Thursday, August 28, 2008

Sensuality, Intimacy and Training

In Sanskrit literature the Chakraváka bird, the ruddy shelldrakehttp://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?action=searchresult&Bird_ID=159, a species of waterbird signifies conjugal love. Here in the West, Swans would have the same symbolism. Swans on the River Main this morning

I have just started reading a book entitled: Handsome Nanda (Saundaranandakavya)http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/Handsome-Nanda-v-43.html written by Ashvaghosha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asvaghosa. Nanda is blessed with youth, money, being attractive and a voluptuous wife and is able to satisfy all of his sexual and emotional needs. He also has the Buddha as an older brother. The Buddha forces him to confront his enslavement to sensuality and physical intimacy. It is a story that I can understand very much and something that I deal with in my life everyday. How do I find the healthy Middle Path?



The long poem is split up into 18 cantos and I have read through the first six and have some things to share. I really liked this line from the 3 Canto which is "A Description of the Realized One":



"For just as the risen sun dispels darkness, so Gáutama with his sun-like appearance dispelled the dark ignorance of sensual people who followed a number of different paths." 3.16


In the 4th canto, the Buddha arrives at Nanda's house, but he and his wife are so enthralled in what they are doing and cause the servants to be busied with the preparation of everything needed for their pleasures that they do not even know the Buddha is there:


"While Nanda was thus enjoying himself in his palace, which was like a celestial palace, the Tathágata, the realized one, entered his home for his alms, since was the time for his alms-round. Looking downwardsand without asking for anything, he stood hin his brolther's house as he would in the house of any other person. But he went away without obtaining any alms because of the household's preoccupation." 4.24-26


How often am I so concerned with my own "pleasures" that I forget to turn towards the Eternal that is there and offering Itself?


Nanda is totally upset when he finds out that his older brother was there and then decides to hurry and find him. His wife does not want to let him go, being so attached to him:


"So she let him go from her arms which were scented with sandal from her breast, but she did not let him go in her mind." 4.37


How often do we think that we have let go and we haven't?


And then at the very end of the canto, you can feel the confusion within Nanda...I know the same confusion!:


"Kept back by his passion for love, and drawn forward by his attachment to dharma, he proceeded with difficulty, being turned about like a boat going upstream on a river."


In the 5th canto, the Buddha ordains Nanda and interestingly enough it is a bit against his will, but his older brother knows this is the only way to give him the medicine he needs.


"The greatly compassionate one saw his distress in an instant and pitied him. He laid his hand with its wheelmarked palm on Nanda's head and said:

'Dear friend, Death is present in every situation and strikes in many ways. Before that dread time arrives, make sure your mind is composed. Hold back your restless mind from the sense-pleasures common to all, which dreamlike and insubstantial. For sensual pleasures are no more satisfying for people than oblations are for a wind-blown fire.'" 5.22-23


It's not so much that these things are "bad", it is just are holding on to them that makes them consume us rather than seeking the Unborn, Undying. Stated again in another way:


"I see no feature of pleasure which would not change into something else and so bring sorrow. Therefore under no circumstances should you tolerate attachment, unless the grief at its passing is bearable." 5.44


The 5th canto ends movingly and beautifully and I wish I could read Sanskrt better, but the English translation is also good:


"And later, wearing a faded garment of ochre tree-bark and depressed as a newly-captured elephant, Nanda resembled the full moon moving into the dark half of the month, at the end of night,daubed with the light of the early morning sun." 5.53


The 6th canto, "The Wife's Lament" is very moving as we see how her "attached" thoughts roam about fearing that he has another woman or that he has stopped loving her since he did not return like he said. This is another side of sensuality and intimacy---jealousy and anger. But that's enough for today!

Monday, August 25, 2008

!Vive Despacio!



Taking it slow on the steps!
The Cathederal is scheduled to be done in the 2020's!
This is a pillar right at the entryway to the cathederal, what better symbol to slow down before entering a "temple" than a turtle!
When we were in Barcelona a few weeks ago, I bought a new candle holder for our altar in our home. It is really a lovely lotus shaped holder. But, what caught my attention even more was the sack that it came in. On the sack was printed: "Slow es posible". This was such a good reminder for me, since I'm someone that can get pulled so quickly into a hurry, into moving fast and not being aware of the waves that I'm making. So, I know have this piece of the sack in my journal and a copy of it above my desk! In Barcelona, when we visited the Cathederal, Sagrada Familia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia planned and started by Gaudí http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD, I saw once again the importance of slow progress. Let me remember to move slowly and be aware! Vive despacio! Slow es posible!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

gently, gently

Frankfurt the modern skyline




Yesterday was a stormy day...not only in the sky but also in the clouds in my head. The day started off with heavy rain, but not a cool refreshing rain---rather it was oprressive and humid---only 21° C, but still it made sweat pool on my forehead. My thoughts were heavy and oppressive, too. I began to feel the inner critic chastising me and it was hard to keep going. But then, the Still, Small Voice reminded me:



Gently, gently...


That's can be a hard lesson to learn and even though in the evening as my thoughts were raging and the storm with its wind had begun to howl, I tried to keep that as my mantra:


Gently, gently...


Not only gentleness for myself but also gentleness for others. Suddenly, in the late evenig the clouds began to break and the sunset was stunning, you can see the pictures above taken from differnt windows of our house. Finally, a gentleness began to settle on the night and in my heart. I still woke up a few times in the night, but in the morning I could still hear the whisper:


Gently into the day...


And I went gently into the morning with the sun rising and spreading its light over the river and there in the light were swans swimming. One was in the front and one in the back, in between were three small ones, protected and safe upon calm waters. I being reminded of beauty and love and gentleness.


Tread gently today...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Cat Interlude

Bergen
Vardoe

Barcelona

I thought I'd take an interlude today and show the pictures of the cats from our vacations so far this summer. We've been in Norway and Barcelona so far and somehow we always find furry friends. It's a nice "ersatz" when we are away from our two furry friends at home. I liked these pictures.

Hurtigruten Day 11






"Endings and beginnings---everything moving on, in

flow...

Only a few more hours on the ship---a little bit of a sad feeling and yet the joy of having experienced so much. Last night especially looking at the sea and the many shapes and movements the water and light made---a better understanding of :

Ocean

Water

Wind

and

Wave

Remembering a something from William Blake, how to not hold on but to let the joy be:


He who binds to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.


Coming into port in Bergen, I kiss the JOY and let it go..."


***

"So don't accept the idea that there is a certain unchangeable life pattern controlled by something or someone...watch your life carefully. In daily living your past life comes up like a jack-in-the-box. Pop! You don't feel good, but this is okay. You still have the freedom to make a choise of how to maifest your life now. Then your actions in the present create causes and conditions for your life in the future....Freedom means that in the next moment you can manifest your life in a new way."

-Katagiri, p 199-


***

"If you take the best care of one moment, offering yourself to your activity, letting your life touch the ground of existence and handling the phenomenal worl with wisdom and compassion, you turn a new leaf---360 degrees. In the next moment a completely new life appears, and that life helps others."

-Katagiri, 201-


***

"So stand up in your life, accepting the whole situation. That means total acceptance of your life."

-Katagiri, p 205-


***

"Don't attach to thoughts and emotions; just let them return to emptiness. Just be present there and swim in buddha-nature. This is living the bodhisattva vow to help all beings. Then the great energy of the universe supports you and you take one step toward the future with all beings."

-Katagiri, p 216-

Friday, August 08, 2008

Hurtigruten Day 10






"We visited the Nidaros Cathederal early this morning---almost nobody was there which gave it a completely different feeling from when we were first here. I realized how much "religious" art has a draw for me---it would be interesting to work with this "medieval" style and bring it into Buddhist styles of art."


***

"Whether you realize it or not, whatever you do, your action leaves behind a kind of smell in the depth of human life. we have to take responsibility for our behavior, whatever it is, good or bad, right or wrong, because even though our actions disappear from the surface of life, the smell of what we have done is still there as unmanifested karma."

-Katagiri, p. 187-

Hurtigruten Day 9






"Yesterday we sailed back through the Trollfjord area---really unbelievably beautiful. And then in the evening we were on the Lofoten Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lofoten, starting in Svolvaer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svolvaer and travelling through to Stramsund . As has been said, the light play on the island is enchanting, especially with the midnight sun, and that's why so many artists have lived and been creative there. This morning we passed south of the Arctic Circle amd so the sun will now have a short rest during the night."

***

"When you act wholeheartedly, your activity becomes very clear, calm, flexible, and magnanimous. It is boundless, and simultaneously it is you. So studying the boundlessness of activity is studying the self. This is called intimacy."

-Katagiri, p. 142


***

"When you have a strong, stable confidence every day, it is called spiritual life."

-Katagiri, p, 146


***

"You must be fresh every single moment."

-Katagiri, p. 153


***

"So you have to just walk, step-by-step. If you do this, very naturally you become humble and majestic. From generation to generation, buddhas and ancestors have walked like this."

-Katagiri, p. 153-


***

"Buddhist practice is to constantly create beauty. Beauty is the functioning of wisdom."

-Katagiri, p. 158


***

"In order to make the surface of your life mature, you have to make the depth of your life mature."

-Katagiri, p. 162


***

"Instead of expecting to get something from our effort, we give quality to our effort."

-Katagirir, p. 171-

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Hurtigruten Day 8






"Our one longer stop was in Hammerfest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerfest ---the northernmost city in the world and as we walked up the hill to the lookout tower, there was a reindeer in the backyard of an ampartment complex chomping away on the delicacies in the garden---soft flowers and other ornamentals. Back on the ship we passed unbelievably beautful scenery again---mountain and water and cloud and light and now and green..."


***

"Doing meditation, or any spiritual practice, because we want to be something special in the future is not the point of Zen practice. The point is to be free where we are now. Where we are is also the beauty of existence."

-Katagiri, p. 126-