The Journal:
July, 2006
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Saturday,
July 1

Cletus' Bible: An Introduction
Who the Heck is Cletus?

Well now.  Old Cletus, he lived a-way up on Serenity Peak, about as close to the Almighty as a man could get.

Folks thereabouts couldn't quite agree on what he did.  There was some (who didn't think too hard about anything) who thought he was just a yarn spinner, sittin' around jawin' all day.  Others, of a practical sort, saw him as a shiftless bum.  But some, a few, felt he was a mouthpiece of the Almighty, talkin' truth like the prophets of old.

Whatever folks thought most of the time, when they were troubled, whether from the outside or on the inside, most of 'em made the long climb up the rough, narrow trail to the top of Serenity Peak, where they knocked on the door of the little one-room shack next to the spring house (a spring on a mountaintop!  A wonder!)  They'd ask old Cletus if he had somethin' to say about their problem.

And he usually did.

To tell the truth, no one knew just how he kept body and soul together.  Some gossiped that he had a hidden treasure somewhere (and in a manner of speakin' I b'lieve he did). Others suspected he got his money by nefarious means.  And a strangely reluctant few allowed that they had seen birds bringin' him sheaves of grain, and raccoons leavin' fruit on his stoop.  They knew he didn't hunt none, and in fact nobody ever saw him eat meat--not even squirrel.

Anyway, he never seemed to want.  And if anybody asked him where he got his daily bread, all Cletus would say was, "The Almighty provides."

And folks guessed that He must have provided powerful good, since Cletus was powerful old but fit as a fiddle.  He could walk the legs off a younger man, up or down the mountain, and still chopped all his own firewood. One fine day he told me, "Some feller said 'I ain't my body,' but by Heaven! When my body's all outta kilter I jus' can't get peaceable. Likewise, if I keep 'er all tuned up and bushy-tailed, well, the Almighty jus' seems a might closer."

Watch for stories from Cletus' Bible from time to time.

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[The audio version of this passage from Cletus' Bible is being re-recorded.  Watch for it soon!]

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Sunday,
July 2

"The King and the Corpse"
A Lesson in The Way of Seeing

[When I'm not out meeting adherents of various religions, I'm usually reading.  I'll often be sharing snippets of current reading and old favorites here.]

I want to take a brief look at a most amazing story.  This is the introductory passage from the story "The King and the Corpse" as exposited by Heinrich Zimmer (see here for a table of contents listing the other stories in this magnificent book). The beginning:

It was remarkable, the way the king became involved in the adventure. For ten years, every day, there had been appearing in his audience chamber, where he sat in state hearing petitions and dispensing justice, a holy man in the robe of a beggar ascetic, who, without a word, would offer him a fruit. And the royal personage would accept the trifling present, passing it along without an afterthought to his treasurer standing behind the throne. Without making any request, the mendicant would then withdraw and vanish into the crowd of petitioners, having betrayed no sign either of disappointment or of impatience.

Then it happened one day, some ten years after the first appearance of the holy man, that a tame monkey, having escaped from the women's apartments in the inner palace, came bounding into the hall and leaped upon the arm of the throne. The mendicant had just presented his gift, and the king playfully handed it over to the monkey. When the animal bit into it, a valuable jewel dropped out and rolled across the floor.

The king's eyes grew wide. He turned with dignity to the treasurer at his shoulder. "What has become of all the others?" he asked. But the treasurer was unable to say. He had been tossing the unimpressive gifts through an upper, trellised window into the treasure house, not even bothering to unlock the door. And so he excused himself and hurried to the vault. Opening it, he made his way to the part beneath the little window. There, on the floor, lay a mass of rotten fruit in various stages of decay, and, amidst this debris of many years, a heap of priceless gems.

The king was pleased, and he bestowed the entire heap upon the treasurer. Of a generous spirit, he was not avid for riches, yet his curiosity was aroused...(Amazon)

Of course it was! And in fulfilling that curiosity, the king was led into a most strange adventure.

But we won't go into that here. (However, a summary of the full story is given and analyzed, along with The Wizard of Oz and The Conference of the Birds, in an article subtitled "Three Path-of-Realization Tales.")

Zimmer's interpretation of the piece is masterful, a perfect example of how to "see" a story.  Here is my own understanding after reading his terms:

• The king: The self, the ego, the waking consciousness, the "one on the throne," judging

• A holy man: A denizen of the "dark side" that comes to us in silence, only to initiate an adventure that brings about radical change

• A fruit: The world and its goods

• {The king's] treasurer: The keeper of the mind-store

• A tame monkey: That unpredictable part of our nature

• The women's apartments...: The deep feminine side

• A valuable jewel: Ah!  My favorite part!  See below...

• The treasure house: The unconscious, where the treasure is hidden away

• His curiosity was aroused...: and the adventure begins

So, the "dark side" presents us with hidden treasure, but it's not until our wildness comes into play that we find it.  Beautiful. Talk among yourself.

But what I really love is the jewel hidden in the fruit.  It rings so many chimes in me.  Here's a short list:

• Om Mani Padme Hum: Sometimes translated "Hail!  The Jewel in the Lotus! Hum!"  Certainly Mani means "jewel" and padme means "lotus." How the two relate is less clear.  This page suggests that "Om Mani Padme Hum can not really be translated into a simple phrase or even a few sentences."  Nevertheless, I like this translation.  It suggests the hidden "thatness" within all of "this."  See the story of "You Are That" for more.

• The highest understanding of the Mahayana: Samsara is Nirvana (discussed in the "This World and That" essays)

• The well-known words of the Gnostic Christ from the Thomas Gospel (quoted in my "All Things at All Times Teach" essay): "Split wood, I am there; Lift a stone, find me there." The universe is permeated with the Christ.

• Zimmer's own expression of this: "We accept indifferently the fruit of our existence and discover nothing particularly noteworthy about it."  Then, later: "Our fate bursts open in just this way, at a mere playful touch, at some little trick of chance, and reveals to our astonished eye its internal store..."

Of course, this is all pretty "far out there."  In a more practical sense, we can think of the jewel in the fruit as indicative of all the "specialness" inherent in the everyday.

Try this: Get an apple.  Look at it.  No, really look at it.  Cut into it and smell it.  Now bite into it.  Listen to the crunch.  Close your eyes and savor the taste. Let this apple be a full experience.  It's so much more than "just" a piece of fruit!

Now realize that everything around you is more than you usually take it for.  This puts your feet on the path to mindfulness.

Find the Jewel within!

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The same opening passage treated here is also discussed in the context of Jungian dream analysis in Anne Baring's  wonderful article "Myths, Fairy Tales and Dreams,"  part of a longer work called "'The Sleeping Beauty, the Prince and the Dragon': An Exploration of the Soul."

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Monday,
July 3

Uposatha
Buddhist Days of Observation

Today marks the moon's first quarter.  I have installed a cool "moon phases" program here.

Why?  Because many Buddhists observe two (new and full) or all four quarters of the moon's cycle.  There is more about this in the Library article Uposatha Days.  Enjoy!

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Tuesday,
July 4

Fair Warning
We Americans Are About to Get Revoked

This has been going around for a while, but I thought that, in honor of the Fourth of July, I would remind you of it.

It's the "Declaration of Revocation" (falsely attributed to John Cleese), and it begins:

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.

Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:...

There then follow 16 (in this version) points that make sport of British/American cultural differences (in spelling, sports, food, and so on).

This is in fact not by Mr. Cleese; Snopes has an excellent article with notes on the pieces development, as well as a couple of pretty funny American responses: "Declaration of Annexing the British Isles as Part of the USA"; and a letter refusing their kind offer to revoke our independence: "After much deliberation, we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic. It seems that switching to a monarchy is in fact considered a 'backwards step' by the majority of the world."

Funniest line on the page? USA to UK: "P.S. -- Regarding WW2: You're Welcome."

What's this doing in this Journal?  One of the most interesting repeated conversations I have had with my Chinese friends is about Anglo-American relations.  They're surprised to know that it hasn't always been smooth sailing:

Question: What country is the only one to successfully set the White House and the Capitol building on fire?

Answer: Our friends, England!

Question: Who opposed the government in Washington and abetted the operation of an anti-U.S. "pirate ship" during the American Civil War?

Answer: Once again, the dear old British!

It's a lesson for us all: First we were one country, then bitter enemies, now the closest of friends.  The fortunes of nations change, like the fortunes of men; allies become foes, and foes, allies; and no country rules this world forever.

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Wednesday,
July 5

Notes from a Small Isle
In which I receive communications from two deep thinkers in Britain

In the past couple of days I have had some interesting correspondence with two "heavyweights" in England.

Anne Baring

The first is Anne Baring whom I mentioned a few days ago. Her home page is a magnificent exposition of the things I love best about Jungian thinking. She also has articles and excerpts of several of her published books on her pages; see the sitemap for a list of the site's writings by Anne and others.

I wrote to her to inquire into purchasing one of her books, and received an extremely kind and thoughtful response. Here is part of what she wrote:

I would love you to read the essay I wrote on Taoism because I know it captures the essence of the Taoist vision. It is under the book The Divine Feminine.... I did not reach China in my travels because it was out of bounds at the time and I got a terrible rocket from my diplomat uncle, then ambassador in Bangkok, when he opened the envelope containing my visa for China I had obtained from an Indian friend.

I will comment on the essay she suggests in a later post.

I had originally found Anne's pages when I was looking for info for my post on The King and the Corpse (Amazon). She replied: "The King and the Corpse is one of my oldest and most precious books, given to me years ago by Cyril Connolly...."

Ah! I only found the book last summer, but I have reread it so much that I must say it has become one of my favorites, too.  I will be spending days reading Anne's online materials this summer, and I plan to have some books by autumn to carry with me to school.

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Sangharakshita

Despite the fact that Anne Baring is listed at thePeerage.com, my second contact with deep thinkers in the UK is somewhat more famous--or infamous, depending on who's talking. Sangharakshita is the founder of the Western Buddhist Order (WBO), as well as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO). These groups have been involved in a few problems in the past few years.  The Guardian seems to have published a highly critical article back in 1997; yet, in the past seven years, The Guardian has made seven mainly-positive mentions of the WBO/FWBO.  Most of the attacks, including scurrilous things about Sangharakshita himself, seem to have come from one opponent. Given that his is the only source of the Guardian article online, and that the Guardian has published either neutral or, more often, positive things about Sangharakshita's orders since then, I wonder how deep the problem could really be.

(If you're really interested in this issue, here are three more articles on the controversy: a reasonably balanced view by an insider, the FWBO's response to the allegations, and a refutation of that response.)

Sangharakshita also (perhaps with clearer evidence) has been criticized for Westernizing and amalgamating the various authentic Buddhist traditions, much of this censure coming from monastics within those traditions.  This is not surprising given that, in the words of Wikipedia, "The FWBO and the WBO are an attempt to translate Buddhism into a western context without the sectarianism that seems to characterise Buddhism in the East."

Born Dennis Lingwood in South London in 1925, his biography (see the first-person version here) tells of his studies in India after the Second World War, and his subsequent return 20 years later to teach Buddhism in the UK.  The opponent cited above disputes this story; nevertheless, a survey of his writings (as at his site or the FWBO site) shows lucid, practical thinking on a wide spectrum of Buddhist issues.

One book in particular, Peace is a Fire, is an easily-accessible collection of "aphorisms, teachings, and poems" which first appeared in the late 70s. In it, I found this gem:

"Universalism does not mean comparing the letters of different traditions, but trying to get through to the spirit."

As I am deeply interested in universalist/perennialist thinking, and as Sangharakshita invites questions and comments on his homepage, I wrote a note asking him this question:

Do you reckon that universalism or Perennialism underlies much of your thinking? Is the WBO based on Perennialist principles? (This would certainly explain the antagonism from some "institutional Buddhists.")

I have recently become aware of your work, and I am fascinated....I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on Buddhism and Perennialism, if you have time.

To my surprised delight, he responded within a day:

Thank you for your email dated 03 July 2006... You ask whether universalism or perennialism underlies much of my thinking. I much admit that I had not come across the term 'perennialism' before but I assume that it goes back, in modern times, to Aldous Huxley's well-known book The Perennial Philosophy and that the term corresponds approximately to universalism. Universalism or perennialism does underlie much of my thinking in the sense that, as a Buddhist, I seek to draw inspiration and guidance from all the different Buddhist scriptures and all the different schools of Buddhist thought and practice. I am also influenced, in this respect, by the Tibetan Rimé or 'Non-Sectarian' tradition, of which one of my Tibetan teachers was a leading representative. More broadly speaking, it has long been my conviction that in some of the greatest works of Western art and literature echoes and glimpses of the Dharma are to be found.

I am sorry I cannot reply at greater length, and hope that the little I have written will go at least some way towards answering your question.

With best wishes,

Sangharakshita

I'm fascinated by the implications of this statement.  It seems that there are two ways to look at the relationship between Perennialism and a specific tradition.  One could be called the "Platonic," the view that I take: There are general truths which come down and manifest themselves in various ways in different cultures.  In this way, all traditions are embodiments of the one transcendent Truth.  The other is (with, perhaps, some violence done to the term) "Aristotelian," and this I think is Sangharakshita's way when he says " in some of the greatest works of Western art and literature echoes and glimpses of the Dharma are to be found."  You have derived the Truth (a la Aristotle) from the particulars of your tradition; and this is the truth that you see reflected in the beliefs of others.  Still, you have the "real" truth; they have only pale imitations.  Anything good, or true, or beautiful in their tradition owes its existence to yours; anything that deviates from yours is error.  I have some more thinking to do on this; your thoughts are welcomed, too.

Two themes have emerged already in this young Journal: (1) the relationship between ethnic Buddhism and its Western developments, and (2) the relationship between specific traditions and Perennialism. Both of these thinkers, Anne Baring and Sangharakshita, have contributed to my thoughts on these matters, and I am looking forward to more serious reading in their pages and books in days to come.

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Thursday,
July 6

"Do your best! Do your best!"
Are you ready for self-empowerment?

A funny little thought skittered across my mind today.  How odd it is that people think you're supposed to be "good" to be religious or spiritual.  This puts the cart before the horse.  I mean, if I were "good" I wouldn't need to be spiritual!

OK, we're going to have some trouble with terms here, I can tell.  What do I mean by "good"?  It's an entirely subjective term in this case.  I mean, we object when a so-called "spiritual" person doesn't measure up to what we think of as "good."  I think the best way to deal with this is by anecdote.  I recently posted this in a Beliefnet discussion:

When I was working at my temple, I was often approached (by foreigners and Chinese) with the complaint that this nun or that monk had been less than polite to them, and "weren't these people supposed to be better than us?" My answer was always a resounding NO! It's unfair to expect people in the (monastic) sangha to be "better" than others. After all, I'm in the (lay) sangha, and I know what a jerk I can be when I try! In fact, as people pursue their paths with diligence, they often manifest behaviors that make others very uncomfortable--it's part of the process to dredge up some pretty scummy stuff and let it out. That's probably why the early monks needed over 250 rules for conduct!

Shiny happy nuns

For folks like you and me, at the start of the path rather than the far end, there's a lot of rough sledding involved.  But we don't have to be "good" to start out.  We don't have to wait until we reach some pre-set goal before we begin.  Cletus says, "Well sir, the fella who wants to be perfect before he can go to church is like an ol' lady who gets embarrassed if'n her house ain't all spiffed up before the housekeeper comes!"

Get it?  Now, what about those who have "arrived," the great teachers, sages, saints?  They are following a different manual.

My late pal Robert Urich once had a close and unpleasant encounter with a pushy, shouting, verbally abusive Indian man.  This fellow was late for his interview at Good Morning America, and was yelling at staff and other guests over the breakfast buffet at the Four Seasons.  When Bob asked someone who the h%*& that was, he was told, "Deepak Chopra."

Another actor told me that he had studied with Joseph Campbell, and had two observations.  (1) Uncle Joe could talk at length on any subject without notes and enlighten you in unimaginable ways; and (2) he was basically sneering at you the whole time for not knowing as much as he knew.

Bob and I talked this over a lot; he was ready to dismiss such people out of hand.  I finally convinced him that Jesus would have made a lousy upstairs neighbor!  I mean, who wants to live with a saint?

Zen masters are famous for shouting at people, whacking them, and even cutting off body parts--all in the interest of bringing about enlightenment.  I just think it can't be easy to be around people who are playing by a completely different set of rules.

Oh, yeah, I know, there are lots of examples of blissed out holy men and women.  I don't deny it.  But who knows what torment they went through to get to where they are--and what torment they put others through?  I often think of gentle Saint Francis, preaching to birds and referring to all creation as his brother and sister.  This is the same guy who called his body "my little donkey" and scourged himself mercilessly.

All I'm saying is, it ain't easy.  In the last words of Kukai's teacher Hui Kuo, "Do your best! Do your best!"

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Friday,
July 7

A Few Program Notes
Just some things happening here

1. Search Page: I have created a Google search page for the site, complete with a "Realize!" banner and custom colors.  That's the good news.  The bad news?  As of this date Google seems to only have crawled about four of my pages!  I have been taking steps to rectify, this, and hope they will take hold in the next few days.

2. Sutra Study: I have posted the answers to the Sutra Study's Lesson 1 questions--and so far, they are all by me!  Come on guys, send me your comments!  Anyway, reading the sutras and the notes is a good means to take some "baby steps" into Buddhism.  The reading and questions for Lesson 2 have also been posted.

3. Foundations Friday: It's time once again to visit one of my Foundational Essays.  Today's pick: The Perennial Philosophy and Neo-Perennialism: An Introduction.  This is absolutely one of the most important articles I've written (but you'll probably hear that every time I mention  a Foundational Essay!)

4. Browse the Library: If you can't get enough of my stuff, I should point out that The Library is growing.  Browse the alphabetical list and see if anything there strikes you.

5. Gallery Additions: I have finally begun posting some pictures to The Gallery; take a look!  A few more and I can remove that dorky "In Development" pictures--a real incentive!

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Saturday,
July 7

"The Miracle of Purun Bhagat"
A dang good read

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was a complex man.  Some see him as the voice of empire, the Anglo-centric spokesperson for Britannia's right to rule the waves.  Such people accuse him of the worst sort of racism, misogyny, and a laundry list of blind prejudices.

It ain't that simple.

Take a look at this page on my The Temple Guy site, where I name Kipling "the expat's Poet Laureate." There you'll find "We and They" (along with "The Explorer"), which gives a singsong, children's version of a plea for tolerance.  Because I know clicking out is onerous, let me give you the last stanza here:

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!

This relates to a conversation we had tonight: One Canadian guy said that sometimes people exclaim laowai! (foreigner) when they see him.  He sometimes replies, Wo bu shi laowai, shi Jianadaren; ni shi laowai: "I'm not a foreigner, I'm a Canadian; you're a foreigner!"  I admit, I've done similar things in Japan.  A typical encounter: An old lady points and exclaims, "Gaijin!" (foreigner; literally "outside person").  I respond in kind: I point and exclaim "Gaijin!"

There was even the suggestion for a t-shirt reading "Wo bu shi laowai." However, Lila, my Filipina girlfriend, wants one that says Wo SHI laowai; "I AM a foreigner."  Since she looks Chinese but can't speak the language, people keep speaking to her in Chinese and expecting her to respond.  I told her they probably think she's just a stupid Chinese; she said something unprintable.

Anyway, who's a foreigner?  A Japanese friend (hi, Reiko!) was in Hawaii and over heard a Japanese father and son:

Son: Daddy, look at all the foreigners!

Father: Son, we're the foreigners here.

(Of course in Hawaii that may be debatable, but...) For us who live abroad, this question is part of our everyday existence.  For our bestest friends' going away party tonight, there were at least seven countries represented; "foreigners" far outnumbered the Chinese, and the medium of communication was English.  So who was the foreigner?

Five foreigners and a Chinese (in  pink dress)

I also wrote briefly on that page (the one about Kipling, remember?) about a proper interpretation of Kipling's famous line, "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..."  Most see this as a declaration of irreconcilable differences.  As I say there, few know the rest of the stanza:

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

The story in brief shows a "border thief" who steals an officer's horse; the officer's son rides out on a dun to bring it back, of course.  But the narrative turns when the border thief learns that this son is truly a man, and he gives him his son (and the mare and the dun) to prove he's his biggest fan. (Let those who have ears to hear forgive me.) The face-to-face meeting between these two men of arms--that is, the encounter with "the Other"--eliminates distinctions of nation and race--no "Border, Breed, or Birth"--and the two become "Brothers-in-Blood."

Kipling, then, was looking deeper than his critics give him credit for.  This was recognized by wiser heads than ours during his lifetime: He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

Well then, I want to highly recommend a story, "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat." It tells the story of...but no, I really wish to tell you very little because one line in the story shocked me powerfully, and I don't want to deprive some of you of the same startle. How will you recognize the line I'm talking about?  Well, I'll tell you this: although it shook me mightily, it ends with the thought that this earth-moving course of action "was considered nothing extraordinary."

Read it.  Please.  And I'll leave you with a question to ponder. Which was the "miracle" of the title: the heroic action at the end of the story, or the very choice of "career" that led to it?

In either case, the story demonstrates Kipling's keen sensitivity to what is important to the "oriental mind," and belies the charges that he saw "the Other" as in any way inferior.

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Quote (just for fun): From this page of the online version of Evan Morris' amazing and witty The Word Detective column (where I often find myself going for "research" and ending up reading far more than I have time for):

"Keep in mind that English, like all languages, is the product of a committee composed of millions of people squabbling over the course of many centuries."

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Sunday,
July 9

Bie Chuan Chan Temple
A visit to a Chinese temple
Gallery

One of my main purposes for being in China is to study religion. One major component of this is visiting temples.  (And there's a great temple stay coming up; stay tuned for more info.) So it was with great delight that I accepted an invitation from my good Dharma Friend Wang Fu Qing, and his wife and son, to travel with them and our monk friend Luohan to northern Guangdong province in April of 2005.

It was my first time out of Shenzhen and into the "real" China: the first time I saw oxen pulling plows, and little country villages, and the city center of an older Chinese city.  The trip included stops at three temples: Dajian Temple in central Shaoguan; the world-famous Nanhua Temple just south of Shaoguan; and Bie Chuan Chan Temple in the Dan Xia Shan scenic area (a designated Unesco World Heritage Site) north of Shaoguan.

I hope to write about the other two later (I mentioned Nanhua briefly on June 23), but for now I will concentrate on Dan Xia Shan.  And "write" isn't exactly the word: Mostly I'm going to show you pictures.

I have built a gallery on LiveJournal.  Usually such materials are placed on my The Temple Guy site.  But I am currently rebuilding the structure of that site, and I don't want to put anything else on there until that's done.  So LiveJournal it is.

But aside from the "pure experience" of the temple visit, I wanted to tell you something else about Dan Xia San.

The Chinese are becoming increasingly savvy about marketing, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the way they "pump up" their tourist sites.  Nevertheless, it was with some surprise that I noticed, just next to the gate to this vaunted "Unesco World Heritage Site," a sex museum.

A what?!

[Note: According to this site the museum at Dan Xia Shan is one of the six branches of the China Sex Museum, whose main "campus" is in the town of Tonglli, 80 kilometers west of Shanghai.]

Yup.  And it wasn't until I got home that I found out why.

In visiting the temple, we bypassed any sightseeing amongst the rock formations themselves (though one beautiful formation added drama to the horizon as viewed from the temple; you'll see it in the gallery).  So I didn't realize that some of the formations were quite... uh... INteresting.

Here are two pictures I swiped from other people's sites:

Remind you of anything?

Put the Chinese name of Dan Xia Shane--丹霞山--into an image search engine (such as Google or Yahoo) and you'll see lots of views of these.

So THAT'S what was going on with the sex museum at the gate.  "Gold and women"--money and sex.  Hard to escape, even on the way to a Buddhist Sangri-La.

See the Bie Chuan Chan Temple Gallery

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Monday,
July 10

Cletus' Bible: Cletus on Karma
The Laws of Cause and Effect

(You might want to know more about Cletus, if you don't already.)

Well now.  Old Cletus, he lived a-way up on Serenity Peak, about as close to the Almighty as a man could get.

One day a feller come a-climbin' up to Serenity Peak, a-huffin' and a-puffin'. Ya see, he was a businessman from the city down in the valley, and he just weren't used to this long a pull. The most exercise he ever got was ridin' a desk. The haul nearly done 'im in, but beyond his plain discomfort from the climb, Cletus could clearly see that he was powerful worked up 'bout somethin'. So Cletus offered the feller some rose hip tea (though the feller was secretly wishin' for somethin' a might stronger) and waited until the feller was ready to spill.

Finally, "Cletus!" he busts out, "I'm in a mess o' trouble."

"What kind o' trouble?" asks Cletus.

"Well," says the feller, lookin' a might embarrassed, "money trouble." (At this, Cletus' eyes set to twinklin', 'cause he knows that women and gold are the two things most like to get a feller in a fix.) "Ya see," the feller says, "I done some things I shouldn't oughta done, kinda shady-like. And now my customers, and my partners, and the law--well, they're jus' plain after me, is what it is."

"And what," Cletus asks, "are you expectin' me t' do about it? I don't know a blessed thing 'bout business."

"Now, Cletus," he says, "ever'body knows that you have the ear o' the Almighty. Cain't ya jus' whisper a word or two in that Ear an' ask 'im t'get me outta this here mess?"

Ol' Cletus thinks on it fer a minute, then looks over the feller's shoulder an' says, "Ain't my melons doin' fine?"

"Howzat?" says the feller.

"I say," Cletus repeats, "My melons. They're doin' jus' fine! See my melon patch over yonder?"

The feller turns, an' looks, an' says, "I surely do."

"Well now," says Cletus, "I planted me a whole lotta sweet cantaloupes on one side o' my patch, and a handful o' bitter melon on the other. (And there's nothin' like a good bitter melon soup t'keep ya regular.)

"Yeah?" says the other. "And jus' what's that got t'do with me?"

"Well, now," says ol' Cletus, "I think I may o' planted more o' the bitter than I need, and not enough of the sweet. So let's jus' go on over t' that patch, an' let's get down on our knees, an' let's pray together, brother, let's beg the Almighty to make some o' those bitter melons into cantaloupe."

The city feller was dumbstruck. "Aw, Cletus," he says, "Why you wanna waste my time for? You know bitter melon seeds ain't gonna make no cantaloupe! You plant bitter, bitter is what you gonna get!"

"Ain't that the dang truth!" cackles Cletus. "Ol' Jesus said 'What ya sow, ya reap!' They say it over there in India an' China, too, lotsa places. Sow good, ya get good. Sow raw dealin', ya get raw dealin'!"

"OK," says the feller, kinda quiet now. "I reckon I see what yer sayin'. But why the Almighty gotta treat me this-a way?"

"The Almighty?" Cletus snorts, and "The Almighty," he muses, and "I'll tell you what. Guess I'm gonna hafta show ya."

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An' Cletus, he tol' the feller to fetch him a mess o' things: two ol' clay pots from behind the house, and the ax from by the front door; some butter from the spring house, and some pebbles from the stream; and a couple o' pieces o' cloth and some string from the shed.

"Now then," says Cletus, "fill this here pot with pebbles, an' this 'un with butter." And the feller did. "Now cover each one with that there cloth, and wrap the string around it real good, so the mouth o' the pot is a-covered tight." And he did.

"Now bring it all down to the pond." And he followed Cletus to the pond, carryin' the two covered pots and the ax.

"Now, you walk on into that there pond," says Cletus, "and set them pots in water about knee deep." This took awhile, as the city feller had to take off his shoes an' socks, and roll up his suit pants, 'cause like most city folks he was particular.

When he'd put those pots in the water, ol' Cletus cracks a grin an' says, "Now, you give those pots a whack with the back o' that ax."

"Wha'?" says the feller.

"Go on, break 'em open!" Cletus crows.

So he did.

"Now," asks Cletus, "what're them pebbles doin'?"

"Well," says the feller, "they're jus' a-settin' there on the bottom."

"Uh-huh. And the butter?" Cletus asks.

"It's a-floatin', o' course!" the feller says.

"Why?" asks Cletus. "Why would the Almighty make the rocks go down an' the butter go up?"

"Aw, Cletus," says the feller, "the Almighty ain't doin' that. Rocks are heavy, an' butter's light, is all it is!"

"That's right," says ol' Cletus, "It's their nature. An' it's the nature o' wrong actions t' bring you trouble, jus' like it's the nature o' right actions t' bring you blessings. Ya know, ya ain't punished for yer sins; yer punished by yer sins."

"But not always!!" says the feller. "I know good folks who suffer, an' some pretty wicked fellers who seem t' get on jus' fine."

"Dang! but yer a stubborn critter," says Cletus. "Alright. One more doggone time."

* * * * * * * *

Cletus thinks for a minute, then he says: "How tall are you?"

"'Round 'bout six foot," the feller says.

"Six foot!" cries Cletus. "Boy, you musta dang near killed yer mama comin' outta her."

"Aw, Cletus," he says, "there ya go again, bein' foolish."

"Guilty as charged" Cletus whoops. "I am indeed. But so are you! Things don' jus' go from nothin' t' somethin'. They need time to come about. You were a little bitty baby, and become a big strong feller. But it took years. Same way, them good people that suffer, you don't know when the blessin's 'll come. And when the wicked prosper? Well, somethin' ugly's on it's way fer sure. Jus' give it time. Ya know, yer a lucky feller. Yer bad deeds up and bit ya right away. After you pay the piper, you'll be free t' move on."

"Well, maybe," the feller says, rubbin' his chin. "But even though ya call me lucky, it sure feels like hell t'pay."

"Yup," says Cletus, "an' I can tell ya more 'bout that, too. But that ol' sun's on his way west, and that there trail's mighty rough, so you'd best be getting' on home. You go face the music, and come back next week. You tell me how yer doin', an' I'll tell you why sometimes bad looks good, and good sure enough looks like bad."

And the feller said his "goodbye"s and his "thank ye"s and he headed on down the trail. Cletus set about fixin' his supper, fetchin' water from the springhouse (for boilin' his greens). And as he carried a bucket full o'water to the house, that city feller carried a whole head full o' thinkin' down from Serenity Peak.

Watch for stories from Cletus' Bible from time to time.

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[The audio version of this passage from Cletus' Bible is being recorded.  Watch for it soon!]

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Please send your comments by e-mail.  Useful comments will be added here.

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Tuesday,
July 11

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How to Be Happy: Lesson 1
First in an occasional series

I have been thinking deeply about the story I urged you to read last Saturday, "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat".  I am absolutely captivated by the idea of a man who can attain the highest degree of success in the world, and then walk away to pursue inner values without a shred of regret.

It reminds me of any number of stories in Japan.  The pattern is this: A man has a crisis, a tragedy strikes.  Result? He becomes a monk.  It's almost a cliche. But the fact is, in these stories, the man only becomes a monk after a tragedy.  Purun Dass does so after success!

This is the embodiment of a famous story in the Upanishads (Svetasvatara Upanishad 4:6-7 and  Mundaka Upanishad 3:1-2 tell the identical story):

Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating.

On the same tree a man sits grieving, immersed, bewildered, by his own impotence (an-îsâ). But when he sees the other lord (îsa) contented, and knows his glory, then his grief passes away.

That's Max Muller's late 19th-century translation in The Sacred Books of the East.

Swami Sivananda

Swami Sivananda translated the first of the two verses thus:

Two birds of beautiful plumage -- inseparable friends -- live on the same tree. Of these two one eats the sweet fruit while the other looks on without eating.

So the story of "The Two Birds" is brief in the extreme.  In fact, it is virtually opaque--out of context.  The second verse, about The Grieving Man who is an-isa or "not-God" is the key.  He is the bird who participates in the world.  God, what Swami Sivananda calls Brahman-- God without attributes-- is the second bird, who watches but does not participate.

According to Answers.com, the Swami commented:

...the first bird represents the individual soul, while the second represents Brahman or God. The soul is essentially a reflection of Brahman. The tree represents the body. The soul identifies itself with the body, reaps the fruits of its actions, and undergoes rebirth. The Lord alone stands as an eternal witness, ever contented, and does not eat, for he is the director of both the eater and the eaten.

Another commentary, by Sri Sri Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi, spells it out more clearly:

The Upanisadic story speaks of two birds perched on the branch of a pippala tree. One eats the fruit of tree while the [other] merely watches its companion without eating. The pippala tree stands for the body. The first bird represents a being that regards himself as the jivatman or individual self and the fruit it eats signifies sensual pleasure. In the same body (symbolized by the tree) the second bird is to be understood as the Paramatman [Sivananda's Brahman]. He is the support of all beings but he does not know sensual pleasure. Since he does not eat the fruit he naturally does not have the same experience as the jivatman (the first). The Upanisad speaks with poetic beauty of the two birds. He who eats the fruit is the individual self, jiva, and he who does not eat is the Supreme Reality, the one who knows himself to be the Atman.

I am preparing a talk to be given this autumn entitled simply "How to Be Happy."  This idea of The Two Birds is one of the keys to this happiness.

The Two Birds, woven in a carpet

How?  Here's a quote from Joseph Campbell (in The Power of Myth): 

There is a plane of consciousness where you can identify yourself with that which transcends pairs of opposites.

"Pairs of opposites," like good vs evil, joy vs suffering, success vs failure.

What happens, we ask, if we turn our attention from the affairs of This World to those of That? What happens when we identify ourselves, not with the bird who eats, but with the bird who watches?  In an unattributed quote (in an article entitled "Hinduism 101: Shedding Some Light on Light Shedding"), we read:

Henry [David] Thoreau, the transcendentalist, put it like this, "I am conscious of the presence of a part of me, which, (as it were), is not part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it..."

The author then continues with a specific recommendation for how to attain this "spectator" position: 

For the Hindu it is possible to develop this spectator, this Observer I, through separation. By separating yourself from what you are doing in your life you become more aware of yourself, tend to look at your life more objectively so you don't get caught up in the ego's illusions and fantasies, and you fulfill Socrates advise [sic] to "Know Thyself." A very practical way to do this is to sit for a few minutes each day in silence and inactivity focusing solely on the experience of breathing in and out. The best way to learn about anyone is to be alone with them, including yourself.

This is the Vedanta expression of the classic Buddhist concept of Non-Attachment.

Notice that I didn't say "detachment."  The distinction usually needs to be spelled out. "Detachment" sounds aloof, cold, uncaring.  This is a parody of the true Buddhist position.  "Non-attachment" is like the second bird: Not engaged in the action, but nevertheless present to it.

What would non-attachment look like "in action"?  Here's a famous Zen (Chan) story:

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter's accusation, he simply replied "Is that so?"
When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. "Is that so?" Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. "Is that so?" Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

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(Found here, along with an interesting collection of people's reactions to the story.)

You see, Hakuin was not disengaged from the people around him; he was just unaffected by their opinions of him.  As the new-agey L.A. saying goes, "What you think of me is none of my business!"  He was not detached, as in uncaring; look at the sacrifice he made for that baby's well-being.  He was compassion personified, despite the disapproval of the crowd.  But regarding their behavior he was non-attached, in the way the second bird was unaffected by the first bird's actions.

The Pali word for non-attachment, viraga (the first a is long), means "the absence of raga," and raga means "excitement, passion."  By extension, raga is  lust, desire, and craving for existence. Viraga, then, is the antidote to the "desire" which the Buddha speaks of in the Second Noble Truth, when he says that suffering is the result of desire (also called "craving" and "thirst").

Look, we just arrived at how to be happy: Suffering comes from desire; non-attachment eliminates desire, and, thus, suffering.

Now, everyone wants to avoid suffering.  But what is the first bird doing?  He's not suffering; he's enjoying a fruit.  So a tougher lesson is to learn not to be attached to joy, either!  Because it will certainly pass, leading again to-- you guessed it-- suffering!  The Buddha described suffering as, among other things, both "association with the unpleasant" and "dissociation from the pleasant."  To have something good and lose it, as we all know, can sometimes be worse than never having it at all.

But what if we could learn to greet both suffering and joy equally?  This is equanimity.  "En-joy," yes, but don't grasp at it.  As William Blake wrote:

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

I know, it ain't easy.  There are lots of illustrations of this, like this cartoon. (The whole series is great.)

So one important point about non-attachment is that we must avoid attachment both to positive and negative experiences (Cletus will have something to say about this later this week.)

A second point is that non-attachment is not non-action.  We still must participate in the world. This is where the equally important Buddhist idea of compassion comes from.  And this is not just a religious thing.  Hear the great bodhisattva Albert Einstein: 

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

(More of his wisdom here.)