Zen Master Wu Bong gave Dharma Transmission on 27th April at the Berlin Zen Center to Mukyong JDPSN, who becomes Zen Master Ji Kwang.  Our congratulations to the new Zen Master and to the teachers and students of the German Sangha on this happy event.  We all look forward to meeting Zen Master Ji Kwang, who will continue leading retreats around Europe.

The Sanskrit word for this is dukha. It is often translated as “suffering,” but what is really means is pervasive, at times unbearable, dissatisfaction.

When we are aware of this inner noise, this dukha, we naturally want it to stop. We think there is some other state we should be in – calm, peace or even nirvana. We go looking for it. We try this and we try that, and now and then we do feel peaceful; we do feel calm. And it feels really good.

So we try to hold onto this feeling. We become anxious that something will interfere with our morning cup of coffee, our five-mile run. Which just increases our feeling of dukha.

It’s like the Gordian knot – you can’t untie it. But you can cut through it.
Don’t be distracted by inner peace. Don’t be distracted by anxiety. Don’t be distracted by anything. What are you doing right now? What is in front of you right now? Pay attention, see clearly and act correctly.

It’s simple, but not easy. Our delusions mislead us. Our thoughts and feelings control us. We don’t know who we are.

Some kind of practice, a daily practice over a lifetime, is necessary to cut through all this. And not in isolation, but within a community, to cut through self-absorption and delusion.

What kind of practice? It’s up to you. My great-grandmother davened (Jewish prayer) every morning. My mother-in-law went to Mass every morning. I meditate every morning. Find what fits. Then do it, if you’ll excuse the
expression, religiously.

Bullock, J., & Roitman, J. (2005, June 25). Faith Forum: How do you find inner peace? Lawrence Journal World. Retrieved March 6, 2012, http://www.LJworld.com/

Each one of us brings all of our conditioning right into this moment, but we don’t see it. We see a reflection of it in the world around us, so we judge, and we try to fit the world into our image. What doesn’t fit, we don’t like, and what does fit, we like.

So in that sense, we make our own suffering. Or in that sense of urgency, you might say we make our own hell. We think of hell as something that comes to us after we die, but really we’re making our own hell right here, right now. We are all guilty of it, nobody escapes. Through practice, we can find our way through it. Through practice, through wisdom, through our own experience, we can begin to break out of the hell that we make when our conditions make the hell of our lives.

http://www.kwanumzen.org/about-us/galleries/buddhas-enlightenment-day-2011/

Every day people are born. Every day people die.

[Raises Zen stick over his head, then hits table with stick.] 

The Buddha understood this point and realized there is no life, no death.

[Raises Zen stick over his head, then hits table with stick.] 

Life is life, death is death.

KATZ!

Happy Buddha’s Enlightenment Day!

We all know the story. Siddhartha Gautama was sitting under the Bodhi tree, he looked up, saw the morning star and boom!  He got enlightenment. And ever since this story has been an inspiration to spiritual seekers because, let’s face it, we believe the Buddha got something and we want to get what he got. Did he really get anything? Even before he saw the morning star he already had a taste of enlightenment at the banks of the Niranjana river.

Siddhartha had been practicing very hard for many years. He had been following the advice from many different teachers that told him that in order to find the answer he was looking for he need it to give up worldly pleasures and subjugate his body. To this end, he exposed himself to the elements, endured many trials, and brought himself almost to the point of self-destruction. He was really, really thin and weak, nothing but skin and bones. So much so that he almost drowned when he bathed in the Niranjana river. In one version of the story, Sujata, a girl from the nearby village, seeing how famished he was said to him, “It looks like you are really hungry, can I bring you some food?” Siddhartha asked what her name was and, in a Zen like style, said, “Sujata, I am very hungry. Can you really appease my hunger?”  Perhaps he was not only referring to his physical hunger but also to his spiritual hunger. Sujata nodded, offered him milk and rice pudding, and told him that “Yes, this will appease your hunger.” I like to imagine that what Sujata offered him was a delicious bowl of kheer, the nice rice dessert that you can find at an Indian restaurant.

The moment Siddharta tasted Sujata’s offering he had a profound realization: he had been too hard on himself. You can imagine how good that kheer must have tasted after eating very little for many years. He probably felt good, happy, thankful. He felt his strength coming back. At the first taste he understood cause-and-effect; he attained just like this: when hungry eat, when tired sleep. That, for me, was Siddhartha’s first taste, literally, of enlightenment.

Today we celebrate Buddha’s enlightenment. But what did he attain? Under the Boddhi tree Buddha realized that the body has life and death but original nature has no life or death. After six years of strong practice he understood himself 100%. The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng, on the other hand, lived a simple life and attained enlightenment after hearing one sentence from the Diamond Sutra: “Do not become attach to any thoughts that arise in the mind”. At that moment, he also understood himself 100%. He told the Fifth Patriarch, “Human Beings have North and South, but in Buddha nature is there North and South?” Buddha saw a star and got enlightenment, Hui Neng heard a sentence and got enlightenment. Are these the same or different?

In Zen we talk a lot about life and death and sometimes we may take this literally. But life and death happen in this moment, right in front of our eyes. “Life and death” point to the never-ending appearance and disappearance of phenomena. If you pay attention when you are sitting in meditation, and even sometimes in your daily life, you will notice that thoughts appear and thoughts disappear, that feelings appear and feelings disappear, that impulses appear and impulses disappear, that sounds appear and sounds disappear.

In the Wake-Up sermon Bodhidharma said, “Sages don’t consider the past. And they don’t worry about the future.” At some level we understand that yes, the past is gone and the future is not yet here, and that all we have is the present, or so we think. Bodhidharma continues,  “Nor do they cling to the present.”  That is a very interesting point: we have to let go even of the present.  How do we not cling to the present? He concludes, “And from moment to moment they follow the Way.” Moment to moment; sounds familiar? If we keep a clear mind then each moment is enough, each action is complete. Moment by moment there is no life, no death. Moment by moment just like this is the truth.

The star that the Buddha saw is still up in the sky. I hope that tonight you remember to look up and, without thinking, see it as for the first time.

[Raises Zen stick over his head, then hits table with stick.] 

A star appears. Is that birth?

[Raises Zen stick over his head, then hits table with stick.] 

A star disappears. Is that death?

[Raises Zen stick over his head, then hits table with stick.] 

The sky itself is beyond birth and death.

KATZ!

Watch your step on the way out.

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