Zen Blog

After a police officer killed George Floyd last summer, large-scale protests and riots erupted through the city of Minneapolis, and violence, which was often instigated by white supremacists, spread throughout our neighborhoods. More than 1,300 properties were destroyed in the mayhem, and 100 buildings were burned to the ground entirely (including the police department’s third precinct station house). The total cost of the damage was estimated at $350 million. 

In the months that followed, community activists put together plans (such as The People’s Budget) to prevent such destruction from happening again, and many more took part in protests and other forms of direct action to make sure that the people with the power to enact change could not ignore these proposals. Yet, as the murder trial of former officer Derek Chauvin began, the City of Minneapolis, rather than investing in the community and addressing the cause of the problem, was spending public funds—with a projected price tag of more than $1 million—on fortifying government buildings and bringing in thousands of additional law enforcement officers. This plan does not protect the residents of Minneapolis; it protects the city officials who were widely criticized for their slow and ineffective response to the destruction at the time and now are seeking to avoid a similar situation during the trials. 

Those of us invested in community activism can become angry and impatient when we contemplate how much money and resources city leaders are funneling into property protections and police. We can lash out in our thoughts and actions because, despite numerous community conversations, those in positions of power still don’t seem to “get it.” But this reactive energy will not help us. Our rage keeps us focused on what could have been rather than on building the capacity to be wise, kind, and tenacious— all mind states that this work requires.

It’s not easy to let go of these afflictive emotions and move onto the next challenge. But we can begin by recognizing that our frustration is not entirely the fault of the city officials who ignored us. They bear full responsibility for the pain that they have caused and will continue to cause the community by refusing to listen to its needs. But they are only partly to blame for our frustration, which is fed by our attachments to the outcome that we had imagined. 

For over a thousand years, the Surangama Sutra, or the Sutra of the Indestructible, has been held in great esteem in the Mahayana Buddhist countries of East and Southeast Asia. Traditionally regarded as a practical manual for spiritual practice that will eventually lead to enlightenment, it gives instruction in the correct understanding of buddhanature, the potential within all beings to become a buddha. The sutra explains how and why this true nature is hidden within our ordinary experience of ourselves and of the world, and it shows how we can uncover this nature—and learn to recognize that it is our own true mind.

Much of the sutra consists of the Buddha Sakyamuni’s instructions to the monk Ananda, whose personal story provides a narrative frame for the entire discourse. Joined by several of his enlightened disciples, the Buddha shows Ananda how to turn the attention of his sense-faculties inward in order to achieve a deeply focused state of meditation known as samadhi. He tells Ananda that by practicing a particular form of samadhi—the aptly named Surangama Samadhi—he and anyone else who also maintains purity of conduct and develops right understanding, an element of the Buddha’s eightfold path, can gain an awakening that is equal to the awakening experienced by all buddhas. 

The Buddha asks Ananda to consider where his mind is located. Ananda says that his mind is to be found in his body, but the Buddha quickly disposes of this supposition. Ananda is left with the bewildering conclusion that his mind is neither inside his body, nor outside it, or somewhere between, or anywhere else. 

The Buddha then compounds his cousin’s confusion by stating that there are fundamentally two kinds of mind—first, the ordinary mind of which we are aware and that is entangled, lifetime after lifetime, in the snare of illusory perceptions and deluded mental activity; and second, the everlasting true mind, which is our real nature and which is identical to the fully awakened mind of all buddhas. The Buddha adds that it is because beings have lost touch with their own true mind that they are bound to the cycle of death and rebirth. 

Now that the existence of a true mind has been established, the Buddha explains  a way of practicing samadhi that leads to the true mind. He begins by bringing our attention to the simple fact that we are aware. Taking visual awareness as the paradigm, the Buddha examines awareness itself and demonstrates that, though things move in and through and out of the field of our visual awareness, the essence of our awareness itself does not move. Our awareness teems with objects but is not itself an object. In short, the essence of our sensory awareness is unchanging. It does not arise and disappear in response to objects that enter its scope, including the thoughts in our minds. 

Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Monk Rescued from Cave after Being Trapped for Days

Thai rescue workers said on Wednesday that they had freed a Buddhist monk trapped inside a flooded cave in Thailand’s Phitsanulok province, after he had ventured inside the cave to meditate. According to CNN, 46-year-old Phra Ajarn Manas was on a pilgrimage from another province and entered the Phra Sai Ngam cave on Saturday. An unseasonal rainstorm struck the area on Sunday and continued through Tuesday, flooding parts of the cave while Manas was inside, the local rescue unit said on its Facebook page. He was finally freed on Wednesday. Seventeen divers participated in the effort to find the monk. A similar rescue story made global headlines in 2018 with the rescue of 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in the northern Thai town of Chiang Rai. The coach and several of the boys ordained as novice Buddhist monks after their high-profile rescue. 

Tibetan Bikers Ride in Campaign to Bestow Indian Honors upon Dalai Lama 

Two Tibetans living in India, have embarked on a two-month motorcycle campaign in order to urge Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to nominate His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama for India’s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna award. Setting off from McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, Tsering Yeshi and Chime Tamdin, plan to travel to over 40 locations in India to collect signatures and stamps in support of the nomination, according to Phayul. Yeshi, who initiated the campaign, told Phayul that this honor should be conferred to His Holiness for his “lifelong work towards peace, compassion, non-violence and to recognize the Dalai Lama’s outstanding contribution to the cause of Tibet and the world.” The first destinations for the bikers include Tibetan settlements in Tashi Jong, Bir, and Chauntra.

Communal Matcha Drinking Changes Under COVID

During this year’s ochamori ceremony, the Saidaiji temple in Nara, Japan will break its 800-year-old tradition of serving matcha (powdered green tea) in huge bowls that take multiple people to lift, according to the Asahi Shimbun. To protect against the spread of the COVID-19 virus, each participant will drink from their own bowl, each 20 centimeters in diameter. The ceremony—which began during the Kamakura Period (1185–1333 CE) and is now held each January, April, and October—originated when a priest dedicated tea to the guardian shrine of Saidaiji in gratitude for restoring the temple. Sharing tea from a single bowl is said to lead to the realization of the interconnection of all beings. The temple assured participants that the ceremony is just as meaningful with each person drinking from their own bowl.

1000-Year-Old Avalokiteshvara Statue Recovered in India

The Archaeological Survey of India has recovered a 1000-year-old statue of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, at the site of an ancient Buddhist monastery in Bahoranpur, India, reported the Telegraph India. Archaeologists estimate that the statue dates back to the Pala dynasty, which lasted from the 8th to 12th century. A smaller statue of Avalokiteshvara was recovered earlier in the site’s excavation, but, at six feet tall, this is the largest statue found in the area so far.

Although there are many rules for writing haiku in Japanese, haiku in English needs only three: the 5-7-5 syllable form, the use of season words, and the requirement for an original “turn of thought.” If we wanted to imitate Japanese haiku, we would need many more rules. If we want to create haiku that capitalize on the unique possibilities for poetry in English, three is all we need.

The winning and honorable mention poems for this month’s challenges all danced within these basic parameters, breaking new ground for original haiku in English.

Congratulations to all!

You can submit a haiku for the April challenge here.

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“Chalo, chalo,” I urged the taxi driver through the winding turns. I was headed to a small house far from the touristy sections of Kathmandu, and the more chickens and goats we passed the more he’d realized he wasn’t going to find a return fare. When we finally pulled up alongside the house, a striking woman in a red sari and bright red lipstick walked out. Tipping the cabbie enough to mollify him, I followed her inside. The woman was Amira Mathai, a student of the late dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen, and I was here to study charya, a tantric dance that dates back a thousand years.

A few weeks before, in India, I attended a prayer ceremony held by Tibetan Buddhist master Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. I sat in a massive hall alongside a thousand monks all chanting the Tara sadhana (prayer), in front of a shrine piled high with offerings: paintings of Tara’s twenty-one aspects, bottles of olive oil and whiskey, Indian sweets, cookies, coconuts, and lots of marigolds. At the end of the ceremony, a dancer stepped forward, dressed in white and gold. She looked familiar and I realized I knew her as one of Rinpoche’s students. Usually laid back, her demeanor had completely changed. Her expressions and gestures morphed from serene to magnetizing to wrathful, and she held a tightly coiled energy I’d never noticed in her before. As the dance progressed, to my surprise, I found tears rolling down my face. Watching her glide through the movements shifted something in me that I couldn’t understand, let alone articulate. All I knew was that I wanted more. I asked my friend whom she had learned this from. A month later, I was at Amira’s door.

 Amira handed me a pair of chams—bells twisted around a rope—and taught me how to tie them tightly above my ankles. I sat on her couch, calves throbbing from the sensation of being bound, watching her students practice. Nepali high schoolers dressed in school uniforms, they giggled and pushed each other between dances. When they started dancing, however, they were transformed, the same way my friend had been. Once again I found myself in tears. I was bewildered. This was more tears than I’d seen in the last two years. Clearly, this dance affected me. I just didn’t know how or why. 

“Charya communicates directly with the five elements of the body,” Amira said, noticing my reaction. “It penetrates the body and works with the chakras.” She went on to explain that charya bypassed the rational brain entirely. It made sense. My “rational” mind didn’t understand my emotions at all. Perhaps they never had. This dance was reaching them in a way I never could.

 “The goal of the dancer is not just to invoke the dakini,” Amira said, talking about a sacred female spirit in Tibetan Buddhism. “By the end of the dance you are the dakini. This is what you have to believe.”