LIVING by VOW: The Heart Sutra - pp 170-177 ( Stopping at No Buddhism)

[Shugen]

The dance continues...

Shohaku breaks down the Heart Sutra, and emptiness, using the five skandhas but is careful to remind us: “Everything is just illusion. The fact that we live with illusion is our reality.” And, that is okay. That is our lives.

Our deepening understanding of the emptiness of all things can help us to take a step back, to “open the hand of thought” as we do during zazen.

I do not like rats. When I see one, my mind usually goes straight to aversion. It does not have to be like this. Sometimes there is a gap between the rat and the aversion and I get to smile at myself a little bit. It is not so much of a problem that I dislike rats, or like chocolate chip ice cream, as long as I grasp loosely.

Is there something to which you have a strong like, dislike or indifference to? Can you take the step back, find the gap before the reaction occurs? Was it challenging for you as it can be for me?



Gassho,

Shugen

Sattoday/LAH

[Mp]

Thank you Shugen ... and I do like me some Haagen-Dazs! =)

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[AlanLa]

The mind likes to run away with its "self." The mind, not me, but the thing that creates a me can't help its "self." And that's fine, but finer is how awareness can put an invisible fence around all that running around. Mindfulness is enjoying a bumper crop of attention these days in counseling and psychology, as if it is something new. But it's mostly just new packaging of the old concept of awareness, which has been in the field for ages. My opinion is that it's a fad (though not a bad one at all), something new and shiny that people can grasp at to feel better, which sort of defies the whole purpose in the first place. But anyway, yes, it can delay the aversions and dukkha of life. This is not emptiness, however, thus not our practice. There is a difference between stepping back from an aversion such as rats or jealousy and being able to see the whole dependent chain that brought that aversion into awareness in the first place, and then, especially, take that same attitude toward pleasures and even the neutral areas of your life. The psychology of it is a problem fix; the Zen practice of it is a way of life that doesn't see a problem at all, just another opportunity for teaching the dharma.

The passage that stood out to me, and that I have read over multiple times now, begins at the top of page 176:

... we can still be happy if we feel oneness with other people and other beings. Other people's happiness becomes my happiness, other people's pleasure my pleasures, other people's sadness my sadness. Together we can feel a synthesis.... [a] joy or delight in the dharma. It is not a pleasure caused by fulfillment of our individual desires. Dharma embraces the reality that we are living together with all beings. We are all connected, so there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose. Everything is coming and going in a natural circulation.

To me, it's not about stepping back at all. Rather, it's about stepping with that natural circulation that allows us to see, deeply, the comings and goings of rats and jealousy, etc. so that we can deal with them in a truly (not faddish) mindful manner.

[Tairin]

“The whole body is like a mouth hanging in empty space.
Not questioning the winds from east, west, south, or north,
Equally with all of them, speaking of prajñā:
Ding-dong-a-ling ding-dong.

I’ve encountered this poem a few times but only here in Okamura’s explanation of the winter, spring, and summer wind did this make sense. Funny how just a slight twist on the description clears up something that was muddy.

Ding-dong-a-ling ding-dong!


Tairin
Sat today & LAH

[Seishin]

That last line of the poem made me think of an old Chuck Berry record but that's enough of that. Like Tairin I've encountered that verse a few times but now I fully understand the meaning.

Also, out walking our dog Sophie, with the knowledge of her canine visual and aural spectrums I often wonder how she sees and hears the world. This has been more prominent over recent weeks, since first reading this section. How different our world which is but one world. Out this sunny morning on our riverside walk, I took the camera and photographed ducks, herons, cormorants, gulls etc and started wondering about their world view, their perception of magnetic fields etc. Reading this section again just now, all this brought home how restricted my view of reality really is and just how much I'm not seeing. You could say its been an eye opener for me but I have no eyes

Apply that to all those preconceptions in all other aspects of life and I begin to see how restrictive that is to. Most of my life I've been wary, cautious and to a degree untrusting, always thinking about the motives or agenda of others.
Time to stop building walls, time to start building bridges.

[Meitou]

That last line of the poem made me think of an old Chuck Berry record but that's enough of that. Like Tairin I've encountered that verse a few times but now I fully understand the meaning.

Also, out walking our dog Sophie, with the knowledge of her canine visual and aural spectrums I often wonder how she sees and hears the world. This has been more prominent over recent weeks, since first reading this section. How different our world which is but one world. Out this sunny morning on our riverside walk, I took the camera and photographed ducks, herons, cormorants, gulls etc and started wondering about their world view, their perception of magnetic fields etc. Reading this section again just now, all this brought home how restricted my view of reality really is and just how much I'm not seeing. You could say its been an eye opener for me but I have no eyes

Apply that to all those preconceptions in all other aspects of life and I begin to see how restrictive that is to. Most of my life I've been wary, cautious and to a degree untrusting, always thinking about the motives or agenda of others.
Time to stop building walls, time to start building bridges.

This is such an insightful comment Seishin, thank you. That part of this section really made me think about my cats too - how often they seem to be really fixated on something I can't see. In the past I've often thought about their lives that I have no part of, places they go that I will never see; it's a good exercise not just to bring to my attention how limited my view actually is, but also to remind me how the world is not even in a small way me-centred, even with these creatures that I have full responsibility for.
I found Okumura's comments about our subtle grasping very penetrating. I felt uncomfortable as I read, because I know only too well that whenever I think I've got my grasping nature licked, something will come up which reminds me of how far I have to go. But I really liked how he points out that it's OK not to have the things we think we want, 'We can still live. We don't need to satisfy all our desires'. That's a great point, a great thing to sit with. And then he goes on to talk about finding our happiness in the happiness of others. This made me think of the Sanskrit word Mudita, one of the Four Immeasurables, (and the one considered by many to be the hardest) in which we find unconditional joy in the good luck and fortune of others.
I keep this word in a small sketch book on my bedside table because it's a practice I like and need to do; even if I have to force myself sometimes (I'm only human!) it's a good way into cultivating loving kindness and generosity of spirit.
I feel again in this section Okumura Roshi's grasp on the realities of our everyday lives and how we can weave the Dharma into them.
This - 'The fact that we live with illusion is our reality.' Brilliant.

Gassho
Meitou
Satwithyoualltoday lah