Thinking about joy versus dancing with joy
The transition from Chapter II to Chapter III in the Lotus Sutra is a precious gift in that one chapter ends with a theme and the next chapter conveniently picks up that theme. It doesn’t always present us with those smooth transitional moments. I wonder though if others give it much thought. It’s hard to tell what one writer will find interesting and of value in their creation.
The idea of Joy being an important emotion or feeling at the close of chapter II and then joy being the celebrated emotion for the opening of Chapter III is an invitation to me to stop, spend some time, and explore. In my Chaplain training we would say, anything mentioned twice by the patient is noteworthy and should be explored. The patient is giving you a gift of conversation topic when they mention something two times and especially three times in a row.
As you read the Lotus Sutra from here on out open yourself up to those instances where questions are repeated, where subjects are immediately brought back into the conversation. In this case we are being gifted “Joy.”
“And when you have great joy,
You will become Buddhas!”Chapter II…
Chapter III “Thereupon Sariputra, who felt like dancing with joy stood up, joined his hands together, looked up at the honorable face, and said to the Buddha:
Hearing this truthful voice of your, I feel like dancing[with joy]. I have never felt like this before.” Lotus Sutra
I realize over the past few days especially, my writing has been a bit discombobulated, I’m not pleased with it for sure. I will plead as an excuse being in the hospital, which has truly thrown a monkey wrench at me. Perhaps I’ll go back and edit it up or more likely what I’ll do is let you experience this as close to real life as I am as it unfolds and together we will experience it in our ow unique ways. My goal however is to loosely follow this schedule.
Wake up at 5AM and go for a short wake up walk around the unit. Then have the nurse help me prepare getting out of bed and into sitting in the chair. Find a good place in the room for the chair and stay in that spot all day. Then I’ll engage in periods of reading, writing, light in-place exercises. The challenges are to fight off sleep. Hospitals are extremely sleep inducing places to me. In my case sitting up erect and awake is the best most concentrated healthy exercise I can engage in
Interspersed through this will be the creation of the artwork that will accompany the chapter meditation. I think this will be a good way to productively use my time on writing and creating and fighting off discouragement and or depression..
UPDATE REALTIME: None of that happened as planned. It just didn’t happen. I woke up as per plan however no one was available to help me get done the things I need help with. It is one of the realities of being sick in the hospital, everything is dependent on someone else’s schedule. So, I’ve tried to make do with things as they have transpired.
I like the art I managed to get drawn for this meditation.
If you think closely about this it is important to remember that the Buddha first addresses Shariputra the representative of the Learners.
Buddhism is not too famous for using multidimensional characters. People represent one thing and that’s pretty much it. Shariputra may have been an excellent cook or perhaps he could play the flute. It isn’t important and so Shariputra remains as representative of Learners.
I think this is worth mentioning because frequently people will point out how we are all unique and our personalities have depth. The caution there is that it can be easy to hide behind your deep personality and ignore the simple truths that stare you in the face. Keeping things simple can be a very useful principal. So Shariputra represents Learners. And when you are in learning mode and doing your deep philosophizing you are being Shariputra even if you think you are Bob Dylan (the phrase deep philosophizing is his).
The fact that the Buddha addresses the Learners I don’t think should be taken lightly especially since beyond the 10 Suchnesses and the Single Buddha Vehicle concepts there isn’t much intellectual stuff going on and the Single Buddha Vehicle has been alluded two already.
What is really telling is that this first chapter of teaching and interacting with the Buddha ends with pointing out the importance, the necessity even of an emotion and not a concept.
Chapter II end with the phrase that when you have joy you will become Buddhas. It doesn’t say when you think about joy, or think about happiness, or meditate on joy or happiness. It clearly says when you experience this thing, joy, then that’s the key.
To let go of the need to dissect, expound, propound, pontificate, and so forth is difficult to do if your whole identity is built upon being the answer guy or being the go to person for facts and information. It is hard to let go of and it is a heavy burden to maintain.
Here’s the thing though, Shariputra gets it. He let’s it go. Look at his actions and words as we enter Chapter III. He’s like jumping up and down, spinning around, dancing. He’s got the joy bug for sure. This is not some intellectual processing of theory. This is the heart responding to the fundamental truth contained within the Lotus Sutra that we are so desperately seeking and ignore in our search for some profound Dharma.
Shariputra says I never felt like this before. He does not say I never thought this before.
How much of the Dharma do we cut ourselves off from by not opening up ourselves to an experiential relationship with the Dharma rather than a transactional one.
Transaction says learning a concept will equate to enlightenment being closer. There is no proof for this, there is no doctrinal basis to believe this. Experiential relationships provide multi dimensional ever evolving immersions into the actual experience of enlightenment and being a Buddha.
Don’t be discouraged, if the perfect example of Learners, Shariputra can let loose and dance with joy then certainly there is hope for you.
