Shambhala Blog

We're in the Same Place

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:00:47 +0000

I try to practice what I preach; I’m not always that good at it, but I really do try. The other night, I was getting hard-hearted, closed-minded, and fundamentalist about somebody else, and I remembered this expression that you can never hate somebody if you stand in their shoes. I was angry at him because he was holding such a rigid view. In that instant I was able to put myself in his shoes and I realized, “I’m just as riled up, and self-righteous and closed-minded about this as he is. We’re in exactly the same place!” And I saw that the more I held on to my view, the more polarized we would become, and the more we’d be just mirror images of one another—two people with closed minds and hard hearts who both think they’re right, screaming at each other. It changed for me when I saw it from his side, and I was able to see my own aggression and ridiculousness.

From Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chödrön, pages 22-23

Haiku of the Week

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:00:21 +0000

don’t be like me
even if we resemble
two halves of a melon

ware ni niru na
futatsu ni wareshi
makuwauri

(Basho, 1690)

From The Art of Haiku: Its History through Poems and Paintings by Japanese Masters by Stephen Addiss

Overcoming Aggression

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:00:04 +0000

Aggression is an obstacle to visual dharma, to hearing and the other sense perceptions, and to understanding reality in its fullest sense. To overcome aggression, some kind of fundamental discipline seems to be absolutely important and necessary. Without any actual practice of sitting meditation to enable us to make friends with ourselves, nothing can be heard or seen to its fullest extent; nothing can be perceived as we would like to perceive it. But slowly and naturally, through our discipline, we gradually begin to branch out into the real world.

From True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art by Chögyam Trungpa, page 73.

Three Kinds of Practitioners

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:00:46 +0000

There are three kinds of people [who practice Buddhism]. Like all other beings, the lowest person wants happiness and not suffering or rebirth in the lower realms of existence, so he practices Buddhism to create the causes of rebirth in the human realm or in the heavenly realms of the gods. He does not have the power or the courage to leave worldly existence completely. He only wants the best parts of worldly existence; he wants to avoid the worst parts, and that is why he practices the Buddhist religion—to gain a higher rebirth.

The middling sort of person understands that the whole of worldly existence, no matter where one is born, is suffering by its nature, just as fire is hot by its nature. He wants to get out of it altogether and attain nirvana, the state that is entirely away from suffering.

The highest person realizes that just as he himself does not want to suffer and does want happiness, so also do all living beings have the same fears and wishes. He knows that since we have been born again and again from beginningless time in worldly existence, there is not a single sentient being who has not been our mother and father at one time or another. Since we are that close to all sentient beings, the best person is one who practices Buddhism in order to remove all these countless beings from suffering.

From Treasures of the Sakya Lineage: Teachings from the Masters by Migmar Tseten, page 41

Zenga and Shunga

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:15:29 +0000

Zenga and shunga (erotic art)* would seem to be on different ends of the artistic spectrum. Zenga are created with a minimum of brush strokes in mostly black and white, while hand painted shunga are drawn in minute detail with the most intense colors. Zenga are about enlightenment, shunga focus on sex. However, the battle cry of Zen is kensho jobutsu: “See into your nature to become Buddha.” The character for nature, sei, can also mean “sexual passion.” In other words, kensho jobutsu can be interpreted as “See into the nature of sex to become Buddha.” Another key Zen phrase is kakunen musho: “Vast emptiness, nothing holy.” As with Zenga, in shunga there is nothing holy. Everything, including gods and Buddhas, are mercilessly satirized and parodied. Like Zenga, shunga reveal many profound truths about human nature in all its manifestations.

The greatest of Zenga artists, Hakuin and Sengai, actually created Zen shunga. Hakuin’s zenga of Fukurokuju, a phallic deity to begin with, have enormously elongated heads, clearly shaped like a giant penis. On one such painting, Hakuin wrote, “Keep it long and hard like this, and you will have a long life.” Sengai in fact, did a Zen shunga of a couple in sexual embrace with this inscription:

This is the original form of cosmic integration,

A Buddhist practice to harmonize two roots;

Naked, travel to the opposite peak or valley

To achieve nondual union.

Hakuin and Sengai had a number of courtesan disciples from the pleasure quarters. That was only natural. If a samurai, whose job is to kill people, can be a disciple, why not a courtesan, whose job is to give people pleasure? In the Zen Art Gallery, we have one Zen Shunga, #2129. The inscription is based on traditional Buddhist morality—“watch out!”—but the Zen beauty is not condemned. Indeed, she may be an incarnation of Kannon, the Bodhisattva of compassion, offering sex as vehicle of transformation.

*See “Spring is in the Air: Japanese Erotic Art,” an exhibition at RobynBuntin.com.

Fukurokuju by Hakuin.

Zen Beauty (#2129) by Shogetsu Chuho So-u