Crossing Nebraska

Regular readers might recall that my partner is a Christian minister. As such, we often find ourselves discussing whatever Bible passages she might be reflecting on for an upcoming sermon. This past week the lectionary included a reading from the Gospel according to Luke. When she asked me what I thought of it, I immediately saw its abundant potential for initiating Buddhist/Christian dialogue. The passage is Luke 12:32-38. I’ll quote it in its entirety before reflecting upon it further: 32  “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33  Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 35  “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36  be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so t...

Nestled here at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, the air around my hometown is often laden with moisture rising up to become part of the clouds that form over the region and then rain back down again. This summer has been an especially wet one here, and when it hasn’t actually been raining, or storming, there have been beautiful billowing cumulus clouds streaming past overhead like I haven’t noticed in a long, long time. They’ve actually reminded me of very pleasant times during my childhood when I’d lay back on the cool grass, alone or with a friend, holding to my nose a wild onion freshly plucked from the earth while watching clouds slowly form and change and slip away against a backdrop of brilliant blue – pulling me with them deeper and deeper into the joyous reverie of watchfulness without separation.   Unfortunately, even as I’m reminded of this joyous childhood reverie – and slip into some adult approximation of it from time to time in the here a...

Missouri is often referred to as The Cave State for its many caves and grottoes formed by groundwater percolating through the limestone bluffs and hillsides. As such, in my youth I came to be a bit of a spelunker – not as much as was my friend, Mike, mind you, who seemed to have some special inside knowledge with respect to cavern whereabouts, but close. I’ll never forget the last excursion we went on together. Yes, it was the last one because, to tell you the truth, I don’t much like being stuck.   We were actually in a very well-known cavern, one known for having a “back door” up amongst the rolling hills far beyond the yawning main entrance. This time, however, we were off in a side passageway that we were hoping might have a similar, but as-yet-undiscovered, back entrance – perhaps a sinkhole at the bottom of a nondescript hollow or something. For some reason that I can no longer recall, I led the way. Maybe we flipped a coin, or maybe I was the stockier of the two of u...

At the close of the previous post I posed a rhetorical question that I will make even more specific here: How does a Buddhist who’s taken a bodhisattva vow to save all beings reconcile that chosen spiritual path – including its inherent admonition regarding the perils of the three poisons of attachment , aversion, and delusion – with the existence of a strong romantic attachment to one being in particular, and the yearning to physically manifest that love? Let’s see…, I probably won’t be able to convince you that I’ve transcended ordinary ideas regarding self and other, and, as such, am merely experiencing the pleasure of what is – these circumstances that I just happen to find my non-self in. Oh, and I probably won’t be able to convince you that I don’t really yearn for my beloved at all but, rather, simply find myself in her arms over and over again – enjoying great pleasure without ever feeling the need to be with her ever again. No, it seems that I’m left with only a few possi...

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 ...