Beyond the Clouds

Master Sheng Yen Dies at age 78.

I wonder how his disciples, devotees and followers are handling the news of his death.

I find myself thinking about the other eminent teachers and spiritual leaders who are getting up there in age, for instance, the Dalai Lama who apparently has been going through a bout of health crises click here for more, Thich Nat Hanh, founder of The Community of Inter-being, born October 11, 1926 and Sangarakshita, founder of FWBO just one year older than Thay, not to mention Ajahn Sumedho who is just a few years younger than Master Sheng Yen.

I don't think it's completely unreasonable to ponder upon what will happen after they die and wonder whether their school/branch of Buddhism will survive the difficulties that occur naturally after the founder or main leader dies. Who will carry their vision? who will take on the role of spiritual head of that given community? and who will be there to provide a safe space to weather the troubles that come from succession.

One of the characteristics that I find refreshing and appealing in life is the paradoxical dynamism created by high acheivers who remain utterly humble and modest.

Here's an excerpt taken from the article in The Taiwan News:
"Master Sheng Yen received many awards from different governments in recognition of his humanitarian, cultural, and academic contributions. In August 2000, he was one of the keynote speakers in the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders held in the United Nations.

He was the author of some 90 books in Chinese and over a dozen books in English. Some of his books have been translated into more than 12 languages, including French, German, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.

In spite of his achievements, Master Sheng Yen maintained his usual humbleness, insisting that he was just an ordinary person living a monastic life."

In living life, we should live a life of virtue, so say the ancient Greek philosophers. Plato talked about the 4 cardinal virtues - courage, temperance, prudence, justice. The latin word 'cardo' means hinge and so the cardinal virtues are what other virtues hang upon. Wisdom, according to Socrates, or knowledge if you like was the prime virtue, one that led to all others - Augustine went on to say that only love was necessary and all the other virtues flowed from there.

I wonder if Faith can be a virtue? Is faith something that is found in human nature like courage, prudence and other dispositions? Can it be learned like one can learn how to be good? Aristotle thougth that one learns these virtues by practice, like learning a musical instrument or even a craft. In Buddhism, one trains the mind, focusses on a wholesome object and through a process of habituation one masters skilfull behaviours. Through replacing an evil thought with a wholesome one, the mind becomes quiet and one's actions follow thus bringing about peace and happiness even.

But can we do this without faith? And where does faith come from? If courage is concerned with fear, temperance with the passions, prudence with one's own life, and justice for the lives of others then what about faith?

In living life, we should live a life of faith, so say the Pureland Buddhists. Honen talked about the inability to attain and cultivate the three pillars of awakening; djana, sila, and prajna or meditation, ethics and wisdom. Faith, thus became essential, and relying on the grace and vow of Amida Buddha became central in his life. When one had faith, then one had the three minds; a mind of sincerity, a profound mind and a mind that transferred merit. In other words, one was genuine, reasonable, and generous.

Both, the ancient Greeks and Pureland Buddhists arrived at the same outcome - they were saying that if one lives this way, then one's life would flourish, and one would feel free and happy. But one doesn't do it merely to be happy. Happiness and a life that flourishes is the by-product. A virtuous person has faith in the virtues. And a faithful person enjoys being virtuous.

It's been raining here for the past couple of days, even the snails are finding it too moist and damp and are trying to find respite from the rain.



Who's inside and who's outside. I find this notion of inside out, outside in fascinating.

Is the snails shell protecting the inside from what is outside or is the outside protected by what is REALLY going on inside the shell.

Before Buddhism was I on the outside, and now, am I on the inside? Or was I inside a prison before I found Buddhism and am now free from my cell and on the outside?

To me, it feels like I've been set free from my prison but I need a shell to protect others on the outside from what is really going on inside. How's that for complicating and confusing this matter of in and out.

A summary of Dharma Talk on Harmony in Buddhism by Dharmavidya

Broadly speaking Buddhism has developed a reputation for cultivating peace both individually and collectively. The intention is to create peace and harmony. The Buddha was very practical man and his attitude was to engage in a practice that works. If you've got to repair something then use whatever tool you need to do the job.

He gave many of his disciples very different practices. For example, one disciple came from the highest caste and had spent his life being waited upon and living in comfort and so when he asked the Buddha what practice he should do the Buddha gave him many ascetic practices. Another man came along some time after, who was a low caste man, always struggling and scraping to put two pennies together and serving others wanted to know what practice he should do. He said he saw so and so doing ascetic practices and should he go and do the same thing. To which the Buddha replied, 'no no, don't do them, they won't help you.' And the Buddha put him in charge of organizing others: in a position of authority, taking care of others.

So you might choose a spiritual path that gives a broad framework of peace and harmony but the practice depends on you and what you need depends on what you’re used to. The point of spiritual practice is to round people out. It's about going out of your comfort zone and challenging yourself to be in a different kind of situation. And it’s not only solitary but social, it might be that what one needs is to go out and develop different kinds of relationships with people.

There is another sense in that the spiritual journey has nothing to do with the individual. In our morning service we do walking nembutsu and we weave in and out of the rows of cushions at one end of the room then around the statue of the Buddha at the other end of the room back down towards the rows of cushions while chanting Namo Omito Fo. This is enacting a piece of theatre which symbolizes the individual journey: a circuitous and tortuous journey toward whatever is holy and sacred and you pass a lot of people along the way; some going this way, some going that way, and you can’t always tell which ones are going which way but they are all going around. You can think of it in a linear way, but what happens when you get there? You get sent back. This loop, you can think of that as repetition, is very much part of the Bodhisattva ideal. Every religious system revolves around a story, and the Pureland one contains the Bodhisattva ideal.

The Larger Pureland Sutra is a story about Dharmakara, and in this story are a number of vows, prayers, resolutions, intentions, however, you want to see them. The setting out of 48 affirmations does a number of things; the first batch gives you a manifesto, a picture of PL Buddhism, that has an aspect of creating a better world. The next little batch are about the Buddha and how he will welcome whoever goes to him; when you get there it doesn’t matter who you are, rich or poor, good or bad, etc.The Bodhisattva vows are the next batch, and their vow is not to stay with the Buddha but to go back into the world of suffering and save all sentient beings. So the pattern or archetypal spiritual journey is that your spiritual path will bring you closer to the something sacred but then you make your way back to the mundane to do something. A Bodhisatva is someone who doesn’t stay up there with what is good, beautiful, true, holy, etc. They receive something through that but then they must do something with that. They give back what they've received and spread it around and as they spread it around they may make their way back up and then come back again.

There is another kind of journey, which is a collective one where we’re all moving. During our walking Nembutsu you could take a snap shot and see some people close to the Buddha and other people at the far end of the room where all the cushions are and at that point in time you may be here or there but it's not a fixed point. From a worldly point of view, looking at that snap shot you could say that there are those higher up the mountain and those at the bottom and the ones at the top are the 'best' practitioners. But the worldly way is a gradation, a vertical scale where we measure and judge whereas the spiritual way is planar, a horizontal scale, there are some people over there and some people over here but it’s always changing. So after a bit it doesn’t matter where you are, what matters is the fact there is harmony. And when we fall into harmony, people are pretty much evenly spaced as they walk around the room, so we're all going at the same pace, people are in harmony with one another and the chanting sounds beautiful. One is not trying to be the best chanter or turning on their neuroses and changing the melody according to their tastes, they are all part of a harmony which is going on and in this way one becomes less self. In a very practical way, non-self is seen when we are part of a larger harmony. This is enacted in something like the walking meditation practice, plus it’s also enacted in this community, people making food, someone else laying the table, someone else telling people that it's time to eat and then everyone else gathering together to eat. Everyone is playing their small part in order for something bigger to happen. At the apex it doesn’t matter who is doing what.

In Chinese Buddhism the Pureland is called harmony land. The Chinese character has its origin in music and it's a complicated Chinese character. You can see that harmony involves everybody. It doesn’t matter who you are because it’s a blending of different people working together to create a harmony. And of course, it’s not about everybody singing the same note, that would make it monotone. Each person has something different to add but not just anything as you can see the difference between people going off on their discordant notes and people using a range of different notes based on what is in their capacity and blending together.

While doing the practice one can then observe 'Where is your mind?' At worst it will be saying, 'look how good I am or I hate chanting.' A little better and it might be in a state of rapture: you might be taken up by your spiritual feeling which is certainly a spiritual state - and that individual enthusiasm is good but what is even better is that you are listening to others because at that point you dissolve. It’s not the product of making something happen but it just comes together when people listen to each other and play their part.

You can’t force harmony to happen. It is really a matter of letting other power work through us. Something ironic is built into the universe and it’s another power, if we do our bit somehow it comes together.