I'm bound by the snow, the soft fallingness
the ever upward face, the ever upward face
bound by the rivers, the music, the beauty...

Bound by the beauty(Jane Siberry, 1989)

Dear Members,

I hope that this Dharma message finds you all happy and healthy; reveling in the light of the Nembutsu.

I really liked the title of this song. In a way, I guess I was primed to like the song before I had even heard it. The title seemed to reflect a simple and deep form of honesty.

The idea of being bound by negative acts and behaviors is one that is easy for us to relate to. We have all had the experience of having our anger flare up to the point that it becomes seemingly all encompassing. At these times we are so focused on our feelings of indignation, or frustration that we become unable to see all of the wondrous and joyous things that are going on around us. A little child could be offering us a flower and we would power by, oblivious.

We have all had, at least to some extent, an experience with some self-defeating ruts that all humans occasionally fall into. For example, if we feel some sense of aversion to failure, we may refuse to do things that we are not absolutely positive that we can do. Instead of seeing this merely as a useless mental leaning that we are too lazy to fix, often we allow the leaning more power than it should have and consider it to be part of our basic character and, therefore, something that we are unable to change. The fact that this leaning may reduce an amazing being of potential and possibility (as we all are) to a stunted, limited one often escapes our notice. When the rut is seen for what it is though, through an infusion of light and awareness, our potential and possibility floods back in.

The idea of positive, beautiful things also contributing to our bondage though, is a little bit harder for us to conceive of. How can the smiles and hugs that we receive from our loved ones be anything but positive and enriching experiences? Well, it is the plain and simple fact that these experiences are filled with warmth and caring that makes them things that are excruciatingly hard to leave behind. As sentient beings we find ourselves in a strange situation, in which the things that we feel the most connection to are also the things that would normally keep us cycling in the realms of birth and death forever.

This brutally honest realization is at the heart of the Jodo Shinshu experience. Simply put, there are some things that are so amazingly magical and beautiful that, try as I might, I would never ever want to lose them. Jodo Shinshu says that this is okay; it is in our nature to feel very intense connections with each other. The strange thing is that quite often these very connections can have a very positive effect as they may become the impetus for us to strive to be better people, because we feel we owe it to the humans who love us.

In an even more marvelous turn of events, we, through saying the Nembutsu and doing the inner search, discover that it is in the nature of wisdom and compassion to seek out bound people and free them. We find that, even when we thought we were so very far away from Amida Buddha, he was; because of his nature, wholeheartedly embracing us.

When I was in Japan, I would occasionally meet a person (usually a very, very old one) who would state to me quite pointedly that she (they also tended to be female; but I do remember one ojiisan) was grateful for every single one of her blind passions. The Japanese sentence would end at that simple statement. The unsaid portion would be something like; "Even though most of them are annoyingly disruptive, some of my blind passions are beautifully enriching; and all of them reveal to me the depths of Amida's compassion." Although I do not know their names, just meeting them was quite a treat. They are marvelously faithful, honest humans; proof positive that the teaching works.

Take care of yourselves, eh?

In Gassho,

Mike