Wake Up and Laugh!

Not to do evil, to cultivate the good, and to purify the mind.
This is the teaching of all the Buddhas.
 – The Buddha, The Dhammapada, verse 183

You who desire true life
and wish to walk on God’s path:
Depart from evil; do good;
seek peace with all your soul.
 – Psalm 34, adapted by Stephen Mitchell

Having done something evil,
Don’t repeat it,
Don’t wish for it:
Evil piled up brings suffering.

Having done something meritorious,
Repeat it,
Wish for it:
Merit piled up brings happiness.
 – The Buddha, The Dhammapada

Choosing to do good or evil
all depends upon whether I rely upon my One Mind.
 – The Mind of All Buddhas, Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim 

For one who at all times conclusively realizes the Buddha Mind, when he goes to bed, he goes to bed with the Buddha Mind; when he gets up, he gets up with the Buddha Mind…  He functions with perfect freedom in accordance with circumstances, letting things take their way. Just do good things and don’t do bad ones. If you pride yourself on good deeds, however, becoming attached to them and abominating the bad, that’s going against the Buddha Mind. The Buddha Mind is neither good nor bad, but operates beyond them both.
 – Bankei Yōtaku, (1622-93)

Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn’t reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn’t waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man’s job?
If you don’t understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.
 – Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell

You are to be great teachers, freed from the ego; you must live only to serve all people. Desiring to become as a big tree or a great container of Wisdom prevents you from being a true teacher. Big trees have a big use; small trees have a small use. Good and bad bowls both have uses. Nothing is to be discarded. Keep both good and bad friends; this is your responsibility. You must not reject any element; this is Buddhism. My only wish is for you to free yourself from conceptions.
– Zen Master Kyong Ho

Good and evil have no self nature;
Holy and unholy are empty names;
In front of the door is the land of stillness and quiet;
Spring comes, grass grows by itself.
– Seon Master Seung Sahn

The one mind of all Buddhas is my one mind,
 inherently free of stain or purity.
 – A Thousand Hands of Compassion, Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim

I’ve learned the hard way just how corrosive criticizing and complaining about others can be. I’m sure there are things that are more damaging to us spiritually, but criticizing and analyzing other’s faults has to be near the top of the list.

No matter whether you hear good things or bad things, do not let yourself be affected by them. Being praised when you lack virtue is truly shameful, while having your faults shown to you is a wonderful thing. If you are happy to see your faults, then you will surely correct them, while if you are ashamed of your lack of virtue, then this will spur you on to practice more diligently.
 
 

Don’t speak of other people’s faults, because eventually it will return and harm you. If you hear harsh speech or rumors directed towards someone else, look upon that as if someone was slandering your parents. Your criticism of someone else today will become criticism of you tomorrow. All things are impermanent, so whether you are criticized or praised, there is nothing to be happy or upset about.
 

                           Talking about the things that others have done,
                         “This was right,” 
                         “That was wrong,”
                          from morning until night.
                         At last spending the entire night
                         deep in the haze of slumber.
                         If a monk lives like this,
                         how will he repay
                         all of the donations he has received?
                         Escaping from the three worlds will be
                         truly difficult.

Yesterday, at the Bangkok Seonwon, in a truly beautiful and deeply meaningful ceremony, everyone renewed their five lay Buddhist precept vows.  Half a dozen people also took them for the first time, and so gained a new Buddhist name reflecting their new paths and aspirations.

The proceedings were led by Haewon Sunim, who had especially and kindly flown in from Korea, and before precepts were given she delivered a short teaching. Luckily for us non-Korean speakers, we had Young there to jot down some instant translations as Sunim spoke.

The part that jumped out most significantly for me was the bit about everything in life being a teaching – but only if you are making an effort and paying attention. If not, there’s no teaching at all. So, yes, everyday life is itself the Dharma, but you must be an active student.

The problem, for me, is remembering. I mean, just hours later I was engaged in a coffee shop debate with all awareness gone, desperate to get my points across. One minute I was saying how most discussions are a waste of time, the next minute I’d lost all sense of my foundation in the middle of one!

But, as Sunim had said at the start of her talk, the very nature of learning is difficult. And that’s why I’m so grateful to all those in the Sangha around me, lay and ordained, that support me so richly. Sometimes we just need that reminder, that our inner teacher is there and is always available.

As Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim says in the latest Hanmaum Journal, in words that seem to apply especially to this weekend: “Coming to the Dharma Hall regularly will help you a lot in grasping this fundamental essence, and while relying upon it, whatever you need will come forth.”
 
 
 
 
(Here’s a post with a bit more about the Five Precepts.)

This is the eighth of Ya-un’s admonitions: Don’t lounge about in the realms of desire. It’s also a caution for monastics to remember why they originally became a monk or nun, and to not end up living like an ordinary lay person.

The person who renounces the desires of their heart is called a practitioner. Not longing for the worldly life is called leaving home. Having ended desire and left the mundane world behind, how could you possibly associate and amuse yourself with lay people? To miss and yearn for the mundane world is called “intense craving,” which has always been incompatible with the path.

When longing and attachment arises, the determination to achieve the way begins to fade. Therefore, cut off all longing and attachment and never look back. If you do not want to betray the reason you left home(to became a monk or nun), then you should go to an outstanding temple and uncover the profound meaning. If you go forward with your robe and bowl, and dissolve all worldly desires, without any concern for hunger or safety, then your practice will automatically deepen.

                 Even good actions done for yourself or others
                 are the cause of the cycle of birth and death.
                Among the pine trees and arrowroot vines,
                the light of the moon illuminates all.
                Diligently enter the true meditation of the Patriarchs.

“The first stage of practice, letting go of the self that is an unenlightened being, lasts until you know your true self. At this stage, a practitioner ‘dies’ for the first time and, at the same time, is newly born.”
 – Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim

Buddhists don’t talk much about being born again, and yet death and re-birth is at the core of our spiritual practices and paths, both literally and as metaphor. However, such language isn’t entirely missing and I remember a few years ago reading an excellent article in Tricycle by Clark Strand, at an earlier point in his spiritual development and within the Pure Land framework, entitled ‘Born Again Buddhist’ in which he rightly claims the term.

“For too long” he writes, in words I can identify with and which have stuck with me, “I used Buddhism to convince myself that I understood something I did not, but now I know the truth. I do not know anything at all. But then, that is precisely the kind of being that Amida Buddha saves — the one who has no choice but to surrender to a power beyond his own.” Daehaeng Sunim describes that surrendering as letting go, and that power as one’s own Buddha-nature.

Of course the giving up of the small self, the letting go of all its concerns and attachments, is the essential teaching of all Buddhist schools. Sometimes it can take dramatic ritual form, as in the Therevadan temple not far from where I live in which people literally step into coffins in order to be re-born anew, but whatever form it takes, when you entrust all your thoughts and concerns and pains and joys to something greater, then, as Daehaeng Sunim puts it, “what you have thought of as yourself dies.”

And this takes faith. Faith in Amida Buddha perhaps, or in the efficiency of the ritual, or in Juingong, the True Self. Faith and practice. Those that have been there have described this death as a return to a previous condition, back to our ‘original face’, a state before we learnt to create and operate and defend a separate and self-centered self. They describe it as a re-birth. And, like all births, it brings with it feelings of great joy and happiness.

The Christian tradition is familiar with this and familiar with the forms it can take, from sudden and dramatic born-again experiences, to something a lot more subtle. Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel, tells his followers they need to take up their cross (the symbol of death) “daily”. And as anyone who has ever meditated knows, re-awakening, the re-birth of attention, awareness, and surrender, needs to be practiced even from moment to moment.

“Whether it happens suddenly or gradually, says Marcus J.Borg in ‘The Heart of Christianity’, “we can’t make it happen, either by strong desire and determination or by learning and believing the right beliefs. But we can be intentional about being born again. Though we can’t make it happen, we can midwife the process.” And one way of doing that is through practice. As Thich Nhat Hanh puts it in his commentary on the Lotus Sutra, “When we come to the practice, we are reborn into our spiritual life, thanks to the Buddha.”

Another way of midwifing our re-birth, as well as through faith, mindfulness and letting go, is through ritual and participation in significant markers. New Year, in my opinion, as a time when people re-consider and re-direct their lives, is such an event. Here in Bangkok I went to my favourite temple for New Year and sat and chanted with thousands of people, all linked together into one community with sacred thread. The next day thousands more visited the temple again to make merit and receive a blessing. To be, in some small way, born again.

And next week at the Seon Centre, the Bangkok Korean Buddhist community, and a small group of non-Korean Buddhists, will gather to participate in a formal refuge and precept ceremony, a truly significant communal event that marks a real moment of re-birth for all those involved. This is just the beginning of course, it will feel beautiful, blissful even, but “you must still continue to practice and go forward” Kun Sunim writes. The process of re-birth is ongoing. It is our practice.

Our heart’s garden is sown with attachment, hatred, and pride.
In us are seeds of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and lies.
Our everyday deeds and words do damage.
Al these wrong actions are obstacles to our peace and joy.
Let us begin anew.
 – Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘Beginning Anew’

Links:
Clark Strand: Born Again Buddhist
NYTimes: Thai Temple Offers a Head Start on Rebirth

— Here’s another of the questions that Daehaeng Kun Sunim was asked. It’s quite nice because she clearly emphasizes where the focus of where our practice needs to be. I’ve highlighted a few of the really important points.
 
 
I’m trying to become a more spiritual person, and would like to know about spiritual practice and sitting meditation. 

Just physically sitting down is not the way to practice Zen, because spiritual practice is done through your mind, not through your body.  In this age, when people’s lives are so busy, our living itself– eating, working, driving, loving, sleeping – should all become practicing Zen. If sitting meditation were the only way to know your fundamental mind, there could be no more practice once you stood up.

A long time ago, when Ma-tsu was sitting in meditation, Zen master Huai-jang saw him, picked up a piece of roof tile, and began to polish it. Ma-tsu asked, “Why are you polishing a tile?” Huai-jang replied, “I’m polishing it into a mirror.” (In that age, mirrors were made out of polished bronze.)  Huai-jang then asked Ma-tsu why he was sitting there.  Ma-tsu answered, “I’m trying to become a Buddha.”  Huai-jang replied, “Then, you shouldn’t stand up, you shouldn’t eat, and you shouldn’t go to the toilet!  Otherwise, your practice will stop as soon as you move your body!” Ma-tsu awakened as soon as he heard this. The Buddha also tried practicing through his body for six years, but then realized that practice should be done through mind.

What is spiritual practice? What is Zen? It’s having faith in your foundation, and entrusting everything to it and observing the results — while living your normal daily life.  Have you noticed what happens after a car accident?  The drivers stand around arguing about whose fault it was.  No matter whose fault it was, the drivers were the cause, not the cars.

Likewise, our fundamental mind, not our body, is the source of our every word and deed. Your fundamental mind is the driver; it can take care of every thing and guide you in your daily life.  In other words, the driver is taking care of every thing and resolving every problem in your life, so entrust everything to your fundamental mind and live smoothly.

Who makes you think, talk, and move? You may think it is obvious: “I do.”  But is that “I” the one that caused you to be born into this world?  Is that “I” responsible for your birth and death? W hat is responsible for the birth and death of every other being in this world? It is not the sense of “I” that you tend to think of as yourself. It is your true self, which is doing everything.  When you realize this truth, you can leave behind thoughts like “He did that to me,” “I’m doing…,” “I did…,” “I deserve….”  By the way, always view things positively.  If you keep interpreting things negatively or always criticize and blame others, this will lower your own spiritual level.

When you live with faith in your true self, which is taking care of every thing in your life, then your life itself becomes practicing Zen. You can practice while sitting, or if you are busy, you can practice while working or driving, and you can even practice while lying down: all of this is practicing Zen. Sitting meditation, standing meditation, lying- down meditation, and working meditation are not different.

No matter what you do in your daily life, if you believe in your true self, and entrust everything to it, you are practicing meditation. There is nothing in life that is not the cultivation of mind. So you should not think that practicing Zen and learning Buddhism are separate from your daily life.  Not ever!

Entrust all things to your true self. Then your daily life itself becomes practicing Zen. In everything you undertake, you should trust your true self to solve the problems you face and know that only it can lead you in the right direction.  This is the way to develop unwavering faith, to direct your attention inwardly, and to take refuge in your true self. If the thoughts of “I,” “me,” and “mine” die at every moment, then even though you do not sit down, everything you do becomes practicing meditation.