Good morning!
We had nice compassionate rain for two days. So, plants and animals seem to be revived from their dry, desperate states. They came back to their original states in purity and peace.
Almost half of this country has been distressed by drought. A recent figure showed that 1,234 districts are in disaster conditions. I sent an article to our mailing list describing a 1.5 Celsius degree rise in temperature over the last 250 years, corresponding to a CO2 increase. IPCC has predicted an additional rise of 2 degrees by the end of this century, or even 6 degrees.
We are seeing extreme weather – droughts, flooding, heat, etc. We have many more problems, but I won’t mention them here. We must, however, face the consequences of what we do and how we live. So, we have the three pillars of the Awakened Way, Global Ethic, and Voluntary Simplicity.
Dogen Zenji made a poem titled the Original Face:
No winter grass being seen,
The white heron in a snow-field,
Hides itself in
Its own form.
The awakened Way is to become awakened to our original state or nature and settled in peace and prognosis. As in Dogen’s poem, when we sit in zazen, we become like white herons, untainted and undefiled, in a snow-field. Just like a heron becoming one with the snow-field, we become one with the dharma dhâtu, world, before our selfish views and values enter us.
If we keep this state, constantly coming back to this state, there will be no problems. So, it is essential to practice sitting, stopping karmas, settling in the dharma dhâtu and observing the dharma, proper ways. There are solutions for individual, social, and ecological problems. One may solve individual problems, but one must also solve social and ecological problems.
Because we are intertwined in societies and ecological systems, we need the Global Ethic, based on the Five Precepts, which all Buddhists observe. We must see things in the widest perspective and wisest priority – life of all or total life system beyond money, matter, power, etc. The only way to be holy, healthy, and happy is to go back to the original state in holy harmony.
We need to build an awakened society in the dharma and settle there. We, maybe most of us, may know it, but we do not necessarily act. That is why Voluntary Simplicity is so important. Our lifestyle in abundance for comfort and convenience is creating ecological, social, and individual problems.
So, we must see our lives concretely in order to simplify, one by one, to save all lives in space and time. We must first strive in theAwakened Way, share the Global Ethic, and put Voluntary Simplicity into practice. The important point is: our life must be in the dharma practice constantly, rather than our practice being something in our life that we pick up from time to time, sporadically.
8/5/12
Note:
1. Dhâtu means “root.” So, dharma dhâtu really means “the truth root or realm” beyond and before our conception, emotion, volition, and even perception (which are species-specific, individual-specific, time-specific, etc.).
2. “Its own form (or figure)” means first “its own whiteness,” then “the snow’s whiteness” (because the inseparable entire world is its original nature), and ultimately “whiteness itself” (because it is the root of both or all).
3. Our perceived “life” is in or a part of the “dharma-root,” not other way around. We must settle in the “dharma root” (dharma dhâtu), see our “life” from there, and solve our sufferings in there.
