Good morning!
In our sitting, the pure sound of flowing water penetrates through our world; the fresh breeze permeates throughout our bodies and minds; the bright, beautiful sunlight pervades the world.
This is the world in cessation (nirodha) and the windless state (nirvana) beyond problems and pains, samsara and suffering – like a ball of clear crystal – all in one, neither discriminated nor defiled, neither decreased nor increased.
Our life is like the ocean, embracing all phenomena – the sun, the moon, mountains, rivers, winds, water, bones, flesh, genes, hearts, buddhas, bodhisattvas, ancestors, parents – in our bodies, minds, and world throughout space and time.
In our ordinary lives we are like bubbles – the whole world is outside, alienated and antagonized. Only our perceptions, conceptions, emotions, and volitions divide and discriminate into death and demise.
The nuclear disaster in Japan caused turmoil with pros and cons. The pros talk about industry, electricity, money, matter – only from limited values and views, never from limitless life (generations, species), holy (wholly) world in truth, goodness, and beauty.
How can we regain limitless life, light, liberation, and love? Dogen recommended zazen in his Universal Recommendation for the Right Zazen. Right at the outset, he mentions the four hallmarks of it: penetration, purity, freedom, here and now.
When we settle in zazen, we still our karmas, discriminations and divisions, attachments and aversions, delusions and desires, returning to penetrating purity in freedom here and now, like a clear crystal ball or the calm ocean, reflecting all phenomena.
Life is one total dynamic – delicate and drastic. During my absence small vegetable seedlings dried up and disappeared in the gardens. This is the life truth in space and time. We cannot stop or revert it even a moment.
There is neither decrease nor increase in the total system and cessation, but we undergo birth and death as bubble states. So, we must live in the total truth wholeheartedly. We must know and act the holy truth, goodness, and beauty.
We don’t know the next moment of our life or death. So, we just live with our total capacity and full function for the holy truth, goodness, beauty, harmony, peace, and freedom in serving and saving here and now.
7/17/11
