Post by 生機 Shengji on Nov 9, 2011 21:30:25 GMT 2
It is said that, even in hell, if you remember the name or if you call on the name of Kwan Yin, you will find freedom.
Kwan Yin, as I am sure you already know, is the Bodhisattva of Compassion and Insight, who appears in the Heart Sutra. This figure is known under many names. It is our task as students of the Way (Dao) to realize the insight of Kwan Yin for ourselves. This cannot of course be done just by imitating and following along. Fortunately, it can only be achieved by finding our own Way and our own practice. In our own uniqueness lies the great dharma. It is not simply that you are standing there: the eye has become you. The eye of the proper conscience and the eye of Kwan Yin have become everyone's whole body, each of us standing tall. This enlightenment needs to be refreshed and rediscovered in each person and in each generation, in each individual of each generation and in each moment of each of our lives.
I have been very interested lately in the interaction between character and insight. Character was very much a concern in old China when the koan curriculum was being developed, and I think belongs with Zen. Insight is the dazzling, clear, eternal awareness of the presence of Kwan Yin in each moment: the presence of all moments and all places in this moment and this place. So that is very simple, really. That one is solved, I guess, we know about insight.
Character is I think more related to time, and grows and develops with a sort of reptilian slowness. And insight cannot go bad on you: either you have insight or you do not. I guess you can lose insight through bad living or not maintaining your practice, but really insight is a fairly clear matter. The realm of character is different, though. Character does change; we can become more whole and occasionally we meet some people who become less whole. A flaw in their character gradually takes them over. I think of character as being primarily the willingness to be with, to read, to listen to, the flow of things that we often call the Dao, for short. It is the willingness not to separate from the current of life. And with this goes the ability to experience our own lives and the willingness to live our lives fully, without resisting our experience. This takes courage, equanimity, steadfastness, honesty. And I think it really helps if we are willing to be foolish a lot. There is always that noticing with a sense of wonder that is important and helpful in the character work.
An old Sung dynasty Chinese teacher said this: "If you want to investigate this path all the way, you must make the determination firm and unbending until you reach enlightenment." (That's the insight side of it.) "Afterward it is left to nature whether you experience calamity or distress, gain or loss, and you should not try unreasonably to escape them." I think this is very interesting and true.
Character relates to our willingness to be small as well as grand. The flow of things carries us along, and fighting the flow does not help, as far as I've ever noticed. It is how we are with that, what attitude we have to being carried along, that is crucial. Do we have peace in our hearts, even when there is an external calamity, even when we are in the midst of struggle? In the midst of darkness can we find, can we touch, light? If we have no consciousness of the greatness within the small, then we have no enlightenment, no insight; then we do not know about the name of Kwan Yin. But Kwan Yin is also the other side, is also compassion, and if we have no awareness of our own smallness, if we resist and pull away from our smallness, the rumbling stomach, the aching knees, the sorrows and griefs, the joys and frivolities, if we try to pull too much away from those and fight with them and have a hostile attitude toward what comes up, then we are clinging too much to the insight side of things, too much to the dazzling clarity. We know then that one flower holds eternity, but we do not know that one aching knee also holds eternity; one destructive thought also holds eternity.
Some people do rather well in a temporary kind of way by clinging to the insight side of things, almost as a refuge from developing character. I think as both Daoism and Zen students are always veering towards one side or the other of any dichotomy they can name, so this is not a great shame. But I see this in spiritual practice; I have known this in myself.