lotusinthemud

Talmudic Dharma: Four in the Orchard ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

This morning as we had a delicious drawn out breakfast here in Petach Tikwa near Tal Aviv, a massive thunder storm developed lashing the building with wind and rain.  Vimala shared with us a story from the Talmud that has provoked many different interpretations among Jewish commentators and asked for our view.

He read to us from the book.  The book is laid out in an interesting way.  On each page the original Aramaic text is in the middle and the Jewish translation is to one side.  The various commentaries then unfold in a spiral around the page going down the right hand side, across the bottom right to left and then up the left side.  The text is small and dense, so there is a huge amount of traditional wisdom condensed into this volume.

The story is as follows. Four people enter the orchard.  They are told that in the orchard they will find the true marble.  They are warned that, when they see the marble, not to think of it as water.  The four each has a different experience.  The first, second and fourth are known historical figures, the first and second being lay seekers from distant history and the fourth being a famous rabbinic teacher.  The third is simply called “the other one”. The experiences of the four who enter the orchard are as follows.

The first peers into the marble and immediately dies.

The second glances at the marble and is wounded and goes mad.

The third sees the marble and cuts down all the trees.

The fourth sees the marble, is unharmed and goes forth into the world.

Vimala told us some of the traditional interpretations.  There is general agreement that entering the orchard refers to entering upon the spiritual path and that the marble represents the holy of holies, the shekinah, God. But what of the rest of the story?  Here opinions are diverse.  Some think that it tells us how meeting God can be dangerous.  Many are confused especially by the experience of the third person and by his lack of any specific designation.  Also, why is only one of the four a rabbi?  And so on.  A common assumption is that they represent good and bad ways of understanding, usually it being taken that the fourth is the best.

What did I think?

It came to me that all four represent valid ways of being on the spiritual path.  They are all good, but they are different styles.

There are those whose attention is transfixed by the Holy.  They are seized by Amida completely.  The ego dies.  They are completely intoxicated with this sacred vision; so much so that they are as if dead to the worldly world.  They are completely unified with the Love.

There are those who see the Holy and it “wounds” them.  This is like falling in love.  The lover longs for the Beloved.  To the observer, such a person is mad.  They do not care about worldly conventions. They only long to find the Beloved, to enter the sacred spirit.

There are those who encounter the Holy and are inspired toward purity.  Everything that is not the true marble is cut down.  This is the path of the Arhat, the purist.  They cannot bear that anything other than the Holy exist.  They seek passionately to renounce and eliminate all trace of impurity from their life.

There are those who encounter the holy and then go forth into the world to spread the Dharma.  This is the path of the bodhisattva.

Regarding the names, the first three are all lay followers and the last is one who takes on the religious life in a more formal way.  The first two and third are specifically named because those figures from history illustrate these ways of being.  The third is not specifically named because this is the common way of doing things - ordinary people associate spirituality with moral strictness.

Regarding not seeing water, perhaps this is not to see one’s own reflection (as one does in water), or anything that flows away, but to see the “true marble” which, like diamond in Buddhism, represents the enduring substance - that which is not impermanent. 

We then had a rich discussion of the different ways that one can play with these ideas as a means of understanding the spiritual path and the holy life.

Good food, good company, good discussion and remarkable weather - a fine breakfast.

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A word for 2020

I’ve been contemplating which word would inspire me for 2020. This is a practice that Satya started either last year or before.

Of course the words that come to mind, immediately, and the only ones that really matter, are the nembutsu - Namo Amida Bu or, in one word form, Namandabu.

But for this year specifically? 

Having relinquished some of my responsibilities recently, I am drawn to spend more time contemplatively. And to put more attention on reading and crafting. This won’t preclude other activities or activism. But I’m not feeling shouty. There are enough people shouting. And shouting does have its place - there’s a lot going on politically and, most critically, environmentally, that should be brought to peoples’ attention, along with urges to ‘do something’ or to ‘stop doing …’.

What are the words that are coming to me to consider? Quiet or the Scottish form, which I prefer, Wheesht (I'm reading an excellent book on creativity called Wheesht, by Kate Davies). But the word that seems to claim me, seems to have chosen itself, is Listen.

So stopping, not clamouring or being taken over by clamour, which can drown out important messages, but listening. What is that person really wanting to say? What response is appropriate at this moment, if any? What is nature telling me?  What am I learning - and it seems that my ageing confirms how little I know? What can I create that chimes with this mindset?

And onto my Facebook page this morning - how synchronous - popped something I posted two years ago: 

“When you talk you are only repeating something you already know. But, if you listen you may learn something new “ 

~  HH The Dalai Lama

So, Listen, it is.

Video of Post-Mappo and the Innocent Heart by Dharmavidya David Brazier

Bodhi gathering 2019 - talk one. Rev Master Dharmavidya David Brazier gives the first talk of our Bodhi gathering.

"In this time of materialism it is not even possible for people to follow the path of faith with any ease. In fact, many people have become inoculated against faith by exposure to its degenerate forms. What can possibly avail us in these latter days? Life has become immensely complicated. People are under pressure from all sides to conform to the path of worldly success." "The innocent heart is unselfconscious. Through innocence one can find faith renewed. Through faith renewed one can find the real meaning of the practices. In these real forms one can meet the Tathagata. Meeting the Tathagata one can receive the transmission. It all unfords naturally. We are in the fourth age, the Post-Mappo, and a return to the simplicity of innocence is now the only gate that is not locked."

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Post-Mappo Rediscover Innocence ~ Dharmavidya

The first Dharma talk of the 2019 Bodhi Retreat at Amida Mandala. Dharmavidya writes:

In my Dharma talk today I suggested that we are now in the fourth age of the Dharma. In the first age of the Dharma Buddha Shakyamuni was still in this world or had recently passed away and people became enlightened by direct encounter with him or with one of his great disciples. This was the age of direct inspiration.

In the second age of the Dharma, people were able to become enlightened and enter nirvana by means of self-power practices. It was not that these rituals had an intrinsic power, but they were what still connected practitioners with the original source. By doing what Buddha did, people received the transmission. This continued for eight hundred years or so.

By the third age of the Dharma, called Mappo, things had deteriorated. Although the self-power practices remained a shining example, there were few or no people capable of actually realising them. The times were degenerate. At this time there arose teachers who showed the path of faith as the only available possibility for deluded beings to reach the Buddha and receive the transmission, if not in this life, then in the next.

Now we are in the fourth age, the Post-Mappo. In this time of materialism it is not even possible for people to follow the path of faith with any ease. In fact, many people have become inoculated against faith by exposure to its degenerate forms. What can possibly avail us in these latter days? Life has become immensely complicated. People are under pressure from all sides to conform to the path of worldly success.

Those who still attempt self-power practices do so mostly for the sake of this-worldly benefit. We do not have Shakyamuni nor Shariputra, Kashyapa nor Ananda to show us the way. We are more sophisticated than the people of old, but this very sophistication blocks our way back to the source. What is needed now? What is needed now is a return to innocence.

Only by cutting through the interminable woes and worries of our age can we hope to find the light and this cutting through involves a great simplification and lightening. Lighten your life! Reclaim the innocent eye of the child without letting go of the knowledge gained by maturity. Learn once again to play and skip. Life has become too heavy.

We are all weighed down by possessions and responsibilities, deadlines and protocols, debt and work. Riding the Dharma, leap free. Break out of the prison. Embrace nature. Let the mind expand in wonderment. Talk to the stars and bathe in the light of the moon.

The innocent heart is unselfconscious. Through innocence one can find faith renewed. Through faith renewed one can find the real meaning of the practices. In these real forms one can meet the Tathagata. Meeting the Tathagata one can receive the transmission. It all unfords naturally.

We are in the fourth age, the Post-Mappo, and a return to the simplicity of innocence is now the only gate that is not locked.

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Amida Samadhi ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya: 

INSIGHT AND CALM

In the approach known now as Insight Meditation, there are two phases to practise. The first is to calm the mind and the second is “looking into the true nature of things as they are”. In other words, calm is a basis for the development of insight. However, in our Amida Shu approach it is the other way around. First we enquire into the state of things and then we offer whatever insight we have to the Buddhas who then bestow their blessing of great peace. So in this schema, insight leads to calm, which is to say to peace of mind, for which the Japanese term is anjin, sometimes translated as “settled faith”.

SETTLING

Why does faith need to “settle”? Everybody has faith, or, in most cases, a variety of faiths, that are, much of the time, at odds with one another, all vying for priority. When we say “faith” here, for practical purposes we can say we are referring to what one puts one’s faith in. It might be financial security, or a political cause, or a relationship, or one’s own cleverness, or good health, or many other things. A little insight reveals all of these to be unreliable. they are all subject to conditions and therefore impermanent. None of them constitutes a true refuge, yet all of these things exercise us in ways that are stressful and demanding.

OFFERING

Insight, therefore, can be unsettling. Seeing into the state of things is challenging. The only reliable way to overcome this disturbance is to admit one’s own incapacity to solve the riddle. In Buddhism, one does this by offering all of this to the Buddhas. This is our prayer: “Oh Buddha, please receive my offering. Please receive all the complicated puzzle that is my life. I give it all to you in confidence that you alone know how to deploy it within your scheme of harmony.”

We do not have to use these words; in fact, it is better to use one’s own words and to be specific about what it is that one is offering today, which might be sorrow, or joy, or anger, or longing, or confusion, or whatever. It might be arrogance, or generosity, or stubbornness, or chagrin, or achievement, or defeat. It might be tears. It might be the unreliability of body and mind. It will be whatever one has discovered in one’s inner search. The point is that it is not a matter of offering the right thing, but rather of being honest about what one has found within and offering it unconditionally.

PEACE

The Buddhas are always offering their peace. Only when we turn toward them and unburden ourselves do we actually receive it. This receiving can be quite physical. One can feel peace and calm descending through one’s body as one offers one’s offering up.

Such peace comes because when we take refuge in Buddha, or, we can say, in Buddhadharma, all our faith is reunified. The reunification of faith is samadhi. This makes one into a suitable channel for the descent of the Buddha light into the heart. This, therefore, is the Amida Samadhi, the samadhi without measure, without limit, that is completely centred, yet boundless. This is what Honen means by “gazing upon the moon”. Here “the moon” represents the spiritual light. Standing outside on a summer’s night and gazing at the physical moon in the sky gives one a sense of peace. This, therefore, has become a way of representing the act of taking refuge. In taking refuge one gazes upon a moon that is eternally present, outside of time, always shedding its benign light.

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Performing the Ritual of Life ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

This article is published by Tricycle magazine at

https://tricycle.org/magazine/dogen-and-enlightenment/

The Secular and the Psychological ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

October 4th:

I have just come back from the conference of Buddhist teachers in Europe. While I was there I heard much discussion about secularisation and how it is necessary to secularise the Dharma in order to make it palatable to modern people. Personally, I am resistant to this idea. The Dharma is, in essence, a faith that lodges deeply in people’s hearts and that means that it is a religion. If you take the religion out what you are left with is a variety of techniques and protocols that can be intrinsically useful but is far short of real Dharma.

Furthermore, technique Buddhism takes up a lot of space in people’s already over full lives. A busy person who is hoping to get something from Buddhism does not really need telling that he should do an hour of medtation in addition to all the other things he has to do in a day. He is likely to try it for a short while and then find that it just gets squeezed out by all the other things that are on his agenda, whereas if he were to develop a sense of faith and gratitude for the Dharma, he can carry this with him wherever he goes. He can say a mantra or nembutsu while stopped at the traffic lights. He can gesture towards his heart anytime and this will help him to stay in touch with the wonderful sense of refuge that is the core of Buddhist faith. A less secular and more religious attitude is far more practical, apart from being the real thing.

However, some people say that I am in self-contradiction because I am in favour of a psychological perspective. Thus, for instance, I understand the life of Sidhartha Gotama in personal terms. His mother died giving birth to him. If you read the diary of the great 20th century Chan master Tzu Yun who had a similar beginning to life, you can see clearly how such a circumstance creates a deep personal and existential dilemma for a person and how one of the ways of dealing with this is to try to attone, which Siddhartha did by throwing himself into penitential practices, starving himself, going without sleep and trying all the extremes of yogic discipline. It then happened, when he was at an extremity, that Sujata showed kindness to him and I reason that this touched his heart and must have been a significant element in triggering his “one good night” of enlightenment.

Some Buddhists do not see the Buddha this way. They imagine that he was as he was as a result of many lifetimes of preparation and that he arrived in this life direct from the Tushita Heaven already equipped with all the knowledge that a Buddha needs; that he only went through the motions of being a human being in order to demonstrate the Dharma to us lesser beings. They do not, therefore, see the enlightenment as a result of a personal history or struggle. They think that if you psychologise the Buddha story in the way that I do, then you are effectively secularising the Dharma. I do not agree.

I do not agree because being religious does not imply that one has to be super human. Even if one does come into this life direct from Tushita, one comes as a human. To talk about Jesus’ passion on the cross does not make Christianity any less religious. Jesus and Sidhartha were human, but because they dealt with their humanity in a particular way they became channels for what is more than human to become manifest in the world. They became, as it were, mirrors for the light of the Dharma. In this way they are both fully human and fully divine. They are fully divine in that the ultimate truth shines through them. They are fully human in having the same instincts, the same human equipment, the same struggles that everybody has. They, however, took things further than most people do and, by doing so, revealed the highest truth.

Literally, "psychology" means the study of the soul and we shall not get far with religion if we do not study the soul’s perilous journey, both in the cases of the great exemplars and in our own lives. Furthermore, all psychological problems and obstacles are essentially spiritual and vice versa. To live a life of great compassion the Buddha had to understand the people who came to see him. He had to understand the mentality of Angulimala, the murderer. He had to understand that of Kisagotami who could not believe that her child was dead. He could only help by understanding and tailoring his response to that comprehension. Spiritual work is psychological and psychological work is spiritual. If it is not, it is not the real thing.

So I find a psychological understanding immensely useful and Buddhism provides me with a mass of psychological tools, but this does not mean that I am secularising the Dharma nor that the idea of doing so has any great appeal to me. For me the Dharma answers to my spiritual experience, search and struggle and the fact that the Dharma is full of wonderful psychological insights helps greatly. It all gives shape and expression to my faith and shows how unconditional grace operates in the midst of this conditioned existence.

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Homily To The Dragons ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes: 

This morning my homily to the dragons was on kindness. After all, dragons must learn kindness too and they have their special contribution. The Dharma is not just about kind folk remaining kind nor just nice people being nice. Buddha nature will always be so in any case. Nor is it about beings changing their nature, really. It is about wisdom. With wisdom, the nature of the dragon can also perform acts of great kindness.

In fact, it is the dragons who hold the mani stone. They are the ones who protect the jewel. This is the key to enlightenment. Soft grass and tranquil waters are beautiful, but fire also has its place. Therefore, I seek friendship with the dragons. Welcome to my hall! Although they writhe and spit they have the energy of transformation. Innumerable are deluded passions; we vow to transform them all. Here transformation does not involve one gram of loss of substance.

When I do my prostrations, I am being a kind of dragon. My sinuous movement, so much more clumsy than theirs, imitates those who ride on the wind and never touch the ground. I may be touching the earth where they are gliding above it, but, nonetheless I can learn from them. To learn from the other is one of the greatest acts of kindness, is it not?

I hope to meet my dragon friends again tomorrow and we shall continue our mutual education.

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The Truth About Craving ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

Much of what I have learnt as Buddhism over the years appears to be topsy-turvy. Although there is a well established idea of what Buddhism is, this is deceptive. There is a hidden meaning within Buddhism that most do not see. The hidden meaning is more obvious than the commonly accepted one, but as people are blind, they do not see what is straightforward.

OVERCOMING CRAVING

Take, for instance, the idea of overcoming craving or attaining freedom from craving. This is supposed to be the key to liberation and freedom from suffering. There is, however, a twist in the idea of freedom or liberation. On the one hand, it can mean an absence. Thus freedom from craving could mean that one no longer experiences craving, that it does not arise and is a sensation that has disappeared from one’s repertoire of feelings. On the other hand, freedom from craving could mean that craving continues but that it no longer dominates one’s life. In this understanding, one is liberated in the sense of not being enslaved by it, even though it is still present.

REAL PEOPLE

When I consider actual people, it does seem to me that there are no people who are free in the first sense, though the second sense might be possible. Craving is part and parcel of life. Everybody experiences at least a vague hankering that never goes away for long as well as intense feelings that occur occasionally in particular circumstances. It can be possible to convince oneself that one has banished the second kind, but when the circumstances come along, one still cannot sleep at night.

HANKERING

Regarding the first, more persistent, hankering, each person tends to interpret it differently and mostly people seek remedies for it according to their implicit interpretation. Many do so in sex and in relationships. Others in drugs, medical or non-medical. Then there are those who seek to smother it with food and, in the process, become obese; or, on the other hand, by seeking a kind of purity and extreme control and fall into anorexia.

Against Racism ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

Buddha came from a “yellow” race, Jesus and Mahommet from a “brown” one. Nobody who claims to follow in the footsteps of these great teachers should be making decisions based on a hierarchy of skin colour. They didn’t. They gave teachings that were universal and gave openly to all.

That there are powerful countries in the world that seem substantially to be basing their policies on racist considerations is appalling and a blight upon our world. The most powerful should be giving a good example, not using rhetoric that encourages fascistic ideas or implies there is a master race or that land belong to people only of one colour. Countries whose history has been built on slavery and genocide should atone and become deeply conscious of their past sin so that the ancestors may be redeemed.

That the Brexit decision seems to have been in part based on a rejection of East European people is pathetic, especially so since it was Britain that campaigned strongly for the countries of East Europe to be included in the European Union. That we hear that antisemitism is on the rise in UK and in certain political groupings is deeply disappointing and makes one feel dismayed. Are we going backwards?