Good morning and Happy New Year!
Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? I have resolved to do the most
important thing first. What is the most important thing? That is the life-death
matter. The Buddha was awakened to the truth of it as karma-kinetics and solved its
suffering by stilling karma, settling in nirvana beyond karma, and striving wakefully
in the supra-mundane truth.
I am reading the work Smiling Zen by Toru Matsumoto. When leaving Taiwan after
WWII, he faced the problem of selecting only his personal effects to take to Japan.
He spent days worrying about leaving six truck loads of books, some of them rare
ones left by his father. This was solved suddenly, when he thought of his death. So,
he took with him only one book – the Shoshikan.
The Shoshikan (Small Version Calming-Visioning: Samatha-Vipassanâ) is a
compilation of lectures given by Tendai Daishi, and it is the commentary on this
work, delivered by Matsumoto in a series of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Association)
broadcasts and later transcribed, that I am currently reading. Calming-visioning
leads anyone to nirvana-bodhi (awakening), making every day a good day as buddhas
(awakened ones).
The Buddhist Paths are said to be composed of 37 limbs, but they are the sum of the
Eightfold Holy Way, Seven Awakening Limbs, etc., so the basic items are the Triple
Learning of Sîla, Smâdhi, and Paññâ (Morality, Concentration, Prognosis). Right
livelihood, donation, and patience were added for lay practitioners. Donation is the
first step to open up small egos, which leads to the Wholly Wholesome Way World.
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