Every day priests minutely
examine the Dharma
and endlessly chant
complicated sutras.
They should learn
how to read the love letters
sent by the wind and rain,
the snow and moon.

- Ikkyu (1394-1491)

Ikkyu The Blind Donkey

Skeletons

Ikkyu (1394-1481)

These thin lines of India ink reveal all truth.

Students, sit earnestly in zazen, and you will realize that everything born in this world is ultimately empty, including oneself and the original face of existence. All things indeed emerge out of emptiness. This original formlessness is “Buddha,” and all other similar terms-Buddha-nature, Buddhahood, Buddha-mind, Awakened One, Patriarch, God—are merely different expressions for the same emptiness. Misunderstand this and you will end up distracted for eons.

Filled with disgust and longing to liberate myself from the realm of continual birth and death, I abandoned home and set off on a journey. One night, I came to a lonely little temple, looking for a place to rest. I was far off the main road, at the base of a mountain, seemingly lost in a vast Plain of Repose. The temple was in a field of graves, and suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared speaking these words:

A melancholy autumn wind

Blows through the world:

The pampas grass waves,

As we drift to the moor,

Drift to the sea.

What can be done

With the mind of a man,

That should be clear

But, dressed up in a monk’s robe,

He just lets life pass him by?

All things become naught by returning to their origin. Bodhidharma faced the wall in meditation, but none of the thoughts that arose in this mind had any reality. The same held true for Buddha’s fifty years of proclaiming the Dharma. The Mind is not bound by such conditioned things.

Such deep musings made me uneasy and I could not sleep. Toward dawn I dozed off, and in my dreams I found myself surrounded by a bunch of skeletons, acting as they did in life.

.

One skeleton came over to me and said:

Memories

Flee and

Are no more:

All are empty dreams

Devoid of meaning.

Violate the reality of things

And babble about

“God” and “Buddha”

And you will never find

The true Way.

Still breathing,

You feel animated,

So a corpse in a field

Seems to be something

Apart from you.

I got on well with this skeleton—he had renounced the world to seek the truth and had passed from the shallows to the depths. He saw things clearly, just the way they are. I lay there with the wind in the pines whispering in my ears and the autumnal moonlight dancing across my face.

What is not a dream? Who will not end up as a skeleton? We appear as skeletons covered with skin, male and female, and lust after each other. When the breath expires, though, the skin ruptures, sex disappears, and there is no more high or low. Underneath the skin of the person we fondle and caress right now is nothing more than a bare set of bones. Think about it—high and low, young and old, male and female, all the same. Awaken to this one great matter, and you will immediately comprehend the meaning of “unborn and undying.”

If chunks of rock

Can serve as a memento

To the dead,

A better headstone

Would be a tea mortar.

Humans are indeed frightful beings.

A single moon

Bright and clear

In an unclouded sky:

Yet still we stumble

In the world’s darkness

Have a good look—stop the breath, peel off the skin, and everybody ends up looking the same. No matter how long you live, the result is not altered. Cast off the notion the “I exist.” Entrust yourself to the windblown clouds, and do not wish to live forever.

Ikkyu (1394-1481)

Excerpted from Wild Ways translated by John Stevens 2003

White Pines press

*

Death, the great equalizer, has a way of bringing life into a different kind of focus. Ikkyu’s skeletons share teachings from their point of view, which is accessible to those of us who remember we too will be those skeletons, and in fact carry them with us daily. Getting caught up in the world of form, we meditate and put our toes into formlessness, then get enmeshed again in form. To realize the teaching of the Heart Sutra is one of the highest teachings we can “attain.”

"Form is emptiness; emptiness is form; form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form."

That about sums it all up, but realizing the depths of this teaching can take lifetimes or no time. Just to hear this and contemplate this teaching plants seeds that will awaken when the conditions are right.

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svah

Skeletons

Part II

Ikkyu (1394-1481)

One night, I came to a lonely little temple, looking for a place to rest. I was far off the main road, at the base of a mountain, seemingly lost in a vast Plain of Repose. The temple was in a field of graves, and suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared speaking these words:

This world

Is but

A fleeting dream

So why be alarmed

At its evanescence?

Your span of life is set and entreaties to the gods to lengthen it are to no avail. Keep your mind fixed on the one great matter of life and death. Life ends in death, that’s the way things are.

The vagaries of life

Though painful,

Teach us

Not to cling

To this fleeting world.

Why do people

Lavish decoration

On this set of bones

Destined to disappear

Without a trace?

The original body

Must return to

Its original place:

Do not search

For what cannot be found.

No one really knows

The nature of birth

Nor the true dwelling place:

We return to the source,

And turn to dust.

We enjoyed ourselves together, the skeleton and I, and that illusive mind that generally separates us from others gradually left me. The skeleton that had accompanied me all this while possessed the mind that renounces the world and seeks for truth.

Many paths lead from

The foot of the mountain

But at the peak

We all gaze at the

Single bright moon.

If at the end of our journey

There is no final

Resting place

Then we need not fear

Losing our way.

No beginning

No end;

Our mind
Is born and dies:

The emptiness of emptiness!

Let up

And the mind

Runs wild:

Control the world

And you can cast it aside.

This is how the world is. Those who have not grasped the world’s impermanence are astonished and terrified by such change.

Rain, hail, snow, and ice:

All separate

But when they fall

They become the same water

Of the valley stream.

Without a bridge

Clouds climb effortlessly

To heaven:

No need to rely on

Anything Gotama Buddha taught.

Gotama Buddha proclaimed the Dharma for fifty years, and when his disciple Kashyapa asked him for the key to his teaching, Buddha said: “From beginning to end I have not proclaimed a single word,” and held up a flower.

Kashyapa smiled, and Buddha gave him the flower saying these words: “You possess the Wondrous mind of the True Law.” “What do you mean?” asked Kashyapa. “My fifty years of preaching,” Buddha told him, “has been beckoning to you all the while, just like attracting a child into one’s arms with the promise of a reward.”

This flower of the Dharma cannot be described in physical, mental, or verbal terms. It is not material or spiritual. It is not intellectual knowledge. Our Dharma is the Flower of the one Vehicle carrying all the Buddhas of the past, present, and future. It holds the twenty-eight Indian and six Chinese Patriarchs; it is the original ground of being—all there is.

All things are without beginning and thus all-inclusive. The eight senses, the four seasons, the four great elements (earth, water, fire, wind), all originate in emptiness, but few realize it. Wind is breath, fire is animation, water is blood; when the body is buried or burned it becomes earth. Yet these elements too are without beginning and never abide.

Ikkyu (1394-1481)

Excerpted from Wild Ways translated by John Stevens 2003

White Pines press

*

Ikkyu’s skeletons teach in rich and evocative koan-like poems. Any one of them can be read alone, and in fact, each one deserves quiet contemplation rather than a single reading. Powerful in imagery and content, these skeletons have much to share.

Certainly not traditional teachers, the skeletons personify death, one of our greatest teachers, and one many avoid speaking with until the game is almost up. When one keeps company with death, most of the things of daily life pale in comparison. The greater perspective naturally is perceived. It’s much easier to tell the significant from the insignificant issues of life. Things become crystal clear, and the present moment becomes naturally elongated.

Who doesn’t have time to contemplate any one of the skeleton’s poems when one is poised between being here and not here? Amidst the vitality of our lives, we carve out time for meditation and contemplation to create a life of depth and clarity as best we can. Who wants to wait till those last final moments to delve deeply into life’s most basic questions?

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

Blind Donkey ?

hoyoroku - Case 13: Rinzai's "Blind Donkey"  When Rinzai was about to die, he entrusted Sansho with his Dharma and said,   "After my passing, do not destroy my treasury of the Eye of the true    Dharma [1]." Sansho said,   "How would I dare destroy your treasury of the Eye of the true Dharma?" Rinzai said,   "If someone asks you about it, how will you answer?" Sansho instantly shouted his Kaatz. Rinzai said,   "Who knows that my treasury of the Eye of the true Dharma has been    destroyed by this blind donkey?"  [1]: Originally: shobogenzo. 

Puffin Skomer Island by Lizzie

Puffin on Skomer island

This is a genuine 2000 year old egyptian bust that looks similar to ? u know who!!

Stones

Stones, originally uploaded by BlindDonkey.

Our stone tower we left behind in Sedonna. I wonder if it is still there?

Water Dissolves Water: Friday Night Video

Water Dissolves Water: Friday Night Video

I like this Zen short film. Simple and too the point! A bit like Zen then!

[Bridge, Carmarthen, Wales] (LOC)

[Bridge, Carmarthen, Wales] (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

This is the old Bridge in Carmarthen ca 1890.

[From the southeast, Cardiff Castle, Wales] (LOC)

[From the southeast, Cardiff Castle, Wales] (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

I love this picture of Cardiff Castle ca.1890. The richest man in all the world lived here, The Marquis of Bute

Mural for me Boys

Mural for me Boys, originally uploaded by BlindDonkey.

My latest Mural made for my Grandsons. Before the paint was dry I was being told what they wanted next!!

Cilgerran Castle Aug 2009.

Mwnt July 2009

Mwnt July 2009, originally uploaded by BlindDonkey.

A deserted Mwnt in July is a rare thing but heres the proof,

This is a picture by Dave Gallo

and shows three spheres. The first our panet the second the amount of water on our planet the third the amount of FRESH water on our planet. Puts things in perpective !Google Dave Gallo, interesting guy.