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16 May 1979
Marconi Cove
Dear Shih Fu,
Who am I? My body is borrowed and all too soon returns to the elements. No matter how hard I try, I can't keep it from falling apart. That's just how it is. Am I my thoughts? Maybe it's as the philosopher Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo sum)." But, my thoughts are even less real than my body. They are like the morning fog that's gone by noon. The mind is a puff of wind.
This a.m. I woke up and stepped outside. It was dark and still. No cars or people--just the mist and fog from Tomales Bay and a few birds. I started to laugh at all the time and energy I've spent doting after the self and what belongs to the self! What a waste! In the vast, big picture there is no me. How stupid I've been! I chased after my false thoughts and clung to my attachments until I was stuck up to my neck in a muddy sea of suffering and affliction. I never knew.
Everything I did was upside down, "conjoined with inversion," as the Avatamsaka says. I didn't even know they were errors. Sometimes it feels like cultivation isn't bringing results. All I do is make mistakes. But, cultivation itself is a response. Recognizing one's mistakes is getting results.
Cultivating purely for a while and then taking another look at the world makes clear what is true and false. The contrast is loud. Cultivation brings everything into sharp focus. The phony coverings and fat get trimmed away, exposing the bare bones. Yet, right before my eyes, I turn my back on enlightenment and unite with the dust. In a single act of ignorance, the "sprouts of suffering" are produced, and in the space of a few hours I'm entangled in the causal links of conditioned existence. It's all very real, not abstract philosophy. "Ignorance produces action, action produces consciousness...all the way to suffering and death." You don't have to have psychic powers to understand how we pass through beginningless rounds of birth and death "covered by a film of ignorance."
In just a few seconds, as fast as a single thought, one can slip from all Buddhas' proper Dharmas and fall into deviant views. Right in front of my face is the whole story. In every single thought I know why I am not a Buddha and how I could be. So it says,
Everything's a test,
to see what you will do;
Mistaking what's before your eyes,
You'll have to start anew.
Last night, after a hard day of bowing, I was making some tea on the tailgate of the car. It was dark with no one around for miles. I relaxed a little and let my mind and eyes wander to the beautiful ocean sunset while waiting for the water to boil. I stopped reciting the Great Compassion Mantra and "gazed at beautiful forms with a mind in violation of the precepts" (Brahma Net Sutra).
Suddenly, a car pulled up right next to me. Out jumped two young women." "Hi there, do you need some food for tomorrow?" they asked. I felt I "recognized" one of the women, although I'm sure I've never seen her before. It was a different kind of recognition. My mind moved. Faster than it takes to turn your hand over, I felt the whole can of worms tumble and spill out on the ground.
...mistaking what's before your
eyes, you'll have to start anew.
I dropped my guard just for a second and fell a thousand
feet. Going up
is hard, sliding down is easy.
Was it a bummer? Yes and no. We try to just cultivate every day and not to worry about success or failure, highs and lows. If it's good, we don't jump for joy. If it's bad, we don't cry and say, "What a bummer!" Everything speaks the Dharma that nothing is real. So we try our best to listen and change towards the good and just take it as it comes. Nothing's a bummer unless you call it a bummer.
If I take a loss or fall, it's a lesson. If I make a gain and progress, it's a test. In cultivation, everything naturally works out for the best. You don't have to worry or make plans or calculate for this and that all day. Just "be pure, peaceful, and happy" was the Buddha's message. "Return the light and illumine within."
So, if we cultivate for awhile and then flunk a test, we don't fall back as far as when we didn't cultivate. Cultivation is forever.
I laughed at myself this a.m. because I saw how small and lopsided my view of "me and mine" has been. I laughed because I've been hanging upside down and suffering, while all the time thinking I was really smart and doing okay.
I've been studying this section from the Avatamsaka for weeks. I couldn't penetrate it. And, yet I kept coming back to it like a piece of metal filing is drawn to a magnet. It felt true to something I knew naturally inside.
Disciples of the Buddha, this Bodhisattava
further
makes the following reflections: "All Buddhas'
proper Dharmas are so profound, so quiet, so
still and extinct, so empty, so markless, so
wishless, so undefiled, so limitless, so vast and
great, while ordinary beings in their minds fall
into deviant views. They are covered by the film
of ignorance. They erect the banner of pride and
arrogance. They enter into the net of thirsty
love, and course in the dense forest of flattery
and deceit, unable to extricate themselves. Their
minds are conjoined with stinginess and jealousy,
which they never abandon. They constantly create
the casual conditions for undergoing birth in the
evil destinies. With greed, hatred, and stupidity,
they accumulate all karma, which day and night
increases and grows. With the wind of resentment
they fan the fire of mind-consciousness, whose
blaze never ceases. All the karma they create
is conjoined with inversion. In the flow of
desire, the flow of existence, the flow of
ignorance, and the flow of views, the seeds of
mind-consciousness continually arise. Within
the field of the three realms the sprouts of
suffering are repeatedly produced.
That is, name and form arise together and do
not separate. Because name and form increase,
the assemblage of the six places arises. Amidst
their junctures, contact arises. Grasping in-
creases. Therefore, existence arises. Because
existence arises, birth, old age, anxiety, sorrow,
suffering, and vexation come to exist. Such liv-
ing beings as those produce and increase the mass
of suffering. Within it, all is empty, devoid of
knowing and awareness, with no doer and no re-
ceiver, like grass and wood, like rocks and walls,
and also like reflections. Still living beings
are unaware and do not know." The Bodhisattva
sees all living beings within this mass of suffer-
ing, unable to get out. Therefore, he immediately
brings forth wisdom of great compassion and makes
the following reflection, "All these living beings
I should rescue and save, and set in a place of
ultimate peace and joy." Therefore, he immediately
brings forth bright wisdom of great kindness.
Avatamsaka Sutra
Ten Grounds Chapter
I opened the Avatamsaka this a.m. and read this passage again. Suddenly it started to make sense to me. It confirmed what I'm coming to see from my own errors and bowing on the road with my Dharma companion. Once, I read this passage and it seemed confusing. Today, I read the same text and it was illuminating. I was confused, not the Sutra. My heart is light. Slowly, bit-by-bit, I know I can get out of the prison of the world. And, if I can make good my escape, then for sure I'll be able to help others make their escape and "set them in a place of ultimate peace and joy." Cultivation is really hard and really happy. Changing toward the good is hard. Benefiting others is happy. Kindness lights up the world.
Disciple Kuo T'ing
(Heng Ch'au)
bows in respect
Just as murky water clears when still, if we cultivate for real, then the waters of the mind will naturally turn pure.
Bhikshu Heng Ch'au