During my wife’s latest trip to Japan (I stayed home this year for various reasons), she found this delightful patch/sticker:
This is an image of Amida Buddha, welcoming the deceased to the Pure Land. This is called raigō amida (来迎阿弥陀, “Amida welcoming the dead”). I talked about this before a little while ago, becuase it was a common artistic motif in medieval Japanese Buddhism, especially at a time where disease, warfare and death would often cut people’s lives short.
The imagery of Amida Buddha coming to greet the dead is found primarily in the Contemplation of Amitabha Sutra (a.k.a. “the Contemplation Sutra”). The last section of the sutra lists the nine grades of people who are reborn in the Pure Land, and the fourth grade (“highest level of the middle grade”) gives the following description, for example:
“When such a person is about to die, Amitayus [Amida] appears before him, surrounded by a host of monks and radiating a golden light. He then expounds the truth of suffering, emptiness, impermanence and no-self, and praises renunciation of the world as the way to escape from suffering.
“Seeing this, the aspirant greatly rejoices and finds himself seated upon a lotus-flower. He kneels down, joins his palms and worships the Buddha. Before he raises his head, he attains birth in the Land of Utmost Bliss, where his lotus-bud soon opens.
Translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki
Depending on the grade of the aspirant, this welcome may be more or less elaborate, but all of them are reborn in the Pure Land somehow.
So, I like this patch because it’s a reminder of the goodwill Amida Buddha extends to all beings, and how everyone can be born in the Pure Land if they want to.
Namu Amida Butsu
P.S. I kept the patch in its wrapper for a long time, but finally decided to put it in a sutra book I’ve been making.
Spock: Mr Scott, there was no deity involved. It was my cross-circuiting to B that recovered them.
McCoy: Then thank pitchforks and pointed ears.
Star Trek, “Obsession” (s2:ep13), stardate 3620.7
In the host of world religions, Buddhism occupies a strange place. In one sense, it is a world religion because it is followed by many different peoples, cultures, and languages throughout its 2,500 year history.
But unlike other world religions there is no central deity, no creator.
Hold on, you might be thinking, what about the Buddha?
The Buddha is the central figure of Buddhism. He is the teacher, but in the Buddhist tradition he was once a person, just like you and me, who through countless lifetimes as a bodhisattva fully accomplished the path and awakened to the Dharma: the principles of existence. He taught the Dharma to his disciples, and they became the first generation of the Sangha, the community.
Thus, these comprise the Three Treasures of Buddhism.
But why do people pray to the Buddha?
Because the Buddha and all other such figures in Buddhism are not passive. The Buddha taught the Dharma out of compassion and goodwill for all beings, and the countless Bodhisattvas such as Kannon guide any sentient beings who take up the Buddhist path. Amida Buddha provides a refuge for all beings who wish to be reborn there.
Kannon (観音) Bodhisattva in her more motherly form.
The underlying theme isn’t Enlightenment for Enlightenment’s sake. It is to help beings who suffer so that eventually they too may reach Buddhahood (a.k.a. Enlightenment).
One does not have to pray to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The most important thing is to put the Buddhist teachings into practice as one can. But in times of unease, uncertainty or crisis it’s perfectly fine to pray to a Buddha or Bodhisattva that you revere. I do it from time to time myself when I am worried about my kids, on plane flights, before surgery, etc.
But also, in the end, I am responsible for my choices, my words, and my thoughts.
When you plant melon seeds you get melons, and when you plant beans you get beans. [Effect follows causes] like a shadow follows a physical shape, like an echo responds to a sound. Nothing is sown in vain. This is called “believing in the result”.
Ou-yi’s Mind Seal of the Buddhas, translation by J. C. Clearly
I alone bear the fruits of my choices, words and thoughts.
Since May when I started taking up Zen practice more actively, I’ve been meditating more or less pretty regularly since then. Not quite daily, but several times a week usually. This has highlighted something I didn’t expect: back pain.
Back pain is nothing new to me. I have worked a desk job for many years, so my back often hurts, and I don’t get enough exercise. My back problems are not severe, and don’t require surgery or anything, and I have tried a few things to solve them: new office chairs, Tiger Balm, Chinese medicine pads, yoga, acupuncture, ibuprofen, etc. Each of these helps a little bit, but the problem recurs over and over again. Simply bending down to take out something from the refrigerator can trigger it, but so did Zen meditation.
Meditation sometimes triggers lower back pain for me if I sat incorrectly. But also posture. I tried doing a half-lotus posture, but that quickly caused too much discomfort (full lotus posture is right out), so I usually sit in the “Burmese posture“. This is usually good enough, but even so, if I posture isn’t good, my back hurts more and more. If I already had back pain, it aggravates it. In such cases, I usually have to stop meditation for a few days while my back recovers.
I started to despair that I would never find relief.
Finally, I decided to try some physical-therapy exercises to strengthen my core muscles. I found this helpful website that provides a routine that a person should do once or twice a day (twice if possible). I started this about four weeks ago, sometimes once a day, sometimes twice a day. I also added 15 squats as part of this routine to make my knees stronger.1 After the first week, the pain in my back had noticeably diminished. By the end of the second week, my posture and back pain greatly improved. I felt much more sturdy when going up and down stairs.
Meditation too hurts a lot less. Sometimes I still get back pain, but both the severity and duration are much shorter now.
Again, to emphasize, my back problems are pretty minor and don’t require surgery or anything, but simply doing about 10 minutes daily of physical therapy type exercises to strengthen my core has had many little benefits, both for meditation and for general quality of life.
But don’t ask this old man to do half-lotus position… 😋
P.S. Taking a break next week on blogging. I need to catch up on some drafts, do some reading, etc. Plus it’s my birthday. 🥳 See you next time!
1 I have also been dieting more actively to help reduce physical weight of my body on my bones and back.
A few months ago, I made this post about how the Obaku Zen sect interprets Amida Buddha and the Pure Land. To my surprise, I keep reflecting on this phrase from time to time, almost like a Zen koan:
This mind is the Pure Land, this body is Amida Buddha
This idea of merging Zen and Pure Land ideas is somewhat rare in Japanese Buddhism, but it’s surprisingly common in Chinese-Buddhist thought. Originally, I thought it was limited to later Ming-Dynasty Buddhism (which Obaku descends from), but similar strands of thought exist much further back.
A famous Chinese monk named Yongming Yanshou (永明延壽. 904 – 976) once wrote a poem titled the “Four Alternatives” (sì liào jiǎn 四料揀):1
Lacking both Chan and the Pure Land, it will be the iron beds and bronze pillars [of hell] for ten thousand kalpas [eons] and a thousand lives with no one to turn to.
Having Chan but lacking the Pure Land, nine out of ten will stray from the path; when the realm of the aggregates appears before them, they will instantly follow it.
Lacking Chan but having the Pure Land, ten thousand out of ten thousand who practice it will go [to rebirth]. Having seen Amitābha, why worry that one might not attain enlightenment?
Having both Chan and Pure Land, one is like a tiger with horns [i.e., doubly capable]. Such a person will be a teacher in the present life, and a buddha or patriarch in future lives.
translation by Charles B. Jones, “Chinese Pure Land Buddhism, Understanding a Tradition of Practice”, pg 210
Yongming is advocating a supportive model where both Zen practice and Pure Land practice work in concert. The Pure Land path is the “safer” path to follow, due to the vows of Amida Buddha, but if supported by Zen practice here and now, one is really making progress on the Buddhist path.
Further, a later writer named Yunqi Zhuhong2 (雲棲袾宏, 1535 – 1615) explained that these things were not mutually exclusive (Chinese added by me):3
To contemplate the Buddha (nianfo 念佛) is to contemplate the mind (nian-xin 念心). Birth there (in the Pure Land) does not entail birth away from here. Mind, Buddha, and sentient beings are all of one substance; the middle stream (non-duality) does not abide on the two banks (this world and the Pure Land).
Similarly, Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭, 1599 – 1655) in his excellent work “Mind Seal of Buddhas” makes a similar argument: Zen and Pure Land practice are the same thing, just operating at different levels. You’re not forced to chose one or the other in your practice.
But such ideas aren’t limited to medieval Chinese-Buddhist monks. You can find such sentiments in Pure Land sutras themselves! In the Immeasurable Life Sutra is this passage (emphasis added):
“In this world, you should extensively plant roots of virtue, be benevolent, give generously, abstain from breaking the precepts, be patient and diligent, teach people with sincerity and wisdom, do virtuous deeds, and practice good. If you strictly observe the precepts of abstinence with upright thought and mindfulness even for a day and a night, the merit acquired will surpass that of practicing good in the land of Amitāyus [a.k.a. the Pure Land] for a hundred years. The reason is that in that buddha land of effortless spontaneity all the inhabitants do good without committing even a hair’s breadth of evil. If in this world you do good for ten days and nights, the merit acquired will surpass that of practicing good in the buddha lands of other directions for a thousand years.
Translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki
In this passage, the Buddha is clearly advocating both bending your efforts toward rebirth in the Pure Land, but also making the most of the time you have here to undergo traditional Buddhist practices too because even a modest effort here is a great benefit in the future (both for yourself and others).
As I often tell my kids: “go nuts”!4
What I mean is: recite the nembutsu, meditate, uphold the precepts, or some combination thereof. You have nowhere to go but up.
But what if you can’t decide or don’t have the time?
In my opinion, start with the nembutsu. Begin just as you are, and recite it just 10 times daily. From there, add the Five Precepts when you are ready, and once you have that foundation, and are ready to branch out, then look into Zen practices. This make take months or even years. Take your time, go slow, and don’t be afraid to explore.
When I talk about the flexibility of Tendai Buddhism in Japan as well, this is what I am alluding to: start with something simple and small at first (such as a devotional practice), and gradually building upon it as you gain confidence and see the positive transformation in your life. Buddhism is kind of a SLOW, gradual religion, but like a glacier, once it starts moving, it has a wonderful momentum all its own even if you can’t see it.
Namu Shakumuni Butsu Namu Amida Butsu
P.S. Featured blog image is another famous “Dynamic Duo”: Batman and Robin from the 1960’s series.
P.P.S. Posting kind of off-schedule just because it is fun. 😊
1 I found this on Wikipedia actually and I thought to myself “wow, this person quoted exactly the same way that I would do!”, then I realized that I had put this on Wikipedia a few years ago. 🤦🏼♂️
2 Pronounced like “yoon-chee joo-hong”.
3 Again, I managed to pull a quote from Wikipedia that I had unwittingly added years ago and then promptly forgot.
4 My kids ask me if they can watch TV, play Switch or whatever, and my frequent answer is “go nuts” [go crazy, have fun].
My son and I visited our neighborhood bookstore recently (shop at local, independent bookstores!) and I found this neat book worth mentioning called The Blue Cliff Record, translated by David Hinton.
The Blue Cliff Record, known in Chinese as the Bìyán Lù (碧巖錄) is actually a pretty old text in the Chinese Chan (Zen) tradition, and is a collection of Koans compiled in the year 1125 by Yuanwu Keqin (圓悟克勤, 1063–1135).1 Obviously, the koans themselves were older and handed down over time, and appear in other collections, but the Blue Cliff Record is a kind of “selected wine list” of koans. The Blue Cliff Record was compiled during the Song Dynasty in China, which while politically unstable due to the Mongols, was a cultural high-water mark of Chinese Buddhism and especially the Chan tradition. Not surprisingly, Japan’s Zen traditionimported much from this time period as well.
This is not the first time I’ve studied koans, though.
In my youth, when I first explored Zen, I had a copy of the Gateless Gate by Mumonkan, and my religion studies teacher in high school assigned us each a koan to solve in class. Of course, none of us actually solved them, but it was a fun exercise. But as with my studies in Zen, I gradually forgot about it until recently, so it’s like coming back full circle after more than 30 years (!).
But what the heck are koans?
“Koans” are more properly called Gōng-àn (公案) in Chinese. The word “kōan” is how those Chinese characters are pronounced in Japanese, and this term is more widely known to Westerners.2 Koans are cryptic dialogues, often between a master and student, and widely used in the Lin-ji school of Chan Buddhism. As we saw in my recent post, Lin-ji is predominant in China, but also spread to neighboring countries, and in Japan’s case it became both the Rinzai and Obaku sects (albeit different centuries). Temples such as Kenninji and Ryoanji are examples of famous Rinzai temples in Japan. The Soto Zen tradition doesn’t rely on them as much, but inherits the same collections, as it is desecnded from the Cao-dong (not Lin-ji) school in China.
David Hinton in his foreword on the Blue Cliff Record explains that the key to understanding a Koan is to see it like a kind of public law case. When law students review famous court cases, they have to review the nature of the complaint, evidence presented, the judge’s decision, past precedence, etc. If you’re not a law student, this is hard. But if you’ve been practicing law for a long time, immersed yourself in it, then you see it with a different eye.
In the same way, Mr Hinton writes, a Koan is like a “public sangha case”. The “sangha” is one of the Three Treasures of Buddhism, and means the Buddhist community at large. So, these are public sangha cases for students to review, contemplate, and so on.
The truth is, when you read a Koan for the first time, it basically makes no sense whatsoever. You might think you get it, then you gradually realize that you really don’t. Then it gets under your skin, and bothers you enough that you might stick with it, until maybe one day, you look at it and you think “duh, of course!”
But also, some “public sangha cases” will resonate with you more than others, or at different times in your life.
Since I don’t participate in any Zen communities at present, I decided to do a little experiment. The Blue Cliff Record has exactly 100 cases in it, and being a giant nerd, I decided to pick one at random as my koan to contemplate. I took 2d10 dice from my Dungeons and Dragons set. Then, I briefly prayed to Kannon Bodhisattva and Shakyamuni Buddha and rolled the dice. I got koan #20 which David Hinton translates as “Dragon-Fang Meditation Clapper”:
When he was a monk traveling, Dragon-Fang Mountain asked Kingfisher Shadowed-Emergence: “What is the ch’i-weave mind [意] Bodhidharma brought from the West?”
“Pass me the clapper to announce meditation,” said Shadowed-Emergence.
Dragon-Fang passed the wooden clapper to Shadowed-Emergence, who swung it and struck Fang a blow.
“You can strike me all you want,” hissed Dragon-Fang, “But there’s still no ch’i-weave mind for Bodhidharma to bring from the West.”
Traveling years later, after his awakening under Fathom Mountain, Dragon-Fang asked Purport Dark-Enigma: “What is the ch’i-weave mind Bodhidharma brought from the West?”
“Pass me the meditation cushion,” replied Dark-Enigma, who swung it and struck Fang a blow.
“You can strike me all you want,” hissed Dragon-Fang, “But there’s still no ch’i-weave mind for Bodhidharma to bring from the West.”
Translation by David Hinton
Confusing? Yes. Mr Hinton takes the unusual approach of translating the monks’ names into English, hence “Dragon-Fang” and “Shadowed-Emergence”, etc. so it takes a bit of getting used to. The term “ch’i-weave mind” (意)3 takes 2 pages to explain at the end of the book, and I can’t do it justice, but for simplicity here I will crudely summarize it as the Big Mind, as opposed to one’s normal everyday mind.
Even so, this koan doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I think I get it, but do I really get it?
I suppose time will tell…
Namu Shakamuni Buddha Namu Amida Buddha Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu
1 Pronounced like “yuen-wu kuh-cheen”
2 Many Buddhist terms in Japanese are just local pronunciations of Chinese-Buddhist words (often from Hokkien dialect, not Mandarin, due to its proximity to the Japan islands). This same trend happens with Korean-Buddhist words, Vietnamese-Buddhist words, and so on. If this sounds strange, consider religious words in English. They are often derived from Latin, for obvious reasons, but the pronunciation gets muddled over many generations, especially since they were often filtered through Middle-French (via conquering Normans). This is how religious ideas and words spread.
3 This Chinese-character is used in such Japanese words as:
意味 – imi or “meaning”
意識 – ishiki or “consciousness”
注意 – chūi or “caution”
用意 – yōi or “to prepare or provision something”
…. you get the idea. It’s used a lot, but kind of abstract too.
Garibaldi: This isn’t gonna be easy. G’kar: Nothing worthwhile ever is.
Babylon 5, “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place”, s3:ep20
Recently, I talked about the key to practicing Zen (or Buddhism in general) is training while incorporating other things in your life toward that same goal. Like Rocky Balboa training in Rocky, or Li Fong in the excellent movie Karate Kid: Legends, or someone working hard to learn a language by making other aspects of life conducive toward language learning.
In most cases, we go through a some stages when we take up a project like this.
New thing – “this is fun, I can see the benefits already!”
Steady practice – “gotta keep this up”
Boredom – “ugh, I gotta do this again”
Skipped days – “I’ll make up for it tomorrow”
More skipped days – “No, really, I’ll make up it up tomorrow.”
Guilt – “I suck”
Despair – “I’ll never succeed.”
Quitting.
My usual pattern with new projects, or dieting and exercise, is to eventually feel guilty, despair, and quit. It happens to me a lot over the years, admittedly.
But also, there are a few things that surprisingly I have managed to stick with for years, decades even. I’ve been actively studying Japanese since 2008, for example. I realized though that the way I’ve studied Japanese has changed and shifted many times. Some experiments succeeded, others failed immediately. But the goal was important enough to me, that even when I failed I just shifted tactics and tried again. I failed the N1 JLPT twice in the last five years, and to my surprise, I am still at it, but now trying a new tactic.
Put another way: when I hit a roadblock, instead of hitting my head on the wall harder and harder, I tried another route. I knew where I wanted to go (language fluency) and just kept trying methods until I found something that stuck.
I realized too that my pursuit of the Buddhist path has been much the same way. I started out in 2005 with very little understanding, but I really liked reciting the nembutsu, and I loved the simple, down-to-earth, and highly approachable Jodo Shu sect as taught by Honen (still do!). But while I’ve had the same basic goal, my understanding of Buddhism has grown over time, and like language learning, has gone through many false-starts, projects that soon ended, or things that just didn’t work. So, I just shifted, tried another route, backtracked, and so on. This what I think happened to me, and why I took up Zen practice since May.
My current Zen practice is, I suppose, just another track toward my goal.
So, I think the point of all this is that the goal is more important than the particular approach. If the goal is something you really care about you’ll find a way. In fact, you’ll probably bend other aspects of your life toward it. If not, then the goal maybe wasn’t that important to begin with. That’s OK. Better to acknowledge it, cut your losses, and move on.
But if the goal is worthwhile to you, then like G’Kar says, you’ll find a way.
My family and I really enjoyed the latest installment of the Karate Kid series: Karate Kid Legends.1
In one part of the story, our protagonist Li Fong (played by Ben Wang), is teaching a local, washed-up boxer in New York how to train in kung-fu. He tells the boxer that in order to train in kung-fu everything you do should be geared toward kung-fu. So, through a fun montage, the boxer, who owns a local pizzeria, learns to punch olive oil cans with proper form, carry bags of flour for strength training, etc. Everything he does in his daily work is geared toward his kung-fu training.
As soon as I saw this in the theater, my first thought was “that’s how Zen works”.
When people think of Zen they think of Japanese-style dojos with soft flute music playing in the background, and maybe a cherry blossom tree or two.
This is an ideal, though. A fantasy.
I have literally been to genuineZentemples in Japan, seen the very best of the best, and they are wonderful, but you can’t take that experience home with you. Zen is a lot more than just sitting at meditation before a sane garden.
Zen, as with Buddhism in general, is about being engaged in your life as it is.2 Make everything in your life about the practicing the Dharma somehow. When you need to clean house, or cook for the kids, etc., think of it as training: training to uphold the precepts, training to pay attention to what you’re thinking and doing, training to live an upright, honest life, etc. I realize that it’s not possible to think this way all the time; I spend my downtime usually playing Fire Emblem or playing The One Ring RPG. But, if you keep your long-term goal in the back of your mind, whether that be kung-fu or the Dharma, the more you will bend your life in that direction, and thus the more you accomplish along the way.
Having a long-term goal, regardless of the ups and downs of life, is essential with the time you have left.
Namu Shakamuni Butsu
P.S. Featured photo is Bruce Lee at age 18 practicing with his teacher, Ip Man. Courtesy of 搜房网电影人生, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
P.P.S. I’ve been on WordPress for 15 years as of this week. 🥳
P.P.P.S. Happy Diwali to my Indian/Hindu readers!
1 Growing up in Japan, my wife had never seen the earlier Karate Kid movies (which in Japan were called ベスト・キッド (“Besuto Kiddo”, meaning Best Kid). After watching Legends, she and the kids wanted to see the original for some context, but weren’t super impressed. Looking back, the movie definitely appeals to a 1980’s fascination with Japanese culture, and thus mysticizes some things, and awkwardly stereotypes others. I loved them as a kid, but I admit now that they were a product of their time. That said, I am glad to see Legends really freshen up the franchise.
2 On can easily make the case for Pure Land Buddhism teaching the same thing, especially Jodo Shinshu-sect Buddhism.
Season three of the science series Babylon 5 marks a big change in the story and especially for G’kar (played by the late Andreas Katsulas, RIP) and his people. G’kar recognizes what is happening and realizes that there is no going back.
In a sense, every moment is a transition. Most are really small, subtle, trivial, with some big ones thrown in. Some of these big transitions are positive (getting married, having kids, etc), some are overtlynegative.
Some start negative and become positive: I was laid off, but the new job I got ended up being better. Some start positive and become negative: friends who started out great, but became problems later or responsibilities that get worse and worse.
In short, life is just a series of constant transitions, great and small, and they’re usually hard to spot in until they have already happened. For example, on my way to work, I pass by my old university. I graduated almost 25 years ago, and still visit for cherry blossoms, but year after year it has changed in small ways like the Ship of Theseus. The university I knew no longer exists.
A scene from Fire Emblem: Three Houses
That’s all well and good for gradual, transitions, but what if you are living through a very dramatic, negative transition? It is very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
But I like to think that given enough time, even dark and difficult times eventually fade…
“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
So, when times are difficult, I try to hold on to the idea that time marches on, and today’s kings will be tomorrow’s dust.
The Buddha taught the importance of equanimity, like a grass that bends in the wind, no matter how strong it blows, and this is a lot easier than it sounds when you’re dealing with the hassles of life. But knowing that time marches on does make it somewhat easier.
If you know what life and existence is, think of it this way: it’s just there.
One thing that really annoys me as a long-time Buddhist is the tendency for self-help and spritual seminars to cost so much money. I saw this advertised locally in my area for weeks, and the starting price for a seat is $250 for a backrow seat, which to me is totally bonkers.
The Dharma, as taught by Shakyamuni Buddha was freely given, and required nothing.
Having said that, as a counter to pricey spiritual seminars, I wanted to promote a concept: the Art of Dying.
DYING?!
It is a simple concept: you are going to die. You cannot necessarily choose the hour or manner of your death. But it will occur inevitably occur.
You do not have to take my word for it. Here’s a Buddhist sutra (freely given I might add) from the words of the Buddha:
There is no bargaining with Mortality & his mighty horde.
Whoever lives thus ardently, relentlessly both day & night, has truly had an auspicious day:
But, to summarize the Parable, the Buddha Shakyamuni asks us, the reader, to imagine a great, big mansion that’s old, rickey, and so on. Then, imagine the house is burning. Deep inside, some kids are playing in a room, unaware the house is on fire. The father, having just returned from a trip, sees his kids in danger and calls out to them to leave the house at once. The kids, engrossed in their games, fail to see their situation. Finally, the father offers them great rewards if they leave (specifically carts of goods), and the kids finally come out.
The father, Shakyamuni Buddha, has left the burning house and stands outside. He calls to those in danger, namely the “kids”, to see their peril and to come out too.
What about the burning house itself? That is the world we live in, with strife, conflict, disease, chaos, aging, and death.
The late Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about this too:
“Imagine two hens about to be slaughtered, but they do not know it. One hen says to the other, “The rice is much tastier than the corn. The corn is slightly off.” She is talking about relative joy. She does not realize that the real joy of this moment is the joy of not being slaughtered, the joy of being alive.”
This gets to the heart of the Buddha’s teachings: do not squander the time you have on this Earth. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life and your loved ones, but remember: Death will not wait for it to be convenient for you.
When you hear this, your instinct might be the “live, laugh, and love”, indulge in all the fun things in life before it’s too late. But that’s not what the Buddha intended. When you look back at the Parable of the Burning House, the father wasn’t asking the kids to play more, he was telling them to get out before it’s too late.
Further, in the Mahayana tradition, one can get themselves out of the burning house, but helping and guide others to get out of the burning house is even better. One can call such people bodhisattvas.
But you can’t help others (let alone yourself) until you :
Recognize the situation
Put down your own toys and find the way out before you can help others.
This is part of the progression of the Buddhist path: get your foundations in order, increasing confidence in the Dharma (which you can see in your own life), and turning outward to help other beings.
But starting at the beginning, how does one establish a foundation?
Everyone is different, but generally it starts with some simple things:
Taking the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as one’s chosen refuge (you can do this by yourself or in a community). You can setup a small shrine too.
Taking up an ethical life, such as undertaking the Five Precepts
If all five are too hard, start with one, and work your way up over the months and years.
Say to yourself (yes, you): May I be well, may I be free from harm.
Now think of loved ones: may they be well, may they be free from harm.
Now think of all living beings (even the awful ones): may they be well, may they be free from harm.
Setup a reasonable daily practice. Think of it like exercise or stretching: if you start too aggressively, you’ll injure yourself and set yourself back. So start small, and build up.
What does a daily practice look like? Some examples here.
A small meditation practice can be beneficial too, but intention matters.
Study the sutras. Not self-help books, but the sutras. Commentaries on the sutras, such as those provided by Thich Nhat Hanh are quite good and easy to find in used and independent bookstores such as Powell’s City of Books.
Find worthy teachers and communities, not slick, overpriced seminars or cults. Caveat emptor.
Repeat. Buddhism is a long-term practice. “Play the long game“, but also remember you are on the clock. Time is short.
So, that’s your free teaching for today. Thanks for attending this seminar. Want to support the blog? Pay it forward or something. This is “Buddhism on a Budget”, and I strongly feel this is how Buddhism should be.
From Star Trek episode “Spectre of the Gun” (s3:ep6)
One Zen anecdote that I remember from my youth, was a story where a student declared to his master “all is illusion”. The master, listening to this whacked the student on the head (or pinched his nose, I forget) and said “was that an illusion?”.
I always liked this anecdote, but didn’t really appreciate until I got older and had more field-experience with Buddhism.
There’s a tendency to view Buddhism as a way to transcend one’s problems. People like to meditate in Buddhism, or do chanting, because they think it will “chill them out” or go into “Zen mode” as a way of facing life’s problems. Once you’re blissed out and calm, you’ll not be bothered by problems anymore, and all will be well. Right?
Sooner or later, you have to come down and still deal with problems in life: work, food, jerks, illness, boredom, bills, political crises, economic hardships, debt, injustice, broken cars, crying kids, angry spouses, dogs with “intestinal issues”, getting older, loneliness, house chores, the inevitable death of everyone you know, back problems, and so on. The list goes on and on. It does not go away, no matter how much you want it to.
Once you come to grips with this, which also happens to be the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, then the rest starts to fall into place. Until then, no chanting, meditation, prayer, seminars, self-help exercises, fancy gurus, or books will do any good. Not because you’re stupid, or unworthy, or not disciplined enough; it’s because you can’t put the cart before the horse. 🛒🐴
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 
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