Words to sea
Before electric lighting became common in the early 20th century, people used candles, gas lights, oil lamps, and fires. Home sapiens have been around for over 300,000 years, and . . . people have been using electric lighting for 0,0043% of that time.
Usually October, and this year into November, persimmons from the tree on the west side of the house.are ripe. Humans have been around for over 300,000 years, imagine what it was like just 50 years ago or beyond, anywhere in the last 299,999,700 years pas.Is always seeing others as your competition and seeing your neighbors as your enemy part of what holds a society together?
“ …at a Way of Tea gathering after the frothy bitter beverage is downed, a guest will invariably turn over the chawan to inspect the kodai. What’s all the fuss? And what is to be found on the kodai anyway? ”
Robert Yellin http://www.e-yakimono.ne
The bottom of a bowl potted by Warren MacKenzie, Stillwater, Minnesota. HIs mark is in the bottom center. I have used it for a tea bowl. What is the work expected of a foot (kodai in Japanese) on a tea bowl?
For many of us having your own fruit trees or using pottery are old ways of doing things. Jobs using your hands to earn your living are decreasing as machines and division of labour keep lowering their value, until it becomes so scarce in society it becomes Art—even in a history museum, look at all the Art created to enhance the meaning of the exhibits.
If everyone had a job, would they be satisfied enough not to use illegal or unethical means such as stealing, or killing people or making substandard products to get the things necessary for their living? Might they never be satisfied? Or is there a balance to be found when people are never quite satisfied but satisfied enough to enable a peaceful society which benefits everyone while doing those things which enable the society to survive .
I
Alameda Creek
In this 300,00,000 years of human beings the development of spoken and written language were major developments in the history” How long did it take to evolve the desire to speak and write? not just in human beings, but it has to to be happening somewhere inside of generations of the various species that evolved into human beings, each species adding a little something to the boiling pot of humanity to be expressed in our human biology and chemistry.
世尊昔在靈山會上。拈花示眾。是時眾皆默然。惟迦葉尊者破顏微笑。世尊昔在靈山會上。拈花示眾。是時眾皆默然。惟迦葉尊者破顏微笑。
Once when the World-Honoured One, in ancient times, was upon Mt. Grdhrakuta, he held up a flower before the congregation of monks. At this time they were all silent, but the Venerable Kasyapa only smiled. The World-Honoured One said, “I have the eye of the True Law, The Secret Essence of Nirvana, the Formless Form, the Mysterious Law-Gate. Without relying upon words and letters, beyond all teaching as a special transmission, I pass this all onto Mahakasyapa.”
Mumonkan, Case 6, Blyth translation
How` can Buddha pass on the Buddha Mind to Kasyapa without saying words? How` can we even think without words? Its not that we cannot understand the experience of our senses without words— If you get up from your seat and you feel the floor starts to give collapse, zap! your body responds before your mind defines what is happening.
Mumonkan was written in 12th century, a time when China had 500 years of printing behind them while the west still had three more centuries until Gutenberg.
Even though today there are hundreds of books written on Zen, the message of Case 6 is words are not necessary to pass on the Buddha-Mind.
I am not sure whether it is says that written words cannot pass-on the Buddha Mind from one person to another, but it is clear that written words are not necessary.
Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch of Chan to-be (Chan became Zen in Japan) could not read or write. He worked in the kitchen of a large temple under the Fifth Patriarch of Chan.
The elderly Fifth Patriarch was seeking his successor and announced a poetry contest to all the monks in hope of seeing if there was one who would qualify.
At midnight the “head monk, Shen-hsiu,“ holding a candle wrote a verse on the wall of the south corridor, without anyone knowing about it.”
The body is the Bodhi tree,
The mind is like a clear mirror .
At all times we must strive to polish it,
And must not let the dust collect.
When the other monks saw it they were amazed, or so the story goes, but while the Fifth Patriarch was not impressed enough, he thought it best to leave the verse there and have the deluded ones —the monks— recite it. If they practice in accordance with it they will not fall into the three evil ways. Those who practice by it will gain great benefit.” (but not the Buddha mind I guess.
When the Fifth Patriarch asked Shen-hsiu if he had written it, he denied it
When Hui-neng saw the writing on the wall he had to ask a friend to read it to him. And then again he had to ask his friend to write his verse on the wall:
Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror has no stand .
Buddha nature is always clean and pure;
Where is there room for dust?
Burton Watson translation
Later when the Fifth Patriarch saw this written on the wall he recognized his successor.·there was some communication through the shaking of rice in pots; Hui-ko visited the Partriarch in his room; received the Dharma, the robe and bowl—to be passed on for the last time—and left with encouragement from the Patriarch to go somewhere else as the other monks will be angry, maybe jealous, because it went to the lowest at the temple.
I don’t want you to look at the words in my photographs,—do not differentiate one “thing” from another “thing,” give it a name or think this photograph is about the relationship between these “things in this one moment of time.”—
Just go on with your day.
EndPapers
Not everyone on Earth has the opportunity to learn a skill when they are young.
Hui-ko: “My mind has no peace and I pray to your reverence to have my mind pacified.”
Bodhidharma; “Where is your mind? Bring it out before me and I shall have it pacified.”
Hui-ko: “The very reason of my trouble is that I am unable to find the mind.”
Whereupon Bodhidharma exclaimed: “I have pacified your mind”
And Hui-ko at once attained supreme enlightenment.”
Dhyana Buddism in China Its History and Teaching Dr. Chu Hsiang-Kuang
My mother suffered a stroke in September, 2008 , lost her memory, developed Expressive Aphasia, Before she had been spending time on sorting, thinning out and assembling personal photographs. After her stroke sometimes we would look at these albums. My parents were “nakado” (marriage go-betweens) for this couple., all their life, they had a close relationship with this couple . My parents were married for 60+ years, usually she did not seem to remember any specifics often she did not know me, but she had feelings,, she felt something Really Important and when we came to this photograph she would hold her hand in this spot for a long time.
Gautama Buddha sought to escape the suffering of the continual cycle of birth and death, but with all the sad times in my life, I ask myself would I not do it again.
Gate gate, paragate, parsamgate bodhi svaha
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