Covering the World

Where would there be leather enough to cover the entire world?
The earth is covered over merely with the leather of my sandals.

-Shantideva in 'A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life' (Ch. 5, v.13). Translated by Vesna and B. Alan Wallace.

Liturgical Mashup

Some time ago, I remember Pope Benedict XVI warning about the dangers of 'Do It Yourself Religion'. Getting past the fact that the current Pontiff has been known to be rather critical of Buddhism, my reaction to his comments were, well, hysterical laughter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to trash the Catholic Church (an organization which I think gets a little too much bad press). The laughter came from the fact that Buddhism in the West at this point, really is a 'Do It Yourself Religion'.

In Asia, the 'Buddhist spiritual infrastructure' has been in place for thousands of years. Teachers and practitioners are working with and adapting all of the various Buddhist traditions flowing in from Asia to suit the unique setting of The West but there's really nothing that we can point out to as distinctly Buddhist although some interesting trends are beginning to emerge.

As an example, I'll use an aspect of my own practice: liturgy. As you'll see, it's quite the mashup, reflecting the many teachers and traditions that have influenced me over the years:

Wake Up/Going to Bed Verses:
I Take Refuge in the Buddha and I wish that all sentient beings will awaken to the Great Path and make the Supreme Resolution.
I Take Refuge in the Dharma and I wish that all sentient beings will delve into the Sutras, their wisdom as deep as the Ocean.
I Take Refuge Sangha and I wish that all sentient beings will be brought together in Great Harmony, without any obstructions at all.
(Refuge Chant from the Bodhi Monastery Liturgy)

For as long as space endures and living beings remain,
So too shall I remain to dispel the miseries of the world.
(from Shantideva's 'Way of the Bodhisattva', ch. 10 v. 55)

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be freed from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings never be parted from the supreme joy that is beyond all sorrow.
May all beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.
('The Four Immeasurables', popular in the Theravada traditions)

Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to put an end to them.
Dharmas are boundless. I vow to master them.
The Buddha Way is unattainable. I vow to attain it.
('The Four Great Vows', translation used by the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism)

Before a Meal:
This offering is the work of fruit and care,
I reflect upon my conduct. Have I truly earned my share?
Of the poisons of the mind, the most destructive one is greed.
As a medicine cures illness, I take only what I need.
To sustain my cultivation and to realize the way,
So I contemplate in gratitude on this offering today.
('The Five Contemplations' translation by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association)

Before Tea:
This cup of tea in my two hands,
mindfulness perfectly held.
My mind and body,
dwell in the very here and now.
(Tea Gatha, from the Plum Village Sangha)

Looking at the current 'state of the liturgy' I can say that this is not something I planned. For me, whatever I found very useful that resonated strongly with me was picked up and used. Lately, I've been delving a lot into the Plum Village liturgy called 'Chanting from the Heart'. Right now I consider it by far the the best English language Buddhist liturgy I've encountered. The perfect balance of precise spiritual language with deeply human and poetic tones: everything a liturgy should be!

Not sure if there ever will (or if there should be!) a 'universal' liturgy but it will be very interesting what people will come up with.

No-Coming, No-Going

Contemplation on No-Coming, No-Going
by Thich Nhat Hanh

This body is not me.
I am not limited by this body.
I am life without boundaries.
I have never been born,
and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
manifestations from my wondrous True Mind.

Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.

So laugh with me,
hold my hand,
let us say good-bye,
say good-bye to meet again soon.

We meet today.
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source every moment.
We meet each other in all forms of life.

Dharma Dictionary: Avalokiteshvara - अवलोकितेश्वर

Introduction.

Naming conventions around the world vary greatly but there is one thing that they almost all have in common: names are given to us just after we’re born or when we’re still very young. Every name has some meaning associated with it but this idea becomes especially important when we look at names associated with our spiritual lives. When people make a commitment to making their spiritual beliefs the center of their lives, quite often they take on a new, “religious” name to signify this. This practice is seen within many religious traditions, particularly when men and women receive ordination. The name that is given is often a reflection of the person’s background or aspirations. For example, Ven. Heng Sure, of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, was a stage actor prior to his ordination. When he met his teacher, Master Hsuan Hua, the master decided to give him the Dharma name ‘Heng Sure’, meaning ‘constantly real’ in Chinese. The reason for this is that an actor is someone who is concerned with something that’s ultimately not real. A monastic however, is someone who devotes their life to discovering and examining the true nature of reality.

A Dharma name is usually accompanied by some sort of title such as fa shi (Chinese for ‘Dharma teacher’), sramanera/sramaneri (Pali: novice monk/nun), upāsaka/upāsikā (Sanskrit for male/female lay follower). As you can imagine, there are many names and titles to be had and while some of these may be obscure, others are instantly recognizable. One of the oldest and most well known is that of the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva, Avalokiteshvara.

To begin, let’s first look at the title. Bodhisattva is usually translated as ‘enlightening being’ (bodhi = enlightenment/awakening, sattva = being). Similarly, mahāsattva (pronounced muh-huuh-sat-tva) can be rendered as ‘great/heroic being (mahā = great). The phrase ‘bodhisattva mahāsattva’ as a whole means ‘great enlightening being’.

The name of the bodhisattva (pronounced ‘uh-vuh-low-kit-esh-vara’) has an interesting history. It comes down to us from the Sanskrit and is composed of two parts. The first part, ‘avalokita’, means (1) ‘seen, viewed, observed, looking at, beholding’. The second part, “īshvara”, means “master, lord, king/queen, and supreme being”. The ‘ī’ in īshvara and the final ‘a’ in ‘avalokita’ change to an ‘e’ when the two parts are combined. This slight changing of sound is a common feature of Sanskrit grammar called sandhi. We see the same thing in English when we put an ‘a’ before a consonant (e.g. a car) but use ‘an’ before a vowel sound (e.g. an apple). ‘Avalokiteshvara’ therefore means “the lord who observes”.

‘Avalokiteshvara’ however, is a later form of the name (2) and earlier texts use the closely related form ‘Avalokitasvara’. Here, ‘avalokita’ has the same meaning but the ‘svara’ (from ‘svana’) means (3) “sound/noise”. Combining the two parts, we can translate it as “one who perceives/observes sound”. This meaning matches up with the Chinese rendering of the bodhisattva’s name as ‘Guan Shih Yin’ (觀世音). We’re now ready look at the being behind the name.

Avalokiteshvara is described as the bodhisattva who is foremost in the practice of compassion. This designation is intimately tied to his (4) practice of mindful, deep, unbiased, and insightful listening. In the Shurangama Sūtra (5), he describes this in detail, starting with the following verses:

First, I was united above with the fundamental, wonderfully enlightened mind of all the Buddhas of the ten directions, and I gained a strength of compassion equal to that of all the Buddhas, the Thus Come Ones.

Second, I was united below with all living beings in the six paths, and I gained a kind regard for all living beings equally.

Later in the sūtra, the Bodhisattva Manjushri, known as foremost in the practice of transcendent wisdom, praises Avalokiteshvara’s deep listening practice:

“I now say this, World Honored One,
Buddha, who has revealed the Saha world:
In this land the true substance of teaching
Resides in hearing the sounds purely.
If one wants to attain samadhi,
hearing is the best way to enter.
”Apart from suffering, liberation is found.
How excellent is he who contemplates
the world’s sounds!
”Throughout kalpas as numerous as Ganges’ sands,
He enters Buddhalands as many as fine dust motes.
Obtaining great power of self-mastery,
He bestows fearlessness on living beings”.

It’s easy to get lost in the loftiness of the above verses but the message being conveyed is simple: listening is powerful. Perhaps this might involve listening to a friend or loved one. Perhaps it involves listening to the complaints of co-workers. It can especially mean having someone around to listen to us. The kind of listening mentioned here is not simply interpreting a series of noises as words. To deeply listen means not only opening our ears but opening our hearts as well. So much trouble, from petty quarrels to terrible wars, arises simply because no one truly listens. Listening doesn’t mean we have to like or agree with what we hear. Listening also doesn’t mean that we have to necessarily respond or remain silent. We may have the noblest intentions and a pure heart but before we can act, before we can even begin to think about doing something, we must listen.

Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village Sangha has a wonderful chant that invokes the names of various bodhisattvas. Bodhisattva 'number one' is, surprise, surprise, Avalokiteshvara:

We invoke your name, Avalokiteshvara. We aspire to learn your way of listening in order to help relieve the suffering in the world. You know how to listen in order to understand. We invoke your name in order to practice listening with all our attention and open‑heartedness. We will sit and listen without any prejudice. We will sit and listen without judging or reacting. We will sit and listen in order to understand. We will sit and listen so attentively that we will be able to hear what the other person is saying and also what is being left unsaid. We know that just by listening deeply we already alleviate a great deal of pain and suffering in the other person.

***

(1) Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Motilal, 2005, reprint, pp. 103, 171
(2) The word ‘Īshvara’ is also an epithet for the Hindu god Shiva. It’s believed that the shift from ‘asvara’ to ‘īshvara’ may have been the result of the increasing influence Buddhism and Hinduism began to exert on each other as time passed in India. For a fascinating study, see Alexander Studholme’s “The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum”. SUNY Press, 2002
(3) Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Motilal, 2005, reprint, p. 1280
(4) In the ancient Indian sources, Avalokiteshvara is almost always referred to and represented either as a male or an androgynous figure. In East Asia however, the bodhisattva is usually represented as a female in the form of Guan Yin. Because this thread is focused on the Indian sources, the pronoun ‘him’ will be used.
(5) From the Buddhist Text Translation Society’s translation of the Shurangama Sūtra. The full text can be found online. They also have many other sutras posted up.

A Thousand Eyes

In love,
your lips should be silent.

Inside the heart,
you cook, boil, and burn.

No longer should you have
a single eye -
but you
become
a thousand eyes.

No longer should you have
a single ear-
but you become
a thousand ears.

-Mushtaq Isfahani in 'Love's Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition' Translated and edited by David and Sabrineh Fideler.

The End of Philosophy

New York Times columnist David Brooks has a brief but thought provoking Op-Ed piece on moral reasoning from an evolutionary perspective. Here's a snippet:

Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.

One problem with this kind of approach to morality, as Michael Gazzaniga writes in his 2008 book, “Human,” is that “it has been hard to find any correlation betweenmoral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.”

Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.

As Steven Quartz of the California Institute of Technology said during a recent discussion of ethics sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, “Our brain is computing value at every fraction of a second. Everything that we look at, we form an implicit preference. Some of those make it into our awareness; some of them remain at the level of our unconscious, but ... what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of value in our environment.”

Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don’t have to decide if it’s disgusting. You just know. You don’t have to decide if a landscape is beautiful. You just know.

When the Time Is Right

Upagupta, the disciple of Buddha, lay asleep on the dust by the city wall of Mathura.

Lamps were all out, doors were all shut, and stars were all hidden by the murky sky of August.

Whose feet were those tinkling with anklets, touching his breast of a sudden?

He woke up startled, and the light from a woman's lamp struck his forgiving eyes.

It was the dancing girl, starred with jewels, clouded with a pale-blue mantle, drunk with the wine of her youth.

She lowered her lamp and saw the young face, austerely beautiful.

"Forgive me, young ascetic," said the woman; "graciously come to my house. The dusty earth is not a fit bed for you."

The ascetic answered, "Woman, go on your way; when the time is ripe I will come to you."

Suddenly the black night showed its teeth in a flash of lightning.

The storm growled from the corner of the sky, and the woman trembled in fear.

......

The branches of the wayside trees were aching with blossom.

Gay notes of the flute came floating in the warm spring air from afar.

The citizens had gone to the woods, to the festival of flowers.

From the mid-sky gazed the full moon on the shadows of the silent town.

The young ascetic was walking in the lonely street, while overhead the lovesick koels urged from the mango branches their sleepless plaint.

Upagupta passed through the city gates, and stood at the base of the rampart.

What woman lay in the shadow of the wall at his feet, struck with the black pestilence, her body spotted with sores, hurriedly driven away from the town?

The ascetic sat by her side, taking her head on his knees, and moistened her lips with water and smeared her body with balm.

"Who are you, merciful one?" asked the woman.

"The time, at last, has come to visit you, and I am here," replied the young ascetic.

-from 'The Fruit Gathering' by Rabindranath Tagore