Good morning!
When I left my home, there was sleeting like this. When I arrived here there was no
sleeting. Weathermen said that the snow will accumulate one to two inches by 11:30 a.m.
and six to eleven inches by tonight. So, everybody is staying at home – very quiet.
When the Buddha was taking his morning walk and sitting, he overheard Yasa, the first
layman to renounce, saying, “Aah, I am suffering, Alas, I am disturbed!” So the Buddha
said, “Here is neither suffering nor vexation. Come and sit, Yasa! I will tell you the
dharma!”
Now we have sesshin. Sesshin is touching the mind (接心) and embracing the mind (摂
心). We can touch and embrace our minds, and even the Buddha mind, when we
practice. These incessant innumerable soft snowflakes seem like the Great Thousand
Worlds, in which innumerable soft snowflakes are also falling.
When we practice, we forget our selves and are verified by all dharmas. As we see
dharmas, they verify us with the triple dharma marks: impermanence, suffering from
impermanence, and no self-substance from no self-sameness and no self-sovereignty.
Thus, the Buddha said “Not yours” (na tumhakam).
Nothing is ours, even our bodies and minds, much less those of others. So, naturally
we drop off our bodies and minds. When we see dharmas, we witness the holy dharma
world, holy home, and holy hosts. In the holy home, everything is holy host. There is
no person with limited possessions and possessedness.
Rinzai (Linji: 臨済) said “Becoming a host at any place, all become true.” When we
become hosts, all turns out true. When we become guests or slaves, all fall far or false.
When we witness the holy home, we become holy hosts, enjoying holy (wholly
wholesome) truth, goodness, and beauty.
Dr. Suzuki of the Suzuki Method of Ability Development said that life has no age and
that sounds have life, living without forms. Formless life gives us beauty, goodness,
and truth. He often told the story of Amala and Kamala fostered by a wolf – we can
become just like wolves or awakened ones.
Dr. Suzuki fostered the holy home and hosts – more than three hundred thousand
children all over the world. If they became like him, there would be about a hundred
million hosts in the first generation. Hosts of the second generation would fill
the world fulfilling with the triple minds.
Gandhi made his life an experiment of truth, embracing truth (satya-āgraha) with
no-harm (a-himsā). These are inseparable, both sides of one dharma, form and norm.
He embraced truth, always supported and settled in peace, like tree huggers, hugging
truth and peace.
We can live limitless life in limitless light, love, liberation, learning, without forms,
bodies and minds, thus creating holy beauty, goodness, and truth and enjoying all of
these. Sesshin is the holy home, which makes holy hosts, welcoming guests,
snowflakes, flowers, fish, birds, as we enjoyed in samu (作務).
We hope this unseasonable snow will melt soon in the spring sunshine, not
accumulating too much. So far we can enjoy this snow falling and snow scene.
Sesshin endows its practitioners with holy harmony, health, happiness, with
the taste of amrita, ambrosia of immortality, in the triple minds and treasures.
3/24/13
Note:
1. Yasa’s words:
Though I was once well-made up,
well-clothed and all well-adorned,
I have witnessed the triple knowledges
attaining the Buddha’s teaching.
Suvilitto suvasano sabba-ābhana-bhūsito,
Tisso vijjā ajjhagamim, katam buddhassa sāsanam.
– The Theragatha 117
Buddha’s telling the teaching is the dharma teaching (dhamma-sāsana).
The triple knowledges or witnesses are those of past (karmic) lives, divine eyes,
and leak extinction.
2. Rinzai’s words:
随処作主立所皆真
Suichu-zuozhu-lisuo-jiezhen.
Zuisho-ni shu-to nareba, rissho-mina shin nari.
– The Linjilu
3. Ryokan’s poem:
The Great Triple Thousand Worlds
Standing in the soft snow falling,
In them also snow falling…
Awa-yuki-no nakani tachitaru
Michi-auchi mata sono-nakani
Awa-yuki-zo furu
あは雪の中に たちたる
三千大千世界 またその中に
沫雪ぞ降る
