Tag Archives: karma kinetics

Wakeful Way Witnessing Wonderful World

Good morning!   It is getting chilly – going below the freezing point suddenly with frost over the grass and frozen leaves down. Trees are turning into autumn colors or already shedding colorful leaves on the grass. Some will revive and some will not next spring.   We don’t know all the causes and conditions of how, when, and why all these things are taking place, much less all the things going in ourselves and all others. How can we claim we know birth, life, death, life after death?   Why are we so concerned about small smelly skin sacks, like bubbles with bubbling ideas, not caring about wholly wholesome world ways like seas with seasonable tides – here and now?   The Buddha said, “All living beings are karma-heirs, karma-relatives, and karma-machines.” “The Four Applications are to decrease bad karmas, stop them, increase good karmas, and start them.”   He used to ask if the five aggregates (form, feeling, idea, formations, consciousness) are permanent or not (self-sama) and duk-kha (wrong-going) or not (self-sovereign). If not, they are selfless (no self-substance).   He also said that religion is cultivation (bhāvanā, causing to become, causative of bhave, becoming, constant change in ups and downs by karmas, old and new physical, verbal, and mental).   Dogen said, “The great way of Buddhas and Ancestors necessarily has unsurpassed practice, the way cycling without interruption. Aspiration, cultivation, awakening, and nirvana without interruption is the way cycle of practice.”   He said that cultivation and verification are one and equal (shu-shō-ittō: 修証一等). It is true especially in Zazen, sitting, stopping karma, seeing dharma, serving and saving all – the great, mature, and joyful way of all.   Otherwise we must go through constant karma kinetics through the Six Paths becoming (bhava) hell beings, hungry ghosts, fighting devils, animal beings, … Continue reading

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Holy Harmony Health Happiness

Good morning!       Did you see the bright full moon last night and the brilliant beautiful sun this morning in the great glimmering sky? Great, you saw and enjoyed them! We can now enjoy abundant flowers all around us, window-sides and world-wide. Happiness is here now, with them and us, especially after our solid, serene sittings. We can enjoy them in nature, sow seeds, or grow them, but all originally from nature.   Carl Busse (1872-1918) made a poem titled “Over the Mountains:”   Over the mountains, Far to wander, people say, Lives the Happiness. Aah, so I went, In the swarms of others, Came back with cried out eyes. Over the mountains, Far, far away over there, people say, Lives the Happiness.   Everyone wants happiness, but it is rare for us to get happiness. Usually we seek happiness far far away. So, we wander and stray into foreign and others’ realms. Thus, we come back with tearful eyes. We seldom find the true treasures. If happiness is far out somewhere else than where we are now, we will never get it. Even if we get it, we must lose it, if it is outside of us.   Because we wander around in the dusty dangerous swarms of others seeking the Happiness, we must come back with swollen eyes weeping, believing in people’s hearsays. It is like moles’ mud-meddling in mundane matters, maladies, and miseries seeking matter, might, and me from the triple poisons of craving, anger, and delusion, only falling into sinkholes.   Mundane matters are materialism, militarism, and me-ism epitomized in money- ism, murder-ism, and mole-ism. Economics, politics, and egoistic are piling up a pyramid pointing to the planetary perishing. Politics, either plutocracy or democracy, paves the path to mobocracy by mole-ism, with the triple poisons, driven by karma kinetics.   … Continue reading

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From Karma Bodies to Dharma Dhatu (Domain, lit. Root Realm)

Good morning!   We are delighted with beautiful flowers around us inside and out, especially those fresh flowers at the altar and all other Buddhas around the rooms with water also fresh. Unless we replace water, it becomes stale and … Continue reading

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Karma Kinetics, 2

Good evening! We say “a day with rain is a day of bad weather” (ame-no furu-hi-wa tenki-ga warui). An essayist, Tatsuno Yutaka, said, “I like rain so much. Perhaps my ancestors were frogs.” Not only frogs, but forests and flowers … Continue reading

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Cultivation=Verification

Good morning! After our sittings, we have a very peaceful world inside and out. We are very fortunate that we are walking in the Awakened Way and have the concrete practice to attain it. Zazen is the essential way and … Continue reading

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Still Sitting

Good morning! The snow fell over fields and forests, covering grass and clothing trees. The white snow purifies and brightens the world. Dogen made a poem: No winter grass being seen, A white heron in a snow field Hides itself … Continue reading

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