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August 13, 1979
Anchor Bay
Dear Shih Fu,
This letter has a title:
Skunk or monk? Bathroom or Buddhahall?
Our thoughts and deeds decide it all.
THE JANITOR REPORTS:
Moreover, there are animals
In odious and repugnant shapes,
Which all come from their bad karma,
And they suffer an eternity of
affliction.
Avatamsaka Sutra
Flower Store World
Chapter Five, Part Three
Verse spoken by Universal
Worthy Bodhisattva
San Bu Yi Bai has given us a great gift of faith in the Buddhadharma. It's hard to pinpoint what part we believe in most. It's like asking which drop of ocean water is wetter than the others, or which ray of sunshine is more bright and more pure than the next. The Buddhadharma is all true. Our faith increases the more we cultivate. And the more we cultivate, the more we find to believe in. It's like an ever-increasing bank account. For one who cultivates becomes fabulously wealthy in faith.
Probably the fundamental lesson I have learned on this trip is the truth of cause and effect: as you plant, so do you harvest. Why did the page-boy Wart pull the sword out of the stone when none of the noble knights could budge it? Because he had the causes and conditions from the past that allowed him to grow up and become King Arthur. Why did the poor wood-gatherer passing through the market place hear one sentence of the Diamond Sutra and become greatly enlightened on the spot? Because of past causes coming ripe he became the Sixth Patriarch.
Why do the seals gather on the rocks outside Anchor Bay to bark and speak the Dharma of seals? Because in past lives they behaved like seals and now they live in seal bodies. Abe Lincoln became President and was shot in the head by a stranger, perhaps because in the past he killed the killer and it was time for his retribution. All things in creation have their reasons for being. It's said,
If you see things and understand
them,
You transcend the world.
If you see things and are confused
by them,
You fall onto the turning wheel
of rebirth.
One morning last week I rounded a curve in the fog, just in time to find a dead skunk on the black top. He had been hit only minutes before. He was still warm, a five-pound adult male with sharp, curving, meat-eating fangs. I removed him from the traffic lane, gingerly holding his sad corpse by the tip of his white-striped tail. The skunk spoke Dharma for me. He said, "In the past I was greedy and killed out of anger and stupidity. Now I've got my due. It's not enough that my body stinks so no one likes to get near me. Today I lost even this flesh bag. All because when I was a person, I didn't do a good job of keeping the rules. I killed myself by swallowing the poisons of greed, hatred, and stupidity. It's all my fault. There's no one else to blame."
I said the Pure Land mantra over the dead skunk and thanked him for the lesson. I thought, "How glad I am to have the chance to cultivate the Way. Being a skunk is a lot of suffering. You can't sit in full lotus, you can't bow to the Buddhas, you can't make offerings. Good thing I'm a person."
Then, at lunch, I behaved just like a skunk. I found myself watching Heng Ch'au's food bowl, criticizing his every move and thinking harsh thoughts of greed and anger towards him. In my mind I competed with him as I have done in the past. This time I remembered the Master's instructions:
Purge the false and keep the true.
The straight mind is the Way-place.
The everyday mind is the Way.
Don't blame anyone and don't
criticize others.
Be a good person.
Don't seek benefit.
Don't be selfish.
A great person starts in the small,
subtle places.
Real Buddhadharma is right before
your eyes!"
Master Hua
Malaysia, August 8, 1978
Here I was, planting the seeds of skunkhood and going along with it! When I recognized what I was doing, suddenly the cause and effect became as clear as night and day. I couldn't turn around fast enough. Who wants to swallow poison? Monks think pure, lofty monk-thoughts. From this small place, they eventually become Buddhas. Skunks think smelly thoughts and eventually wind up like the dead polecat I mantra'd last week.
All along I've been running through the Dharma Realm looking outside for dharmas to blame, to criticize and find fault with. All this time, dharmas are not at fault. My own body, mouth and mind are the source of all my suffering and all my joy. No one can make me do anything. I choose to be a monk or a skunk in every new thought.
The Buddhadharma gives us the rules. What we practice in our minds creates Buddhalands or bathrooms out of our every waking minute. As the Master said to Heng Ch'au in his visit last week at Sea Ranch,
If you don't want to be emperor,
first you have to flush the toilet.
Once the toilet is flushed, you can
go and be a Buddha. First you must
do your own work and clean out the
bathroom. Don't be greedy for Buddha-
hood, don't think about it. Just go
cultivate.
By bequeathing the Dharma, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have given us a gift of compassion. I have another chance to try my best today to be a good janitor, to use every second to flush my own clogged toilet in my mind. I can turn my bathroom into a Buddhahall. Why do it? Because it makes possible the highest giving of all. Using the Great King of Vows of Universal Worthy Bodhisattva while I bow and make transference, I clean out a corner of the universe as well. I truly believe that cultivation of these vows is the ultimate work, the best thing anyone can do in a lifetime. No matter how stinky a skunk I've been in the past, anybody who can keep the precepts and not false think, can fully complete Universal Worthy's practices and vows, and become a Buddha. The vows are "the road in Heaven," I believe, and the Supreme rules of the Dharma Realm. I bow to them in deep faith and respect in every thought and to the Sutra that contains them. How inconceivable is the Avatamsaka! That we have the causes and conditions to meet with it here and now is great good fortune. As National Master Ch'ing Liang says:
Moreover, when one meets a Sagely
Ruler,
Obtaining it on Magic Mountain,
Exhaustively reflecting on its
esoteric meaning,
How can one but jump for joy?
-- Avatamsaka, Preface
We bowed before the Anchor Bay Campground entrance. Inside, packed like sardines, were campers and mobile homes with names like "Wilderness," "Open Road," "Southwind," "Explorer". The smoke of the cooking fires and the hubbub of the jammed-in vacationers felt like the crowded marketplaces in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Why would people come to the middle of the deserted coast in expensive get-away cars to stand elbow to tailbone just like in any big city? Because of past affinities with each other. Someone died right here this afternoon. The rescue vehicles roared by. Don't know who it was or why. The Dharma of Impermanence is saying for us all, "Try your best. Keep the rules. Go towards the good! And flush the toilet." The ambulance rolled away, we bowed up the hill, the smoke of grilled hamburgers filled the air, and out on the harbor rooks, the seals bathed and I barked.
Disciple Kuo Chen
(Heng Sure)
bows in respect