Good morning!
We have nice compassionate rain now after a long spell of harsh hot dry weather. The essayist Yutaka Tatsuno said, “I love rain so much. So, maybe my ancesters were frogs.”
We are all from water on this “planet of water.” Plants came up on the land first, preparing for animals. Animals live on them. We live on this truthful, peaceful, harmonious world.
For four billion years we have been striving to live in the beautiful, truthful, good world. All beings share the world. The ocean became our bones and blood. The sun and the moon make day and night, months, and years with all.
So, our bodies, brains, and minds have been made up of them and work according to the dharma of dependent origination, in relatedness and relativity. We are the wonderful work of this universe through four billion years.
As animals, sometimes we fight for food, etc., but usually we can survive on sufficient plants and their products. Humans started accumulating more food, etc., than we need, and so we fight. It is not good in the long run or for others.
So, we developed the ability to share things with others so that we may live in harmony and happiness, rather than constantly fighting, killing, damaging, destroying everything.
Yesterday I watched a TV program, titled Science Zero, on mind. A person blind from having a stroke could not see a circle, triangle, etc., but could tell whether a face was favorable or not – smiling or angry, etc. – not by the vision area of the brain, but by the amygdala.
Our eyes have large white portions, which ordinary animals lack, so that we can see how the eyes move. We can see how another person’s eyes move and know what and how the other person thinks and feels, how the person will act.
In another experiment, a chimp could not reach a cup of juice, so he asked another chimp to lend him a stick so that he could pull it toward himself. This happened without voluntarily sharing the stick or the juice, sensing the other’s need or showing kindness.
Yesterday a member came here and painted the wall, having previously fixed some cracks in it. Another person attached a new switch to the waterfall inside the house – before, we used to wade through bushes to plug it in at a box outside.
“Flowers blooming, the world arisen.” When flowers bloom, spring and summer start. When the mind flowers bloom, the new world is arisen. We can create new beautiful symphonies rather than destructive noise.
Each life depends on other lives and the total life system – stars, the sun, the moon, mountains, oceans, plants, and produce. So, our lives are rather like the whole world or a limitless ocean than individual skin bags or small bubbles.
We can live in the dharma world rather than the karma world, like mice running on tread wheels. Before we die and our beloved ones die, we should find this wholly wholesome world, limitless life, light, liberation, love.
We can create new worlds by planting or arranging flowers, and enjoying them with others – participants and passers-by. We share 99% of our genes with chimps. All life forms, even plants, share the same genomic patterns.
That is why we enjoy beautiful flowers, smiling faces. The Sino-Japanese character for blooming means also smiling. Anything we do reflects in this limitless life as a ripple effect.
Each and every “raising a hand and taking a step” makes new world. So, it is better for every one of us to create a better and beautiful world and life rather than a worse and worrisome world.
A zen master said, “Hey great people, why can’t you lift your legs?” Only if we know how to create a new better world, can we create and enjoy a new beautiful world. Let’s take a new step forward constantly!
7/29/12
