Author: Ox Herder

[I posted this on my personal blog a bit over a year ago, but I thought it relates, in a sense, to Chong Go Sunim’s post on Bek-jung. In this teaching, the Buddha makes a very strong case for practicing.]

ओं मणिपद्मे हूं

ooooIn a conversation I was having with my friend, Joe, we started talking about how many Buddhist teachings are related through a story, and how the visualisation, especially for someone with a developed imagination, can really help impact the meaning and create a sort of understand. There are basically two kinds of knowledge, conceptual understanding acquired through second-hand experience and knowledge you acquire from directly experiencing something yourself. I think Jean-Paul Sartre had this same realization when he wrote about his experience with the rock in Nausea. I’ve heard a similar analogy in Buddhism, talking about a watermelon. No matter how you explain the vine, the leaves, the texture of the shell, the sweet, juicy taste, the only way to truly know a watermelon is to see it, pick it up, open it, and take a bite. No amount of words will explain it.

ooooA lot of lessons in life can be taught through another person’s experience, although sometimes it takes learning something the hard way to really get through. For thousands of years people have taught through stories. Children’s stories usually have some moral in the end or some lesson. It reaches us on a deeper level than just saying, don’t do this or that. Is it that we relate to the characters on an emotional level that becomes personal? I don’t know, but I usually feel a good understanding of something even experiencing it through a story. It doesn’t take much to put my mind in that situation and it almost becomes ‘real’.

ooooJoe told me a teaching Buddha had given to a contemporary king who often requested the Buddha’s council. On the topic of the importance of spiritual practice, the Buddha spoke…

“Majesty, suppose one day your trusted messenger brought news that there is a mountain, as high as the sky, approaching from the East, crushing every living thing in its path. Just as you begin to worry about this situation, another trusted messenger brings news that a mighty mountain is advancing from the West, also crushing everything in its path. Then messengers from the North and South arrive, bearing similar messages. Four mountains are advancing, crushing every living being in their paths. There is no way to escape, there is nothing you can do to prevent the mountains from coming. You have very little time left. Majesty, what do you do?”

The King thought, then responded, “I believe there is only one thing I could do. That would be to live my remaining hours in as worthy and serene way as possible, following the true teaching.”

The Buddha praised the king. Yes, your Majesty! Those four mountains are the mountains of birth, old age, sickness, and death. Old age and death are closing in on us, and we can never escape.

At Saturday Sangha this week, Chong Go Sunim mentioned a Korean Buddhist saying that I hadn’t listened to before. Our spiritual capacity is like a bowl, it can only hold so much. Once it’s full, it just spills out over the edge. Then, no matter how great the teaching, only so much of it can be retained.

Of course, the first question that crossed my mind was, “So, how do we increase the size of our bowls?”

On the northern edge of Gyeongsanbuk-do, past the ginseng fields of Punggi, just south of the middle of nowhere, sits Buseoksa, Temple of the Floating Stone.  No matter where you’re traveling from, it’s far away, hence it’s appeal.

The path to the temple is surrounded by terraced gardens and orchards, and lined with cherry trees. As I made my journey up the hill toward the temple, the rain fell intermittently but the dense mist creeping through the hills made it worth the damp clothes and foggy camera lens. The only sounds were the drips of condensation falling from the branches and the distant chants of Mahayana’s Greatest Hits being played in the temples sound system. From a distance, it sounded less like a recording and the echoes of the mokteok and sutras added to the environment.

Like most country temples, the gate is still a ways from the rest of the complex, creating a nice space between the temple, the car park and everything before it. It’s a nice time to thumb through my yeomju  and whisper 108 Namo Amitabuls, Gwan Sae Eum Bosals, or whichever other Bodhisattva is with me at that moment. I followed a small side road and admired the cherry blossoms, then returned on my way to the temple.

oooo

Buseoksa dates back to 676 CE (1220 BE – Buddhist Era) and was founded by Venerable UiSang. UiSang Daesa, along with his friend WonHyo Daesa, were the first truly influential monks in Korean Zen history. Uisang Daesa studied the Mind Only and Buddha Nature teachings at Hwangbok temple in GyungJu, during the reign of  Silla’s  SeonDeok YeoWang (Lady King). Eventually he made his way to Tang Dynasty China to study the doctrine of  the Avatamsaka Sutra (Flower Garland Sutra), which Buseoksa became a center of. He is also known for doing away with social hierarchies and indiscriminately gave positions to all classes of people within the Buddhist community.

Given the soggy and chilly weather, there were only a few other people visiting, which maintained the silent atmosphere. I climbed a short flight of stairs, passed beneath the first roof and greeted the ubiquitous guardians of the four corners, who stand before most temple complexes in Korea.  Once through, you are in the complex. In Buseoksa, you are immediately confronted by an impressive and massive two storey pavilion that houses the temple’s drum. The wooden dragon-headed fish, carved from a log, hung beside the drum, the belly hollowed out to be used as a percussion. The grounds are surrounded by a short, horse-shoe slope that wrapped the temple with the first buds of Spring. Muryangsujeon, the main hall, remains one of Korea’s oldest wooden structures. Within, there lingers an air of clarity, the scent of that which was never born, never dies, and cannot be named.

Beside the main hall sits, or rather floats, the stone Buseoksa owes its name to. When UiSang arrived in China he was exhausted from the long trip across the sea. He was invited by a local Buddhist lay-family to stay in their home. The daughter, SeonMyo, immediately fell deeply in love with UiSang. But, since he was a monk, who took his precepts seriously, he could not accept her love. She became his faithful disciple and made a vow of eternal devotion to him as her mentor. When he attained Buddhahood in China and  returned to Silla, she followed. That’s history’s version of the story, but legend tells it differently. When he left China, SeonMyo was distraught. Running out to the pier after his ship, she threw herself into the waters and became a dragon, protecting UiSang’s ship on his return to the peninsula. Later, when UiSang was threatened by a group of locals while building his temple, SeonMyo flew into the sky with a large boulder to protect UiSang. In the 17th century, it was documented in the official text of the Joseon Dynasty that a string could be pulled beneath the entire length of the stone, proving that it is indeed floating.

I followed a path up the slope, behind the ridge, to a small hermitage, exactly the kind of place I’d love to live in, plant a garden, and practice meditation. The path continued further and I discover two small shrines. The first was firmly closed, but I was able to jar the doors of the second one open. Inside were three carved Buddhas, more impressive for their age than their over all aesthetic, but still interesting enough to me. I was able to spend a few minutes alone before finally being caught-up with by the first tour group of the day. That’s usually a good sign that it’s time to go, so I gathered myself and began my way back down.  A small portion of the group was in front of  me and I was behind a young woman and her mother. Being slightly quieter than the average Korean tourist, the mom must not have known I was behind her. As she walked, talking loudly to her daughter, she let out a fart like a penny whistle caught in a bullfrog. I, in turn, let out a bit of a giggle, and she turned her head to see the foreigner behind her. They both burst out laughing and sped up their way down the hill, and I was left struck with the epiphany; If you’re not going to look behind you before you fart, don’t bother looking after!

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One of the most interesting stories I heard Chong Go Sunim tell at Saturday Sangha was about a monk he knows who was staying in Haein Temple, when Zen Master Seong Chol was still alive. The monk left the temple to do a long retreat in the Jiri Mountainsand was living off what ever he could find in the forested slopes.

After eating something he shouldn’t have, maybe a poisonous mushroom or something else inedible, he became seriously ill and collapsed on the ground. He came to awareness back in Haein Temple, about 100km or more away and saw two of his friends in the hall doing what seemed like a death ceremony. They didn’t seem to notice him and he found it curious that instead of reciting the appropriate sutras, the monk with the mok-tak (a wooden percussion instrument) was repeating the word, “Chek, chek, chek…” (“Book, book, book…”) and the monk with the bell kept repeating, “Yeom ju, yeom ju, yeom ju…” (“prayer beads, prayer breads, prayer beads…”)

In a flash, he was in his mother’s house. He was standing next to her as she was loading wood in the fire. She didn’t notice him so he reached over and touched her shoulder. She let out a shriek and crumpled over in pain.

Just as he had found himself at the temple, then at his mother’s, he was standing back in the mountain. He noticed the scent of bulgogi, marinated beef, wafting up from the river bank and a group of men in white hanbok (traditional Korean clothes) calling, “Hey! Come down and join us, there’s plenty to go around!” Just as he was about to join them he remembered he is a monk and shouldn’t eat meat.

Making his way back into the hills, he came across an old man with an old fashion jigae, a wooden A-frame carrying rack, on his back. But instead of carrying wood, he was carrying a man down the mountain. He put the man down on the ground and the monk, thinking the man looked familiar, went over to take a closer look. As he stared at the man’s face, he couldn’t get over how much the man looked like himself. He touched the body and at that instant, his consciousness was sucked into the body, and he woke up with a jerk. He was laying near the village where he’d seen the old man put the body. He was also probably feeling a little disoriented from the strange experience he’d just had.

Returning to the temple, he went to his friends and told them about what he had seen. They replied that Seong Cheol Sunim spoke to them that he had died in the Jiri Mountains and that they should perform a death ceremony immediately.  He continued, telling them that they were chanting the words “book” and “prayer beads” instead of the proper sutra’s they should have been chanting. Surprised, the first one admitted that he knew the monk had a collection of really nice books and was wondering if he could have them. A bit ashamed, his second friend also admitted that he was thinking about the monk’s nice “yeom ju” and also wondering if he could have it. So, even though they were speaking the mantra, all that he could hear from them was their thoughts.

He visited his mother and told her of the experience. She replied that she remembered a sudden sharp pain in her shoulder.

Going back to the stream in the mountain, where he’d seen the men eating bulgogi, he found no remnants of barbecue. What he did see disturbed him though. Laying by the river bank was the corpse of a magpie, entirely infested with maggots. He realized that what appeared to him as men by the river were actually larva calling him to dine on the flesh of the dead bird. He wondered if he hadn’t reminded himself that he was a monk and had instead joined them, would he have been reborn as the larva of a fly? How difficult would it have been to work his way back to being born in human form again? When he left his body, he had no ears, no eyes, no nose, no tongue, no hands. All he was left with was his perception and his illusion of what surrounded him. He couldn’t hear words, only intentions.

For a while, I’ve felt that our state of mind at the moment of death is very important. We must be aware, first that we’ve stepped out and second, where we are to go. Through the Dhamma, I’ve learned that all life is equal, but the human mind is most advantageous for developing liberation. When taking into account the number of beings in existence, from elephants and whales to single cell organism, it is actually extremely rare to be born human. We should recognize the opportunity we have in this form and do the best we can with it. When we die, we usually won’t in the best states of mind, perhaps sick, drugged, confused, or not even conscious. The more our mind is prepared now, the better we can deal when the moment comes.

Mind is the forerunner of all things. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with a wicked mind, suffering follows, as the wheel of a cart follows the hoof of the ox.

Mind is the forerunner of all things. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, affection follows, as one’s shadow that never leaves.
—Gotama Buddha (Dhammapada)

In my determination to live skillfully, it doesn’t take much effort to realize catching myself about to act unskillfully usually happens during the thought process. It’s easy to see that the roots of our actions must pass a considerable length through our mind before reaching their tips.

Daehaeng Kun Sunim ends the third precept, “I vow to strive to keep my mind pure.”

Although it would be a proper finish to anyone of the precepts, it surely feels as though it’s in the right place. The third precept is the one I have the least concern with physically, but mentally is probably my biggest disaster. When I return to mindfulness from a rather unwholesome series of thoughts, I find myself asking, “Why bother planting these karmic seeds?”