“The five colors
blind our eyes.
The five notes
deafen our ears.
The five flavors
dull our taste.
Racing, chasing, hunting,
drives people crazy.
Trying to get rich
ties people in knots.
So the wise soul
watches with the inner
not with the outward eye,
letting that go,
keeping this.”
- Dao De Jing by Laozi, Translation by Ursula K. Le Guin, 2009, Chapter 12
Shugendō (修験道) is a highly syncretic Buddhist religion or sect and mystical-spiritual tradition which originated in pre-Feudal Japan, in which enlightenment is equated with attaining oneness with the kami (神). This perception of experiential “awakening” is obtained through the understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature, centered on an ascetic, mountain-dwelling practice. The focus or goal of Shugendō is the development of spiritual experience and power. Having backgrounds in mountain worship, Shugendō incorporated beliefs or philosophies from Shinto as well as folk animism, and further developed as Taoism and esoteric Buddhism arrived in Japan. The 7th century ascetic and mystic En no Gyōja is often considered as having first organized Shugendō as a doctrine. Shugendō literally means “the path of training and testing” or “the way to spiritual power through discipline.”
-
What is spiritual power? It sounds like something magical and holy. Neither of those ideas are really developed much in Buddhism or Buddhist Shugendo I feel. Rather ‘spiritual power’ is the ability to hold firm to our inner vision amidst the unpredictable ‘eight winds’ of wordly life: prosperity, decline, disgrace, honor, praise, censure, suffering and pleasure. Spiritual power is the ability to move forward in life and not be stuck in the sludge of the past or scattered by the unknown of the future. Spiritual power is an ability to be mindful of deep alignment of body, speech and mind in all our activities. Spiritual power is recollecting the dharma so that as we go through the motions of living we are unfolding the worlds within us. Spiritual power is wisdom, intuition and deeply touching the heart of oneself of and others.
How do we gain spiritual power? We work for it. Some people might have natural inclinations already… but it appears to me that spiritual practices are meant to bring out and strengthen either latent or already expressed tendencies in practitioners. They may create new habits and patterns of responding and undo old ones. At the same time doing spiritual ‘practices’ without then integrating and applying it in daily life misses the point. It is practice for bringing the ‘spiritual/inner’ out into the world. If we take life experience as food then spiritual practice is digesting it with the knowledge and understanding of dharma so that the mind, body and speech manifest it’s power- making knowledge into wisdom so transforming our lives.
There was a documentary made, at some point I should see it…curious how Shugendo is done in Japan versus what I know of it through the teacher and temple I am connected to here. Even if the structures created by time and culture were not in place in the practices…it feels like something intuitive and natural to walk for hours quietly, evenly, with intention and reverence through the mountains. How could action that acknowledges something beyond the immediate world of senses not be a source of insight and realization?
Here is the documentary trailer. If you get the urge to hunt down a copy let me know your thoughts!
“What is bondage? And what is liberation? To indulge in liberation from the world without employing liberative technique is bondage for the bodhisattva. To engage in life in the world with full employment of liberative technique is liberation for the … Continue reading
Taking the mountain back to the village- leaving the world and returning to it head on in the clothes of the deceased. Putting to rest craving, aversion and ignorance. Carrying the supporting staff of the Six Perfections and Bodhisattva vow. … Continue reading
* sever all evil, cultivate all good, work for all being. *
These three are the minimum of the Bodhisattva (awakening person, who resolves to not leave the world until all others are able to as well- living in it, together, head on, with others) Precepts. Ven.Sheng Yen states that to expand on them would be innumerable but to minimize them these three would be it and so alone could take a person to from ordinary to enlightened.
The bodhisattva path is broad, anyone can enter it, everyone can benefit from it and the more bodhicitta (mind of awakening) a person develops the more they can accommodate in their life, they more they can adapt, they more they can transform on inner level and outer levels. Taking the precepts is not enough though- it is not simply an orthodoxy of faith that fulfills wishes. It is a practice and daily engagement.
As the saying and all it’s variations go…”if you fall down seven times, get up eight”. The commitment to waking up, self-realization, developing wisdom and compassion may be more important than the various enumerations of it. If the commitment is grown strong then no matter how many times we fail we will get up with resolution and develop our strength, confidence and effort. Able to maintain the practice we will grow from infant to adult. Unable to maintain the dharma-way in ourselves we remain infants.
I’ve been thinking on this idea of ‘dharma strength’ and the similar sound of it in Sanskrit ‘dharma youth’. An explanation of the term was given to me: A youth can grow into a strong person. Where does the strength come from? From dharma samadhi. Being stable and unwavering. In the same way the other Sanskrit sound is similar to ‘protector’. How is the dharma protected? By constant recollection and service to it.
The word ‘strength’ can be both a potential and a result.
Here are some kinds of strength I’ve identified:
Buddha strength: the power of transcendent prescence, or images of collective consciousness to transform us through our faith in and recollection of them.
Self-strength: the ability to see through and overcome our own delusion. Applied effort to investigate and root out our afflictions. Our own vif
Samsara-strength: the force of attraction individually and collectively that leads us to attachment, anger and ignorance. From social and institutional structures, industrial complexes, prevalent ideas or just the force of our attachment leading us to them and into more.
Physical strength: Power to make, move, build, lift, push etc. the material world. Through effort applied we can build the body and make it strong.
All of these have some similarities to them- they all require effort, a reliance on a source, they grow over time or dimish by involvement in the source of the strength.
Dharma strength then would be to me:
Reliance on the paths to and the essence of truth. The source of the strength is the realization and understanding of it wih. effort in the practice and application of it. It then becomes transformative of the inner and out world.
There are all kinds of strength. Buddha strength, Dharma strength, Samsara strength, Self strength. There is the strength we receive from the authority we give to transcendent being or images of collective consciousness to transform us. There is strength from our own effort, there is the strength of our desires, anger, jealousy. What is Dharma strength? I think this is the strength from embodying the dharma itself- the power of dharma realization to transform and bring our spiritual vision into the world.
I recently made a small batch of ‘Purple Cloud Ointment’ (Zi Yun Gao or Shiunko) today. The formula originated in Ming dynasty China (1368-1644) and has been used since for a variety of skin conditions. The herbs in it promote healing of flesh and nourishing of blood while at the same time resolving heat and dampness.
It has a light herbal smell and is naturally a purple-red color due to the herbs used (zi cao-groomwell and dang gui-angelica and is in a base of locally produced sesame oil and beeswax. I portioned it into 1oz jars and will be making another batch soon. If you’d like some please let me know and I will send it to you as I enjoyed making it and plus it is very useful to have around!
I averaged the materials per 1oz to be about $4, not including whatever S&H you may need.
I will also be making another formula that focuses more on acne, sores, herpes, blisters and oozy rashes! Totally yum! I will post more about it after I make if you are interested.
Traditionally in China and Japan ‘Purple Cloud Ointment/ Zi Yun Gao’ has been used for complaints such as:
minor burns, pain
insect bites
abrasions, rashes
skin dryness, chapped lips
eczema, psoriasis
healing frost bite
wrinkles, callouses
reducing inflammation
stop itching
Fr.Lazarus El Anthony on mindfulness and recollection from a Christian perspective. How to embody teachings in daily life and encouragement to remember goodness amidst fearful and violent situations.
Seven princesses speak to their father, explaining why they wish to leave their royal life. From the palace outside to heavens within, they believe a life of sufficiency and moderation leads to true wealth and so are able to simultaneously transcend and enter the world.
For ancient travelers the Big Dipper pointed them to the Pole Star- the reference point for finding a way when one is lost. Symbolically it is believed to be on the axis of our universe and so represents the pivotal spiritual truths that remain regardless of time and place. The Big Dipper is then a relative truth, changing, spinning and turning with cycles and seasons. The Pole Star is then absolute truth, unmoving, continuity and formless expression, shining light everywhere regardless of the universe’s revolutions around it.
Often we look up high when we no longer can find our way in the world, weary from aimless travel. Seeking guidance. If we observe the earthly and heavenly worlds (both literally and figuratively as our lives and the contents of our mind-heart) in relation to one another we can find the truths to guide us spiritually. If we see the Big Dipper road inside us we can find the Pole Star in ourselves. No longer lost we become a wanderer’s guide able show a road for others to walk. This could be said to be a person’s ‘dharma’ or that which holds and supports…in finding the ‘Dharma’- that which is natural truth.
A sutra is a ‘thread, a stitch, sewn’ and in the spiritual traditions of India have referred to books or teachings by word that expound Dharma. They are threads in that they connect us to past by transmission and the future by embodiment. Threads that stitch us back together when we are fragmented and confused. When memorized and lived they sew our hearts back together and we are no longer broken. Traditionally these are the writings or words of the sagely passed from teacher to student…but even sages have found their wisdom in this very world.
Inscribed with the brush of Mt.Sumeru and the ink of the seas,
Heaven-and-Earth itself is the sutra book.
All phenomena are encompassed in even a single point therein,
And the six sense objects are all included within its covers.
-kukai
EDIFYING TALE OF THE SEVEN MAIDENS
We see worldly circumstances as unsteady, like the reflection of the moon in the water.
We see desirable objects like the shadow of the head of an angry coiled snaked.
When we see these being completely engulfed in the fire of suffering, we take ourselves to the charnel ground, O king, delighting in the thought of renunciation.
*
When will I be able to do as I wish, to shave my hair, wear rags from the rubbish heap, and retire to a solitary place?
When will I be able to beg for alms, blameless, wandering from house to house. Looking no further ahead than the length of a yoke, carrying an earthen begging bowl?
Having cleansed the swamps where the thorns of the afflictions grow, without attachment to wealth or esteem, when will I become the object of charity, for those who live in towns?
When will I become unattached to my body, rising from a bed of grass, my clothes laden with frost, living on the most basic food and drink?
When will I lie down beneath a tree, wearing clothes of soft grass as green as a parrot, to enjoy this life’s blissful feast?
When will I live in a meadow by a river, observing over and over, how the world of this life is like the coming and going of the waves?
When will I become free of desire for samsara’s pleasures, uprooting the view of the transitory collections, the mother of all wrong views?
When will I come to realize that the animate and inanimate worlds are just like dreams, hallucinations, magic shows, clouds or a city of gandharvas?
I don’t think I could answer. Trying to be a human is challenging enough and I am pretty sure there is a lot of dress up until we awaken to and manifest the activity of being a human. Call it … Continue reading
A different view on coffee and health benefits…
