Good morning!
We can see a small weeping cherry tree blooming in our back yard.
I have a bigger weeping tree and Yoshino cherry trees in my garden.
So, I hope we can have a flower viewing party with these trees.
Flowers can bloom because of their trees, seeds, parent trees, all ancestral beings,
all environments, and genes evolving and developing ecologically since the origin
of life. They flower and fruit depending on all of them.
The Awakened Way and its Dharma cannot be without the succession of all our
ancestors from the Buddha. If we defile, degrade, and destroy it at our time, the
Awakened Way and its Dharma will be defiled, degraded, and die.
We receive, maintain, and continue them by receiving, restoring, and recreating the
Buddha Dharma with the future generations with the Buddha -mind seal, sitting Zen
and samu (作務), physical work (lit. doing duty).
We can attain the right Dharma eye stored in the exquisite heart of nirvana,
unconditioned peace, shobōgen-zō nehan-myōshin (正法眼蔵涅槃妙心),
unsurpassed awakening stored in unconditioned peace.
The Dharma is realized by the direct face to face, heart to heart, blood to blood
training and transmission. This can be verified only by actually facing, practicing,
penetrating the heart, and permeating blood – Buddha-body seal.
The Sangha means a community of professionals – guild, brotherhood, etc. It must
be wagō-sō (和合僧), harmonious unified community or gathering, like water and milk, not
like water and oil.
It is realized by the Buddha life seal by receiving ordination of the triple karmas,
physical, verbal, and mental by the triple learnings of sīla, samādhi, and prajñā
realized with the triple treasures, pure vows, and ten precepts.
In ordination we repent all karmas, past, present, and future, then take refuge
in the triple treasures, the triple pure vows, and the ten precepts. Pure means
holy (wholly wholesome, wholesome with the whole mind-body-world).
In the Single-body triple treasures, awakening is called Buddha treasure,
purity and freedom is called Dharma treasure, and the virtue of peace and
freedom is called the Sangha treasure.
In the Manifested triple treasures, the realization of awakening is Buddha treasure,
that which is realized by the Buddha is Dharma treasure, and the learning of Buddha
and Dharma is Sangha treasure.
In the Maintained triple treasures, appearing in vast space or small dust and
transforming all is Buddha treasure, turning and transforming all is Dharma
treasure, and transcending suffering of the triple realms is Sangha treasure.
Abbots are called Jūji (residing in and holding the Dharma) , which really means
“reihō-gujyū,” 令法久住、let the Dharma stay eternally). Abbots must preserve
and transmit the true Buddha Dharma far into the future world .
Letting the Buddha Dharma perpetually remain is the paramount task of present
teachers, not mundane money, matter, militarism, me-ism, mass, etc. So, keeping
the blood in the blood vein pure from the Buddha through all the ancestors is
paramount.
The practice place is called “Selecting Buddha Place” (Sen-butsu-jō, 選仏場),
selected from the ordinary mass, who have aspiration and action to attain the
Awakened Way, to be ordained, and make their life into the triple treasures.
To break or bring the Sangha to schism is the gravest offense, which destroys the
triple treasures, the triple learnings of sila, samādhi, and prajñā, and ten precepts
of the triple actions of the body, mouth, and mind .
The consent or concurrence comes from the triple treasures learned from the
profound and permanent teachings and traditions of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas
of the whole world, the Dharma body, the cosmos itself.
4/14/13
