More Stuff (# 1928)

1.
***: There was more than one poem that I referenced the other day.
Adams Rubble: Oh?
***: There was this poem of Hanshan (Cold Mountain Master) that also spoke to me:

In jewel-bright water’s crystalline clarity
you can see to the bottom of occurrence-

appearing-of-itself, Animal grace bright
clarity waters in a mind free of concerns,

shimmering. No illusions arising: that is
mind changeless across kalpa after kalpa.

When you make this your understanding,
your understanding is open-bottomless.

David Hinton. The Way of Ch’an. Boulder, Colo., 2023, p. 191.

Adams Rubble: That is beautiful. So the “mind free of concerns” is what you found on your imaginary mountain.
***: Yes, although more remembered that imagined.
Adams Rubble: hmmm, “open-bottomless” understanding.
***: sort of like the presence of Being as the source of the presentation of appearance. It seems that the understanding understands there is more.

Adams Rubble: That is beautiful. So the “mind free of concerns” is what you found on your imaginary mountain.
***: Yes, although more remembered that imagined.
Adams Rubble: hmmm, “open-bottomless” understanding.
***: sort of like the presence of Being as the source of the presentation of appearance. It seems that the understanding understands there is more.
Adams Rubble: it seems like a good place to just let go, wu wei.
***: The mind free of concerns.
Adams Rubble: I really like this poet.
***: I have been reading a bit about the reasons that the Chinese Guanyin became feminine and the whole idea of the feminine aspect of the divine. It seems that patriarchal Buddhism could not compete with Daoism with its female goddesses, most especially the Queen Mother of the West.
Adams Rubble: I can see that. Shantideva was very ignorant of women and I think, fearful too.
***: In 848 CE the Daoists gained political advantage in China and 4600 monasteries and 40,000 temples were destroyed. Two hundred and sixty thousand monks and nuns were returned to lay life. Buddhism as a patriarchal system was in trouble. Buddhism added the feminine aspect of the divine with Guanyin as female.(I wonder if this might be a clue to, or a part of, the demise of Buddhism in India.)
The model may have been the Nestorian statues of Mary coming from the silk road. this is discussed by Martin Palmer and Jay Ransay with Man-Ho Kwok in their Kuan Yin Chronicles (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Co., 2009).
Adams Rubble: Isn’t there some connection with the Lotus Sutra.
***: The Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma (Lotus Sutra), written about the 1c CE, says that Avalokitesvara can appear in any form; this includes Hindu Gods as well as male or female forms. Of course, male is Avalokitesvara main form in the sutra. In fact the Chinese have always insisted that while Guanyin is female in this world, when she goes back to heaven, she will revert to male form.
Adams Rubble: I can relate to that last idea 🙂 So there is an end game. Will Guanyin’s work ever be done though?
In Tibetan Vajrayana symbolism I understand that compassion is male and wisdom is female. So shouldn’t Manjusri or Samantabhadra be female rather than Avalokitesvara?
***: Tara is the mother of all Buddhas, As such she represents wisdom. I think we are going off topic but people aren’t always consistent in their dualisms. Maybe there is less difference between male and female than we make out. Just say “not two”. 🙂
Adams Rubble: Mind changeless across kalpas.

Stuff (# 1927)

1.
Adams Rubble: Hello
***: What brings you here?
Adams Rubble: I am am somewhat confused by your poem on post # 1925.
***: Ahhh, it was inspired by a poem by the Cold Mountain Master. Let me see; here it is:

People Ask for the Cold Mountain Way.
Cold Mountain Road goes where

confusions of ice outlast summer heat
and sun can’t thin mists of blindness.

So how did someone like me get here?
My mind is just not the same as yours:

if that mind of yours were like mine,
you’d be right here in the midst of it.

David Hinton. The Way of Ch’an. Boulder, Colo., 2023, p. 189.

After reading that poem, I closed my eyes and found myself wandering around mountain paths. I had been on these paths before and surprisingly I felt complete freedom for some moments which may have been ten minutes or more after reading. Post # 1925 was my reply to Cold Mountain’s poem. Yes, my mind can be like yours.

Adams Rubble: Nice! In my early years as an avatar I used to visit a sim called The Land of Bodhi or something like that. There were quite a few wonderful spots on that island but when reading that poem I thought of a great lawn on the side of a mountain. There was a place in that spot that used to play tapes of Buddhist leaders teaching. It was where I first heard “It is enough to be alive”.
***: Yes, nice statement. We might add “in this moment”.
There has been a full-ish moon peaking through the trees in the southern sky the past couple of nights. On two successive mornings, I woke to the morning star peeking though the blinds at me. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s Old path White Clouds, the Buddha sees the morning star on the morning before his enlightenment and then again, the next morning, after his enlightenment. In both evenings before the star, Thich imagines the Buddha’s thought process. It was nice to be reminded by the appearance of the star (actually planet, I presume Venus).
Adams Rubble: Good time to remember APAPB.
***: I very much appreciate these appearances even I do not always think of the presence of Being. Thanks for reminding me. I have taken over feeding the birds in the morning. I stand for a little bit of time taking in the sunlight in the trees which are now beginning to change color while listening to the bird songs. With migration there are often different songs to be heard. The dogwood is a glorious color. Then as darkness is descending early, as I fill the bird feeders, the setting sun lights up the very tops of the trees.
Adams Rubble: Can you recreate the feeling of the mountains in your backyard?
***: I do try that but I am not as free as I was when in the mountains. There are a series of tasks to be done at both ends of the day but I can stop and meditate and appreciate.
Adams Rubble: Good that you learned something from all the time I have spent sitting in PaB :).
***: You have been a good representative, and sometimes spirit guide :).

This Magic Moment (# 1926)

1.Mostly the responses of the Chan masters so far have been nonsensical or aggressive. This response of Mazu Daoyi seems to strike a chord:

A monk asked ‘What is the Meaning of Buddhism?'”A monk asked ‘What is the Meaning of Buddhism?’
Mazu said “What is the meaning of this moment?'””

Andy Ferguson, Zen’s Chinese Heritage. Boston, Wisdom Publication, 2000, p.68.

Freedom (# 1925)

1.Cold Mountain Poems:
Mind transports me to a mountain.
For some moments I wander freely there.
Minds the same across kalpas.

2.Hanshan says farmers with big barns are prisoners. Did my grandfather feel entrapped in all those acres?

Stormy Seas (# 1924)

1.The storm was raging in the middle of the night. There were two tall ships, one piloted by a boy, and the other by a girl. The boy saw that his ship was being blown sideways into rocks. He told the crew to wait until the ship hit and then jump as far as they could over the rocks, gaining momentum from the force of the ship shattering. He did and the boy managed to land in the forest beyond. It was not clear how many crew members survived. The girl did better with her ship. Working hard against the elements, she managed to steer the ship into a sheltered cove and anchored there. During the night the girl developed a fever. Shipmates tried but could not save her. She died before morning. The next day the ship left the cove and sadly sailed home.

Death (# 1923)

1.I have been hesitating about this post for about a week for it was a week ago I had the dream; it might have been a lucid dream. The dream was not threatening but was an accounting of peers and others who died along the way. Oddly, it was older relatives: parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents who made the biggest impression. The first was one of my grandfathers and it affected me the most.

When I was in elementary school, a young boy on a bicycle was hit by a car and was in a comma for a bout a decade before he died. When I was in high school I visited him with our Pastor who took me with him on his rounds. The boy’s mother was sitting beside his large crib. The boy had grown but never awakened. Wear a helmet when you bicycle.

Another elementary school friend died as a young man. I still remember his birthday every year on May 25th.

In high school a friend died of a heart condition that developed from rheumatic fever or was it scarlet fever. Now we have vaccines to protect children from many of those awful childhood disease.

A college friend who was epileptic died while swimming in the summer between our freshman and sophomore year. Earlier he had a seizure while we were playing tennis one day and I did not know what to do. I was frightened in my ignorance.

The person who succeeded me on the college newspaper died as a young man. That was a shock because he was younger than me.

A cousin died from diabetes soon after I began my work career.

If life is a marathon, I am fortunate to be still running.

Life is never guaranteed. Each day is precious, another day to grow or to help someone.

Mind and Heart [and Spirituality] (# 1922)

1.For the past couple of weeks I have wanted to do a blog entry but have been unable to know where to start. In some ways, the period since the last post have been a period of wu-wei. I had picked up a couple of new tools and been applying them whenever something needed to be repaired.

2.Last night I read a bit from David Hinton’s The Way of Che’n in the neighborhood of the Sixth Patriarch. It was somewhat amusing finding one studying, and trying to understand, the intricacies of the teaching on the importance of “not studying” of the Sixth Patriarch

3. Some tidbits:

The Chan painter Wang Wei saying that to be unborn is to be without an “I”
prajna-wisdom is to depend on nothing
prajna-able is the master who sees through the distinction between and absence and presence

Sixth Patriarch: meditation and prajna are one

Absence is empty mind or no mind

mind-consciousness: empty of all contents

4,The Chinese believe the heart and mind are one. While trying to understand this I read further that spiritual, intellectual and emotional experience are one. Yes!!! This rings true. When listening to a piece of inspiring music, including spiritual music, one can sense the unity of the experience. Back when I was a young person sitting in church, I felt this unity of spiritual, emotional and intellectual experience. This doesn’t last. Maybe that’s the part I still need to learn.