Chapter II
I’m typing this while I am in the air flying from Syracuse to Charlotte with my final destination Corona, California to spend 8 days with my brother. There may be a murder.
No, seriously I like my brother tremendously and highly respect him, his life, and his large family. We both are almost complete opposites. He likes hot weather, I like cold. He likes large families, I prefer my single life. He likes race cars, something I know nothing about and have no interest to learn. He likes guns, I am adamantly opposed to them. He is short, I am not so much. He used to be somewhat puddgy and dumpy, I am skinny, though he has no become a compatition body builder, so he is strong and I am weak.
If the past is any indication of this 8 days we will be good for about 3 or 4 of them. By the end of that time in previous visits I would be leaving because that’s about how long it takes us to relearn where all the buttons are and how to push them sufficiently to irritate each other. In defense of this we are trying to plan a lot of activities to keep us busy. Though that too is opposite of my preferred mode of simple and quite life. Then too there is an unknown on this trip with his new girlfriend. I’ve never met her and Tim has told me she is a Christian and holds firm to her beliefs even though he is passive towards them. I’m hopefull that he has forwarnd her that I am Buddhist and gay, which could potentially be something she may not like. Between us and our likes I’m not concerned with hers, I will do what I need to be feel safe and at ease. I am too old to tolerate ill will from anyone even in-law-girlfriends.
I diverged greatly there, merely to give you an idea of what I’m doing while I am typing this blog that will post later upon landing somewhere. Unless I crash.
Yesterday I did a drawing illustrating the short section of Chapter II which we recite in our regular Lotus Sutra service in Nichiren Buddhism. You can see this drawing at the beginning of this post.
What I would like to spend time here writing about is the idea of a gate that is difficult to enter. You will see my representation of a gate down there at the bottom. In my mind and hopefully you’ll see it also, I tried to represent it as fairly formidable barrier. There is a stone wall in which it is set. The wooden gate is made of stout wood not easily breached. There are locks and a bar across the door.
Notice though, the bar across the door can be removed by the person entering, but no by what ever or whomever may be on the other side. I think that is important for us as Buddhists to keep in mind. The barriers to enlightenment are of our own making and undoing.
There are two lock on the doors, however notice the key suspended in the air. I wanted to be present but not in hand. The idea being that the Dharma elevates us, thanks to the Buddha, and enables us to grasp the key so that we may use it to fully open the doors.
Now, here is what I think is really exciting. So exciting that I need to pause a monent to eat some of my airplane provided cookie.
OK, that’s done. Notice that you can’t see what is on the other side of the door. I guess in retrospect I should have written enlightenment above the door. Enlightenment is really all we know, or more accurately, the “wisdom of the Buddhas.”
If we studied all the Sutras previous we may have a theoretical introduction to this. Yet that would fall short, because as we are to learn none of the previous teachings have yet revealed the entire truth of the idea.
I also purport that none of us, well at least I for one, have any idea of the depth and magnitude of what to expect. I know that from the first day until now it is continuing to unfold and do so in ways far exceeding any previous expectations.
Even if I had been able to see what was on the other side when I first began, in all likelihood I would not have believed my eyes. I suspect I may have even fled fearing that I was being mislead or lied to. A trap, a trick.
Perhaps it is better that we can’t see what is on the other side and only know it is Enlightenment.
My experience would be better illustrated by a series of gates each with bars across and keys above waiting for me to remove the bar reach for the understanding to bring the key into the lock. I say this because as time has gone along it seems that I am continually facing new hindrances to fully gaining the “wisdom of the Buddhas.”
These hindrances are not external ones, rather they are of the the bars and locks I place across my own path. I wonder if others do this too. From what I hear from others I believe that it is so.
I find it interesting that this chapter begins with the Buddha addressing Shariputra, representing the learners, though with a propensity for intellectual understanding. Notice my humble rendering of the Buddha and a prostrate Shariputra. OK, I’m unable to draw people well, so I have to depend upon you to sort of fill in the missing lines and ignore the superfluous one, much I depend upon the reader to do some editing as they read along. I do the best I can.
The key point I believe here is that the actual dialoge or discourse of the Lotus Sutra begins with the Buddha first speaking to those of intelect or theoretical tendencies. This should not be lost on us.
I have repeatedly said in all my writing that I believe the Lotus Sutra begs us, cautions us, and welcomes us to approach the teaching from the heart, from our deepest innermost life. That if we think the trick is to become masters of doctrine, profound scholors then we deny ourselves the easy entry through our experiences and heart which are not easily expressed in words.
This is not to say that we should ignore doctrine, for to do so would open us up to being mislead. But to place a bar across your doorway that is one made by fear of not being smart enough, or not having the access or resources to theory is to do ourselves great harm. There is no one who is unable to feel the truth of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra.
Feelings are not easily put into words. I have on many occasions taught Non-Violent Communication. The second step in that process after careful and honest Observation is to identify one’s feelings. This is such a challenge for people to do, so challenging that I always provide a fairly extensive list of feelings. People are often surprised at how many feeling words there are which they either never use, or infrequently come to mind.
In my Chaplain training and work we continually are called upon while trading to learn to express our feelings, which requires us to learn ways of expressing them in subtle effective ways. The same applies when we are with patients, helping them identify what they are feeling can help everyone be better able to ensure proper care and communication. Relationships are the same.
I’ll give you a hint here. Anytime you begin with “I feel like…” you are not expressing your feelings. You are merely intelectualiziung what you think you feel. It is awkward at first, to simply say, “I feel….” Try it out it’s hard to do for sure.
So we could say on one hand the Lotus Sutra is a feeling Sutra and not a thinking Sutra. We can and should study it, we can even ponder and think about it. The heart of the Sutra though lies in what permeates our life force our soul, our inner being, what ever you wish to call it. It is what radiates out from us in stronger energy than the theory we speak. It is what you do more than what you say.
This one of the things I have tried to empart through my various ‘artistic’ endeavors. It is not to promote my creations rather to hopefully inspire you to learn to express your own life experience of the practice of the Lotus Sutra. We each have various capacities, there are things you can do which I can not, and the reverse is the same. The point is that there is one thing we each can do equally well, and that is live the Dharma and attain enlightenment.
I hope you will, as time goes along, liberate your own creativity and discover how you can best represent your own experiences and awakening. Remeber it’s about your life and not your thoughts. As you know our thoughts sometimes don’t always manifest in our actions, and that’s a real bugaboo.
