Good morning!
With the time change we have a beautiful bright Sunday morning after serene sittings and service. I forwarded a National Geographic film titled Before the Flood to our listserv. The Flood this time is caused by mankind. It showed how our living causes flooding, crop destruction, the submerging of islands, hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, wild fires, the slowing of sea streams, maybe even earthquakes, though seismologists say we are now in an active period.
Buddhists have two islands or refuges, Dharma and self (Dhamma-dīpa/dvīpa, attan-dīpa). As we recited the Triple Treasures or Refuges, “I take refuge in the Dharma,” the self here becomes Dharma, Dharma-body, through cultivation. It is through repenting the Triple Poisons of attachment, aversion and delusion, and taking the Four Universal Vows of saving all, severing defilements, learning all Dharma gates, and achieving the Awakened Way.
We learn the Dharma of Dependent Co-origination, as in the Four Holy Truths of suffering, its origination, its cessation, and the way of ceasing, as in the Eightfold Holy Ways, right view, thinking, speech, action, livelihood, striving, mindfulness, concentration. Religion is cultivation in sitting, ceasing karma and entering nirvana or reunion of a sinful self with the holy Dharma, a shift from delusion (in karma) to the Dharma (in nirvana, thus holy and right).
The Buddhas (Shakyamuni, Dogen, et al.) gave the Great Person’s Eightfold Awakening as the concrete Way as their last lessons to their disciples: little desire, knowing satisfaction, forsaking (association), right mindfulness, right concentration, right striving, right awakening, no idle talk. Let’s practice to make our islands greater and the flooding (samsara suffering) smaller with all, serving and saving all, severing streaming fluxes (āsava: leaks, defilements).
11/6/16
