Good morning. Today is our first Lotus Sutra service since the Fall Equinox, our first service of Spring 2014. For those of us who live in the Carolinas the weather has been very delightful lately with mild temperatures and a lot of sunshine. Today the weather will be dramatically cooler and rain is supposed to start.
While out walking my dog over the past few days I have had plenty of chances to stop and talk with neighbors. I notice that it is the spring season when most of our neighborhood conversations take place. During the hot summer and the cold winter people are not out in their yards nearly as much, it seems. Spring and to a lesser degree Fall is when there are the most people out working in their yards.
Today in symbolic gesture of the sun crossing the equator as it does during the equinox we here do so representing the Ohigan Season, or the Crossing Over to the Other Shore. This is actually mentioned in Chapter I in the Lotus Sutra. It is traditional at this time of the year that we renew our practice of the Six Paramitas. In case you have forgotten the six I have listed them at the end of this Dharma talk. I hope you will actually this season as perhaps a reminder to renew your practice.
Spring is a season of growth, as season of emerging, blossoming, all around us living things are on the move. Birds are singing and returning from their winter migratory areas, mating it taking place. There is all sorts of new-ness around us. People are planting new things in their yards, tilling the soil for crops, pruning back to encourage new hardy growth.
Just as we clean our homes at spring, or tend to our yard and gardens, so too we should tend to our practice. It is natural to slip into patterns of familiarity or even shortcuts when we do something repeatedly. Doing things such as cleaning our altar, or reciting the sutra, or chanting Odaimoku, or visiting the temple or even joining in on the video stream are some of the many things that can become habitual.
Ohigan is a chance to look at all the ways in which we manifest our Buddhist practice; all the ways in which we say we are a Buddhist but may have slipped a bit and no longer are we as diligent in actually being Buddhist. Ohigan is the perfect opportunity to prune back some of the deadwood of habit to encourage new growth and new behaviors. The use of the metaphors could go on for quite some time.
I would like to simply remind each of you to sincerely examine your life and make a renewed effort to practice the Six Paramitas. I encourage you to sincerely chant the Odaimoku and Chapters II and XVI from the Lotus Sutra as the foundation to establishing enlightenment in your life.
Let us all practice together.
Here are the Six Paramitas:
1. Dana – Giving
2. Observing Precepts – not to kill, not to steal, not to indulge in harmful sexual behavior, not to lie, not to take intoxicants to the point of loosing control of one’s mind
3. Patience
4. Striving
5. Meditation
6. Wisdom
