Celestial Drum Tendai Buddhist Sangha

“Self – (noun); 1. A person or a thing referred to with respect to complete individuality: one’s own self; 2. A person’s character, etc.; 3. a. The ego; that which knows, remembers, desires, suffers, etc., as contrasted with that which is known, remembered, etc.; b. the uniting principle, as a soul, underlying all subjective experience. “

So says the dictionary sitting on my desk, reflecting our commonly held view of ‘self’ as separate, autonomous, and enduring. Shakyamuni Buddha described ‘three poisons’ that give rise to dukkha (sorrow, suffering, discontent): desire, anger, ignorance. By ignorance he didn’t mean stupidity, but a false and inaccurate view of both the world and our relationship with it. In another teaching, he noted ‘three marks of existence’: not-self, change, and dissatisfaction. The two teachings are related and help explain each other. A root cause of dukkha, he held, was the mistaken, though common-sense, view of ‘myself’ as separate, autonomous, and enduring. Because we hold this mistaken view and try to defend and provide enduring satisfaction for a ‘self’ that does not exist as we think it does, the result is endless frustration in trying to fulfill an impossible goal.

There is a ‘self’, but it is fluid, contingent, conditioned, interdependent upon the world rather than fixed, self-contained and enduring.

Buddhism is unusual among religious and philosophical systems in that it holds there is no enduring, entirely separate entity such as self, ego, soul, or spirit. Instead, Buddhist investigation, through study, meditation, and contemplation finds there is only a dynamic interactivity of various conditions that, together, give rise to the appearance of an individual self, an appearance, that while useful—even necessary—in the day-to-day world, is not absolutely true. Hence, the term I prefer is ‘not self’ rather than ‘no self’. The latter suggests we are figments of our imagination which is definitely not what Shakyamuni is saying. There is a ‘self’, but it is fluid, contingent, conditioned, interdependent upon the world rather than fixed, self-contained and enduring.

Buddhist teachings—and importantly, practice based upon those teachings—allow us to readily see this for ourselves, taking ‘not-self’ out of the realm of obscure, philosophical doctrine and making it our own empirical experience. One easy way to approach this is to observe our own body, our own form, and our own mind through the contemplation of the dynamic activity of the six elements: earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness.

The element of earth represents all the solid material. As I look out my window I do, literally, see earth—also known as ‘dirt’. I also see rocks and mountains, flowers, trees. I see rhubarb, cabbage, and carrots growing in the garden. Each is composed of various solid chemical elements: carbon, phosphorus, calcium, iron, copper, and so on. On this late summer day these elements are arranged as flowers and leaves, fruits and vegetables. I recall that six months ago these same chemical elements and molecules took the form of soil and dirt. Even the mountains are changing. The tallest in New York State, a few miles north of where I now sit, was once the bottom of a seabed; they were once over 7,000 feet high; they were once scraped away by glaciers. Some of those mountain particles landed in the soil that makes up my garden Now, these mountains are rising again. Now, when I stand on the summit of Mt. Marcy, the tallest of them, I am standing 3- 3/4” higher than when I first stood there almost fifty years ago. Observe the element of earth around you. How has as it changed in the past week, past season, past century, past geological age? Is there ever a time when it remained fixed, stable, unmoving?

Now consider the element of earth within your own body. It is made up of the very same chemical elements and molecules as the earth you see around you, the same carbon and calcium, iron and phosphorus. The skin, the muscles, hair and the bones are all akin to the soil and the rocks. And, like the mountains, the earth element of the body is always in flux. When you were born you weighted but a few pounds. Now, you weigh many more. The elements from the environment accumulated and added to the bulk your physical body. But, they didn’t accumulate all at once, or once and for all. Here is the interesting part. The elements within your body are, at various rates, being exchanged with those in the environment. With a few exceptions, nearly every cell in your body is replaced. Some live only days. Some last decades. Last week, I ate a mountain for lunch, as well as some Mexican dirt. Some of those elements now make up my organs. The mountains ground down to particles, coming to be the soil in which the carrot grew. This spring I planted a tiny seed. As the seed germinated and put on size it took up the elements from the soil and formed the carrot. The avocado, likewise, growing on a Mexican farm, took up the elements from the soil there and formed the fruit. Both the carrot and avocado provided the same atoms and molecules that now reside within my body. But of course, this is not a one-way flow of elements from environment to body. I’d be pretty fat by now! My body sends elements and the molecules back into the environment, too. Every day, I shed some hair and slough off some skin cells. I take a shit. All of this again becomes part of the world outside my body. At the end of my life, my entire body will, in time, decay, becoming part of the soil, supplying elements and molecules and nutrients to new lives of plants and animals. Even those who are pumped full of preservative, placed in a sealed coffin inside a concrete vault will eventually return to the soil. It just takes a lot longer. Examining the dynamic exchange of material, it becomes apparent that my body is always changing in interdependence upon the outer world. There is nothing there that I can claim as uniquely, permanently, my own.

Now, consider and examine each of the remaining elements of water, air, fire, space and consciousness in the same way. See how they are always in flux, always exchanging with the world. Consider all the many factors that give you a sense of individual identity: your age, your ethnicity, your name, occupation, gender identity, political or religious beliefs, your family, socio-economic status, and so on. Spend some time with this contemplation, spend some time looking for something, anything, that is a permanent, separate and self-contained “ME”, and you will come to experience that while there is a ‘self’, it is not a fixed object, a thing, an entity—a noun. Instead you will find the ‘self’ is dynamic activity—a verb. Do you still think your body and mind are permanent and unchangeable? Go to your fiftieth high school reunion and you’ll find the first thing you are given is a name tag. No one will recognize you without it, nor will you recognize those others you haven’t seen for five decades.

“Never to succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter.  As you press for justice be sure to move with dignity and discipline using only the instruments of love.” Dr. Martin Luther King

My day job is a bookbinder restoring and repairing antique tomes. Regularly, I receive email newsletters from Steve Siegel, a supplier of specialty leather for the trade. In them he promotes his products and gives useful and interesting information about its sourcing and production, much of which originates in Africa using traditional methods. This week, something else was on his mind:

“I’ve sold leather, shared stories, connected with people from all over the world, and made friends. In a nutshell, that’s how I could sum up my career. I have enjoyed the process of learning, listening, and sharing as I have communicated with others from all walks of life. In looking back, I have had many experiences where my views – political, religious, or other – didn’t align with those I have met but we could share our stories and discuss our views, even disagree, but at the end of those conversation there was still respect and a friendly connection. 

I’m saddened to say that I have been seeing this friendly connection in our society slipping quickly away. The temperament now seems to favor disconnect instead of connection. Hatred instead of love. Enemies instead of friends. If viewpoints don’t align, the friendship and mutual respect seems to end. Are you noticing this, too?

Recently, circumstances in my life have given me an opportunity to see things from a new perspective. I might be just one person but I am hoping to encourage a change and I have an offer for you if you’d like to join me. Would you like to get a coupon for $100 off your next order? Here’s how: 

For one day, a full 24 hours, if you find yourself in a conversation that seems to encourage these negative feelings, don’t continue it. Here are some ideas of what to do instead. 

• Remove yourself from the conversation so you don’t add to the hate
• Change the subject
• Ask about the person, how are they doing, how is their family – not about their political views or societal opinions which are usually negative
• Remember something nice about them from a previous interaction and tell them about your memory

Those are just a few ideas, you can do whatever you feel encourages connection instead of hate. At the end of the 24 hours, send me a quick email at sales@siegelleather.com telling me what you did to stop negativity from spreading.

I will send a coupon for $100 off to the first 20 people who email me. Together maybe we can work to re-establish friendly connections in our families, our communities and our work places.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you! 

Sincerely,
Steve Siegel“

            Steve’s contest may be over, the coupons sent, but the challenge remains. Division and separation yield unconcern for the “other” at best, hatred at worst. In a world and a time when so many self-identify as ‘red’ or as ‘blue’, as ‘this’ or ‘that’ and define every interaction as a zero-sum game of winners and losers we are all de-humanized. The bitterness Dr. King warns about drifts into the mind coloring experience, thoughts, words, and actions.

            The Buddhist teaching on interdependence illustrated in the image of Indra’s Net informs us we are seamlessly connected with everyone and everything in the world. There is nothing that is not part of us. We are the African herdsman, the corporate lawyer, the Mexican farmworker, the hedge fund manager. Literally. Not metaphorically. Each of them, and all others, provide us with the sustenance we require to maintain our lives.

            It is easy to hate that which one does not know. Walling ourselves off from the lives of those who are unlike us is the agar in the petri dish that allows the virus of hate to breed and spread unchecked. Dr. King’s ‘instrument of love’, on the other hand, is nurtured by breaking through the walls of self-imposed identity, entering in conversation and relationship with those who are beyond our familiar sphere, seeking and finding commonality of heart. It is apparent there is much to be done to heal our world. Discouragement, bitterness, and despair lurk in ambush as we consider and engage the vast task of external transformation. Internal transformation, engaging in our Buddhist practice, is the protective vaccine and provides the nourishment for the journey. Internal transformation is nourished by action. Steve’s challenge provides a simple beginning.

Celestial Drum Tendai Buddhist Sangha is one of the local Indian Lake sponsors for the 19th annual Central Adirondack Community Pride Day. People work together, including teachers and students from the school, to clean up what debris the melting snows have revealed (the snow will be melted by then, right?) If you wish to help out, you can simply show up at the town hall on Wednesday, May 1 at 9 a.m., or sign up in advance by calling town hall at 518-648-5828. At noontime, there will be a free lunch for all the volunteers. I hope to see you there.

Parinirvana Day is a Buddhist festival marking the death of the historical Shakyamuni Buddha held on February 15 in East Asia. (South Asian Buddhist traditions celebrate the Buddha’s birthday, enlightenment day and death on a single day in springtime known as Vesak). After 45 years of teaching the Dharma and leading the community of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen, at age of 80 and in declining health he announced to his followers that he would soon die and enter parinirvana.

The Buddha, being omnipotent, of course knew when he was going to die and was well prepared. He had set out as a young man to understand the causes of human sorrow, discontent and suffering and to find a release. In this he was successful when at age 35 after 6 years of searching he attained enlightenment, awakening, or nirvana at the sight of the morning star rising the in the east. From then on he traveled throughout what is now northern India teaching others how they might find that same release, bringing the Dharma to untold countless number of beings human and nonhuman.

But while the Buddha was prepared for his death, his disciples were certainly not. Perhaps they felt, like author William Saroyan, that while they always knew everyone died, but thought that in his case an exception might be made. Ananda, his personal attendant for all those years, ran out of the room crying at the thought of loosing his teacher and the leader of the Sangha. Shakyamuni sent after him and asked him to dry his tears and to return to the room where the Buddha lay.

“Who will guide us? Who will lead the Sangha when you die? How will we continue?, “ wailed Ananda. The Buddha replied that he taught for 45 years how to guide the Sangha, how to practice, how to attain awakening. “I have held back nothing. You have all the teachings I have to offer. They will be your guide,” Shakyamuni replied. To emphasize that the Dharma is not exclusive to anyone person, he named no successor. All of his disciples were able, if they followed the teachings he had offered during his lifetime, to reach nirvana.

And just what is nirvana? And Parinirvana? The Buddha said very little about either and discouraged speculative lines of thought when questioned. That, of course, hasn’t stopped over 2 millennia of commentators to offer their suggestions however. When he did speak of it, he usually spoke of what is not, rather than what it is.

The term nirvana comes from the root meaning to ‘blow out’ or ‘extinguish’. Which unfortunately and incorrectly is sometimes taken to mean ‘annihilation’. Rather, what the Buddha was saying was extinguished were negative states of mind based upon desire, anger and [spiritual] ignorance that lead to negative words and negative actions and hence, sorrow and suffering. When those negatives states are extinguished through clearly perceiving the true nature of reality, a pervasive subtle joy becomes the field of experience.

Parinirvana means ‘final’ nirvana. The experience of nirvana attained as a result of enlightenment or awakening puts an end to the generation of new karma that would impel additional rebirths. But because one still has a physical body subject to illness and death like Shakyamuni Buddha himself, while suffering has been extinguished, life continues its course. Sometimes this is referred to as ‘nirvana with residue’. At the time of death, final nirvana releases this ‘residue’ and there is no further rebirth.

There are two points to this story that foreshadow later understandings of the Buddha’s teachings. Here, his disciples believed that with the death of the Buddha he would become ‘extinct’ as the teaching say, that he would no longer be with them. But in saying that ‘the teachings will guide you’ he was suggesting, as was later made explicit, that the Buddha is synonymous with the teachings. When it becomes clear that the Buddha embodies the Dharma and the Dharma embodies the Buddha, then reality itself becomes the Buddha and the Dharma is seen to be universally applicable to all regardless of time or place, not just to those who lived in a particular place and a particular time. That everything that is impermanent, that there is no material gain that can be counted upon to give lasting peace and satisfaction, that nothing exists isolated and independent on its own but only in interdependence with everything else, can be seen to universally apply.  So as it is related in the Lotus Sutra and elsewhere the Buddha could rightfully claim that his ‘extinction’ was only a skillful tale that would spur his students to dig deep into the teachings and their own abilities to carry them through. Meanwhile, he is actually “always present on Vulture Peak and elsewhere, always teaching the Dharma.”

Parinirvana Day offers us an opportunity to reflect upon the Buddha’s life and his death and the gift he offered—a way to the release from sorrow, discontent and suffering. It also offers us an opportunity to reflect upon our own life and death. When we think of death at all, we may, like Saroyan believe that an exception will be made in our case. Or we may think of it as a distant event that has no connection to our day-to-day actions. Or we may be frightened out of our wits. When we reflect upon our own death we are brought to acknowledge the gift we have been given with this life and the opportunities we have to use it well. A life seems like a long time to hold in your hand. Our life, though, is made up of the accumulated thoughts, words and actions that we take moment by moment. Aristotle said that “We are what we repeatedly do.” While a single action may not seem like much, those actions accrued over time make up a life.

Shakyamuni Buddha set out to investigate the nature of human discontent and suffering and to find a release. His used that intention to guide his actions day by day. Try this, see the results. If not try that, see those results. By so doing he attained his goal. And having attained the goal he then set out to share his realization and his methods with others. Day by day he taught individuals and large assemblies. He continued to practice and investigate. At the end of his life he had thousands of followers over a vast area. After his death his teaching spread benefiting countless others. Now they have spread around the world.

Often when we think of ‘purpose’ in our life, we might think in terms of meaningful career and get caught up in a grand vision or doubts about what is “good enough” or “meaningful enough”. I doubt Shakyamuni ever thought of founding a religion that would spread across the world and last thousands of years after his death. He did not plan for, nor imagine the day, when the Dharma would come to Indian Lake. All this he did by each moment of each day answering questions posed to him, offering assurance and instruction, and caring for members of his Sangha. That was his ‘purpose’. Likewise, when we think of ‘purpose’ we can refrain from grand fantasies but instead simply take each moment see to what opportunity it offers us to fulfill our Bodhisattva vows:

 “Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put and end to them. The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them. The Buddha-way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.”

In the spirit of Parinirvana Day reflections the Evening Gatha, chanted at the conclusion of the last meditation period of the day, reminds us:

“Let me respectfully remind you. Life and death are of supreme importance. Time passes swiftly by and opportunity is lost. Each one of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed! Do not squander your life.”

Dhammapada, verses 3-6

3. “He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.

4. “He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.

5. Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.

Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita, Buddhist Publication Society

The Metta Sutta (Sutra on Universal Loving Kindness)

1 Who seeks to promote his welfare,
Having glimpsed the state of perfect peace,
Should be able, honest and upright,
Gentle in speech, meek and not proud.

2 Contented, he ought to be easy to support,
Not over-busy, and simple in living.
Tranquil his senses, let him be prudent,
And not brazen, nor fawning on families.

3 Also, he must refrain from any action
That gives the wise reason to reprove him.
(Then let him cultivate the thought:)
May all be well and secure,
May all beings be happy!

4 Whatever living creatures there be,
Without exception, weak or strong,
Long, huge or middle-sized,
Or short, minute or bulky,

5 Whether visible or invisible,
And those living far or near,
The born and those seeking birth,
May all beings be happy!

6 Let none deceive or decry
His fellow anywhere;
Let none wish others harm
In resentment or in hate.

7 Just as with her own life
A mother shields from hurt
Her own son, her only child,
Let all-embracing thoughts
For all beings be yours.

8 Cultivate an all-embracing mind of love
For all throughout the universe,
In all its height, depth and breadth —
Love that is untroubled
And beyond hatred or enmity.

9 As you stand, walk, sit or lie,
So long as you are awake,
Pursue this awareness with your might:
It is deemed the Divine State here.

10 Holding no more to wrong beliefs,
With virtue and vision of the ultimate,
And having overcome all sensual desire,
Never in a womb is one born again.

Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita, Buddhist Publication Society.

Metta (or maitre, skt.) is the practice of unconditional, universal loving kindness. It is a friendly benevolence for the well-being of all others without exception devoid of self-interest. Metta is practiced unilaterally. You don’t wait for someone to have regard for your well-being before you have regard for theirs. Metta is practiced without boundaries. It is relatively easy and natural to be kind to someone just like us. Metta is practiced, yes towards those like ourselves, but also towards those who are unlike us, offering them warm regard for their own happiness, their safety, their well-being in all ways.

A vengeful act does not bring peace or ‘closure’, whatever that might be. It plants the desire for revenge in the ones suffering the violence. And on… and on… You can’t fight your way to peace or hate your way to love. If violence brought about peace, then the Mideast would be the most peaceful place on earth. Here and everywhere, violence in revenge yields only violence. A hateful word brings only a hateful response. It is not about who is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’—everyone is some ‘right’ and some ‘wrong’. Peace is the way to peace. Having kind, self-less interest in the well-being of others reflected in our thoughts, our words and our actions is the way to heal our own minds and bodies, the way to heal others, the way to heal our families, our communities, our nation and our world.

This Sanskrit calligraphy contains the ‘seed syllable’ (central red character) and mantra (smaller green characters) of Maitreya Bodhisattva, the manifestation of universal loving kindness. The mantra om maitri maha maitri maitriye svaha contains within its sounds all these beneficent qualities reduced to a few words. The literal meaning is not important. Meditation upon, or recitation, of this mantra fills the mind with universal loving kindness and overflows outwards towards all others. The seed syllable, likewise, reduces all the qualities contained in sounds of the mantra and reduces it to a single sound: maim (pronounced mime).  May all beings everywhere be free from hostility; may all beings everywhere be safe, secure and healthy in their bodies; may all beings everywhere be filled with peace, contentment and happiness in their minds.