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July 30, 1979
Sea Ranch, California
Dear Shih Fu,
Today: hot sun. Long hours of bowing in solitude down Highway 1 lined with tall pine trees. Your whole life passes in front of you while you keep a steady rhythm of three steps, one bow. You see where you went wrong and where you did right. Cultivating the Way stands above everything you've ever done like the midday sun. It's the center of brightness and all that's good and true in your life.
When the roots are deep, the
fruit is flourishing.
-- Avatamsaka, Prologue
I want to repay my parents, teachers, and elders and be filial to them (the fruit blossoms because of the roots; the fruit in turn goes back to the roots). I want to see my friends free and happy. I feel like an old friend to all living beings. We meet again and again, looking for a way over to the other shore. People, animals, and all the beings we can't see, stop, watch and ask, "Have you done it yet? Are you for real and true doing it? Is the Buddha's Way really possible? Can we all become Buddhas?" Without words, we ask each other and look for a place to take refuge and something to believe in.
We are all one body, we are all one heart... A young person stops with an offering of fresh-picked berries. "I want to offer them. I picked them myself this morning at Pt. Reyes." This person is another old friend from somewhere long ago maybe, now traveling alone in an old V.W. bus with a bike strapped to the front. We have met hundreds of people of all ages and lifestyles that know they are just passing through a dream in this world. Each in his own way is making a spiritual quest, and in their hearts they feel a closeness with us. They hear "Buddhism" and "monks" and "enlightenment" and deep inside, a small door clicks open, a long forgotten seed sprouts a shoot. They stop, I think, not for us, but to look in a mirror. It is the Summer of 1979, but the Odyssey is timeless. We are all pilgrims.
After two years of bowing the roads, it's so clear to us that the only worthwhile and real thing in this whole world is cultivating the Way. The highest gift is the giving of Dharma. As this young person sat cross legged on the ground with berries in lap watching us bow, I saw as never before the truth of what we read last night from the Avatamsaka,
Good man, of all the offerings, the gift
of Dharma is the highest kind. That is
to say: offering of cultivation according
to the teachings, the offering of bene-
fitting all beings, the offering of
gathering in of all beings, the offering
of standing in for living beings and
receiving suffering in their place, the
offering of diligently cultivating good
roots, the offering of not forsaking the
deeds of Bodhisattvas, and the offering
of not abandoning the Bodhi Mind.
-- Avatamsaka Sutra, Chapter 40
To really put down all the greed, anger, and stupidity; to get rid of all the false coverings and phony masks; to cast out all thoughts of jealousy, arrogance, and doubt; to light up your mind and see your true nature and let shine your original face--that is a real gift. That gift is "the highest kind" and the most difficult to obtain.
Everyone is looking for a "true one". We look around outside, but the "true one" we really want to find is our own true self. Being a true one is giving the gift of Dharma. Pure, peaceful and happy and no false thinking. A clear, cool pool. An unlimited heart of kindness, compassion, joy and giving that is as pure and selfless as new-fallen snow, and a mind like empty space. It's said,
In all the world you may look,
but a true one is hard to find.
Below in a fenced-in private home development, people are playing tennis and swimming. The whole scene is identical to one we bowed past two years ago in a country club in L.A. The things of the world are empty and impermanent, and yet they never seem to change. Some people die and new ones appear, just like the changing of players on the tennis court. The game of suffering and searching goes on like tennis matd1 after tennis match.
What a clean and fine feeling, right to the bones and marrow, to have met up with the Buddhadharma! Bit-by-bit I am slowly remembering how to be a real person. We know we are finally walking the right road. The giving of Dharma will come naturally, like the rain, as our steps become naturally true and without tracks.
At the end of a solid day of bowing, our lives feel so simple and genuine-- so easy and natural-- and yet nothing in the world can touch it. Three young men, out to see the world with packs on their backs, stop and ask us for some water. They have one small canteen between them. "Hey, who's that in the picture?" asks one looking at the Ven. Abbot's photo. "Hey, your hair's growing back," chides another in good humor. And then he asks honestly, "Was it hard becoming a monk?" His friend is reading our sign in the window and looking at the Buddha's picture next to it. He looks up. "No, I bet it was hard not being a monk," he says with conviction. He took the words right out of my heart. As they walk away, they say, "Hey, ya know, that's a really neat thing--doing it for everyone. I mean, so all beings will get peace and happiness. That's a neat way to be." I hear them and once again see that the principles of Buddhism are in everyone's heart-- the Bodhisattva path is our natural mind. In their attitude, without knowing it maybe, they are speaking the Dharma,
People's minds are the Buddha;
The Buddha is just people's minds.
May we all accomplish the Buddha Way together, real soon. Peace in the Way to all beings everywhere.
Disciple Kuo T'ing
(Heng Ch'au)
bows in respect