Buddhadarma

Buddhadharma

-What is the essential meaning of buddhadharma?
Shitou replied, “No gaining, no knowing”
Daowu asked again, “Can you say anything further?”
Shitou answered, “The expansive sky does not obstruct the floating white clouds”
Dialogue between Chinese master Shitou Xiqian and disciple Tianhuang Daowu


Because our society is so focused around the individual we are led to believe that individual lives have no impact on society. As a consequence we do not worry about our impact, both positive and negative, and instead concentrate our efforts on satiating our endless desires and on our direct surroundings. But is that the reality of life? Kosho Uchiyama, I think, makes a very truthful observation, he wrote, “we are still children who want to play with toys, but are we willing to face the reality of life, live the true self, that is not compare ourselves to others.” This is tantamount to our way of life, so many things are geared toward the accumulation of new toys, that is, new cars, new phones, computers fashionable clothes the list is endless. The result is a society of over-consumption and of waste. what has come of the invaluable things, the have been relegated to a position of futility, or integrated to our pursuit of ever lasting play.
An indication of that is the commodification of an ever increasing number of things, we try to integrate the immaterial into worldly material. There is a saying that states the following, “gaining is delusion, losing is enlightenment.” This implies a lot, but it is fairly clear, we are not better off by accumulating things, we only build up our ego and boost our desires for more, instead when we lose we relieve this pressure, feel more liberated and in the end it does not feel like we've lost anything. When we lose something we become aware of something else that is ever present, by not focusing so much on the self we become more aware of the whole, we become closer to our true self represented by the enigmatic expression coined by Sawaki Roshi, “Self making the self out of the self.” No matter what your belief are, I believe this is something anyone can strive to come closer to.

When the quarrel over water
Reaches its peak
–a sudden rain

Now, this having been said there is a strong connection between this notion of the self and the issue I am concerned with here. “For us as bodhisattvas” wrote Uchiyama Roshi “all aspects of life, including the fate of humanity itself, live within us.” This can sound obvious or preposterous, but in the end it doesn't matter because we cannot deny that it is the aggregation of all our lives that shape our individual lives, so in other words my future is shaped by you and I shape yours. With respect to the poem above this uncovers an incredible potential that is found withing every one of us. We tend to fight over a lot of things, we want to appropriate them for ourselves, to satisfy our egocentric desires. This arises from our thinking in dichotomous terms, there is an “I” and a “you” that are fundamentally different, but as soon as we think in other terms, there is no “I” or “you” for we are one and the same then the problem solves itself immediately. Hence, people fight to get water for their plantation to secure their own good, but when the fight is at its peak with no possible reconciliation in view, rain pours and the problem disappears of itself, this means coming to the realization that there is not enough for everybody, but that everybody will be better off if we work together instead of working against each other. Isn't there some relevancy to the what we presently witness in our world?