The words devotion and vote both come from the Latin vovere, to vow, promise, or dedicate. To be devoted means that we commit fully. When we are devoted, we give tremendously of our time, energy, and attention—to a spouse, an instrument, a practice, a garden, a quality, or the sacred. This kind of wholehearted offering can include our rational intelligence, but it needn’t depend on it. Yes, devotion without reason can be dangerous, as history tragically demonstrates. But when our devotion leads to good and benefits others, we can feel confident that the object of our devotion is worthy, whether or not it makes sense rationally.

It took a long time for me to appreciate the value and beauty of Buddhist devotional practices like bowing, chanting, and offering incense. Learning more about their historical context gave me a new perspective on these practices. The Buddha radically challenged traditional views that holiness was about one’s birth (caste) and that spiritual purity or attainment could be found through rituals like bathing in the Ganges. He asserted that true righteousness lies in the heart, and that the primary value of ritual is symbolic. In ritual, intention matters more than action. Thus to offer incense to a Buddha statue is to offer gratitude for the Buddha’s teachings and respect for our own capacity for awakening.

Devotion expresses humility, gratitude, and appreciation; we may literally lower ourselves to honor another. In this way, bowing is a whole-body mudra (symbolic gesture) signifying deep respect. Devotion to the sacred, one’s ancestors, or a teacher uplifts the heart and calls forth our potential. Their goodness elicits the best in us.

We see the potency of devotion in a curious passage from the Buddhist Pali canon where the Buddha, just days after being enlightened, reflects, “It is painful to dwell without reverence. . . . Now what ascetic or brahmin can I honor, respect, and dwell in dependence on?” Realizing that his insight had surpassed that of everyone he knew, the Buddha decides to honor and respect the truth that set him free. This floored me when I first read it. One of the few records of the Buddha’s thoughts after his awakening is essentially, “How can I still show devotion?” This sentiment embodies a fundamental human longing to be in relationship with something sacred or worthy of our respect.

Without devotion we suffer from spiritual hunger; we sense something missing, perhaps without even knowing what it is. Without the opportunity to give ourselves to something worthwhile, our need for devotion may become displaced onto addictions to accumulation, substances, or appearances; onto entertainments and pleasures; or onto feelings of self-judgment, inadequacy, and self-loathing. In effect, we become what Buddhists call “hungry ghosts,” endlessly consuming, never fulfilled.

When we feel an absence of the sacred, we experience a void in our hearts, a pervasive emptiness. Materialism, hedonism, and hyperindividualism dislocate our need for devotion to something larger than ourselves, whether through religious observance, spiritual practice, or a transcendent experience of love. We may be devoted to art, to love or family, to the sacred, to social justice, or to all of these and more. Our devotion is not defined by its object but by the quality of attention and love we bring to it. When we act with full sincerity, connecting our heart with our purpose, even washing the dishes can be an act of devotion.

We don’t practice devotion to get something in return. We practice it for its own sake, as a complete offering of our heart.

Neglecting the heart and failing to integrate devotion into our lives inevitably erode our capacity for fulfillment in some way. If we don’t engage our hearts, life becomes dry and automatic. Relying exclusively on the logical and analytical part of our minds, we approach life mechanistically and lose touch with creativity and freshness. Caring for children, spearheading a new project or campaign, even meditating become obligations rather than empowering vocations, and we lose the deep joy of acting with sincerity.

Devotion expresses itself in a diverse mosaic beyond traditional ways of relating to the sacred. As the poet Rumi wrote, “There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” In 1965, when Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched for voting rights with Dr. King, he famously said, “I felt like my legs were praying.” Activism, caregiving, service, singing, growing vegetables, planting a tree—all can be meaningful acts of devotion that connect us to something larger than ourselves.

We don’t practice devotion to get something in return. We practice it for its own sake, as a complete offering of our heart. Singing my son to sleep in my arms, lowering him gently into a warm bath, even wiping his bottom—done wholeheartedly these acts express full devotion. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi recounts how Dogen, the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, made a devotional act of fetching water from the river, taking only half a dipper and returning the rest “without throwing it away. . . . When we feel the beauty of the river, we intuitively do it in Dogen’s way.”

In deep devotion the quality of our presence transcends our actions. What we do with wholehearted devotion becomes a holistic expression of our being, an act of beauty and selflessness beyond the everyday realm of time, roles, and duties. Released from such daily pressures, we open to the transpersonal realm of the mythopoetic, the archetypal, and the sacred. A single moment of generosity, offered with complete devotion, connects us with all acts of generosity. Planting one tree with devotion connects us with the limitless capacity of life. Devotion thus reaches beyond discrete acts. Vows of love, aspiration, and justice require devotion. Long-term commitments like marriage, child-rearing, and ordination all call forth enduring devotion, as we show up again and again each day. Such devotional commitments, combined with resolve and awareness, power social change in the face of obstacles and repression.

When we give our whole being to anything skillful—be it for one moment of complete presence or a lifetime of tireless work—our being itself becomes a blessing.

In northwestern India a hundred years ago, Badshah Khan’s devotion to nonviolence and education as forms of rebellion sparked a peaceful revolution that challenged at once British colonialism, the authority of local mullahs, and an ancient culture of violence. Advocating for a united, independent, secular India, Khan founded the world’s first nonviolent “army of peace,” which grew to one hundred thousand members in spite of brutal British repression. His visionary devotion drew global attention to the power of nonviolence and was vital to India’s liberation.

Devotion can transform protests into pilgrimage and demonstrations into ceremony. In 1978, advocating for tribal sovereignty and protesting threats to treaties and water rights, several hundred American Indian activists and supporters marched for five months across the United States, from San Francisco to Washington, DC. Known as the Longest Walk, this pilgrimage secured several legislative victories, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. More recently, in 2016, opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (an oil conduit that passes through ancestral burial grounds and under tribal water sources), Lakota elders at Standing Rock frequently reminded demonstrators that their actions were a form of ceremony.

In such efforts, we can glimpse devotion’s capacity to extend even beyond our lifetimes. Held strongly enough, and by enough people, devotion bridges generations in liberating visions—from emancipation, women’s suffrage, and marriage equality to ongoing movements for nuclear disarmament and for racial and climate justice. When we give our whole being to anything skillful—be it for one moment of complete presence or a lifetime of tireless work—our being itself becomes a blessing, and we drink from a source of strength and goodness beyond our personal history or identity.

Reflection: Getting Started

Take time to examine what you habitually devote yourself to. To what activities, persons, values, or habits do you unthinkingly give yourself ? Is part of you devoted to time, money, efficiency, or control? Consider how this serves and how it limits you. Now reflect on who or what is worthy of your devotion. Is there a person, activity, or value to which you would like to be more devoted? Perhaps your family, a craft or project, a social movement, or even a quality like generosity or gratitude? What would that look like for you?

Meditation: Going Deeper

Sit, stand, or recline and settle your mind and body in any way that feels supportive. Let yourself be completely natural, without trying to control your thoughts or focus in any special way. In your own time, when you’re ready, pose one of these questions to your heart:

• What is sacred to me?
• What do I hold dear in life?
• What upholds and supports me?
• What is the deepest truth I know?
• What is too important to forget?

Simply ask the question and listen to whatever arises. Make space for anything and everything—memories, images, sensations, and emotions, as well as discursive thought. Give more attention to the depth and quality of your question and your sincere listening than to finding an answer. Whenever your mind wanders, return to something simple and grounding in the present moment, such as your breath. Continue your inquiry by asking the question again or posing one of the others. Keep listening, honoring whatever arises, not needing to figure things out. If something clear emerges, shift your focus to appreciating your connection with whatever feels sacred, worthy, or true to you. When you feel ready, let go of the question and return to being present. Make a mental note of anything significant you want to remember.

Action: Engaging Devotion

Choose an activity to take on as a devotional practice for the next two weeks. This could be praying, bowing, chanting, or any other spiritual observance. It could equally be walking in the garden for ten minutes every morning, mindfully drinking a cup of tea, reading your child a bedtime story, or even cleaning your teeth! The quality of presence and intention you bring to the activity is what matters. If the activity you choose seems to lack meaning, create that meaning. For example, if you choose drinking water as your devotional act, when you drink you might focus on the wish that all creatures have access to clean water. If it’s cleaning your teeth, you might connect with the heartfelt wish that all creatures have the means necessary to care for their bodies.

Each day, before doing the activity, pause, gathering all of your attention. Set a clear and firm intention to give this activity your full attention. When you do it, do it wholeheartedly, connecting with the meaning this activity, person, or task has (or that you’ve created). As you act, stay attuned: Are you aware? Is your heart engaged? Are you rushing ahead or settling into the moment? Return to the aim of offering your entire being. As the days unfold, notice whether any resistance, impatience, or control comes up. If so, recall that meeting these habitual challenges is also a practice. What happens if you let go of having things the way you want and surrender to the process?

Alternatively, choose an ongoing commitment in your life that you’d like to reinvigorate with devotion. Can you notice ways devotion imbues not only this commitment but all great actions, such as parenting, intimate partnership, lifelong friendship, and following one’s vocation?

If You Have Difficulties

If terms like the sacred don’t speak to you, find ones that do. What connects you with something larger than yourself or your lifetime? What lights you up inside? If the word devotion turns you off, try using a synonym like commitment or wholeheartedness. Practice doing something with complete and total sincerity; put your whole heart into it. If you struggle to do this, use that as an opportunity to practice patience, forgiveness, and mindfulness and try again. If you find yourself growing tight, straining to do it “correctly,” pause in that very moment. Try relaxing your face and jaw. Exhale. Come back to the spirit of devotion: offering your heart to that which is worthy. Consider your time, energy, and presence a gift you can offer. To whom or what shall you offer it? Return to the practice of devotion with this new orientation.

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From Your Heart Was Made For This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love © 2023 by Oren Jay Sofer. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. 

The post Everyday Devotion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Japanese Buddhist temples throughout Hawaii and North America have a secret. Move past the usual public spaces—the hondo (main hall) and the social hall—and you’ll quickly discover it. Lurking behind the altar area, squatting in the minister’s office, and hiding in libraries, closets, and random corners are innumerable dark wooden boxes. Shiny with black lacquer, dusty with age, some smaller than a breadbox and others big enough to crawl into, there are the mortal remains of fading Buddhist devotion. They are butsudan (sometimes spelled with the honorific “O,” meaning “respected”): home Buddhist shrines filled with sacred objects, religious icons, loves, fears, and maybe even a ghost or two. Their presence in the back spaces of temples reveals much about changing Buddhist patterns in the West.

Historically, the majority of Buddhists have been ordinary householders with home-based practices. In many Buddhist cultures such as Japan, domestic Buddhism has centered on a home shrine or altar. That family Buddhism was brought to Hawaii and North America with the early Japanese immigrants, providing an anchor for Asian Buddhists in an often hostile land without Buddhist culture or Buddhist ancestors.

Most Japanese Americans and Canadians can call to mind a family butsudan, whether their own or their grandparents’. Ordained Jodo Shinshu minister Alice Unno is an important mentor to generations of Shin Buddhists. As she was growing up in California’s Central Valley in the 1930s, the family butsudan often occupied her imagination:

It was really important to my parents that we had an Obutsudan at home. My parents always told us that if ever there were a fire, the altar was the first thing we had to take out of the house—that and the drawer underneath it, which contained the sutras and important papers like birth certificates. I was always scared of dusting the altar because it was so special and sacred. My mother always said you shouldn’t just use an ordinary rag. There was a special cloth to clean it with. We bowed to it in the morning and in the evening before we went to sleep.

Butsudan remain cherished items in many Japanese American and Canadian homes. But many others have become orphans as patterns of religious belonging and practice shift, and they ultimately end up sheltering in nearby temples. Refugees of a secularizing society, these cast-out sacred objects wait to be adopted by new generations. But if they can’t find a new family, they face eventual destruction.

Buddhist cultures often have a tradition of domestic altars. The butsudan became ubiquitous in all Japanese households, from the lowest peasant to the royal family, during the long Tokugawa period (1603–1867) that preceded Japan’s forced entry into the modern world. Their basic shape is a wooden cabinet, taller than it is wide, with double doors on the front that open to reveal a mini-world of buddha statues, scrolls, and ihai (ancestral tablets). There are candles, memorial books, incense burners, stands for offerings, and other items that cluster around or within the altar. Butsudan range from humble to grand, with gold leaf, black lacquer, delicate carvings, hanging adornments, and other flourishes suggesting levels of devotion, sectarian affiliation, and, frankly, conspicuous wealth in some cases.

Butsudan historically held an honored place in Japanese homes, often with a separate shrine room. Devout family members gathered daily before the butsudan to pray, make offerings, chant scriptures, and commune with the spiritual figures enshrined within. Monks would visit the home on memorial days and Buddhist holidays to perform services at the butsudan.

The lack of clear distinction between buddhas and ancestors is a key aspect of the Japanese Buddhist tradition. Buddhist funeral rituals involve dressing the corpse as a monk and bestowing an ordination name on the departing spirit so that they become enlightened in the afterlife. In this way, the ancient tradition of ancestor veneration melds with the long-ago-introduced practices of Buddhism, accommodating both religious impetuses. The butsudan is the primary tool and site in this Japanese spiritual blend. Memorial plaques for deceased parents and grandparents are placed near the central buddha image, and all receive offerings and devotion. Family members take on the patina of awakened tathagatas, and buddha figures may be considered ultimate household patriarchs.

The swirl of forces that centers on the butsudan is complex. Rituals help to placate the spirits and send them away on their journey to the next life. Rites also help to hold on to missing loved ones and rebind them to watch over the family. Dharma practices inculcate values of selflessness, nondual wisdom, and transpersonal perspectives. And learning and repeating the lineage and religious procedures cultivates family identity and cultural continuity.

As such, butsudan are more than boxes. They are storytellers and lineage holders. They act as meeting places for the living and the dead, for foolish beings and compassionate buddhas. Butsudan are places of holding on and letting go, of detachment and identity formation. As sites of practice, mourning, and renewal, they are visible reminders of the competing forces that comprise the lives of ordinary people in an imperfect, challenging world.

All of this was magnified in the initial immigrant generations. Cut off from their homeland, Japanese immigrants set up butsudan when their parents died far away on the other side of the ocean. Unable to be with them in person, the butsudan provided a portal to lives and loved ones separated by water, nation, and death. The butsudan provided a way to care for departed elders, calm the mind, and hold on to a private symbol of Buddhist commitment in a place where Buddhists were often under suspicion or attack.

Given the importance of butsudan in Japanese Buddhism, why are so many coming to live at American and Canadian temples? Primarily, abandoned butsudan arrive at a temple in the wake of a death. An older family member has died, and the next generation inherits their property, including the butsudan. In the past, the newly deceased would be enshrined with an ihai. The inheritors would use the butsudan as the focus of their devotions, teaching their children the ways of respect so that they might one day receive and carry on the butsudan and its traditions.

But religiosity has decreased in newer Japanese American and Canadian generations just as in most non-immigrant populations; already into the fifth and sixth generations, Japanese North Americans and Hawaiians are not a majority immigrant group. More and more Americans and Canadians of every background are dropping out of formal religion, sometimes opting for a more diffuse spirituality or simple secularism. Even among those who retain an interest in Buddhism, the older traditions are often lost as economic and social forces cause people to live far from family in nuclear units. It was mainly the more senior, often retired generations who actively used the butsudan; they also did much of the childcare, and thus wisdom and practices were naturally passed down through the generations. Now that so many live apart from their parents and grandparents, these transmission lines are weakened or broken. Thus, when they inherit butsudan, many people are clueless about their purpose or how to use them.

Butsudan are places of holding on and letting go, of detachment and identity formation.

As such, the arrival of butsudan at temples represents a decrease in Buddhist practice in the Japanese American and Canadian subcultures. But it’s also a sign of trends far beyond the Buddhist community: the fraying of family ties, weakening of social bonds, and rise of a distracted, drifting society increasingly out of touch with the valuable aspects of its heritage.

There’s another factor to account for too: some people view butsudan as creepy. They’re dark boxes within which spirits perhaps dwell. Not knowing their function, people with minimal Buddhist training may fear that bringing one into the home invites bachi (bad luck). Rather than a source of love and respect, butsudan can provoke fear in those who only know that Grandma used to kneel and mumble in an unfamiliar language before this strange cabinet when they visited her.

But suppose the accumulating butsudan at temples indicates a decrease in Buddhist devotion and weakened family ties. In that case, their presence also indicates the staying power of Buddhist material culture and respect for family, no matter how distant. After all, lots of furniture, clothing, and knick-knacks that people inherit go immediately to the thrift store or garbage bin. But many butsudan and their associated items are recognized as sacred—if not to the new owners, to someone—and are carefully (if sheepishly) deposited at Buddhist temples in the hope that someone else will care for these things.

Ministers have mixed feelings about the tide of butsudan washing up at their doorsteps. Their immediate reaction is to try to make the family feel comfortable and to express gratitude to them for not tossing the butsudan in the trash. Ministers accept that the butsudan’s journey with this family has ended and rarely try to persuade anyone to keep it.

Their gratitude exists alongside some sadness as well, as Reverend Matt Hamasaki of the Sacramento Buddhist Temple expressed:

I appreciate that people have the respect to put it someplace that it belongs. But it does make me sad that people don’t want to keep it. Within my own family, I don’t think anyone has an obutsudan except for me, and I inherited my grandparents’ because no one wanted it. It makes me sad that no one would want it. But like I said, I appreciate that they bring it to some place instead of just throwing it out.

Some ministers experience frustration over the clutter that results from so many butsudan huddling in the back of their temples, occasionally taking over whole storage rooms and crowding out other possible uses of the space. Many butsudan languish for years, with no one to take them home yet reluctance by the temple to dispose of them.

When the time comes, the decision to get rid of old, often broken-down butsudan presents its own challenges. Most ministers are unwilling to toss them in the dumpster. In Japan, the usual method for disposing of sacred objects is to burn them, mirroring the respectful cremation of bodies. Many ministers carry out a funeral ritual for aged butsudan, chanting a sutra and offering thanks for the shrine’s work to uphold the buddhadharma and care for families. Burning the butsudan can be a problem: most temples are on the West Coast, where strict fire laws prevent easy disposal. One temple used to get around this by using them as fuel for beach bonfires when they were still permitted—but even that possibility has been cut off in the new age of extreme climate change. Thus, respectful funerals for old butsudan may become another casualty of global warming.

Not all butsudan end up cremated. Some temples run butsudan adoption programs, advertising available shrines in their newsletters, displaying them at community events, and showing them to new members. In March, the Fresno Betsuin Buddhist Temple displayed a dozen butsudan, and all found new homes.

The community’s youngest members are also not always indifferent to butsudan and their practices. The Young Buddhist Editorial (YBE) is one of the most dynamic initiatives to recently emerge from Japanese American temples. A collective of primarily young Japanese American Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, YBE ran a special feature titled “Home is Where the Buddha Is.” Dozens of people contributed photographs of their butsudan with short remarks. For example, YBE editor Gillian Yamagiwa wrote:

My Obutsudan was inherited in 2005 from my great uncle after he passed away. Both of my aunts felt that I would appreciate the sentiment and importance of the Obutsudan the most, coming from a family that regularly practiced Buddhism. As a kid, I never really understood why we had an Obutsudan, but as I got older, I began to see it as a way to honor and remember loved ones that have passed.

Most of the butsudan in the YBE photo essay are traditional black wooden boxes, like Yamagiwa’s. But a significant minority are little handcrafted ones made as dharma school activities from materials like kamaboko (fish cake) boards or shoeboxes. Some freestyling interpretations of butsudan also exist, using statues, personal mementos, and even light-up buddha images. The less traditional shrines suggest that even if some butsudan complete their life cycle and are cremated, the impulse to maintain personal sacred space lingers. The karma of butsudan practice hasn’t been extinguished.

That ability to be reinterpreted and reborn through individual meaning-making may provide the longest staying power for butsudan in a rapidly changing world. As domestic religious objects, butsudan have often existed in tension between the orthodox views of organized Buddhist sects in Japan and the quotidian desires and needs of regular laypeople. Stored within homes rather than temples, butsudan have always had the potential to be adapted to their families’ preferences. Two stories from Reverend Henry Adams of the San Mateo Buddhist Temple illustrate the push and pull of orthodoxy and domesticity.

Rev. Adams had a traditional monastic education in Japan and recalled a story about his teacher being taken to a home to conduct a service at the butsudan. The family had set a cup of tea in front of the butsudan, probably as an offering to an ancestor who enjoyed tea during their life. This isn’t orthodox Jodo Shinshu behavior, and the officiating minister dropped a match into the teacup after lighting the candle as if to say, “Surely this is why this teacup is here—what other purpose could it serve?” As a trainee, Rev. Adams was impressed by this story, which suggested that the head minister was bold in righteously fulfilling and passing down the proper tradition from 800 years ago.

But his attitude changed after becoming a minister. He was invited to conduct a memorial service at a temple member’s home and was surprised to find several glasses of water laid out in front of the butsudan, another violation of the orthodox practice. As he noticed that the people being memorialized all had the same date of death and remembered that the member was from Nagasaki, he realized that she had lost most of her family in the atomic bombing. She told him the people injured by the bomb were terribly thirsty and called out for water as they died. So, she remembers her loved ones lost to war and offers glasses of water to honor them.

Usually, we think of ministers instructing laypeople. But here the layperson showed the minister the true potentiality that the butsudan possessed. As Rev. Adams related:

That was very eye-opening to me, you know—it meant that I needed to be much more flexible and open to appreciating the ways in which the obutsudan can serve as a focal point for people in their home spiritual lives. And in the case of this woman, it’s really her lifelong process of navigating the grief from that traumatic event of her childhood.

The ever-growing number of butsudan at temples suggests that Buddhist devotion and traditional practices are losing their grip on people’s hearts and imagination, even as some manage to find new homes and some young people work to maintain and reinvent their religious heritage. Those discarded butsudan all have stories to tell like the one from Nagasaki. Some were assembled from scrap wood during the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans and Canadians. Others have less dramatic, yet no less poignant, origins in the everyday lives of immigrants and their children discovering how to be American and Canadian Buddhists. All watched over generations of Buddhists as their families grew, played, quarreled, and went about their daily lives. Resting in the dim corners of temples, away from the bustle and chanting of the main hall, they wait to see what karma has in store for them.

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To learn more about the contemporary fates of butsudan, see Jeff Wilson’s chapter “The Afterlives of Butsudan: Ambivalence and the Disposal of Home Altars in the United States and Canada” in Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption, edited by Trine Brox and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

The post Remnants of Devotion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

One of our favorite avadanas, or teaching stories, from the Karmashataka is the tale of the god Maniprabha, whose body, like the celestial mansion he lived in, shone with light and was adorned with fine jewels. One day when the Buddha was teaching at Jeta Grove (near the ancient Indian city of Shravasti), the brightly shining deity came to the garden with flowers, which he scattered over the Buddha to show homage. He then bent down to touch his head to the Buddha’s feet in a traditional gesture of respect before sitting to hear the dharma. (The image of a god bowing down to the Buddha may be surprising for some readers. But in the Buddhist framework, buddhas far exceed the gods in spiritual realization. Maniprabha’s deference to the Buddha is an embodied expression of this truth.) The Buddha offered a teaching that had such an immediate and profound effect on Maniprabha that the young god’s eventual awakening became inevitable. In celebration he rose from his seat, again touched his head to the feet of the Blessed One, circumambulated him three times, and disappeared upon the spot.

Some of the other monks in the sangha were confused. They had been studying with “continued, earnest, and sleepless efforts at dusk and dawn” when they saw Maniprabha’s great light emanate and then disappear. They went to the Buddha to ask what had happened. The Buddha explained, but the monks still had questions. They inquired how it came to be that Maniprabha had taken rebirth as a god whose residence was a celestial mansion and whose body was ornamented with divine jewels.

As is often the case in the Karmasha­taka, the Buddha’s response comes in the form of a story within the story. The story takes place long before Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha—before he was even born. Back then, Buddha Kashyapa, one of the other buddhas the sutras say have appeared throughout history, was teaching the dharma. At the time, there lived in Varanasi a householder of tremendous wealth. After Buddha Kashyapa’s final passing, the householder, out of deep devotion, built a great stupa (shrine) containing the hair and nail relics of Buddha Kashyapa’s holy body. This stupa was so magnificent that even its rain gutters glimmered with jewels. Not only that, but the householder organized the construction of an associated monastery. For the rest of his life, he faithfully served the monks who studied and practiced there and provided for their every need.

The Buddha explained to the monks that after going for refuge and maintaining the fundamental precepts of a lay vow-holder all his life, the householder was reborn among the gods in a celestial mansion made of jewels. That householder’s name? Maniprabha, which means “Jewel-Light.”

Like all the stories of the Karmashataka, the story of Maniprabha is a gem that crystallizes for us certain essential teachings on karma. One facet is the enormous power of actions taken from a mindset of devotion.

True devotion does not actually drain us. It is a source of vibrant energy that makes our commitments come alive and become a source of joy.

When we think about karma, we often focus a concrete action and its effects, easily overlooking the importance of the underlying intention. Yet as Joseph Goldstein points out, “the Buddha used the term karma specifically referring to volition, the intention or motive behind an action. He said that karma is volition because it is the motivation behind the action that determines the karmic fruit. Inherent in each intention in the mind is an energy powerful enough to bring about subsequent results.” Indeed, the Buddha stated, “Action (karma) is volition, for after having intended something, one accomplishes action through body, speech, and mind.”

The story of Maniprabha starts with a description of his numerous acts of devotion. Far from being a set of isolated occurrences, these actions are an upwelling of Maniprabha’s devotion in previous lifetimes. In honor of the earlier buddha Kashyapa, he built a magnificent stupa and an associated monastery where he rendered service all his life, and provided for the material well-being of the monastics there. But Maniprabha’s devotion was directed not only to these two buddhas. From his consistent, lifelong support of the monastery, we recognize that his devotion is also to the dharma and sangha, to notions of love and service, to compassion, and to putting others first.

In the course of the story, Maniprabha is never depicted as wavering. He appears with purpose, fulfills that purpose, and departs. Moreover, in the story of his past life, we are given to understand that the service he rendered was a joyful commitment that he never abandoned. The purity of that devotion later manifests concretely in the pristine qualities of his future rebirth in the god realm—in his brilliant appearance, his splendid ornamentation, his divine residence, and his clear intention. Practitioners will find it particularly interesting to note that his acts of devotion gave rise to the auspicious circumstances needed to receive teachings directly from a buddha. Not only that, but Maniprabha was able to comprehend the teaching so deeply that he arrived speedily at the threshold of liberation.

Seen in relation to our own practice, the potential benefits of devotion are numerous. Devotion has the quality of stabilizing the mind. When something occurs that in other contexts might set us off balance, devotion helps us stay on course. For example, at times when we hear criticism from others, we may notice that our potential reactivity and defensiveness are allayed by the depth of our conviction in the dharma. We are able to actually hear their feedback and contemplate its validity without losing our emotional center.

Devotion is akin to love: when cultivated, it grows over time. It develops within the context of an ongoing relationship. When that relationship—with a person, to the teachings generally, or to a certain lineage or practice—is healthy and not excessively predicated on projected longing, devotion matures and deepens. It is balanced. It becomes less superficial as it increases.

In keeping with our individual temperaments and inclinations, we may find ourselves drawn to certain devotional acts and disinclined to others. Traditional forms such as making offerings, building stupas, or bowing our heads or bodies are certainly important. But there are also contemporary forms more familiar to us: we can set out the cushions at the dharma center, “like and subscribe” to our favorite dharma sources on social media, or help to update Rinpoche’s iPhone. We may be spontaneously engaging in these activities without recognizing the devotion we are already expressing.

Simply attending dharma teachings with a mind that is genuinely open and receptive, not armored or argumentative, can itself be an act of devotion. It is a practice to notice where devotion already exists in our minds and hearts. That mindful awareness increases their power.

When emphasizing intention and devotion, the thought does come to us: Isn’t it enough that I’m here at the dharma talk? Or that I made it onto this cushion? Aren’t these virtuous actions good enough on their own? There can be a sense in our daily practice—and in our lives—that going through the motions is enough. This is especially true when we’re experiencing the challenges of life, and we find ourselves tired, overwhelmed, scared, anxious, busy, or burdened, as we often have every reason to be. Devotion feels like yet another item on our to-do list.

True devotion, however, does not actually drain us. It is a source of vibrant energy that makes our commitments come alive and become a source of joy.

Strengthened by devotion, we are more resilient when we encounter exhaustion, criticism, or the questions that arise naturally along the way. Our efforts will continue to grow in spite of challenges and even in response to them.

We know we’re experiencing devotion when we feel a genuine, spontaneous appreciation for the gifts we are receiving—for the fact that we can meet with qualified teachers, hear the word of the dharma, and find support in the sangha. Devotion is the wish to demonstrate this appreciation in respectful form, to pay homage as Maniprabha did.

Maniprabha leaped to repay the Buddha’s kindness without hesitation. Similarly, the dharma can inspire a realization of our wondrous good fortune that naturally overflows in an abundance of gratitude.

♦

This is the second installment in a four-part series on the Karmashataka (“The Hundred Deeds”) Sutra, a collection of ancient teaching stories on karma that has recently been translated from Tibetan into English. Read the first installation here. 

The post The Karmic Power of Devotion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Oh, mind that is my teacher,
I meet you by recognizing what I am.
I pray to you by letting go of doubt and hesitation.
I revere you by letting go and settling naturally.

I serve you by resting continuously in how things are.
I provide you with food by resting without strain in empty clarity.
I provide you with drink by knowing attention and distraction make no difference.
I clothe you by knowing appearance and sound as enchantments.

—Excerpt from a song by 12th-century teacher Kyer-gong-pa

At its core, Vajrayana is a devotional practice. Mahamudra, Dzogchen, all the direct awareness practices in the Tibetan tradition, as well as advanced energy transformation practices, use the emotional energy of devotion to power attention.

Vajrayana works on multiple levels simultaneously. In the Tibetan tradition, these levels are often called outer, inner, and secret. These are literal translations, of course, and only helpful when you know the levels. In most cases, the outer refers to the physical: people and objects, rituals and ceremonies, actions and behaviors. The inner refers to understandings and experiences: the meanings of symbols, rituals, and ceremonies, as well as the feelings and understandings that arise in practice. The secret, or as I prefer to call it, the mystical, refers to the ineffable, the mystery: the direct experience of mind nature, emptiness, clarity, nonreferential compassion, and so on.

Devotion itself works at these three levels, too. Outer devotion means faith and respect in your teacher, in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha. Inner devotion means confidence, faith or trust in what is awakening in you. Secret or mystical devotion is the direct experience of the mystery of knowing itself, unmediated by the conceptual mind.

The two verses above describe the practice of devotion at the mystical level. They use poetic language. Specifically, they rely on the metaphor of outer devotion to illuminate the experience of mind nature. These lines describe result, not method, but many people mistakenly take them as method, something that they can do through thinking or through an act of will. That doesn’t work, and in what follows, I try to bring out as clearly as possible what these lines are pointing to and how one might approach them.

I meet you by recognizing what I am.

One approach here is to look at what you are. You can do so by posing the question “What am I?” As soon as you pose the question, there is a shift. Conceptual thinking stops. You look and see nothing. That nothing, however, is not simply nothing. It is a clear empty knowing. You have met what you are, but do you recognize it? If you don’t, there is a fleeting moment of panic, and then you immediately fall into ordinary thinking. 

How do you recognize it? That is a big question, and that is where the practice of devotion plays a crucial role. When you give rise to deep devotion or you experience awe deeply, conceptual thinking simply stops. That is why devotion plays such an important role. Through devotion, you touch again and again an open clear awareness that is not mediated by the conceptual mind. Eventually, you come to recognize an awareness that is free from thought and movement, has no sense of inside or outside, and is utterly clear and transparent, like space. Most of us do not recognize this knowing at first because we are deeply immersed in the patterning of conceptual thinking and emotional projection. But it is there, right in front of us. As 20th-century cultural critic H. L. Mencken said, “Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.” 

Through practice, however, we can develop sufficient stability in attention and dismantle enough patterns of emotional reactivity that we do recognize that knowing. And that is when you meet what you are and your own mind can become your teacher. 

I pray to you by letting go of doubt and hesitation.

If we try to let go of doubt and hesitation directly, we find ourselves mired in the conceptual mind once again because we are trying to do something. But if we adopt the attitude of prayer, reaching out to we-don’t-know-what, we find a natural, clear awareness, in which doubt and hesitation are simply movement in the mind.

I revere you by letting go and settling naturally.

Mind is mental activity, the coming and going of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Mind nature is the clear open knowing, where thoughts, feelings, and sensations arise. Most of the time, we are caught up in the thinking, feeling, and sensing, and we don’t notice or honor the knowing, which is just there. Take a moment, now, and let your mind and body settle. Follow the breath as you breathe out, and at the end of the exhalation, just rest. The breath will continue on its own. Do this several times a day, and bit by bit, you may find a knowing that permeates everything you experience.

I serve you by resting continuously in how things are.

The things here are our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, not the objects we navigate in the world. Those objects that comprise the world “out there” are constructed from thoughts, feelings, and sensations. In the end, that is all that we actually experience, and it is worth taking a moment to consider this. When we say “things,” we are talking about the content of our actual experience. When we say “how things are,” we are talking about how those contents arise and subside, come and go, appear and disappear in our experience. 

How do they come and go? Take sound, for instance. Make a simple lasting noise—pluck a string on a guitar, or something like that. Now pay attention not to the sound, but to the hearing of the sound. Ask yourself, where is the experience of hearing? Is it inside or outside? Is it in between? Where would that be? It’s hard to locate the experience of hearing. It is just there, and then it isn’t there. It doesn’t come from anywhere. It doesn’t go anywhere. Yet it comes and it goes. Very mysterious! That is how things are.

To serve your teacher, you relate to his or her needs. What does mind nature need? When you rest in how thoughts, feelings, and sensations arise and subside and don’t try to do anything with them, you are relating with mind nature just as it is. When you do, you may experience a peace that is vibrant, awake, infinitely deep, and imbued with a quiet joy that knows no limit.

I provide you with food by resting without strain in empty clarity.

How do you nourish mind nature? Energy transformation practices are an important component of Vajrayana. They can induce experiences such as sheer clarity or ecstatic bliss, but they are not easy and take a lot of work. These induced experiences are similitudes of mind nature and are helpful in that they assist you in recognizing what mind nature is like. The actual experience of mind nature, however, involves no effort at all. It just happens. When the conceptual mind drops away, whether through devotion or practice, or by chance, you are just there. You nourish mind nature by just resting there without strain. Again, this is poetic language. Mind nature does not need to be nourished. It is simply there, like space. What we are actually nourishing is our experience of it.

I provide you with drink by knowing attention and distraction make no difference.

This line is the source of much misunderstanding. People often interpret lines such as this to mean that you don’t have to worry about attention or distraction. This is a serious error. There is a knowing that has nothing to do with attention or distraction, a knowing in which these words simply do not apply. You come to this knowing by practicing resting and looking deeply, so deeply that the resting and looking acquire their own momentum and that momentum carries you into this knowing. Again, this line is a poetic description of the experience, a knowing and resting so deep that the peace it elicits tastes like a glass of cool, clear water.

I clothe you by knowing appearance and sound as enchantments.

The basic elements of experience are thoughts, feelings, and sensations. A sensory sensation, such as the sight of a flower, the smell of perfume, the taste of an apple, or the sound of a flute, can be extraordinarily clear and vivid, but when you look right at the sensory sensation itself to see what it is, you cannot find anything there. When you are simultaneously open to the vividness of appearance and sound and the “being nothing there,” experience is imbued with a dreamlike quality, a magical quality. You experience the world in a qualitatively different way, intensely meaningful, but without any meaning as such. 

The mystical devotion I’ve tried to describe here is not a practice in itself, but the result of other efforts. Insight—looking into the nature of mind and thus stopping the conceptual mind—is one such effort. Another is opening deeply and resting in what we actually experience: sensory sensation, feelings, and thoughts. But for some people, the most effective method is to nurture the natural confidence and trust they feel in their teacher through prayer, and let that trust and confidence mature into faith and devotion. Through devotion, you touch again and again an open, clear awareness that is not mediated by the conceptual mind, and it is this open clear awareness that will lead you into the experience of mystical devotion.

The post Let Mind Nature Be Your Guru through Mystical Devotion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism, according to American-born teacher and translator Sangye Khandro, does not need to be adjusted for Westerners. Still, she says, Western seekers often struggle to receive full transmission and find proper instruction; or they run up against cultural misunderstandings, translation issues, and other obstacles to accomplishment. She sees these impediments as separate from the practice itself which, whether encountered in Tibet or the West, can enlighten sincere practitioners.

Tricycle has long-covered Tibetan Buddhism’s transmission to adherents living in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. Oftentimes such converts must make difficult choices as they weigh the tenets and rituals of Buddhism against the intellectual mores and practical limitations of Western life. But Sangye Khandro offers a different perspective: that of the traditionalist. 

She was born in Oregon and grew up in Salt Lake City, Portland, Chicago, and Hawaii. After traveling overland to India in 1971, she underwent six months of intensive study that culminated in her taking the lay precepts. Over the following seven years, she returned to India and Nepal annually to pursue teachings on Vajrayana practice and Tibetan language, receiving transmission from her root guru Dudjom Rinpoche and other high lamas. She has since translated several texts, including A Garland of Immortal Wishfulfilling Trees and Generating the Deity, plus additional commentaries and liturgies. She currently devotes her time to practice, translation, and overseeing Tashi Choling Retreat Center in Oregon, where she teaches alongside her partner and collaborator, Lama Chonam.

Donna Lynn Brown, a freelance reporter and Buddhist practitioner, spoke to Sangye Khandro recently in Portland, Oregon.

What enabled you to become a serious practitioner of the Vajrayana? I walked into the opportunity at a young age and at just the right time, when the Tibetan Library for Works and Archives, created by the Dalai Lama to preserve and disseminate Tibetan culture, was opening in Dharamsala, India. There I started studying both sutra and tantra right from the start. Then after several years I decided that I had to study the Tibetan language as well. In time, I was able to bring those all together.

Do you feel that the Vajrayana is being successfully transmitted to the West? Yes and no. But, in general, there is enough fully informed practice to begin anchoring Vajrayana in the West.

Vajrayana calls for three aspects of transmission: the empowerment or initiation into the practice (dbang), the reading transmission of the text (lung), and the liberating instructions on how to actually do the practice (khrid). In the West, when a teacher passes through town, these three aspects of the transmission are often left incomplete. Because there are far more opportunities for empowerment, a student may receive empowerment but not transmission or instruction. The process then gets out of order or goes unfinished. I’ve seen people do practices without knowing them properly, or even give up from lack of instruction. Students need to take steps to obtain all three aspects of transmission from a qualified teacher.

What misconceptions do Western practitioners have about tantra? People sometimes think that the life of a lay tantric practitioner is quite easy. For example, I see Westerners, even when they are quite new, wearing the ngakpa zen [robe] of a tantric practitioner. I wonder sometimes if they even know the vows for this category of practice. There are the basic refuge vows, meaning the five root vows of lay ordination, then the Bodhisattva vows that focus on attaining enlightenment for the sake of all beings, and finally the Vajrayana commitments, which are particularly difficult. Keeping all those vows is a practice in itself. It can be embarrassing to see people wearing the zen when they don’t know how to simultaneously hold all three levels of vows. If you’ve been holding all of those for a while, then go ahead and put on the zen!

Have there been other problems in the transmission of the Vajrayana? Let me give you one example. An abbot—who works with my partner Lama Chonam and me—is coming to the United States soon to teach Dzogchen. He will give the empowerment, the reading transmission, and the instructions. But there will be restrictions on who can participate. It’s very important to him that no academic researchers be present unless they are there to actually practice. He is concerned about Westerners getting these transmissions, going back to their universities, and then teaching or publishing, out of context, what they were given. This is a problem in the West, and those of us who understand proper transmission need to speak out about it. It needs to stop.

What about challenges in the translation of texts? Problems arise when translators work on profound material before they have practiced it. With tantra, you should not just pick a text up off the shelf and translate it because you are interested in it. Other issues arise when people translate texts without working with a qualified Tibetan scholarNo Adaptation Required. Those of us who translate know that, without help, we often don’t understand what we are reading. If we think we do, we are deluded. In order to clearly understand a particular subject one needs to both work with a scholar-practitioner and have some personal practice experience.

Do you think that practitioners should learn Tibetan to get the full transmission? I wish they would, but it’s not practical. And I believe that sooner or later everything will come into English. Are we there yet? No. We are still pioneers. But we can have confidence that full transmission will occur in Western languages at some point.

How can lineages be maintained given how people nowadays mix traditions and practices? People will mix practices—that’s bound to continue. All we can do is keep presenting genuine lineages that carry authentic blessings. I have no doubt that the truth and power of their timeless wisdom will prevail. I find that some people are discouraged by watered down versions of dharma, because they don’t get results. Later they come for more traditional teachings because they want something authentic.

What aspects of Western culture make it difficult for us to practice the Vajrayana? Just ordinary conceptual mind. Vajrayana demands a faith in that which is intangible. You never physically see or feel a wisdom deity. You have to cultivate pure view towards phenomenal existence. Eventually you see the world as pure land, as deity. This is not easy for Westerners; we are so conceptual, so addicted to ordinary materialistic mind. Though we may do daily sessions visualizing wisdom deities, in between we plunge into ordinariness. Then it becomes really hard to make progress.

Do Westerners fully understand the physical aspects of Vajrayana practice? Yes, if they have received instruction from a qualified teacher. Empowerment allows you to purify the obscurations and defilements of your body, as well as your speech and mind, so that you can visualize yourself as a wisdom deity. Body, speech, and mind are not separate; you work with them simultaneously. If people receive and follow the instructions, they will be okay.

What aspects of Tibetan culture can Western Buddhists leave behind?  How do we deal with the hierarchy and sexism that sometimes come along with dharma? Well, we don’t have to dress in chupas [traditional Tibetan garments] to practice the dharma! We shouldn’t pretend to be Tibetans. Still, Tibetan culture has many wonderful qualities that resonate with spiritual training, like humility. Bending down, as the Dalai Lama does, so you are lower than your teacher or the shrine—is that culture or dharma? It’s probably both, but we can learn from it.

Amongst Tibetan practitioners, the most respected people are the humble ones who aren’t involved in hierarchy. I just got back from Tibet last week, and while I was there, I visited the mother monastery of my partner Lama Chonam. The teachers in charge there sit in the lowest position. Honestly, a lot of authoritarianism in dharma centers comes from Westerners themselves—it’s just power-mongering. Asian or Western, human beings are what they are.

Your question about sexism makes me think of a visit I made to Larung Gar, Eastern Tibet, where there is a large, thriving practice community. I certainly didn’t see any patriarchal Buddhism there. It has more Khenmos [female abbots] than Khenpos [male abbots]. The female practitioners run the show. The head lama for those tens of thousands of practitioners is Khandro-ma Ani Mumtso, a nun. She’s the one who gives the empowerments for all the transmissions. No one has a problem with that. It’s a given that women can teach men there. I disagree with blaming sexism on Tibetan Buddhism. During my years among Tibetans, I have not been disadvantaged on account of being female—just the opposite. From the very beginning, I was given every opportunity to learn, sometimes even more so than men!

How do we deal with teachers, whether Asian or Western, who may be qualified but sometimes behave poorly? Westerners shouldn’t put Tibetans on a pedestal, even if they are called “Tulku” or “Rinpoche.” Keep your eyes open and look for the qualities that teachers demonstrate. In this day and age, names and titles are no longer very meaningful. Sooner or later this whole process of identifying tulkus will reach an end anyway, because the structure for it is disappearing. The great masters who are qualified to make such recognitions are passing on. You can’t know who’s who anymore. That’s something that Westerners do not understand—we think that if someone has a title, they are qualified.

A teacher should embody the dharma all of the time, not just while giving instruction. Students have to be savvy enough to discern whether this is the case. With Vajrayana, you should know this before you take empowerment. You don’t want to jump in and later find yourself in a bad position. If a teacher’s behavior doesn’t suit you, you should keep a distance. Also, ask Tibetans. You have to check both your teacher’s credentials and his or her reputation back home.

Are there differences in how Westerners and Tibetans practice guru devotion? Tibetans are practically born with it: Babies and children see their parents full of devotion. For us, it’s new, so usually we have to cultivate it. You occasionally hear of instances when Westerners see a spiritual teacher and drop to their knees, their lives forever changed; but those are not common. On the contrary, many Westerners interested in Vajrayana don’t have a guru at all. This is a problem. To practice, you have to have open-hearted devotion to a guru. That’s what gives you inspiration, sources of which are rare nowadays. So if you feel a connection to a qualified guru, seize the opportunity.

In an attempt to reduce ego, teachers sometimes inadvertently worsen a student’s already low self-esteem. How can we build the confidence we need to energize our practice? To practice Vajrayana, you have to develop vajra pride. In the initial stage of tantric practice, called the generation stage, there are three requirements: clarity in visualization, clear recollection, and vajra pride. Clarity in visualization means that you can concentrate on the wisdom deity, while pure recollection means you can remember every aspect of that deity. Vajra pride then allows you to identify with the qualities of mind that these aspects of the deity represent. By seeing them as part and parcel of yourself, you gain confidence.

If you are in a practice situation where you feel put down, you need to get out of it. Teachers who are too harsh don’t help—they harm. True vajra masters never harm their disciples. If teachers say harsh things, they need to know that their disciples can take it. People have different faculties and a good teacher discerns that. It is not compassionate to treat everyone the same way.

Does Tibetan ritual work in the West? Yes, but the teacher needs to explain a practice before asking a disciple to do it. If the meaning of each method is clear, then what you are doing is more than a ritual: it’s the practice needed to achieve the results you want. If students understand this, they will do it happily.

Some Buddhist rituals deal not with enlightened beings but with worldly ones: spirits. The merit of rituals that give something to spirits is tremendous, because they have no means to escape their terrible suffering. So making connections with them is very potent—and it works. To understand this, Westerners have to have faith in the teachings of the Buddha. It’s important not to discourage these rituals in the West, because they do bring benefit.

What is the role of monks and nuns? The Buddha taught that the presence of the monastic community was vital to the stability of his doctrine in the world. Monasticism has struggled in the West because the community support has not been in place, but I think that will change. I also think we have to focus on helping the lay community become more advanced and empowered. Then communities of lay practitioners can live and work in cooperation with monastic communities.

Will Westerners who attain enlightenment ultimately adapt the Vajrayana to our culture? We just need to keep transmitting the lineages. They will work for all humanity just as they are, notwithstanding culture or language. Yes, at some point Westerners will become fully awakened. This has probably already occurred. Can we say it hasn’t? I’ve seen practitioners die in ways similar to high lamas, with their consciousness remaining in their body for days. Those practitioners haven’t modernized or Westernized the dharma; they have been devoted disciples of their teachers, and humble, sincere practitioners of the same lineage that’s been passed on since the time of the Buddha. No adjustment is necessary—no adaptation. That wisdom is timeless.

 —Donna Lynn Brown

The post No Adaptation Required appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

♦

Hymns of the Dharma-Ages, 59.

The post The Benevolence of the True Teachers appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Chances are you have never heard of the Kumbh Mela. Any coverage of the event on Western television is usually given short shrift, the name translated with a shrug as “The Festival of the Pot.” A crowd shot, and some mention of how many people attended, given in millions. Indians themselves record the numbers in lakh or chror—for in a country of over a billion people isn’t it more useful to count in multiples of a hundred thousand or ten million? On the television screen you might see ten seconds of local color: hoards of Naga Babas, warrior ascetics with streaming dreadlocks, storming into the waters clad only in marigolds and ashes. And you think, “How exotic!” but you can have no notion of the event itself.

The Kumbh Mela is a vast pilgrimage, a Hindu revival meeting, a gathering by the confluence of three holy rivers, a celebration of faith. Yet it is also a chance for living human beings to participate in recreating an ancient cosmic event, nothing less than the renewal of cosmic rectitude through the joined efforts of the ancient demons and gods of India, good and evil, when they came together to churn the Ocean of Milk.

I had traveled twice before to India, first as a tourist, later as a seeker, but I wanted to go deeper. So when my friends and I were invited to the Maha Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering of humanity in history, invited to stay in the ashram of a local guru with a talent for needling the authorities, in a building that had been partially demolished when these same officials, it was rumored, caused a wrecking ball to be swung against it “accidentally” three times, we agreed to travel together to Allahabad, a city in north-central India. Our contributions would help shore up the ashram’s crumbling facade, and we would bed down on straw pallets, on a rise overlooking the floodplain where three rivers come together to form the auspicious bathing place called the Sangam. In winter the rivers retreat to their broad dry-season shallows, and the sprawling rainy-season floodplain turns into a landscape of fine silt, where every twelve years a city is built, complete with roads and privies, electricity and housing, markets and banks, to accommodate the millions who come, when the stars are right, to take the holy “dip.”

*          *          *

I wasn’t thinking particularly profound thoughts about a pilgrimage when I decided to come on this journey. I loved India, its smells and hues and complexity, and had not been back for many years. And it would be fun to travel with my friends, one of whom had never been out of the United States. But once you make a commitment to take a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage has a way of taking you. And so it happened that on a December night, about a week before we were scheduled to fly to India, I found myself in the emergency room of Mount Desert Island Hospital, my heart beating out a peculiar syncopation that took several electric shocks to set it pumping smoothly again.

My doctor is explaining the procedure to me, and I am telling him with a casualness that surprises us both, “Just get on with it,” because I’m leaving for India in a week to bathe in the Ganges with millions of pilgrims. My physician, a sober Canadian who looks like a very young John Denver, shoots me a look that tells me he is not entirely sure whether to cardiovert me or have me fitted for a straitjacket. I finally agree to postpone my trip, but only by a week, and only until he can get me on some meds that will, I hope, prevent this arrhythmia from recurring when I am far away from familiar Western medical care. But what is really happening inside me is the realization that, unlike the millions of Indians who are traveling to the Kumbh Mela by train and bus and on foot across the subcontinent, as a Westerner I am insulated from that kind of pilgrimage. If I were walking across India and got a blister, there would always be a credit card and a night in a comfortable hotel. So the question arises: Of what does my own pilgrimage consist? Is it not this moment of sitting on gurney in an emergency room, wired to an electrocardiogram, with the eavesdropping universe asking, “Okay, kid, how badly do you want this? Do you long to go with your whole heart?” And in this same moment comes a resounding YES! and I understand on what feels like the deepest possible level that whatever happens in India, whether I live or die, I will be, I am, perfectly all right.

As an Indian friend later tells me, all pilgrimages are internal.

The legend of “Churning the Ocean of Milk” is told in many of the Hindu scriptures. Stone carvings adorning temples from India to Angkor Wat show how the gods and demons wrapped the giant snake Vasuki around a holy mountain, and how, pulling back and forth, with the gods arrayed on one side and the demons on the other, they spun the mountain like a butter churn until the primordial ocean offered up its treasures. The greatest of these was the Kumbh—not a pot, really, but a vessel, brimming with Amrit, the Nectar of Immortality.

The story begins in a time of spiritual malaise, when the gods and demons had been locked in war for eons, a time when neither were yet immortal. The war took an awful toll, and finally the gods went to Lord Vishnu for advice. He told them to churn the Ocean of Milk for the Amrit, which not only would make them immortal but also would reestablish righteousness and set all creation on a better path.

But there was a hitch. The gods, weakened by war, could not do it alone; they needed to enlist the help of the demons. But under no circumstances could the demons be allowed to partake of the Amrit, lest they too become immortal.

The gods strained and the demons cursed. After much effort the vessel emerged from the deep. In the ensuing scuffle the demons grabbed the pot. The gods were frantic, but Lord Vishnu tricked the greedy demons and escaped with the Kumbh, flying all over the universe and hiding the Amrit at various holy places. In his haste Lord Vishnu spilled a few drops here and there, including at Allahabad, at the place where the three rivers meet: the muddy Ganges, the blue Yamuna, and the mystical underground Saraswati, river of faith and deep knowing. And every twelve years, when the stars are right, millions of people make a pilgrimage to this very spot to bathe in the meeting rivers, which, they believe, briefly flow with the Amrit of Immortality.

*          *          *

In my journey to the Maha Kumbh Mela I traveled with Matthew and Laurence, two old friends from Bar Harbor. Matthew and I traveled light, but this was Laurence’s first trip overseas and he had packed for all contingencies. Bunion pads and bungee cords, duct tape, combination locks, journals, tarps, cameras, Luna Bars, dried fruit, four hundred rubber bands, and an elaborate water purification system. I tried to explain that there was bottled water in all but the remotest villages in India, but he wouldn’t hear it. He had alfalfa seeds, and jars for sprouting them—Laurence had spent years as a raw-food vegetarian—shoes for any situation, sweaters, pants long and short and in between, pliers, push pins, a pink mosquito net, red suspenders, and a hammer and nails. A can of nuclear bug spray promised to purge every crawling, stinging thing from our bedrooms. Beardless, he’d brought a beard trimmer, and Band-Aids, granola, toothpicks, and cotton swabs for cleansing his ears and nasal passages. Toilet paper, Kleenex, grapefruit seed oil, and a huge brick of Callebaut chocolate, which he surreptitiously nibbled to console himself on bad days. He had pills for malaria and Delhi belly, and herbal tinctures and tiny vials of homeopathic remedies to take in case the other pills failed, 180 pairs of Groucho Marx eyeglasses, a sack of molded rubber finger puppets incarnating the Hindu deities Brahma, Ganesha and Kali, two dozen blow-up globe beach balls and a staple gun. Finally, in a small plain box, tied with string and hidden among his socks and underwear, was a Ziploc bag containing a portion of the ashes of his daughter, Kira, who had died at twenty-one, ashes that he hoped to scatter in the Ganges if the spirit moved him.

Everything he carried was shoehorned into an immense duffel bag, which often forced us to hire a second taxi. On those occasions we were not kind to Laurence. As experienced travelers, Matthew and I prided ourselves on living off the land. Yet more than once we found ourselves sheepishly begging some strategic item from Laurence, to his immense satisfaction. Not once did he offer us any chocolate.

The place of the meeting rivers in Allahabad spread out before us, glittering in the morning sunlight. Looking closely we could see the actual spot where the muddy yellow shallows of the Ganges meet the blue depths of the Yamuna. The waters of the Saraswati we could not see, but we felt her, coursing beneath everything. At any hour, the Sangam was marked by a line of little rowboats, hired to carry pilgrims to bathe in the exact spot where the rivers meet.

At different times of day we would wander down among the crowds of pilgrims, a vast living nation that had come together for this occasion. Because this was the first Maha Kumbh Mela of the new millennium, it drew an unusually large and varied crowd. Over the course of a month seventy million people passed through Allahabad. Farmers in dhotis, village wives in faded cotton saris, and urban high-tech workers sporting trendy Western fashions were joined by spiritual seekers from East and West. Movie stars from Bollywood and Hollywood arrived with their retinues. The foreign press published photographs of bathing women in wet saris and were severely chastised. Celebrity gurus held flashy media events to demonstrate their spiritual powers. Rolex babas held court. The Dalai Lama spoke. Madonna took a dip. I declined the kind offer to marry a nattily turbaned Rajasthani gentleman with a gold brocade kaftan and silver walking stick. Colorful sadhus from all over India wandered the grounds, their foreheads anointed with endless permutations of white ash and the scarlet powder called kum-kum. One old man, carrying a trident, his matted hair falling to his waist and his pupils dilated with ganja or perhaps cosmic astonishment, stuck his face close to mine and demanded, “Are you fine?!” “Yes, Baba,” I answered, “I am fine.” And he blessed me and melted back into the throng.

Well-to-do pilgrims slept in tents, the poor outside on their bedrolls; the poorest, who live their whole lives on the streets of India, shivered in the dampness on frayed straw mats. Meals were cooked over small fires. Babies were born. Old people were abandoned to die. Some days we wandered through the acres of temporary temples, built of lashed bamboo and painted cloth, where famous teachers received their followers for darshan—the gift of beholding and being beheld by God—while loudspeakers broadcast their spiritual discourses. Devotees offered sacred food first to God for blessing, and then to crowds of hungry pilgrims. Some sects served dal with rice and vegetables, while at the sprawling Hari Krishna tent we feasted on carrot halva and milk fudge and rice pudding, delicately scented with rosewater. Naga Babas, renunciates who some believed had flown through the air from their Himalayan retreats, presided over smaller enclaves lit by crystal chandeliers, and offered us hits of Lord Shiva’s intoxicating prasad from clay chillums. These yogis are naked but for the ashes they gather from the cremation grounds and rub on their bodies, making their skin the color of the sky before the monsoon. Some have spent many years performing extreme austerities, such as holding one arm raised until their muscles atrophy and their fingernails grow long and twisted as vines.

Some days we just sat by the river and watched the faithful wade into the waters and perform their ritual ablutions, then gather holy water in little vessels to carry home with them. Always people thronged to the Sangam. Even late at night groups of young men, too stimulated to sleep, congregated by the water, chatting and drinking.

*          *          *

It was on such a night that Laurence woke from a deep sleep and knew it was time to carry Kira’s ashes to the Ganges. He dressed quietly, and found the simple brown box in his duffle bag, all the while trying not to wake any of the travelers who shared our room. Matthew stirred under his mosquito net in the next bed and asked Laurence in a whisper whether he would like company, and together the two friends headed out into the darkness.

It must have been between 3 and 4 a.m., the meditation hour, because that was the only time the broadcasts ceased. Otherwise, all day and all night loudspeakers blared the sacred and the profane, bhajans and sports car promotions, mantras and ads for toothpaste, to villagers who had never before traveled more than a few miles from their homes, and who still cleaned their teeth by chewing on twigs of the neem tree. After a while you noticed only the cessation of sound. It was too quiet. A predawn fog had risen from the river, mixing with the particulate smoke of a million tiny dung fires. Laurence and Matthew drew their shawls over their mouths and noses as they picked their way among the sleeping pilgrims. Already we had all developed deep coughs from the smoke and dust and dampness and the powdered DDT that was sprayed from trucks to keep down the malarial mosquitos.

Arriving at the water at this unlikely hour, Laurence and Matthew were a novelty that drew the attention of a group of young men, who had passed thus far an uneventful night. Half challenging, half jocular, and just a little drunk, they besieged the two Westerners with the usual banalities. At first Laurence answered politely, but as each new fellow arrived, asking the same question his friends had just asked Laurence began to doubt whether he could actually accomplish his solemn errand. Finally, he turned to the oldest and pleaded in a voice clipped with emotion, “Please. I am trying to put my daughter’s ashes in the Ganga.”

The man started, suddenly sober, and a little ashamed, “Oh sir, I am so sorry. Please. If there is anything I can do . . .” And he spoke soft to his friends in Hindi, and the young men’s boisterous demeanor changed to one of quiet reverence. They drew back and made a path and Laurence carried Kira’s ashes into the meeting rivers.

Standing alone in the darkness, Laurence scooped water and let fall through his hands and prayed for Kira, who had died suddenly, hardly more than a girl, and for his infant son, Elijah, who had be born prematurely, his lungs too tiny and weak to survive, and had died without ever seeing the sun. Into the dark river, Laurence floated the little leaf cups, stitched together by thorns, that carry candles’ prayers and offerings of marigolds and rose petals. They floated first as flames, then as halos, growing ever fainter in the mist, until finally their glow dissolved into nothingness. Then he sifted a portion of his daughter’s ashes into the river, keeping yet a little for himself. 

“It is done,” he told himself.

Matthew joined Laurence as he emerged from the river, and together turning toward home, they saw how the young men were standing, silent now, in a semicircle, guarding the sacred space.

Laurence and Matthew climbed the riverbank and walked back to the ashram, past wakening pilgrims huddled around their tiny dung fires, and, as Matthew told the story, they knew that Kira walked with them.

♦

From In a Rocket Made of Ice by Gail Gutradt. Copyright © 2014 by Gail Gutradt. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Experience more of Kumbh Mela in the film club selection, Faith Connections, a documentary about the event’s attendees, many of whom face an inescapable dilemma: to embrace the world or to renounce it.

The post A Pilgrimage Among Friends appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche is only half-jokingly referred to as dharma royalty. The grandson of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, the son of Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, the nephew of Chökyi Nyima, Tsoknyi, and Mingyur rinpoches, and the eldest brother of Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi, he grew up in Nepal steeped in the living heritage of Tibetan dharma. He is one of the throne holders of the Riwoche Taklung Kagyu Lineage and a lineage holder of the Profound Treasures of Chokgyur Lingpa from the Nyingma School. He also received a rigorous traditional training. Yet all this occurred at a time when the Kathmandu Valley was undergoing its rapid transformation from a medieval outpost to a bustling metropolis, bringing with it all the trappings, glitter, and ruptures of modernity. Phakchok Rinpoche’s comfort and familiarity with both worlds has provided him with an exceptional capacity to address a whole new generation of dharma students. In January 2013, he took a few minutes from an extraordinarily busy schedule to talk with Tricycle’s founder, Helen Tworkov, in Kathmandu, Nepal.

In your booklet “Keys to Happiness & a Meaningful Life,” you speak of the importance of knowing one’s own faults, reducing judgments, and practicing lovingkindness and compassion. And you speak of the eight keys to a meaningful life: generosity, patience, discipline, and the other virtues traditionally called the paramitas [perfections]. You emphasize the importance of these qualities for everyone, whether they are Buddhist or not. This suggests that you can develop these aspects independently of a religious context, which is appealing to those who want some kind of “Buddhist” practice without religion. Buddhism introduces wisdom. That’s the difference. For example, compassion with wisdom doesn’t exactly look the same as compassion without wisdom. Wisdom means to be free from complicated mind. Dignity without wisdom can be easily corrupted by pride. Generosity without wisdom can be corrupted by self-flattery. Without wisdom, you cannot be a perfect person—meaning that you cannot be free from complicated mind. Without this freedom, your good qualities always risk being corrupted.

And dharma has the capacity to free us from complicated mind? Yes, but we need to practice. Dharma offers all the wonderful qualities: happiness, joy, lovingkindness, and so forth. But we are so vulnerable to being corrupted. For example, take love. How many people create problems for themselves and others because of what we call love? How often do we really put ourselves ahead of the other in the name of love? How often does joy become a selfish pleasure? Compassion can be a way of serving yourself. How many people make puja[ritual offerings] to please the gods for their own benefit? How many people do their Buddhist practice thinking only of themselves and not of others?

That is why practice is so important. Daily practice. The routine of practice with formal practice sessions.

If Buddhism is necessary for freeing the mind, then why talk about these virtues in a non-Buddhist way? Sometimes when I meet with Westerners, they want to hear about Buddhism. But If I speak about impermanence, karma, and death, they become terrified. They do not want to hear about these things. They do not have a dharma context. So I had to learn what was suitable. Also, if you know dharma but do not apply it, then you have more regret than if you had never learned any dharma in the first place. If you are not going to apply dharma knowledge to your life—better not to know it at all.

What does wisdom mean? To be free from complicated mind. What is ritual? Behavior and activity that helps free the complicated mind.

Sounds like we can’t get far without the teachings. Buddhist teachings are not just about perfecting good human qualities, but freeing our minds from that which corrupts. Ego is the problem. But what rolls the ball of ego? Complicated mind. What I hear in the West is “I like Buddhism, I don’t like ritual.” This is complicated mind. “I like meditation, I don’t like emptiness. I do not like the idea of egolessness. I like to go to retreat, but I do not understand enlightenment. I like samsara.”

What does emptiness mean? What does wisdom mean? To be free from complicated mind. What is ritual? Behavior and activity that helps free the complicated mind.

Does ego drive the complicated mind? The ball needs to roll. The ball is ego. A big ball needs more energy to roll.

Does this differ between East and West? I don’t think so, though in the West, devotional practices often create a lot of discomfort.

How do you respond to that? Well, it helps to offer people some explanation about devotional practices and try to dispel some of the misconceptions around them. For example, a lot of people speak of devotion as a “feeling,” a sense of something vague and kind of cloudy. But real devotion only arises when you have a glimpse of emptiness, some glimpse of the nature of mind. Once you have some very precise insight as to how emptiness helps to alleviate suffering, then devotion is based on a real, embodied experience.

Let’s say that you are interested in dharma, and you go to some teachings and learn about meditation and begin to recognize your own complicated mind. And you do not have much devotion, but you go along with things, you bow and chant and so forth. But then you get a little glimpse of the possibilities of freedom. Real freedom. Freedom from complicated mind. When you really get this, your ego should become a little diminished. Sometimes not. But generally yes. Then your appreciation of the dharma and the teachings of the Buddha become immense. Devotion comes through experience. Then the rituals become an expression of this genuine appreciation.

One American said to me, “I do not like prostrations and rituals. Can you teach me dharma without rituals?” I told him, go out on a date with no ritual behavior. You just sit there, you don’t talk, you don’t make eye contact, you don’t giggle, you don’t touch. Nothing. Do you think this will be a successful date? No. I went out on my first date with my wife in New York City. You dress nicely, you smile, you talk, you gaze, you touch. This is the ritual of dating. And at the end of the night you get a kiss.

I met a Zen monk once. He explained to me that unlike Tibetan Buddhists, Zen didn’t use all that ritual. They went straight to emptiness. Then I had a meal at a Zen temple. Every single movement was a ritual. How you sat down, how you unfold your napkin, how you hold your bowls, how you put them down, where you place your chopsticks. Every single gesture. There was no room for choice. This was a ritual for gathering the mind. But the rituals and methods of devotion need to be explained; otherwise they seem to come from Mars.

And should dharma students be encouraged to question? Yes. Definitely. Western education is very good in this way. Children are taught to question and challenge in ways that are good for dharma. Buddhadharma goes deeper when you question. Value comes from challenging and investigating.

The post Keys to Happiness appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Legend tells us that Chan Buddhism began in India, specifically when the Buddha transmitted his true dharma to one and only one disciple, Mahakashyapa. History, however, tells us a different story, namely that Chan originated in China some time around the 6th century. Over time, the Chan school spread throughout most of the Chinese sphere of cultural influence—to Korea, Vietnam, and of course Japan, and it is by its Japanese name, Zen, that Westerners recognize it best. Of course, it is not just the name; the Japanese tradition is by far the most familiar and visible of Chan’s various cultural manifestations, though Korean and Vietnamese traditions as well have gained sizable footing in the West. All of which makes for a certain irony: while Chan originated in China, and while China, after the Indian subcontinent, has been the most historically influential home for Buddhism, Westerners tend by and large to have very little working knowledge of contemporary Chinese Buddhism.

The first great ancestor of the Chan school is Bodhidharma, the “Western barbarian” who is said to have brought the lineage from India to China. A famous four-line stanza attributed to Bodhidharma describes Chan’s salient characteristics:

A special transmission outside the scriptures,
Not depending on words and letters;
Directly pointing to the mind
Seeing into one’s true nature and attaining Buddhahood.

As the first line above makes clear, and as has been made clear in countless ways since, the “special transmission outside the scriptures,” the mind-to-mind transmission said to have begun with Shakyamuni Buddha and Mahakashyapa, lies at the core of Chan. Indeed, as the Exodus is for Judaism and the Resurrection is for Christianity, this transmission is an integral part of Chan’s self-definition. As much as anything, it is what makes Chan, Chan. It also, one might argue, demonstrates Chan’s distinctly Chinese character, for its transmission style is unlike styles developed in India, whether they were based on scriptures or on esoteric practice.

We in the West have struggled to come to terms with the meaning of transmission of lineage in Chan in its various cultural forms, and it is, I think, altogether fitting that we should do so. We have been beguiled by its mystique, and we have been put off by its failures. We have tried idealizing it, we have tried rejecting it, and we have tried ignoring it. Nothing seems to work really, and that too is probably altogether fitting. Some things just take time.

Dharma transmission in Chan is grounded in traditional East Asian cultural experience, a cultural experience very different from that of the modern West. If we are to understand it, we would do well to try to see across that divide, not ignore it, and get a sense, from the inside, of what transmission means in the context in which it originated. It is with this in mind that we have selected the following excerpts from Master Guo Jun’s book, Essential Chan Buddhism: The Spirit and Character of Chinese Zen, a clear, concise, and practical introduction to contemporary Chan. The two sections complement each other and, we hope, make understandable the attitudes that although they are unfamiliar to most Westerners, lie at the heart of Chan tradition.

Chan Master Guo Jun is abbot of Mahabodhi Monastery in Singapore and teaches internationally. He is the youngest dharma heir of Chan Master Sheng Yen (1930–2009) and served from 2005 to 2008 as abbot of the latter’s retreat center in Pine Bush, New York. Guo Jun is a native of Singapore, where he was born in 1974, and he received his full monastic ordination in Taiwan in 1998. He is a lineage holder in the Chan, Xianshou, and Cien schools of Chinese Buddhism.

—Andrew Cooper, Features Editor

Respect for Ancestors

Respect for our ancestors is at the heart of both Chinese culture and Chan.

The reasons to offer respect and to keep our ancestors always in our minds are self-evident to us, but perhaps it seems a little strange to Westerners. What do we mean by respect for our ancestors, how does it apply to Chan, and what wisdom can we derive from it that is useful to us, whether we are from China or the West?

In Chan we have what’s called “paying tribute.” On the new moon and full moon, twice a month, we pay respect to our lineage masters. We look into the essence of the virtue and the qualities that have been passed down to us. We acknowledge these qualities in ourselves, and we seek to pass them on to others.

This is very different from the traditional mode of Chinese ancestor worship, which is superficial and ritualistic and has a Confucian flavor of obedience and filial piety. In Chan, we venerate our lineage masters after a thorough investigation. We also pay respect to our lineage masters at the end of Chan retreats, when we can feel the qualities that have been passed down to us.

At the simplest level, we seek to emulate the virtue of our ancestors in our minds, our hearts, our speech, and our actions. The word “virtue” in the West has a kind of self-righteous, holier-than-thou connotation. This is not the way we think of virtue in China. There are many ways to write “virtue” in Chinese. In the way I’m using it here, one side of the ideogram represents a double person; the other side is the character for “heart.” Virtue can be thought of as having the heart of two people. You are able to feel and give more. You have extra compassion and empathy. It also implies courage.

When we seek to emulate the virtue of our ancestors it is not necessarily for their lofty ideals. If our grandmother was generous, the best way to pay respect to our grandmother is to be like her and be a generous person. If your grandfather was courageous, the best way to pay respect to your grandfather is to be a courageous person. Have that virtue in you.

In China, there are rituals that support this kind of respect, such as chanting or making an offering. There is nothing wrong with them: they are gestures, but they are not necessarily Chan if they are only for appearances.

The teachings of Chan are always about the heart and the mind. And Chan emphasizes daily life. You hold the qualities of those who have passed away in your heart and mind, and you also put those qualities into practice in the way that you live.

Respect for our ancestors in Chan also helps us have gratitude. It is part of our four great vows: to save sentient beings, cut off endless vexations, master limitless approaches to dharma, and attain supreme buddhahood.

If we’re selfish, then we will not be able to give rise to vows. It is only when we are touched by others through gestures of love and kindness that we are able to turn ourselves in the direction of helping others. These gestures of love and kindness come most directly from our ancestors. In order for people to love others, they must first experience love themselves.

In Chan, we also feel that it is our ancestors that have allowed us to come in contact with the Buddha’s teaching. Without them we would not have the chance to overcome suffering and to help others do so. Because of that, we feel a profound gratitude. We bow deeply with respect. In Chinese we have a saying: “When you drink water, reflect on the source; when we eat fruit, bow to the tree.”

When we recognize and acknowledge the source of things, we experience gratitude, and from this gratitude come feelings of joy and peace. As a Chan monk, I am always aware of my teachers and all the other lineage masters and the Buddha from whom the teachings come. They all made sacrifices so I can learn Chan.

Our suffering was not caused by our parents or grandparents. It was merely passed down. We are social animals. We grow through modeling. We teach what we have learned. We act as we have been acted upon. A person who is not loving has not experienced love. It is not his fault. Realizing this gives rise to forgiveness. And in Chan we vow that suffering will stop with us. We will not pass it down.

Chan takes the folk religion of ancestor worship and the Confucian model of respect for our ancestors as fundamental to social continuity and harmony and adds to it and deepens it, helping us experience profound levels of gratitude, which gives rise to feelings of love and forgiveness. In its respect for ancestors, Chan emphasizes a spiritual lineage that goes back 2,500 years to the Buddha and celebrates the continuation of an ancient tradition of kindness and love.

My First Master

Everything has two sides, the good and the bad, the easy and hard, the pleasant and difficult. Chan has two sides as well. Chan masters will use a stick and hit you. They punch and shout. They can be really nasty. Why? They are testing you, testing your devotion and dedication.

I had my own form of this kind of training from my ordination master, Song Nian. His nuns could not hide their gloating when I became a monk. Now, as the youngest of his disciples, I would be his attendant. That terrible job no longer fell on them.

When I became a monk, I asked Song Nian, “When do I get my robes?”

He said, “That is your business, not mine. Go find them yourself.”

Song Nian was in a Chan lineage, but he didn’t teach. He was renowned for his calligraphy and bonsai. He had come to Singapore after fleeing Mainland China in 1949 when the Communists took over. He was from an aristocratic family, and he feared for his life.

At birth, Song Nian didn’t move or breathe. His mother gave him away to one of his sisters and wanted nothing more to do with him. He was sickly but precocious and entered university at the young age of 16.

It was my job to take care of him. He was a tall man with a big build. When he was younger he had been a master of the martial arts. He was known for being handsome. He was also a calligrapher, and the combination of warrior and artist gave him a unique and compelling charisma. He was also a scholar, but scholars are not usually as physically strong and graceful. He had long white eyebrows, and even at 87, his age when I first became his disciple, he always walked at a great pace. I had to run to keep up with him.

In his old age he had become enormously cantankerous. He would scold and scold and scold me from the first moment he saw me in the morning to when he closed his door each night in my face.

Every meal was one complaint after another, a litany of woes and gripes. I never served him the right amount of food.

On one day he would complain that his plate was too full.

“Are you trying to stuff me to death?” he would say. “Are you trying to bloat me and burst me with food?”

The next day I would give him less.

“Guo Jun,” he hissed. “Why do you give me so little?”

“Master, yesterday you said I gave you too much!”

“Seeds for Hell!” he barked, using my nickname and shaking his finger at me as if to curse. “Today, I am more active. I am hungry. I need more food!”

The breakfast of brown rice and bean porridge was never right. It was either too thick or too thin. Because he was old and his teeth were bad, he couldn’t chew. So the porridge couldn’t be too thick. But if it was too thin, he’d hiss and point his finger: “Seeds For Hell, you are serving me soup!”

When we ate, I had to finish exactly one moment after him. If I was done eating before he was, he would scold me. “Why do you finish so fast? You are rushing me.” If I finished after him, I was scolded. “Why are you so slow, Guo Jun? You always make me wait.”

I had to help him around because he was frail. If I grabbed him too tightly to help him get up or walk, he’d shout at me. If I held him too lightly, he’d say I wanted him to fall and die. I had to walk just to his side and slightly behind him. When he turned his head slightly, I immediately had to be next to him, not too close and not too far. I had to anticipate his every wish.

If I walked too loudly, he scolded me for disturbing him. He would cock his head. “Did I hear a horse galloping?” he would say. Or: “Is there an elephant in the monastery?”

If I walked too softly, he called me a ghost and accused me of trying to frighten him by sneaking around. He would be startled. “Which hell are you from?” he would hiss. “You are so quiet, like a snake.”

He had a habit of peering at me with a kind of mock concern. “Guo Jun, you look older since the last time I saw you.” It didn’t matter if that had been two minutes before. “Why have you aged so much?” He would say this in a slithery, ominous tone. Was he trying to teach me impermanence? I still don’t know. “Guo Jun, why do you look so old? Why have you aged?”

After he had an operation for gallstones, I had to sleep outside his room. He wouldn’t hear of letting me sleep next to him on the floor. “I have treasures under my bed,” he barked. “You’re a thief and will steal them.” He had a buzzer by his bed to summon me when he needed to go to the bathroom. If I delayed for an instant, he would wet his bed, and I would get hell from him. Because he was in a wheelchair, I had to shower him and wipe his feces. Perhaps he was teaching me that in order to be a master you first must serve.

The gallstones required emergency surgery. He refused to go to the hospital, and I had to sling him over my shoulder and carry him to the doctor on my back. When I brought him to hospital, he berated me endlessly.

“Seeds for Hell! You are always trying to kill me!”

He called me into his room before I left to study in Taiwan. There were red packets on the table, the kind we use in Asia for monetary gifts. “Whatever is here is my blessing to you,” he said. “Whatever is here is yours.”

When I opened the packets and counted up the money it was enough for a ticket to Taiwan, one way. To this day I think that he sifted through the packets and took out all the larger bills. There was no kindness in him. He made me feel like an adopted child. That is the Chinese way.

He trained me to be mindful and exact. In retrospect, I see that he prepared me for Korea. I learned from him never to say “I don’t know how.” “Seeds for Hell! You have time to say you don’t know how. Why don’t you take that time to go learn?”

Sometimes I’d make him angry on purpose, in a kind of passive-aggressive display of pique or to make him angry for my own amusement. After I cleaned the table, I would place his cup in a slightly different place from where I had found it. As a calligrapher, he was incredibly exact, and the lack of precision I displayed infuriated him. “The cup goes here, not there,” he would hiss, moving it a centimeter one way or another. “I’m not going to teach you. I’ll let you be taught by your disciples.”

My mantra was earliest-latest, most-least, first-last. I woke up earliest and went to bed latest, did the most, and ate the least. I was the first to take the blame and the last one to get credit.

Song Nian was fond of repeating the parable of the waving flag.

Two monks were looking at a flag blowing in the wind and arguing. One said the flag was moving; the other said it was the wind that was moving. Wind or flag? They went to their master to settle the issue. “Neither flag nor wind,” their master said. “The mind is moving.”

Song Nian rarely smiled, but recounting this little story invariably seemed to amuse him.

In the morning service, if I hit the wooden fish, singing bowl, gong, or drum wrong, he would peer around, looking under things and making a great display after we were done.

“What are you doing, master?” I would ask.

“Looking for the lost notes. Have you seen them?”

He scolded me with poems:

I used my true heart
To face the moon.
Who knew
The moon was facing a drain?

“Drain” in this case could be thought of as toilet or sewer.

I was his last disciple. It seems I am always the last disciple. Maybe in my past life I was naughty. That is why it has always been my karma to be taught by dying men.

It is important to be able to take hardship, and basic to Chan is the concept that nothing precious and to be cherished is easily obtained. A bit of pressure is good. It’s healthy. Pain is an inevitable part of growth, and pain is necessary for spiritual development.

We have a traditional saying: “If the disciple, no matter how you scold, will not run away, then you go to the next stage.” You chase him away. No matter how you try to chase him, if he doesn’t run away, then you go to the third stage. You beat him. If he still doesn’t run away, only then do you begin to teach him.

If I used this method on my students and disciples, or just stared at them fiercely, or beat them, or made them do endless remedial tasks, they would say I had no compassion and head for the hills. How would I be able to spread the dharma and deliver sentient beings? Those are my vows. So I have adapted.

Before I left to go to Taiwan, Song Nian blessed me from his wheelchair. I didn’t want to leave him; I didn’t want to go away. He was saying mantras and making mudras and murmuring to himself. He placed both his hands on my head and intoned: “The alms bowl for a thousand families. The lonely, wandering monk will travel ten thousand miles. I’ll see you in a week,” he said. I thought he must have lost his mind. Aside from the gallstones, he’d had two strokes and several major heart attacks. He refused to take heart medicine. His cardiologist, a younger man, died before him. He was a tough old bird.

I bid him farewell and flew to Taiwan. Three days later I got the news that he had died. It took me four days to arrange my ticket. I was back in Singapore exactly seven days later. The president and prime minister of Singapore attended his funeral. It took me seven years to build a stupa for his ashes.

When I was in Taiwan after he died, I would ring the big bronze bell after the evening service before the monastery closed up for the night. The bell was at the top of a hill in the main hall. It was over two meters high, forged in Taiwan. The ringer was a ram of wood that was slung on ropes. You rang the bell 108 times in the morning to wake everyone up and 108 times in the evening. I’d chant verses between rings. One went:

Children who run away from their families
Lonely travelers
Wandering in distant lands
May they return home soon
And be reunited
With their loved ones

When I sang these verses, my heart went out to everyone wandering, everyone like me who was far from home. The rich tone of the bell reverberated over the hills in coming dark. I thought of Song Nian’s blessing. I never guessed that one day I would be back at his monastery and take over as abbot. That is where I am now.

I didn’t want to return, but people were saying Song Nian was unlucky because he didn’t have any disciples. His monastery would be closed and fall to ruins, and he would soon be forgotten. It would be as if he had never lived. So I felt I had to return. What can I say? I’m Chinese. And this too is part of the character and spirit of Chan.

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Using visualizations can be a powerful form of meditation—but don’t imagine visualizations are something new and foreign that you have no experience with. In reality, you visualize all day long. The breakfast you eat in the morning is a visualization; in an important way it is a kind of projection of your own mind. You are visualizing that your breakfast has some kind of independent existence. Similarly, whenever you go shopping and think, “This is nice,” or “I don’t like that,” whatever you’re looking at is a projection of your own mind. When you get up in the morning and see the sun shining and think, “Oh, it’s going to be nice today,” that’s your own mind visualizing. Visualization is not something supernatural; it’s scientific. So the challenge is to harness that already well-developed skill and make it into something wholesome and useful. Accordingly, consider the following practices:

Visualize yourself as a buddha, standing upright or sitting on your cushion, with your body completely transparent from your head down to your feet. Your body is utterly clear and empty of all material substance, like a balloon filled with air. Nothing at all is inside. Contemplate this for several minutes.

Or try this: Instead of looking at others, telling yourself your usual story about who people are, visualize every person you see as the Bodhisattva of Compassion, the very embodiment of compassion. Deeply doing this, there’s no way you can feel negative toward them. It’s impossible. Instead of misery, they give you blissful energy. This practice is a powerful way to purify negativity.

Another visualization you can experiment with is this: When you wash, imagine that you are washing your divine body with blissful energy instead of washing your mundane, suffering body with water. Then dress your divine body with blissful, divine robes instead of ordinary clothes. If you start your morning like that, the rest of your day will be much easier.

♦

From When the Chocolate Runs Out by Lama Yeshe © 2011. Reprinted by permission of Wisdom Publications.

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