Jizo Bodhisattva, or Ksitigarbha, Earth-Store, “protector of children and
guide through the underworld,” as we sometimes chant, is often met at the
doorways to Buddhist temples, witnessing the comings and goings of all of us,
our lives, our heart-minds. Just standing by, in the midst of us, or
traveling with his staff through all the paths.
His vow is sometimes represented this way: “If I do not go to
hell to help the suffering beings there, who else will go? … if the hells are
not empty I will not become a Buddha. Only when all living beings have been
saved, will I attain Bodhi.”
So here is Jizo, standing outside the door of Creek Bend Zendo, looking
very much like one who has “the mind of Winter” and is savoring
the taste of snow. Greeting all beings, coming or going. A person with
nothing to do.
Today he seems the very image of koan practice. And so he comes along
here to invite you to join in our series of six koan gatherings for
Spring.
Here’s the info:
Saturdays, 10 Am to
Noon
March 16, 23, 30; April 6, 13, 20
Creek Bend Zendo
Contact: Sarah Bender sembender@gmail.com
Open to everyone; no previous experience necessary
donations are gratefully received but not required
If you wish to be on the email list for the series and receive
the koans ahead of time, you need to send an email to Sarah at the above
address.
Hitting
“reply” for this email will send you up a side alley.
Here are a couple of koans for this Saturday, to
get us going.
Is this difficult? Is this easy?
Layman P’ang was sitting in his thatched cottage
one day.
“Difficult, difficult,
difficult,” he suddenly exclaimed, “to scatter ten measures of sesame
seed all over a tree!”
“Easy, easy, easy,”
returned Mrs. P’ang, “just like touching your feet to the ground when you
get out of bed.”
“Neither difficult nor
easy,” said their daughter, Ling-chao. “On the hundred grass-tips,
the Ancestors’ meaning.”
And this one: If there is nothing to fix, nothing to accomplish, what
about this?
This is true yoga: the unbinding
of the bonds of sorrow. Practice
this yoga with determination
and with a courageous heart.
from the
Bhagavad Gita