Good morning!
We have a nice warm morning with drizzling at 60 degrees. Obama declared the end of Iraq war lasting 9 years with 1.5 million military men going out, but 4,500 never returning. The Lancet at an early stage estimated 600,000 Iraqis dead. Millions fled from Iraq. Only sufferings stay! He said “Welcome home! Welcome home! Welcome home!”
The Buddha said we have fourfold food – physical, emotional, volitional, and conceptual. He compared our feeding to the parents, being lost the way in the desert, eating the beloved son’s flesh (putta mamsa). Our bodies and minds feed on the life-loving ones and ourselves, and further feed the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion.
Zazen is coming home, not going out to devour the beloved ones and to feed poisons on ourselves and others, but sitting and settling in peace and truth, not creating samsara and suffering, only enjoying pure peace and penetrating prognosis, tasting amrita, ambrosia of immortality.
11/12/15
Note:
Fourfold food (âhâra: take in/on oneself) for stability and becoming (bhava):
1. Bodily (kablikâra) food for bewilderment of fivefold lust: eye/ear/nose/tongue/body lust
2. Contact (phassa) food for the three feelings: good/bad/neutral
3. Mental motivation (mano-sañcetanâ) food for the three cravings:lust/becoming/non-becoming
4. Conscious (viññâna) food for name-form: involvement in individual things/samsara
