To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

-"To Be of Use" by Marge Piercy

Car Wisdom

The purpose of life
is to live it.

-Berkeley Bumper Sticker

MahaSangha News Online

Long a popular section in 'Buddhadharma' magazine, the MahaSangha News section has been spun off in the form of an open blog where Sanghas from around North America can post news about events going on in their communities. A link to MahaSangha news has been added to the side bars of this particular site under the 'Practice Centers and Organizations' heading. Be sure to check frequently for events of interest as well as to post any events of interest in your area.

Samsara According to The Temptations

Ball of Confusion
as performed by the Temptations

1, 2... 1, 2, 3, 4, Ow!
Eddie: People moving out, people moving in. Why, because of the color of their skin.
Run, run, run but you sure can't hide. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Vote for me and I'll set you free. Rap on, brother, rap on.

Dennis: Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the...(preacher.)
And it seems nobody's interested in learning but the...(teacher.)
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration, Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.
Ball of confusion. Oh yeah, that's what the world is today. Woo, hey, hey.

Paul:
The sale of pills are at an all time high.
Young folks walking round with their heads in the sky.
The cities ablaze in the summer time.
And oh, the beat goes on.

Dennis:
Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul.
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon.
Politicians say more taxes will solve everything.

Melvin:
And the band played on.
So, round and around and around we go.
Where the world's headed, nobody knows.
[Instrumental]
Oh, great GoogaMooga, can't you hear me talking to you.
Just a ball of confusion.
Oh yeah, that's what the world is today.
Woo, hey, hey.

Eddie:
Fear in the air, tension everywhere.
Unemployment rising fast, the Beatles new record's a gas.
Dennis:
And the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation.

Melvin:
And the band played on.
Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors,
Mod clothes in demand, population out of hand, suicide, too many bills,
Hippies moving to the hills. People all over the world are shouting, 'End the war.'

Melvin:
And the band played on.
[Instrumental]
Great GoogaMooga, can't you hear me talking to you.
Sayin'... ball of confusion.
That's what the world is today, hey, hey.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya.
Sayin'... ball of confusion.
That's what the world is today, hey, hey.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya.
Sayin'... ball of confusion.

A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change

This was forwarded to me by a few Venerable teachers and Dharma Friends. As we are all aware, the increasing burden we humans are placing on the planet will begin to manifest in very harmful ways. This declaration, composed by Bhikkuh Bodhi, David Loy, and British microbiologist John Stanley, serves as an acknowledge of the harm that climate change represents as well as an affirmation to commit ourselves to help live in a more harmonious way on the Earth. Our individual actions may seem very small when measured against the task we face but let us not forget that the great oceans are themselves are but many small drops of water.

Please pass this along to all this who might be intersted.

With Joined Palms,
Rob

Dharma Dictionary: Saṃsāra (संसार)

Introduction.

The great American Country singer Johnny Cash (1) was known as “the Man in Black” because many of his songs had a distinct melancholic feel. One of his most famous songs, sung as part of the “super band” The Highwaymen (2), is called…'The Highwayman'. The video and lyrics are below:

“The Highwayman” by The Highwaymen

I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again.

The last line of the song points to what the Buddha described as THE fundamental problem of human existence. What is this problem? It’s the problem of birth and death (3). Let’s sketch out a human life: we’re born, we grow up, we age, we start to get ill, and eventually we die. Sure, there may be TONS of things that happen in between these events but let’s face it, there’s no escaping these facts. If this sounds morbid or creepy, then imagine having to go through the process again, and again, and again, like “The Highwayman” says. Because he called it THE problem we have in life, the Buddha had much to say about this process of death and rebirth, known as saṃsāra.

Saṃsāra (pronounced ‘sum-saaruh’) is a Pali/Sanskrit word which means “going or wandering through, undergoing transmigration, course, passing through a succession of states, circuit of mundane existence, the world, secular life, worldly illusion, to walk or roam through, and to diffuse through” (4).

From where did saṃsāra arise, how did we get here, and when will it end? One of the key teachings of the Buddha was that existence has no First Cause (5), that is saṃsāra has no beginning and it has no end. We have died and been reborn an infinite number of times in the past and will continue to be reborn an infinite number of times in the future. Many people may think that this isn’t a bad thing at all, why would you want to “not exist” by leaving saṃsāra?

This is a common question that arises but another characterization of saṃsāra is that it’s a hopeless struggle because which we will always have to experience suffering in every single life. Saṃsāra also implies that we’re lost, wandering aimlessly from life to life. If you’ve ever been lost as a child in a mall or lost in an unfamiliar city/place, you know the feeling the fear and anxiety. When we’re lost, we become very vulnerable.

In English we have a phrase which describes saṃsāra quite well: a rat race. In the words of actress Lily Tomlin, “the problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat”.

So how does the Buddha describe saṃsāra? One short text, the Assu Sutta (Tears) gives a poignant simile:

"Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?... This is the greater: the tears you have shed...
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother. The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a father... the death of a brother... the death of a sister... the death of a son... the death of a daughter... loss with regard to relatives... loss with regard to wealth... loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released." (6)

In Buddhist art, a popular motif involves showing saṃsāra as a wheel and in later art, this wheel is usually depicted as being held tightly in the grip of Yama, the ancient Indian deity associated with death. (7)

All of these teachings and descriptions of saṃsāra may seem quite disheartening but there is one thing that we must always keep in mind: it is POSSIBLE to go beyond the cycle of birth and death and to end our suffering. When that happens then we will, “light up this world, like the moon set free from a cloud” (8).

***

(1) For a fantastic look at the life of The Man in Black, do check out his biopic “Walk the Line” (
(2) Aside from Johnny Cash, this group included Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson
(3) The topic of rebirth has quite often been controversial in the modern age and many practitioners don’t interpret “birth and death” literally but rather metaphorically. For simplicity’s sake however, I’ll stick to the classic definition which DOES take death and rebirth as a literal fact of life.
(4) Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 1119 Motilal Banarasidas Publishers, 2005 reprint, Samsara is also a perfume from Guerlain
(5) For more on the idea of cosmological beginning see Wikipedia’s discussion:
(6) Assu Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 15.3, translated from Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Available from Access to Insight.
(7) BuddhaNet has an awesome interactive description of the Wheel of Life from the Tibetan tradition.
(8) Dhammapada Ch. 25, verse 382, from “The Dhammapada”, translated by Gil Fronsal, Shambhala, 2005. p. 98

On Virtue

There is a saying about virtue:
She nestles in rough untroden rocks
And reigns a divine, sacred land.
Not all mortals can see her.
Only those,
whose burning desire in their heart
leads them to the greatest deeds

-Simonides of Ceos

Happy Vesak

Wishing everyone a Happy Vesak.

May all beings benefit from the teachings of the one who was born on this day, so many years ago.

Namo Triratna!

God Talk

NY Times columnist Stanley Fish presents a fascinating discussion of Terry Eagleton's new book, 'Reason, Faith, and Revolution'. The work discusses the recent clashes between science and religion and is quite critical of 'school-yard atheists' like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The piece delves into some very thought provoking ideas:

...And, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of “the telescope and the microscope” religion “no longer offers an explanation of anything important,” Eagleton replies, “But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It’s rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.”

Eagleton likes this turn of speech, and he has recourse to it often when making the same point: “[B]elieving that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world . . . is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.” Running for a bus is a focused empirical act and the steps you take are instrumental to its end. The positions one assumes in ballet have no such end; they are after something else, and that something doesn’t yield to the usual forms of measurement. Religion, Eagleton is saying, is like ballet (and Chekhov); it’s after something else...

Buddha in Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet -
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

-Rainer Maria Rilke in "Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Prose and Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke", translated and edited by Stephen Mitchell

A True Four-Fold Sangha

The Buddhist Channel recently had an interview with Ajahn Brahm, the well-known monk who currently resides in Australia. The interview, titled 'The Bhikkuni Question' deals with the attempts, hindrances, and future of reviving (or in some cases introducing) the Theravada Bhikkuni lineage. Here's an exerpt:

Is it true that since the Theravada bhikkhuni sangha 'died out' many centuries ago, it has been impossible to ordain new bhikkhunis correctly according to Vinaya? And are Thai bhikkhunis who have been ordained since the Theravada bhikkhuni sangha, which was restored in Sri Lanka [in the late 1990s with Mahayana bhikkhunis as preceptors], not legitimate Theravada bhikkhunis?

That is a myth. In Thailand, we sometimes spend too much of our time believing our teachers, believing accepted wisdom rather than investigating and challenging. I thought, too, when I was a young monk in Thailand that the bhikkhuni order couldn't be legally revived. But having investigated and studied, I've found there is no problem at all. Someone like Bhikkhu Bodhi [a respected Theravada scholar-monk] has researched the Pali Vinaya and his paper is one of the most eloquent I've seen - fair, balanced, comes out on the side of 'It's possible, why don't we do this?' I've helped to publish the Thai translation of Bhikkhu Bodhi's paper, which will be distributed to monks and other interested people in Thailand.

One of the biggest myths is that bhikkhunis in the Mahayana tradition are somehow separated from the Theravada. But the truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as a Mahayana Vinaya. In all the Mahayana schools, they follow mostly a Dharmagupta Vinaya. Dharmagupta is one of the Theravada sects. They follow Theravada Vinaya. So the bhikkhunis we see even now in Taiwan and China is a lineage that is unbroken since the time of the Buddha.

In addition, there is another way of reading the Vinaya to say that the Buddha left an opportunity open for just the bhikkhus to ordain bhikkhunis and revive the bhikkhuni sangha.

Given this possibility in the Vinaya, we can argue that point as scholars, but also out of compassion. You have to follow the rules, but if there is a possible interpretation, which is the kind one, that's the one we should follow because that's what the Buddha would have encouraged us to do.

It was very easy before to say it can't be done. Now the argument is not whether it can or can't be done, but why it should or shouldn't be done.