Good morning!
Today, the eighth of December, is the day of the Buddha’s awakening. So, all over the world Zen practitioners, after seven day intensive sitting, celebrate his awakening – an unprecedented feast that solves all problems of all beings.
The Buddha himself spent six years to reach this final solution, the great awakening in universal truth and attaining unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening, which anyone can achieve, any time, any place.
That’s why we practice, for such great things, solving all problems and putting an end to all suffering. I hope you also attain unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening, solving all problems and ending sufferings.
About 25 centuries ago the Buddha faced the universal, ultimate problem of life and death and wanted to solve it. It is illustrated in his leaving his castle and meeting an aged, sick, and dead person, and another striving in the way.
There were six teachers at his time expressing their ways – worldly determinism, materialism, elementism, amoralism, the multi-view theory (indeterminism), and agnosticism. People cannot live on these dogmas.
So, he discovered the universal truth anyone can rely and live on with truth, satisfaction, and happiness with all always. He found it in Zen, jhâna, meditation, after experiencing a pleasant life and penance practice, etc.
The five coverings, extinct in the first stage of Zen, jhâna, meditation, seem somehow to correspond to these views – lust-desire, coveteousness- malevolence, sloth-drowsiness, agitation-worry, and doubt.
The four fluxes, extinct in the second stage of Zen, seem to represent the three poisons (lust, view, nescience) and the underlying karma (becoming, samsara, caused by appropriation/identification, form of formations/karmas).
When we sit, we stop karmas and reach unconditioned peace, in which we witness the three marks of impermanence, suffering (dukkha, dissatisfaction), and no self (self substance or entity) – shûnya (emptiness).
Twenty five centuries after the Buddha’s time we now see all kinds of problems and sufferings – the global problematique (intertwined individual, social, and ecological problems – global warming, mass extinction, etc.).
Because awakened ones are still in the minority, the world is going with karmas, driven by self-centered karma and thus is at the blink of global catastrophe. We are really in very serious situations all over the world.
The Buddha foresaw that our selfishness would cause the destruction of the world, so he went out into the world, wasting no time for his personal purposes, upon hearing the Brahma’s beseeching him to do so.
He was actually moved by the universal truth to share his dharmas (ways) of life perspective and prognosis. He could stay in the four Brahma-vihâra of friendship, compassion, joy, and equanimity (upekhâ : lit. throwing away).
We must practice and live as buddhas (awakened), bodhisattvas (awakening beings), and mahâsattvas (great beings), sharing ultimate truth and peace, enjoying holy health, harmony, and happiness – nothing is comparable.
We are so fortunate to attain human bodies – so difficult to attain – and meet the awakened way – so hard to meet. We must live not only today, but every day, a good day in friendship, compassion, joy, and equanimity in free full function.
12/8/12
