The final Bodhissatva Vow which we discussed at the Gathering of Friends last Sunday is this one:
The Budda's Way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.
Or, better for me:
The Way of the Buddha is unexcelled - I vow to attain the Path Sublime.
As most of you know, I live in Los Angeles and work in Hollywood - the flashy false values capitol of the world. Here where I live, many of the people (even many Buddhists) are vowing to get that televsion pilot, or vowing to sell that spec script. Vowing to get that house with a swimming pool, or vowing to get onboard with that high-end agency. How refreshing for me that I can actually have some other kind of ambition. Maybe it won't "sell" at the studio commissary, but that's OK by me.
One of my friends at the Gathering has been studying and writing about these vows as part of her preparation for taking he prcepts wth the Nichiren Shu and officially joining that denomination this coming April. My friend expressed to me that she felt these vows were "too big" - not something that were ultimately attainable. But in a way, that's the beauty of it for me. We never get to just relax on our realizations and say "there, I've done it!" There's always more growing to do. That's why Buddhahood is called the sublime path and not the sublime state.
In a way, we vow not only to walk the sublime path, but to actually become the sublime path ourselves. But how do we do that?
Only through our Buddhist practice. That is the promise of this Vow. As we all know, Buddhism is all about practice. It's not like the Christianity many of us are familiar with, where it's all about your belief and faith in a certain world-view and a certain relationship between ourselves and God. Buddhism isn't about being saved from something or about getting closer to something outside of ourselves, it is about doing something. And the "something" that we do as Nichiren Buddhists is chanting Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. And every day we re-affirm our vow to attain and walk the sublime path of Buddhahood, placing one foot in front of the other for the sake of all beings everywhere.
As Nichiren would say, "how wonderful!"
Have a sublime day, everyone - Byrd in LA
This one has a number of different translations, too. One of them is:
The Buddha's teachings are immeasurable, I vow to study them all.
But the one that I like best is:
Dharma-gates are innumerable. I vow to enter them all.
On the surface, this vow seems to be an encouragement to engage in regular study of the Buddha's teachings. If we do this, then we can apply the right teaching to each situation and develop a level of wisdom and flexibility that we couldn't develop if we didn't study.
Our discussion at the Gathering took things to a different level, though. We ended up exploring this vow as being a promise to be in a constant state of readiness to learn. There is no such thing as a "know-it all" Bodhissatva, since opportunities to learn are never-ending, and with this vow, we promise to be constantly "at attention," constantly ready to absorb new insights into Buddhism and our lives.
We also decided that "dharma gates" do not have to be formal teachings. They can be situations, dilemmas, friendships, office dynamics. Really, any sittuation can be dharma-gate, an opportunity to deepen our Buddhist faith and practice. And when we get right down to it, we don't just enter the dharma-gates, they also enter us when we take the opportunity for learning and growth.
So, tomorrow, the fourth and final Bodhissatva vow.....I hope you're enjoying this series. I am.
Be alert, be compassionate, be cool.
Byrd in LA
This vow is where things get complicated, and apparently, a lot depends on the translation.
Here are a couple you can choose from:
Our defilements are inexhaustible, I vow to quench them all.
Or:
Blind passions are endless, I vow to uproot them.
Or:
Delusions are infinite, I vow to end them.
I had a lot of trouble thinking about this particular vow, in large part because of my Christian upbringing.
The first translation, the one about "inexhaustble defilements" kind of reminded me of the idea of "original sin" that I was raised with. You know...the whole "you're a sinner" thing. And once I admit that I'm a sinner, then I have to quench my original sin by getting saved, and then not thinking sexy thoughts. Then I have to sit up straight in church school and raise my hand every time I want to speak...and on and on and on to a grey horizon of dull, juiceless, droning salvation. Blech. I don't want to take a vow like that, not ever again, if I can help it.
Thankfully, though, that's not the best transation of the word "klesha", which appears in this vow. "Klesha" (or the thing I am vowing to rid myself of) actually translates as "knots". That's an interesting perspective. Knots. Getting all tied up. So, maybe the best way of looking at this vow for me, would be to say:
I get wrapped up in all kinds of knots. I vow to untie myself.
Maybe somebody here who's a better-read Buddhist than I am can comment on how accurate a perspective that translation is.
We had a very iinteresting discussion of this vow at the Gathering. Everybody had their own perspective, and everybody had their own analogy. One person, who works in the computer field, compared the individual Buddhist to a computer circuit, and the "klesha" to dust that gets in the circuit and muddies up the program. What's an analogy or image that works for you? Enquiring minds want to know.
Essentially, I think this vow is a vow to continue working on ourselves. It's an acknowledgment that we can't help others clean out their stuff if we're not cleaning out our own. So, day by day, we untie our knots, and day by day we blow the dust out of our circuits.
And the knots really are inexhaustible, endless and infinite. Every time you untie one, here comes another. Who was it that said "life is just one damned thing after another"?
At the end of the day, I think this vow is really a way of saying that we won't give up and get satisfied with our work on ourselves. That's a good vow - one worth taking.
I'm interested in your points of view on this Vow. Thanks,
Byrd in LA
Today, we wild-eyed heretics of Los Angeles had our monthly non-denominational Nichiren Buddhist Gathering of Friends at the home of Bill and Jean Anker in Granada Hills. There were two guests, who had come along with our regular Hindu participant, and so I was able to help one of them read along with a slow-ish sutra recitation. She kept up pretty well, and I really enjoyed being able to help her.
Our theme this month at the Gathering was the Bodhissatva Vows. These are vows which all traditional Mahayana Buddhist schools embrace to some extent or another, and since many of us at the Gathering occasionally read them aloud as part of our personal devotions, it seemed like a good topic for a discussion.
So, here goes with a four-part series on the Bodhissatva Vows and how we apply them in our practice of Nichiren Buddhism - I will, as always, be interested in your perspectives, dear readers.
#1: Living beings are innumerable. I vow to save them all.
Golly, could you get a little bit more grandiose? I mean, I don't think that's really big enough, know what I mean?
There are a lot of levels to this vow. Of course, the fact is that as part of our daily recitation of the "Life Span" Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, we do make this vow. The sutra we recite says:
Mai ji sa ze nen
I ga ryo shujo
Toku nyu mujo do
Soku joju busshin.
Or: "This is my constant thought. How can I cause all beings to enter the Buddha Way and swiftly obtain the body of a Buddha?"
I know I try to be conscious of this vow when I recite this part of the sutra every day. Mai ji sa ze nen. This is my constant thought. An SGI-USA Women's Division leader at my Women's Division general meeting last Friday night discussed this portion of the sutra, stating that this was our mandate to do shakubuku (introduce others to the practice of chanting Nam[u]-Myoho-Renge-Kyo). Basically my constant thought should be "how can I get this person to an SGI meeting and encourage them to start their practice of buddhism with this organization?"
At the Ankers' house we also talked about other kinds of "saving living beings". I talked about how "innumerable beings" sounds so huge and unattainable, but we do our work one-on-one and simply do what's in front of us. I talked about my literacy volunteer work, and how, for me, teaching my pupil to read was one way of "saving a living being". I also have a friend at work who is a cat rescue volunteer. She is constantly "saving living beings", as long as the living beings are felines. And she's very dedicated, too - she's sort of a "niche bodhissatva". If you think about it, most of us are "niche bodhisattvas". We can really only get to "all living beings" if we work as a team. You handle the cats, I'll take the illiterates. That way, it's a lot more manageable.
Frequently, when I chant, I try to imagine that I'm holding the Earth and surrounding it with golden waves of daimoku (me and my "washing Daimoku" again!) The Daimoku is just sent to where it's needed the most - I don't consciously try to control it or direct it, I just try to wash the world with it. Is this a way of "saving all beings"? Or at least a bunch of them? I don't know. I just developed the visualization and I like to use it.
Then, there's also the issue of the eternity of the Buddha's life, which means the eternity of our own lives. Maybe this lifetime I'm doing literacy work - maybe next time I'll do the cats, I don't know. We don't necessarily have to save all beings at once.
I will write some more about the Bodhissatva Vows next week - the discussion at the Ankers' house was very, very interesting. I will try to remember what I can -- stay tuned for vow #2. It's a doozy. In the interim, I'm interested in how you feel about "Living beings are innumerable - I vow to save them all."
Be compassionate, be dedicated, be cool.
Best, Byrd in LA
P.S. Enjoy the Oscars.
Well, last night was my SGI-USA district's annual Women's Division General Meeting, and a very cool one it was, too.
After gongyo, about 20 of us sat our chairs in a circle, and we had a wonderful experience by a friend of mine who is challenging some serious family health issues.
We had an interesting discussion of "powerful prayer", with a number of women chiming in with their own "recipes" for powerful prayer, and what the results were.
A couple of women talked about their experience in learning to "let go" of an issue and stop trying to force resolutions of their difficulties.
I gave an experience I had about a loved one who had struggled for many years with alcoholism. I had gotten angry with him, pitied him, done the whole gamut of emotions- sending him hour upon hour of daimoku. Then, one day, I honestly chanted for the best thing for him. I didn't know what that "best thing" would be, I only knew that I was at the end of my personal rope.
Well, he bounced around a bit, and ultimately ended up in a pilot program for recovering indigents - a sort of Rolls Royce of street person recovery programs. He has better health care than I do, all his medications, a place to live, and he has been sober for nearly a year, now. It truly was uncanny - I wanted "the best thing", even if that meant he would have to die and start all over again as an infant in Mongolia (and, as embarassing as this is, I was secretly sort of hoping he would die and start all over again as an infant in Mongolia). Instead, he got what was actually "the best thing" - the best program, the best doctors, the best counselors. Its was a wonderful experience in the power of prayer for me.
Other women gave their experiences "employing the strategy of the Lotus Sutra", many in regard to issues related to family and caregiving responsibilities. That really made me realize how many of us live our day-to-day lives under the stress of caring for sick loved ones, and how much we need each others' support. I'm glad that my women's division friends are there for me, and that I can be there for them.
At the end, the Zone-level guest leader gave a talk where she expressed a lot of enthusiasm about the 16th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra. She described driving up to Santa Barbara with another WD leader, who talked to her about the English meaning of Chapter 16. She then read aloud some notes she had made in her sutra book, and interpreted the Chapter's message about the eternity of the Buddha's life. She also made the point that Nichiren Buddhism is a "simple recipe", and that our vow (mai ji sa ze nen - "this is my constant thought") is how to introduce suffering people to the practice, not how to interpret it for them, or how to explain it to them, but how to simply "give them the recipe and get out of the way". I like discussing, but maybe that's just me.
I was very glad to see a Gakkai leader actually talking about the Lotus Sutra. I briefly considered raising my hand and mentioning that I read Chapter 16 aloud in English as part of my personal practice in front of the Gohonzon several times a week. I thought better of it, though, and didn't mention my non-uniform personal devotions.
Well, I hope you all had encouraging WD meetings. I would be interested in hearing about them, if you can share.
Byrd in LA
Last night, I did something I never, ever, ever do - except sometimes.
I drove through Burger King on my way home from work.
I was in a hurry, as I needed to get home in time for a shareholder's meeting at my housing co-op. These meetings are highly contentious events - lots of shouting, occasional chair-throwing. I needed my strength. So I have an excuse for doing the fast-food thing...please don't write in any comments about my diet.
So, anyway, I pulled up to the black column with the two-way speakers and contemplated the dollar value menu. The speaker crackled to life.
"Konichi-wa! May I take your order?" the box scratched.
Momentarily stunned, I wondered if I had heard wrong.
Hesitantly, I asked, "did you say 'konichi-wa'?"
"Yes," said the black column.
"Uh....why did you do that?"
"That's the way I say hello!", came the perky reply. Came the perky reply with a clear Hispanic accent. A Spanish-speaking clerk at Burger King who cheerfully greets the drive-through customers in Japanese. Only in LA -- you gotta love it. I almost ordered a large chocolate shake to celebrate, but called on my internal reserve of discipline and got the iced tea instead.
When I pulled up to the window, I got to see the young fellow who had taken my order. I asked him about his "konichi-wa", and he told me he was studying Japanese at a local Junior College.
"Well, good for you!" I congratulated him, and told him that going to school was my favorite thing to do in life. I hoped that he would keep it up, and he said that he would.
After that, it was home for a quick gongyo (evening prayers) before the shareholder's meeting. I prayed sincerely that I would not be nominated for a position (for the record, although I was asked, I declined, so my prayer was officially answered).
Present at the meeting were natives of six foreign countries (seven, if you count New York). Everybody had a chance to have their say, and although a bit chaotic, the meeting ended up going quite well. I was pleased with it.
That's one of the things I love about living here. We really are a melting pot.
I love LA.
Sayonara, Dasvidanya, Ciao, Auf Wiedersehen, Adios, Adieu, Bye for now,
Byrd in LA
P.S. Happy Valentine's Day
Over the weekend, I watched a movie called "The Invasion", which is yet another re-make of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers". If you don't know the plot, in the original, there are these large, plant-like pods that come down from outer space and somehow get placed next to sleeping humans. The pods create dull-eyed, emotionless replications of the humans, and start to take over first the town, and then by implication, the whole planet. Everyone has heard the expression "pod people" - well, this is the story that started it all.
The original starred Kevin McCarthy, and came out in 1956. I liked that version a lot - it was a cool sort of commentary on the "sameness" of 50's America. There was also a 70's version with Donald Sutherland. I like the weird, scratchy, shrieking noise those replicants made when they found a non-pod human. That was good and scarey.
The one I rented over the weekend was the weakest of the three, I thought. In the Nicole Kidman version I just saw, the scarey, emotionless replicants are created not by large and cumbersome alien pods, but by a virus, which the infected replicants puke onto the non-infected humans. The puke is totally green and viscous, which is a good effect, but gross. In one scene, Nicole Kidman's replicant ex-husband pins her down and pukes the nasty, green alien puke all over her face. I'm sure there are any number of divorce litigants who got a secret vicarious thrill from that. I had a lot of clients in my divorce-attorney days who really, really wanted to pin down their ex-spouses and puke green blech-y stuff all over them.
But why, I hear you wondering, out there in cyber-land, am I talking about this in a blog entry entitled "The Nichiren Virus"? Well, wonder no more....
I was thinking about how this alien virus in the movie sort of makes everybody bland and emotionless. I thought about this at the same time as someone popped up on one of the Nichiren Yahoo groups I moderate who was in full-blown "fighting spirit" mode. You know the kind - denouncing traitors and betrayers of the SGI. Not to mention "challenging" people to dialogues - something I had never heard of before.
This kind of made me wonder if there is some kind of weird infection which causes Nichiren believers to get all belligerent and aggressive with each other -- calling each other cowards and doctrinal deviants. Asserting our righteousness and pointing at the illnesses of those who have strayed in fabulous displays of Buddhist counter-compassion. "Challenging" people to dialogues may be a unique symptom of the Nichiren virus. Normal people extend courteous invitations. I think other Buddhists find this kind of behavior on our part both scarey and tiresome. I know I do.
During the SGI's decades-long conflict with our parent sect, Nichiren Shoshu, guests who were actually interested in Buddhism for world peace ran from Nichiren Buddhism like those terrified souls in the movie posters....looking over their shoulders, mouths agape in terror, hands in the air, trying unsuccessfully to shield their faces from the viscous green puke which flew from our mouths. Those members who were unwilling to join in the puke-fest were pointed at by their fellow members, and weird, screechy, shrieks of "betrayer!" and "heresy!" filled both the air and the worldwide web.
This has kind of made me wonder whether Nichiren Buddhism is just fated to be the boorish cousin at the holiday table of American Buddhism. Are we just going to eternally be the kind of Buddhists you can't trust in polite company?
Nichiren was a pretty scrappy guy, I will grant that. Of course, he had to be -- he lived in a country where the government controlled religion, and a society where the little guy had no voice at all. But that was then, this is now. It seems odd to me that (with our numbers so small, and the need for our practice so great), we still spend time scratching at each other's eyes when we could be cooperating and trying to actually unite and move ahead together.
But maybe that's just how the virus works, I dunno. Maybe you can't be "of the same mind as Nichiren" without being a rhetorical brawler. Maybe if you want to manifest your enlightenment by developing a peaceful and insightful mind, you have to go somewhere else.
I'm not going anywhere else soon, this is my practice. But it does kind of make me wonder....
Stay cool, everyone.
Byrd in LA
My literacy pupil and I have started working on numbers. You know:
One
Two
Three
Four
...up to and including the hundreds, thousands, and millions.
This lesson has really forced me to stop and take a look at the English language and see for myself how incredibly weird-looking it is sometimes. Take, for example, the number "2" - or, if you're reading the word, "two".
This one has two (2) homonyms (words that sound the same) ..."to" and "too". But the number has this wacked-out spelling, with a "w", of all letters, thrown in ( why a "W"? WHy not a "Q", or a "z"?). It looks as though it should be pronounced "Twoh" - sort of like how Tweety might call out "Twoh me da ball, Puddy Cat!" But it's not pronounced that way, and I can't even explain the spelling. All I can say to my student is, "Well, that's the way it is!"
Eight.
Now there's another weird, weird, weird-looking number-word.
I made my student a set of flashcards with the words on one side and the numerals on the other. As I was working on this homework project, I honestly had no idea how I had simply absorbed this "reading" knowledge over the years. I never sat down and really looked at my own language before this adventure in teaching.
Take a real look at the words you're reading sometime, people - that language can sure get weird-lookin' sometimes.
Explain this: Bomb / Comb / Womb
Go ahead, see if you can explain it. I sure can't.
Byrd in LA
P.S. My student's health is much improved. Diet and exercise can do wonders!
I just came back from a fabulous, fabulous weekend in the Antelope Valley, about an hour north of Los Angeles. A dear friend who has been active in the local interfaith group there was invited to make a presentation on Buddhism to the local synagogue's teen group. They are studying world religions as part of their confirmation process, and my friend Michele knew the rabbi from her interfaith work. She invited me to come along, and I gladly accepted. We had our little get-together yesterday (Sunday) morning.
This was really exciting! I took the train up to the Antelope Valley on Saturday, and spent the night at Michele's lovely home. She and he husband have a black cat named Raleigh. I have two black cats, myself, so I felt right at home. Raleigh was an excellent watch-cat. He strictly supervised me, sleeping all night on the couch by my side.
On Saturday night, Michele and I prepared for our talk. We had a number of hand-outs, some of which we got from the SGI-USA's webpage, and others which we got from other sources. We felt pretty much ready to go, but then we remembered that we had not resolved that most fundamental of Nichiren Buddhist questions...
Nam or Namu?
We flipped a coin (how appropos for a Super Bowl weekend!) and Namu won the toss. Michele printed up a number of business-cards on her home printer which read "Namu Myoho Renge Kyo". We gathered our handouts, did an upbeat gongyo, took an omamori Gohonzon with a portable butsudan, and headed out for Temple Beth Knesset Bamidbar in Lancaster, California.
The weather was incredibly blustery and windy - Michele told me this was normal for their area. But the weather gods gave us a hopeful sign, a beautiful, full rainbow across the sky just in back of Michele's home. How could we go wrong with an omen like that?
When we got to the synagogue, the teens were meeting in what seemed to be Rabbi Hoffman's office - I loved this office - it was books, books and more books - just my kind of place!
There wasn't a lot of room - only three chairs and a couch. The five teens were all squished together on the couch, leaving the chairs for us grownups. They sort of reminded me of pull-apart cinnamon rolls that had been baked in a too-small pan, all pushed up alongside each other, but these young people were in good spirits and eager to learn.
As part of their confirmation studies, these teens are learning all about the religions of the world - this is something that some other liberal denominations do as part of their religious education as well (I'm thinking of the Unitarians), and it's something that I admire. I also had to think about what hardy souls these young people must be. The Antelope Valley is...well...the word "redneck" sort of springs to mind. If you're a born-again Christian Republican, then this is the place for you. If you're a free-thinking Jewish teenager, I'm thinking the neighborhood might be a bit of a character-builder.
We started off discussing how all forms of Buddhism involve some sort of practice. It's not pri marily a belief system, it's something that you need to do. I then introduced a basic metta meditation, where we first wish that we ourselves be well and happy, then wish wellness and happiness for a friend, a "neutral" person, a troublesome person or "enemy", and ultimately wishing wellness and happiness for all beings everywhere. We did this for a total of about five minutes, which is a long meditation for a teenager squished like a cinnamon bun, but they did a great job. The Rabbi sort of blissed out and didn't seem like he wanted to come back!
Michele explained about the Gohonzon, and that our school of Buddhism focuses on chanting a mantra. We handed out the daimoku cards, and she showed them the omamori. Then, we all chanted together for a few minutes.
We discussed a number of basic ideas - the Ten Worlds, and how the opportunity for manifesting Buddhahood or Enlightenment is present in all of the Worlds -- this is what we believe happens when we chant. We talked about how Buddhism had travelled from India through China to Japan, and how we are all in the process of figuring out what an "American Buddhism" is going to look like.
I really can't praise these kids enough. They were smart, attentive, curious, and they asked good questions. Their parents and Rabbi Hoffman should be really, really proud of them.
Thanks so much Michele for inviting me, and thanks to Temple Beth Knesset Bamidbar for hosting this gathering and for raising such wonderful teenagers!
I will write more later on the theme of interfaith dialogue later on this week.
Byrd in LA
Well, next Tuesday is the Big Day - I'm just writing this to remind everybody to get out there and exercise your franchise.
I remember voting even as a little girl. My mother used to bring me into the voting booth with her and hold me up and let me put "X"s on the ballots. Of course, she showed me where to put the "X"s, but it was good training for me as a grown-up. I never miss an election. even those pooky little in-between elections where you're voting on a school bond or a highway proposal.
Last week, my literacy student asked me if I was going to vote, and if so, who I would be voting for, so I told him. I then asked my pupil if he planned on voting, and he said that of course he was - just like me, he never missed an election. Wow, we're kenzoku-myo! We have similar diehard voting karma.
"Well, how do you vote, if you can't read the ballot?" I asked. He told me that he would have a family member read the voter's guide to him at home, and that then, at the poll, he would just grab a poll worker and have the poll worker read the ballot to him.
Now that's dedication!
Take your cue from my wonderful hero and student - go out to your polling place this coming week (if you're in a Super Tuesday state), and exercise your right to vote!
Be informed, be heard, be cool,
Byrd in LA