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 |   As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| Muruganar (C.K.Subramania Iyer) (1893-1973), an outstanding devotee of Sri Ramana and a great poet, composed thousands of poems praising Sri Ramana, or recording his teachings, or expressing gratitude to him for having established him in the Self. His poems are an ocean of devotion and veneration for the Maharshi. Muruganar was a well-respected Tamil scholar before visiting Sri Ramana. His father-in-law Dandapani Swami, an ardent devotee of Sri Ramana, once gave him a copy of Aksharamanamalai,1 a reading of which prompted him to go to Tiruvannamalai in 1923. He immediately recognized that the Maharshi was the Guru he had been actively seeking. He has described his visit and the background that led up to it in his poetical compositions translated below: "I heard from devotees who have redeemed themselves by the grace of one at Tiruvannamalai, who is the embodiment of true jnana and who shines as the flame of true tapas... Hearing them I was lost in admiration and unceasing joy... Like one suffering from thirst comes across a Ganges of cold water, I went to Ramana Maharshi with eleven verses and met the ocean of mauna, the bestower of jnana...On seeing him my mind dissolved in the same way as wax melts on encountering fire. The hair on my body stood on end. Devotion surged in me like an ocean that has seen the full moon. I read the eleven verses with an unsteady and quivering voice. At that very moment, he graciously looked at me with his lotus eyes. From that day on, the praises given out by my impartial tongue belonged only to him... From the way he bestowed his grace becoming my Lord and Master, I was completely convinced that he was Siva himself. As my new ‘owner’ he made my ‘I’ and ‘mine’ his own. In the succeeding months, I came to visit him on many occasions. I was gradually influenced by him and my outlook on life was getting altered. Sometime after my mother’s death, I left my job in 1926 and came to Tiruvannamalai, making it my permanent residence." The following extracts are from Muruganar’s Sri Ramana Anubhuti first published in 1948, more than twenty years after he had the experiences described below: 'I was a learned fool. My flawed mind knew nothing till I came to dwell with him whose glance filled my heart with the light of awareness. I entered into union with the deathless state of knowledge of the Reality. As the deadly delusion of a body-bound ego faded, a flower of pure light unfolded at his holy feet. That radiance grew ever brighter with my love until I realized the flawless knowledge of the Self, manifesting as the unbroken awareness ‘I-I’ within my heart. I was wandering deluded in the mind’s labyrinth of dreams, rushing hither and thither, desiring one thing then another until the joy of union with the Lord welled up within me. My body merged into the infinite light of divine wisdom and my heart was filled with deep inner tranquility. He is the teacher of the eternal law through whose glance the truth unfolded, filling my heart with the dazzling radiance of blissful consummate grace so that the body, ego, and intellect were all no more. I became merged in the divine silence, which is abiding knowledge of Lord Siva. A noble lion, he fixed the victorious gaze of true knowledge upon the rutting elephant of my ego, which was drunk with self-conceit, filling me with the sweet nectar of union with Lord Siva, so that the inner experience of divine wisdom became my whole existence. My poor helpless mind was swept along in the swirling torrent of objective phenomena until my Lord guided my deluded understanding into the broad calm of his holy silence so that the light of his majesty shined in my heart. I read the scriptures but my mind could not grasp their meaning. It was only through the gracious intervention of my wise teacher and Master, working inwardly, that his own state of unbroken meditation became permanent within me and my heart was penetrated and held in Reality’s eternal grasp. Languishing in the slough of my soul’s defilement, I knew not a single moment of clear understanding until my Lord revealed to me myself as Brahman. Transporting me into a realm of pure bliss, the vision of the authentic Self expanded within my heart and I attained the state of grace whose essence is love. I, poor sinner, gripped by the bonds of excessive desire, I was deluded by my ruinous attachment to the pleasures of the senses. But when he conferred upon me the bliss of his true knowledge, all delusion was dispelled. Dwelling thus as one with Sri Ramana is nothing less than union with Lord Siva. Setting me on the straight path of true knowledge he led me to the glorious goal of union with him in the one-pointed state of holy silence. My heart’s gracious jewel, true wisdom’s sun, he dissipated the dark clouds of the senses’ illusory world. And now within my heart full of joy I made for him a home I can receive no other. Only he remains, the Supreme Self, manifesting as consciousness, pure light, empty and yet replete. Gaining a new life, I spent it singing praises to the lofty truth of his glorious name, albeit in feeble words of little worth. But my Lord did not deem my hymns unworthy. Embracing me in the outpouring of his affection, with more than mother’s love, he banished my deadly delusion and made me his servant. Beneath my Guru’s gaze, my heart was emptied of guile so that the false understanding that has usurped my heart disappeared completely, and there, in the silence of his holy feet, the pure ocean of the Self swept me into the deep bliss of the absolute Godhead. Surrounded by desires that led me astray, my heart was hardened and my understanding was tricked by the illusion of a personal self. Hail to the Lord who through his love refreshed my heart, banishing my deluded attachment to land ownership, wealth and women.' In the late 1920s, Muruganar recorded the teachings of Sri Ramana in 1,254 Tamil verses. The Maharshi himself went through them, making innumerable changes and corrections, and also composed 28 new verses which were added at appropriate places in the text. These were published as Guruvachaka-Kovai (A collection of the Guru’s sayings). Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai of 1851 verses gives further details of the circumstances that brought Muruganar to Sri Ramana and the later events. A few extracts from the latter collection are: "The Supreme Being Siva abides as the real nature of one’s own Self. It cannot be reached by those indulging in fallacious arguments. Tolerating my immature conduct and treating me as if I have attained freedom from impurities, [Siva] considered admitting me to the group of his companions. He became the incomparable sage at Arunachala, which is praised even by the gods. Like the worm that becomes a wasp on being stung by a wasp, through his mere presence and glance my ‘I’ and ‘mine’ were destroyed. Seeing me as his own Self, he enabled me to experience Myself as enduring, pure being consciousness. With my body and mind absent, I became full of Self. This is how he bestowed his grace on this pitiable one. You are the unmoving one; you are the compassionate one; you are the skillful Lord of true knowledge. To poor me, who was totally lost by not seeking consciousness, you are like the store laid down to be used in times of adversity. You are the God who saved me from the mouth of the crocodile, my past karma. Human beings wallow in samsara regarding themselves as forms, without realizing the rarity of the grace-embodied form of the sadguru. Through this form, he has manifested to destroy the mass of their dark vasanas. Those who are under the spell of the ‘I am the body’ delusion, through their simple-minded view, which is prompted by ignorance, extend the same notion [‘he is a body’] to the sadguru. The Lord of Arunachala, which is solidified consciousness, is Ramana, a delight to my mind. It is difficult to say whether he has a form or is formless, whether he is masculine, feminine or neuter, one or many, atomic or cosmic, Self or non-Self, joy or misery. So it is extremely difficult to define his nature, his actions, his ways, and their propriety. In essence, Ramana’s real nature defies definition." |
When the Master was staying at the Ryomonji, a lay acquaintance of Zenko from Omi came to the temple and remained for some time. At his first interview with the Master, he accepted the essentials of his teaching, and thereafter simply followed along with the others, listening to the Masters' sermons. Once, when the Master was receiving a group of new arrivals in the abbot’s quarters, this layman came forward and said: "My home is such-and-such a village in the province of Omi. Originally I was a ronin, and, taking what savings I had in gold and silver I lent out money and grain to the people of the area and with the interest on these loans made my living. However, a little over ten years ago, I left my business to my son, and, building a retreat in my garden, devoted myself to performing zazen and reciting sutras. I also went to study with various Zen masters, practicing single-mindedly. However, last night, in a dream, I found myself back at home, reading sutras at the household shrine. Just then, a customer who had borrowed some rice came to pay his interest, and together with my son set about calculating the amount. In the midst of reading the sutras, I realized there was an error in their calculations, and just as I was telling them of it, I suddenly awoke from my dream. Thinking over this, [I realize] just how deep and difficult to destroy are the roots of karmic nature! What sort of practice can I do to destroy my basic sinfulness?" The layman was moved to tears by the strength of his feelings. Everyone present was impressed. The Master said: "Was this a good dream or a bad dream?' The layman replied: "A bad dream. It was for this that more than twenty years ago I abandoned all mercenary affairs to dwell in oneness with Buddha dharma, in circumstances of purity and tranquility, far from the tumult of worldly life. This is the sort of thing I [would expect to] see in my dreams, yet I am afraid the fact that what came to me were my old concerns of twenty years ago shows these have permeated my innermost-mind, and that distresses me." The Master said: "This is what's known as being had by a dream." The layman rose and prostrated himself. 'Today for the first time, he declared, I have been freed from endless kalpas of birth and death!” And, reeling with joy, he went off. |
I have been teaching Zen students on this mountain for almost forty years. Many people come to visit me thinking they are visiting a Zen Master but they only see my form body, the house where my true nature lives. They don’t see my true nature. That is not a problem but it means that they have not seen their true nature. Because they haven’t seen their true nature, they cannot see their parents, siblings, wife, and children, or anybody. They wander through life in vain, like a crazy person. We have to say that this is truly a world of darkness. Students who receive my teaching must do it with sincerity and dedication, not forgetting the methods I used. Ultimately, being sincere and dedicated is paying back your Dharma obligation, so you will not waste your practice or suffer a mental loss. You should always retain three things: a place of practice, a teacher and Dharma friends. ... You should know that I am an eternal being, not dependent on a form body. Even when my Dharma speech is not heard anymore, you should still be able to see my true face because it never disappears. |
| Normally people will send me an email with a good old fashioned clean joke, but not this morning. Read this as you won't regret it. Two Choices, What would you do?....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice? At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?' The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.' Then he told the following story: Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning..' Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt.. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. Athe pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay' Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third! As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team 'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'. Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day! AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces. If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the 'natural order of things.' So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process? A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them. |
| A Pillar of Zen: Roshi Philip Kapleau by Rafe Martin, Sensei began formal Zen practice in 1970. A disciple of Philip Kapleau Roshi, after Kapleau Roshi's retirement he continued his koan practice with Robert Aitken Roshi. Since 2002 Rafe has worked intensively with Danan Henry Roshi founder of the Zen Center of Denver, a Dharma Heir of Kapleau Roshi, as well as a sanctioned Diamond Sangha (Robert Aitken Roshi) Dharma Master. Rafe received full lay ordination from Danan Roshi in 2009 and inka, (recognition of his completion of the Diamond Sangha koan syllabus), plus permission to teach the Harada-Yasutani koan curriculum as an Associate Teacher in 2012. His approach to Zen is lay and non-institutional. His most recent book is Endless Path—Zen Practice, Daily Life, and the Jataka Tales. Sensei Martin is the founding teacher and director of Endless Path Zendo, Rochester, NY. http://www.endlesspathzendo.org My Zen teacher Roshi Philip Kapleau , died peacefully on May 6, 2004, at the venerable age of 91. Several days later, many of us who had known him and been with him for more than thirty years gathered for his burial at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center, the country property of the Rochester Zen Center. Some who were there had since found other teachers and other teachings, or had simply taken other directions in life than the path of Zen. All of us, though, felt a deep gratitude and love that no words can express. Each person there seemed to find that at bottom they owed this man so much. He had opened the gate of practice, and his immense love of the dharma had saved us from deeply painful lives. The Three Pillars of Zen —the now classic work that brought him into the public eye and led him to found the first Zen center in America headed by a Westerner—was published in 1965 when the world was in chaos, the Vietnam War still on. Most of us were only in our early twenties, and somewhat crazed. He stood at an ancient door, held it open wide, and said to us simply, ‘Come in. Work hard. The dharma will never let you down.' Roshi's dying and death occurred outdoors, beneath the new-leaved trees in the backyard of the Rochester Zen Center, where some thirty years earlier he and a cadre of quite unskilled laborers had built this center from a burnt-out shell of a building. (He liked to say in those early days, ‘We specialize in burnt-out buildings and people.') Spring had just come to the Northeast, so the birds sang and the sun shone down to where he sat in his wheelchair—like the Buddha beneath the flowering sala trees. He wore his favorite chinos, flannel shirt, tan cloth sneakers and sunglasses, and was surrounded by friends, some from Rochester, others who had flown in to be with him. He had been living with Parkinson's the last thirteen years, living admirably actually, but getting weaker and weaker, especially this last year. The last few days he also had pneumonia. It was time to go. His mind had remained clear and he still loved jokes, though even his favorite movies—Mel Brooks's To Be or Not to Be , Ninotchka and Fiddler on The Roof among them—had, over the last several months, become hard for him to follow. (He had recently taken, too, to watching only the first half of Fiddler; the second part now seemed too sad.) Each scene was compelling for him, but putting the narrative together had gotten tricky. He still loved to laugh and to be read to, everything from koans and koan commentaries, poetry, history, politics, news and science to The Cat Who Went to Heaven , one of his favorites, and Horton Hatches the Egg —which he pronounced a great Zen tale, one that all Zen students should read. Slowly, slowly as far-off dharma friends called and the phone was held to his ear to receive their well wishes and farewells, he drifted further away. His eyes had closed earlier and now, as death approached, his breathing simply became ever fainter and shallower. The passage between life and death was so subtle and gentle it is hard to pinpoint when death actually occurred. An exhale. Another. Then he was off, between breaths and worlds. Friends sat with him still, whispering into his ear, holding his hand. And there was chanting—the Prajna Paramita, Sho Sai Myo, and Kanzeon. That night the local Zen community and many longtime friends gathered in the zendo. Two of his closest friends and students, Sunyana Graef Sensei and Rose Martin, had washed his body and clothed him in his rakusu and robes, and now he lay in an open casket before the altar. Over the next few days his un-embalmed body would show no signs of either rigor or decomposition. He was buried, not cremated, by his own choice. When the notion was presented to him, he concurred that the decision for burial was not simply a personal preference but a dharma teaching. Form and essence are not-two. To burn the form would suggest that they are somehow separate. He would not accept that as an answer in dokusan. He did not embody it as a teaching now. Perhaps he was also saying that as Westerners and Buddhists we need not take on Eastern cultural forms. Our grandparents and parents were all buried. To be Buddhist need not mean we become anything other than what we already are. Let the natural processes proceed and the body decompose as the bodies of our ancestors and forebears had been allowed to do in their time. There is nothing to add to what we already are. Nothing special to do. Philip Kapleau was born in 1912 to a working class family in New Haven, Connecticut. According to the Rochester Zen Center's obituary (the full copy of which may be seen on the center's Web site), as a young man he studied law and became a court reporter, serving for many years in the state and federal courts of Connecticut. He recorded trials of increasing importance and was selected in 1945 to serve as chief court reporter for the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. He later covered the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. His karma was unfolding, for in that unique position he took down testimony and became a witness to the greatest horrors not only of this last century, but, perhaps, of any. It was that horrifying experience that brought him to Zen. He used to say that two things about Japan affected him deeply. The first was the fact that the Japanese he met, unlike the Germans, were immediately willing to accept that their own sufferings had been caused by the suffering they had inflicted on others. It is our self-created karma, he was told. And he was deeply moved by the great peace and stillness he experienced walking beneath the beautiful trees at many of the Zen temples he visited while in Japan for the trials. He first took up Zen by reading voraciously in the literature available at the time, and by going to lectures and courses given by D.T. Suzuki at Columbia University. Beside writers, artists, musicians (like John Cage) and psychologists, there he sat, an American businessman, owner of a successful court-reporting firm. Eventually finding Zen philosophy by itself of little use in solving the great malaise he felt after the war, in 1953 he sold his court-reporting business and returned to Japan to enter a Zen monastery and actually train in Zen, which he would do there for thirteen years. Early on, Soen Nakagawa-roshi became his friend. They called themselves ‘the two hobos' and it was Soen Nakagawa—brilliant, poetic, eccentric—who first took him under his wing, helped him find an entrance into the world of practice, and eventually introduced him to Harada-roshi, stern abbot of Hosshin-ji, saying ‘He will be a much better teacher for you, Kapleau-san.' Roshi Kapleau used to say that if it hadn't been for that initial generous and warm friendship with Nakagawa Roshi, the talks and travels, the hours they spent listening to recordings of Beethoven together, he might never have been able to stay in Japan or enter Zen at all. After three years of exhausting, miserable work under Harada Roshi, the great taskmaster of enlightenment, he continued his ongoing training as a layman with Yasutani Roshi. In the more relaxed atmosphere of that dedicated community of lay practitioners, he flourished. He ‘got' kensho. He married, had a child, and in 1965 was ordained as a Zen priest and sanctioned to begin teaching in the Harada-Yasutani line of Zen, which was to become so important and influential in the West. While practicing under Yasutani Roshi he put his writing and court reporter skills to work, transcribing Zen teachers' talks, interviewing Zen lay students and monks, and recording the practical details of Zen Buddhist practice. He was the first Westerner allowed to observe and record dokusan. The resulting book, The Three Pillars of Zen , was published in 1965 and quickly became the standard introductory text on Zen practice. It is still in print and has been translated into twelve languages. The story of the American ex-businessman in The Three Pillars of Zen is Roshi Kapleau's own enlightenment account, and it is still a corker, resonant and stirring. It tells you, better than any remembrance, why people flocked to the center he established in Rochester. Indeed, over the years, that one book opened wide the floodgate of practice for thousands of Western Zen students at Zen Centers throughout North and South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and is still a vital, living work. Two of the earliest readers of The Three Pillars were Ralph Chapin of Chapin Manufacturing in Batavia, New York, and Dorris Carlson of Rochester, the wife of Chester Carlson, the inventor of xerography, the technology that became the foundation for the Xerox Corporation. During his book tour in 1965, Dorris Carlson invited Roshi to visit her small meditation group and in June 1966, with the support of the Carlsons, he founded the Rochester Zen Center. These were not naïve, starry-eyed seekers but solid, mature and steady people. Perhaps they saw in Roshi what my father saw. When I told my father, now eighty-six himself, that Roshi had died he said, ‘Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. He was so down to earth, so kind and always such a gentleman.' He was. Though he could also be tough as nails—sometimes when you didn't want him to be—and sprout horns and fangs to reveal, in Zen parlance, the ‘black piercing eyes of a devil,' he could also be as sweet and gentle and subtle and sensitive and wonderfully able to bless with his presence as a spring breeze after harshest winter. He had his particular failures and shortcomings. Sometimes his maverick strength (that firm, unyielding jaw and solid chin were perfectly made for stubbornly sticking out into the wind) was, at the same time, his greatest weakness. But given time and opportunity, he would invariably confess sorrow about his failures. ‘We all do stupid things sometimes,' is what he told a dharma friend. And by that he meant himself; that he did stupid things and that he regretted them. Once he had a turkey brought into the Buddha Hall at Thanksgiving. It had been purchased by the Zen Center to be released, but now the bewildered bird flapped about anxiously. Roshi got us all chanting and, sure enough, the frightened bird grew calm. Then Roshi put his hands together and bowed deeply to the turkey in gassho style saying, ‘Turkey bows to turkey.' He meant it. He had a knack for making waves. His style was to call a spade ‘a damn shovel!' He broke with his own teacher, Yasutani Roshi, as he said in Zen: Merging of East and West , because of differences over the personalizing and Westernizing of Japanese Zen. Years later, after Yasutani Roshi's death, he said, with the greatest humility and sorrow, ‘If my old teacher should walk into this room now I would get down on my knees before him and beg for his forgiveness.' He could be mischievous, direct and down to earth. I remember after having dinner at his favorite local Chinese restaurant, we had a choice—we could go to a crowded, upscale cultural event, an opening at the museum, or we could head back to our house, my wife's and mine, and watch Casablanca together again, as we often did. We looked at each other. ‘Let's watch the movie!' he exclaimed. And we did, repeating joyfully in unison ‘Play it again, Sam!' He often chose intimacy over a crowd, and easy friendship on familiar ground over the social, dress-up affair. But he was no recluse. He also could love crowds, throwing himself into conversation and social whirl with child-like abandon, only stopping when someone noticed he was near collapse with exhaustion and dragged him away. He would have loved his own funeral services and his burial. They provided the very combination of pageantry, ceremony, community and socializing he so enjoyed. He had a committed sweet tooth, so chocolate bars were put in his coffin, along with small Buddhas, a leaf from the Bo tree, a long-life pill, which a practitioner had received from a Tibetan lama, and a harmonica. He loved to play the harmonica and had a number of old favorites, like Home on the Range and Auld Lang Syne, with which he'd turn sangha get-togethers into wonderful sing-alongs. For many years the Japanese bath was one of his greatest joys and he always had one in his quarters or nearby. Later he made it a practice to come to our house, where he liked to stretch out in our bigger, Japanese-style wooden tub, relax in very hot water (a metaphor for his life, when you think about it) and look up through the skylight into the trees. I also just recently learned from a dharma sister that he used to sometimes dance alone in his quarters when no one was around. She found this out when bringing him his afternoon tea. She would open the door—and there he might be, silently dancing to a beat all his own. A great lover of animals, he dedicated his book on vegetarianism, To Cherish All Life , in inimitable Roshi Kapleau-fashion, ‘To Elsie, Porky, and Donald.' (His Zen was clearly very Western and was from ‘inside' the culture, not an add-on.) He traveled to the Galapagos, that rough Eden, to see animals up close who had no ingrained fear of humans. He enjoyed spending time in rural Mexico, where he could walk down dirt lanes and see horses and cows wandering about on their own, going their own ways, and where he could go out, too, and stand by the wire fence and talk with the great black bull, Negrito, who lived in the field nearby. He was such an unusual man for his generation. While he could be devastatingly logical and had a sharp mind, honed to a fine edge for literal detail, when speaking about myths and legends, especially those of the Buddha, he would say with the deepest kind of quiet respect, ‘Myth is truer than mere fact can say.' He was a vivid storyteller who regaled us with tale after tale about his training days in Japan and his times with Nakagawa Roshi, Harada Roshi and Yasutani Roshi, about the military war trials and about his own travels in Asia as well. The history of Zen in the twentieth century was in his blood, breath and bones. One of his favorite stories from his own experience of Zen training involved the time he and an American philosophy professor were culled from the zendo one night at an early sesshin in Japan. Dutifully they appeared before the roshi, glad to have an official reason to get up off the mat and straighten their aching legs. ‘What did Christ say when he hung on the cross?' asked the roshi. They looked at each other quizzically. The professor said, ‘‘My God, my God,' wasn't that it? ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?'' ‘Yes,' Philip Kapleau concurred. ‘Yes. That's right. ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.'' ‘No!' said the roshi. This went on, back and forth several times, the two Westerners more and more sure that they had gotten it right, the roshi always disagreeing. At last the roshi burst out, the words surging up directly from his hara with stunning force, ‘What he said was, ‘MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME!'' When Roshi Kapleau would tell that story at night during sesshin, a gale of spirit would blow through the zendo, sweeping everything but pure yearning, aspiration and determination away. You had to be there. In countless ways, from the vividly dramatic, to those that were simple, quiet and almost below-the-radar, he taught me and so many others how to place our feet on the path. He also taught me in particular, and with an equal ardor, where to put my commas. I knew how to make a sentence that had rhythm. He appreciated that. But he saw too that I knew little or nothing of punctuation. I broke a sentence mostly by breath. He loathed that and gave me hell for it! Which reminds me—one of the first times I met him, more than thirty years ago, he pointed out that in pulling up my car to speak to him I had parked too far from the curb. The implication was that if I stayed where I was I would make it difficult for others to pass. I re-parked and was more careful about such things after that. I saw that even the most seemingly inconsequential things I did had consequences. He changed my life in both large—make that vast — and small ways. Given his many books, his teaching—both of the formal variety as in dokusan, teisho and sesshin, as well as through the informality of daily interactions and conduct—he affected untold lives. Though he is gone for now, his commitment to the endless fulfillment of Bodhisattva Vows guarantees that he will be back, and soon. Where, and in what form, old friend, shall we meet again? |
Lalita Kumar, a householder devotee in Kankhal, told two stories, one involving her and one another devotee : There is one thing I don't know if I should tell you or not. But one in Banaras I had this feeling. I said to myself, " You know we call her Mother, and yet we can't run and put our arms around her, put our heads in her lap, do all the things we want to. We are always doing pranam (bowing in respect) at a distance." So I was sitting outside Mother's room in Varanasi Ashram and one of the girls was inside. She came out and Ma was sitting on her cot and she looked out like this through the doorway and she motioned me in like this. So I went in and then she motioned to me to close the door. So I closed it and, you know, she put her arms around like this, and I put my head in her lap and she put her arms around me and she hugged me tight. Then she smiled at me and said, " Aab thik hai? Everything is alright?" It was such ecstasy, I can't tell you. There was a Swiss girl. She had seen a flash of Mother's photograph on television and came rushing to India to look for her. And I happened to be in Kanpur when she came for the first time, in her tight jeans and sweater, looking very hip. And she said to the translator, "I have seen this picture of Mother and I want to be accepted by Mother." And you know, somebody started translating and mother told them to stop. She looked deep into her eyes and she took off the garland she was wearing and threw it so casually to land around her neck. And the girl had tears streaming down her face when she said, " Am I accepted?" And Mother did this (patting her head). And after a few months she wanted a name. And Ma gave her the name Krishnapriya. And she wanted to touch Mother's feet, she told me later. And nobody is allowed to touch Mother's feet. And Ma was walking up and down the veranda and she came and she put her foot out and said, " Nurse, there is something in my foot." And then there sat Krishnapriya, holding her lotus feet in her hands. Ma said, " If you really want something, it doesn't take a moment to get it. It is in the wanting." Jai Maa!!! |
| *A 60 yr old Billionaire came to the Bar with his gorgeous 25 yr old wife!* Friend: How did she marry you? Man: I lied about my age ! Friend: You said 45? Man: No! I said 90... 😎😎😎 *Economics is not that difficult if we have the right examples.* Interviewer: What is Recession? Candidate: When "Wine & Women" get replaced by "Water & Wife", that critical phase of life is called Recession!! 😜😜😜 *What is the difference between Liability & Asset?* A drunk friend is liability. A drunk Girlfriend is an Asset. 😜😜😜 *An Economist explained two reasons for having 2 wives:* A- Monopoly should be broken. B- Competition improves the quality of service. If u have 1 wife, She fights with u! If u have 2 wives, They will fight for you!! 🤣🤣🤣 *When you are:* In love, Wonders happen. Once you get married, You wonder, what happened. 🤣🤣🤣 *Philosophy of marriage:* At the beginning, every wife treats her husband as GOD.. Later, somehow don't know why.. alphabets get reversed.. 😂😂😂 *Secret formula for married couples:* "Love One Another" And if it doesn't work, bring the last word in the middle.!!!! 🤣💖🤣 |
| A major Buddhist principle is that something cannot become nothing. So after death, not only does the spirit transform, the body does also in the endless cycle of transformation. Take a candle for example. Once you light it, it begins to melt and eventually disappear. But the elements of the candle have scattered into other forms and are absorbed into other things in their endless journey of transformation. In other words, not a single element has disappeared. So the problem for us becomes one of the spirit. If the spirit, too, follows the principle of cause, effect, and transformation, how are we supposed to conduct ourselves? Today's world is filled with misdeeds. But those who are conscious of the principle of cause-and-effect would not commit any of them. Karma is what we do and what we get for it in return. So it becomes radically clear that we should lead noble lives. |
During those years I used to pay visits to the Ashrams where Ma was in residence. The crowd of visitors grew from year to year and one did see among them some people whose reputation for honesty was not very high. Why did Ma extend to these people the same kindness and consideration as She did to others ? There were audible comments on this among the lady devotees. Ma told me once ------- it was extraordinary how She answered questions unasked ------- She did not ask anybody to come to Her or anybody to leave. Each one would find his way, She said. I then remembered the young man whom I had seen during my first visit to Ma at Kalkaji. Not having seen him anywhere subsequently I enquired about him and was told that he and his wife had stopped seeing Ma within a few months. Obviously, after his appeal against the order of dismissal was rejected by Government, he saw no further need for Ma Anandamayi's grace. Still another case comes to my mind. In October, 1971 the ' Samyam Saptaha ' had ended in Vrindaban and Ma asked me if I could escort Bunidi ( As a young girl she left her parents and her home and devoted herself entirely to Ma's service. She passed away in the Vrindaban Ashram while Ma was in residence there. ) and afew other Brahmacharinis to Delhi. I agreed, of course. We were within sight of the railway station at Mathura when our Jeep broke down. The train was due in a few minutes. I felt helpless. Bunidi then turned to me and said, " Do you see that big factory across the road, Dada ? Some years ago Ma formally inaugurated the factory with great fanfare. Thereafter, whenever Ma came to Vrindaban, the owner, a big industrialist, used to place three or four cars at Ma's disposal. His business has failed and his visits have ceased and, of course, the supply of cars." Suddenly, another Jeep came from behind. The owner-driver offered us a lift and we reached the station in time. But who I am to criticise ? How few of us sought Ma's company in a purely spiritual quest ? Was there no material motivation in us, expressed or unexpressed ? It would, therefore, be wrong for anybody to assume a holier than thou attitude. As the Bible has said ( Matthew Sermon on the mount ) " why seest thou the mote in the brother's eye and perceivest not the beam in thine own eye ?" It was painful occasionally to hear loose talk among the inmates of an Ashram. When I came to live with Ma at Varanasi in 1965 ------- permanently as I had thoughtlessly hoped ------- Ma one day casually told me that people with different backgrounds, some of whom had received initiation elsewhere, had come to live with Her and one should not expect them all to look at things from the same angle. I thought it rather odd that Ma should make such remark. Some years later, in 1971, before the annual Durga Puja at the Kalkaji Ashram, a senior lay devotee spoke to me in sorrow, tinged with some bitterness , that Didi distributed the expensive sarees presented to Ma among her favourites. I was rather upset to hear of this and mentioned the complaint to Ma. It was not fair to say so, Ma said. Didi invariably consulted Her before disposing of any present. Ma added that the ladies who gave expensive sarees would like to receive them back to keep as treasured mementos and, therefore, these were given back to them with Ma's blessings. One feels sad that we are always ready to believe the worst of others. Self-reformation is not a easy process. Jai Maa !!! |
| The 26 letters of the English alphabet are so intelligently arranged. They show you the way of life.. "A"lways "B" e "C" ool. "D" on't have "E" go with "F" riends and Family. "G" iveup "H" urting "I" ndividuals. "J" ust "K" eep "L" oving "M" ankind. "N" ever "O" mit "P" rayers. "Q" uietly "R" emember God. "S" peak "T" ruth. "U" se "V" alid "W" ords. "X" press "Y" our "Z"eal. Awesome message. 👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽 |
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