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Journals: HENG SURE: May 27, 1977 - Said through clenched teeth, almost as if spat onto the pavement: “What a fantastic show of devotion, and right here on Wilshire.” Totally sarcastic in intent. The answer might have been: “So you would suggest no prayer at all is the utmost sincerity?” If every moment is a test then the pressure is all off. You can be totally free to be your best all the time because there is no ultimate judgment or final curtain call. There are no judges, ultimately. Any time you are unhappy, any time some unnecessary load is on you, it has nothing to do with anyone else but you. I spent years worrying about a great future punishment and a great reward banquet. Now I know they don’t exist nor are they created. It happens in a single thought: “One thought enlightened is the Buddha, one thought confused is a living being.” If you got it, it’s there. If you don’t, it’s not there. Right now, let the next thought take care of itself. And don’t blame your unhappiness on what your mind sets up because it’s still all your own trip. HENG CH’AU: May 27, 1977 - A young woman, follower of Guru Maharaj Ji, stopped to try to figure out Three Steps One Bow. “Why do you do such a hard, difficult practice?” “Hard? It’s great! It’s easy. I’ve never been more peaceful or happier. You ought to try it, it’s easy.” (To endure suffering really is to end suffering, but I’ve got to do it.) Woman: “Well, I know what you mean. Even though I don’t actually physically bow, I feel it’s important to keep that kind of devotion here in my heart.” (This is like me before I left home rationalizing, “Well basically I’m a left home person even though I haven’t actually left home” or ”Well in my heart, you know, I’m really enlightened even though I haven’t really cultivated the Way yet.”) “How is it the Way, if you don’t walk it?” – Master Hua “Practice and understanding mutually respond.” – Master Hua Woman: “Exactly what are you looking for?” Monk: “Ten thousand Buddhas, enlightened beings.” Woman: “I’ve always felt close to what I read of the Buddha’s writings and sayings. Made me feel warm. They sounded true.” Bow, bow, bow--all the time bow. I have so much arrogance I don’t even see it until I start bowing. Like breathing--so unconscious, automatic--when you stop breathing you realize the importance of breath. When I start bowing I realize how huge my affliction of arrogance is. The bowing lifts that weight off my body. Lightness always follows bowing--bowing in one magic circle. As kids it was so easy to tell the false from the true. It was obvious which kids shared and who was greedy, who looked for fights, and who had a chip. When you would get all dressed up, polished, permanented, you and everybody else knew it was an act, a play, a game. No one was deceived by curls and new clothes especially when they were used to flaunt for one upmanship. But it didn’t take long to get sophisticated. We cash in our share, our section of true nature, so easily. “Like a drunken sailor” my father would say, “you throw away the treasure and keep the trash.” Heng Sure and I are becoming real slobs, lacking taste and refinement and Three Steps One Bow is responsible. Everything is starting to blend into one hug conditioned dharma--perfumes, gas fumes, beautiful women, ugly men, beautiful mean, ugly women, rich and poor, fine food and scraps, ourselves, our fears, our fantasies--the same, all the same. The less we move the farther we go, the closer we get. The closer we get to what we never left. Broken mirror, broken rules Stupid and sloppy. Heng Sure and I have been getting sloppy, careless. Rapping too much, too long. Taking too long for lunch, starting ceremonies half an hour late at times. An attitude also of mine--one of arrogance and distancing, lack of compassion-crept in through the cracks. I left open by not following the rules. It shows up when I start identifying instead of identifying with, when I lose my mirror that allows me to see my faults when I see others, and others to see their faults when they see me; the same with virtues. It’s an old habit and a hard one to break. The way to control it is to first shut my mouth and then cultivate every move and minute like my life depended on it-not to be lax or indulgent or relax for a second. I can find all sorts of excuses for letting down (the tension of Three Steps One Bow, fear, pressure, physical fatigue) but they are just excuses covering the truth cop outs. I feel deeply ashamed of wasting this time and opportunity as much as I have and resolve to keep tightening up and smelting until there is no residue of ego and affliction left. This can be done without losing a sense of humor and joy or blaming others (Heng Sure) for my mistakes. I know I can do it. How can I not? As I was realizing all of this a black van roared by, hitting and smashing the outside mirror on the van. It didn’t stop. The incident confirmed feeling of having lost my mirror (compassionate eye and heart). Moreover, I knew that my sloppiness in following the rules left the hole for the black van to enter. I want to join the ranks of the beings I saw yesterday, my teacher, the eternally dwelling enlightened beings of the ten directions. I better start acting like it. A single thought--Bodhi or botch. Cars bumper to bumper as far as the eye can see. An average of one person per car. Sidewalks empty from person to person as far as the eye can see. Three Steps One Bow at a couple of points was moving faster than cards. Two high school boys run across six lanes of moving traffic to find out what we are doing. En route they almost get run over by a hot motorist. The result: cussing, cursing, tempers, and horns. Boys: “Why are you doing this?” Monk: “To reduce the hate and bad vibes in us and the world.” Boys: “Huh?” Monk: “Like that car back there that almost ran you over. Everybody blew up, got made. That’s the stuff wars come from. We all need to cool off.” Boys: “Yeah, really.” Monk: “What happened to your arm?” Boy: “Surgery--bone chip from sports.” Monk: “The body just keeps breaking down. Even when you try to take care of it.” Camped by the even rolling, always fuming Detroit River again near Wilshire and Santa Monica. HENG SURE: May 28, 1977 Voice I: Real cultivation has to want to do it and nothing else. You must e mindful of your Dharma method/door at all times. You can’t take a break, a vacation, a holiday, you can’t “reward” yourself for good work by stopping the work. This is defeat. So once you begin you must keep on pushing--right up over the edge. Anything less will not get you there. It is unnatural and difficult. Voice II: Cultivation when it’s real is a gradual natural process which would come in stages. As you breath in and out, your cultivation should allow for effort and rest, effort and rest, never retreating but not forcing the way either. Excess force leads to a strong reaction just like the circles in t’ai chi: the fast the punch the harder the return punch. Met a young California blue jay, a teenage who was out to break the rules and draw near the humans. He sat on the open door and squawked squarked at us--not so interest in the food we gave him, rather he seemed to want to talk and listen--so we gave him the Three Refuges and the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows and told him to come back and save all the other jays next time. He ate a Ritz cracker and listened hard. HENG CH’AU: May 28, 1977 - If you shut down the T.V., radio and records; stopped going to movies, reading newspapers, and novels; if you could stop eating meat, taking drugs, and stimulants; lay off sex for awhile; say nothing false or hurtful or even better not talk; if you stoop nibbling and snacking and shopping and “going out”--if you could do these things just for a day or a week you would never be the same. Would it be serene and peaceful? No! The noisiest place you’ll ever find is your mind. But you would be checking out the mind ground and on your way to the most exciting, fulfilling adventure you could ever image. At first it’s pretty dark so you need to take some light. What kind of light? Your light. The light that’s your share, your pure natural wisdom-light. The leas leaks you leave the more clarity you’ll have to light your way. Reduce outflows with precepts and regain your original magnanimity. Then you can check out the mind-ground with minimal stumbling and getting lost. Oh yeah! Find a good knowing teacher until you find the one within you. Why! Because you’ve been away so long you don’t even recognize your home when you see it or the false either. With a good knowing advisor you can get profoundly lost and then really find something within nothing; nothing within something. Do it soon because somewhere inside each of us knows we will have to do it. If you wait until near death you won’t have much say about who goes with you, where, for how long, and you might not get another chance for a long, long time. Hurry, grab the true or you’ll be late for your funeral and miss your birthday. Every bow I can see more clearly. My mother used to can and pickle most of our food for the winter. We wore fireman red underwear to save on the expense of more coal for the furnace. Most of our clothes were made by friends or relatives or were hand-me-downs. We didn’t have a T.V. at first and before the radio we used to just go for walks after dinner, wrestle in the back yard, or fight for the bathtub. The huge McIntosh apple tree in the back yard was for pies, cobblers, apple sauce, a tree house, swings, shade, bird houses, watching huge black ants, .asp.html nests, apple blossoms in the spring and colored leaves in the fall to take to school, and the dirty job (cleaning up molding apples from the yard). One car got everything done including a weekly trip to the farm for fresh eggs, vegetables, berries, gossip, and a chance to watch a chicken die and a calf get born. We could walk to any store; our grandparents could hear us play and watch us get in trouble. We went “swimming” and watered the lawn and garden all in one shot; and ate left-overs on Fridays and Wednesdays. When the bank bought the house for business and rezoning the apple tree went along with the maples, the tree house, .asp.htmls, birds, black ants, and blossoms. The house was leveled for a parking lot and a very nice “new” one was offered in the suburbs. A lot more had changed too. Electric appliances and frozen foods replaced canning and trips to the farm. Supermarkets wiped out smaller family-run shops and markets and my father’s job too. He went to work in a factory without a complaint but heard him cry at night and knew. The T.V. was colorchrome and soon replaced the fireplace and dining room table as the center of the house. Joe sold almost all his farmland to an insurance company and now bitterly watches commuters and an office building where the sun used to set behind a lone withered elm tree in the pasture. The last time I was home I was talking to my father about cultivating the Way--how it’s really just getting rid of all the things that keep you from your originally bright and pure nature. It’s always there, the same, we just cover it over, chase a lot of empty pleasures and forget about it. “The false became the true and the true got lost in the shuffle.” - Master Hua “You know,” my father said, “if I had a million dollars, do you know what I would do?” “I’d put together piece by piece our old house on Lawrence Street--every crayon mark and crack. I often sit here and I can still see it so clearly. Things were much simpler and happier then. I’m not just sentimental--something basic was there.” “I know what you mean. That’s why I am studying Buddhism.” I left home to find home. Offering: lunch and money for meters and phone After lunch a bird came and sat in the doorway. We gave it some bread but after eating one small piece it kept refusing and just watched us intently. Heng Ch’au told it was a bird because of retribution and that it should resolve its heart on Bodhi and take refuge with the Triple Jewel. Heng Sure gave it the Triple Refuge and Bodhisattva Vows and closed with “gate, gate, paragate, parasumgate, bodhisvaha.” The bird left and later came back and chirped something or other and disappeared. So far twenty lady bugs, one bird and one fly. HENG SURE: May 29, 1977 - Whatever your religions, it’s okay for you to follow your spirit and become a Buddhist. Your God and saints are all Buddhists already, they know all about it and they think it’s worth bowing to. They all took refuge many lifetimes ago. HENG CH’AU: May 29, 1977 - If you want to turn up the temperature a few degrees in the foundry, try closing one of the vents. Talking. Not talking has intensified the pitch and energy. Like a spray-to-laxer nozzle of a water hose--hard to handle at first, so focused and potent. More heat in the firing, more vajra result. Out bowing a long, monotonous stretch through L.A. Country Club I reached appoint where I left I was going crazy--floating and disintegrating away, losing my body and identity. Sitting in full lotus after that hour at a deserted bus stop learn-to I felt tingling on top of my head. There was no walkway on our usual side so we crossed over and went against the flow. The traffic was coming at us now. After awhile the discordance and erratic waves subsided. The cars were like the endless variety of false thoughts (go against the flow and they really pond and bombard.) some holder, honk, cheer, and curse. Some beautiful, plaint attractive, absurd. Soon they flow by without notice, without moving. A scream and a horn, I don’t jerk or tense--just goes through, doesn’t stick. When one finally does get me I feel it start from way inside my kidneys and lower stomach and shake in waves out. A strange thing is starting to happen. While bowing, I am returned, brought back and reliving experiences long forgotten and buried. At least I thought they were. I find myself at the exact point and place where I went wrong and then all the suffering and karma set in motion by that choice unfolds before me and I relive not just remember, but feel the pain and the loss. For an hour or so I could barely hold back the tears. In contrast to the screaming well-to-do kids and grown-ups racing to somewhere past us for Memorial Day, I’m crawling along the ground crying and aching in my own “day of remembering.” “Did ya lose something, stupid, ha, ha, ha.” If they only knew how true that was. Specifically I went back through my family and followed the steps of cause and effect back to the family farm in Wisconsin. Deeded in the 1840’s, the farm is still going strong with Joe and Betty and their boys. One branch splintered into the city, the others stayed near the farm in a little village called Freedom. Just before leaving home I returned partly to check out my path--retrace steps. The relatives in the city were a mess. Divorce, problems with their children, ill health, over-weight, smoking, drinking, and a deepening sense of loss and of having missed the boat was creeping in. As kids we only sensed bits and pieces of these trends. Now they had matured, come to fruit and it was so painful to see. Beautiful, warm people who got lost by choosing what seemed “the best life” “good jobs” something more exciting and worldly than the dull drudgery of the farm. And the farm? What an oasis! Joe and Betty, a young couple in their 30’s with three sons have restored the old house and property. They are vibrant, clear, without a trace of guile or cynicism. They sparkle and radiate health, good vibes. They love what they’re doing. They do it together and they do it well. Joe says “Well we don’t drink or smoke and can’t stay up too late. We have to mil ‘em at 4:30 a.m. Besides, we don’t want to go out, people get souped and talk stupid. Can’t tell their words from their rattling ice cubes after awhile. No we just stay and mess with the kids. It gets more and more silly out there and the farm—well that’s my life. We like it; it keeps us happy and honest. Wow. I’d sell it in a minute that I ain’t never found anything else worth doin’.” Just got a letter from them. Joe and his son are going on a religious retreat together. “You know,” Joe told me, “I don’t hunt or fish so I’m pretty much a loner that way.” That day we split wood, milked the cows, went over family albums, and absorbed all the pure undefiled energy they had and that they sparked in us. When we left all of us felt turned on and cleansed, younger and without the “shadows that cross our minds.” Every session or lecture at Gold Mountain I left with a similar feeling of well-being. It’s the farm and then some. Return to the one first; then find the zero. How far I had gotten away from these roots really hit yesterday while bowing. I clearly saw and relived every step away from what the farm represented and more. I began to see how and where I had moved away from a pure, genuine self-nature. It hurt. Like a river having turned to go back to the pool, I had to walk through all the defilement and mud I had stirred up in each step taken from the source. Yesterday was early childhood and specifically my first love--my wife. I feel like I am reliving and purging a lot of mud. How many lives does it take to return? How easy to follow the stream away. A single thought? To reverse is hard. To return slow and painful. Hard work and patience. Persistent and complicated dreams of my wife. My mind moves and I wake up spent from the effect of these false thoughts. I am cold in the a.m. Need more clothes to stay warm. Heavier on fleet--lost the feeling of lightness. Whatever happened to my wife’s.asp.htmliration to be a nun? Karma upon karma. How many have been moved and effected by my steps away from my true face? And they in turn effect others, endlessly. From the one, the many. It builds, accumulates, wells up, and spills into disasters, calamities, wars. How to measure all the ripples created by a single stone tossed into a still lake. Leaving the mountains (one’s original face) for the valleys (desire and false thoughts), it’s hard to return. The higher one climbs the more dangerous, narrow and steep. Less room for errors, greater consequences and tumbles. The blackspire. A fall? Maybe the fall in not leaving home last year. Have to reclimb and yet its all in a single thought—not linear. So it is with the history of group collective karma; waves making waves making waves. Stop the stone-throwing, stop the thought. How many lives have I repeated this? Who was my wife and so many people? Affinities, causes, and conditions, tests, failure, more karma all take us further from our true nature. The wheel doesn’t stop, you must! I Saw a Church Today In Europe and many countries once upon a time much effort and skill went toward construction cathedrals and churches of magnificent size and beauty. Towering above all other worldly structures, they served to remind people daily of the impermanence of life and of a higher, spiritual existence. I saw a church today in L.A. I almost didn’t see it except I was going so slow and going so low I caught sight of it. It was buried between towering corporate banks and skyscraper Insurance Plazas and wedged between two high-rise apartment buildings. “No matter whether people understand or not, if you understand, you should speak.” -Master Hua. “You should not only explain the doctrines which I explain, but take the principles and express yourself according to your wisdom. Since Americans speak about the development in freedom, you can develop your own freedom in this way. Then there can be a new and creative development.” -Master Hua. If words and looks could kill we would have been minced monks by now. “Get off the sidewalk or…Move on, the sixties are over.” Shouts a really angry, violent voice. With cramps and diarrhea on a Sunday on Wilshire Blvd. in an area where lawns are manicured and even dogs use toilets, patience is tested with every body. People tend to look lie what they eat and do. This area smalls of pork. It permeates the air, but no one hears the squeals anymore. “The 60’s are over” the wars continue as do the barbeques, but it’s a quiet Sunday here; easy, lazy. The 60’s are Over A decade ago I was finishing my Ph.D. dissertation on “bringing the war home,” trying to get at the root of the problem by analyzing American culture. But every time I dug behind the facile generalities I found people. I found people like my parents, teachers, friends and their parents. How did these regular people (they were not war mongers, running dog imperialists, Daddy Warbucks or fat cats), how did these folks come to generate so much suffering and conflict, so much unequality, so much hate and violence? It wasn’t simple. It also wasn’t the kind of questions an.asp.htmliring “professional” historian asks. Too “unscholarly” and “interpretive”--too general and “recent.” I quit school and went looking elsewhere. This tool had lost its edge. I found the answer about four years later in a Buddhist monastery in San Francisco. I’m finishing my dissertation now on the road between L.A. and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, bowing once every three steps with a fellow Buddhist monk. As we bowed past a serene, lazy street in L.A. angry words shot out from behind a screed window, “Get off the sidewalk. Move on. The sixties are over.” She was so right! The answer? I found it in a quote whose source is over 2600 years old. It really brings the “war home.” “All male beings have been a father to me in former lives and all females have been my mother. There is not a single living being who has not given birth to me during my previous lives, hence all beings are my parents. Therefore, when a person kills or eats any of these beings he thereby slaughters my parents. Furthermore he butchers a body that was once my own, for all elemental earth and water has previously served as the substance of one of my bodies and all elemental fire and air has formerly sustained the life of one of my bodies. Therefore I shall always cultive the practice of liberating beings, awakening to the eternal nature of Dharma (truth) in every life, and its instruction others to liberate beings as well.” Too much to swallow? Ancient sages and early Greek philosophers intuited it. Einstein argued it. And modern practical terms the thrust is this: everything comes from the mind alone. Look within for wisdom and for the cause, the beginning of greed, hatred, and stupidity. What is stealing if it isn’t misusing and wasting water, air, and food? What is greed if not consuming more and better, “all you can eat” and still never being satisfied? Greed gone big makes war. Regarding anything short of all beings as relatives and family is discrimination and it breeds hatred and resentment. “Bring the war home,” to the mind! Watch carefully what comes from your mouth, your body, and your mind and you will find the cause of hurt, strife, jealousy, and pollution. Follow it further and find the cause of wars, disasters, nuclear stockpiling, and acts of destruction. Follow the small to the large. Take the large back to the small. Back to the mind. It all comes from the mind. This disease is one disease. It respects neither age, nor class, nor race, nor country. We’ve all got it. “For all past karma created from body, mouth, and mind and born from beginningless, greed, hatred, and stupidity I now repent entirely.” This is the heart of my Ph.D. The war came home to my mind and hopefully the peace will too. So “move on, the 60’s are over.” The real revolution is within one single thought right now, inside. Seize it!
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