Shelter in place

I heard a talk once about a pilgrimage around an island Shikoku in Japan, where you dress in white robes, and you hike around the island and stop in 88 temples and stay the night in whichever ones you want. It sounded so wonderful. Supposedly it was based on Kukai (774-835) who founded a Japanese sect of Vajrayana Buddhism. It sounded lovely. 

Reading Kukai's Wikipedia page, I wonder what mountain is sacred in North America to Buddhists? In New York City? 

Kukai founded the sect Shingon Buddhism, that thrives to this day. 

This talk by Vadanya suggests that Kukai allowed Buddhism to use nature and art beauty in the spiritual life. 

Kukai was a dynamic fellow who did things in the world and held it lightly it seems. He also was into Vairocana. 

I'm beginning to see how modernism works over the ideas of Buddhism in the context of modern ideas. Kukai is a Vajrayana teacher where you need teachers to unlock texts, because it's not open source, it's the whispered lineage. To open up Kukai is in a certain sense not what is meant by it. But there are a lot of interesting aspects to this talk. 

He says Buddhism is not about a total philosophy of everything and it doesn't put forth a metaphysic that explains everything. They're just saying, this ways of being can lead to enlightenment. You can improve your relationship to reality, and it's not for philosophical quibbling and it's not really committed to taking over everything in thinking. I really believe that about Buddhism, but I don't know if any ancient Buddhists actually ever think that, that's a modern interpretation of the teachings. You can advance the teachings in our times, but wow you need to be really careful doing that. 

He goes off on nature, and seeing an alive universe, and seeing the larger mysteries. He really develops that, and that's also a modernist idea, not so much a part of Buddhism's original teachings.

It reminds me of Mary Oliver who sees rocks as alive, etc. There's also the Triratna idea that it's OK to celebrate Christmas and Easter as pagan festivals. There's a real openness to the whole of culture that I guess traditional Buddhists would say, "that's not Buddhism."

I was trying to fall asleep, I'm exhausted, and this talk woke me up, I had to listen to it, and then go to sleep. 

I see now how Kukai fits into Triratna, possibly, and that's perhaps a narrow interpretation, and a modernist interpretation that is expansive. 

I got out my copy of Teachers of Enlightenment, Kulananda's book on the Triratna refuge tree of inspiration to read about Kukai, since I stumbled upon him, and started wondering about him.

This is a quote from Kukai’s Major Works:

“The blue sky was the ceiling of his hut and the clouds hanging over the mountains were his curtains; he did not need to worry about where he lived or where he slept. In summer he opened his neck band in a relaxed mood and delighted in the gentle breezes as though he were a great king, but in winter he watched the fire with his neck drawn into his shoulders. If he had enough horse chestnuts and bitter vegetables to last ten days, he was lucky. His bare shoulders showed through his paper robe and clothes padded with grass cloth.... Though his appearance was laughable, his deep-rooted will could not be taken away from him."

Kukai believed in Universal Education. 

He wrote The Ten Stages Of Developing The Mind.

He is associated with the Vairocanabhisambodhi Sutra and the Vajrasekhara Sutra.

In a way Triratna has done something extraordinary revolutionary. Lineage doesn't matter, and you can draw from every school of Buddhism. Honestly that's crazy, I can see why they get so much hate, that I see online. The idea that you can read Kukai and get what the Shingon sect imagines as their wisdom, it's almost like stealing. They might think those insights belong to their sect, and it's a kind of imperialism to come in and steal this rich resource. But is knowledge something you can steal? Is Triratna a literature based sect, inclusive, expansive?

What is the proper relationship to sects in Buddhism, how open source is Buddhism? I guess you live the questions.

I read part of a book by Robert Thurman about a pilgrimage around a sacred mountain in Tibet.

When you're neither monastic nor lay, you go forth still in society. 

I want to go on a 5 day pilgrimage into meditation, reading, prostrations, puja, and reflection. We'll see how much of my ambition I can pull off.

Days of Brahma Viharas, anapanasati, pure awareness meditation. Reading the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, and the Lotus Sutra. Maybe Vessantara's Meeting The Buddhas. 

Maybe a visit to the Met: Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE. Maybe a trip to the Rubin Friday night if it's still free then. 

Nature walks to the pond, around the neighborhood to look at flowers, look for wildflowers for my shrine.

I started off tonight with a short sit and puja. I'll do worldly things too, got a lot of errands and cleaning to do. And I'll end by cooking a meal for my daughter and ex, when they get back.