experiencing true encounter...

"Taya life is a way of living daily life in which one experiences true encounter."

- Fragrant Light No.257

well, it's a matter of days now until i move down to London and enter into taya life. no doubt it may well be a prevelent theme in my postings here over the coming months. a Dharma friend recently asked me to tell him a little bit about its significance and i replied that the best i felt i could do was to share this essay, "The Meaning of Taya" by Rev. Kemmyo Taira Sato with him.

it's funny really that in talking with Kyoshin recently (whose latest postings over on Echoes about his temple stay in Japan you should read asap), i realised i am only just coming to understand how profoundly important a part encounter plays within the Shinshu tradition. to illustrate from Rev. Sato's essay -

"In personal encounter, two people become united at a deeper level than before, through their confrontation or facing one another. Through confrontation both people become themselves. In other words, through encounter one discovers oneself in a deeper dimension by letting the other person be himself / herself just as he / she is. Ideally one might thus achieve complete self-development. The two people are two and one at the same time."

as you may know, this idea of acceptance, of  "letting the other person be himself / herself just as he / she is" is something which i've been struggling with of late and will no doubt come up against during my time there. although in any other circumstance i would feel daunted at this thought, amongst good Dharma friends and in the light of the Tathagata, i am confident a space in which to move forward positively will reveal itself.

namu amida butsu

no easy answers...

not so long ago an article appeared in The Guardian regarding the 2000 foetuses found in a Bangkok Temple. the article told of how the discovery had prompted a push toward political reform regarding Thailand's abortion laws which was subsequently being hindered by prominent figures in the Thai Sangha who held considerable political (and public) sway.

my initial response upon reading the article was i couldn't help but feel in this instant a dogmatic and rigid adherence to orthodoxy was blindsiding the chance for compassionate expression of orthopraxy. discussing the matter with Kyoshin however, he quite rightly pointed out the situation is in all liklihood more complex than such a response would imply. the influence religion holds over politics, the deep cultural imprint of abortion as taboo held by many throughout the various stratas of society and many other issues all play their part. and certainly, it is all too easy for me to offer a skewered analysis bearing little real understanding of the situation as of course i am an outsider to such cultural perspectives and values.

it does nonetheless throw up certain murky questions for me. i'm strongly against forms of theocracy but neither do i believe one's religion should remain cut off or seperated from one's politics. how much influence should one bear upon the other then? i guess ultimately it's when either threatens to inhibit an individual's freedom that i feel uncomfortable - eg. yes, i believe the taking of a life is wrong and that abortion falls under this category but neither do i believe in forcing adherence to such a belief. and what if by denying the means to legal, safe abortion more than just the one life is being put at risk?

the reality of it is that prohibition's quite clearly not acting as an effective deterrent and in  many cases, placing more lives at risk than need be. wouldn't education be a worthier, more compassionate attempt (perhaps though, this is naive of me)?

i don't want to accuse senior figures of the Thai Sangha of somehow lacking compassion, which, given the extreme liklihood that their levels of attainment are way, way vaster than mine would be grossly arrogant, disrespectful and just plain wrong of me to say. at the same time though, i can't get alongside their stance on this issue.

the other question then i guess, concerns when orthodoxy clashes with orthopraxy. the fact that abortion is considered by many to be such a taboo is due to the direct influence that Buddhism holds for the majority of Thai society. and it is the perfectly valid and correct stance in terms of orthodoxy.

.....and yet. how do we move forward when what is written and accepted as the authentic stance on a given matter threatens to clash with what we feel as being right, and even maybe hinder cultivation of compassion? it's a valid and important question imo but one offering no easy answers.

namu amida butsu

The Third Jewel

just returned from a great weekend spent with family (my niece's first birthday - where'd the time go?) and samgha. this visit to Three Wheels felt particularly special for several reasons. firstly, my mother was able to attend with me and it made me so happy for her to be glad to share in this fundamental part of my life, meet my Sensei and close Dharma friends and gain a better insight into my path in Shin Buddhism. i was deeply touched by the warmth extended to her, that same sense of welcome i encounter each time the door of Three Wheels is opened to me and i am met by smiling faces. namu amida butsu. secondly, the talk given Rev Kenshin Ishii, regarding the subject 'a good teacher' i found incredibly moving and caused me to appreciate even more my own good fortune in encountering Sensei and the samgha of Three Wheels. i can't really adequately put into words my feelings as regards this....so much has happened over the course of the year that i feel hugely indebted to everyone and firmly embraced in the light and compassion of Other-power.

i wanted to just very quickly comment on the aforementioned subject of 'a good teacher'. i remember when i first came to Buddhadharma and i would read all these wonderful personal accounts of followers' appreciation for their teachers and samghas. truth is, at that time reading such words felt like picking at an open wound. the abscence of a teacher in my own practice and path was keenly felt and each time i recited the three refuges, my heart would sigh a little as i came to the words "i go for refuge to samgha". it's a hard path treading the Dharma alone (of course, it is frequently hard regardless but how much more so without a good teacher)...perhaps not impossible but certainly i feel beyond my limited scope. and so i sympathise with all those yet to encounter their teacher, yet to find a sangha and can only really say i've been there too, as have many others, we know what it's like so please do not be discouraged.

at the same time though, there is quite a tendency in today's age to adopt an attitude of go-it-alone, rough-it-out stoicness. quiet a few of my non-buddhist friends who have shown a curiousity to my path have asked why, if the Buddha had no teachers (a not entirely correct assumption) should we then follow his teachings and subsequently seek out a teacher/master/guru for help and guidance? i can't but wonder though, whether this line of questioning, maybe on a subtle and not immediately apparent level is just another of oh-so-many mechanisms set up by our ego sense of self when it encounters a teaching that threatens to loosen its stranglehold - "if i am going to seek freedom from ego-attachment, then i am going to do it by myself, my own way"? in that sense we can then settle into the nice and comforting illusion of loosening the stranglehold, all the while merely re-inforcing and strengthening it.

regardless, when we are led to encounter the compassion of Buddhadharma then we can't help but feel a huge sense of shame at how petty and foolish these self-calculating mechanisms we've set in place for ourselves really are. and at the same we realise how indebted to everyone and everything around us we are. how dependent we are on something infinitely greater than our small sense of self. at these times we are made to realise how truly precious and valuable a good teacher and Dharma friends are and enabled all the more to turn for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Samgha with a renewed sincerity and clarity.

namu amida butsu

Bowing before the Buddha

..this morning before my daily otsutome i had all kinds of thoughts running through my mind, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch (admittedly, most likely brought about by a high caffiene intake!)... but when i bowed before the Buddha it was as if suddenly all these thoughts, worries, concerns were held in the compassionate embrace of the Tathagata. i felt an openness in which to recite the sutras and chant the Name with a clear and focussed awareness of this embrace. an awareness that came quite spontaneously and unexpectedly. reflecting on this experience i am reminded of words read recently from Three Wheels site -

"It is not that one bows to the Buddha having come to understand his teaching but that one comes to understand his teaching through actually bowing to the Buddha."

- Three Wheels

namu amida butsu