Recently I completed the frieze above the altar at the priory. A clear blue sky with banked clouds. The following article comes from, and is based, around this.
Above the altar and the Buddha seated upon it is a clear blue sky with brilliant dignified clouds. Whilst perceiving the clouds as clouds, we know also that our life is the clarity within the clouds just as Manjusri isn’t separate to the beast he sits upon. Manjusri shows an acceptance of the beast and is not pushing it away. Acknowledgement and acceptance of the beast helps us to empathise with and know that it isn’t separate to true nature. The sun is always shining whether we perceive clouds or not. There is that which pure from the first, untainted, yet to deny the beast or the clouds is to miss the point. To awaken to this reality is to see that we ourselves create clouds in our own image. The cloud or the beast is not a threat. It can’t harm us, it has no substance. What we perceive is a reflection of accumulations. Past conditioning, which if believed, can drive us to see and behave from fear, anxiety, pride or whatever it is for you in any moment. Yet there is always space in between where we can see that all isn’t as solid as we may have thought. Putting ourselves to the centre of life and seeing everything from a single centred perspective tends to us directing everything we perceive from this spectrum.
When we see through this mist things are less clear. We assume and guess at what is ahead rather than look at what is there in front of us. We project problems and difficulties which are just reflections of the self. In turn this helps and assists the self to keep hardening rather than soften .Zazen shows that the light illumines in any case. Whatever ‘hell’ we see, is illuminated. Whatever world we feel we inhabit it always has a Buddha at it’s centre. We see the mind clouding and judging and simultaneously realising that this is not how it is. To intuitively realise this apparant paradox is to step forward, or more accurately, go deeper. Sitting is a natural activity and it shows us that no more is required in that moment to see. To return to our true home and sit in repose is to know that this moment is bright and illuminated and we need to look no further. Whether we can see is not the issue it is awakening to this reality and trusting that seeing is possible.
The clouds are not separate to the illumination. Above the altar there is a sea of dignity and brilliance. The sky is clear and the clouds are part of it. If we see the clouds as obscuring they will remain opaque. Clouds are just droplets of water. They come and go dependent upon conditions. Try to grasp a cloud in your hand and you can’t. The clear sky is within the cloud.
To live as best we can from the place of meditation we help ourselves in not judging and separating and to see and acknowledge that harm comes from suffering. When we create harm it is because we are clinging to something that we still feel needs defending. Something that we still see as fully part of ourselves, an extension of who we are. Letting go of body and mind completely is to know that there is nothing to cling to. It may be a glimpse in a moment, yet its impact can be revolutionary. To experience falling away is to know that this is supported. A falling into rather than out of. To trust the next step when we can’t see what that will bring is not beyond us.
None of this done alone. If it is awakened to apart from all things then it isn’t true or real. Awakening is awakening at one and the same time as all things. It isn’t our awakening, which is isolated. Awakening is being aware that all is awakened. When someone awakens we share that joy because it is not owned by anyone.
” All the buddhas have completed their practice, become one with the Way, and attained enlightenment. How are we to understand the identity of ourselves and the buddhas? The practice and attainment of buddhahood must be one with the whole world and all sentient beings.’
Great Master Dogen; ‘Only Buddha together with Buddha’ Yuibutsu – yobutsu
Training and enlightenment are one. Zazen is enlightened action, enlightened action is to live from the precepts. There is nothing to gain. To be illumined by the light of zazen is to do zazen, and zazen is to do nothing, because we don’t do zazen, zazen does us.