able to see, hopefully, these heaps of what the body and mind are made of are not the unborn, undying, eternal nature. God ain’t there.
What does this mean?
It means when Saint A. studied the perfection of transcendent wisdom she eliminated these things from the list. She no longer polished them up because polishing them up led to suffering. No matter how much you rub the five heaps it will not lead to finding what is missing.
But she goes further. She goes through every part of the body as not it. The logic being the gross form is not it, but maybe God is in the little stuff, like the eyes, the ears, the nose. But as you read the Heart Sutra we soon discover – no, not there – continues to be what is found. But this is all on the way to finding God on the path of the perfection of transcendent wisdom.
In short, stop looking there. It’s like the keys. I looked in the car and I know they are not in the car. More precisely stop looking in the way you are looking. Begin by looking at what it is not and then shift to looking at what it is. Transcendent wisdom is not in the heaps.
Where, then do we look and how do we look. Well, you look backward into that which is powering up the looking, the hearing, and all the actions of life. You stop looking at the remnants and you look at the Source. This is the emptiness and love that Saint A. discovered. It is right here, in everything waiting for you.
We meet the Source. In order to meet the Source we must know all the heaps are empty of transcendent Wisdom. This is a two-step process. (1) We meet everything for what it is not. (2) And then we can meet it for what it is. This is love, transcendent love that is indefinable, ineffable and immeasurable.
When we approach life from the place of benefiting and generating from the heaps, we will miss the Source. If we meet anything with the remnants of the heaps, we will get sick and look and feel very much like a logging accident. All sorts of miseries will come along. When we meet everything empty, we meet everything with the love not seen by the eye nor heard by the ear. And IT is indescribable, ineffable transcendence.
Everything is waiting in this great patience to come alive from what is powering up everything. In a very real sense every single thing is waiting to be, to awaken and to be transcendent. IT is never apart from right where we are.
