Tag: Lord of the Rings

Compassion

I grew up as a teenager watching the old TV show, Kung Fu, on syndicate. I was a big fan, and although the show hasn’t always aged well, it was my first naive introduction to Asian culture, Buddhism, etc, so it holds a special place in my heart.

I found this clip on Youtube recently and wanted to share. It really speaks to the Buddhist notion of metta or goodwill (which I talked about here):

This reminds me of the famous encounter by the Japanese Buddhist monk, Honen, and the prostitute, and his similar approach. I really like the flashback scene here (the one describing the lily in the desert), which reminds me of appreciating the value of all life. Even Gandalf makes this point in the Lord of the Rings:

Finally, I was happy to find another clip from Kung Fu here:

The first flashback scene here, between young Kwai-Chang Caine and Master Po sitting beside a statue of the Buddha, really resonated with me when I was a teenager and first watched Kung-Fu. In fact, this was probably my first encounter with Buddhism ever.

Through the Ages

Been reading the Lord of the Rings with my son, and I stumbled upon this quote that I had never noticed before.

‘But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. Others dwelt here before Hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.

J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring”

Just some food for thought…

The Four Bases of Community

While recently reading a certain Japanese-language introduction on the Soto school of Zen (the same book where I learned about the Shushōgi), I came across another teaching I wanted to share called the Four Bases of Community, also called the Four Grounds for Fellowship, and so on. This term is called shishōbō (四摂法) in Japanese Zen, but the term goes much further back, all the way to the Pāli Canon as cattāri saṅgahavatthūni,1 where it is the subject of a sutra called the Sangaha Sutta (AN 4.32).

But what are the Four Bases/Grounds for/of Community/Fellowship (of the Ring)?

The Soto Zen book lists them as (with my rough translations):

  • 布施 (fuse) – offerings, generosity
  • 愛護 (aigo) – kind words
  • 利行 (rigyō) – empathy
  • 同事 (dōji) – cooperation

A number of helpful articles in Japanese and English all point to the same thing: even small efforts toward kind words, empathy or generosity toward others have a knock-on effect that leads to both to own’s one happiness, but also happiness of others who are not directly involved. Six degrees of separation and all that.

Given how people are agitated and tense in the current climate, it may be a good opportunity to put the Four Grounds of Fellowship into practice as they may have effects that one can’t expect.

1 Sometimes seems to be abbreviated to saṅgaha-vatthu for you Pali nerds out there.