May brings more dogwood blossoms.

(Follow this link to see the June 2022 Priory Newsletter where this was recently published.)

One time, when I had just become a transmitted monk (in other words, I was barely a senior), I had the opportunity to travel with a few other monks from the monastery where I was living, to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, a Buddhist temple in Ukiah, California. We traveled there for a conference of western Buddhist monastics and when we arrived, we were given a packet of things including a pen set in a wooden case. On the case there was an inscription by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, the founding abbot of the temple, that read:

“Everything is a test to see what you will do.
If you mistake what is before your eyes
you will have to start anew.”

There is a book I like called “Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like” by Jay Williams and is illustrated by Mercer Mayer. I may have some details wrong, but the story is about a village, under threat from wild horsemen, and a boy who lives there. An old man comes to the town and tells the boy he is a dragon and can help the town but nobody believes the man or the boy since they all believe they know what a dragon really looks like. They know what a dragon looks like and the old man couldn’t possibly be a dragon. (Interestingly, each of the towns leaders think that a dragon looks like them.) Because the boy believes the old man is telling the truth, and because the boy is kind to the old man and gives him his only bowl of rice and cup of wine, the old man stays and, when the horsemen come, he causes a great wind to arise which blows the horseman away. After this the people of the town are convinced that a dragon looks like a fat little old man since the dragon only reveals his true form to the boy.

There is a teaching from Rev. Master Jiyu where she says “look with the mind of a Buddha and you will see the heart of a Buddha.” When we look carefully at what appears in our life, whether it is a person or a set of conditions, we can see it as Buddha that is there to teach us something. This is not some idealized state where the unpleasant is somehow magically transformed into the pleasant. She also taught “sometimes a Buddha teaches us what to do and sometimes a Buddha teaches us what not to do.” If we look carefully at the situation or the person and are not fooled by the appearance, we can see some truth that is expressed. My teacher used to say that the teaching of a Buddha that appears as an axe murderer is to turn around and run.

There is another story. A person was stuck on their rooftop in a flood and they prayed to God for help. Soon a woman in a rowboat came by and the woman shouted to the person on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.” The stranded person shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. “The man in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.” To this the stranded person said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the motorboat went on. Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.” To this the stranded person again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the helicopter reluctantly flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the person drowned. They went to Heaven and when they finally got their chance to discuss this whole situation with God they exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!” To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

It is sad, but we are often so caught up in our ideas and opinions of what Buddha should look like, of the form the world or our life should take, that we miss the Truth that is right before our eyes. The truth that is always right before our eyes. Because we are so entangled in our own views and opinions, so convinced of the completeness of our own rightness, we are fooled by what we see and we blame God or the Buddha or other human beings for not appearing in the right form for us to be able to see them clearly, to see the truth clearly.

Maybe the Buddha is in the form of a genderless person, a woman, a man, a child or an old person? Maybe they have black, brown, white or some other skin color? Maybe they are forgetful or ugly or unhoused or have some other non-standard appearance? Can we let go of our views and opinions and actually see what is in front of us? See what is really there?

There are many ways that we can be fooled by appearances. Maybe we can let go of our opinions of what a Buddha should look like but maybe we are just rushing about looking for the next exciting experience to fill us? Or maybe we are blinded by our anger and frustration? There are many ways that we can be fooled by what is right before our eyes. What we don’t see is that, by living from this mind that thinks only the things or conditions that we want will satisfy us, we are actually creating the alienation and loneliness that we feel. Instead, we think that only the kind of person who is just the right age, color, gender, level of intelligence and hipness; the thing that will excite us in just the right way; the absence of the offending person or condition; will be that thing that solves our separation and alienation.

One of the most significant ways that we enable appearances to fool us, is holding onto the belief that we will find the solution to our feeling of unsatisfactoriness, our dis-ease, in outward conditions.

Our separation and alienation is healed by waking up to our deep and inseparable connection to the Fundamental Mind which we all share, regardless of our appearance. If we would just sit quietly for a minute, we might find that the exciting experience is a fleeting distraction and what we need is right in front of us or right within us. We had just missed it because it seemed dull and uninteresting.