Rev. Chikyo Ewan Magie: The Hidden Lamp (class 5 of 6)

Rev. Chikyo Ewan Magie presents his Fall 2024 class on The Hidden Lamp.

Transcript

I'm going to share this poem,

Kindness, by Naomi Shiav Nye, a Palestinian-American poet who lives in San Antonio,

Texas, because it really sets up the ancestor story that we're going to reflect on tonight.

Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things.

Feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go. so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating

maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian

in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you how he too was someone who journeyed through

the night with plants and the simple breath that kept him alive,

before you know kindness as the deepest

thing inside you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing you must wake up

with sorrow you must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say,

it is I you have been looking for.

And then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

So this lovely poem from the beautifully titled book, Words Under the Words,

Selected Poems, published in 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

I'll put the poem into the chat. I'll put the link there.

And you can look it up on your own time. Should you want to do that.

Back to the Zen.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome again to Prairie Mountain Zen Center in our

Fall 2024 class on The Hidden Lamp.

25 stories from 25 centuries of awakened women.

This wonderful book edited by Sue Moon and Florence Kaplow, published back in 2013.

And tonight in this fifth of six classes, we will study and reflect on one of

the more corrective, feel-good stories in the koan literature or the ancestor story literature.

The one titled Yasidara's Path, and it's modern commentary by Byakura and Judith Ruggier.

It's on pages 147 through 149.

And it is the story of Yasudhara, who was Shakyamuni Buddha's wife,

and her awakening along with that of their son, Rahula.

There are lots of ways to work with and interpret this koan,

and Byakaran gives us quite a number of ways of relating to it in her commentary.

But certainly we encounter it after knowing the traditional story of Buddha

as a kind of solo, spiritual hero kind of narrative.

By contrast, this version of the story fills in gaps and even suggests very

different interpretations overall.

As we know from the introduction, Zen is encounter, and this book is a book of meetings.

And so we are meeting Yasodhara and Rahula and Buddha in a new way through the lens of this story.

It's the kind of thing where you might even practice with the koan with a keyword

like yasodara, the name itself, or path,

any sort of little reminder keyword that is embedded into the story that might

give you a connection just by bringing it into your consciousness.

And then here in our more soto zen way, we sort of work with the koan together

and reflect on it, its various possible meanings, it's a little bit different than the Renzi method.

Here is how the story unfolds in The Hidden Land.

Yasidara was Siddhartha Gautama's wife. In one of the lesser-known stories,

Yasidara, the glorious one, and Siddhartha had been married in many previous lifetimes.

The night that Siddhartha left home, Yasidara had eight dreams that foretold

his awakening, and so she allowed him to leave her.

They made love before he left, and their son, Rahula, was conceived.

For the next six years, Yasudara remained pregnant with Rahula,

and although she did not leave home, she traveled the same spiritual path and

experienced the same difficulties as her husband, Siddhartha.

She gave birth to Rahula, moon god in this particular story,

on the full moon night of Buddha's enlightenment.

She prophesied that Siddhartha had awakened and that he would return in six years.

Later, she and her son Rahula became part of the Buddha's Sangha.

This is a profound and affirming story at the very start of Buddhism,

of our Buddha's practice, of the Buddha's Sangha.

Depending on your temperament and your perspective,

one can accept the magical qualities of extended pregnancy and the parallel

spiritual journeys that Yasidhara

undergoes despite her distance from her husband, Siddhartha, Katana.

This story not only portrays Yasudora's profound spiritual commitment and strength,

it elevates by showing how she allowed Siddhartha to leave her.

And this allowing was something that came to mind when I thought to read the poem Kindness.

It's one of my favorite poems, and it uses the repetition of before,

before you know kindness.

And eventually works around to saying, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

And we can understand that in this version of the story,

in the ancestor story, Yasidara allows Siddhartha to go and follow his quest,

knowing him as deeply and intimately as she does.

And there's also a lot of allowing in the kindness poem that we have to sort

of allow ourselves to understand kindness,

to allow eventually sorrow to penetrate our heart before we understand kindness as the deepest thing.

So this allowing is a big part of our Buddhist practice, right?

As Sue Moon says in her other book, not turning away, right?

We are not turning away even from the most difficult experiences,

the most difficult experiences.

Feelings and emotions, all of that we allow in to our practice and to our body, heart, mind.

And, you know, I would also say, as one Zen priest friend of mine likes to say,

remember that being Zen, being a Zen practitioner doesn't mean that you're a doormat either, right?

So you don't necessarily let yourself be trampled by

someone or something that has say malevolent

intent but in the course of our

everyday lives um and working

with our own emotions as we'll see biacher and judith regier uh provide in her

commentary allowing is an important component of opening to what is to just

this arising in our consciousness and our field of experience.

So again, this story as told portrays not only Yasudhara's spiritual commitment and strength,

it elevates her whole practice in letting her husband go, allowing Siddhartha to leave her.

And so in this version, Yasudhara is truly the glorious one.

A noble, unselfish woman of deep spiritual yearning herself,

who has the courage and forbearance to allow her husband to leave on the eve

of her pregnancy to pursue his solitary spiritual quest for enlightenment.

And then it becomes a story of reunion six years later, and the family then

becoming folded into the sangha, the spiritual community.

So in her initial comment, Abhyakaran of Clouds and Water in Minneapolis, St.

Paul, comments, Oh yes, yes, I smiled as I read this newly excavated version

of Buddha's home leaving, found in the Sarvastavadan literature.

I immediately felt a relaxation in my body, the release of a stress I didn't even know I was holding.

Every time i had to tell the

buddha's early story in my teaching life she means her zen teaching life i gulped

in the post-feminist world of the 21st century again she's writing in 2012 2013

here can we continue to tell stories from the past in which the women are invisible or rejected,

She leaves that as a rhetorical question, and she asks another one.

What needs to be renounced as we enter into the spiritual path?

What needs to be renounced as we enter into the spiritual path?

In the West, meaning in Western culture, Buddha's practice is often an odd combination

of monastic visits on the one hand and householder lives on the other.

She writes, when I was ordained, I was already married and had two children.

I did not leave my family, but I learned to practice with my story-filled life

by transforming the basis of operation in my mind.

I did not leave my family, but I learned to practice with my story-filled life

by transforming the basis of operation in my mind.

I have had to work with my egocentricity, my attachments,

and my clinging, and my greed, anger, and delusion, right in the middle of the

mess of household life and an urban zendo.

After 40 years of practice, I'm still practicing home leaving within the boundaries

of a home, as Yasodhara did.

This is great. This is really one of the most profound and honest shares from

a fully ordained and transmitted Soto Zen priest,

one who I have practiced with when she came out and visited Seattle Soto Zen

probably seven to ten years ago, maybe more.

However, I can attest to Biakharin's upright commitment and clarity,

and here she asks a vitally important question that we all should manifest.

What needs to be renounced as I enter the spiritual path?

Much of the time, we don't want to let go.

And in some ways, this is the attraction of Sunday churchgoing,

right, where we can feel we're getting something by going and hearing the talk,

attending the rituals, participating with the community.

But the Buddhism in the West, as transmitted in Sotizen by Akadagiri and Suzuki

Roshi, is frequently about this letting go.

Renunciation may not be on our minds the first time we step into a zendo or a temple,

instead we may be looking to get something like how to meditate how to relax

in the middle of our chaos confusion and lack of clarity,

but as Bjakaran continued she observes, right?

I had to work with my egocentricity my attachments my clinging my greed,

anger, and delusion right in the middle of the mess of household life.

To reflect so honestly in this way is at the heart of Zen practice.

We may not feel like spiritual heroes as powerful and committed as Yasudara

or Shakyamuni or Byakaran, but going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness,

as Dogen Zenji expresses it.

This race, from late in Fukan Zazengi, a fascicle that Dogen composed in roughly 1231,

a few years after his return from five years on pilgrimage in China.

Fukan Zazengi is part instruction manual, part profound spiritual reflection.

It pushes us away from notions of spiritual heroism to focus on this everyday practice.

Dogen writes, intelligence or lack of it does not matter.

Between the dull and the sharp-witted, there is no distinction.

If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the way.

Practice realization is naturally undefiled.

He hyphenates that term. Practice realization is naturally undefiled.

Going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness.

So, Biaukharen's reflections on her daily practice in householder life can be

inspiration to all of us.

She observes the nature of our rather quirky Western Zen, an odd combination

of monastic visits and householder lives.

As I share today with you, it is nearly eight years since I sat in the Tassajara

Zendo in the winter of 2017, a frozen practice period saturated by drenching

rain and periodic breezes.

The heat went out. The road was blocked.

No mail, no supplies could reach us.

But in the middle of those cold, seemingly endless days, equanimity deepened

and the heart-mind opened into a kind of clear-eyed seeing of just this.

Just this human life. Just this moment sweeping the floor.

To reflect in this way, quietly and deeply, carries us beyond our limited self.

And for this, we sit Zazen, just as Yasidara and Shakyamuni sat,

each alone on their cushions, six long years.

Their commitment to silence and stillness sits at the heart of this story.

The mystical part is their multiple marriages across multiple lifetimes,

deepening their mortal connection in this life.

From this element of the story, one can take the measure of Yasudara's calm

in the face of Siddhartha's departure, her innate understanding and compassion

for his spiritual quest.

Byakaran also comments on this in her commentary.

Yasidhartha saw in her dreams the possibility of Siddhartha's greatness.

Out of love and for the sake of the liberation of all beings, she let Siddhartha go.

This inevitable separation may have been heartbreaking truth for both of them.

This is a great example how a devastating loss can initiate the spiritual journey,

as many of us have experienced.

She continues to say, What I love about this version of the story is that it

honors the spiritual path of the home.

Yasidara, the one who stayed home, dug into her own spiritual life right where she was.

Yasidara's separation from her husband and the pregnancy she went through without

him meant she was practicing against all odds.

But our ordinary suffering can transform into wisdom and compassion.

In her concluding comments on this

story the Ocarimness acknowledges

the heartbreaking qualities of the separation that

Yasidhara and Siddhartha undertook Buddha's practice

centers on full expression and full

honest feeling of our emotions including

emotions arising in dynamic relationship just

as it is focused on honest noticing

of our physical sensations our emotions

as we noted and our thoughts and our deeply established thought patterns something

that can rise up when we are in dynamic intimate relationship where getting

to know another person intimately mirrors back to one another.

Oh, look, there's a long-established thought-habit pattern.

Look at that, that speech pattern, that habit pattern, right?

So our relationships in that way, especially combined with Zazen and Zen practice,

can mirror back with clarity all of these ways that we, say,

struggle to awaken to our true Huda nature.

The question of where we need to do this practice is one that Byakaran raises earlier in her essay.

She writes, the idea that dharma practice requires the renunciation of attachments of ordinary life,

family, and work seems to come out of the privileged and one-sided view of the

all-male founding fathers of Buddhism.

Women simply can't afford to abandon the manifested world while we are still raising our children.

It seems, she writes, that in renouncing the world, the early Buddhists made

women the so-called enemies of practice by making them the symbol of the form world.

And our allure, she says, as women, our allure, quote-unquote,

was considered dangerous to the monks.

So put bluntly, this statement challenges all of us to raise the same question in our own life.

How can I and where can I practice deeply in this very life?

And my own teacher, Shinman Michael Newton of Mountain Rain Zen in Vancouver,

British Columbia, Canada, asked me to reflect on this life co-op.

How do you want to give yourself to this world?

How do you want to give yourself to this world? It is a kind of life,

Koan, that we can take up at any moment, walking around the corner in the hallway at work,

packing out of the driveway, walking into the door with family,

wherever we are, how do I want to give myself to this world, to this moment? it.

Whether we are householders or monks or both, whether we practice in a temple

in the world or in a remote mountain monastery,

inevitably, we will be in intimate relationship with other beings and therefore

need to ask, how and where can I practice deeply in this very life?

And this is one reason why Zen, we're often bowing in the moment,

right? Because we're practicing in that moment.

We're honoring the Buddha nature in ourself and other, even in our cushion,

in all beings, in the little bird that lands on the little branch in front of us in the snow.

How can I practice deeply in this moment?

And so this might mean renunciation of certain distractions, right?

Like maybe habitually checking the election results in the middle of the night,

like some person did, not being able to set down distractions and making things

worse for myself with worry.

It might be renunciation of habit patterns of body, speech, heart,

mind, especially when we're in intimate relationship with our loved ones.

It might mean renunciation of many other distracting elements to go towards

a deeper reflective engagement with our practice.

Often, we need to sit zazen in order to deepen our stillness and our silence,

to allow our reactivity and defensiveness to settle and pass away as all things do,

being impermanent by their very nature.

All birth is magic, writes Biakaran in her concluding paragraph. All birth is magic.

And we are right to wonder what we are giving birth to as we enter and deepen

our spiritual practice, moment by moment, year by year, in this stage of our life and in the next.

Byakaran comments, When I first had my babies, I laughed and told all my friends,

child rearing is just like going into a monastery.

Everything you do is for the other. And there is hardly a moment to think for yourself.

Another Buddhist teacher who was a father commented, watching the child run

around, it's like my heart is running around outside my body.

All right, just observing your beautiful little one running around.

It's like my heart is running around outside my body.

The ocarine concludes, becoming a mother completely connected me to the mystery

of life. I could no longer be self-centered, and my heart burst open.

Trust is the companion to

resilience courage and commitment in

this ancestor story about yasadara and siddhartha without trust neither of them

could have persevered to awakening let alone the reunion and sangha-based practice

that manifested on the far side of their separation,

But this isn't blind faith.

Rather, it is trust grounded in sustained verification over time as we practice.

So we can ask, as we go forward, each of us in our own places,

in our own practice, are we practicing in a community and in a practice that

opens us into wisdom and compassion?

In this particular community, am I able to deepen into silence and stillness

such that my eye of compassion, wisdom, and insight opens to see self and other clearly?

How can I find the practices that enable me to open more fully and comprehensively?

As we go forward practicing together, ask yourself these questions and remember

Yasuda's story as a reminder of love,

opening in service to the very wide world of the myriad beings. Thank you.