Good morning!
Now we have spring rain moistening the air, wetting the ground, giving life to plants,
animals, and everything. We used to say, “It’s spring rain: let’s go walking in the rain.”
After the radiation rain started, we could not so easily suggest going into the rain, and
we must even keep inside our houses.
This morning I watched a special TV program from Japan about the Great East Japan
Earthquake, with the tsunami and nuclear disaster. Today’s special was the fifteenth
of the series, featuring Katsurao (葛尾) village, with more than a thousand people at
the 20km border from the nuclear plants.
The villagers had to leave their homes after the nuclear plant explosions, with the
government extending evacuation zones from 5km to 10km to 20km, etc. They left
their village before the government’s evacuation order, but the farmers had to
remain behind in order to take care of their cattle.
One farmer who let his cattle graze freely outside decided to put them to a quick death
rather than let them starve slowly. He tied them up without access to water. When he
returned home after one month, he found all had died. One got freed and tried to reach
the drinking place, but could not.
Maybe we are like them, with our thirst. Gotama (Best Cow) Siddhatta (Obtaining
Objective) wanted to save all beings from sufferings: birth, aging, sickness, and death.
This diagram of the Twelvefold Dependent Origination shows how thirst (tańhā/tṛṣņā)
with delusion leads to actions/appropriations and suffering (called sandō).
All living beings feel thirst for water, food, etc., trying to do anything for their
survival. Appropriation of body/mind or identification as an American, etc.,
makes us to go through birth and death, transmigrating through all kinds of
ways as hungry ghosts, fighting devils, etc, exploiting and exterminating.
Possession is possessedness. Whatever we possess, we are possessed by it –
self, state, species, civilization, and so forth. Possessions become the triple
poisons of delusion, desire, and divisiveness, and these then make the triple
maladies of me-ism, materialism, and militarism.
Thus, we are creating the global problematique – intertwined global problems,
warming, wars, mass extinction, etc. – without end. Unless we stop the poisons
and maladies, we cannot put an end to our problems and stop the sufferings
that mire us into the seas of tears and blood.
Gotama became awakened by the essential function and the functional essence of
sitting, stopping karma kinetics, and seeing the fundamental problems, and he solved
them, settling in peace and truth, tasting amṛta, immortality, not anymore thirsty
and hungry, thus he obtained his objective as his name. Anyone can do the same.
Anyone can survey all mundane mountain peaks, civilizations, states, etc., and also
see supramundane sitting Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Mahasattvas like Hyakujō
(Bai-zhang) sitting at the peak of Mt. Hyakujō (a thousand foot) or Mt. Daiyu (大雄),
Great Hero or Great Courageous One (Buddha).
If only we strive step by step, climbing up to the peaks continuously and in
concentration, can we enjoy the cool air, breeze of nirvana (windless), beautiful
scenes, birds’ singing, flowers’ blooming throughout all steps, and step by step,
helping all also to cultivate themselves and verify their results.
We must take care of ourselves step by step, place by place, to save all from
slipping, sliding, possession, possessedness, leaking, leaks, by mindful maintenance
of our bodies, minds, and worlds day to day, moment to moment, here and now,
life to life, achieving holy harmony and happiness.
3/17/13
Note: Sandō (三道, three steps) are 惑-業-苦 {waku-gok-ku, confusion
(thirst/craving+delusion) – karma – suffering}.
