OTHER PAGES ON THE LEAFLET
COLOURS
We are surrounded by colours, natural and designed-in. Whether we practice indoors or “in the wild”, we will be interacting with a unique palette of colours. When we are establishing a personal practice space, we should consider what colours we are building into that. With our practice space at the Old Schoolhouse, for example, I deliberately chose certain highlights for emotional value. The main colour was a gold tinted white, with a gold highlight wall. This gold colour combines values of warmth, healing and energy. I used black and red, partly because these were the theme colours of the building, but also because red is the colour associated with Jizo bodhisattva, our “patron saint of walking”. It would have seemed ridiculous too, to not emphasize the red in our Red Maple name. We also used lots of natural tones from bamboo, cedar and pine. Natural materials and colours keep our environment grounded in the natural world.
When we move into our new Centre in Pembroke, we will inherit a washed-out blue-green environment. This may have made sense in that room for its purpose, which was a hair salon. We will begin with that, but over the first few months will introduce a new palette, one selected for our contemplative purposes.
This is an interesting blog entry for ad designers. The graphic summarizes “The Psychology of Colours”
http://blog.lightninglabels.com/color/5-tips-for-designing-full-color-labels/
Yours in the Dharma,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
STUFF
This has been a weekend about our stuff. Dividing it into stuff to keep, stuff to sell, stuff to give away and stuff to toss. We lead lives surrounded by, knee-deep in, obsessed with and emotionally attached to our stuff. I’m reminded of the brilliant American comic, George Carlin who wrote:
This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get . . . more stuff!
In actively disposing of and watching our stuff disappear there is a very tangible sensation of lightening in our lives. Its like the sensation we get in spring when the weather warms and you can hang up your coat, hat and mitts, leave the boots at the door and step out lighter and easier into the daylight.
Yours in the Dharma,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
Read the final Ask the Religion Experts column here
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/index.htm
WHAT IS SANGHA?
In the larger Tendai community we have been exchanging viewpoints on this question. Here is part of what I contributed.
Sam-gha - the translation for the word, sangha, comes from two roots - the second, the ‘gha,’ refers to movement; the first is a widely used prefix, sam-, meaning ‘together’. Think of words like sam-skara (elements acting together), samadhi (coming together of mental faculties) or sam-ut-pada (conditions forming together).
We should also keep in mind that Sanskrit, like its larger of language-family, is fundamentally verb-driven, so however we want to use sangha, we should keep in mind it has to do with com-ing together or act-ing together. It is not so much a noun or entity, but more like a process or activity. We could almost say what we are is “sangha-ing”. Westerners/Europeans construct our experience as nouns or things, setting ourselves up for the errors of permanence-mind.
Returning to basics in another way, sangha is first and foremost one of the tri-ratna, the Three Jewels, along with Buddha and Dharma. It is part of what we take refuge in during jukai. In a narrow sense it refers to certain groups of specialist-monks, although Mahayana has tended to view it more broadly, more like the term maha-sangha or so-dai. This seems to reflect the bodhisattvic perspective which suggests sangha as including all conditioned beings of the six realms, as well as the classes of buddhas and bodhisattvas. For me this is central because our mission (in the religious not corporate) sense is the liberation of all beings, and in that task we are called to align ourselves with the efforts of all buddhas and bodhisattvas. Our practice is always in the form of sangha, never solitary. Furthermore, a corporation or organization metaphor suggests we are somehow motivated by abstract internal corporate values and desires. This is patently not the case, as we, as Buddhists, are motivated by bodhi or bodaishin. We do not generate any vision statement or mission, we align ourselves with the activity of awakening because it is our understanding of who and what we are.
Yours in the Dharma,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
Read the this week’s Ask the Religion Experts column here
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/index.htm
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
The Buddhaway is defined by an acceptance of transience as the modality of our lives. Our practice is one of observing experiences as they arise and pass away. We are called to attend to this flux and establish a posture of non-attachment. When we speak of non-attachment, we must be cautious not to mistake it for indifference, for neutrality or for a passive disinterest. Our awareness brings us the richness of life and death, not a boring flatness. We are recommended to be curious and observant, to inquire and explore. Our lives are an adventure, one which can illuminate the Dharma.
This weekend we marked an ending and a beginning. Our Dharma-home in Renfrew, which we called Akasha-loka, The Realm of Infinite Possibilities, has fulfilled it purpose, that of initiating a Dharma presence in this County. Now we recognize our purpose is best fulfilled in a new location, somewhat further West, where we have had a temporary and auxiliary space for almost as long. It would be absurd to say none of us feels sadness or excitement, that we are Buddhists after all and we shouldn’t feel such things. We are humans, and humans are blessed with the capacity to experience the panorama of our emotional life. To ignore such emotion would insult our humanity.
However, as Buddhists, we are attentive to the transience of our experience and of the places in our experience. We would be foolish indeed to expect any physical space to stay the same.
Like wise, we are disappointed to receive the announcement that the Religion Experts feature we have contributed to for almost 6 years will cease publication in a coupe of weeks. This has been an extraordinary means for us to explain the Buddhaway to a curious public, and to do so in a sort-of-dialogue with many other faiths. Both of these endings introduce us to new beginnings, new possibilities for each of us to participate in bringing the Buddhaway into the community.
Yours in the Dharma,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
Read this week’s Ask the Religion Experts column here
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/index.htm
THE BODY’S LANGUAGE
We speak to each other using a shared vocabulary and grammar. This makes it possible for us to understand each other. Sometimes we have to learn a new language to communicate with others. I know this to be a difficult challenge from my recent efforts to learn enough Japanese to get by on my trip there. (Note of confession - I was largely a failure in this regard).
Our Dharma great-grandfather, Kukai, the founder of the Shingon tradition, proposed that we cannot know the Divine directly but that we can communicate using three different languages - body, speech/breath and mind. He based his teaching on three practice bases, each one being the language of those modes. Mantra (what we call recitation or chanting) uses the sounds we make with our breath. Mantra expresses sounds of letters, words and collections of words . What we take as the meaning of a phrase is not the mantra meaning. That lies in the expression of a universal sound, which is itself the expression of a particular energy or force, what we call Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. Mandala are cosmic landscapes, which we enter mentally through visualization. Mudra is specific hand positions, that likewise express universal energies.
These stylized and formal languages are captured in specific patterns of sound, movement and imagined space. We can also understand at an even more everyday level, the language of the body. When we touch a surface, when we walk along the ground, when we suddenly notice bright sunlight or the sound of a bird, we are understanding something of who we are. Before or even without conventional language, the body speaks to us, providing information about our experience. Our movement practices, such as the walking and chi-gong we perform regularly, offer us opportunities to hear and speak that language.
Yours in the Dharma,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
Read this week’s Ask the Religion Experts column here
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/index.html
Loving Kindness
In the discussion at this month’s Mahasangha, we examining the Metta Sutra, the Teaching on Loving Kindness. In part I said:
we do not reserve metta (loving kindness)for some and withhold it from others. The practice must be directed to all beings. In fact, this reminds us that our practice is for the service of all beings, not just humans, or people we like, or everyone in Canada. It calls us to serve and work for the liberation of all beings, humans and animals. Even in the world-view of that time it would include beings in the hell-realms, in the heavens as well. Metta begins with recognizing our inclusion in the vast universe of existence, and as with the Vow that has come to define Mahayana Buddhism, we vow to liberate all beings, in all times, in all spaces.
We also acknowledged that metta practice is, like nembutsu, is at once the simplest and most difficult of practices. The instructions are minimal and it does not require any particular location, preparation or equipment. On the other hand, it requires we have the sincerity, faith and determination to reach deep into our own hearts and direct our most heartfelt intentions for the benefit of others.
To see the whole talk on the Metta Sutra, click the link above
RESILIIENCE
During the presentation on resilience I did yesterday , I suggested two preliminary steps for the 6-element model of resilience (for more, see www.resiliency.com ). In addition to the six elements in the description (boundaries, expectations, bonding, etc.), I used a mindfulness lens to supplement two other elements - awareness and purpose.
Before we can engage in what resiliency theory calls “set clear and consistent boundaries”, we must begin with a deep and dynamic awareness of who this person is. This is not learned from a book or received on advice from another. This is only authentic when it results from a personal and rigorous inquiry into our own experience of who and what we are. That knowledge is self-affirming. It also shifts and changes over our lives, so it needs to be an ongoing inquiry - what we call our mindfulness practice.
For us to articulate high expectations, we must use the awareness we acquire to provide us with some clarity on the purpose of our lives, whatever that may be at that time. Expectations motivated by externally imposed shoulds or flawed awareness of our experience or needs powered by the three forces (kleshas) of aggression, greed and laziness, will lead us further down the path of suffering - our own and for others.
The model or framework of resiliency offers us a potent tool to reflect on in building our life competencies. The perspective of mindfulness, in my mind, deepens that frame even more.
Yours in the Dharma,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
Read this week’s Ask the Religion Experts column here
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/index.html
