A Byrd's Eye View

On Memorial Prayers

I have been thinking about the topic of memorial prayers since the shooting at Virginia Tech last week. My bodhisattva practice has matured a great deal through praying for the deceased, but not always in the way I expected. Perhaps some of you have had experiences with this portion of the practice which you can share as well.

The first time I can recall having a "breakthrough" experience with memorial prayers was after the death of my aunt Mickey in 1994. Mickey had been exposed to chanting, and she sometimes went with me to the Wednesday lunchtime SGI discussion meetings which Matilda Buck used to have at her home in Brentwood. Mickey suffered considerably with cancer of the throat before she died (a good warning not to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco).

At the time when my aunt died, the SGI was still doing the prescribed Nichiren Shoshu prayer service, with five sutra recitations in the morning and three in the evening. One day, as I was performing the fifth recitation (in honor of the deceased), I decided that I would use my practice to "allow" my deceased aunt to attend the Ceremony in the Air through me (for those readers who are unfamiliar with the Ceremony in the Air, it is a mythical event in the Lotus Sutra where the Buddha transfers the Law to his disciples, among other things - it is the gathering which is portrayed on the mandala Gohonzon to which we chant).

I can't really describe any better what it is that I decided to do with my prayer - I wasn't really praying for my aunt, which implies that she is a target or object of my prayer. It was more like there was no separation between us, and we were communing together in the Ceremony. But that sounds sort of clinical. It was one of those Gohonzon experiences where time kind of warps and the mandala sort of shifts in how it looks - it becomes more three-dimensional and more brilliant, somehow. If you've had the experience, you know just what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I was startled by this experience, and decided to extend this "style" of praying to everyone and anyone on the "other side" who was interested in participating. I sort of made the Ceremony in the Air into a "come one, come all, come as you are" sort of event at my altar for any life that wanted to attend. Now that was a trip! Wow!!. For me, my experiences with that prayer alone are proof positive that life continues in some form after death. I have to honestly say I only really connected and "accomplished" a huge, sweeping prayer for the deceased maybe ten times, but when I did, it was pretty intense stuff.

Awhile later, I read in a book somewhere (not an SGI book, some other Buddhist book) that we can pray for people and other beings who are dying at the moment when we are chanting. I don't know where they are or what their lives were like, but I can send try to greet them, embrace them and send them on their way while I ring the bell on my altar. So I started trying to remember to do that on a daily basis.

Then, 9/11 hit. So many killed and so much outrage. People feeling like they were doing something by flying American flags from their car antennae. I determined that I would ring my altar bell once for each one of the lives lost in that event. That was my way of "doing something" which didn't require me to cultivate rage or any other painful, destructive state of mind.

Well, I got to about the 100th ring and started to really remember that the people in the Twin Towers were not the only beings to have died that day and certainly not the only ones who died in fear or pain. Why were "we" and our tribe of dead so much more important than anyone else? What about the millions dying overseas? What about the hungry children? what about, what about, what about, what about...? And I never made it to the 1,000th dedicated ring, much less the 3,000th. My special ceremony began to look less like an exercise in compassion than an exercise in tribalism. So what if my tribalism was "enlightened"? It was angry tribalism which had triggered 9/11 to begin with, and we're all capable of all ten worlds. So if I didn't want to experience the angry tribalism, I was going to have to get rid of the "enlightened" tribalism, too. I hope that makes sense.

I describe all this because I undertook a similar "one ring for each of the dead" practice as my way of responding to the tragedy at Virginia Tech one week ago. Every gongyo, I have rung the bell 33 times. It's a lot easier than 3,000 - that's for sure. But the result has been the same for me. I have been reminded not just of Cho Seung- Hui's madness, but the madness of all violent killers. Not just the fear of the Virginia Tech students, or the wasteful loss of their lives, but that of all those who die in fear and confusion. The Virginia Tech killer was in the world of hell - a raging Tribe of One. Let us all respond by bringing illumination when and where we can.

Be loving, be kind, be cool.

Byrd in LA

Posted by wahzoh at April 23, 2007 11:39 AM