Portland Buddhist Priory

(Follow this link to see the October 2021 Priory Newsletter where this was originally published.)

When the rain returns, I think of the Water of Compassion.

The third of the four practices, Seeking Nothing is as follows (from the Red Pine translation):

Third, seeking nothing. People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something – always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring. Calamity forever alternates with prosperity! To dwell in the three realms is to dwell in a burning house. To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, “To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.” When you seek nothing, you’re on the Path.

They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons.

Occasionally, in our seeking, we find what we want and we get to have that thing. We might get what we want after a long period of working toward that thing. Or maybe it shows up early or along the way of our life as a gift. We might say to Bodhidharma, when we hear what he has to say, “you say seek nothing but I have what I want; don’t bother me with your negativity.” And Bodhidharma might just bow and go about his business.

And still, the Buddha and Bodhidharma have said what they have said and we have heard it.

There is impermanence and there is the sublime.

Having heard, and for a moment recognized what we have heard, a little itch begins to take root in us: something like Continue reading →