Satori

NOTE: This was written just before the end of the practice period.

One more zazen session this morning, then we're "done." Well, not "done" done, but in the sense that we can return to Normal Life after one last zazen and a final wrap-up council slated to end at noon.

If this practice period and sesshin have had an effect, then we'll continue zazen, study and practice, and it was clear to me that some of the participants are already living practice all the time. 

Some activated bodhicitta at birth if not before. And they have been living the bodhisattva way of life ever since. Maybe they know, maybe not, but I doubt that doing this practice period has changed them in any way or made them better bodhisattvas. They didn't need Shantideva's Guide to tell them what to do. 

But maybe they needed something else, like reinforcement, community, reminders and strength.

Bodhisattvas may be imagined as examples of perfection, but living bodhisattvas generally aren't. They're far from perfect, they fail, they face struggles and heartbreak like anyone else, and they go on. I recognize so many "natural" bodhisattvas who have affected my own life.

At first, I was reluctant to accept Shantideva Bodhisattva's endless plaint as all that worthwhile. Many people reject it in whole or in part because it's just so.... whiny. (Also gravely misogynistic and otherwise offensive to modern sensibility.)

I tried to analyse it from a class perspective, and I think that still needs to be done. Who he was and what environment he came from is, I think, crucial to understanding what and why he wrote. He wasn't "just anyone" (much as Sakyamuni Buddha wasn't "just anyone.") He was a prince, son of a raja if not a maharaja, who, when his father died, was to be placed on the throne himself, and who instead ran way to a Buddhist monastery. Not just any monastery either, but Nalanda, the greatest Buddhist institution the world has ever seen. And there he faced challenges to his very being that he could not imagine.

I know the Dalai Lama has great fondness for Shantideva and his Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life and teaches it often. Why? Could it be that this particular work has special meaning to those whose lives have been turned upside down by choice or circumstance and who need to regularly reinforce their practice (faith, if you will) that they can do and are doing what's right?

Yes, I think that's a big part of it, and it's a big part of why it was being taught during this practice period. The COVID you see has turned all our lives upside down, and we don't yet know when -- or if at this rate -- it will end. 

The psychological and emotional toll has been immense, especially for those in the helping professions -- which seemed to be most of the participants in this practice period, bordering on 90%.

Lives have been ended by the hundreds of thousands, millions world-wide. A horrible period of political unrighteousness has still not completely ended. Isolation and fear and doubt have compounded in so many of us. 

Apart from the clerks at the grocery store and post office, medical professionals are about the only people I've been dealing with face to face regularly for over a year. I know they've been having a hard time, at first really hard, and I've expressed my sympathy, but during this practice period, I've come to a much better understanding of how hard it's been and still is. Worlds turned upside down repeatedly. And much, much worse for many.

I have a wood carved Buddha on an altar that I've bowed to every zazen session. He's modeled on the Kamakura Daibutsu in Japan, I believe the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. I painted him gold  -- the Kamakura Daibutsu was gilded at one point -- so that he would not fade into the mirrored background. The Buddha on my altar appears to be deep in meditation, but his facial expression has always puzzled me (it's even more apparent on the huge bronze original.)  Then it came to me. It's the expression of profound heartbreak that he has not been able to save, deliver, rescue all sentient beings as a Bodhisattva despite what Shantideva tells us a Bodhisattva must vow to do.

Next to him is a wood carving of the Laughing Buddha that was so popular in the West for so many years -- but you don't see him much any more. It was such a popular image that my father had a small one on his bookshelf in Iowa when I was born, and my mother apparently took it with her when she divorced him because I remember it fondly standing on our bookshelf in California, laughing with hands raised high overhead. (Come to think of it, maybe it was hers to begin with...)

On the other side of the Daibutsu is a wood carving of a Chinese mendicant monk smiling at the Buddha.

There are other images: a horse and an elephant, both references to the life of Shakyamuni, a carved wooden zebra, a carved wooden duck (sentient beings) a brass cricket, a bronze dragon, a ceramic tree coming into bloom with tiny birds on its branches, a greenstone carved abstract figure that could be someone practicing zazen, gourd figures that Ms Ché and I made one Christmas at the Cherokee club, flowers, many flowers and flowering branches, and an incense burner. 

We have several other altars in the house. One for dead friends. One for Native figures. All are sites of honor, and the Heartbroken Buddha altar for now has pride of place.

In addition to the other things mentioned on the Daibutsu/Heartbroken Buddha altar, there's a kerosene lamp, an electric candle, five cranberry colored sherry glasses, a photo of Ms Ché smiling at her desk at work 20-30 years ago, and a Midcentury clock to tell the time. These tchotchkes sort of wound up there without great intent, but somehow they seem to belong. 

Behind the Buddha stretching the width of the altar is a Craftsman mirror in an oak frame. It was part of a collection of Craftsman furniture I picked up at a thrift store many years ago. Draped across the top of the mirror is a length of sari silk, deep, deep teal blue, sprinkled with golden embroidery spots that look something like stars.

It's very crowded, this altar, and any critic would point out it's "Not Zen" at all. That's correct. 

As mentioned in another post, I long ago let go of any attempt at emulating Japanese style or adopting the pretense of Going Japanese. It's not who I am.

Yet I still practice zazen? Sure, why not?

But right now, it's time to chop some wood and carry water.

🙏 ॐ