Good evening!
We are going to have three sittings at this year’s end. What kind of year did you have? For me, the biggest thing was the nuclear meltdown, which represents the meltdown of our nescience. We started using this technology, but we should have not done so, not knowing how to dispose of its radiation, etc. Once an earthquake, tsunami, etc. hits, there are no human solutions to deal with it.
Now we are having economic and ecological meltdowns. Essentially, they are the ego meltdown. We don’t know where to go, but are just driven by our karmas. Traditionally at the year’s end we listen to the joya-no-kane (除夜の鐘), the bell sounds of dispelling night. This is dispelling the longest, darkest night of nescience.
Bells are hit 108 times, dispelling 108 bonnos (煩悩), or bondages, though sometimes the number is abridged to 18 (10+8) times. There are different interpretations of the counting of the108 bonnos. Mine is: the fundamental nescience causes attachment and aversion (3 poisons) to the 2 feelings of good and bad, originating from our 6 senses over the 3 times (past, present, future), so: 3 x 2 x 6 x 3.
I just came to the idea that we hit three bells at the start of our sitting, and one at the end – stopping karmas to strike off the three poisons, shaking off the one fundamental nescience to start the awakened life. After the long night of nescience, we open our new awakened world and way to lead a new life, solving our problems and samsara suffering.
Holy harmonious happy new year!
12/31/11
Bonno is the translation of the Sanskrit klesha and Pali kilesa, which means sticking/soiling slime (root: klish or slish).
