Good morning!
Rohatsu sesshin is a week sesshin held at monasteries and temples all over the world preceding and commemorating and celebrating the Buddha’s awakening on December 8. The Buddha’s attainment of nirvana/bodhi, awakening, is epoch-making; all beings can recognize that all beings are karma machines, and also capable of countering and conquering karma bondages.
The Seven Buddhas, Gotama Buddha being the last, are said to have awakened to the truth of the Twelvefold Interdependent Co-origination, the Bhava-cakka, Becoming Wheel, which shows that formations, past/present physical, verbal, mental karmas, drive us to become different beings, going through birth, aging, death, as humans, animals, hungry ghosts, fighting devils, etc.
The Four Stages of Zen, sitting meditation, inform us precisely how we can advance through stages of stilling conceptions, emotions, volitions, to reach nirvana beyond karma, including the Triple Poisons of desire, divisiveness, and delusion. The Five Coverings cover us so as not to reflect the truth world, and the Four Fluxes flow in samsara, bringing suffering and poisons into the world.
Karma makes mini-max mistakes, taking miniscule as maximum, money, matter, and power creating all samsara and suffering. Nirvana allows us to awaken from this mistake and find the maximum value of life, heart, and harmony, beyond covering/darkened, flux/darkening beings, within the bright, brilliant crystals of the Indra-net, which is the meaning of the simultaneous awakening of all.
Dec. 9, 2018 C.E. Dharma talk
甘露、不壊成道、の覚醒
臘八接心は仏陀の覚醒の１２月８日に先立ちその日を記念し祝う一週間の接心です。仏陀の涅槃・菩提、覚醒、の達成は画期的なものです；一切衆生が自ら業機械であることを認識し、また業の束縛に対抗し克服することが出来るようになったのです。
ゴータマを最後とする過去七仏はみな、行、過去・現在の身口意業、が私達を駆って人間・畜生・餓鬼・修羅などの生老死を経る様々な存在にならしめる生存の輪である十二支縁起の真実に覚醒したとされています。
禅、坐瞑想、の四段階は如何にして私達が観念・感情・意欲を静める諸段階を前進して貪瞋痴の三毒を含む業を超えて涅槃に至ることが出来るかを簡明に知らせてくれます。五蓋は私達を蓋覆して真実世界を見えなくし、四漏は輪廻に漏れ出て世界に苦と毒を漏泄します。
業は金・物・力のような小さなものを大いなるものと誤解する大小の誤謬を犯して輪廻・苦を創ります。涅槃は蓋覆・暗黒と漏泄・暗化の存在を超えて、この誤謬から目覚めて帝釈網の明るく輝く水晶の中にある命・心・和のような大いなるものを見出させます、そしてこれが一切同時成道の意味です。
２０１８共通年１２月９日 法話
