Thinking During Winter

 

With winter here, there is a lot of time to reflect. Lately, the temperatures have been bitter, often single digits Fahrenheit and below. 

I sometimes go outside and contemplate projects for the spring and summer. One major project will be a vegetable garden. The spot chosen is on a slight downward slant and gets sun all day. They tell me to start out small, just a few vegetables. That sounds like good advice since having a garden would be something new for me.

One other major project will be a stupa/pagoda in honor of the Buddha and his Dharma. Right now, the area is a wildflower garden, but not really a garden. It's just where I don't mow in the summer, and wildflowers thrive there. If I tend the wildflower area around the pagoda, it should look nice. I have some roof tiles from ancient temple ruins in Korea, and those will go inside the pagoda.  Maybe under the pagoda I'll create a hollow to put in a time capsule of sorts. 

Right now, though, it's cold and snow-covered, so I just stand and think while bundled up tight from the wind. 

I have not kept up this blog at all! I found a couple drafts and I posted them, but three and four years after I wrote them.

This is the cottage on the Buddha Nature Temple property here in Fairview. We didn't have much snow this year, but it did drift over the driveway a few times. The weather is now starting to warm up, so this will all melt soon.

This summer, work will begin on the construction of the Buddha Hall and stupa/pagoda.  I will try to write a few words about that project as it moves along. With a Buddha Hall it will be more convenient to invite folks who are friendly to Buddhism to come by for meetings and discussions. My cottage is unfinished inside, so I daren't invite people now. Maybe, if the funds appear, I can put some walls in the cottage to cover the insulation.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to get some work done at the temple property in Fairview.  I leveled about one acre for the main building area and marked out where the cottage will go.

I also put money down on the cottage which will be built by the Amish fellows at North Star in Mio. 

Milkweed at the temple property

A storm coming toward the temple property

Australia

    I have spent the last ten days in Western Australia.  Being January, the weather has been the equivalent of July in the northern hemisphere with the climate similar in most ways to mid and southern California.
    My hosts have been extremely generous.  They bought my plane ticket to come here, though their jobs have kept them away from the house up to twelve and even fourteen hours a day!  Therefore, my time is spent mostly alone riding trains and buses around the area and miles upon miles of walking.
   

The one about templestay

    I was reading an excerpt from Catherine Price at Wildmind recently in which she described a templestay experience in Korea.  Her experience is precisely what I have thought of the concept of templestay and the supposed value of its practice. Even though I'm a Buddhist and visit temple often, there is a reason I've never succumbed to the lure of templestay.  The life of a Buddhist monk is one of strict discipline, ordered regimen, elaborate ceremony, and attention to minute details of form and style.  

 
    The rationale for such a culture is that it is supposed to reflect the karmic results of following the Dharma.  It reminds me of the college I attended which believed a devout christian can become completely immune to the temptation to sin through a certain mystical experience. However, a rigid system of behavior enforced members of the college to act as though they had had this experience, whether they actually had or not.  Heavenly perfection was simulated through unbending rules and ceremony, very much like life in the temples.

    It's not my place to disparage the practices of the monks and nuns of the temples.  They live how they've chosen to live, fed by centuries of tradition.  It gives a unique peace of mind to not have to think about how to do something, where to put something, or when to do this and that.  It's all laid out in detail and has been for generations.  I admire the beauty of it and the stalwart nature of those who choose to live that way.

    However, it's not how I feel the Dharma.  The natural chaos of the universe, the lack of design in the nature of the world, that's how I experience the Dharma, a lively conversation among all things everywhere all the time.  That doesn't mean I can't focus on the moment or perceive the karmic values of my choices. It just means that I don't see the need to force patterns upon randomness.  I don't see the need to square circles or flatten hills.  I don't see the need to pass the day sleep deprived because I had to observe a ceremony nor to place my dinnerware with an unyielding exactitude on the placemat and eat the food it in a particularly ordered manner.

    Living out the Dharma is not a matter of discipline; it's a matter of staying pointed in the right direction.  It doesn't matter whether you walk the Path in boots, sandals, or barefoot so long as you walk the Path.  Mind your behavior.  Guard your speech.  Watch your step.  But for goodness' sake, don't worry about whether your chopsticks are on the correct side of the dish or whether you've performed the right number of prostrations.

Mindfulness is not punctiliousness. 

The one about a letter to a friend

    A while back, after years of study and, at the time, prayer, I had no choice but to conclude that there never was a person Jesus of Nazareth.  The facts were so blatant that to this day I'm embarrassed that I ever did once accept the concept of an historical Jesus.  Consequently, in my writings and letters, this sometimes comes across either consciously or unconsciously as a matter of fact, which I think it is, but I don't always intend to make it a focal point.

    However, not everyone does accept the non-existence of Jesus as a matter of fact, and one friend decided to challenge me on the issue.  He and I attended christian college years ago, but as I began to move away from faith, he moved even deeper into it.  It wasn't unexpected, therefore, when he demanded that I defend my claim that Jesus never existed, but I avoided responding to that for a long time because I knew it would be a futile effort.  My friend had no intention of looking objectively at my findings; he wanted merely to hear statements that he could attempt to refute.
    People of faith find it exceedingly difficult to let their faith live apart from dogmatism.  Their faith is almost always so intimately bound to scripture or systematic theology that it cannot survive without it.  My friend is one such man of faith, a faith linked completely to scripture and his sect's system of theology based on that scripture and nothing else.
    Having spent years reading history and historical method, my desire to slog through a written debate via snail mail didn't appeal to me, especially when I knew the other person didn't have the resources to do his own argument justice and was not predisposed to listen objectively to my side of the argument.  I needed to respond, though, if for no other reason than to demonstrate respect and affection for my friend.
    The letter ended up being short, devoid of many details in order to limit my friend's ability to launch some refutation.  It's not that I fear argument but rather I know how it feels to face the truth, the facts of reality in full force that place one's faith in question.  Though I want my friend to give up his faith and come to accept reality, it's important that each person do this in his own time, in his own way.
    When a person feels compelled by reason to abandon one of the most important aspects of his life, it can cause suffering that may lead to greater problems than being a believer causes.  However, if my letter can warm him up to the subject and set him on his own adventure to reach the truth, that is enough.
    As a Buddhist, I find it painful to deliberately cause suffering.  That is karma:  the nature of every result is the nature of its cause.  If I had written a letter ridiculing my friend's faith and offering chapter after chapter of research which only the most stubborn fool would dispute, the result would be of the same nature, and the relationship with my friend would be damaged.
    Since I am not a believer, it is ultimately irrelevant to me whether my friend keeps or loses his faith.  However, my friend is important to me, and to cause undue suffering is repugnant.  Being right at the cost of love is a hollow victory.  That's the most important thing to remember when dealing with family and friends who are believers.  When stating your ideas to loved ones, say them in a spirit consistent with that love.

The one about Truth and Reality

There is a quote from the Buddha in Nyanatiloka Thera's book The Buddha's Path to Deliverance that I have not only highlighted, but am making a calligraphy copy to put in my room here in Korea:

"Undisturbed shall our mind remain, no evil words shall escape our lips; friendly and full of sympathy shall we remain, with heart full of love, free from any hidden malice."

It isn't that I observe this perfectly, but it is guidance from the Buddha to inspire me daily to correct my behavior, to live the right way despite any temptations to do otherwise. There is no guarantee that living rightly will take away all trials and troubles.  There is no afterlife salvation to be gained, either.  The only reward for behaving rightly is the behavior itself. 

Some may say that this isn't enough.  They don't want to lose opportunities by having to respect others, by having to be fair and honest in their dealings.  They want. They desire.  They crave.

We know this stems from ignorance, but ignorance can't be dispelled by force.  Ignorance is uprooted not by the force of violence but by steady erosion which little by little undermines it, and grain by grain washes ignorance away.  Once we let go of ignorance, we see the truth of reality.  We see things as they really are.  And we marvel at how long we resisted it!  That is what we call salvation, seeing truth as it is, face to face, and letting that truth govern our every word and every deed.