The first time I heard a recounting of this chapter from the Lotus Sutra the story teller had Shariputra leaping with joy upon learning that he too would become a Buddha. That image up leaping joyfully has stayed with me through many years. Those exact words do no appear in any translation of the sutra, yet I don’t feel it is inaccurate. Some of the words used to describe the emotional condition of Shariputra are, ecstatic, felt like dancing, greatest joy, and in the Burton Watson and the Hurvitz translation we have Shariputra’s mind dancing with joy. And too, the description of Shariputra standing or rising does not lead me to think he rose at a slow or cumbersome pace. For in all the translations Shariputra is described in some energetic way as he rises to greet and praise the Buddha.
This causes me to consider how nimble I was when I was younger, and how slowly I rise now on creaking knees after sitting in seiza1 for an hour. It used to be that arising after services was virtually pain free other than my legs having gone to sleep. Now I am slow, it is painful, and I sometimes grab hold of something to steady myself as I stand up. Still though the joy of my practice remains as if unchanged even if less naive. And this brings up an interesting phenomena sometimes faced over time in long time practitioners of any religion. As a person learns more, as they witness more, as they practice more, there is a possibility of complacency or even cynicism to creep in. Frequently it can cause a person to completely abandon their practice altogether.
The conclusion of Chapter II leaves us with joy, and Chapter III continues with joy. I wonder if perhaps there might be something to this thing joy that we are being invited to consider. I’m thinking first about what does it look like. If you were to describe to someone not from earth and knew nothing about humans what joy looks like when being manifest, what would it look like. If a person jumped up from sitting how are you able to tell they are not jumping up to attack but rather to express joy? Someone’s who’s speech became more rapid, how would you know they were excited and happy versus excited and angry or scared? How would you describe your physical signs so someone would know you were joyful? This is in some ways one of the challenges that people with various forms of autism and those who care for and are friends with autistic people. What do emotions look like? What is a norm for emotional expression? Are we enough aware of our own expressions, and do our expressions always communicate our feelings?
At the early stages of communication, back in the dark ages when email was first being used people would frequently, and still do, misunderstand the emotions of someone. People then began to insert punctuation symbols to convey simple emotions such as frowning, or smiling. Then came along text messages and emoji, the detailed artistic emotion conveying art. When handwriting2 was in favor you could often tell is someone was pressing hard on the paper, or hurried, or frenzied, and even tear drops showed up on paper. Now no one knows if your keyboard is flooded with tears. So think of my art as large emoji conveying my emotional experience of the Lotus Sutra.
I don’t have many answers to provide except that a greater awareness of self is important because so much of our communication actually takes place without words. Also self awareness is not self-centeredness. In fact there is a case to be made that lack of self-awareness is more self-centered, and manifests to some degree as a complete disregard for how others perceive you; expecting them to do the work you aren’t. Effectively communicating our feelings our emotions in our practice and faith will enable us to relate more deeply with others in their own emotional condition. While we may not all become happy over the same things, we all know what happiness is to some degree, and hopefully all of us have at one time had a happy experience.
Joy, I do hope you have experienced joy at some point in your life. Are you able to bring up that memory? Is it painful to do so, or tinged with disappointments? I hope my asking is not too painful for you. I bring this up because in a few pages of Chapter III we have Shariputra going through this broad range of emotions. He feels some doubt, perhaps a lot of doubt since he begins to suspect that Mara king of devils has possessed the Buddha. He even feels some resentment over having the rug of enlightenment and Buddhahood yank out from underneath him; seemingly taken away. Knowing what this feels like ourselves allows us to begin having an emotional connection with Shariputra. We know what these feel like, we have experienced them, and perhaps are still experiencing them.
As you consider yourself in Shariputra’s place the story becomes your own. Now keep going and even if in this moment you are not a joyful as Shariputra seems to be remember that he became joyful because of the Buddha’s teaching of the Lotus Sutra. This is the promise we are left with at the end of Chapter II. This joy and this condition of enlightenment and Buddhahood are ours, and the Lotus Sutra is the teaching which can enable us to realize this even in our pain and suffering.
My visual expression of this includes stamps in collage, which I managed to find when creating this piece, that in one way or another show excitement and joy either in dance, play, sports or making music. I particularly like the one of the olympian leaping and the circus performer high in the air on trapeze. Though the musicians I am also able to relate to as someone who plays a musical instrument. I wonder what images you would choose to represent joyfulness? When I think about joy, I think about energy. I’ve not heard anyone express joy in a bored monotone fashion. Usually when people are joyful their pace of speaking is modulated rising and falling in pitch and faster and slower in rhythm, just as music does. I included quotes from two translations which I have used in collage. I felt the emotional expression was too significant to me personally and has been such a deep part of my experience of the Lotus Sutra to only have one. The craziness of the painted background is also an expression for me of the crazy, yet joyful life I’ve had so far. It’s been rollicking and bursting, it’s been circles and squares, it’s been orchestrated and chaotic, it’s been planned and spontaneous. Life is often a seemingly contradictory experience.
Buddhism has enabled me to become more comfortable with the spaces in between, the grey area where things don’t often fall comfortably into place.
- seiza –
Japanese style of sitting where the legs are tucked underneath and the weight of the body rests on the heels and ankles
- handwriting –
a form of writing where the hand holds a marking devices such as pen or pencil and makes marks on paper directly
