Sugar Hills, New Hampshire

All life is sacred

  ”Great vehicle teachings (Mahayana) see all existence as supremely sacred, it needs no other-worldly injunction to validate this sanctity, no God on High; and most important of all, it sees the plain and mundane things of daily existence—when viewed from the right perspective—as sanctified as the loftiest ideals. In short, in this enlightened awareness, we can all see the marvelous wonder of our universe, blemishes and all, and find our home and comfort in a cosmos that is magically a part of us, and us a part of it. This interpenetration of the individual in the universe is what the teachings of the Buddha are all about—this is their scope and majesty.” – from Hui-neng’s Enlightenment, Here and Now.

  This article in Rissho Kosei-kai’s “Dharma World,” 1982, was found in 1990 when I was a member of  Rissho Kosei-kai in Los Angeles, a layperson’s organization devoted to the Lotus Sutra which informs their practice. It tells the story of the 7^th Century Chinese Zen Patriarch, Hui-neng.

  In the light of the chaos and fractured conditions in our current political climate, and throughout the world, it might be good to bring this to mind again as a defense against allowing such conditions to inflict their pain on us. Individually, we have the potential to instill this simple truth in our hearts and minds and act upon it, finding our home  and comfort as we discover the marvelous wonder of the universe within each moment and know unquestionably that all life is indeed sacred.

  What a revolution this would be! – to transform our thinking and actions imbued with this simple truth.