It's all About Choice

I'm in the midst of several translations projects, all of which have the same deadline—yesterday. (See, a monastics life is not that different from those of laypeople!) So this entry will be short and simple.

For those who have been reading the blog, you know I am having vocal cord problems. The pain is pretty much gone but I have to be very careful of what I eat: no fried, salty, acidic, or spicy foods. My voice is getting better, but I still cannot lecture or talk for long. I also have a thyroid problem, which is easily controlled by thyroid medicine. But I should not eat rice other than basmati and shouldn't eat soy products because they inhibit the thyroid medicine and that causes other problems. So I shouldn't eat regular rice, soy products, or fried, spicy, acidic, or salty foods. This is a bit of a problem because I live in a community and there's a fair amount of those foods at mealtimes. I also have a few other medical-type problems.

Then this morning I managed to pinch that pesky nerve in my back that occasionally gives me trouble, and I don't have any of my heat packs here. Plus it's a rainy, chilly day. So my back and leg hurt. And I'm walking quite slowly. I prefer to think of it as "dignified," although the occasional wince does seem to diminish my dignified conceit.

So I'm tired from having my thyroid medicine partially negated, I have a circulation problem that requires one treatment that is the direct opposite of the treatment for what causes the vocal cord scaring, my arm hurts from spending much more time on the computer since I can't talk much, I can't figure out what to eat, and I'm in pain. And I have to chuckle about it. (Must be those Jewish genes.;-))

And Buddhism.

I could complain, but frankly after I pinched that nerve, I figured I had nothing to complain about. It's karma. Or karmic creditors. Or just plain aging as the Buddha said when he spoke of the eight sufferings we undergo. Or a combination of everything. But whatever the causes, they could have hit me all at once with one ailment. But I'm lucky. I've got a bunch of minor ailments on a list that does seem determined to grow longer.

But so far, I'm choosing not to be frustrated or angry or depressed. I choose to try to understand and look for something to be grateful for. And I am very grateful that my difficulties seem to be spread around so that there isn't that one debilitating illness or injury that would be serious. And I know that if I do not become frustrated or angry or depressed, I'll be able to pay off the karmic debts that have contributed to my problems.

So, I consider myself to be very fortunate.

And that means that I'm still smiling.

And practicing my dignified walk.

How Does One Adjust One’s Mindset?

Even if we suffer many wrongs in this world, we should maintain a calm mind and accord with conditions. Why? Because whatever we encounter daily in this lifetime, whether favorable or unfavorable, is destined and brought about by our deeds from past lifetimes.

It is clearly stated in the sutras that there are two kinds of karmic retributions for all beings. The first kind is leading karma, which leads us to be born in a certain path [e.g., as a human or animal]. The second kind is fruition karma, the karmic force from our good and bad deeds done in past lifetimes that brings about all that we undergo in this lifetime, whether we are rich or poor and have a high or low social status.

Now that we understand that what we undergo in this lifetime is the karmic retribution of our deeds done in past lifetimes, how could we not endure and accept it? While we are enduring the karmic retributions, we should not be attached to favorable conditions or become angry with those that are adverse. This way, we will be able to eliminate our negative karmas.

We should know that we must eliminate the negative karma created in past lifetimes; otherwise we cannot transcend the Three Realms. Although learning and practicing the Buddha-name chanting method allows us to attain rebirth in the Western Pure Land while bringing along our residual karma, we still hope to bring along as little residual karma as possible. Therefore, when we encounter adverse conditions, we have a good opportunity to eliminate our negative karma. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. The harder things are to tolerate and the more we are able to tolerate them, the more negative karma we will be able to eliminate, and faster too.

No matter what humiliation or torment we undergo, this will eliminate our negative karma. When we encounter this situation, we should let go of everything and all thoughts, and instead, single-mindedly chant “Amituofo” and seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land.

~ Ven. Master Chin Kung

Some Things are Meant to be

The following is a story in the news I have been following.

In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple.

He was a teenager in a death camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man.

She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the fence. He caught it and ran away toward the barracks. And so it began.

As they tell it, they returned the following day and she tossed an apple again. And each day after that, for months, the routine continued. She threw, he caught, and both scurried away.

They never knew one another's name, never uttered a single word, so fearful they'd be spotted by a guard. Until one day he came to the fence and told her he wouldn't be back.

"I won't see you anymore," she said. "Right, right. Don't come around anymore," he answered.

And so their brief and innocent tryst came to an end. Or so they thought.

Forced into a ghetto
Before he was shipped off to a death camp, before the girl with the apples appeared, Herman Rosenblat's life had already changed forever.

His family had been forced from their home into a ghetto. His father fell ill with typhus. They smuggled a doctor in, but there was little he could do to help. The man knew what was coming. He summoned his youngest son. "If you ever get out of this war," Rosenblat remembers him saying, "don't carry a grudge in your heart and tolerate everybody."

Two days later, the father was dead. Herman was just 12.

The family was moved again, this time to a ghetto where he shared a single room with his mother, three brothers, uncle, aunt and four cousins. He and his brothers got working papers and he got a factory job painting stretchers for the Germans.

Eventually, the ghetto was dissolved. As the Poles were ushered out, two lines formed. In one, those with working papers, including Rosenblat and his brothers. In the other, everyone else, including the boys' mother.

Rosenblat went over to his mother. "I want to be with you," he cried. She spoke harshly to him and one of his brothers pulled him away. His heart was broken.

"I was destroyed," Rosenblat remembers. It was the last time he would ever see her.

Reunited in New York
It was in Schlieben, Germany, that Rosenblat and the girl he later called his angel would meet. Roma Radziki worked on a nearby farm and the boy caught her eye. And bringing him food — apples, mostly, but bread, too — became part of her routine.

"Every day," she says, "every day I went."

Rosenblat says he would secretly eat the apples and never mentioned a word of it to anyone else for fear word would spread and he'd be punished or even killed. When Rosenblat learned he would be moved again — this time to Theresienstadt, in what is now the Czech Republic — he told the girl he would not return.

Not long after, the Russians rolled in on a tank and liberated Rosenblat's camp. The war was over. She went to nursing school in Israel. He went to London and learned to be an electrician.

Their daily ritual faded from their minds.

"I forgot," she says.

"I forgot about her, too," he recalls.

Rosenblat eventually moved to New York. He was running a television repair shop when a friend phoned him one Sunday afternoon and said he wanted to fix him up with a girl. Rosenblat was unenthusiastic: He didn't like blind dates, he told his friend. He didn't know what she would look like. But finally, he relented.

It went well enough. She was Polish and easygoing. Conversation flowed, and eventually talk turned to their wartime experiences. Rosenblat recited the litany of camps he had been in, and Radziki's ears perked up. She had been in Schlieben, too, hiding from the Nazis.

She spoke of a boy she would visit, of the apples she would bring, how he was sent away.

And then, the words that would change their lives forever: "That was me," he said.

Rosenblat knew he could never leave this woman again. He proposed marriage that very night. She thought he was crazy. Two months later she said yes.

In 1958, they were married at a synagogue in the Bronx — a world away from their sorrows, more than a decade after they had thought they were separated forever.

Story inspires book ‘Angel Girl’
It all seems too remarkable to be believed. Rosenblat insists it is all true.

Even after their engagement, the couple kept the story mostly to themselves, telling only those closest to them. Herman says it's because they met at a point in his life he'd rather forget. But eventually, he said, he felt the need to share it with others.

Now, the Rosenblats' story has inspired a children's book, "Angel Girl." And eventually, there are plans to turn it into a film, "The Flower of the Fence." Herman expects to publish his memoirs next year.

Michael Berenbaum, a distinguished Holocaust scholar who has authored a dozen books, has read Rosenblatt's memoir and sees no reason to question it.

"I wasn't born then so I can't say I was an eyewitness. But it's credible," Berenbaum said. "Crazier things have happened."

Herman is now 79, and Roma is three years his junior; they celebrated their 50th anniversary this summer. He often tells their story to Jewish and other groups.

He believes the lesson is the very one his father imparted.

"Not to hate and to love — that's what I am lecturing about," he said. "Not to hold a grudge and to tolerate everybody, to love people, to be tolerant of people, no matter who they are or what they are."

The anger of the death camps, Herman says, has gone away. He forgave. And his life has been filled with love.

Do you believe the account? Or feel it is a fabrication from the minds of two people who tried to find the good in a horrific memory? Either way it is an amazing story.

It is amazing that karma can pull us so strongly and that those who are destined to come together will—regardless of the odds—do so.

It is also amazing, and inspiring, that lessons of love and letting go of hate, of tolerance and not holding a grudge could arise from so much suffering and loss. Amazing and inspiring that a father's last words to his son were of loving all people regardless of who they are, that a mother's parting actions were to save her son's life. And that a young girl would repeatedly risk her life to toss apples to a hungry boy behind a high wire fence.

Tolerance and love, karma and destiny.

Amazing.

Achieving in Pure Land Practice, Part Two

Another example give by Ven. Master Chin Kung is as follows:

Venerable Xiuwu was an illiterate bricklayer before he became a monastic. After becoming a monastic, he did the most menial tasks, work that nobody else wanted to do. He cleaned the toilets, chopped wood, and grew vegetables. Always mindfully chanting “Amituofo” while doing all these tasks, he gladly did his work. Because he knew that he was able to do only the most menial work and nothing else and that he could not compare to other people, he was respectful to everybody.

The first time Jile [Ultimate Bliss] Monastery conferred the precepts, Venerable Xiuwu volunteered to take care of the sick. But after only a few days, he asked to take leave from Master Tanxu, the abbot. The master asked him to stay until all the precepts were conferred. Venerable Xiuwu said that he could not stay because he was going to the Land of Ultimate Bliss. The master was surprised and asked him when. Venerable Xiuwu said in ten days. The next day, he came and told the master he was leaving the following day [and he did]!

This is a good example for us. Venerable Xiuwu did the hard work at the monasteries without taking a day off. He succeeded in his cultivation. He had no karmic obstacles.

He did not compete with others and was respectful to everyone. Many looked down on him, but he did not get in anyone’s way. He did his work and mindfully chanted “Amituofo,” which no one knew. He showed such ease and freedom when he passed away.

If we become disturbed after we hear someone saying something negative about us, how can we attain rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss? Venerable Xiuwu did not care if someone would beat him, scold him, or insulted him. He always smiled and was respectful to everyone. Why? Because he was going to the Land of Ultimate Bliss. He wanted to go, and he truly did.

Achieving in Pure Land Practice, Part One

Ven. Master Chin Kung has often told the following story to encourage us in our practice. The story was told to him by an older practitioner, Mrs. Gan, in 1984.

“Mrs. Gan had a relative, an elderly lady who had lived in San Francisco. This relative helped her son and daughter-in-law with the housework and took care of their children.

After several years, when the grandchildren had grown older and were attending elementary school, she had more time to herself. With this extra time, she was able to practice nianfo every day without interruption. Nobody knew about this. On the day she passed away, people discovered how much she had achieved in her cultivation. She passed away at night. In the morning, when her son and daughter-in-law went to her room to see why she was not yet up, they found her dead, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

They also found a will on the bed telling them how to arrange her funeral. There were even mourning clothes, which she had personally made for everyone, on the bed. She was a true practitioner, but nobody knew this when she was alive.

This elderly lady had no karmic obstacles. She knew when she would pass away. She performed her daily routine as usual and passed away without suffering from any illness. She passed away with ease and freedom. The elderly lady had achieved in her practice, so she had no obstacles.”