Taking Up the Pearl

(Follow this link to see the July 2023 Priory Newsletter where this was recently published.)

Kanzeon In Our Library

The altar pictured in the first image of this newsletter sits in our library upstairs where we hold our classes and broadcast our Zoom meetings. It is not usually in the Zoom picture since the camera for broadcasting and the screen for viewing the Zoom meeting sits on a shelf below this altar. This statue will occasionally come to mind while we talk and, since we have been thinking and talking a fair bit about Kanzeon (Japanese; Guanyin, Chinese; Avalokiteshwara, Sanskrit; Chenrezig, Tibetan) Bodhisattva over the last month or so, I thought I would share this picture.

Kanzeon is the Bodhisattva who embodies the aspect of the Fundamental Mind that is compassion. There are thousands of ways that she is depicted just as there are myriad ways that she manifests in the world. I particularly like this image since it clearly embodies the aspect of her sitting still in meditation and making available the pearl of wisdom (in her right hand) and the water of the spirit (in her left hand); she offers them, not forcing, just waiting for us to take them up and put them into practice if we will.

There is a story from Great Master Dogen’s Genjo-Koan:

One summer day a Zen teacher sat fanning himself when a monk asked, “Since the nature of wind is stationary and universally present, why do you use a fan?” The teacher replied, “Although you know its nature to be stationary, you do not know why it is universally present.” “Why is it universally present?” asked the monk. For answer the teacher merely continued fanning himself and the monk bowed. The True Way of Transmission and enlightenment which is the result of real experience is the same as this. One who thinks that fanning is not needed simply because wind is stationary by nature, and requires no fan since it can be sensed, understands nothing whatsoever of its nature and its eternal presence. It is because it is eternally, always here that the wind of Buddhism makes the earth golden and the rivers run with ghee.

The Fundamental Mind exists and is everywhere at all times. We come to know and give expression to the Fundamental Mind with its Compassion, Love and Wisdom, by taking up the Pearl of Wisdom, the practice of the Buddhadharma, that Kanzeon offers, and we participate in the sprinkling of the water of the spirit that she offers by doing this practice to the best of our ability. We fan (practice) and the wind blows (the Fundamental Mind helps us and all beings).