Notes to myself #1, naked in this world, but for nembutsu…
Thinking we are self contained is not the error, for we are, as self-contained as fish are, in ocean—the error is in our ignorance of our ocean.
The paradox of the self-motivated character of practice is that it pulls our scattered and fragmented energies back into the body-heart-mind collective, reunifies self containment into settled focus, enough for us to begin to recognize our larger reality.
This is the single mindedness our teachers speak of. Not intellect nano-focused, but our whole being moving in the same direction. The organic-kinetic-consciousness that makes us what and who we are, re-unified. Remembered, we return to our fully human life-death existence, just as it is. Nothing special. Amazing.
In Chinese, heart and mind are written with the same character, which implicitly includes the body, just as the body implicitly includes the world that sustains it. Our individual life, just like the visible tip of an iceberg, is much, much more than it appears to be. The iceberg’s existence is none other than the collective working of the universe in and as ocean; our existence is universe alive, at work, as human being.
Our nembutsu too, is much more than a singular voice, as beautiful as that can be, that reaches for and reverberates through the deeper sustaining reality of our human life; it is in fact sourced in the primal vibrations of the universe, the rubbing together of myriads of conditions over time that give rise to the sound that is our heart beat extended into voice and returned to the source, through the lips—the whole of our human experience there remembered and completed, within the embrace of our greater humanity.
The single-minded focus that supports and cultivates unfolding understanding, awakened awareness, is not limited to meditative practices and neither is it limited to Buddhist tradition. Sacred words, holy names remembered and uttered as primary practice, run the gamut. The Christian Jesus prayer, Hindu holding of Ram and the Sufi remembrance and praise of the name of Allah–all draw from and all return to the ocean of our shared humanity, gifted as such by the universe at large.
January 11, 2012
Kyōshin Samuels
Jishin
matthew1263
Wamae
Jerry Bolick
dumbbonbu
Seidō
Dear Jerry, I deeply appreciate your words and am letting them settle gently in my experience. Thank you very much for sharing.
Thank you so much for sharing this Jerry. There is so much there to absorb and – as Jishin says – let settle, but to pick out just one thing …
“Our nembutsu too, is much more than a singular voice, as beautiful as that can be, that reaches for and reverberates through the deeper sustaining reality of our human life”
Your closing paragraphs touch on the reason I chose the title ‘Echoes of the Name’ for this site many years ago and have refreshed it in my mind. Namuamidabutsu.
So much to reflect on in this succinct note. Thank you.
Your comments about the same character being used for heart or mind (pronounced kokoro or shin in Japanese; xin in Mandarin), reminded me of a short article Shohaku Okumura published in ‘Buddhadharma’ a few years back:
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2005/9/1/dharma-dictionary-kokoro.html
Quoting from the article:
“Uchiyama Kosho Roshi often said that the xin used in Zen is not ‘psychological mind,’ but it is rather ‘life’, which includes both subject and object.”
Thanks Seidō, I also appreciated this part:
“In the 1970’s when I tried to explain this to an American friend, he was puzzled by the expression “psychological mind” and asked, “Is there such a thing as mind that is not psychological?” In Zen, I think we would say yes.”
Thank you all for your comments, reflections…to write such a piece, personal that is, and to see how–or better, that–it strikes others, to sense the tonal variations of response, is the meaning of our lives together.
Kyoshin, though I hadn’t thought of the site’s title when writing, it’s title alone is enough to keep me coming back.
Gassho…
Reading Okumura Sensei’s article was, to say the least, illuminating–thank you so much Seido, for that link.
the impetus for my “Notes” is my ongoing nembutsu experience, which, over the last few years, has changed. At first I could only say it had begun to feel more “personal.” More recently, I see that sense of “personal” is coming from a deeper, internal movement of nembutsu that tends toward a certain sense of clarity and to a push-pull toward the world at large, the people and happenings around me–if that makes sense. I feel affirmation in Okumura’s “defintion,” that he affirms my efforts to articulate this experience.
Thanks again. Naumamidabutsu