Crossing Nebraska

Good Friday marks the day of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, his death by all appearances at the time. And if that were the end of the story, Christianity likely would not have grown to be the religion it is today; for suffering and death do not convey much in the way of Good News. A resurrected Christ, on the other hand, one who is raised up from the dead – now that is a reason for untold joy! Such is Easter, the holiest of holy days for Christians around the world. Jesus died for our sins, that we may live forever. This is the truth for millions of Christians. The first noble truth of Buddhism is the truth of suffering. Like the passion of the Christ, however, this truth alone does not convey a very hopeful message either. It is the truth of the path, the fourth noble truth that conveys the good news of the Buddha’s teaching. Thus, the Buddha didn’t die for us. He lived such that through his example of heightened awareness we might liberate ourselves. “Watchfulness is ...

“It’s the thought that counts.” These words have a certain ring of truth to them, don’t they? On the other hand, a friend once related to me a story of how she put a lot of thought into choosing a gift for her daughter which, while perfect in every other way, happened also to be of a particular color that was rather abhorrent to the little girl. But it wasn’t just a dislike of a color. The real issue was that the little girl felt unheard.  She felt unknown – by her own mother nonetheless! Didn’t her mother know that she didn’t care for that color? I can relate, actually. As a young adult beginning to walk a path of vegetarianism, I was presented one Christmas with a beautiful leather jacket. It was quite expensive, too, which meant that accepting it with a smile and then never wearing it again seemed like a woefully inappropriate thing to do. And all the while we were having the discussion as to why I could not accept it, I just couldn’t help thinking of all the times meat h...

You will likely recall that the last of the Four Noble Truths points to the path leading to the cessation of suffering – the Noble Eightfold Path . You might also recall that the three “steps” along that Path referred to as right speech , right action , and right livelihood pertain to moral conduct , whereas the others pertain to either wisdom or meditation , as the case may be. Implicit, then, within the practice of Buddhism, is the understanding that the cessation of “our” suffering is only possible within the context of our relationship with “others” and the world. One simple way to think of how these steps of the Path might link together is to consider how difficult it is to act morally without at least a little bit of wisdom guiding our behavior. Likewise, it is difficult to settle deeply into meditation when our life is fraught with conflict due to the improper nature of our conduct. Furthermore, without the ability to settle deeply into the stillness of meditation our ...

Stillness, silence, truth – just like the words to that Beatles song: “These are words that go together well, my Michelle.” Stillness, silence, truth – I knew the first two as a child and completely took the third for granted. After all, we need not have a word for air in order to breathe it deeply so that it may become us. Stillness, silence, truth – this was what I spoke of in Returning To The Source . The Buddha innately knew it as a child, and so did I. (And I suspect that you did, too.) No…, it is not so much a matter of knowing it as being it – stillness, silence, truth. It is what the Buddha returned to after a long and arduous search, and it is what I now return to (albeit, with varying degrees of clarity) each time I sit zazen – stillness, silence, truth.     A spider actualizes his understanding of Indra's Net     “Zazen is the most venerable and only true teacher.”   This was the second of seven points of practice laid ou...

Last week’s post left just two questions outstanding: One, what does the realization of emptiness have to do with the cessation of suffering; and, two, how is it that the realization of emptiness gives rise to compassionate action? In order to focus more completely on these questions, I’ll change the format of this final post in the Heart Sutra series just a little bit by concentrating on Rosan Yoshida’s translation at the beginning and then presenting the three translations in full at the close of this post. Recall that we left off last week with the realization that, with respect to ultimate reality, even the Four Noble Truths are empty; and there is nothing, not even knowledge, to be gained. After all, our conception of knowledge presupposes a knower and a known, and our conception of gain requires that something with a determinable identity enjoy some enhancement of some kind. Clearly this is all solidly in the mundane realm where qualitative and quantitative judgments still ...