Times of great uncertainty and disruption call for an appropriate response. An Ecosattva is a being committed to protecting and serving all, including our precious earth. We can all walk this path, responding to the cry of the earth with clarity and dedication to the interdependent wellbeing of ourselves, our communities and our planet. In this talk, we will explore how compassion and equanimity work together to keep us balanced, grounded and resourced. Without equanimity, we can engage to an extent that we burn out or get lost in the situation. And fierce compassion gives us the courage to stand up to injustice while also grounding our equanimity in the real suffering that is ever-present so that our hearts stay open and connected to the wholesome nectar of loving kindness and deep care.

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a dharma teacher who teaches in the Plum Village Zen tradition and in the Vipassana tradition. Living as an ordained nun for 15 years, she trained closely with her teacher, Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Her teaching focuses on activists, educators, artists, youth and families, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and includes the interweaving of art, play, nature, ecology, and embodied mindfulness practice.

The post Taking the Ecosattva Path: Equanimity and Fierce Compassion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

One of my early memories related to books is that of my mother reading me a book about wizardry—young wizards from Long Island, to be precise—before sleep. At one point, she stops and struggles to pronounce an extremely long, multisyllabic name of a cosmic force that temporarily arrives in our dimension to help the main characters. “I don’t know how to read this,” she admits. “Is that phrase in the book?” I ask doubtfully.

The book charms me so much that I quickly start reading it myself—I’m too impatient to wait for it to be read aloud by someone else in sessions (same reason I’m still not particularly good with audiobooks). Eventually, I reread the book—So You Want to Be a Wizard, by Diane Duane—more than a hundred times before losing my first copy (extremely well-worn by then) during a big family move from the Urals to Moscow.

Although it was years before I could find another copy of the same novel (now always traveling with me as a digital book), I continued reading other parts of the same young adult series. More importantly, the book’s key ideas deeply impacted me, brewing and normalizing the outline of my life and work—things that stemmed from my inner predispositions. 

So You Want to Be a Wizard begins with a 13-year-old girl named Nita finding a wizardry manual while trying to escape a beating from a school bully. The manual she picks up is not merely a collection of spells—rather, it’s a self-updating guide that gives one access to the cosmic database of wizardry. The price to pay for that access (and the energy of wizardry itself) is taking an oath to use magic only to protect life and ease the pain of beings: essentially, to slow down entropy and to protect all who live.

Nita does not hesitate to take the oath, and neither did I in those days—reading it out loud numerous times in the hopes of obtaining similar access to special powers beyond the ordinary. While my ability to control natural elements, travel across universes, or manipulate the laws of physics never arrived, the underlying ethic of protecting life stayed deep within me as an aspirational wish until, some years later, at the age of 18, I took the bodhisattva precepts from a visiting Tibetan lama. The wizard’s oath turned into an oath of bodhicitta, now reviewed and contemplated daily: the vow to fully uncover the amazing potential within, to fully wake up for the benefit of all beings, and, on the road toward that, to practice and perfect the six amazing qualities of a bodhisattva: generosity, ethical discipline, and so on, culminating with the wisdom that sees emptiness and interdependence in union. The bodhisattva precepts guide one in applying those qualities to daily life to protect and nurture beings, while the “cosmic bodhisattvas” (like Kuan Yin or Kshitigarbha) provide a steady inflow of inspiration, and, for some people, miracles on the path. 

Unsurprisingly, I remember Duane’s formulation of the wizard’s oath almost as well as the words used in the actual bodhisattva precepts. Just like the precepts expressed in slightly different words across the different traditions, the wizardly oath to protect the world can also be shared in different ways. In one of the later books in the series, Duane offers an alternative recension of the same oath, formulated in this alternate way for a young autistic prodigy:

Life
more than just being alive
(and worth the pain)

but hurts:
fix it
grows:
keep it growing 

wants to stop:
remind
check / don’t hurt
be sure

One’s watching: 
get it right!
later it all works out,
honest

meantime,
make it work
now
(because now
is all you ever get:
now is)

Nita’s journey as a wizard quickly puts her at odds with the one force representing the origin of all problems in the universe–the Lone Power–which represents and embodies the wish to isolate, to exclude oneself from the interdependence and interpenetration of things. Encounters with this force, which sometimes manifests in its menacing avatars and sometimes simply acts through our in-dwelling afflictions, are never fully unsympathetic: even the original troublemaker is shown to be worthy of eventually being reintegrated into the boundless web of life. 

Since this process of protecting and rebuilding is all about supporting and strengthening the interconnectedness of life, Nita is inevitably supported by numerous companions, including a fellow teenage wizard Kit (who is himself bullied for being an immigrant), family members, and numerous other wizards from across the universe—human, animal, alien, straight, cisgender, transgender, and multigender from numerous species and numerous corners of the world. That was a powerful lesson for me in finding allies—who might be nothing like you and yet full of love—anywhere and everywhere.

Like everyone striving to master an art, Nita and Kit rely on the support of senior wizards, who, although not showing up as teachers per se (since the wizardly manual provides all the relevant information), still act as guides and advisors. The art of wizardry is embodied in these experienced practitioners; what seems novel and somewhat confusing to a beginner permeates the life of an adept with effortless ease. Showing by personal example is, inescapably, a huge part of Buddhist practice. My trajectory in the dharma would certainly not be as long or joyful if, as an interpreter, I didn’t get a chance to accompany senior practitioners and observe their very way of being, so richly imbued with dharmic qualities and insights. 

Interestingly enough—for my young queer mind—the primary advisors of the young wizards turn out to be two men in their 30s, cohabitating in a Long Island house with a few dogs and other wizardly pets (including a talking parrot). Tom and Carl, as they are called, are described as handsome and broad-shouldered, and no particular explanation is given for their shared living situation—except that they work and live together and enjoy the respect of their neighbors and fellow wizards alike. 

What’s up with that, the readers later asked? Was this a revolutionary literary step for a children’s book originally published in 1986? In retrospect, I believe so. When asked about the romantic implications of Tom and Carl’s situation, Duane politely declined to elaborate, explaining that the two are based on two specific friends and citing the need to respect their privacy (and their actual familial arrangement, which might be completely different). Over time, she instead introduced a wide range of openly queer characters that joined the series’ cast or were always present in her novels aimed at adult audiences. However, for me personally, a basic level of representation was already right there from the very first book: two men can cohabitate, do wizardry together, help others, and adopt pets. As someone who’s relatively private about his personal life, I find that level of detail quite sufficient—and extremely relatable. 

Quite importantly, in Duane’s universe, Tom and Carl’s situation is simply not an issue of anyone’s concern. She creates an alternate reality, similar to the one in the sitcom Schitt’s Creek in which homophobia is not given a place. This equally pertains to the issue of being trans: gender-affirming magical transformations are described as absolutely permissible in the eyes of the Powers that preside over magic, because why not? An author of YA books who honors trans people in her work? I bow to that.

I keep revisiting Duane’s novels to this day. My other favorite in the series, A Wizard Abroad, unpacks Irish mythology and introduces the concept of a land haunted by old energetic traumas (something not unheard of in the chöd lineage of Buddhist practice), all against the backdrop of Nita developing her first crush. This book and a few others remain part of my lunch table collection, and I still find their moral lessons personally pertinent.

I’m forever grateful for how much one book can do in offering both representation and ethical guidance.

What’s more, I’m forever grateful for how much one book can do in offering both representation and ethical guidance. The wizard’s oath and its ethos did not make me a Buddhist, and Tom and Carl certainly did not make me queer. They just helped me normalize what I already knew about myself and ethics, offering a ray of hope and a glimpse into something bigger. One thoughtfully written book about kindness and interdependence was enough for that (though we need hundreds and thousands more). In much the same way, when fellow queer people ask me whether there’s anything in Buddhism to support the validity of our existence, I usually just need to quote one powerful ally—such as Garchen Rinpoche, with his simple and powerful words on queerness—to give them hope. Yes, the more representation and support, the better. But even one person performing the truest wizardry of kindness, the wizardry of living and letting live, is sometimes enough to keep us going.

The post Sometimes, You Need Only One Book appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

At the door of Sagely Monastery in Long Beach, California, I am greeted by the smell of junipers cutting through the salty ocean air. There is an eerie quiet. The doors are shut, and there is no bell. The monastery, facing the Pacific Ocean, was closed to the public in March 2020, when COVID-19 hit. But even in normal times few visitors would go inside. Most would come to see something else—a statue of the Virgin Mary, preserved by the resident clergy decades ago, that has become a rare example of a place of worship for both Catholics and Buddhists.

Each week, hundreds flock to the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Redondo Avenue to pray, offer flowers, and give thanks to the monastery’s sparkling white statue of Mary on a half shell, known by locals as “Mary of the Sea.” She has become a magnet not just for Catholics and Buddhists but also for people of other religions, tourists, homeless people—and a self-proclaimed guardian who tells stories of miracles and angels appearing in selfies.

Sagely acquired the statue in the early 1990s when the organization that runs the monastery, the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, purchased the former site of a Catholic Carmelite convent. “It’s a famous landmark in Long Beach, because the nuns lived and cultivated here for forty years,” wrote DRBA historian Helen Woo in In Memory of the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, an anthology of writings about the Chinese Buddhist teacher who founded the association after coming to the United States in 1959. “When we bought the place, we asked them to leave the statue of the Virgin Mary in the front, because we also worship her, as Guanyin.”

It may be an oversimplification to say Mary and Guanyin are one and the same, but there are similarities. Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, is a guardian of mariners and is often depicted in female form wearing all white (such as the great Guanyin statue in Chiang Rai, Thailand).

“Guanyin is portrayed as a figure of compassion and kindness,” said a nun who lives at Sagely Monastery (she preferred not to give her name). “She reaches out to all beings—to whoever needs help. She is very responsive.

“We say her name and practice her teaching every day,” she added. “That is one of our main practices here.”

For many who visit the shrine, there is no sharp line separating Buddhism and Catholicism.

“It’s no problem to believe in her,” said Lisa, a 70-year-old Buddhist practitioner who was born in Saigon. She has been coming to pray to Mary from her home in Orange County for more than five years, having found that the prayers relieve sadness. “Whether it is Jesus or Buddha doesn’t matter. If you believe, you believe.”

Laura Nguyen of Lawndale visits every week carrying fresh flowers for Mary. A Vietnamese American who grew up Buddhist, Ngyuen started coming in 2020 when her husband was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Today, after treatment at a Los Angeles hospital, he is cancer-free. Now she brings the flowers “just to give thanks.”

“I think the Virgin Mary teaches the same thing the Buddha teaches us. They are both very generous,” Nguyen said. “In our house, we have a shrine to the Buddha because of my culture. But I gave my daughter permission to change her religion to Catholicism. It’s all the same. It’s all about love, caring, support, and faith.”

In a way, Mary of the Sea has endured as a monument to the feelings of unity and solace that visitors experience in its presence.

“Anyone can find peace there,” said the Sagely nun. “It is an international spot of prayer, not just for one religion.

The post Virgin Mary Bodhisattva appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The greatest love and compassion is wanting to help all beings. Because beings are limitless—immeasurable—our love and compassion become immeasurable. That’s how we develop bodhicitta — bodhi meaning “enlightenment,” and citta meaning “mind.” We all have this enlightened nature, no matter who we are. Even crocodiles, ants, and mosquitoes. All of us have this wonderful enlightened nature. Nature-wise, we are equal and pure. Our fundamental nature is like the sky.

Ignorance creates this world, body, subject and object, grasping, perception, and concepts—all of which becomes like a prison. Then, we become the crocodiles or humans. But, on the fundamental level, everybody has an opportunity or chance, and wishing to help all beings fully connect with their true nature is bodhicitta: the greatest purpose. 

Now I would like to read some verses from the first chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva, [by Indian Buddhist monk Shantideva]. 

Those who wish to crush the many sorrows of existence,

Who wish to quell the pain of living beings,

Who wish to have experience of a myriad joys

Should never turn away from bodhicitta.

— Shantideva’s chapter 1, verse 8

Shantideva is saying that if we really want to help countless beings to be free from suffering and problems, and if we really want to help other beings connect with happiness and the causes of happiness, then we need bodhicitta. Once we develop bodhicitta—once we set that intention, purpose, or motivation—then all action comes automatically.

In ancient times, there was a saying: “When the king goes, all the retinue goes, too.” Another example: when the sun rises, the sunlight comes along with it. In other words, things come slowly—not right away. But eventually, bodhicitta comes spontaneously. So if we really want to help others, we first help ourselves to develop this great, genuine motivation. Then, after that, whatever we do becomes genuine, and it will have a really deep impact upon others.

Should bodhicitta come to birth

In those who suffer, chained in prisons of samsara,

In that instant they are called the children of the blissful one,

Revered by all the world, by gods and humankind.

— Shantideva’s chapter 1, verse 9

Although you are in samsara, and it looks like you are weak, have a lot of mental afflictions, have karmic imprints, and so many different things, the moment you develop bodhicitta for one second, you become precious. You become the child of all the enlightened ones and a source of respect even for gods, goddesses, and all beings in the world. 

There is a story that Shakyamuni Buddha was, in a previous life, a potter who was born into a family of potters. He saw one buddha, and he was so happy and inspired, he offered that buddha a piece of clay pottery. He really wanted to develop bodhicitta. “I would like to be like you. You are helping many beings. From today on, I really want to help all beings and to help connect all beings to their true nature. Therefore, I am going to follow the path.”

In that instant, the Buddha was developed. Just one second was the cause for enlightenment of  Shakyamuni Buddha. He came into this world because of that instant motivation. Shakyamuni Buddha gave great teachings, which many people followed to achieve liberation. Just one second was the cause of all that. 

For like the supreme substance of the alchemists,

It takes our impure flesh and makes of it

The body of a Buddha, jewel beyond all price.

Such is bodhicitta. Let us grasp it firmly!

— Shantideva’s chapter 1, verse 10

Here, Shantideva is giving the example of alchemy. This comes from an ancient story of a special potion or magic, perhaps liquid. Whenever this liquid touches iron, the iron becomes gold. If we had that now, it would be good, no? I am just kidding. But we can use any example. Similarly, bodhicitta is almost like alchemy. Once we have bodhicitta, even actions that are neither positive nor negative, but neutral, become meaningful. Even when we sleep or are just wandering here and there, virtue continues to develop because of bodhicitta.

This is true even though we are born with this flesh and blood body, with suffering, crazy monkey mind, and sometimes diseases. Life is up and down, like the waves of the ocean—or like the stock market. We all make mistakes. But if we develop bodhicitta, then we are on a great journey—a great, meaningful path. Eventually, bodhicitta will transform our lives, minds, and bodies, like alchemy.

Since the boundless wisdom of the only guide of beings

Perfectly examined and perceived its priceless worth,

Those who wish to leave this state of wandering

Should hold well to this precious bodhicitta.

– Shantideva’s chapter 1, verse 11

Here, the meaning is that once you develop bodhicitta, you become the helper of beings, the servant of beings, or the leader to help other beings. Whatever you call it, the meaning is the same. What you need is the motivation of bodhicitta. Once you hold this bodhicitta, then your benefit to other beings comes spontaneously. Once a person has bodhicitta, then whoever sees that person feels the impact. What we learn from words is only seven percent, right? The other 93 percent is nonverbal. That is when the connection comes. That is when positive influence and genuine transformation comes. 

All other virtues, like the plantain tree,

Produce their fruit, but then their force is spent.

Alone the marvelous tree of bodhicitta

Constantly bears fruit and grows unceasingly.

– Shantideva’s chapter 1, verse 12

Whatever virtuous deeds we do without bodhicitta—even generosity, social work, or meditation—the benefit is limited. That is because you have set your mind to a meaning that has limitations. Normally, people think, “I just want to help, that is all.” Or, “I want to help just to free myself from samsara.” Or, “I want to help because it is a good thing to do.” Or “I want to help because I see there is some problem. Maybe I will just help remove that problem, and that is all.” But if you help others through bodhicitta, that helping of others becomes a wheel of accumulating virtue that purifies negativity, and gives us greater and greater karma that can enable us to help more genuinely and powerfully in the future.

Therefore, once we develop bodhicitta, the results never cease. They come back here and there, again and again. That is because you have set the motivation: “I want to help all beings until they fully recognize their true nature and are freed from suffering completely.” 

If you want to go somewhere, you may think, “Okay, I want to go from here to there in one hour.” You have to set that goal or motivation. Then the action is finished. After one hour, you will finish the journey. If you set a goal of one thousand miles, then you will keep going because of that motivation. You will look for solutions, have courage even though there will be obstacles, and you might think of different ways you can travel that one thousand miles. But if you do not have the motivation in the first place, even if you have a good car, maybe a jet flight, maybe even a rocket, you will not reach that place. Likewise, the motivation of bodhicitta is really important.

Now we will do a simple meditation practice.

Please keep your spine loosely straight. Feel your body, and relax your mind and body together. Appreciate that “I am going to learn bodhicitta — love, compassion, and bodhicitta. This is wonderful.

The post Reading <i>The Way of the Bodhisattva</i> with Mingyur Rinpoche appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Some years ago I was talking to a friend, who is also a Zen teacher, about prayer. He mentioned that he had been in the practice of talking to Kuan Yin, [the bodhisattva of compassion], every day for some time until he realized that he was talking to himself and decided to stop. This left me with a question: why should he have stopped just because he was talking to himself? 

Kuan Yin, also known as Kanzeon and Avalokiteshvara, is one of the cosmic, or archetypal, bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism. These larger than life figures are beings dedicated to the salvation of all beings, whose presence and powers are cosmic in scope. Kuan Yin, Jizo, Manjushri, Tara, and dozens of others have been real and important presences in Buddhist history. 

Throughout Buddhist stories they have been mythologized, prayed to, depicted in Buddhist art, worshipped, channeled, and even identified with. Some Buddhists think they are real, and others view them as products of the mind—focuses of meditation or imagined embodiments of archetypal forces. Still others refuse to make a clear distinction between them being real and being unreal, as in the case of one Tibetan teacher who, when asked if cosmic bodhisattvas are real, replied, “Yes, but they know they are not.” 

It is, I think, natural, when one takes up a Mahayana practice like devotion to a cosmic bodhisattva or the deity yoga practices of Tibetan Buddhism, to wonder if the being one is imagining is real or not. Certainly this question occurred to me when I was experimenting with Tibetan deity yoga practice where one imagines a Buddha or bodhisattva and identifies with them. 

As for myself, I concluded—with all due respect to others who view it differently—that cosmic bodhisattvas are imaginary characters who Buddhists have invested with a degree of power that may be transpersonal. In other words, although I don’t believe Kuan Yin is an objectively real being outside of human minds, I believe her power transcends that which I give her with my own personal mind. I think there is room for mystery here. Has Kuan Yin really appeared to lost pilgrims in the mountains of Asia and guided them home, as many have reported? Maybe she has, even being a “mere” product of human minds. 

This way of viewing the bodhisattvas is similar to the way archetypes of the collective unconscious function in the psychological theories of psychiatrist Carl Jung, who in fact invented the term “archetype” I have been using here. Archetypes are imaginary beings, yet they exist outside of any particular human mind and have a certain autonomy. They function within the collective psyche and the world due to the mysterious powers of our collective human mind. Jung developed a way of accessing the figures of our unconscious-—both archetypal ones and more local, personal symbols, in a practice he called “active imagination.” It consists of actively dialoguing with symbolic figures who are invited to appear in one’s imagination. “Active imagination is distinct from fantasy,” wrote Jung, “meaning that the images encountered in active imagination have a life of their own and that the symbolic events develop according to their own logic.” Jung himself had a long series of conversations with a being called Philemon, which he recorded in his Red Book. The technique was further developed by Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson, whose approach informs my own practice. “Active imagination is a special way of using the power of the imagination to develop a working relationship between the conscious mind and the unconscious,” wrote Johnson in Inner Work. 

Having practiced and led active imagination sessions myself, I wondered, could bodhisattvas be accessed this way? Within the paradigm of active imagination, the bodhisattva is a figure that embodies and channels the wisdom they represent to us. They become a way to access the wisdom we hide from ourselves—the wisdom that is unconscious. I thought this was worth an experiment, and I asked another Zen friend of mine which bodhisattva I should talk to. In true Zen fashion, he gave me a wise and surprising answer. He thought I should talk to Fudo. 

Fudo Myo-o 

Fudo is depicted as a fierce warrior, a manifestation of the wisdom mind of the primordial Buddha. He is a guardian—a defender of boundaries and an incinerator of obstacles to enlightenment, often depicted carrying a sword and a noose. 

He would not have been my first choice. 

I was thinking of Jizo, the gentle monk-like bodhisattva who protects children and the lost, ferrying them through darkness. The more I thought about Fudo, though, as well as my own struggles to maintain good boundaries in my life, and my longstanding struggle with certain persistent obstacles, the more I thought Fudo might indeed be just right. I decided the only way to decide would be to talk to him. 

Following the protocol for an active imagination session, I sat down somewhere quiet, closed my eyes, and imagined myself entering a space that symbolizes my own unconscious mind. I walked down a stone spiral staircase inside a mountain, into a dark, circular space. There in the center, luminous with fire, was Fudo. I asked him questions and listened to the responses. In this practice you do not deliberately imagine a reply from the being, but rather wait and let them reply in a way that feels autonomous. This does actually happen and the being often says surprising and sometimes shocking things which, by virtue of the logic of the exercise, get around your natural ego filters. By the end of our discussion I was convinced Fudo was the right choice to be my interlocutor. 

I vividly imagined myself walking over a green field towards a huge tree, which had a spiral staircase in its trunk that led into the ground. I walked down the spiral into a very dark place where there was a cavern with a simple, empty altar. I left flowers and incense and then invited Fudo to appear. He did, hovering over the altar, surrounded in flames, his body bronze. I asked him what message he had for me.

“You have to be willing to die,” he said. 

“How do I do that?”

“You need to die to the things you’re clinging to. Let go of the things you’re carrying. Let them burn away. Be willing for my flames to burn them to ash.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“Wait patiently through the pain and anxiety that arises. Trust me, I’ll burn them away without hurting you. You will emerge on the other side stronger.” 

I felt carried, or supported by Fudo, who had the look of a fierce but wise and loyal general within the flames. “I’m here for you,” he said, tapping a staff on the ground, like a loyal and strong general speaking to his leader. I thanked Fudo and left an offering again, then walked up the spiral and out of the tree. Knowing the next step was to take action, I thought of things I needed to let go of. A relationship where I am taking excessive responsibility for the other person and the relationship itself. Pet pleasures that take away from my meditation time. I decided that in the week ahead I would work on both, and I would remember Fudo’s advice to wait in the flames while these things burnt away. 

For five days I met with Fudo in my internal sacred space, each time talking with him and listening to what he had to say, then leaving imaginary offerings (a Buddhist touch) and walking back up the stairs to the virtual forested ground above. During those days, Fudo quickly became my guide and friend in setting stronger boundaries in my practice and life, and being more willing to be fierce in confronting the obstacles that I say I want to let go while still keeping just a pocketful of around in case I need them. 

My conclusion: Buddhist practice and active imagination are a fruitful fusion. Especially, but not exclusively, for those who would like to relate to cosmic bodhisattvas but who, like me, are not of a devotional bent, it opens a unique pathway. 

Here are some brief instructions on doing this experiment for yourself. [For a deeper dive I recommend the book Inner Work by Robert A. Johnson, where the following steps are set out].  

1. Preparation Get writing materials ready and then sit somewhere quiet and private and close your eyes. Imagine yourself entering into the depths of your own mind. You might picture this as walking into a forest glade, or into a cave or a temple, or down a spiral staircase into a cavern (my favorite). 
2. Invitation Imagine the bodhisattva or spiritual figure you want to speak to, or invite them to appear. Don’t worry if you experience some mental static or false starts. Keep trying until you feel that they are present, or at least that a clear mental image of some kind appears. Ask them if they are who you want to talk to. If they say yes, keep going. If not, invite who you want to appear. 
3. Dialogue Once they appear, begin asking them questions. I often start with, “What do you have to teach me?” or a more specific question arising from challenges in my spiritual practice. I will ask questions until it feels right to stop, or until mental static takes over, as happens sometimes. Then I leave an offering, or make some other gesture of gratitude or respect,  and imagine myself leaving the space. 
4. Embodiment I then write down what I saw and the conversation as clearly as possible. Johnson recommends integrating what you’ve learned into your life through action, making changes, or a physical ritual of some kind.

One warning: Active Imagination is not possession or contact with a higher authority. It’s a dialogue between the conscious mind and a guide or symbolic force. According to both Jung and Johnson, the ego, with its sense of ethics and values, should remain in charge. The job of the ego is not to submit to the entities encountered in the practice, but to responsibly integrate what they have to say with ethical responsibility and common sense. On the one hand this means one doesn’t have to, and in fact shouldn’t, uncritically listen to whatever they have to say. On the other hand this does mean one is allowed to talk back! 

The post Talking to the Bodhisattva Inside  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Jizo (JPN., “earth womb”) is a bodhisattva known for helping beings in the realms of the dead. Known as Kshitigarbha in Sanskrit and Dizang in Chinese, this bodhisattva often carries a pilgrim’s staff and a cintamani, a gem that can illuminate the darkest corners of hell. He is depicted in a standing posture or, less often, sitting on a lotus. Unlike most bodhisattvas, who are shown wearing richly adorned clothing to indicate their exalted status, Jizo has a shaved head and wears the simple robes of a monk.

In one of his past lives, Jizo was a young woman who traveled to hell to rescue her suffering mother and subsequently vowed to save all beings suffering in these realms. The story became popular, and Jizo became associated with death, dying, and the realms of the dead, including judging the dead and guiding the virtuous to Pure Lands. While death may be the greatest journey, however, Jizo also protects pilgrims and other travelers on their earthly excursions. This explains his simple garb—like those he watches over, he is dressed for a long and arduous trip.

The Kshitigarbha Sutra relates the bodhisattva’s deeds in the various hells, which are described in excruciating detail. It also expounds on the bodhisattva’s filial piety by relating how the Buddha once traveled to a heavenly realm to teach the dharma to his mother. Some chapters describe how rituals should be conducted to honor departed ancestors and pray for fortunate rebirths.

In Japan, Jizo has taken on a special significance as the protector of children, particularly those who have been miscarried, aborted, or stillborn. As part of the mourning ceremony known as Mizuko Kuyo, statues of Jizo are often adorned by grieving parents with children’s accessories, including bibs, caps, and toys. Sometimes six statues of Jizo are presented side by side, representing the six realms from which he can rescue suffering souls.

The post Who Is Jizo? appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

This May, my husband Michael and I met our young adult children in New York City. Besides enjoying walking through museums of art, we saw a metropolis waking up from its long pandemic shock and slumber, re-creating itself in a new era. 

We learned about the concerns, worries, and excitements of our children and their friends. I, for one, found out there is a huge amount of uncertainty in the big city—a re-shuffling of values, great beauty, and plenty of horror at the same time. When I saw so many living in the street, stores boarded up, and countless others seemingly aimless, wandering around, I felt a deep ache in my heart.

How can we live the Bodhisattva path: the path in which we see ourselves as part of the interdependent, unified field of life that leads us to recognize how important it is to be fully present to our suffering world? That seems what the world needs, from all of us. 

It helps to feel love for ourselves and others, as well as to experience the whole interdependent field of awareness. How do we do this in the long run, in a deep way, so that such an attitude becomes sustainable? How can we walk our world and hold that kind of attitude? 

We need to find a path, a heart-centered approach, that is informed by Western as well as Buddhist psychology and practice, and any other wisdom tradition that can contribute. We need to find a path that is complex yet simple, so we, as humans, can easily become helpful and useful for the evolution of our world. 

First, we need to find support: a mentor or perhaps a caring community. Then, we must learn to rest our minds in the heart. As we get to know that feeling in our heart center, that place becomes a stable base. From there, we can set up a meditation that allows us to feel the whole field of experience. Every time we get pulled out of the wholeness of the heart-field into a thought, emotion, or painful sensation, we learn to reorient ourselves to the wholeness of the field, where we can rest. We learn to hold both the depth of our feelings as well as the spaciousness of the field around us. 

As we become grounded in our hearts, we naturally feel kindness and compassion. From there, we can expand those feelings to the field of awareness. The heart is the center at every level. 

The deeper our love for the world gets, the more motivated we become to find solutions to address suffering. 

When we have a really open heart and experience situations we cannot figure out, then we naturally try to grow in such a way that we develop the complexity and capacity necessary to be of support. This growth shows a high degree of ego development in Western psychology, as well as what we call bodhicitta in Buddhist psychology. Now it becomes possible to touch into the ground of being, the web of life, to feel a sense of belonging and connection, and to help. 

The bigger our heart is, the more permeable the structure of our self, and the more we can think beyond our self-interest. Slowly, our world transforms into a place all of us, as people on the planet, can feel at home.

The post How to Follow the Bodhisattva Path Without Burning Out appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When George Floyd’s murderer, former police officer Derek Chauvin, was found guilty on all charges on April 21, 2021, the world breathed a sigh of fleeting relief. I sighed too, but the breath was not my own. The emanation was an ancestral exhale for accountability, and it rattled my foundation in a mixture of grief and frustration. There was no joy. There was no rest. There was no peace.  

Four days before the prosecution rested in the Chauvin case, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot by a Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer who mistook her own gun for a taser. Just over a week later, Andrew Brown, Jr., 42, would be shot in the back of the head while driving away from police in North Carolina.  Between these killings, Adam Toledo, 13, was shot to death by an officer in Chicago, and Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, was fatally shot by an officer in Ohio. For many Black, indigenous, and other people of color, every shooting is retraumatizing.

Police brutality, combined with historical trauma’s cumulative effects, structural racism, health disparities, disadvantage, and poverty, all negatively impact African Americans. We are affected on a deeply cellular level, and our suffering is a bitter seduction. Untreated, pain feeds despair, an idol to our suffering—but there is a path forward. We can find our way by embracing and exploring African Americans who were bodhisattvas, and as such, provide pathways to heal our collective, historical trauma.  

A bodhisattva is someone who aspires to be a buddha but delays reaching nirvana in order to help others reach enlightenment. By extension, we might consider the Black Bodhisattvas to be those of African and African American descent who, by example, lead us toward a path of liberation, provide inspiration, direction, and healing. 

The Black Bodhisattva and first African American woman to speak publicly about women’s rights was Maria W. Stewart [1803-1879], who urged us to “possess the spirit of independence” and “sue for your rights.” Stewart wrote these words in 1831, in a pamphlet that was distributed before her public speaking engagements. She spoke to mixed crowds of both Blacks and whites, men and women, which was uncommon at the time. Stewart’s call to legal action is an example of the preparation and tools to confront white supremacy. This struggle will throw innumerable challenges as long as white supremacy is allowed to inflict its dangerous, oppressive destruction on Black and brown bodies and livelihood. Every stage of the struggle for justice will be met with a counterattack designed to preserve the status quo. The challenge is to be increasingly more skillful at managing emotional pain and equipping ourselves with the instruments to address inequality without succumbing to violence.

As a Black, queer woman who grew up in the predominately white communities of Northern Minnesota, I have spent a lifetime searching for Black Bodhisattvas to nurture, guide, lead me toward liberation. I was born exactly 58 years to the day after Harriet Tubman’s death. Tubman [1822-1913] is my kindred spirit, and her example would become the guidepost for my activism, artistry, and work as an academic in the service of my people. If the role of the bodhisattva as an enlightened being is to delay nirvana to assist others in finding liberation compassionately, then Tubman’s life and legacy align with that experience. In approximately 10 years and 13 trips, she led over 70 enslaved people to freedom and advised at least 70 more to make the journey. During the Civil War, she was recruited by the Union Army to assist fugitive slaves, and headed espionage and scouting missions that garnered crucial intelligence. For Tubman, there was no greater purpose than the freedom of her people. 

But what does it mean to march on toward freedom? Awakening? In Buddhism, awakening means to be liberated from perpetual suffering. For African Americans, awakening in one sense means overcoming the clutches of white supremacy culture as a community, as a nation. “Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted, they are dwarfed and overshadowed,” wrote the Black Bodhisattva Claude McKay [1889-1948]. McKay was a poet and novelist of the Harlem Renaissance whose poetry and prose were and continue to be a source of liberation. He reminds us that individuals, communities, and governments all can change, grow, evolve, or revolutionize.

From McKay’s instructions, a galvanized response to oppression means the nation’s integrity will no longer be thwarted. We may march on toward freedom but not be seduced by the divisive tools of white supremacy culture. Black liberator, activist, and author Audre Lorde [1934-1992] proclaimed, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house!” The struggle cannot be won with the same dehumanizing beliefs, policies, procedures, and laws that got us here in the first place. When violence erupts, when despair knocks on the door of the heart, seek silence and stillness within because the right direction emerges in the sanctity of that which cannot be moved. In this way, we resist. 

The Black Bodhisattva assures us that the path to end suffering is consistent with the teachings, the dharma, the way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel.

In the words of the nineteenth-century author, lecturer, and anti-enslavement activist Frances Harper [1825-1911], “My hands were weak, but I reached them out to feebler ones than mine, and over the shadow of my life Stole the light of a peace divine.” Fostering community allows us to resist despair as we ease attachments to our suffering by cultivating loving-kindness, empathetic joy, compassion, and equanimity. We might come to recognize that it is possible love and rage can occupy the same place at the same time. In equanimity, we are neither passionate nor dispassionate about any of it.  Emotions are simply messages that we are experiencing something favorable or unfavorable. What is good or unfavorable at the moment may have extraordinarily little to do with the ultimate goal, which is a just and equitable society. It is the same as saying, “keep your eyes on the prize.” So, restraint becomes an offering of the wise and loving-kindness, empathetic joy, and compassion, a healing balm on exposed wounds.

The Black Bodhisattva assures us that the path to end suffering is consistent with the teachings, the dharma, the way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. Fundamentally, this work is not meant to be conducted alone. The sangha, initially understood as a community of Buddhist monastics in study and practice together; today implies something slightly different (at least in Western lay communities). Here, the sangha is a community of healers, activists, mobilizers, poets, prophets, truth-tellers, and fellow Buddhists in whom we gain assistance. Seek them out and wear their support like an invincible shield.

The historical Black Bodhisattvas were not practicing Buddhists. However, they embodied many principles of Buddhism and community. We draw from their examples in these contemporary times as we form circles of support that promote liberation.

May we make ourselves students of loving-kindness. May we learn to delight in the joy of another wherever it may be found. May we sponsor a heart that seeks to end the suffering of others. May we recognize that these principles of Buddhism are the true north. In the end, the Black Bodhisattva guides the path. May we all find our way.

The post Finding Your Way appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Recently, a question popped up in my mind: “Why do Bodhisattvas have more fun?”

We Zen Buddhists take our practice very seriously. Our meditation and study, our citizen work, our compassion, our mindfulness in our everyday actions—all of these are seen, rightfully, as very serious and profound. Why, then, would I say that Bodhisattvas have more fun?

And what is that fun?

Isn’t it a kind of delight in our daily life, in our breath, in the unraveling quality of time, in the early morning light? It’s in the delicacy of the breeze, in the look on the face of a child when you smile, in the fist bump on the street (I mean, that’s great; that pleasure will last for a block and a half!). There is fun in the kindness you offer and in the kindness you receive.

When you write a letter to someone who’s in solitary confinement, when you visit your friends in prison, when you join with others to change the legal practices in your local government, when you write letters to parole boards—I would say that’s fun! Recently we were asked to write a letter to the parole board in New York State. I imagined the board members sitting there, and I tried to write a letter that would somehow seduce them into granting parole, into being kinder, into realizing that people can make mistakes but that change actually happens.

Speaking up in meetings, accompanying immigrants to hearings—I would say that’s fun!

As a Bodhisattva, you’re not frozen in an attitude about the way things are—you’re in motion. Obviously, something that gets in the way of a Bodhisattva having fun is getting attached to an idea of how something “should” be, or to the idea of “attaining” something. Particularly in the early days of Buddhism, they talked about how the great wisdom and joy of the Bodhisattva was that she was not trying to attain enlightenment, but she was expressing enlightened conduct—such a difference! Bodhisattvas are not fixed on some static idea of “getting enlightened” for themselves—that’s what Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche called “spiritual materialism.” That’s getting materialistic about our state of mind.

So this is how I’m conceiving of the contemporary Bodhisattvas: we’re not fixated on attaining a specific agenda item. We may agree on the principles of a Green New Deal, or healthcare for all, or reparations for descendants of slavery—we may agree on the principle, but we cannot get stuck on Point A or Point B, or we’ll lose it all. We’ll lose our enlightening sense, our openness to what is arising in the moment and what it is possible to do.

To be open and creative is what today’s Bodhisattvas do when they are embodying their energy. We have to see with fresh eyes all of the conflicts that create suffering in our world. We don’t want to lose our heads. Instead we’re looking for new and imaginative ways to approach the suffering we behold.

There’s another way that Bodhisattvas have more fun, and that’s by realizing and responding to the core Buddhist principle of “samsara is nirvana.”

Samsara typically means our everyday, ordinary life: setting the alarm, getting up, making the coffee, coming to the Zendo, going to work, coming home. The word is from the Sanskrit word samsr, which means “revolving, moving around, not static but moving.” In ancient Buddhism and Hinduism it referred to reincarnation, to the cycles of rebirth. For us today, it’s a way to really recognize that everything is shifting and changing all the time, that we are not the same now as we were when we walked into this room a few minutes or hours ago. Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote about samsara in a way when he said:

The hills are shadows, and they flow

From form to form, and nothing stands;

They melt like mist, the solid lands

Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

In this amazing vision—he sounds very much like Zen master Dogen in The Mountains and Rivers Sutra—Tennyson sees that the movement and change of mountains, rocks, and rivers is just like the movement and change of clouds. That’s what Bodhisattvas can also recognize—and it helps them have a joy in life instead of the grimness that we find so often in proponents of change.

And nirvana is often referred to as a kind of a transcendental state where there’s no suffering. What do Zen masters mean when they say that samsara is nirvana? It’s a hard question, but I think that having hard questions is more fun than having easy ones.

We are serving in time now, all together, and together we can have more fun! We can appreciate the preciousness of our lives in a spark of just this moment. We don’t have to agonize about “How can I serve? How can I make a difference?” Instead, we can pick up whatever tool is at hand—Oh! It’s a cup! Oh! It’s a hammer!

In the Ashthasahasrika Sutra there’s a wonderful image of people gathered at the riverside, and there’s a Bodhisattva who is piloting a ferryboat full of people. This ferryboat is going from one side of the river to the other—it’s a symbol, of course, of crossing the sea of suffering. And here’s what it says (I’ve changed his gender because that’s what we’re doing these days):

She courses in dharmas as empty, signless, and wishless, but she does not experience the Blessed Rest, nor does she course in a sign. As a skillful ferrywoman goes from this shore to the other shore but also does not stand at either end, nor does she stand in the great flood.

She doesn’t get stuck in a sign, in a word, in my way. “A skillfull ferrywoman goes from this shore”—the shore of suffering—“to the other shore”—the shore of “samsara is nirvana.” She doesn’t rest in some special state, and she doesn’t get stuck—“at either end, nor does she stand in the middle in the flood.”

Today’s Bodhisattvas must be able to adjust to the changes that we see around us … and play with these changes, to not get stuck in my way.

It is a marvelous passage about a life of service, carrying yourself and others across the sea of suffering, not getting stuck in a self-important idea of “I am crossing the sea of suffering” or not getting caught in the idea of “suffering”—that’s what all this business about “the sign” is. It is the wisdom and compassion of service, yes, but also to simply live that life, to meet the inevitable changes that life offers and just continue to practice, to be alive to it. “She courses in dharmas as empty, signless, and wishless.” She recognizes the momentariness, the signlessness of not getting stuck. What does she do? She navigates across the river of suffering from shore to shore, not stopping on this shore or in the river itself, constantly being present to life itself as time flows on.

Today’s Bodhisattvas must be able to adjust to the changes that we see around us—political changes, changes in the climate, changes in gender identification and social norms—we must be able to shift and play with these changes, to not get stuck in my way. You could say we’re all in a ferryboat together, making our way across the sea of life, the sea of suffering, with its temptations and tribulations. And I think we need to break out of some sort of rigid solemnity about what we’re doing. This practice is fun! It’s fun! Bodhisattvas have more fun!

Get in the boat
The water’s rising
All together now
Row, row, row across this sea of suffering

♦

Excerpted from A Little Bit of Zen: An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara. Reprinted with permission of Sterling Ethos.

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The 9th-century Zen master Linji Yixuan said, “There is a true person of no rank who is always coming and going from the portals of your face.” In this series, take a fresh look at the teaching of non-self with Joseph Bobrow, Roshi, as he explores how the teaching of “the person of no rank” can help us bring forth our full humanity for the benefit of all.

Joseph Bobrow Roshi is a Zen teacher and relational psychoanalyst who has been building communities of healing and empowerment for many years. Joseph is the founding teacher at Deep Streams Zen Institute in Los Angeles and the author of three books: a collection of poems, After Midnight: Poems of Love and War; Waking Up From War, which addresses the power of community to transform collective and individual trauma, and Zen and Psychotherapy: Partners in Liberation, which will be reissued by Wisdom Publications on June 16th.

The post The True Person of No Rank: A Zen Story for Our Troubled World appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.