Berkshires

Test of Faith
Proving its Validity

Sunday, June 28, 2009. As in several mornings of late, as I water the wild bush (name unknown) in my front yard so that the sun will send its photons and dot the branches with tiny, sparkling jewels—like the “seven precious jewels” gracing the Stupa rising into the sky in Chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, moonstone, agate, pearl and carnelian—I’m imagining conversations with my neighbors , , ,

  fantasizing that someone will walk by and ask, “Why do you spray the top of the bush like that?” to which I reply, “My dad always watered his magnolia tree this way and like him, I’m doing this to express gratitude for all growing things—for life. And wait till you see the many colored jewels in the water drops.”

  This reminds me, as I water the bush, and the peach tree and roses, that I do share moments of celebration with many individuals, thankful for those who enrich life by just being there at times of need without any thought of reward. This is a bit frustrating because I want to give back, repay their generosity, even though I know they don’t expect it.

  It seems so simple – the celebration of life with others. Often I’m reminded of a couple of lines from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” – This moment that comes to me out of the past decillions / there’s no greater than it and now.

  Ultimately, one practices teachings of the Buddha only in the moment when in touch with others. The test of faith, proving its validity, is realized as we respond compassionately and spontaneously in the moment, letting go of personal egos, without manipulating or insisting on the acceptance of our points-of-view. . .

  listening, truly listening, being there for others with total acceptance and with “a gentle and forbearing heart,” aware only of the “great compassionate heart” within all living beings; that we are all caused to live by the great, imperishable life-force of the universe. . . Here and now following the Eightfold Path, the “middle way” of right view, speech, action, thought, and endeavor, unaware that we are “practic­ing” anything at all.

  With each new advance in theoretical science, physicists and cosmologists inform us that since the beginning of time, nothing in the universe today, including you and me, could have come into existence had not certain condi­tions caused it:  matter created from primordial energy forming patterns of rela­tion­­ship, matter pre­dom­i­nating over anti-matter, elemental particles reaching out to inter­­connect to form webs of rela­tionship—the list goes on.  Reaching back to the first second in which the universe began to form out of the “big bang”—and note, creating time in the process—funda­mental elements which make up all life in the universe, resulted from these and other related conditions.

  Buddha-thought presents a remarkably similar view.  The central doctrine of the Buddha’s teachings, the Law of Causation, states that all phenomena in the universe are produced by causation.  Thus, all things are interrelated.  From Niwano’s Buddhism for Today:

  Shakyamuni Buddha did not regard this universe as God’s creation or his conquest, but as resulting from the relation of cause and effect by which all phenomena are produced. . . . all things exist in relationship with one another and are interdependent.

  All things and forms in the universe, how we view ourselves as human beings, are produced from one void that can neither be seen with the eyes nor felt with the hands.  There is a great invisible life-force of the universe, the working of which produces all things from the void, and all things are produced by virtue of the necessity of their existence.  Humanity is no exception.  We ourselves are brought into being in the forms we take by virtue of the necessity to live in this world.  Think­ing this way, we are bound to feel the worth of being alive as human beings, the wonder of having been brought into this world.

  Buddhism asks, “Is there something which is unchanging and eternal?”  The Lotus Sutra defines this “some­thing” as life itself, the desire to live, originating from primordial energy at the beginning of time—the great life-force of the universe caus­ing every­thing to live.  Primordial energy did not create the universe.  It simply is; it caused the universe to come into existence.  Buddha is not god or creator, but the appearing Buddha, Shakyamuni’s enlightenment that we are all one substance with “Original Buddha”—one substance with nothing other than the great life-force which caused everything to live from the moment of the “big bang” leading to the emergence of humankind.

  Timothy Ferris in his New York Times article, “Beyond Newton and Einstein,” points out that “new theories of physics imply that all the known forces in nature are manifestations of one basic interaction and that once, long ago, all were part of a single universal force or process.”  Physicist Fritjof Capra, as he introduces discoveries in quantum physics in his book The Turning Point,” reminds us that as quantum physics came into play, “the universe is no longer seen as a machine  made up of a multitude of objects but has to be pictured as one indivisi­ble, dynamic whole whose parts essentially are interrelated and can be under­stood only as patterns of a cosmic process.”

  No matter how the universal force or pattern of cosmic process may be defined by physicists, the universe does exist and humanity did emerge from this process after billions of years.  “Mahayana (great vehicle) Buddhism sees all exis­tence as supremely sacred.  It needs no other-worldly validation of 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 Buddhism is really all about.  This is Buddhism’s scope and majesty.”

The Way Through

Shakyamuni Buddha

in the Lotus Sutra

I, by my power of wisdom,
knowing the natures and inclinations of creatures,
tactfully proclaim the laws
which cause all to obtain gladness.

Know, Shariputra!
I, observing with the Buddha’s eyes,
see the creatures in the six states of existence,
poor and without happiness and wisdom,
in the dangerous path of mortality,
in continuous unending misery,
firmly fettered by the five desires
like the yak caring for its tail,
smothered by greed and infatuation,
blinded and seeing nothing;
they seek not the Buddha, the mighty,
and the Law to end sufferings,
but deeply fall into heresies,
and seek by suffering to be rid of suffering.

For the sake of all these creatures,
my heart is stirred with great pity.

When I first sat on the wisdom throne,
looking at that tree and walking about it
during thrice seven days,
I pondered such matters as these;
The wisdom which I have obtained
is wonderful and supreme.
But all creatures are dull in their capacities,
pleasure-attached and blind with ignorance.
Such classes of beings as these, I saw
how can they be saved?

  How indeed? The power to be “saved” –  and with universal compassion, to help liberate others, rests within each of us. This power is not given by some god on high. It rests within. It is to begin now, this  moment. It is to follow the same path as the Buddha. It is the reason we were born as human beings in the first place.

A shooting star

on a night not spent at Larry’s Bar

Individuals seeking occult knowledge

 read an ancient scroll which illumines their minds

  Integration of one’s individual, personal destiny (Sun position) with activities beyond the personal (Pluto position) is found in the transit of the north node of the Moon (where the Moon’s orbit around the earth intersects the ecliptic plane of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun). In other words, symbols for the Moon’s north node offer a key to this integration, reaching beyond the strictly personal to participate with others as we fulfill our destiny.

  Currently (December, 2015) the north node of the Moon is transiting 28°02 Virgo, 29° Virgo in the Astrological Mandala – Individuals seeking occult knowledge read an ancient scroll which illumines their minds.

  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,” 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”!