Bowing Journals | Top | << Back | Next >> | End
Heng Sure
March 18,1978
"Softness overcomes hardness."
Ever since Cayucos, a gang of young men has made it their job to haze us as we bow. They play "chicken", running their cars onto the road shoulder to buzz our prostrate bodies; they throw missiles-rifle cartridges bundled to baseball size with plastic tape; they strafe the Plymouth with high speed attacks, shattering beer bottles on the bumpers and tailgate.
Our response:
"You may not fight with anyone for any reason. Use kindness and compassion to subdue all demons. Bodhisattvas are good to people no matter how they are treated."
Heng Ch'au
Saturday
March 18, 1978
"The Bodhisattva does not seek suffering, however, he understands that the feeling of suffering has no appearance and is not produced. All feelings mutually arise and do not stay." -- Avatamsaka Sutra
"Is sitting in full lotus painful?" asks a fireman. "I mean, I've tried it, and sometimes it's breeze, no pain at all. And then other times I'm shooting with pain by just crossing up one leg."
Pain is made from a scattered mind; no pain comes from a single mind. We bow through sharp gavel and broken glass, through deep dripping wet grass and prickly thistles with bugs crawling all over us. When our minds are concentrated we hardly notice, bit when our minds move, every inch is a hassle. Feelings come and go according to our thoughts. When the mad mind stops and one is naturally content, there is no pain or pleasure. Everything just is. This is what the sutras say.
"I heard that sitting in full lotus is the way to end birth and death," says the fireman. "Is that true?"
When all the energy is gathered back and quietly focused, not running off in the ten directions, this is dhyana concentration or Ch'an. It is producing the mind that is nowhere attached. When attachments are put to rest and false thinking cut off, the matter of birth and death then resolves itself.
So it's said,
"Birth and death from thoughts are made. When thoughts stop, birth and death are Ended." -- Avatamsaka sutra (6th Ground, manifestation)
Sitting in full lotus makes it easier to enter Samadhi, but it is with the "unattached, unbound liberated mind"that one ends birth and death, not from just sitting cross-legged.
The famous 3rd Chinese patriarch Seng Ts'an invited a thousand Bhikshus to a vegetarian feast. After eating, the great master said,
"You think that to sit in full lotus is the best way to die. Watch! I'll demonstrate my independence over birth and death."
They all focused the patriarch outside. He halted under the trunk of a tree, and after pausing for a moment, he lept up and grabbed a big branch then while swinging playfully from the tree by one hand, he entered nirvana.
The bowing is just learning how to concentrate under all conditions, to develop a steady mind that isn't confused by the temporary and conditioned things of this world. All the disasters and sufferings we undergo come from our false thinking. Scattered minds create chaotic karma. Cause and effect are impartial and unconfused. We do evil deeds and suffer bitter retribution. Evil arises from ignorance, and when ignorance is ended all the suffering stops.
"When ignorance is the condition, suffering cant be stopped. By ending the condition (ignorance) Suffering is all over." -- Avatamsaka sutra, 6th ground
"Who Will?"
Immediately after bowing we sit in meditation or the accumulated energy scatters. The sit at day's end is more important than eating. Often a wave of "fire" hits us like the backwash of a motorboat that suddenly cuts its engines. The "fire" is experienced as irritation and discomfort, a nervous "antsy" feeling often accompanied with pain and heat.
Today a fire-wave hit. I held firm and let it burn itself out. It uncovered past bad karma I had created and buried in secret long ago. As I rented of these offenses I felt compassion and kindness for all the people still entangled and unhappy, doing the very same stupid things I did. My thought was to end all my greed, hatred, and ignorance, all my self-seeking, and transfer to all living beings. I wanted to help them out of the sea of suffering and hurting. If we don't try to end it, who will?
"They never retreat from this resolve to transform living beings. Their hearts of kindness and compassion increase and grow. They are a place of reliance for all living beings...." -- Avatamsaka sutra
Just as the bodhisattva is about to attain the highest state of liberation, Annutara-Samyak-Sambodhi, he stops and asks himself these questions,
"If I don't bring living beings to ripeness, who will? If I don't subdue and tame living beings, who will? If u don't teach and transform living beings, who will? If I don't enlighten living beings, who will? If I don't purify living beings, who will? That is what I ought to do. This is my work." Avatamsaka sutra
The Bodhisattva figures it this way: if u alone get free, all the living beings around me will go on as if blind. They will enter dangerous paths and get all afflicted. Unable to end their suffering they will be like someone with a terminal illness, everyday more painted and closer to darkness. They won't be able to get off the turning wheel of birth and death, and will constantly fall into the realms of the hells, ghosts and animals. How can I possibly enjoy my own liberation in the midst of such suffering? No way.
"As the bodhisattva contemplates living beings in this way he thinks: if these beings have not yet come to ripe- ness, not yet been subdued, to forsake them and seek the realization of Annutara- SamyakSambodhi (for myself)would not be right." -- Avatamsaka sutra
And so the bodhisattva puts off his own attainment of Buddha hood for the sake of others. He delays entering the ultimate state. Instead, for inexpressible, ineffaceable numbers of Kalpas, he keeps returning to help all living beings end suffering and attain liberation. Only after everyone else is safely across does he himself cross. The bodhisattva goes last.
As I write this and reflect on how the bodhisattva ideal draws so many people to Buddhism, two men about our age pull up in a camper van.
At first they joke around and slightly mock us, but then one says seriously,
"I've been on the road searching for one and half years. Didn't find it, ya' know? Monday I go back to work. I just came out this weekend to give it one more look, and here you are!"
He watched us bow for a while and then said, "why?"
"We are trying to get rid of the bad vibes in the world by being better people."
"What's in it for you?" he asks.
"We are not doing it for ourselves. We are doing it to turn back disasters and suffering in the world."
"Wow! Two years!" he exclaims, "What will you do when you get there, to that ten thousand Buddhas place?"
"Well, there's a university, hospital, translation institute, fields to work, a monastery, elementary and high school..."
"Really? Hey, where is this place?" he asked excitedly. "I was in a monastery for 8 months once and it wasn't anything like this. I mean there's real perseverance here. It must be nice to be so content."
"It's a good life. Anyone can live it."
"You got an address?" he asks.
The mockery is gone now, just smiles and hand-shakes as wee stand on the highway shoulder looking at a map.
"Good luck" they shout.
"Good luck to you too" I answer. They grin and wave good-bye.
We are camped on grassy cliffs overlooking the ocean near Piedras Blancas point and lighthouse. Heavy weekend traffic included motorcycles clubs and mammoth, two-story houses on wheels called R.V.'s. Too fat for this skinny coast road. They often extend into the shoulder. We bow facing on-coming traffic so we can spot them and step aside in time to avoid being run over.
The master instructed us at the start of our journey. It's hard to be patient under insult, but we have learned a deep respect for the power of softness. Practicing non-contention saves our lives.
"For all the years of training I've had in martial art, karate, Shao Lin, Tai Ch'I, I've never felt safer, more ultimately at peace than with five limbs on the ground, bowing to the Buddha," says Heng Ch'au.
Softness is why the great vehicle Buddha dharma endures forever.
"In Buddhism, there are no enemies. Buddhists never take revenge on anyone. This is Buddhism's most superior aspect. We don't harm even demons. We still Want to gather them in. Buddhists never Give rise to a feeling of opposition. We are king and compassionate to all Beings and never harm them." -- Master Hua
This attitude can disarm the nastiest baddies and blunt the ugliest threats. The method is patience simply not moving. It really works, both outside the mind and inside.
World-transcending wisdom arises from ultimate softness, from the heart of "same-substance great compassion" with all beings. Fighting with anyone is lighting with oneself. Contention and anger make waves in the mind and wars in the world. Stilling the mind brings peace.