Baha'i

“The Bahá'í Faith is the youngest of the world's independent religions, marking its origin in 1844. In the century and a half since then it has spread around the globe, gaining adherents in 235 countries and territories. Its five million members are drawn from over 2,100 ethnic, racial and tribal groups, making it one of the most diverse organizations in the world.

Bahá'ís believe in one God who is unknowable in His essence, who created the universe and all that it contains and from whom all creation continuously emanates.

Because God is unknowable, He has out of His love for us sent Messengers to teach us about Him and to provide guidance for our lives, both as individuals and as societies. God will never leave us without His guidance. He has sent these Messengers from the beginning and will continue to send them, at approximately one thousand-year intervals, for as long as mankind endures. All the world's religions were established by these Messengers. Thus, all religions are in their essence one, successive stages in a never-ending cycle of progressive revelation. Although outwardly they appear to differ, inwardly they all teach the same basic truths. Their apparent differences are to be attributed to the differing requirements and capacities of the people for whom they were revealed. Bahá'ís accept Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh as Messengers of God.

There is only one human race. All people are one, regardless of racial, ethnic, economic, national or religious background. Our differences lend strength and beauty to humanity and should not be a cause for division and hatred. Accordingly, all forms of prejudice must be eliminated, the equality of women must be firmly established, extremes of wealth and poverty must be eliminated and everyone must receive an education. Bahá'ís actively pursue these and other humanitarian goals as means for advancing the unity of humanity.

The time for world peace is now at hand. The rulers of the world must fix borders and levels of armaments, then practice collective security to reduce the threat of war. A universal auxiliary language must be chosen to facilitate communication among all the world's peoples. A model for a future global society is found in the Bahá'í administration, which provides for nonpolitical elections, a spiritual process of consultation and unified action once decisions are made. Governments can take the first steps to reduce the threat of war, but only through the global application of Bahá'u'lláh's principles will a true and lasting peace, "the Most Great Peace," be established. As hard as it may be to envision this happening right now, world peace is not only possible but inevitable.

Individual spiritual practice includes daily prayer, study of the Holy Writings and a brief period of fasting in March of each year. Bahá'í communities gather once each 19 days for worship, consultation on community affairs and socializing. There is no clergy, so worship consists primarily of reading from the Holy Writings, often with musical interludes or accompaniment.
The spiritual principles which govern Bahá'í life are much the same as those found in other religions. Honesty, trustworthiness, courtesy, purity of motive, charity, justice, love and unity are all enjoined. Backbiting is forbidden. Because there is no clergy, every Bahá'í has a duty to teach others about the religion. When teaching, Bahá'ís must use tact and wisdom, and avoid both proselytizing and argument.”

“One of the most important things that Bahá'u'lláh did was to make it clear that the quest for personal spiritual development (the mystical quest) is the central concern of religion. This is something that has not always been clear in other religions. In the majority orthodox interpretation of Judaism and both Sunni and Shi`i Islam for example, the central concern of the religion is the following of a Holy Law, the correct performance of rituals and the correct pattern of life. Bahá'u'lláh annuls most of the provisions of the Holy Law, saying in effect that such rigid frameworks were necessary in the childhood of humanity but now that humanity has reached maturity, decisions on the pattern of one's life should be left to the ethical judgement and sense of dignity and moderation of the individual. Instead, he refocuses the energies of the followers of his religion on the spiritual development of the individual. From now on, the mystic quest is to be everyone's concern. Using the term that in Sufism signifies the mystical union of the lover and the Beloved (wisál), Bahá'u'lláh calls this day, "the Day whereon the Finger of majesty and power hath opened the seal of the Wine of Reunion (wisál), and called all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth."

Thus while the mystical quest is a religious interest of a minority in other religions (the members of Sufi orders, the ascetics in Hinduism, the monks in Christianity and Judaism, etc.), in the Bahá'í Faith, it becomes a central concern of the whole community. While in other religions, separate communities need to be set up in order to cater for the minority who wish to pursue the mystical quest (Sufi orders, Christian and Buddhist monastic communities), in the Bahá'í Faith, the whole community is engaged in the mystical quest and thus the Bahá'í community itself is the mystic community. The Bahá'í administrative order thus becomes the organization of a mystic community.”

"The Seven Valleys is a book written in Persian by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. The book follows the path of the soul on a spiritual journey passing through different stages, from this world to other realms which are closer to God, as first described by the 12th Century Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar in his Conference of the Birds. The stages are accomplished in order, and the goal of the journey is to follow "the Right Path", "abandon the drop of life and come to the sea of the Life-Bestower", and "gaze on the Beloved". In the conclusion of the book, he mentions: "These journeys have no visible ending in the world of time, but the severed wayfarer—if invisible confirmation descend upon him and the Guardian of the Cause assist him—may cross these seven stages in seven steps, nay rather in seven breaths, nay rather in a single breath, if God will and desire it."

The valley of search is described as the first step that a seeker must take in his path. Bahá'u'lláh states that the seeker must cleanse his heart, and not follow the paths of his forefathers. It is explained that ardour and patience are required to traverse this valley.

The next valley is the "Valley of Love". Bahá'u'lláh describes how love burns away reason, causing pain, madness and single minded endeavour. He writes that the fire of love burns away the material self, revealing instead the world of the spirit.

The Valley of Knowledge is the knowledge of God, and not one based on learning; it is explained that pride in one's knowledge and accomplishments often disallows one to reach true understanding, which is the knowledge of God. It is explained that the seeker, when in this valley, begins to understand the mysteries contained within God's revelation, and finds wisdom in all things including when faced with pain and hardship, which he understands to be God's mercy and blessing. This valley is called the last limited valley.

The next stage is the valley of unity, and it is explained that the seeker now sees creation not by its limitations, but sees the attributes of God in all created things. The seeker, it is written, is detached from earthly things, is not concerned with his own self and has no ego; instead he praises God for all of creation.

The next valley for the seeker is the valley of contentment, where it is explained, that the seeker becomes independent from all things, and even though he may look poor or is subjected to suffering, he will be endowed with wealth and power from the spiritual worlds and will inwardly be happy. Happiness is explained to be the attribute of the true believer, and it cannot be achieved by obtaining material things, since material things are transitory.

In the valley of wonderment the seeker, it is written, is struck dumb by the beauty of God; the seeker becomes conscious of the vastness and glory of creation, and discovers the inner mysteries of God's revelation. Being led from one mystery of creation to the next, it is explained that the seeker continues to be astonished by the works of God.

The final valley is the valley of true poverty and absolute nothingness, and it is the furthermost state that the mystic can reach. The seeker, it is explained is poor of all material things, and is rich in spiritual attributes. It is explained that it is the state of annihilation of self in God, but not an existential union: the essences of God's self and the mystic's self remain distinct, in contrast to what appears to be a complete union in other traditions.” ~ Wikipedia

Photos ~ Bahá'u'lláh
            ~ Bahá'í House of Worship, Wilmette, Illinois

Recognize Freedom

“Narcissism is a direct consequence of the lack or disturbance of self-realization. It is the most specific consequence of this lack or disturbance, and can be completely resolved only through realization of all aspects and levels of the self. When one is self-realized, one is consciously identified with the most true, real nature of the self. We cannot present here any simple, common-sense description of that true nature; exploring it has occupied philosophers and mystics for centuries. Narcissism involves being identified with relatively superficial aspects of the self, as opposed to being aware of one’s identity as Being. This identification with superficial aspects of the self results in a feeling of alienation. The only complete resolution of this alienation, and of narcissism, is the realization of one’s truest, deepest nature.

In order to contact the deeper truth of who we are, we must engage in some activity or practice that questions what we assume to be true about ourselves. Psychological methods, as well as spiritual and certain religious ways of inquiring into the nature of the self, all have in common processes of seeing through illusions—inaccurate beliefs about oneself, about other people, and about the world. With a deeper appreciation of the nature of the self, psychology could take these processes much further, expanding both the theoretical understanding of self and its usefulness for the healing and support of human development. Also, the methods and results of spiritual traditions could be made much more effective if they utilized the detailed understanding of the nature and development of the egoic self that has been so effectively explored by self psychology and object relations theory.

That there are dimensions to human experience other than those of conventional reality is universally known. Most of us have had profound experiences involving religious insight, deep self-awareness, or some other opening into a realm of Being not generally seen. Visual art, music, and literature aspire to enable us to see or feel aspects of the world or of ourselves without the usual veils. We have been moved by moments of awareness of a larger reality or an unseen force, or by visions or insights, that cannot be explained within the conventional concept of the self. Love and wonder, a sense of light and grace, and peak experiences of oneness in nature are all insights into deeper dimensions of reality.

In addition to appreciating these more commonly experienced deeper dimensions, it is also possible to become aware of the more specifically spiritual dimensions of the human self, what could be called the true human qualities: selfless love, radiant joy, inner strength and will, brilliance and clarity of mind. These qualities are universally acknowledged and valued aspects of ourselves that we can at least participate in occasionally. Most of the current concepts of depth psychology cannot account for these experiences, and bodies of work which do address these levels of experience, such as Jung’s, are generally not informed by the detailed understanding of narcissism which is part of ego psychology. This situation, however, is in the process of changing, and the present work is our contribution to that change. Even though the existence of the deeper and more expanded dimensions of experience can be easily verified personally by anyone who engages seriously in any of the myriad spiritual practices, and even though there are indeed whole centuries-long bodies of scholarship in which these dimensions are explored in detail by communities of mystics, philosophers, artists and writers, still, the current conventional mind, including the perspective that dominates modern psychology, considers such realms of experience unscientific or unverifiable.

It is true that the deeper, or spiritual, dimensions of experience are not normally accessible to everyday consciousness. But this is true of many realms of experience. With respect to physical reality, for instance, it took the use of specialized instruments and a body of scientific insight to reveal that the physical world is made up more of space than of solid matter, and that the nature of solid matter is not what it appears to superficial perception. The conventional, “obvious” opaqueness and solidity of the physical world is a limited experience; it is only the way things appear. By analogy, then, if the psychological researcher insists on validating only the standard levels of the self’s experience, concerned merely with disturbances in this conventional experience, we will not end up with a true science of the self, but at best, with something like folklore. A trained psychology professional can see and understand psychological phenomena that are invisible and most unlikely sounding to the rest of us. He might be aware of more objectively real aspects of the self that are invisible to his patients. However, even this greater depth of insight is limited by the prevailing psychological concepts of the self, which do not include or explain what other systems know about the self. In the next chapter we will explore a more complete view of the nature of the self and its relationship to narcissism.

In order to pursue our exploration of self-realization, we must elucidate how we are using the word self. Our use of the word is unusual in that it refers to an actual ontological presence, not a construct. This emphasis on the actual presence of what is here as the self-, rather than on the content of the constructed aspects of the field of awareness, is a crucial aspect of our method of exploration and of our theoretical view.

In our view, the self is a living organism that constitutes a field of perception and action. This is what we call “soul.” Fundamentally, it is an organism of consciousness, a field of awareness capable of what we call experience - experience of the world and of self-reflective awareness of itself. In this book we will use the words soul and self somewhat interchangeably; the meaning of either word is always that defined above. Our understanding of soul is not that it is a split off or special part of the self that is more esoteric or ethereal or spiritual than any other elements. We use the word soul to describe the entire organism. This usage reflects the fact that the deepest perception of the self reveals that the entire Being of the self is of the same nature as that which, in conventional reality, is relegated to the spiritual or the divine. As our discussion progresses we will sometimes use self and soul in slightly different ways. We will predominantly use the word self, however, because its connotation can include many aspects of the total self, including its structures. We will use the word soul more to connote the dynamic, alive presence of the self as distinguished from the structures of the self which pattern this presence.

It is important to allow a slight ambiguity in our use of these words in order for our understanding to be faithful to the deeper perspective. The soul, as an alive conscious presence, is ultimately not separate from the structures which form the ego. It is when they are taken as the self’s identity that these structures alienate the soul’s experience from awareness of its true nature. The most striking aspects of this organism which is the self, or soul, are its malleability, sensitivity, intelligence, and dynamism. The soul can take many forms; it is not a rigid structure but a flowing, conscious presence with certain inherent capacities and faculties. The soul learns and the soul acts. The soul is an actual and real ontological presence; it is not simply a product of the body, as much modern thought would define it. However, it is not necessary for the purposes of this book to completely clarify the relationship of the self to the body. Even if the soul were somehow a product of the body, these qualities of consciousness and dynamism of the soul would remain demonstrable, even obvious.

What is conventionally known as the psyche is part of this self. The mind is part of the self, manifesting the capacity to remember, to think, to imagine, to construct and integrate images, to discriminate, analyze, synthesize, and so on. The feelings are part of the self: the capacity to desire, to choose, to value, to love. In addition to the realms of mental, emotional and physical experience, the self has access to the realm of Being, that is, it can experience directly rather than indirectly, its own presence as existence. The conventional realms are involved in and generally affected by the experience of Being, but when the dimension of Being is experienced there is a profound difference in one’s perspective. The reason we have the capacity to experience Being is that the self is an actual ontological presence, a presencing of Being, not simply a construct, and this presence has the capacity to be self-aware. Thus, for the self to become directly aware of the realm of Being is for it to directly experience its own nature. We will examine this phenomenon in detail in later chapters.

Two capacities of the self are particularly relevant to the development of narcissism as we understand it. The first is the capacity of the mind to form concepts and structures of concepts in response to experience. The second is the capacity of the self to identify with different aspects of experience, particularly with images in the mind and with habitual emotional and physical states. Herein lies the mechanism for the “fall” of the self into narcissism. In the beginning of this chapter, narcissism was described as the identification with the more superficial structures of the self. We described the self as a flowing, dynamic presence, an organism with mind, feeling and body (but not identical with any of these), that has an open-ended potential for experience.

The “fall” into narcissism happens as the self forms concepts and structures of concepts, and then identifies with them at the cost of its awareness of Being. These concepts, which the self comes to identify with and to view the world through, are much more opaque and rigid than the open, free, more natural state of the soul. What we describe as the free, spontaneous state of the soul is not a formless or unstructured state. The experience of the soul in a self-realized state is patterned by the intrinsic qualities of its Being, and by the structure of all dimensions of Being, including physical reality. The state of self-realization allows the soul to remain aware of its essential nature, yet at the same time to remain aware of the world of thought and speech, of social life and physical life, and to function in this world.

This “fall” is not something unnatural, tragic or avoidable. In fact, what we have just described is normal ego development, as described by self psychology and object relations theory. When, in the course of maturation, or in the context of some identity-shaking life event, or in the pursuit of a spiritual path, we become more open to knowing—or “remembering”—the self in its deeper nature, our narcissism begins to become transparent. If, at these times, we are graced with the opportunity to pursue the truth of our identity rather than compensating for our spiritual dissatisfaction, we can begin to reverse this “fall.”

When the soul is caught up in rigid identifications and relations with others and the world, it is not satisfied. In every soul there is an inherent drive toward truth, an inherent desire to feel fulfilled, real and free. Although many people are not able to pursue this desire effectively, the impetus toward the realization of the self is in all of us; it begins with the first stirrings of consciousness and continues throughout life whether or not we are directly aware of it. This impetus spontaneously emerges in consciousness as an important task for the psychologically and spiritually maturing human being. As maturity grows into wisdom in an optimally developing person, this task gains precedence over other tasks in life, progressively becoming the center that orients, supports and gives meaning to one’s life, ultimately encompassing all of one’s experience.

What is the experience of the self when the process of self-realization is complete? What is the actual experience of self-realization? Although self-realization affects many aspects of our experience (including how we relate to others and to the world around us), its central element concerns the nature of our immediate subjective experience. The experience of full self-realization is radically different from the normal ego-bound state; thus, the descriptions in this book may seem alien to the reader. It will help to keep in mind that what we are describing here is the pure state of realization; there are, however, many partial awakenings and openings on the way to the complete experience.

In self-realization our experience of ourselves is a pure act of consciousness. We know ourselves by directly being ourselves. All self-images have been rendered transparent, and we no longer identify with any construct in the mind. There is no reactivity to past, present or future. There is no effort to be ourselves. There is no interference with our experience, no manipulation, no activity—inner or outer—involved with maintaining our identity; we simply are. We are able to respond, feel, think, act—but from a purely spontaneous and authentic presence. We are not defensive, not judging ourselves, nor trying to live up to any standard. We may also be silent, empty, or spacious. We do not have to do anything to be ourselves. We are whole, one, undivided. It is not the wholeness of the harmony of parts, but the wholeness of singlehood. We are one. We are ourselves. We are being. We simply are.

In this experience there is no narcissism. We are at ease, spontaneously real, without psychological artifacts, pretensions, falsehoods. We are not constructed, not even by our own minds. Our experience of ourselves is totally direct and unmediated. When we experience ourselves like this—directly—we are not inferring anything from past experience or from others’ experience of us. Our identity is free from and undetermined by past experience. (Although there is a history of debate in philosophical discourse over whether such unmediated experience is possible, this debate has apparently been conducted in the absence of knowledge of the methods and results of the many practices in the world which result in just such experience.)

In the full experience of self-realization, our experience of who and what we are is not dependent upon nor influenced by any image of ourselves, either from our own minds or from the minds of others. If we do see images of ourselves we clearly perceive that they usually function as distancing and distorting barriers. A student in our work, Lily C., describes such an experience. Lily, in her late twenties, had been working with the author for about three years at the time of this group session, a few months before a summer intensive retreat.

‘The problem I spoke up about in the group meeting was that I was afraid to go to the retreat, or rather that I was afraid my life would be so dramatically changed by the retreat that I couldn’t cope with it. I felt very small, helpless, and out of control, and these feelings made me feel very frightened, and smaller yet. After I got as small as I could, I suddenly felt so huge that I felt I had no limits at all. I felt like I was the sky, and I felt the sensations of vastness and calm for a brief time, but then I felt nothing at all. I didn’t even feel that I was anything, good or bad. I just was. Am.’

Lily does not describe here the process of work that transformed her experience from being small and frightened to the sense of purely being. Without getting into too much detail, we can say that the issue that arose for her was the expectation that she would go through overwhelming changes, changes that would conflict with her identity of being small. Exploring this sense of being small revealed that it was simply an image she had of herself. This recognition dissolved her identification with the mental image, which then brought about the experience of space, the vastness she describes. This then culminated in a self-recognition not based on any mental content, image or thought. In this moment, Lily knew who she was, beyond the usual categories of experience, beyond even the concepts of goodness or badness.

The fact that Lily was having a pure experience of self-awareness does not necessarily mean that there was no conscious or unconscious image in the mind, or that there were no memories. Images, memories, and associations can be present or not (they usually are), but they do not determine one’s experience of oneself. In that moment Lily was free from her past in terms of her experience of herself. She was free from her mind—from all the memories, images, associations, ideas, emotional reactions, identifications, ego structures, knowledge, and so on—in terms of her experience of herself at the moment.”

~ A. H. Almaas, The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization

As It Is

“In the interest of vanity, greed, and avoiding the discomfort of being a contrarian, the emperor and all of his subjects willfully ignore the obvious: the emperor has been scammed, and his new clothes are non-existent. The emperor is naked. All ignore this truth except one boy, who, in his naivete, declares the obvious: the emperor has no clothes. The emperor has no clothes. What I mean by that is that life is plainly obvious. It is exactly as it is. It is not dressed up. It does not conform to my wishes. This is so radically different from what we are sold in the form of spirituality, religion, and philosophy as to be shocking.

Most keep declaring that the emperor’s new clothes are beautiful, elegant, and dashing despite the fact that this deceit is absolutely ridiculous. There are a few who, by luck, I think, discover how unbearably painful and miserable it is to lie to ourselves so much of the time. So we start being honest. That honesty is not something that gets rid of delusion or cancels it out. It merely is the recognition of delusion as it is. It is the recognition that delusion is all that is. And in that is the recognition of our inherent, unalienable freedom.” ~ Joey Lott

“One definition of “religious” is scrupulousness: paying very close attention. Some of us are religious in our attention to the unreal; we try again and again, religiously, to be honest about our unreality. We confess, like sinners, our chronic attachment to unreal (conceptual) living. Or we pluck, religiously, the essence of various Buddhist and other nondual teachings from their outdated and superstitious contexts and hose them off like ducks from an oil spill, wash off all the dogmas, all the dogmatists, all the magical thinking—even all the Buddhas! And we find this essence to be ordinary.

Or we pay attention, religiously, to the bodymind’s habitual tendency to contract into its fear-greed mode, that coiled position that ferments this outrageous, self-flavored, hallucinatory world of suffering. We notice that, to the degree we are unaware of this self-created quicksand, this clinging-grasping fear-greed habit, we live in darkness as unconscious slaves, automatons, and lunatics. And when aware of it, we live in light, even though nothing whatsoever is changed.

It appears that we are free in (and as) this light, and that means we are free to cling and grasp with abandon. This view may be opposed by vested “authorities,” careerists, self-appointed leaders, shepherds on the progressive path. But some of us can no longer stomach these half-baked vendors, these parasites. Happily, light is the best...emetic. We are cleansed of them. We are free of them.

Progressive paths are paths of confusion. "Practicing" one’s way toward an ideal state is, to use the well-worn simile, like trudging down railroad tracks seeking the horizon-point where the two tracks merge into one. Progressive path spirituality is, in fact, secular in a negative sense. It has been called "spiritual materialism." It is transactional and can be a psychological and economic system with serfs and lords, or, as Lin Chi might put it, guests and hosts (“Be the host, not the guest!”  he shouts). 

Paths are horizontal digressions in this vertical (timeless) reality. We know, we trust, instinctively that this is true and that we have nowhere to go and nothing to do.”

~ John Veen, Losing my grip: Conscious Awakespletives

Photos ~ Joey Lott, John Veen

Mouse Becomes a Lion

“… From my father I learned that there are such things as right and wrong, and that sometimes anger is justified in the service of what is right. From my mother I learned that forgiveness must be accorded to everyone and that all human beings must be treated kindly.

In the midst of that turbulent household I grew up as an introverted child who spent most of his time in his room reading books. For some inexplicable reason I also enjoyed staying at home practicing calligraphy and painting, like some old retired gentleman. I would take up my brush and produce sumi-e to which I’d assign poetic titles like “White Water” or something. I have no idea why the young son of a rural transport agent came to be so fascinated by ink paintings and haiku.

It often makes me think that life doesn’t begin with our present existence but has its roots far in the past, so that this world is simply a continuation of former lives. I often meet people and sense that this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered them, that I’ve met them once before somewhere in a previous existence. Could such feelings arise from some mysterious intuition deep in our physical being? 

During the years following the First World War, Tokyo was the scene not only of many social and political movements but also of much religious activity. Anyone walking in Kanda at night was sure to come across soldiers of the Salvation Army beating their drums or followers of the Buddhist Revival Army blowing their trumpets. At the temple Rinshō-in in Yushima one could hear Zen lectures at the gatherings held by Sugawara Jiho, while at the Gudōkan in Morikawa a lively schedule of Dharma meetings was offered by the Jōdo Shin minister Chikazumi Jōkan. In Fujimi-chō the sermons of the Christian minister Uemura Masahisa won a wide audience among the student population. Uchimura Kanzō, too, had an enthusiastic following of younger believers.

Meanwhile Miyazaki Toranosuke, the prophet of the new religion Shinsei Kyōdan, could be seen in Ueno Park haranguing the crowds, his long hair blowing in the wind and his frock-coated chest thrust out. Like a starving stray I wandered about Tokyo, sniffing out the slightest scent of truth.

One day I heard that Uchimura Kanzō was holding a prayer gathering at a church in Tsunohazu, so I went all the way there to attend. After Uchimura’s rousing sermon we were told that the Second Coming of Christ would occur that  very evening, so the entire congregation offered fervent prayers far into the night. The Lord never did descend from Heaven…

One day at the invitation of a friend I listened to a lecture on Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva given by Kawaguchi Ekai Roshi, a Zen priest who had established the Snow Mountain Monastery. The text, transcribed on pages of straw paper, contained a passage that went roughly as follows: ‘If I could cover the entire surface of the Earth with leather I could freely walk anywhere in bare feet. But that would not be possible. However, with just nine inches of leather on the soles of my feet it’s just the same as if I had covered the entire surface of the earth. Likewise, it is probably impossible to make this Earth an ideal paradise. But if I arouse the mind of bodhi—that is, if I vow to offer all that I have for the sake of humankind—then it is just as though the Earth had become a paradise.’

How deeply moved I was when I read this passage! These lines precipitated the second turning point of my spiritual life… “This is the way!” I thought. With a sense of utter conviction I felt that this path—the path of immediately manifesting the Pure Land, of immediately perfecting the self, of right here, right now saving the world and saving myself—was the only path for me. It is enough to vow in one’s heart to offer everything one has for the sake of humanity. If that’s the case then even I can do it, I thought, and I can do it this very moment. With all my heart I vowed: “My happiness, my body and my mind, my life, my everything, all of these from this very day I offer for the sake of humanity.” The moment I said this I was overcome with a sense of happiness like none I had ever experienced before. For the first time I knew the bright clarity of the mind that is attached to nothing and the richness of the heart that has given everything.

I composed a long appeal and handed it to Ekai Roshi, entreating him to accept me as a disciple. The master’s younger brother Hanzui was there by his side, sternly lecturing me on the severity of monastic training and warning me that a lukewarm sense of purpose wouldn’t suffice to see it through. I remained determined, though. Seeing this, Ekai Roshi decided to check my father’s position on the matter, and without a word to me sent him a letter. I remember my father came and took me to a fortune-teller named Watanabe Ichigyū. He said to my father, “This child will never be a family man. He has the features of someone who prefers solitude. Even if you make him take a wife he’s the sort of person who will go upstairs when she’s downstairs and go downstairs when she comes upstairs. Best to have him become a fortune-teller, Shinto priest, or Buddhist monk.”

I entered the Snow Mountain Monastery as a postulant at the end of my nineteenth year… I wasn’t allowed to wear a monk’s robe yet, so I wore a black kimono with a black hakama. During the day I attended Tōy University, with my head shaved slick as an egg. In the mornings we would arise at four o’clock and start the day by wiping the floors and making preparations for breakfast. At five we would hit the wooden han while reciting the “Verses on Impermanency” with the plaintive cadences of the Ōbaku Zen school. After school we would sweep the garden and heat the bath. Once a week Iwata Takuhō (my senior at Snow Mountain) and I would go to the vegetable market in Dōsaka to buy supplies. I was a combination housemaid and live-in working student. And since I was there at my own request, I was a housemaid and working student who also paid for his own room and board.

The master was eighty years old at the time but his mother was still alive, living at the monastery though largely bedridden. It was my job to prepare her meals and take care of her bedpan, and I was genuinely happy to be allowed to do so… Sometimes she would hold up her thumb and say, “Is he here?”, referring to the master. If he was out she would pull some money out from under her mattress and say, “Go buy some sea bream and cook it up for me.” The master was a strict vegetarian, to the point where on trips he would take his own pots since he found those of other people to reek of cooked flesh, so I prepared his mother’s fish in a special pot she kept. When I brought it her face would break out in a huge smile of delight. It made me think that a pure-living monk makes an unfilial son.

I labored devotedly from morning till night in the service of the Roshi and his mother. Looking back, I can’t help being impressed by the single-minded devotion to the Way that I was capable of at that time in my life. I still had a kind of childlike purity and innocence; the various bad habits I’ve acquired since then had yet to manifest themselves. Even so, fatigue, lack of sleep, and malnutrition gradually undermined my congenitally weak constitution. I finally suffered a physical breakdown during the final exams for my sophomore year at Tōyō University. A week-long fever left my lymph nodes swollen to the point where my neck was wider than my face...

My physical condition being what it was, I had no choice but to quit Snow Mountain Monastery, which I had entered with such great expectations, and take my leave of Tokyo. Once again I was home in the village I thought I had left for good, my emaciated body prostrate in bed with its swollen neck…

One day toward the end of the rainy season the nanten bushes were covered with white buds. For the first time in quite a while I left my bed and went out on the veranda to look at the garden. A cool, pleasant breeze blew softly against my cheek, as though to soothe my exhausted body. I wondered how many years it had been since I’d felt a breeze like that. Then I thought to myself, “What is the wind?” All of a sudden it struck me that wind is simply moving air. The moment I realized this I felt a shock, as though I’d been struck on the back with an iron rod. “Yes, of course!” I thought. “There’s air!”

In the entire twenty years since I’d been born I’d been sustained and nurtured by the air, but had never been truly aware of its existence. Yet even though I had paid no attention to the air, the air had constantly and unfailingly embraced me. When I realized this I broke out in tears and wept uncontrollably.

The thought came to me, “I’m not alone, I’m not isolated. Behind me is a great power that sustains me, continually urging me to live! I’ll get better!” I felt to the marrow of my bones that our life is not our own, but something given to us. My heart became clear and bright, and I recited a simple poem to myself: ‘From the coolness of this morning’s breeze I know that I’m embraced by something great.’

By this time I had recovered sufficiently to go to Nagoya and receive radiation therapy… After about two or three months the proprietress of Toyotoshi asked me how the radiation therapy was going. When I answered that I hadn’t seen the slightest improvement, she commented somewhat cryptically, “I know a good place, I’m sure you’d get better, but if I took you there the priest would get angry.” When I asked her what she meant, she explained that just north of Lake Hamana to the east of Nagoya there was a temple named Konchi-in, the priest of which could cure even the most intractable illnesses. She said that she herself had been cured of uterine cancer.

I’d heard about this temple before, but had dismissed such talk since I was convinced that Buddhism which dabbled in healing was deviant and that any priest who engaged in such activities was a fraud. But I paid more attention when I heard that Konchi-in’s priest scolded the proprietress when she introduced new patients. If the priest was a fraud, I thought, surely he would welcome new patients, not get angry. With this in mind I decided to call upon Konchi-in and meet its priest, Rev. Kōno Daikei. This priest was to become my second master. I still remember the date on which I met him: November 26th of my twenty-second year.

I can truly say that it is thanks to Rev. Kōno that I am alive today. My meeting him was a fortuitous encounter oddly similar to that of Zen master Hakuin with the Taoist hermit Hakuyū. When I first visited Konchi-in Rev. Kōno held up three fingers and said, “Your illness is nothing more than this!” When I gave him a blank look he shouted, “Blockhead! I’m saying you’ll be well in three months! Don’t you see—your internal organs are not weak, they’re strong, so strong that they’ve forced the disease toxins up to your neck. Can’t you get my point!” It was quite a Zen-style wake-up call, but it left me feeling more dazed than ever. Rev. Kōno said, “I haven’t deceived you. Your life is no longer in danger, so feel free to go wherever you like. Do you plan to go back to Tokyo and resume that ascetic training?” “If I return to the monastery in Tokyo I’ll just ruin my health again,” I replied. “I’d like to go to Kyoto and practice zazen.”

“You’re not ready yet to train at a Zen monastery,” Rev. Kōno said. “You should enter the Zen college and focus on study for a while.”… My recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Though still not one hundred percent cured, I was nevertheless in good enough health after a mere three months of treatment to fully resume my university studies…

I never felt the desire to abandon Christianity and the Bible. Each and every Sunday I would attend services at a church somewhere. At the time Rinzaishū College only accepted the disciples of Rinzai school temples, so for convenience’ sake I had registered as the disciple of Konchi-in and wore a monk’s robe. It was in this robe that I always went to church... I had asked Rev. Hatanaka to look my speech over. One thing he did was to go through the text and change all of the “I”s to “we”s. This left a profound impression on me. Indeed, I took it more to heart than anything I had read in the Bible. It brought home to me the principle that we must never emphasize the “I”, but must always live with the “we” in mind...

Even though I always had a quite profound devotion to Christianity, I always had great difficulty with the concept of prayer. Words of prayer are something I have never been able to utter. If I force myself to speak them the words immediately turn false, transforming into the shallowest type of sentimentality. If I called out “God the Father!”, God seemed to recede ever farther away, ceasing to be the Absolute beyond all concepts and becoming no more than a idol formed of ideas. Little wonder is it that Christ warned his followers against praying in front of the crowds, as the hypocrites do. Rather, he enjoined them to “enter into your private room” and pray in secret, alone with God. Moreover, it always seemed to me that in praying one needs no words, for does not God already know all things?

After I began practicing Zen meditation (zazen) I came to regard this practice as the truest form of prayer. In zazen one settles oneself openly in front of the Absolute, totally forgets the ego, and enters a state of no-mind where not a single thought stirs. One utterly surrenders oneself body and mind in the Absolute, so that self and Absolute are fully one. Could there possibly be any higher expression of prayer than this? In this clear, bright mind, pure as that of an infant, there is not a speck of sentimentality, but only a full immersion in the joyful union of the human and the divine. This, I believe, is the meaning of the famous beatitude, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” In purity of the heart, God is present.

One semester when the time for sesshin arrived my schoolmates and I took our sitting cushions and daily necessities and sequestered ourselves in the great Zen monastery of Enpuku-ji. That particular sesshin the classmate sitting directly across the aisle from me was a profoundly accomplished meditator…

I aroused a great fighting spirit, and sat with the determination to do every bit as well as him. By the fourth or fifth day I reached the point where I forgot body and mind, with no sense of sitting as I sat and no sense of standing as I stood. It was truly a stillness in which human and divine were one. On the sixth day I was returning from sanzen with the roshi when I happened to see the bright yellow leaves of the ginkgo tree in front of the main hall.

At that moment my mind suddenly opened, and I was so astonished that I almost leapt into the air. The koan “Mu” exploded, and the world of absolute reality manifested before me. I rushed back to the sanzen room and immediately passed my koan, as well as several other problems presented to me by the master.

The Gate of the Celestial Rock Cave suddenly opened and the divine act of creation unfolded in all its infinity. Everything is new. Everything is beautiful. Everything is true. Everything is shining. And everything is Self. I was in a state of utter ecstasy. This, I thought, is what is meant when they speak of “without realizing it my hands were waving and my feet were dancing with joy.” The cosmos and I are one. The world and I are one. Humanity and I are one. With the full intuition of this, how could one not be overcome with joy?

I fully savored, as the reality of my own experience, Shakyamuni’s words that “the totality of the Three Realms is my very being, and every creature therein is my child,” and saw that in them there was no exaggeration and no deceit. I realized that this nondual love toward humanity and the world is the ultimate truth of human nature. The bodhicitta expressed all those years ago when I vowed to offer “my happiness, my body and my mind, my life, my everything for the sake of humanity” was itself the essence of human nature. I knew then in my heart that my aspiration to seek the Way had not been mistaken…

Many people think that students are not in a situation that allows them to awaken to their true nature, or that people in lay life are unable to experience enlightenment, but this way of thinking is simply not true. There is a Japanese expression, “A mouse attacks a cat,” that refers to the fact that anything is possible if one is desperate enough. With sufficient motivation, anyone can attain enlightenment…

As I look back on the fifty years that have passed since I left my village in the mountains at the age of fourteen I remember with a deep sense of gratitude Seisetsu Roshi and all of the wonderful guides and teachers whom I have encountered. Yet as Confucius said, “You can’t carve rotten wood,” and I can only reflect with shame on how much I still have left to accomplish.”

~ "Yamada Mumon Roshi (1900–1988) was a Rinzai roshi, calligrapher, and former abbot of Shōfuku-ji in Kobe, Japan and also the former head of the Myōshin-ji branch of the Rinzai school of Japan. Mumon, together with Rinzai priest Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, was on the original planning committee for the first Zen-Christian Colloquium started by the Quakers in 1967. The meeting was designed to open dialogue between Christians and Buddhists and establish peace in the wake of damage caused by World War II.

During the Second World War, while with Seisetsu Roshi, he visited many places of war, and what he saw left him with deep feelings of repentance. In 1967 he went on pilgrimages to various Southeast Asian countries to apologize to and say sutras for the war dead of all religions, and he taught this posture of repentance to his students as well. Although he knew only a few words of English, he taught many students from abroad and established many strong karmic connections.

He traveled to the opening of Dai Bosatsu Zendo in New York State, to the San Francisco Zen Center, to the Mount Baldy Zen Center in California, and to Mexico. He made a pilgrimage to India and at Bodhgaya built a Japanese temple. He went to Europe and opened the East West Spiritual Exchange between Catholicism and Buddhism, himself entering and living in nine contemplative monasteries in Europe, experiencing the life of the monks there. His disciples settled all over Europe, strengthening his extensive karmic ties with the West.

According to G. Victor Sōgen Hori in the book The Faces of Buddhism in America, "Students of Yamada Mumon Rōshi say that outside the sanzen room, he looked and acted like a tiny, wispy, immaterial Taoist hermit, but that inside the sanzen room, he suddenly turned into a lion." ~ Wikipedia

Invaluable Teacher

“… I  was motherless  in  most  of  the  early  years  of  my  childhood.  Thus  I  envied  my  friends  for  having mothers. But motherlessness was not the only problem I had. Actually I was better off when I was motherless. When my father remarried when I was five, I started to be traumatized by the constant arguments  that  my  father  and  my  new  mother  had. 

This  new  mother  had  a  daughter  from  her previous marriage and she brought the girl with her when she moved into our house. The girl was a  couple  of  years  older  than  I.  Thus  when  my  father remarried, I gained a new mother and a stepsister. Unfortunately  my  new  mother  did  not  care  for  me much.  Of  course,  I  cannot  blame  her  for  not  loving  me because,  in  those  days,  I  was  one  of  the  most uncontrollable  rascals  in  all  Japan. But  because  of  her exclusive  love  for  her own daughter,  there was constant fighting  between  siblings  and  constant  arguments between  parents.  So  my  father’s  second  marriage  lasted  only two years. When my father remarried when I was twelve, there  were again constant arguments between my father and my new mother. Thus when I was in junior high and high school, I  was really fed up with their arguments and with the institution  of marriage in general.

In those days I wondered why people  got married. I told myself many times that I should not marry no matter what might happen. That was my firm resolution.  (But later I got married. So, you know my firm resolution was not firm at all.) Since many miserable things happened in my childhood, I had a lot of self-pity. I thought that my father alone caused all of my misery. I thought that his selfishness was responsible for it. Thus I blamed my father alone. In my teenage years I started to hate him and my hate reached its climax in my high school days.

When I was in high school, I started to attend a Christian church. I attended it because a Christian teacher, who taught  me  in  junior  high  school,  deeply  impressed  me.  I  attended  a  church  of  which  he  was  a member. This new move of mine was probably caused by the unhappy and uneasy feeling I was experiencing in those days, although I was not aware of it at that time. When this Christian teacher was teaching us in junior high school, he always encouraged us to read classics. He often told us, “Don’t read best sellers of our time! Those books may be popular now, but  in  a  couple  of  years  people  will  not  pay  any  attention  to them. Read those  books that have been proven by time.” He even made a list of the books he recommended to us.

Because of his  influence,  I  started  to  read  books  in  high  school. When I  read  a  book of  one  hundred  short stories selected by Somerset Maugham, I was deeply moved by “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” a story written by Leo Tolstoy. Thus when I started to attend a Christian church, I started to read Tolstoy, particularly his religious writings. After graduating from high school, since I was totally enchanted by Tolstoy, I went to Tokyo to study Russian in college. Then on one of my college days when I was a senior, I happened to pick up a commentary on Faust,  written  by  Shuichi  Maida.  I  had  never  heard  of  Maida.  But when I  read  the  book,  I was deeply moved by what he said in the book. Maida was a Buddhist and was commenting on Faust from a Buddhist point of view. Through Maida I became interested in Buddhism.

After I started to study Christianity and Buddhism, my view of my father gradually changed. Because of the teachings I received from the two religions, my hate toward him gradually turned into compassion. Before I studied religion, I had a lot of self-pity and I thought that I alone was an unfortunate victim. But I gradually started to think that my father was also a victim of unfortunate circumstances. Of course, I never doubted that my father was responsible  for his divorces. But I realized  that  there  were  many  other  conditions  that  contributed. 

For  example,  my  grandparents lived  with us. Since my father was the oldest son, he  had to live with  his parents. (In  Japan the oldest  son  usually  takes  care  of  his parents.) Although  my grandfather was a  loving  person,  my
grandmother was one of the most difficult persons in the world. She was the only daughter of the Haneda  family,  one  of  the  wealthiest  families  in  the  city. Since  she  was  an  only  daughter,  my grandfather was adopted into the Haneda family. My grandmother always had a couple of maids. She was a totally spoiled and selfish person. In this family situation, any woman who married my father had to have a hard time with her mother-in-law, who lived in the same house. To make matters worse, my father’s three sisters, my three aunts,  lived  near our house. In  Japan  sisters-in-laws or brothers-in-laws are usually said to cause all kinds of problems for a newlywed wife. (They are called “small mean in-laws” in Japan.) Thus, for my father’s wives, these three sisters-in-law did not make the situation any easier.

In this way I gradually gained insight into the difficult circumstances that caused my father’s divorces. I realized that my father was not the only cause. There were many other causes. In  the  Tannisho Shinran  says,  “If  certain  conditions  arise,  I  could  do  all  kinds  of  things.” When I read these words, I thought they were true. I thought, “Yes,  if I had been  in my father’s shoes, I would have done the same thing; I would have had no choice but to get a divorce. Am I any better than my father? Who am I to judge him? All human actions are caused by conditions. All human beings are weak and fallible.” Thinking this way, largely because of the teachings of Christianity and Buddhism, I gradually stopped blaming my father as the only cause of my unhappiness. I started to feel compassion or commiseration toward him. That was my second view of my father.

Four years ago while I was visiting Japan, my father passed away. It was as if he had waited until I arrived to die. At that time my father had all kinds of physical problems. He was just lying in bed. He could not speak. Since he could not eat anything by himself, somebody had to feed him. During the last week of his life I was by  his bedside and was feeding  him. Although he could  not speak, he could  hear and understand  what  others  were  saying.  He  looked  deeply  depressed.  He  never  smiled.  He  did  not show any warm feeling toward anyone at all. My father had nothing  but hate toward religion throughout his  life. When I started to attend the Christian church in my high school days, he tried to dissuade me from attending it.

Even now I can remember how he, with tears in his eyes, attempted to tell me that I, a young man, should not be  influenced  by  a  narrow  dogma.  After  I  started  to  study  Buddhism,  he  often  told  me  that  he could not understand why I was studying it. For him all religions were nothing but superstition.

When my father passed away, I thought about all the things that had happened between him and  me. I  reflected  upon  what  my  father  meant  in  my  life.  Then,  I  could  not  help  feeling  deep gratitude toward him. All the sad and unfortunate things that had happened in my life—those things that I had hated and deplored—became objects of my gratitude. The fact that he had a couple of divorces became an  object  of  my  gratitude.  The  fact  that  he  had  constant  arguments  with  his  wives  became  an object of my gratitude. The fact that he criticized my interest in religion became an object of my gratitude. Even the way he died, deeply depressed without having any warm feeling toward others including me, became an object of my gratitude. 

I thought all these things were indispensable conditions for my life. All the things that he did or  did  not  do  were  powerful  and  valuable  teachings  for  me.  Without  them  I  would  not  have become interested in Christianity and Buddhism. I totally owe to him what I am today. Buddhist  teachers  often  teach  us  that  if  we  truly  understand  the  Dharma,  we  come  to appreciate all people. We come to think that all the people that we have  loved, hated, respected, and despised in our lives are actually teachers (or Buddhas) in disguise; they are appearing before us to guide us to the Dharma. I thought of the truthfulness of this teaching.

In  Buddhist  seminars  I  have  often  heard  Buddhist  women  talking  about  spiritual transformations they experienced because of their difficult relationships with their mothers-in-law. Those women said that they had tremendous difficulties with their in-laws. They often considered them  “mean  devils”  and  even  wished  to  kill  them.  But  when  they  gained  deep  insight  into  the Dharma, they  said that their difficult experiences  with their  in-laws enabled them to turn toward the Dharma and to appreciate it. They said that they owed their happiness at meeting the Dharma to  the  difficult  experiences  they  had  had  with  their  in-laws.  They  said  that  their  in-laws  were actually Buddhas in disguise that appeared in this world to guide them to the Dharma.

I  recently  watched  a  Japanese  television  program  about  a  man  whose  twelve-year-old  son committed  suicide.  His  son  was  abused  by  his  classmates  and  killed  himself.  After  his  son committed  suicide,  the  man  felt  tremendous  agony.  He  could  not  do  anything.  He  just  kept  on
asking “Why?” and blaming himself and his son’s classmates, who had abused him. But  this  agony  eventually  led  him  to  Buddhism.  By  gradually  gaining  insight  into  the Dharma, he  regained  his power to  live.

Now he  is  a  totally changed person. He hosts  a  hot  line program for abused children. He receives many telephone calls from children who are thinking of committing suicide. Some of those children even  visit  his  house and stay with  him. In this way, although he lost his own son, he has gained many new sons and daughters throughout Japan. The  man  says  that  thanks  to  the  difficult  experience  he  had,  he  has  been  liberated  into  a wonderful world. He says that the thick shell of his ego was shattered and he was liberated into a wider world. Now he  says that his  son was actually a Buddha in disguise;  his son  appeared and died in this world to guide him to the Dharma. Buddhism  teaches  us that  we  are  liberated  by  the  Buddha’s  wisdom,  by  a  perspective  through which we see all things in a totally new way.

First, I saw my father as  an  object  of  my  hate.  At that time  I was standing  above  him and was  judging  him.  I was an innocent victim and was looking down on him and criticizing him. Second, I saw him as an object of my compassion. At that time, I no longer stood above him. I saw myself standing on the same level  with  him.  I  identified  with  him  because  I  discovered  in  myself  the  same  weakness  and fallibility. Third, now, I cannot help thinking of him with a deep sense of gratitude. Now I look up to him as a Buddha who guided me to the Dharma. All the things he did or did not do have been invaluable teachings for me. He was and is an invaluable teacher…”

~ Dr. Nobuo Haneda, a Japanese-born Buddhist scholar, translator, and teacher, Dr. Nobuo Haneda is the Director of the Maida Institute for Buddhism in Berkeley, California, which was founded to promote the teachings of Shūichi Maida (1906-1967), one of the most influential Shin Buddhist teachers of the 20th century.

Care For Them

“…My eighty-three-year-old Grandma Mimi held up her spoon of white bean soup and said, “This is delicious. I never want to leave.” Her daughter, my aunt Carol, wanted her to move to Atlanta into an assisted living home. Her son, my dad, wanted her to move to Syracuse. Mimi was still working full-time at a law office in Manhattan. After lunch we walked back down Ocean Parkway, stopping every five minutes or so to rest on the benches. Back at her apartment, we lay on her couches, eating the caramels she adored.

Suddenly she looked at me and asked, “Can I stay here with you?” I squeezed her hand and quietly said, “Yes.” So began our journey. At first there were occasional visits to doctors, then late-night ambulance rides to the hospital, and finally moving with her into hospice for the last six weeks of her life. “Do you know what’s strange?” Mimi asked me late one night. “So few people who work here, or visit, seem to reflect on their lives. They’re all scurrying about. Why don’t they look at me? Why is there so much fear in being with another person?”

Among the caregivers around my grandma were my fellow Zen practitioners, including my future husband and coteacher Robert Chodo Campbell. Once people met her, they felt loved by her and kept showing up to sit, sing, and give her the manicures and pedicures she loved. One evening, four weeks into our stay at the hospice, she said, “Call the family and your friends. I think tonight is the night I’m going to die.” After four hours of quiet sitting, she peeked at her watch, sat up, and said, “It isn’t going to happen. Let’s order out for pizza — you all must be hungry.”

I stayed with her for the entire six weeks that she was in hospice, sleeping in a chair at the side of her bed and sometimes climbing in next to her when she seemed frightened or confused. One night she woke me and said, “I’m so sorry. I spent so many years thinking I knew what love was, but I didn’t know anything. I was afraid of what I didn’t understand about you. To love someone is to love everything about them, even the parts I don’t understand or feel comfortable with. Part of me contracted from loving you because of your Zen practice. I felt it was a betrayal of our Jewish heritage. Please forgive me.” “For what?” I asked her. “For not loving you completely,” she said. “The way I do now. I now see that there is something so direct about your Zen practice that allows you to be with me in this way.

You and Chodo should start an organization that helps people learn about meditation and how to care for people. Learning how to reflect on life and how we are spending our time is the most important thing. Please teach people. Please care for them.” On the morning of June 23, we awoke together to see the light on the tree outside the window. “Beautiful morning,” she said. “Go get the New York Times and a coffee, sit out in the park, and enjoy the morning.” She looked at me, I looked at her. We embraced, squeezed each other’s hands, and I kissed her cheek. I wept. I didn’t want to leave. I kissed her again on her forehead and walked out. I sat in the park opposite the hospital in the morning sunshine, drinking my coffee and trying to read the Sunday Times.

My cell phone rang. It was our favorite hospice nurse. “Baby, Mimi just died. Take your time and then come over.” I leaned back on the bench and craned my head to the sky. The branches in the trees were swaying in the morning breeze. A young girl was bouncing a rainbow-colored ball. An elderly man was on the next bench basking in the sun. I felt like my chest was going to burst open. I called Chodo from her bedside. It was almost impossible to get the words out. “She’s gone,” I said. “Please come here right now.” I squeezed Mimi’s hands. They were no longer warm, and on the windowsill the stargazer lilies she loved so much had opened fully…”
~ Koshin Paley Ellison and Matt Weingast, Awake at the Bedside

I Vow

“'I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes,' Tenzin Palmo said.

I stopped. The effect of her words was electrifying, for what Tenzin Palmo had stated in that casual, almost throwaway manner was nothing short of revolutionary. What she had promised was to become a female Buddha, and female Buddhas (like female Christs and female Mohammeds) were decidedly thin on the ground. Certainly there had been plenty of acclaimed women mystics and saints in all parts of the world, but the full flowering of human divinity had, for the past few thousand years at least, been deemed the exclusive domain of the male. The female body, for some reason, had been seen as an unfit or unworthy vessel to contain the most sacred. Now Tenzin Palmo was publicly announcing that she was intending to overthrow all that. It was a bold, courageous statement. A reckless one, even. One that could easily be dismissed as a piece of bravado or wishful thinking, had it not been Tenzin Palmo with her track record of exceptional meditational ability and tenacity who had made it. It could just be possible that she might do it! If not in this lifetime, then maybe the next or the next. 

My hopes rose. This was something I had been waiting for for years. From the very beginning of my search into Buddhism I had been told that we all possessed the seed of full awakening, men and women alike. It was our birthright, our natural inheritance, the lamas had said from their high brocaded thrones. Buddhahood was there shining within, like a pearl of great price, and all we had to do was to uncover it. The responsibility was ours, and ours alone. How the philosophy had appealed to an independent woman making her own way in the world! It took lifetimes of diligence and effort, the lamas continued, but if we set out on this journey eventually the magnificent prize would be ours. 

That, at least was the theory. In actuality, however, examples of female spiritual excellence were decidedly thin on the ground. Yes, there were female Buddhas aplenty in paint and plaster paying homage to the ideal of feminine divinity in all its diverse and wonderful forms. You could find them dotted all around temple walls and throughout the monastery gardens, worthy objects of veneration and prayer. Some were beautiful, some peaceful, others powerful or overtly erotic. But where were the living examples? The more I looked the more I could see no sign that women were getting anywhere in the spiritual selection stakes. The lamas who taught us were male; the Dalai Lamas (all fourteen of them) were male; the powerful lineage holders who carried the weight of the entire tradition were male; the revered Tulkus, the recognized reincarnated lamas, were male; the vast assembly of monastics who filled the temple halls and schools of learning were male; the succession of gurus who had come to the West to inspire eager new seekers were male. Where were the women in all of this? To be fair, it was not just Tibetan Buddhism which was so testosterone-heavy, but Buddhism from Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma - in fact from all Eastern countries with the possible exception of Taiwan. (Even my own home-grown religion, Christianity, with its insistence on a male God and its fear of female priests, was no better.) Where were the female gurus for us women to emulate? What in fact did female spirituality look like? We had no idea. The fact was that in spite of the Buddha's word that we could all advance up the spiritual evolutionary ladder to Enlightenment there was no proof that women could actually do it. To the women practitioners sitting at the lamas' feet earnestly trying to follow The Way, it was discouraging to say the least. 

How urgently we needed hope that the impossible could become possible. How badly we women needed champions to lead the way. It was time. The twentieth century had seen the steady and inexorable emancipation of women in all areas of life, except that of religion. Now, at two minutes before the millennium, it seemed that the last wave of female emancipation was poised to begin. If it happened it would also be the greatest. The ultimate women's liberation was surely a female Buddha, an omniscient being. In the light of her great intention, Tenzin Palmo's already remarkable achievement of enduring twelve years of meditation in a Himalayan cave was suddenly thrust into the realm of universal endeavour. 

I decided to seek her out again. There was now so much more to know. Who exactly was she, where had she come from, what had she learnt in that cave, what had prompted her to make that vow - and would she mind being the subject of a book? Reluctantly, very reluctantly, she agreed, and then only on the grounds that it would inspire other women, and help her own project currently under way to facilitate women's enlightenment. And so over the next year I tracked her down, in Singapore, London, Seattle, California and India where she was leading a very different way of life, and gradually pieced together the elements of her extraordinary and, some would say, most unnatural life. I spoke to people who had known her and visited the places which had been central to her life. With great difficulty I even found her cave and, having climbed to that thin-aired altitude and witnessed for myself her dwelling place, marveled with new appreciation at what she had accomplished…” 

~ Vicki Mackenzie, Cave In The Snow