JM,
Thank you for your impressive presentation. However, I have a question
here. Is it possible to save others without saving yourself first?
Take for example Bill's story of a plane falling drastically from sky
losing air pressure. You find a small kid sitting next to you. Do you
put on the oxygen mask for yourself first, or help the kid with that
first? One of my friends who is a bodhisatva fan insists that you
should save the kid first. He stops short of saying whether in doing
that you may kill yourself for lack of oxygen, or maybe the kid as
well before you have enough energy to save him.
Furthermore, can a womanizer, profiteer or pedophile save the world?
Gakusei Anthony
--- On *Sun, 4/9/11, Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明
/<[email protected]>/* wrote:
From: Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]>
Subject: [Zen] Supreme Vehicle
To: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected]
Date: Sunday, 4 September, 2011, 1:08 AM
Good morning Sensei,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I am just a
practitioner of Chan and not a master. A master in our school
means someone who is enlightened and has received "Buddha Heart
Imprint", while I have neither. Since Zen does recognize the
Mahayana practice, then please let me share some of the
discussions we had recently in our school....
As we know, Hinayana is often called the Small Vehicle and
Mahayana is the Great Vehicle. And in China, the Chan is called
the Supreme Vehicle. It means that Chan could free everyone.
It is true, when others are enlightened, we are enlightened. The
danger of this realization is the rationalization that we only
need to work on ourselves. If so, then we are only practicing
Hinayana. We did not "do" the circular track of Chan.
The Mahayana practice is a practice, only when we leave our lotus
and step into the mud, could we than detach ourselves from the
limitation of our practice and our dharma. In other words, as we
focus on the difficulty in freeing others, could we then realize
how limited we are in wisdom and energy in resolving their karmic
hindrance. Only then we could be motivated to continuously
surpassing our habitual practice, form and formless. In turn to
realize that "Dharma is not dharma. No dharma is dharma."
Then we would know dharma is in every encounter. It is up to us
to be one with it. Only then we are liberated from the
rationalization of our mind and awaken to the fact that the One of
Chan is the ALL. This realization occurs when we journey midway
into the freeing of each one, as a Supreme Vehicle.
Too often we quit by rationalizing to ourselves that this practice
is not for everyone. Or the time is not right, or whatever
excuses we place upon our practice. If so, we have trapped
ourselves into believing that our current practice is the only
path. The practice of Supreme Vehicle is every practice in each
moment, in each encounter, without self, without other, without
dharma, without form, without notion, etc.
To free all beings is not to impose "our" practice upon them, but
rather let them awaken from within. The only way we could
accomplish that is to speak in their language in their mindset and
help them to resolve whatever there needs to be resolve in
resources, mindset or life force. In other words, we needed to be
them and undertake their karma. Thus the mud is the lotus and
lotus is the mud and they both grow in tandem.
To phrase it in beautiful labels, Mahayana is the journey for
Bodhisattva, Supreme Vehicle is the journey for Buddha, who is the
one and all and us and everyone.
Thank you all for your attention,
JMJM
Head Teacher
Order Of Chan
Learn the Basics of Chan Meditation...
http://www.chan-meditation.org <http://www.chan-meditation.org/>
Chan in everyday life...
http://www.chanliving.org <http://www.chanliving.org/>
To be enlightened in this life...
http://www.heartchan.org <http://www.heartchan.org/>
To save our world...
http://www.universal-oneness.org <http://www.universal-oneness.org/>
On 9/1/2011 9:49 PM, Harvey Daiho Hilbert wrote:
With palms together,
Good Evening Everyone,
On the Zen Living list, Ch’an Master Jue Miao Jing Ming , asked
me a question the other day. “Dear Sensei, Do you consider Zen a
Mahayana practice? If so, what does Mahayana actually do?”
While Zen is within the Mahayana tradition, it is not a Mahayana
practice as I understand it.Student Rev. Shoji and I were
discussing this question today and Rev. Shoji brought up an
interesting distinction.He argued that Mahayana Buddhists aim at
the Bodhisattva ideal to free all beings before they, themselves,
enter nirvana.He points out that from a Zen point of view, self
and other are one, therefore there is no one, but oneself, to free.
Zen Master Seung Sahn argues in his Compass, that both Theravadan
and Mahayane traditions have “roads,” but that Zen has not only
no road, but no map, as well.The practice is practice realization
as one.Path and destination are not two.
These beg the question, however, “What does Mahayana actually do?”
Mahayana does nothing.Mahayana is just a word.And we can see from
the question that such things as words and concepts can create a
hindrance.We could ask a better question, “What is Mahayana
/practice /and what does it do?” The aim of the practice is to
free beings, but how?
Again, Master Sahn offers the Six Paramitas as “practice
guides.”They are rather like the manifest value in the nexus
between idea and behavior, rather like the term “Quality” as used
in Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” A
Mahayana practitioner practices to make manifest the six aspects
of our true nature in the hope that to do so will free suffering
beings.
A Zen practitioner, however realizes practice and life are one,
that everything is already free, perfect as it is, but that we
jail ourselves with our thoughts.A Zen practitioner notices and
ceases all grasping: no attachment to ideas, desires, things,
feelings, etc.
A Zen practitioner is free and easy in the everyday world.His
mind is free and his heart limitless.He recognizes all beings are
likewise like this.
Be well.
/Rev. //Daiho Hilbert, //abbot/
/OCMZ /
