Good morning!
We have a calm and cool Sunday morning after sittings and service. The Buddha called sitting meditation the “come and see way, good in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end.” He was said to hold up a flower and Mahakashyapa smiled, thus transmitting the Buddha’s Way. This reflects the Brahma’s Beseeching of him to go out into the world to transmit it, to save the world from destruction. The Buddha, seeing the world sunken deeply in karma, was first reluctant to go into the world, but, seeing some lotus flowers blooming above muddy water, was determined to teach the Awakened Way.
We are heading to the destruction of the world with wars, nukes, mass extinction, global warming, etc. The Doomsday Clock is only 3 minutes before doom; nuclear warheads target us and nuclear power plants can melt down anywhere. Terrorism can strike anytime. Here we watch shooting sprees, policemen killings, and the killing of policemen. Pyramidal systems are everywhere, with delusion, bondage, discrimination, exploitation, and extermination. Militarism, materialism, money-ism, and the root me-ism are more and more marching toward devastation, destruction, and demise.
Our problems and sufferings are all in the muddy water of the Triple Poisons of desire, divisiveness, and delusion. They are in the darkness but mistaken as our nature and rights. Only when lotus flowers come out of the muddy water, can they see their true nature blooming – beautiful and good, holy (wholly wholesome) and harmonious – undefiled by muddy water. The way to do so is to clearly know that the muddy water is our karma world and to calmly deal with karma. The Fourfold Applications or Dedications are to decrease and stop bad karmas, and to start and increase good karmas.
The Fourfold Holy Truths and the Eightfold Holy Ways are well-known application of them. The Fourfold Holy Truths or Realities are of suffering, the source of suffering, cessation of the source of suffering, and the way to cease the source of suffering. The source of suffering is identified as craving or thirst, and cessation as nirvana. Nirvana (or nivāta, as in nivāte padīpa: lamp in no-wind) is no-wind, i.e., no karma-wind. In stilling karma, we can walk the path of right view, thinking, speech, action, livelihood, striving, mindfulness, and concentration. Thus, we can live Buddha’s Way as buddhas.
7/10/16
