Star Wars Day
Good morning, I hope everyone is doing well today and has had a pleasant weekend so far. I don’t know about where you live but here in Charlotte yesterday the weather was beautiful. My dog and I walked over eight miles yesterday, played with my new chickens and even had time to read and cook out. While I was out walking I spent a lot of time talking to neighbors out working in their yards or also out walking.
Today is Star Wars day May the fourth and that is how I titled today’s Dharma Talk as a take off on “May the Force be With You.” Now I must be honest here, I am not a big Star Wars fan so there is much in the plot and story I don’t remember. I have seen all the episodes but cared little enough to commit them to memory. I saw the first episode, though it wasn’t really the first part, in a theatre in Hawaii. That is about all I can recall of the movies other then of course some of the main characters.
In today’s Dharma talk I bring this up because I wanted to talk about our struggle with our personal practice and achieving enlightenment. As we engage in our Buddhist practice of the Lotus Sutra frequently we will be faced with many challenges, that we can be assured of because the Buddha actually predicts this many times in the course of his delivery of the Lotus Sutra.
Obstacles to our practice can make their appearance in many forms. Sometimes these hindrances may be our job interfering because of time required to work or even a hostile supervisor opposed to Buddhism. The interference might also come from family life when we might not have sufficient time to engage fully in our practice. Other times there may be various other obstructions that arise causing us to abandon or slack off in our practice.
While all of these and many more may serve to limit our practice it is ultimately up to our own mind as to whether we succumb to them and abandon the path to enlightenment. In the story of Star Wars, if I have my facts correct, we could say that Anakin Skywalker gave in to the forces of evil and became Darth Vader, for us that would be giving in to the forces of Mara and abandoning our practice altogether.
As we learned Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, is actually the father of Luke Skywalker, and as Darth Vader he tried to influence Luke to joining forces with the Sith and going over to the Dark Side. Luke however overcame the temptation and coercion and the final betrayal of learning his own father was Darth Vader. We could say that Luke beat back the forces of Mara in his life and stayed true to the Force.
We too most assuredly will face challenges to our practice however it is solely up to ourselves as to whether those difficulties win over and cause us to abandon our practice and fail to attain enlightenment.
“Your merits cannot be described even by the combined efforts of one thousand Buddhas. Now you have defeated the army of Māra, beaten the forces of birth and death, and annihilated all your enemies. Good man! Hundreds of thousands of Buddhas are now protecting you by their supernatural powers.” Lotus Sutra, Chapter XXIII
I hope that you will continue your practice even in the face of great adversity. Realize the ultimate obstacle we all are faced with, the one that has the greatest power over us is nothing other than our own minds. It is our mind that determines whether we will achieve enlightenment. Our own mind is where the greatest struggle against Mara or the Dark Side takes place. Every time we overcome our own self doubt or our desire to quit we are victorious over Mara and we advance our own enlightenment.
As you go through this week and the days of your life I hope that you will keep this in mind. In closing I wish you great merit and “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!”
