On the way here I saw the big bright red sun already higher than the one just rising from the horizon last Sunday. The full moon is now crescent. When we come here and sit, we can enjoy the fresh morning air with the sound of water, birds’ singing, and green leaves rustling. This is the world of nature with beauty and bounty. We, however, see only a fraction of the universe in the dark invisible world.

When we sit in this vast world in the long history, we can enjoy peace, truth, harmony, health, and happiness, and become awakened to the universe – one world. Just before I left home, I watched the NHK Special Program of Fukushima. Just after the nuclear disaster, Fukushima declared abolishion of nuclear power. Now they have the program of shift to renewable energy – solar, wind, geothermal, etc.

They expect to produce 5,000,000kw, equivalent to five nuclear reactors. By 2020 they will have 40% renewable energy, and by 2040 100%. They say that all can proceed step by step, even 1mm each person is 10,000+km globally, unlike the pyramidal gigantic way of nuclear power, etc., which produce the most poisonous substance, plutonium, for nuclear bombs, conveniently produced by nuclear power.

Even without disasters, nuclear fission constantly spews radiation, irradiating workers, nearby residents, other lives, and the environment with waste unknown for its safe storage – 1% discriminating all others in space and time, but eventually all affected. So, we must go back to natural, cyclical, wholly wholesome system. Such system must be sustainable, safe, simple, and saving all (global system: 5Ss).

Our center has the three pillars to achieve Awakened Way, Global Ethic, and Voluntary Simplicity to protect life, liberation, love, lielessness in the law of dependent origination (global ethic: 5Ls). Then, we can live in limitless life, light, liberation, love, and learning step by step. This Fukushima plan is the new way of life – natural, cyclical, distributive, local, participatory, sustainable, and saving.

We must return to the original natural way and be awakened from delusion, desire, divisiveness, doubt, dread. Then, we can function free and full in wholly wholesome truth, goodness, and beauty with the fivefold bliss. Let’s practice in cultivation, caring culture, and stop the short-sight and short-circuit way, creating civilization of unnatural, pyramidal power system with the fivefold calamity.

5/13/12

Voluntary simplicity: global ethic:

Five Rs (material flow): Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rearrange, Restore

Five As (information flow): Access, Assess, Agree, Act, Advise

Fivefold bliss: awakening, freedom, equality (unity), love, and peace

Fivefold calamity: delusion, bondage, discrimination, exploitation, extermination

Zazen is the wholly wholesome way in unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening, good in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end for all always.

Samu, (作務: making or doing duty), in total concentration and continuity, functions like zazen. Unified cultivation-verification, full-free function, is like fruit in  lotus flower.

5/12/12

The yellow pod in the center of the flower contains fruit thought to give longevity or limitless life, soft and edible while fresh, but when the shell hardens, it could survive long (Dr. Ohga succeeded for lotus seeds to sprout, grow, and bloom after more than a thousand years – named Ohga lotus, propagated and grown in Japan).

When we entered into our home, we could see candlelight shining and incense smelling in front of the Buddhas. The Buddha talked about the fragrance of morality, which goes beyond windward, spreading throughout space and time.

When we sit in zazen, we enjoy the fragrance of morality, concentration, and prognosis together with all buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout space and time, tasting unsurpassed awakening, unconditioned peace, and unparalleled freedom.

5/11/12

In sitting we are together with all buddhas and bodhisattvas with the whole world.

In samu, work, we are together with birds and butterflies with the flora and fauna.

5/11/12

Weeding is necessary especially at early sprouting state to set the stage. We must know clearly if the tiny seedlings are vegetables or weeds, flowers or creepers.

Sitting is like weeding to clear crowded space, to see what to weed, where to thin, space, transplant, seed or start new planning.

We also need to carefully watch regularly and for long. We may mistake bad for good. We may think them good in the beginning, but not so later on– too invasive.

We must both clean, clearly see and we must work with actual situations. So, still sitting and dynamic samu, work, are two wings or wheels to function free and full.

5/10/12

When we sit in zazen, it is priceless any time. I have been working in my newer vegetable patch. When I visited the older patch on the other side of the yard, I saw a lot of maple seedlings growing. I found them growing on unsprouted and unthriving ridges, but not on already sprouted and grown vegetable ones. They were easily uprooted. I also found and enjoyed some strawberries ripened red.

When we sowed the aspiration seed for our practice, sprout and settle in the growing green of the triple learning all over the practice patch, the weed of the triple poison and the triple malady cannot get rooted and grow there. The weeds are easily uprooted, even when seeding and sprouting. We can also find the triple treasure and enjoy amrita in unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening.

5/9/12

When we sit here, we can enjoy birds’ singing and abundant green. Global warming has brought us more hot days and more rain, thus plants grow faster. Yesterday I removed a lot of honey suckles, vines. Slender vines grow bigger and thicker at the tree tops, covering and chocking the trees. Eventually trees could die. So, it is important to watch them carefully constantly to remove them while they are small.

It is important to watch carefully and remove the triple poison and the triple malady, by going back to the original state in the path of practice day after day, and attain pure peace and profound prognosis here and now. We may maintain the triple poison and magnify the triple malady or can train in the triple learning and taste the triple treasure. All things are in synergy spiral, growing bigger, either bad or good.

5/9/12

Did you see the biggest, closest full moon this year? I also saw the big red sun just rising from the horizon. Earlier I went into my yard and enjoyed abundant birds’ singing and fresh dew – I saw mist hovering over the field on the way. The house owner of the beautiful garden was enjoying her garden and we greeted each other.

When we come here and sit with all the windows and doors opened, the fresh morning air penetrates through our world with birds’ singing, the flowing stream sound and green plant world. When we settle solid and breathe deep, joy comes up in total freedom and full function together with the whole world.

We had the record March with high temperature days, so I sowed seeds already in March. I started enjoying some crop already in April. I hope you are also enjoying your fresh harvest. We enjoyed the ambrosia of sweet, soft strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc. after our work, and so forth. This is wonderful!

On the other hand we had hale, tornado, etc. here. We have now over 90 degree days. We have now encountered many problems beginning with ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) pollutions and problems. They are especially dangerous and damaging crucial life dynamics – nerve, immune, and reproductive functions.

Yesterday people in Japan rejoiced and celebrated gathering together the nuclear free world – 54 reactors are at rest, as 80% of people there are against nuclear reactor restart. Some 150,000 evacuees are still from Fukushima nuclear irradiated and inhabitable places and the damaged fuel pool is threatening the whole world.

Mr. Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University talked to evacuees, et al in New York, was sorry for being unable to advise for their concrete actions on leaving or returning home, future actions to abolish nukes. He knew the governments wanted nuclear plants to produce material for their nuclear bombs before recent revelation of it.

Still some government officials and others hold this in their minds. This has been the truth about “atoms for peace.” I saw a cartoon by Ms. Yuka Nishioka on how people near the accident sites live after some centuries later. This is the truth of our world in the long run. But, people are unable to see far, wide, and deep enough.

Buddhists tell the three worlds or realms of form (rûpa-dhâtu), of formless (arûpa=dhâtu), and of craving (kâma-dhâtu). Craving world or realm is that with our cravings inseparably intertwined with our delusions and disasters. Craving is the direct cause of suffering, without which is sufferless – simple truth!

When we sit in zazen, we come back to our original world, the harmonious realm in nature like white herons in the snow field – becoming just one with the whole world with no craving, delusion, anger, doubt, and pride – hubris. Then, we can live on joy free and full, in harmony and happiness, without worries, fears, fictions.

Yesterday, I watched a NHK program titled Science Zero, featuring black hole. When the stars three times or more massive than the sun collapse, they become black holes. Scientists talked about the event horizon. When we enter the hole, there is no more event. The visible world is less than ten percent of the universe.

Ryokan said, “Eventless is the noble.” This is the way with neither delusions nor disasters. When we sit unconditioned and unfabricating, we become event-free, neither event-full nor event-less. As we recite the Heart Sutra and realize it, there are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, bodies, and minds, neither old age nor death.

People wanting to restart nuclear power are short-sighted either for monetary or military purposes, not seeing centuries, millennia, or million years. Nuclear bombs and power need the most urgent solution to avoid the nuclear winter and fallout happening any time. There is no safety in nuclear nightmares and human hubris.

If we want to live in truth and peace, we must live within and with nature. To do it, we must sit, stop our karmas and see deep, wide, and long enough with all species and generations, rivers and mountains, the sun and stars. When we come back to nature or event-free state, we can really enjoy truth, beauty, goodness, and holiness.

5/6/12

親友大塚先生の写真を拝借しました。Mr. Ohtsuka’s, my bosom friend’s, picture from Japan.

When we sit in zazen, the fresh morning air carries in the chirping of birds, flowing of waterfall, the full moon in the sky- now replaced by the bright sun.

The homeowner of the beautiful garden whose picture is employed as our blog header was already working in her garden.

Today we will have our garden work. So, please work well witnessing the wonder of nature – beautiful flowers, plants, birds, breeze, and bright sunlight!

5/5/12

Nature evolves with the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind through the four seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter, showing the four characteristics of systemic, sustainable, safe, simple structures, manifesting the four norms of law (of dependent origination), life, liberation, and love, revealing the four merits of truth, goodness, beauty, and holiness.

While, humans have developed the five aggregates of (physical) form, (mental) idea, feeling, formation, and consciousness, fabricating the five forms of self, society, status, species, and symbolism, creating the five fictitious bodies of nation, corporation, media, religion, and education producing the five calamities of delusion, bondage, discrimination, exploitation, and extermination.

How can we solve these problems? We can sit and stop our karmas in the triple learning of sîla (morality), samâdhi (concentration), and prajñâ (prognosis), revealing the triple characteristic of the dharma of impermanence, suffering, and no self, attaining the triple treasure of awakened ones, dharma, and sańgha (community) in  unsurpassed awakening, unconditioned peace, and unparalleled friendship.

5/3/12