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Sunday, July 21

9:45 AM: Zen Shin Sangha: Give yourself a moment of contemplation and self-reflection by quiet sitting, guided meditation, and sutra chanting. We sit to calm our mind and body in order to focus on the present moment revealing our profound connection to all beings. All levels, including beginners/families welcome.

10:30 AM: Shin Buddhist Service

• Shin Buddhist Sangha Gathering and Service
• July Memorial Service: Expressing gratitude to our ancestors who passed away in the month of July.

Following the Service:

Following coffee and cake we will discuss a short reading - Handouts of text provided.

Dhammapada
Dhammapada, a collection of verses of Shakyamuni Buddha

From what’s loved is born grief,

from what’s love is born fear.

For one freed from what’s loved,

there is no grief.

      – so how fear?

From delight is born grief,

from delight is born fear.

For one freed from delight

there’s no grief.

      – so how fear?

From sensuality is born grief,

from sensuality is born fear.

For one freed from sensuality

there’s no grief.

      – so how fear?

From craving is born grief,

from craving is born fear.

For one freed from craving

there’s no grief.

      –so how fear?

Americans will celebrate 248 years of independence from Great Britain on July 4. It was on that date in 1776 that the revolutionaries signed the declaration of independence. It wasn’t until 1783 that the war ended when Great Britain signed of the Treaty of Paris recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the United States. What about independence from our ego-centric self?

The Where’s Waldo search and find puzzles “concern how individuals can rapidly learn to search a scene to detect, attend, recognize, and look at a valued target object in it.”¹ That valued object may be as complex as a people trying to free themselves from colonial control or as simple as finding Waldo. Or, it can be finding the path leading to Nirvana.

Sometimes, finding that path is as frustrating as trying to find Waldo in a dense graphic. But it does not have to be. There are many paths that can be found on many trailheads, near and far. Buddhism has many sects, both in Theravada and Mahayana traditions. Shin Buddhism is from the Pure Land School in the Mahayana tradition. There are 60 Shin Temples affiliated with the Buddhist Churches of America and many offer live zoom services if you don’t live in the neighborhood. But this is not the only path. In fact, your path may not even be a Buddhist one.

What is important in life is becoming aware of, and then, recognizing the valued target object. Without that first awareness, the true meaning and joy we may have will always just be beyond our reach, maybe it will be tomorrow or the following day, but never today.

Our independence will be from our own self, our ego-self. The three jewels or the three treasures in Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Shakyamuni Buddha became aware of the reality of this world. The Dharma contains those realities. The third jewel and treasure is the Sangha – you and me. Together we find that trailhead to the path and support and encourage one another as we travel upon it.

At our Cleveland Buddhist Temple Sangha we learn from each other, we see ourselves in each other and we learn to accept one another without judging. As we do this, we learn to accept our self, just as we are. We may not always find Waldo but we can always seek to find our path, the path to awakening, our path of independence from our ego-centric self.

Namo Amida Butsu

Namo Amida Butsu

Namo Amida Butsu

Rev. Anita

¹https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060746/#:~:text=The%20Where's%20Waldo%20problem%20concerns,valued%20target%20object%20in%20it.

All Dharma Agrees At One Point

In this case, dharma has nothing to do with the philosophical term dharma, or “things as they are”; dharma here simply means “teachings.” We could say that all teachings are basically a way of subjugating or shedding our ego. And depending on how much the lesson of the subjugation of ego is taking hold in us, that much reality is presented to us. All dharmas that have been taught are connected with that. There is no other dharma. No other teachings exist, particularly the Buddha.

In this particular journey the practitioner can be put on a scale, and his or her commitment can be measured. It is like the scale of justice: if your ego is very heavy, you go down if your ego is light, you go up. So giving up our personal project of ego – aggrandizement and attaining the impersonal project of enlightenment depends on how heavy-handed or how open you are.

Whether teachings are hinayana or mahayana, they all agree. The purpose of all of them is simply to overcome ego. Otherwise, there is no purpose at all. Whatever sutras, scriptures, or commentaries on the teachings of Buddhism you read, they should all connect with your being and be understood as ways of taming your ego. This is one of the main differences between theism and non-theism. Theistic traditions tend to build up an individual substance of some kind, so that you can then step out and do your own version of so-called bodhisattvic actions. But in the nontheistic Buddhist tradition, we talk in terms of having no being, no characteristics of ego hood, and therefore being able to perform a much broader version of bodhisattva activity altogether.

The hinayana version of taming ego is to cut through the sloppiness and wandering mind by the application of shamatha discipline, or mindfulness. Shamatha practice cuts through the fundamental mechanism of ego, which is that ego has to maintain itself by providing lots of subconscious gossip and discursive thoughts. Beyond that, the vipashyana principle of awareness also allows us to cut through our ego. Being aware of the whole environment and bringing that into our basic discipline allows us to become less self-centered and more in contact with the world around us, so there is less reference points to “me” and “my” – ness.

In the mahayana, when we begin to realize the bodhisattva principal practicing bodhichitta, our concern is more with warmth and skillfulness. We realize we have nothing to hang on to in ourselves, so we can give away each time. The basis of such compassion is

nonterritoriality, non-ego, no ego at all. If you have that, then you have compassion. Then further warmth and workability and gentleness take place as well. “All dharmas agree at one point” means that if there is no ego-clinging, that all dharmas are one, all teachings are one. This is compassion.

In order to have…

Excerpt in gratitude from: Chögyam Trungpa. Training the Mind, (Boulder, Shambhala, 2003)

Photo by Osman Yunus Bekcan 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/

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