That which once made us free becomes our prison, again…
The nature of attachment – it strikes at the very core of who were are as a species. Our ability to become attached determines the success and fulfillment we experience from everything in our lives, from our relationships to our paths of self-discovery.
Buddhism speaks about releasing attachments but the concept is difficult to make sense of in the context of the modern world. Images of itinerant priests wondering lonely dirt highways from town to town are romantic but hardly serve to illuminate any truth on the concept of attachment.
The problem is that in my experience something must be done again and again in order to glean any value from it. This is the basic law of practice. Jumping from an airplane with a parachute is perhaps a thrill done once, but once isn’t enough to establish a true path of discovery. How many thousands of US consumers have shelled out hundreds and thousands of dollars to become scuba certified only to wait every three or four years to dive the warm and comfortable waters of the Tropics? Pictures of exotic adventure sit on desks, Caribbean tourists dressed in high-tech equipment awaiting entry into clear and beautiful waters, done only once. Lives continue day after day locked in corporate employment waiting in quiet desperation for that far-off day when we can escape our dreary existence once again if for only a brief moment in our lives.
Buddhism itself is the ultimate attachment. Older forms of Buddhism teach non-attachment yet one must become attached, even addicted to the teaching itself in order to escape attachment in other aspects of life.
I’m not much for recreation. I’m too busy. I dive, but my diving has become an exploration in self-discovery in the truest sense. My Buddhist practice, well – that’s a given. Buddhism, chanting Nam myoho renge kyo to the Gohonzon is an axis point, the center, the Sun around which all other planets revolve. It is truly the home to which I return in my heart day after day throughout my life.
This is the trick I believe, to establish a central focus which becomes consistent and dependable as our lives progress. There’s a reason for this and it’s a simple one – life changes. That which freed us can become our prison. This happens when we reject the natural evolution of a path within our life and hold tight to it refusing to allow it to grow. It’s then that it becomes an attachment in the truest sense of the word.
SGI has changed, and continues to change. The campaigns and band-wagons of yesteryear have ceased and we are now free from the dogma of a powerful priesthood and yet I see those around me who cling tight to fond memories and try desperately to resurrect the mindless number-seeking shakabuku mindset we fostered back in the 80’s.
In the Bujinkan I see those who grasp at approaches to their taijutsu, the kihon happo and sanshin no kata that are now outdated, washed over by years of Soke Hatsumi’s teaching. In my area a rare and strange appearance by a senior teacher has created conflict and spotlighted those who refuse to let go of past illusion in favor of present truth.
Life changes, we change, and yet our paths, our attachments, remain as they should for us to gain benefit and guidance. The Gohonzon is a consistent and a point of return for us Nichiren Buddhists though our relationship with it and Nam myoho renge kyo evolves and develops in orbit with our life experience.
My relationship with my Tamagotchi is a fine example. I awake every day to start my cycle of jump games (the Tamagotchi Connection, the newest model, has two games – Dance/memory and Jump) counting each perfect game up to 30 on juzu. I observe the strange cycle of my own nervous system as it peaks with morning coffee, making the games more difficult (I get twitchy) and then quiets as the afternoon progresses. I count 10 perfect games and then any further games are purely recreational. The day could come that I would have to break my attachment to my Tamagotchi - unless of course, it replaces the Gohonzon as my central Buddhist practice. Insanity or extreme cleverness? You be the judge…
The things we do may remain the same, but the reasons are completely different from person to person and change and evolve within each individual’s life.
Evolve or perish….
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
Recently a student of mine asked me about Buddhism. She’s 14 years old.
How do you shakabuku a 14 year old? I mean, I know the old-school Gakkai way, but that’s hard to hang with these days. So much has transpired since NSA and well, you understand….
What do I tell her? What do I not tell her? Do I explain that back in the 60’s war brides of American servicemen were some of the first Nichiren Buddhists to bring this Buddhism to the US and being eager to spread this incredible practice they handed out Gohonzons from their car windows?
And what about the initial conflict between the Soka Gakkai and Nitattsu Shonin in 1979, the wooden Gohonzons, Pres. Ikeda stepping down in apology from his position as President of the Soka Gakkai and then being named President of the Soka Gakkai International after being totally forgiven by the next High Priest Nikken Shonin? Do I tell her that in 1990 that same High Priest turned around and excommunicated all the Soka Gakkai members in a continuation of that same conflict? If I were to share this with her this, how would I explain it in the context of the history of Nichiren’s Buddhism and it’s transmission from the only Country to be attacked with Atomic weapons to the rest of the world?
Certainly I would share that Nichiren lived during the Kamakura era, a time plagued by starvation, disease, civil unrest, intrigue among the ruling class, and soon-to-come invasion from abroad. His mission was not one of invention or creation rather one of re-clarification and the sifting out of the real from the unreal.
Buddhism was nothing new by that time and Japan was already a Country which fully embraced the teachings of the Buddha, in all its myriad forms, versions and conflicts. The problem for us now in this modern world and in the nations of the West is that Buddhism remains something exotic, strange and different in the ways people seek that which is new and wonderful instead of that which already is firmly planted and accepted.
We look at the form and mistake it for the function, the tangible. Invariably if we encounter Buddhism from a particular source, the mystic law of the universe is replaced by temples, incense and colorful costumes. We receive the wrapper, not the gift. This is what I fear for someone so young seeking something so deep and powerful.
To get so close, and then become misguided into following something colorful yet empty…
Nichiren, during his 30+ years of study, clarified why Japan was suffering when in fact they should have been prospering. The reason why was that they were following the form and not the function, the unreal instead of the true, and in the process were committing slander of the law of the universe contained in the Lotus Sutra. It’s not superstition, its life and the working by which life exists. Slander of the Lotus Sutra is to ignore the truth and pursue the unreal – when you very much know better.
But this is hard to explain to a 14 year old. What I would like to share with her is that when Nichiren finally returned to his home temple after years of study and reflection in 1253, he proclaimed that Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, the title of the Lotus Sutra, was the supreme truth. After that life got a little rough for him. He was chased, attacked, persecuted, almost beheaded and exiled twice. And all of this confirmed to him, in light of the sutra, that he was telling the truth.
It would, I suppose, be a simple thing to compare Nichiren to Jesus. In Japan Nichiren is as well-known as say, George Washington. The difference between Nichiren and Jesus is that Nichiren lived a mere 700 years ago and is generally accepted as being an historical figure. Jesus, as we in the West know, has entered into a state of mythology.
I would certainly tell her about the Gohonzon, the inscription and central object of focus in Nichiren Buddhism because well – let’s face it – the Gohonzon is just so cool.
I don’t know what I will share with her initially. Truthfully I probably will just tell her to try chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for herself and log some personal experience with it. I mean, Nichiren’s Buddhism is a lot like martial arts, you gotta kinda do it before you can make sense of it….
Maybe I can share with her that renge represents cause and effect, just like in science, and that with Nam myoho renge kyo you become enabled to make unlimited causes in and for your life, all of which manifest real effects.
What do you think???
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
The first Gohonzon I every saw was the Nikken Omamori Gohonzon….
I was mesmerized. It looked like a little universe – a matrix, a fabric of sorts. If I am not mistaken, Nichiren Shoshu issued an Omamari that had been inscribed as such, as opposed to reducing a full-sized Gohonzon.
I’m not passing judgment either way; it’s just that this particular Gohonzon burned an image, an essence, a taste into my psyche…
That’s weird, isn’t it? Still I wish I had one…
I performed a memorial ceremony at my dojo prior to training tonight for David Riebandt. My life has been on hold, like an airplane in a holding pattern above the airport awaiting permission to land. Landing in this case is performing this ceremony. All my students attended plus three of David's closest friends.
I have such deep and intimate appreciation for them for attending, and fear I will not have the chance to ever tell them that.
Tomorrow I begin anew. I will play jump with my Tamagotchi and count the perfect games I play on special juzu made just for that purpose.
Life goes on…
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
I found out this evening that a student of mine, David Riebandt, passed away.The causes are unknown to me. He was found in his bed by his roommate, according to very limited information I have received.
I was asked to say some words tonight prior to training in the Monterey dojo, and I asked everyone to end in sansho, (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo chanted three times). Of course that’s alot to ask from those students who may have not have heard Nam Myoho Renge Kyo before.
I did my best, not much to do on short notice….
I quoted Nichiren from A Conversation between a Sage and A Common Man; “Life passes as quickly as a white colt viewed through a hole in a fence….”
Towards the end of training I suffered crippling indigestion, I mean like my stomach was coming out through my throat. I became frightened – seriously. Weird thoughts like “crap, am I going to die?” began to pop up in my mind. I walked to the Longs Drugs and bought some Tums. They didn’t help much.
Once I was on the Freeway driving home I cried. I cried for a long time, all of the way home. By the time I arrived my stomach felt ok again. I fucking hate it when people I know and care for die. This is the part of being human I really hate.
I doesn’t make sense to talk about David to people who don’t know him, but he was a really thoughtful guy. He was a Tibetan Buddhist and I was going to invite him over to my home to discuss Buddhism but hadn’t found the right time to do so. Figures…
I’m really going to miss David Riebandt. I regret not being able to be his friend longer.
All I can say about David Riebandt is that if he had been in the car with me when I was crying, he would have told me not to worry, that it was ok. He probably would have apologized for dying. It’s ok David. We have to go when we have to go (note to self).
On behalf of David Riebandt - From A Conversation between a Sage and a Unenlightened Man;
Having received life, one cannot escape death. Yet though everyone from the Emperor down to the lowliest commoner recognizes this as a fact, not one person in a thousand or ten thousand truly takes the matter seriously or grieves over it. Suddenly confronted with evidence of the impermanence of life we may be terrified by the prospect of the unknown and lament that the world we are familiar with should pass so quickly. Yet we assume that those who have preceded us in death are wretched and that we who remain alive are superior. Busy with that task yesterday and this affair today, we are helplessly bound by the five desires of our worldly nature. Unaware that time passes as quickly as a white colt glimpsed through a crack in the wall, ignorant as sheep being lead to the slaughter, held hopeless prisoners by our concern for food and clothing, we fall heedlessly into the snares of fame and profit and in the end make our way back to that familiar village in the three evil paths, only to set out on the road again, reborn time after time in the six paths of existence. What person of feeling could fail to grieve at such a state of affairs, or fail to be moved to sorry!
I recently obtained a really cool book….
I wish I could read it….
Don’t try and buy a copy of it, only Ninjas can order from this website. They may sell you one if you mention Rev. Greg Dilley sent you. Maybe...
The book is incredibly cool, well, at least the pictures are. There are pictures of all sorts of historical sites related to Nichiren and the history of his Buddhism. Yes, there are some pages devoted to the Soka Gakkai, at least there is a picture of Toda Sensei and Makaguchi Sensei.
SGI isn’t much interested in historical sites related to Nichiren. I personally don’t think this is bad nor good, it’s just the today onward philosophy that is taught in the Soka Gakkai, and that is good. When we were partnered with Nichiren Shoshu any sites connected with other temples and other sects were considered heretical and evil. I understood it then, I was there.
We’re free now, at least we should be free. I understand that now, I am here.
Inside the first page of the book is what appears to be a very old diagram of Nichiren juzu with an explanation of every single bead. Most Nichiren Buddhists I know don't know there are subtle differences between the juzu of Nichiren and other sects, even between different Nichiren sects. Is that cool or what?
Sure wish I could read Japanese though….
Rev. Greg, the illiterate Ninja
I promised I would write more often. I can see the problem now with this; I’m not a good blogger.
BLOG, in case you didn’t know, is short for “web log”. A log is analogous to a diary or a chronicle, something ongoing. I like each entry to be a work in itself, some high concept entry based on supposed wisdom from my life. (Keep your sarcasm to your self, I’m a ninja, I can hear you) Anyway, in true web log fashion, allow me to elucidate on an important event of my life….
A few months ago a senior instructor from the Bujinkan in Japan showed up on our doorstep, in Monterey to be precise. These senior instructors, personal students of Masaaki Hatsumi, the last Ninja, do not travel abroad to teach, as a policy. This one came to the US for reasons related to his work.
His presence here, his willingness to teach, share and train with us fortunate few represents an occurrence so rare, so unusual, as to almost not be believable. As time has passed and I learn more and more the feeling of this man and his taijutsu (body art or body movement) it occurs to me that I would be little better off if I were even in Japan training right now.
In SGI we speak of a seeking spirit but being the cynic that I am, I only now understand what that is. My seeking spirit has to do with absorbing, assimilating, becoming every nuance of what makes this teacher such a wonderful budoka (practitioner of budo), or if you can accept this; what makes him a ninja.
The Japanese teachers use little power in their taijutsu. Instead they rely on the inherent power of their own body movement instead of their musculature and physical strength. Taken as a spiritual analogy, it is the difference between our faith in the Gohonzon vs. our own “positive thinking” or mental determination.
While faith is an eternal and living thing, or own intellect is fleeting, unreliable, and deceptive.
Ummm…. Perhaps I should add “well, speaking only for myself"….
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
I trained tonight, my usual Friday class in Monterey - Enshin Itto Ryu Battojutsu. For killing the Grandmaster says of his art. He lives in Noda Japan. Sometimes I think maybe he doesn't know it's 2005. He has signs outside in his training area announcing he will receive all challengers.
With live swords.
He means it.
But I digress...
Tonight a young Jujutsu student mentioned to me that he wanted to buy a sword in order to begin training in Enshin Itto Ryu Battojutsu. The swords cost $640.00, pricey but reasonable for a quality Iaito (training sword).
I mentioned to him that I could save him money, that I knew someone who no longer was training and wished to sell his sword for a bargain. He thanked me and then replied that Sensei (not the Grandmaster, our American Sensei) may wish to fit him with an appropriate sword for "his energy".
Fit for his energy
That "fit" will cost him a couple a hundred bucks.
That's the price of magic. Magic is a function of human life. It is not an ancient archaic and silly concept, it is a living function that comes - in modern society - with a price tag.
Are you paying money for magic? It's worth pondering....
Rev. Greg, Magician