Good evening!
Today is tanabata in the East. Tana is altar andis banner. It seems that it originally started as a Buddhist festival to receive ancestors’ spirits. Then, it was combined with the story of a cowherd and a weaver meeting once a year across a river (Milky Way).
Nowadays people write their wishes on paper strips and hang them on bamboo branches. We as individuals want to solve our birth/death problems. Religions aim at holiness, a wholesome whole. Often our wishes are not the wholesome whole, but separated objects.
Today we have rain. It is called “tear rain,” because rain makes the river flood and hinders the meeting of the cowherd and weaver. Matter and power can never become holy (wholly wholesome). When we aim at limited matter or power, we have flooding, global warming, and many other problems.
We can hope for holy truth, goodness, and beauty. That’s why we come here and sit – to meet ancestors’ (buddhas’ and bodhisattvas’) sprits, and to meet holy truth, goodness, and beauty. This is beyond birth and death. This is the true holy aim of life.
7/7/11
