21600 Shaker Blvd, Shaker Heights, OH 44122

Our Next Shin Buddhist Service - January 17, 2023

Sunday, January 17 Service:

• 9:45 AM: Sitting mediation, all levels, including beginners
• 10:30 AM: Shin Buddhist Sangha Gathering and Service: Rev. Anita Tokuzen Kazarian, January Memorial Service

Following the Service: Coffee service followed by Exploring Buddhism. An informal gathering for those who hear more about basic Buddhism. You are free to participate or not, it is up to you. We will read and discuss a short selection from Dr. Taitetsu Unno’s book River of Fire, River of Water. If you own a copy please bring it with you, if you do not, a copy to share will be available. This is free and open to everyone who attends the service.

Dhammapada

Dhammapada, a collection of verses of Shakyamuni Buddha

We begin to relax when we appreciate the world from a Buddhist perspective, one that is not fixed. As I reread Rev. Miyagi’s thoughts on “other world” (see Nightstand Buddhist below) three fundamental Buddhist concepts came to mind

• that nothing exists on its own
• sūnyatā (emptiness)
• all is in relations to all else – interconnectedness

One way to understand “this world/other world” may be as construct. But what about what we see, touch and can feel right here, right now? How do we know what we are seeing is what we think we are seeing? Isn’t everything made up of parts? And the more we zoom in on things, on anything, the more parts we find? And, when we zoom in enough, what we find is empty space, lots of it, between the parts. In other words, the more we magnify and zoom in on something that something disappears and we are left with what looks like empty space. Three everyday items are below, any clue? (the two on the right are the same “thing.”)

The more we zoom in to learn about them, the less remains of what they were when we first started. They are, left to right, an apple, salt crystals, and an onion. The apple is magnified to the cellular level with stains, and the onion cells magnified to different magnifications. We also discover that in nature and elsewhere, we find infinitely repeating patterns as we delve deeper and deeper into magnification, such as with trees, peacock feathers, the human lung and others. These are called fractals.

As humans we want things to be as they are, recognizable, unchanging and reliable. The only changes we willingly allow are ones we deem proper. We want to forget that we live in a world of illusion, that there are infinite ways of looking at these illusions and, that are themselves always is flux. Sayings like ‘you can’t tell a book by its cover,” or “not everything is black or white,” are reminders that we truly do not see what we think we are seeing. We may only be seeing what we want or expect to see.

During these last seven days of 2022 may I begin to appreciate more how the person sitting next to me sees a world very differently than I do. May I appreciate that even I am not seeing all that is there to see. And, may we all grow in compassion to our self and to others.

Namo Amida Butsu

In gassho

Rev. Anita

rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com

PS: If interested: Explore the Mandelbrot fractal yourself, with the amazing real-time fractal zoomer, XaoS: http://xaos-project.github.io/...

Excerpts of Buddhist voices across teachings, across continents, across time.

This World

and the

Other World

by

Rev. Nobuo Miyagi

Gardena Buddhist Church

I would like to introduce an old Japanese genre of literature called Shinju – mono that focuses on stories of young couples who fall in love but are not allowed to marry each other. Because they are not allowed to marry each other, the couple chooses to commit suicide. These stories however, usually end with a couple expecting and promising to marry each other in the “other world,” before they take their life.

Like these stories, we believe there are two world around us: this world, and the other world. This world means the world we are living in. The other world refers to the world where we will go after this world. This world exists now, and the other world does not. We will go to the other world after we die.

Many people believe in the world of ghosts. that world is described as a scary world. You might think that my essay is talking about this kind of scary world. But that is not the case. The other world that I am mentioning is completely different from this kind of scary “other world.” “Other world” simply means the world that is not “this world.” To use the expression, “other world” means that there is a world absolutely different from this world. However, there are no two worlds around us. There are no two different worlds like the world of hell and the world of heaven. There is only one world around us, but it looks like there are two worlds coexisting.

Let me explain by using an example. Let’s take the example of a cup of water. For one person, it is something to wet their mouth or quench their thirst. In this case, water is sweet. For a fish, water is a house to dwell in. For a fly, it becomes a dangerous weapon that could kill them. For a painter, it is something to use to wash your paintbrush. Here, the same cup of water can be sweet, a home, a weapon, or a tool. Depending on the perspective, depending on who perceives the water, it can become at least four different things. It can play for different roles.

In the same manner, there is no difference between this world and the other world. It can be a hell for one person, or a Pure Land for another, depending on the person who is seeing it. However, regardless of who is doing the seeing, it is originally just one world. In Buddhism, “Oneness.”

According to this truth, we cannot go back and forth between this world and the other world or between hell and the Pure Land. We can’t go to the other world by leaving this world of suffering because we would only be going back and forth in this one and only world. From the eye of wisdom of the Buddha, this world is the Pure Land, but from the eyes of the unenlightened foolish being, this world is hell. There are no two different worlds. We see only two kinds of worlds because of our eyes that are tainted by delusion. But with awakened eyes we can be free and live and enjoy this world as the Pure Land, as the world of Buddha.

Excerpt from: Buddhist Churches of America, Southern District Temples Trifold.

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

Supervising Minister

Rev. Ron Miyamura

Resident Tokudo Minister

Rev. Anita Tokuzen Kazarian - rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com

Buddha Post is published by the Cleveland Buddhist Temple, 21600 Shaker Blvd, Shaker Heights, OH 44122 

The Cleveland Buddhist Temple is an affiliate of the Buddhist Churches of America, founded in 1899: 

https://www.buddhistchurchesofamerica.org/