A bodhisattva lives in Brooklyn

May I be a protector to those without protection,
A leader for those who journey,
And a boat, a bridge, a passage
For those desiring the further shore.

May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away.
May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.

-- Shantideva

"The marketplace is where we need to be."
-- Enkyo Roshi O'Hara on the bodhisattva path

Actions of bodhisattva as observed one Saturday with Mary (an amended list)

-- welcoming hug
-- offering food, specially vegetarian for me, and drink
-- joking with the guys who work in the coffee shop and the place where she buys her Times and lottery tickets
-- good-natured patience as we wait for the shuttle bus because the subway station is closed
-- thanking the shuttle bus driver (let's shorten the list -- thanking anyone who provides any service, a sincere thank you, complete with eye contact)
-- walking across the Brooklyn Bridge an staying out of the bike lane
-- delighting in the couple who ballroom dance to the street musician's music
-- buying soft socks for Niece Christine, whose feet are always cold
-- staying up til 2:15 a.m. talking to Niece Christine, who is a bodhisattva for another list (she's a middle school special-ed teacher in Bed-Stuy)
-- napping
-- caring for two formerly feral cats whose malformed intestines mean extra work
-- accepting with grace and good humor that the 7:30 showing of The Social Network is sold out, throwing out the plan for the evening
-- listening
-- still listening
-- putting an arm around me
-- talking
-- appreciating and being in this moment, this day, this life.

Mary doesn't know what a bodhisattva is. We're talking about it -- I went to Roshi O'Hara's talk Friday night -- when she sees the soft socks in the window of a dollar store and thinks of Christine.
"That's the act of a bodhisattva," I tell her, to act from a place of compassion with no thought of return. To see everyone's needs as equal to your own. To SEE everyone, from the the homeless guys to the waitress to an old friend, with the same tenderness.
She laughs. OK, she says.
Mary hasn't taken a formal vow but the bodhisattva intention is there: to bring happiness and benefit to all beings, to save them from the meanness of the world, to help them be their best selves (thereby avoiding accumulating bad karma).
Mary is a bodhisattva. In Brooklyn. For real.

the bliss body

"This background radiation of love is present when we practice mindfulness and move from the stories into the energy of the body. It is what the Buddha called sambhogakaya -- the bliss body. We can connect to that bliss in any moment we give ourselves permission to do so. However, this permission cannot take the form of an "I want." It's an allowing not a doing. It's not a desire, goal or objective. It's what we find when we wake up to the shining presence of this moment."

don't think

"It's too much hard work to do some things for effect. I'm just doing things because I want to do them. Not even because I want to do them, but because I am doing them. I'm not doing them thinking about how I look doing them. People who don't create anything think like that. 'What do I look like doing this?' Well, you look like a fucking idiot, actually. I'm not looking at my own reflection doing this this -- I'm actually doing it." Elvis Costello

from Bill Moyers

“It’s OK if it’s impossible; it’s OK! Now I’m going to speak to you as
organizers. Listen carefully. The object is not to win. That’s not the
objective. The object is to do the right and good thing. If you decide
not to do anything, because it’s too hard or too impossible, then
nothing will be done, and when you’re on your death bed,... you’re gonna
say, “I wish I had done something" But if you go and do the right thing
NOW, and you do it long enough, “good things will happen—something’s
gonna happen.”

How soon should this body be a corpse?

Society has a duty to protect people from being harmed, but has no right to exact revenge. Whether it is murder or legal execution, any killing is simply wrong. Neutralizing and preventing harm does not require vengeance and retaliation.

Matthieu Ricard on forgiveness

Robert Chender, who’s co-teaching the Intro to Buddhism class, suggested this week that we check out a video on the Huffington Post of Mathieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk with a delightful French accent, talking about forgiveness.

The comment above struck me. I work at a newspaper in Connecticut, and aside from the election, the biggest story in the state is the trial of Steven Hayes, one of two men charged in the horrific torture and murder of a woman and her two daughters. (The husband and father was beaten and tied up in the basement but escaped). Hayes never denied taking part, but prosecutors wouldn’t agree to life in prison – in large part because the survivor is determined that Hayes and his co-defendant should be put to death by the state. A jury convicted Hayes after a trial that detailed the unbearably awful things that happened. The same jury now is considering whether to sentence him to death. Under Connecticut law, jurors considering the death penalty weigh mitigating and aggravating factors.

Just as an individual can fall prey to hatred, so can a whole society. MR

In a recent poll, 76 percent of Connecticut residents say they support the death penalty for Hayes – 10 percentage points more than support the death penalty itself.

A human being is not basically bad, but can easily become so. Our real enemy is therefore not the person who has fallen prey to hatred but hatred itself. MR

If hatred is the enemy, then what about those who are doing the hating? People I consider reasonable and compassionate see no gray here – he should died for what he did. Carrying out the death penalty in Connecticut takes a long time; there are mandatory appeals built into the process. If he wants to die, maybe keeping him alive is a worse punishment.

From a Buddhist point of view, the basic goodness of a human being remains deep within, even if he or she deviates into a very malevolent person. The simile given is that of a piece of gold that remains unchanged even when buried in filth. There is always a possibility of cleansing the filth. This does not amount to ignoring the base quality of the filth but to knowing that it can be removed and that the gold within it can shine again.

Hayes wants to die. He didn’t want his public defenders to argue against the death penalty. He’s tried to commit suicide. He became ill with what his lawyer described as seizures the day crime scene photos were shown in court. Does that show remorse? Is that evidence that he’s changed?

On Friday, the front-page headline on the trial story said: Show Me Your Soul is Worth Saving.

It referred to a letter Hayes’ brother had written in April after Steven Hayes tried to kill himself in prison with an overdose of prescription drugs. "If you don't want to cause us pain, allow what has to unfold without hindrance," his brother wrote, adding that he had "no respect" for Steven's self-professed wish to die.

"The process in front of you and the ensuing punishment is where you will find redemption, nowhere else," the brother wrote. "I have been told that every soul is worth saving, no matter what the actions. Show me your soul is worth saving, and I'll do what I have the capacities to do."

How does one show that one’s soul is worth saving?

I believe that every sentient being is worth saving, that every person is basically good. But is this true when their actions are so bad?

I may be almost alone in not wanting to flip the switch on Steven Hayes. I don’t approve, accept, or understand what he did. But I believe that somewhere inside the shriveled sad man who sits in court, there is a basic goodness that got buried so deep he can’t find it. I wouldn’t expect him to act from that place, but I can’t find it in my heart to want him dead. I don’t think it will bring the peace his victims’ family seeks. Hatred only breeds hatred. His death won’t diminish their pain.

In short, contemplating the horror of other's crimes should enhance in one's own mind a boundless love and compassion for all beings, rather than hatred of a few. MR

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthieu-ricard/forgiveness-video_b_774430.html?ref=fb&src=sp

The Book of Hours

(The Book of Hours) (1899-1903)

• Extinguish my sight, and I can still see you;
  plug up my ears, and I can still hear;
  even without feet I can walk toward you,
  and without mouth I can still implore.
  Break off my arms, and I will hold you
  with my heart as if it were a hand;
  strangle my heart, and my brain will still throb;
  and should you set fire to my brain,
  I still can carry you with my blood.

Rainer Maria Rilke
I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough

• to make every hour holy.
  I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough
  just to stand before you like a thing,
  dark and shrewd.
  I want my will, and I want to be with my will
  as it moves towards deed;
  and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,
  when something is approaching,
  I want to be with those who are wise
  or else alone.

  In Celebration of Me (1909)

• I am so afraid of people's words.
  They describe so distinctly everything:
  And this they call dog and that they call house,
  here the start and there the end.

  I worry about their mockery with words,
  they know everything, what will be, what was;
  no mountain is still miraculous;
  and their house and yard lead right up to God.

  I want to warn and object: Let the things be!
  I enjoy listening to the sound they are making.
  But you always touch: and they hush and stand still.
  That's how you kill.

  • Translated by Annemarie S. Kidder
  • 
    
  Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

LXIV

you will know that I do and do not love you

just as life is of two minds,

a word is one wing of silence,

and fire is half made of ice.

I love you just so I can begin to love you,

to begin anew at the infinite

and to be able never to stop loving you;

For these reasons I do not love you yet.

I do and do not love you as if I held

in my hands the keys to every happiness

and an uncertain unhappy fate.

My love has two lifetimes to love you.

That's how I can love you when I don't,

and still love you when I do.

-- Rafael Campo