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Heng Ch'au
Sunday
March 19,1978
"After All, What is Life For?"
"The bodhisattva further reflects: all beings are confined in the prison of the world. They endure all kinds of bitter suffering." -- Avatamsaka sutra, (2nd ground)
It is as if we are in a prison-confined within our own minds y thoughts of insatiable greed. Greed for food and fame, for wealth and sex, and for sleep. We are shackled by our material possessions, our jobs, our reputation, the clock, and the gnawing feeling that our lives are passing in vain. We dream of some day putting it all down to find our true self, but....
We see each other through the bars; each of is in a cage and not knowing how to get out. Country to country, rich and poor nations, all classes, all races,, throughout all time "all living beings are confined in the prison of the world."
Our bodies come and go like the season's falling leaves, bit our souls revolve without end on the turning wheel of birth and death. Birth, old age, sickness, and death spin like a broken record. Life after life, over and over, and amid it all there's nothing but suffering. There's the outright suffering of poverty. There's the suffering of decay where one's blessings and honor go bad and decline. There's the suffering of process: from childhood, idle age, old age, to death-so fast the years flow by and cant be stopped. White hair, wrinkles, and failing health appear as if overnight. No one escapes; none are immune.
Before opening the sutra every night we recite a verse:
"The unsurpassed, profound, subtle and wonderful dharma is difficult to encounter in hundreds of millions of Kalpas. I now see and hear it, Receive and maintain it. And vow it understand the thus come one's True and actual meaning."
Why is the dharma unsurpassed? What is so unique and special about sutras? Because everything in the world-wealth, name and fame, our family, friends, security, and success-it's all impermanent. Everything is overshadowed and rendered meaningless by the "one great matter."What is the "one great matter?"birth and death? The dharma is invaluable and unsurpassed in all the world because it is the key to unlocking the riddle of the "one great matter". Without the dharma, there's no way to escape from the prison of the world. Without the dharma, there's no way to get off the wheel of birth and death.
A young couple asks on the highway, "Two years you've been doing this!? Two years out of your lives. Isn't that a waste!?"
No. The waste of one's life is in the blind and commonplace living of it. We were meant for the great things and noble understandings. We were meant to do heroic and beneficial deeds. We were meant to plumb the depths of our souls. But each passing day of just going along with the crowd leaves our lofty dreams lying empty a n forgotten like sea shells bleached and broken on the beach. We live it up, bit down we slide, and when fear of death comes we sprint as if running over burning coals. Isn't this a waste?
There's a saying in Buddhism,
"Don't wait until you're thirsty to dig your well. Don't wait until old age to cultivate."
The billboard ads on the side of the road say:
"Indulge. Enjoy yourself. After all, what is life for?" and "You only go around once in life, so grab all the gusto you can get!" -Billboard advertisement
The sutras say because we try and grab all the gusto we can get we go around without cease life after life. We revolve endlessly on the turning wheel of rebirth for one reason: desire. Desire is just grabbing all the gusto you can get, and when we get it, are we happy? No. no matter how much gusto we grab, it's never enough. The more we grab the more we suffer. So it's said,
"Of all the happiness in the world, there is none that is not suffering."
Then what is life for after all? Life is a chance to end suffering if you cultivate. If you don't cultivate, life is only suffering. The ancients held that the unexamined life is not worth living. To live one's life without cultivating the way was to be "born drunk and die in a dream."
"Weird Visitors"
We bowed into an abrupt change in terrain. Suddenly the road twisted into hairpin curves along a sheer cliff that dropped straight into the sea. On the other side there are rolling foothills ascending into the beginning of the rugged and famous Big Sur wilderness. Traffic slowed to 10 and 15 mph. The sea and the and interlaced, and every curve was like entering another world. The vibrations changed as sharply as the highway. One could feel a tension, and "up in the air" unpredictability, a sense of stepping onto another planet where the familiar cues and rules no longer fit. Everything seemed to be dancing and tingling, stirred up and jumbled around. It was as if we entered a mirage or twilight zone. In the next five hours and 1/2 miles of road, we met up with some of the strangest "people" we had ever seen.
"You should know that demons are coming to test you, to see if you're sincere....no matter what situation you encounter, use real wisdom and real Samadhi power to subdue it. Don't move your minds." -- Ven. Abbot, instructions (May 7, 1977) On the 1st day of pilgrimage
1:00 P.M.- a convertible sports car swerves into the pull-off we are bowing on. Two people get out. the man is bare-chested and oddly shaped. He looks out of proportion and off center, as if he were a college of borrowed body parts from a dozen different people. Just to glance at him made me nervous. I averted my eyes instinctively. The woman was even stranger looking. She was as thin and shapeless as an upright no.2 pencil. Wrapped up in a skin-tight cloth with a turban headpiece bringing her head to a sharp point. They walked straight for us. They way they moved their heads, arms, and legs, their gait and mannerisms were chaotic and irregular, unsettling and hypnotic. He moved slowly in undulating waves, his fleshly belly rising and falling like a water balloon. She walked rigid and jagged, shooting quick, darting glances, step-stabbing each foot sharply in front of the other.
"Jesus Christ, what are they!? Huh? What have we got here shelly?" he says taking a swig off a quart beer bottle and blocking our way.
"You're not Krishnas because I've seen them in the city with jingle bells on street corners, and everybody knows they're crazy. But you two ain't them, are you?" She says laughing with a sneer.
They dance around and pepper us with questions. Heng Sure isn't talking, of course, and I'm learning it's not necessary or beneficial to talk with everyone. I am only now coming to truly appreciate these instructions I got almost a year ago.
"Have one person answer all the questions. Kuo T'ing, you're the dharma-protector, You answer. Don't rattle on and 'write Essays'. If a person understands, you Need not say much. If he doesn't under- Stand, more talk will just confuse him." -- Ven. Abbot Early Instructions, May 1977
"We thought you was tripped out on acid, but now we see you again and you're for real." Says the man.
"You really think it's worthwhile? I mean, wow, over 2 whole years out of your life."
"We feel it's 2 years into our lives" I answer.
"They're monks. No sex! Faggots. I bet they're faggots." Snaps the woman.
"No. They aren't homosexuals, shelly." Says the man calmly. "You know, I've never seen anything like this. I mean, out here in the middle of nowhere. Totally isolated. You're just out here on your own, aren't you?" he asks scanning around for others, or perhaps a monastery in the hills.
I nod assent. He seems halfway honest.
"You get some kind of reward when you get there? Do they teach you judo and stuff?" he asks sarcastically.
"They teach us how to quiet our bodies and minds and help others."
"Ah, they're queers!" shouts the woman.
"No they aren't queer, shelly," he says again.
They give H. sure a hard time. The man keeps showing a camera in H. Sure's face saying, "c'mon whadya say, huh? Smile. Give me something good to shoot. You forget how to smile? Want a drink string of defiled remarks and suggestions too filthy to repeat.
As it turns out, their camera had no film in it, but they harassed H. sure for over 1/2 hour trying to get him to pose and respond.
Soon it became clear they were not at all what they seemed, not ordinary people. We both stopped looking at them and just bowed as if were there alone.
Finally shelly said,
"They oughta lock em up. Hey, there's a cave entrance over there in those tocks. Let's go check it out. Maybe there's something in there." They left.
"Mushroom People"
2:30 P.M.-An old, beat up camper pick-up stops down the road. Two people get out and walk toward us. Some vibrations and weird body energy as the previous couple. The man is bulbous and blimpy and moves like a slow motion movie. He's wearing bib overalls, a loud Hawain floral print shirt and an oversized straw hat. The woman is dark and gives the feeling of heavy density. She moves like molasses rolling downhill. Her face seems hidden away and I get into her eyes. She is literally absorbing.
The conversation is scattered and disconnected. Their words and body movements are slowed and dreamy, almost half as fast as ours. It's as if they're in a different medium, like under water or suspended at 'o' gravity.
"My father does tai chi," says the woman out of the clear blue. "He has a guru and is greatly enlightened now." A long silence follows.
They disappear into a field across the road and return with a bag of fresh-picked, large mushrooms.
"They're okay. Not poisonous. We eat them all the time" says the man reassuringly. The man says he's a marine biologist and they love off he sea mostly- "even have a garden down there" he says pointing to the ocean.
3.30 PM- A station wagon pulls up behind us. Four people (clearly they are not people, at least not like any people we had ever seen) approach. They are like zombies or bodies risen from the grave. Their skin color is pale chalk white all over and the texture looks like soft clay-as if touching it would leave an indent, a permanent print. There's no blood color at all, even in their lips or fingernails. They are bleached and lifeless, without any spark. They speak in a slow, dragging monotone-not the slightest inflexion or fluctuation. Just one tone, like a 33 1/3 LP played at 1 7/8.
"We have come to save you. You are on the wrong path. You must listen to us," they drone.
There are two men and two women. They work in teams, going back and forth, preaching and pleading with us. Neither of us says a word.
"You claim to be peaceful and seeking truth bit you wont even talk with us. How can you just shut us out? You must listen and change to our way. It is the only true way," they incant.
None of them shows any emotion or change in facial expression. They don't blink their eyelids, bit just fix-stare as if looking through us with plaster faces and half-closed eyes. Are they in a trance or possessed?
They keep pressing up as close as they can without actually making contact. A few times they reach out their arms to touch out faces or grab our arms, bit suddenly stop and withdraw as if meeting a barrier of resistance.
"You're selfish. Not talking is selfish. You must talk to us." Their voices and presence leave an eerie, sepulchral feeling in the air. After about 45 minutes of a heavy soft sell, they give up. Then, as if someone gave a cue or blew a whistle, they straighten up and turn in perfect unison and dream-walk back to the car, arms hanging straight done at their sides, head welded, unmoving, looking straight ahead.
5:00 PM- As we bow near sunset along a wind blown, rocky shoreline news a lonely point, a pickup truck stops. A tall man steps up.
"M' name's preacher," he shouts through the wind.
Preacher is about 6'10", dark and wild looking. Long hair and a full beard twist and curl every which way. His face is raw, angular, with deeply set features. His manner is aggressive and unpredictable, yet not unfriendly or violent, just rough and powerful. A solid, silver medallion, a forbidding steer's skull, with long, pointed horns, hangs from his neck on a rawhide thong. He grabs my meditation beads from around my neck.
"Sandalwood beads" he says sniffing them. "Far out!"
Backing up and running all over the road and rocks, he snaps pictures like someone playing a hot pin-ball machine. 'Snap, snap,, click. Click, whrr.'
"Yes sir. In these day s of mechanization and mass conformity, I believe everything should get equal coverage," he roars with gusto. 'Click, click,' goes the camera.
Preacher is a self-styled bohemian "minister" of an unspecified church.
"I live out over there" he says pointing towards the windswept boulder point where breaking waves slam and spray. "If you get near, stop in," he laughs.
Preacher is a personification of the rocky shoreline and pounding breakers. I don't know where he lives because the area he pointed towards has no houses or any signs of people. There is just eh wild sea and rocks.
Throughout, D.M. Sure and I felt protected and watched over, we didn't feel fear or anger, just a naïve sense of wonder at the strange things that can happen in this world. When things started feeling off-center or too close for comfort, I would close my eyes and visualize my teacher or an image of the Buddha as if in front of me. It seemed to neutralize any danger or fears.
"He vows to always have proper mindfulness of all Buddhas of the three Periods of time, and reverently think of the Tathagatha as always appearing before him. He vows to dwell in the perfection Of ever-increasing will and bliss and To separate himself widely from the Animosity and anger of all demons." Avatamsaka Sutra.
The key is to not give rise to any "demons' of anger and animosity" in our minds. If in our own thoughts and feelings towards other there's no fear or hatred, no bad vibes (Ch'I), then, nothing can disturb us m and no one will harm us.
Later at gold wheel, the master asked,
Master: "Did you get to the mountains yet?"
Monks: "Yes."
Master: "And then strange people came, right?"
Monks: "Yes, that very day. (We then related the above events to the abbot)."
Master: "The strange people who suddenly came up were mountain weirdos and water goblins who came to play with you, to check you over. They wanted to find and entrance, but since you didn't talk they had no way to get in."