Good morning!
Opening the blinds fully, we can see a calm, clean, and clear snow world covering high and low things, all colors, but all white – just one bright white world, calm, clean, and clear, with neither ups nor downs, neither red nor black. After sittings we also become such without karmas, not driven by delusion, desire, and divisiveness. We come back to the wholly wholesome state, without problems and sufferings.
We, however, have all kinds of problems and sufferings in our common world. We reflect on the past year now everywhere, at the end of this year. I had my brother pass away, and we remember others who passed away this past year. We had droughts, hurricanes, snowstorms, a part of which is this snow, as did other places all over the world. This is a part of it and of global warming.
We also had elections. In Japan the LDP received about 60% of the seats, despite their getting about a quarter of the total vote, and it wants to change the peace constitution. The Prince Regent Shotoku made the constitution to bring peace to the country during a time of severe struggles and bloodshed. It says that harmony is precious, and it urges respect for the triple treasures, as we are all commoners.
I went to Kyoto for the Global System Ethic Association academic meeting and enjoyed the colorful world, with beautiful fall leaves, as shown in these pictures. The taxi driver I rode with said that all our problems are from our defilements, or leaks. Prince Regent Shotoku, who made the Seventeen Article Constitution, said that the world is vain and provisional, and that only the Buddha is true and substantial.
We are creating pyramidal societies on quicksands, or castles in the air. We have fiscal cliffs all over. I remember Dr. G. O. Barney, who reported for the Global Ethic Declaration, saying that we can easily stop walking or biking, but we cannot easily stop the movement of a huge tanker. Our individual, social problems add up to global problems – global warming, mass extinction, etc.
When Dogen was intently reading scriptures, a monk asked him for what purpose he was reading. Dogen replied that he wanted to understand Buddhism. The monk pressed him further, “For what?” Dogen said he wanted to help people. The monk asked, “Ultimately, for what?” Then, Dogen stopped reading, intently practiced Zazen, sitting Zen (meditation), and attained the Way.
The Sino-Japanese letter za (坐) represents two people sitting on the earth, with plants sprouting (土 is the pictograph of a plant growing out of the earth). Zazen is to sit, settle on the ground with plants, stop karmas, see the dharma, and serve and save all in the wholly wholesome way and world. Dogen described this as a white heron becoming one with the white snow field – the world penetrated by purity, peace, and prognosis.
In our world we go through the six ways or worlds of hell beings, hungry ghosts, fighting devils, animal beings, human beings, and celestial beings. But eventually we must ask, “Ultimately what for?” We must realize that the world is vain, and only the Buddha is true. In the last few days the full moon changed; in a couple of days we start a new year. I hope we have a new year and new days in a wholly wholesome world.
12/30/12
