Vaishak Puja & Dharma Talk at Dhammasala Forest Monastery May 17, 2008

In what I write here, first I describe the morning puja and the monks' rounds of receiving alms (pindapata) and our meal. Then I summarize my memories, reflections, and experience of Venerable Bhikkhu Ajaan Kemasanto's afternoon Dharma Talk . In the Dharma talk the Venerable Bhikkhu Ajaan addressed these topics: bowing, good friends, prayer, living with the intention of mutual benefit, nature and intelligent design, the analogy of the lotus flower, and how one might orient oneself to the question of one's destination in the afterlife.

In the morning, just after 10 a.m. the Thai lay people offered food which they carefully arranged on trays on top of colorful straw mats before the shrine. The three monks and one of the lay people then led beautiful chanting. The lay person chanted short phrases so we could follow after him.

Then we went outdoors where we were able to pick up bags of snacks for a donation (and to give the monks the donation of presenting them with snacks in their bowls. Outdoors the monks made ceremonial rounds (pindapata ) so that we could place offerings in their bowls. We were a group of at least 50 people and we lined up in a semi-circle and placed our offerings in each of the three monks' bowls. (Selected temple assistants and lay people stood behind the monks with bigger baskets so the monks could transfer the snacks and re-empty their bowls to receive our offerings.)

Then we ate lunch. I loved the rice noodles with peanut sauce, the mixed vegetables with chicken and the fried bananas and sweet potatoes. After a short walk on the forest paths and the now-larger pond near the tent -- the rains have blessed the earth, we went inside for a Dharma talk.

True to Dharma talk form, the Venerable Bhikkhu Ajaan Kemasanto took questions. (I have understood from my academic Buddhist mentor, Roger Corless, that the Dharma is only taught when someone asks.)

The first questioner asked about the bowing. The monks and the lay people had bowed three times in the direction of the Buddha shrine (it's a shrine, Ajaan had pointed out last time, not an altar) and then performed a fourth bow toward the monks. The first three bows honor the Buddha, the Dharma (Teaching and Practice) and the Sangha (the community. Ajaan explained that bowing is a simple act of honor in cultures (e.g., Indian and Thai) in which one bows to one's parents, elders and teachers. Also, since in these cultures people use less furniture, and typically sit on the floor, bowing resembles our acts of honor and respect such as handshaking and doesn't connote worship.

Ajaan then spoke of the need for good friends (kalyametta) and that one needed to choose friends of equal level ethically and spiritually. He suggested it was unwise to think you would pull people up to your level. Using the example of a particularly beautiful-smelling leaf in Thailand, he said, if you wrap a dead fish in that beautiful smelling leaf, which smell do you think will prevail?

Returning to the question of bowing, Ajaan said you can't pray to Buddha (a very Theravadan teaching) because he's gone (Tathagata) and can't do anything. He can't hear, see or act. (This idea is also a typically Theravadan perspective and distinct from Mahayana orientations.) Ajaan emphasized that the Dharma is a path of self-responsibility.


Ajaan reiterated three or four times that the key to Buddhism is very simple: You ask yourself, "Is this thought to my benefit and the benefit of others?" You ask yourself: "Are these words going to be for the benefit of myself and others?" And you ask yourself: "Will this act be for my benefit and the benefit of others?" He stressed that here was the whole Dharma as if on your thumbnail. But of course he said, most people don't do this. I imagine that behind that observation he might have been implying, the need for meditation.

As a more Mahayana-minded Monotheist I found this very difficult. So I asked him, "Don't lay people pray for their desires, and what do you tell those who want to?" He said, "Oh people pray to the Hindu gods, the ancestors and the spirits." He also repeated a point from the earlier questioner on the closeness of Buddhism and native American practice. Ajaan said the attitude of asking forgiveness of creatures that one kills for food or other needs. (He mentioned the trees cut down in Mt Pleasant -- near the Bordon Building, I have heard.) When I asked Ajaan, "What about the fact that prayer works?" he and a lay person cited a study (praying for other' healing) that showed it didn't (One of my students, Vanessa Brown, who has done much research in this area recently told me that Duke Medical Center's M.A.N.T.R.A. studied proved no results from prayer on healing.). I was glad Ajaan explained the the anthropological dimension of everyday Buddhist culture, in which Thai Buddhists pray to gods.

The gods are samsaric beings, but they have power. In some traditions they are also called Dharmapala, protectors of the Dharma. In Japan Buddhists call the deities they pray to shoten zenjin, "buddhist gods," which are the deities of the host culture. I remember seeing photos from one of the Wats (temple-and-monastery complexes) in Thailand, showing that standing inside the Wat were statues of the Hindu deities Hanuman and Garuda.

Focusing on the question of prayer, I asked Ajaan what he would do if his cousin, Father John, was ill. Wouldn't he pray for him? Ajaan said, No I'd give him a dharma talk on accepting the inevitability of the body's aging and decay. Ajaan also told a story about being invited to a clerical council at a hospital where each minister expressed their concerns that patients would be assured of being ministered to by their own clergy. When it was Ajaan's turn to speak, he said this was not a concern to him, that in terms of the Dharma, there was no need to guarantee that a Buddhist didn't receive a "non-Buddhist" ceremony or ministering from someone of another tradition.


Then we got into a really good tangle: I asked about "intelligent design." Ajaan said, what's intelligent about it? As a Buddhist, he focused on the infinite and eternal perspective that everything is inherently decaying and dying, impermanent, insubstantial. He pointed out the pains humans experience related to design flaws (backache because we're not yet fully designed for standing, tooth decay, etc.) So I pointed to the beauty of nature, esp. the tree outside the window. he turned and looked and said, "That tree?!" And he told the story of that [beautiful] five-year old tree that had not grown a bit since planted and was plagued by mites.

I asked, "So why did the Buddha use analogies from nature to teach dharma?" Ajaan asked me for one so I gave the analogy about a meditator resembling a lotus sitting in purity and beauty above the pond. He corrected me by quoting the full passage in which the Buddha taught that many lotuses don't reach above the murky water; some do not successfully live and thrive in that way. And so, he said, while its a sweet fantasy that everybody is going to be saved (I think he meant Mahayana models), it's not going to happen. Very few will be saved. I wanted to ask more about nature's harmony (as taught in the verses of the Qur'an) and the healing balm of bees from the honey that they make and what he thought of the disappearing bees. Ajaan was clear, bright, funny and lucid as before. I find him very compelling and compassionate. Both times I've been awed. The sky & forest were beautiful.

Ajaan emphasized that the Buddha was only interested in what we could know and what diagnosis and treatment would solve our condition. Ajaan told us not to worry about or speculate on heaven and hell because the key lay in good karma, in how you live, in thoughts, speech and action that benefit self and other. He said, if you live in that way then wherever you are going to go to next will be a place with those qualities.

Dhammasala Forest Monastery is located in Perry, Michigan at 14780 Beardslee Rd. 517 675 1010 / www.dhammasala.org

Giving & Taking Bows: Touching the Earth (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Touching on Bowing

Among the many practices within both Islam and Buddhism that attract me, and that for their shared emphasis in both traditions have caught my attention, I am fascinated by the shared emphasis on bowing. "Bowing" here actually means prostration, i.e., sajda in Arabic or sampei (three bows)and ichihai (one bow) gassho in Japanese, and the similar touching of the earth in the Tibetan full body prostration. Thich Nhat Hanh's explanation which I present below, of six ways of connecting to our roots in each of a series of six bows is very moving to me.

Zen Master Gae Bak (Robert Genther) of the Kwan Um School writes in his book, Going Beyond Buddha that when he was injured from running eight miles or more a day, his master Seung Sahn suggested, "Why don't you try bowing? I used to run for my heart, but now I do a thousand bows every day. This is not only good for your body, but it helps all beings." As a result, Gae Bak writes: "So I began bowing one thousand times everyday instead of running. It is said that Chinese Master Ma Jo bowed so many times that he had callouses on his forehead." The Holy Qur'an (48.29) also celebrates those who because of their prostrations have such marks on their forehead (athari sujud. And in the famous Zen story, Bodhidharma summons his disciples to confer Dharma succession and asks each to explain the dharma. The first three disciples offer accurate verbal explanations to which in sequence Bodhidharma says, "You have my skin;" "You have my flesh;" and "You have my bones." But then Hui Ke steps forward and simply bows with his head to the ground. Bodhidharma then says, "And you have my marrow." Bowing is truly the form of emptiness.

The Prophet Muhammad said that the disciple is closest to his Lord when he is in prostration. And a Sufi hadith, traced back to Abu Nasr as-Sarraj (d. 988), which describes the daily formal prayer (salat, namaz) as the believer's ascension underscores the importance of prostration as the same drawing close to God.

In light of this I found Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching on bowing to be inspiring and resonant. May the bell of the voice of Buddhahood within resound as we read this wisdom teaching.

What follow are the words of --

Thich Nhat Hanh

On "Contemplative Bowing: Touching the Earth"
from "The Dhammic Vision of Society"

Haus Dao, CH- 9427 Wolfhalden , Switzerland
http://www.haustao.ch/n1/dhammic.htm

(This is the last portion of the selections of a set of readings offered from Thich Nhat Hanh,)


We have to go back to our society with the intention to rebuild society and enrich its life by offering the appropriate therapies for its illnesses. I would like to offer an exercise that can help to do this. It is called Touching the Earth.

In each of us, there are many kinds of ideas, notions, attachments, and discrimination. This practice involves bowing down and touching the Earth, emptying ourselves, and surrendering to Earth.

You touch the Earth with your forehead, your two hands, your two feet, and you surrender to your true nature, accepting any form of life your true nature offers you. Surrender your pride, hopes, ideas, fears, and notions. Empty yourself of all resentment you feel toward anyone. Surrender everything, and empty yourself completely. To do this is the best way to replenish yourself. If you do not exhale and empty your lungs, how can fresh air enter?

In this practice, the body and the mind work together in harmony to form a perfect whole. We prostrate ourselves six times to help us realize our deep connection to our own roots:

(1) The first bow is directed towards all generations of ancestors in our blood family. Our parents are our most recent, closest ancestors, and through them we connect the generations that have preceded us. If we are on good terms with our parents, the connection is easy. But if we are not, we have to empty our resentment and reconnect with them. Our parents had seeds of love and trust they wanted to transmit to us, but perhaps they were not able to do so. Instead of transmitting loving kindness and trust, they transmitted suffering and anger. The practice is to look deeply and see that we are a continuation of our parents and our ancestors. When we understand the "emptiness of transmission", reconciliation is possible. Bowing down, touching the Earth, we should be able to surrender the idea of our separate self and become one with our ancestors. Only then is true communion possible and the energy of our ancestors able to flow into us.

(2) The second bow is directed towards Buddhist ancestors who came before us, those who have transmitted these teachings and practices to us for more than 25 centuries.

(3) The third bow is directed towards our land and toward the ancestors who made it available to us.

(4) The fourth is for channeling and transmitting the energy of loving kindness to those we love. We touch the Earth, look deeply into our relationship, and see how we can improve it.

(5) The fifth bow is directed towards those who have made us suffer. Looking deeply, we see that these people suffer also and do not possess the insight to prevent their suffering from spilling over onto others. Motivated by compassion, we want to share our energy with these persons, hoping it will help them to suffer less and be able to enjoy some peace and happiness.

(6) The sixth bow is directed towards our own spiritual ancestors. If we are lucky, it may be easy for us to connect with representatives of our spiritual tradition - our rabbi, pastor, or priest. But if we have had problems with such persons, our effort is to understand how they themselves were not able to receive the jewels of the tradition. Instead of feeling resentment toward them, we vow to go back and rediscover the jewels of our tradition ourselves. Getting connected with our church, synagogue, rabbi, or priest will enable us to touch all our spiritual ancestors.

Real Buddhism is always engaged

To bring about peace, we must work for harmonious coexistence. If we continue to shut ourselves off from the rest of the world, imprisoning ourselves in our narrow concerns and immediate problems, we are not likely to make peace or to survive. It is difficult for one individual to preserve harmony among the elements within himself, and it is even more difficult to preserve harmony among the members of the human family. We have to understand the human race to bring it into harmony. Our society is a difficult place in which to live. If we are not careful, we can become uprooted, and then we will be unable to help change society to make it more livable. Meditation is a way of helping us to stay in society. Engaged Buddhism does not only mean using Buddhism to solve social and political problems. First of all we have to bring Buddhism into our daily lives. Actually, there is no such a thing as a separate category of Engaged Buddhism - real Buddhism is always engaged.

Two Haikku on Breath, Bells and the Mindful Moment

Two Haikku


The breath is the bridge
into the present moment
of our mindfulness

~~~
Invite the bell of
your Buddhanature to sound.
Breathe and be mindful.

~~~