Good morning!
After our sittings and service, we have a quiet, calm, and clear Sunday morning with
blue sky overhead and green trees around us. We had the Mindfulness Day event at
the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts yesterday. I spoke about individual karma
cocoons, social karma caves, and environmental karma catastrophe, using the story
of the blind turtle sticking its head into a hole of a floating log in the ocean to discuss
human evolution and the solution for it: sitting, stilling karmas, and seeing dharmas,
etc.
Regarding my comment on the common root of tree and true, enduring in time and
space, harmonizing with the wholly wholesome system, another speaker told me
about getting the core hardwood rather than the other parts of a tree. The Heart
(wood) Sutta was given by the Buddha after Devadatta left, telling us to attain the
heart(wood) or essence (sāra), not the leaves, branches, or bark. I told him about the
empty core of plantain trees (Foam Lump Simile Sutta), which teaches that
everything is empty (suñña) of substance, like a lump of bubbles or the core of
plantain trees.
The core, heart, or essence is nirvana, un-moved (a-kuppa, a-cala) in equanimity
(upekhā, lit. discarding) or emptiness (suññatā). When we sit like trees, we become
truth and peace in harmony with the wholly wholesome world empty of and
unmoved by karmas. The Buddha’s awakening was first expressed by a tree and
monasteries have been called sōrin (group or grove of trees). Becoming awakening
trees is the systemic, sustainable, saving, safe, simple, straight, sure way to still mind
monkeys and will horses and the Triple Poisons of attachment, aversion, and
delusion.
For a questioner asking about the way to cope with a busy life, I spoke of the two
essential elements of concentration and continuity, like a water-jet cutting through
metal and dripping water piercing through rock. We must continue concentrated
practice to cope with the immense karma force accumulated through four billion
years and acting through our movements and functions. In this way only can we
break through cocoons and caves to fly freely and function fully in wholly wholesome,
limitless life, light, liberation, and love.
9/14/14
Note: The Buddha was expressed as a tree, Dharma-wheel, Buddha’s feet for a long time before being depicted in human figures (statues and drawings).
Animals taking refuge to the Buddha
Drunken elephants tamed by the Buddha