Think "Kaleidoscope"

 

As children, we delighted in looking through kaleidoscopes. What we saw changed from moment to moment. We never saw that change as bad or upsetting. To the contrary, it was the changing patterns that so fascinated us.

With each change, we ooh’d and ahh’d at the beautiful combinations, so caught up in the current one that we didn’t miss the one that was gone. Nor did we worry whether the next would be as beautiful. We just watched as though entranced, thoroughly absorbed in the moment.

This was mindfullness without regrets or expectation. In innocence, we did it as children. With practice, we can do it as adults. 

Everything Will come Back to Us, and More

Patriarch Yin Guang repeatedly emphasized the need for people to understand cause and effect. Li Bingnan was a student of the master and he too emphasized the need to understand causality. As did his student, Ven. Master Chin Kung, who is my teacher. So I come from a line of Chinese Pure Land teachers who stress that people need to understand that their thoughts and behavior will have consequences.

Everything we think, everything we say and do will at some time come back to us.

Everything.

But there is more.

If I say something and another person acts based on what I said, I’m connected to that action as well. For example, if I tell someone to steal a piece of jewelry and they do so, I am linked karmically to that theft and I will also experience adverse consequences. This is one of the reasons we NEED to understand cause and effect.

Our one action can have a seemingly endless chain of consequences.

And my point is?

Think first before you say or do something.

Consider what the retailing analyst Victor Lebow said after the end of World War II about the US economy: “Our enormously productive economy. . .demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. . .we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

American business took this idea and ran with it. What are the results? The depletion of the earth’s resources, the extinction of many species, the contamination of our air and water, and the suffering of countless people. Mr. Lebow had a hand in all of this. The consequences he will undergo are truly frightening.

We must learn from this.

We need to be aware that our speech and behavior and can have far-reaching consequences.

We need to think before we speak and act, and then, proceed responsibly and wisely.

There is Nothing to Seek

By "not craving (ch'iu) anything" is meant this: Men of the world, in eternal confusion, are attached everywhere to one thing or another, which is called craving.

The wise however understand the truth and are not like the ignorant. Their minds abide serenely in the uncreated while the body moves about in accordance with the laws of causation. All things are empty and there is nothing desirable to seek after. Where there is the merit of brightness there surely lurks the demerit of darkness.

This triple world where we stay altogether too long is like a house on fire; all that has a body suffers, and nobody really knows what peace is. Because the wise are thoroughly acquainted with this truth, they are never attached to things that change; their thoughts are quieted, they never crave anything.

Says the Sutra: "Wherever there is a craving, there is pain; cease from craving and you are blessed." Thus we know that not to crave anything is indeed the way to the Truth. Therefore, it is taught not "to crave anything".

~ D.T. Suzuki, Manual of Zen Buddhism

Occupation: Monastic, Part Two

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about how monastics in the past often spent their time. I had started to answer a question people often ask me: What do you do all day? (Polite emphasis on the second “do.”) I found myself digressing because there is an oft-held idea that monastics spend much of their time sitting in meditation.

In the past, in a less crowded and slower-paced world, a reclusive life was quite possible. But that life was by no means easy as anyone who has tried to meditate for eight hours a day will attest.

So having a glimpse of what monastics did in the past, how do monastics today spend their time?

I can’t speak for other monastics other than to say that all the ones I know are very busy. The world has caught up with us. It’s tough to find a quiet forest or a secluded mountain these days.

So for those who have asked what do I do—my primary work is editing translations. This was the major reason I became a nun: to have more time to work on translating the talks of my teacher, Ven. Master Chin Kung. Usually I try to work with our team on one main project at a time. We use the Internet for web-conferencing, a vast improvement over emailing files and just writing comments. Periodically we get urgent requests for translations from people in China, Taiwan, and Australia. It’s “fun” when we get requests from all three at one time. (That’s when coffee moves from the beverage category to the medicinal category.) I also do editing for other societies.

In addition to the editing work, I also teach, write books and this blog, record audio books, answer prisoner’s correspondence, prepare materials for publication and supervise their production, and work with websites. Basically, I help others when they ask for assistance and also try to decide what needs to be done and then do it.

People also ask about my living arrangements.

I have remained in my mother's apartment since I now have several classes that I teach locally. I have turned the apartment living room, dining room, and larger bedroom into a Buddhist center. This arrangement works very well because we hold classes and one-day retreats here.

For those who have asked, I do my own cooking. It gets me away from the computer! Thankfully, my neighbors are away during the day. (I talk to myself a lot when I'm cooking—sort of a Buddhist nun stand-up comedy routine. My mother would have approved.)

Whenever I need help, there are wonderful people here to help. Jim brought over some salt to put down after the sleet this week and Ruth hung my thermal drapes. (I helped her by working on the computer.) Jim and Hank put the bookcases together. Kathleen offered to get me locally-grown organic produce from the farmer’s market in Goshen. Geneele arranged for me to see her optometrist brother-in-law. And the list goes on and on.    

So basically, what I "do" is stay happily busy. 

Occupation: Monastic, Part One

In the past, the world was less crowded and the pace of life was slower. Monastics withdrew from the life of a householder to live a more reclusive life. They renounced a life in which family and work responsibilities, and earning a livelihood were of prime concern. They did so to be able to dedicate their lives to progressing more rapidly along the path to awakening.

To become a monastic, the individual needed to be sure family responsibilities would be met in the future. For example, if the parents were elderly, the future monastic needed to arrange for their support. They might have asked siblings, neighbors, or friends if they would be able to help. Family responsibilities well taken care of, the person could leave home and begin to follow the occupation of a monastic.

Depending on the tradition, there would be different kinds of work for the monastic to do. The work usually entailed cleaning, maintenance, and sometimes farming and cooking. When finished with their daily work, the monastics would practice and learn. Different traditions and masters would have their students do these in varying proportions.

Contact with the outside world was limited. Monasteries and nunneries were often located in forests and on mountains and, thus, not readily accessible. This inaccessibility provided more time for the monastics to do their work, practice, and study.

In China, for example, it was traditional for new monastics to spend most of their time working. After a few years, they would be able to spend eight hours a day in study and eight hours in cultivation. Spending sixteen hours a day on study and cultivation, and having limited contact with the outside world, left them with little time for wandering thoughts. In this way, they could advance in their practice fairly quickly.

So monastic's lives, which were very busy, were somewhat removed from society.