lotusinthemud

buddhist monks sheltered persecuted christians

By ucanews.com special correspondent, Hagi

Catholics visit a secret room in Houonji Buddhist monastery, said to have sheltered persecuted Christians

Japanese Buddhist monks hid persecuted Christians in a secret room in their monastery. They then chanted sutras outside to drown out any incriminating noise, Catholics learnt during a Church program.

Sixty people, led by Father Makoto Onchi of Hagi Catholic Church in Yamaguchi Prefecture, visited the Houonji Buddhist monastery on July 4. The program was part of the church’s annual visit to sites associated with Christian persecution which occurred at various times from the early 1600s.

The monastery had discovered a secret room attached to its main hall, with a tunnel leading out to the fields behind the temple, chief Buddhist monk Venerable Toshiaki Namba told Father Onchi during an interreligious gathering.

The room is believed to have sheltered Christians hiding from religious persecution.

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it's time to stop struggling

A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us.

~ Pema Chodron

truly in the present moment

One day the Buddha held up a flower in front of an audience of 1,250 monks and nuns. He did not say anything for quite a long time. The audience was perfectly silent. Everyone seemed to be thinking hard, trying to see the meaning behind the Buddha's gesture. Then, suddenly, the Buddha smiled. He smiled because someone in the audience smiled at him and at the flower. . . . To me the meaning is quite simple. When someone holds up a flower and shows it to you, he wants you to see it. If you keep thinking, you miss the flower. The person who was not thinking, who was just himself, was able to encounter the flower in depth, and he smiled. That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, in Peace Is Every Step

the same nature

After you wake up you probably open the curtains and look outside. You may even like to open the window and feel the cool morning air with the dew still on the grass. But is what you see really "outside"? In fact, it is your own mind. As the sun sends its rays through the window, you are not just yourself. You are also the beautiful view from your window. You are the Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya literally means the body (kaya) of the Buddha's teachings (Dharma), the way of understanding and love. Before passing away, the Buddha told his disciples, "Only my physical body will pass away. My Dharma body will remain with you forever." In Mahayana Buddhism, the word has come to mean "the essence of all that exists." All phenomena - the song of a bird, the warm rays of the sun, a cup of hot tea - are manifestations of the Dharmakaya. We, too, are of the same nature as these wonders of the universe.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment

only to the extent....

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.

~ Pema Chodron

leaving the lotus position - sitting when the body won't bend so easily

Susan Moon on the necessity of alternative meditation postures

By Susan Moon

I SIT IN a chair. Yes, of course, but I mean I sit zazen in a chair. This is a recent development, arising no doubt from a karmic web of causes and conditions, but the primary one is osteoarthritis in my knees.

Everybody knows that a Zen student truly dedicated to the Way sits cross-legged on the floor. Buddha was sitting cross-legged when he was enlightened under the pipal tree 2,600 years ago, and there are millions of Buddha statues to prove it— sitting cross-legged on altars and bookshelves all over the world. Several of them are in my house.

The image of Shakyamuni in seated meditation is the essential icon of Buddhism. And 800 years ago, Eihei Dogen, founder of Soto Zen in Japan, instructed seekers of the way to “sit either in the full lotus or half lotus position.” These are ancient yogic asanas, sacred positions—they come with a warranty. Back in my limber days, I believed that I was bound to get enlightened if I just sat still long enough in half lotus on my black zafu. Now I see how unreasonable it would be if the cross-legged people were the only ones who got to cross over to the other shore.

These days sitting cross-legged causes me intense pain. Everybody knows that not turning away from suffering is at the heart of Zen practice, and this includes not turning away from pain in the knees. Sesshins (long Zen meditation retreats) are an opportunity to learn to sit through pain. When there is pain in the knees, if I can see it as nothing other than pain in the knees, then I will be a happy person with pain in my knees. So I have been taught, during more than 30 years of Zen practice.

Some years ago, when I was still a floor sitter, a fellow practitioner had to move to a chair after knee surgery. (The anecdotal evidence I’ve heard suggests that a remarkably high proportion of Zen practitioners require knee surgery.)

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