Adventures with the Lotus Sutra (1)

A night away from Larry’s Bar

occasioned by a shooting star

  Countless intriguing and inspiring moments have accumulated over the past forty years practicing the teachings of the Buddha with The Threefold Lotus Sutra, right up to the present day. In a way, I suppose they explain why the practice has become more focused and rewarding over the years, and why today the thought of beginning each day without celebrating the Buddha’s life and teachings in the Lotus Sutra is unthinkable. Here’s one adventure that might amuse you. . . March 23, 1978.

  Opting to return home alone from the Encore movie theatre on Melrose Avenue, choosing not to follow the usual routine slinging down a few (or several) beers at Larry’s Bar across the street to score a hook-up.

  Home is an apartment in a ghoul­ish 1920s building where Valentino once resided (the owner succeeded in getting the street renamed, “Valen­tino Place”). It’s close to Paramount Studio’s main gate through which Norma Desmond/Gloria Swanson makes her grand entrance in “Sunset Boulevard.”

  After kneeling in front of the Mandala (Gohonzon), briefly chanting a few “devotions to the Lotus Sutra,” Nam Myoho Renge kyo, I head up the winding staircase with its iron-wrought railing leading to a second floor dormer. Time now for some “Moon  viewing.” Knowing the Moon is bright and close to full (a “gibbous Moon”), I gaze at it through a high dormer window.

  The Moon is bright in a clear night sky. Suddenly a shooting star crosses to the right of the Moon! It’s 10:35:04, calling my attention, in the astrological scheme of things, to the symbol in Rudhyar’s Mandala for the Moon’s position, 29° Virgo:

  Individuals seeking occult knowledge are reading an ancient scroll which illumines their minds. Realigning one’s self. Rudhyar:  In occultism the “Pattern of Humankind” is an arche­typical Power that may be contacted. It must be sought out with undeviat­ing determination to “reach the other shore.”

So much for beer slinging this night—back to chanting in front of the “ancient scroll”!

  This doesn’t mean I never returned to Larry’s—it was right across the street after all, but the message was clear for this night at least, that I should spend time celebrating with the Buddha and the “ancient scroll,” and to think if I had gone to Larry’s, I would not have seen the shooting star! (Should mention that at the time I had been commissioned to novelize a screenplay, close to  completion.)