Garbage and Roses

"What is real remains."

A principle text of Buddhism, the Prajnaparamita "Heart" Sutra, perhaps the principle text for all practitioners on the way is also called "the Heart of Understanding." This text is central to many and universal in its wisdom. It traces its roots within the Buddhist Canon back 2,000 or more years. Surely other traditions at that time had some access to it, and other like teachings.
Technology may have changed over that time, but the Heart, or Perfect Understanding Sutra in its reflection of human nature and practice has not. Despite the passage of time, it remains a reality.

For me a student of the Way, and a learner of the teaching, I have used other study texts to understand and learn more; however, the best one I have used whether in Zendo or on my own, is the 1988 translation and commentaries written by Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Understanding.
 It is written with emphasis to make the teaching more accessible to the Western mind. By writing the commentary on Garbage and Roses, he seeks to further our understanding of emptiness. "To be empty does not mean nonexistence... Emptiness is the ground of everything... if I am not empty, I cannot be here [in this moment] writes the philosopher, Nagarjuna... Empty is quite a positive concept... because you are there, I can be here."

"Neither defiled nor immaculate"

"Defiled or immaculate. Dirty or pure. These are concepts we form in our minds... A beautiful rose is pure, immaculate." A garbage can is dirty, evil, rotten. These are experiences that may fill our mind with the idea of the word.
Looking more carefully, more deeply, you will see that the rose is born out of the garbage. The garbage is composted, and forms the base of humus for the soil that the rose needs to survive. Organic gardeners know that in a few months, plant matter, and natural things, decay into compost. Thus roses and garbage inter-be.
They need each other! Likewise, the Buddhist teaching of the human Genesis is very short and simple, yet it is very deep:

This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This is like this, because that is like that.

Meditate a while upon this and you will see more clearly the inter-being of things. Sometimes, we in our lives, are like that because this is like that. We all inter-be. So, "we must be very careful. We should not imprison ourselves in concepts. We can only inter-be. We cannot just be." Only through the eyes of inter-being can we be freed of suffering, can we find forgiveness and blessings.

For example, many of us want to "be good." But we forget that part of good is evil. For without evil, what then is the good? "You cannot be good alone,' Thich Nhat Hanh states, 'you cannot hope to remove evil, because thanks to evil, good exists and vice versa...
So Buddha needs Mara to take the evil role so Buddha can be a Buddha. Buddha is empty; Buddha is made of non-Buddha elements... Buddha needs Mara in order to reveal himself... When you perceive reality in this way, you will not discriminate against the garbage for the sake of the rose."

Saint Paul needed Saint Matthew to become Saint Paul, who himself initially was a vicious persecutor of Christians, yet through a vision, and contacts with the disciples, with Saint Matthew the Evangelist, Paul (Saul) became transformed into one of the early Fathers of the Christian Church. Without Saint Matthew and others to open his eyes, like Mara and Buddha, he would not be Saint Paul of the Bible.
 Clearly that is because this is; it is the work of inter-being that we may look deeply to perceive that. The Feast of Saint Paul is June 29 in the Roman Church Calendar.

"So do not hope that you can eliminate the evil side. It is easy to think that we are on the good side, and that the other side is evil. But wealth is made of poverty, and poverty is made of wealth." And if we look very carefully into the world, into ourselves, we may see that we suffer, we bear the pains of all.

The Moon is Always the Moon

"There is neither increasing nor decreasing" --The Heart Sutra

Writing on the essential topic of the Prajnaparamita, the Heart Sutra, Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, notes in his commentary, The Heart of Understanding, that there is neither increasing nor decreasing. He says we, for example, "worry because we think that after we die, we will not be a human being anymore, we'll be a speck of dust."

We think that in terms of increase and decrease--to live or to die. But this is not so; Hanh teaches us that rather, the sutra means to say that big and small are concepts in our minds; they may not have any reality in the world, because everything depends upon everything else by the Buddhist principle taught as interpenetration, or inter-being.

Thus everything contains everything else. In the sun is contained the rain; in the moon is contained the moon herself, and everything that makes up the idea of the moon. It then cannot be destroyed, the idea alone is too small, too insignificant.
Mara, when in balance, is no danger any more than the Buddha. So, "when they assassinated Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., they hoped to reduce them to nothingness", Hanh writes. But no thing can be reduced to nothing.

Existing is matter within the elements of other things, of other persons, in the very molecules that constitute form. These molecules, persons and others in history, exist and continue to exist, perhaps more greatly than before, precisely because "they continue in other forms."
We, ourselves, continue their being. So let us not be afraid of decreasing. It is like the moon. We see the moon increasing and decreasing, but it is always like the moon." Suchness.

Where Is the Self, the Non-Self?

"Love has very much to do with Bodhichitta...When you are animated by bodhichitta, the strong desire to devote yourself... is all you need." -- T.N. Hanh, Cultivating the Mind of Love

"Love has very much to do with bodhichitta," writes Buddhist monk and teacher, T.N. Hanh. "Love had to do with a strong desire to become a monk, to practice for a whole generation, and a whole society... Bodhichitta was our support and protection.
When you are animated by bodhichitta, the strong desire to devote yourself to the practice of dharma (dharmakaya) for the well being of others, is all you need. Bodhichitta is a source of power within you. The best thing you can do for others is to help them touch the bodhichitta in themselves. The seed of bodhichitta is there; it is a matter of watering that seed to bring it to life."

Hanh writes, "Where is the self? Where is the non-self? Who is your first love? Who is the last? What is the difference? How can anything die? If you want to touch my love, please touch yourself." Can water be grasped by its form? Can it be traced to its beginning? Do you know where it ends?

It 's the same with love. Love is without beginning; it is without end. "It is still alive within the stream of your being." Live now, consciously in the moment, looking deeply. Your world is a joy; your love lives. Looking deeply into your love, you discover that the Buddha lives.

"When the unreal is taken for the real, then the real becomes unreal;
when non-existence is taken for existence, then non-existence
becomes existence."
--Dream of the Red Chamber, by Tsao Hsueh-Chin

True Love From the False

"Love gives itself; it isn't bought." Henry W. Longfellow

As we move through our lives, one hears and learns by experience a simple truth as the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote. Love is free, it cannot be bought or coerced. Nor can it be captured or restrained, like a pet canary, adored in a golden cage.
Loving persons come together by desire, by free will, in giving. Lovers cannot be used, one blind to the motives of another. 'Love,' as the Bible tells us, 'sees all, knows all, tolerates, is patient and forgives'. In the book of Corinthians it is written:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

The conclusion of this passage is also simple enough:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now-- faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." --1Corinthians-NSB translation

For those whose life experience has been without the experience of love's purity, innocence, freedom, or patience, the foundation of relationship as adults may easily turn to an experience in which there is a transaction of "confusion between winners and losers in a game of competing needs," writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love.
 Instead of weaving together in friendship, in desire, in love, individuals concentrate on what will benefit me. "How many couples bond by forming a "we" that is just a stronger, tougher version of "me"? muses Chopra.

"Undoubtedly," he continues,  "mutual ego needs have a place in every relationship... however when they obliterate the tender growth and life of love in the Spirit," love is replaced with something that is false. He notes that "acquiring an ally to fulfill them [needs] isn't the same as getting free from them. 
Only love can free us."
"The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. Ego craves control, certainty, and power alone. As practitioners on the Way, looking carefully, we see this is false notion. By life experience, we have found that the world is not static, it is not every man an island. Rather the world is as the Buddha preached: a world of change, impermanence; a world that survives because of the inter-being of all. One depends upon another.

Think about your morning habits, for example. The dwelling you awoke in was quite possibly built by another, the electricity you used was wired and made safe for you by others. The food you eat was grown and delivered by others; the water you drink, and the road you travel-- all made safe by others. A truth of love versus ego, then, is that "Uncertainty is the basis of life," writes Chopra.
And inter-being is the way.
Allow yourself what you deeply desire.  In love, in spirit, there are no ulterior motives. While acknowledging another's needs or wants, "Spirit neither takes responsibility for that need nor opposes it." In this way, the person and their love is seen as real, because whatever your true need is, is your reality.

The Holy Spirit Continues in You

"Resting in God is a term I like."
--Thich Nhat Hanh


Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, writes in his book, Living Buddha, Living Christ, that real love never ends. He says, "In Judaism, we are encouraged to enjoy the world as long as we know that it is God himself." Jewish belief is the forbear of Christianity; its patrimony is unmistakeable, joyful, loving, creative. "The Ten Commandments... of the Judeo-Christian hertitage help us know what to do, and what not to do in order to cherish God throughout our daily life."

"All precepts, commandments are about love and understanding." Jesus gave this commandment first to the Apostles, his disciples, to 'love God with all your mind, with all your strength, and most importantly, to love your neighbor as yourself.' In the bible chapter, First Corinthians (Corinthians 1), it declares the principle message of the bible and its eastern, Jewish roots:

Love is patient, love is kind, love is not arrogant, envious or rude. Love does not rejoice in the wrong, it is not irritable or resentful. Love does not insist on its own way. Love rejoices in the truth.
These are very close to the teachings of Buddhism, Thich Nhat Hanh continues. He comments that, "Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Love is born and reborn... To take good care of yourself and the environment is the best way to love God. This love is possible when you understand that you are not separate from other beings, or the environment. This understanding cannot be merely intellectual. It must be experiential, insight gained from deep touching and deep looking in a daily life of contemplation, prayer and meditation."
Real love never ends. It can be born and reborn within you, again and again.

When you pray with your heart, your love, the Holy (whole, unified) Spirit is within you. Nothing more is necessary. The Spirit is a force, a power within you, and in the world. Spirit comes, lighting the Way in the darkness. The force of Bodhichitta is alive. You can see things deeply, understand deeply, love deeply. Hanh writes, "if you practice this way, the Lord's Prayer comes alive in you. It brings real change: thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven... This is like the water that touches the wave, which is its own nature.

This touching removes fear, anxiety, anger, craving... give us our daily bread, and forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, every evil...have mercy upon us, and protect us from anxiety..." Deeply looking, meditating on this prayer shows the light of the Spirit, the loving God, is loving the living beings that "we see and touch in our daily life.
If we can love them, we can love God."

Thus the Holy Spirit continues on in you. You are one, both the wave and the water, the raft and the shore. Your mindfulness will bring this about, sharing with others.
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The Dharma, The Tao, The Way

The terms Dharma, Tao and the Way are familiar spiritual descriptions, often tossed around which come from several spiritual traditions, both East and West. Yet as the well known Indian physician and author, Deepak Chopra writes in his book The Path To Love, what may seem as separate is really not so, through interbeing. He discusses these traditions as long living in the human world, that they are in his view, rather more unified, that they inter-be as one.

"Dharma" is also translated as "law" or "righteousness." In India, today someone who follows the family tradition of work, worship, and social behavior is said to be in his "dharma." Modern Western society is not dharmic in any of these ways, since our children feel free to choose very different occupations from their parents', along with new codes of behavior and new places to live. In both East and West the rootedness of a dharmic society has been undermined in this century.

However, Dharma is more than social convention; it is a living force that can bring you through the many threats and challenges of life. Your ego [western term, from the Latin meaning self or I] does not believe this for it cannot find dharma; ego is not guided by love, and dharma is intimately tied to love. In the West, the closest concept to dharma is grace [one, whole, universal], the loving presence of God that keeps humanity under divine protection. When Jesus spoke of God seeing the fall of a sparrow, he was referring to dharma. In China, the same concept emerged as Tao, the middle way, which was seen as an invisible but real power that organizes all life. Being in tune with the way is the same as living within dharma. The Christian term the Way is likewise. Jesus exhorted his disciples to "come follow me."

"Every spiritual tradition has taught that success in life depends upon finding the Way and ignoring the distractions of external things. Your Ego, however, insists that your survival depends upon paying total attention to the outer world. Its primary tactics--vigilance and defensiveness--are the very antithesis of surrender in the way. Your ego, a perception of which, causes you to believe that separation is necessary..." In reality separation is not ever necessary; it is something chosen or not.

Being in dharma however, "heals separation by making us [inter-being] a reality," not as a 'unit of two,' but as a whole, oneness, a universal spirit. Chopra explains further, "You are acting in dharma whenever you allow rather than oppose. Allowing results in statements such as these:

* Is there something you need?
* How can I help?
* I see what's going on with you.
* Go ahead.
* I understand what you mean.
* You're right.

"Unity makes another person's viewpoint completely clear; you understand someone who is outside yourself." What makes this possible is the realization of inter-being, that what you value, esteem, follow isn't something outside yourself, it may be only outside of your ego. Thus "following your dharma in the deepest sense means not only obeying the laws set down by society or adhering to rules of religious conduct--there is no fixed formula for finding the Way..." Set spiritual guideposts for yourself, thus making this newer, broader meaning of dharma essential.