Good morning!
We had fog early this morning in darkness and with slippery roads. It was difficult to drive, but we drove, came here, and sat a few sittings. Now it is bright, fogless, and perhaps roads are not so slippery. So is our state of being – staying just in peace, harmony without danger, darkness, and dread.
When we sit in zazen, we can come back to this state – anyone can, if only one practices. Unless we practice, we are driven by our karmas, individual and collective – social and ecological. That’s why we have problems and sufferings. We have sickness, aging, and death – sickness can be caused by societies. I watched a video on Chernobyl last night.
NHK broadcast it ten years ago revealing the disasters, but is shutting down at public domains. Chernobyl children grew up with problems themselves and in childbirth. Even old people had radiation effects from direct exposure among liquadators or indirect internal exposures by food, etc. – cancers, nervous and immune systems disorders, etc.
The IAEA said only 50 people died of that disaster, but doctors and scientists say one million people died. It will face more facts and findings and will have to correct its claim. It is now invited to give approval of the stress tests in order to restart shut-down reactors in Japan. Out of 54 reactors, only 5 are on line there, but all will be shut down by May.
Japan with 0.3% area of land and 10% earthquakes of the world has entered in the active earthquake period. The safety mythology of nuclear plants was shuttered by the actual natural disaster beyond all human estimates. We don’t know where natural and human disasters or mishaps may occur next. So, we must avoid them, or they will abolish us.
Buddhism teaches that our sufferings come essentially from the three poisons of delusion, attachment, and aversion, which become me-ism, materialism, and militarism. How can we solve them? We have triple learning – morality, concentration, and prognosis. When we sit, we stop the three poisons and include the triple learning altogether completely.
Buddhists also teaches that the four noble truths – suffering, source of it, cessation of it, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering. The original word of “noble” is ârya (Sanskrit), ariya (Pali), hagia (Greek), “holy,” which means “wholly wholesome.” This is nirvana (windlessness, no karma winds) identified with the cessation of suffering.
The path above is identified with the eightfold noble path (here also noble is “holy”): right view, thinking, speech, action, livelihood, mindfulness, striving, and concentration. What is right? Right means the wholly wholesome state or nirvana. Only in the wholly wholesome state can we view, think, speak, act, live, be mindful, and concentrate “right.”
Even though all of us have the suffering of birth, sickness, aging, and death, etc., if we stay in this right mindfulness, not straying into desire, divisiveness, delusion, dread, and doubt, we can be wholly wholesome – socially and ecologically also. Then we can be completely in peace, truth, holiness (wholesome whole), harmony, and happiness.
1/22/12
