Good morning!
The spring sun and the spring storms brought us abundant flowers – all kinds of flowers blossoming and now soft green buds sprouting, green grass, rabbits, birds springing up.
Flowers in spring,
Cuckoo in summer,
The moon in autumn,
Snow in winter cool and clear.
Haru-wa hana
Natsu hototogisu
Aki-wa tsuki
Fuyu yuki saete suzushikarikeri
春は花
夏ほととぎす
秋は月
冬雪さえてすずしかりけり
This is the poem made by Dogen titled “original face.” When we sit down still and serene, we can enjoy flower, birds, the moon, and snow. As we sit more, they are our true nature.
“Annually and yearly flowers are same. Yearly and annually people are not same.” I didn’t see cherry blossoms in my garden in March, but now I can see perhaps a month earlier.
The world is changing with global warming, wars, nuclear bombs and radiation, mass extinction, etc. All these come from our three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion.
If we sit more, we find our original nature in flowers, birds, snow, etc. Flowers are same year after year. Trees live ten thousand years, but humans live only a fraction of them.
We live in ups and downs going through the six ways or worlds of hungry ghosts, fighting devils, hell beings, etc. from moment to moment unlike other animals and plants.
When we sit still, we stop karmas, three poisons, etc. in samsara suffering, see and settle in our true nature beyond birth and death, enjoying amrita, ambrosia of immortality.
Before we face our sickness, aging, death, we had better sit, stop our karmas, see our true nature, and live buddha’s life, awakened life, enjoying abundant beauty, truth, peace, etc.
3/18/12
