A Byrd's Eye View

Bodhissatva Tulip-Bearer

This morning, my bodhissatva mission was to visit a dear friend who finds herself temporarily in a nursing facility recovering from lung cancer surgery. Since next week is Easter Week (I tend to forget these things unless I'm reminded), the supermarket floral section was chock-full of tulip plants. So, I picked up a nice plant with several un-opened, pretty pink tulips buds, as well as a get-thee-well card, and brought them with me to the nursing facility.

I met my friend Barbara Pike online. She is a longtime SGI member, but as stubborn a free-thinker as you would care to meet. She's also a regular at the non-denominational Gathering of Friends at the Ankers' home. I love her apartment, as it is filled to the rafters with books on all sorts of subjects. She also is a writer, like me, so we talk about writing and books. We also enjoy thrift-store shopping, and going out for lunch together.

A few months ago, as part of her annual physical, Barbara's chest X-ray showed a spot on her lung. She started on a daimoku campaign, and was chanting several hours a day. She was referred to one of the best doctors in the field, and two weeks ago, she had one of those laparoscopic surgeries, where they don't have to make a big incision. The wonders of modern medicine....

Anyway, the news is good...they got out all the cancer, and
Barbara won't be needing either chemo or radiation. Hurray! She is, however, almost 80 years old, and so she's in a skilled nursing facility getting her strength back.

She seemed really happy to see me when I arrived with her pretty pink tulip-bud plant. I had brought along my omamori (travelling) Gohonzon, but we decided to talk for a bit before chanting.

We had plenty to catch up on. She wanted me to convey her apprecation for all the daimoku that has been chanted for her by her online friends. She expressed this gratitude in an interesting way. She said "I appreciate all the interweaving daimoku."

Interweaving daimoku, I had never thought of it that way. For years, I had been challenging myself to chant strong, united daimoku, like a tidal wave, or maybe a battering ram. But Barbara's image of "interweaving daimoku" was really attractive to me. It reminded me of the image of Indra's net - the universal web of all phenomena, of which we are all a part.

I like that idea - each of us sending out a thread, and that thread interweaving with the threads of all others, and creating a sort of compassionate safety net for each other, a warm and radiant interweaving web of the mystic law. How lovely. I fell really privileged that she gave me that image....now I am passing it forward and giving it to you.

And as we sat there and talked, the most amazing thing happened....the pink tulip buds which had been closed tightly when I brought them in began to open. "Look!" I said, and pointed to them. And sure enough...there they were, opened up and blossoming before our eyes. A nurse came in and noticed, too. "I saw those when you came in!" she exclaimed. "They were all closed up, and look at them now!"

Who knows why those blossoms opened so beautifully, right in front of us? I gave Barbara a wink and said, "It must be your warm heart."

So we sat the tulip plant directly behind the omamori Gohonzon, so that it looked like there was a huge, pink, treasure tower of Springtime joy growing up out of the mandala. That made it especially pretty to chant to.

What an excellent way to start off my day.

Have a good weekend, all.

Be open, be joyful, be cool.

Byrd in LA

Posted by wahzoh at March 15, 2008 10:26 AM