The White Steed

On Paths Toward Awakening

(1)

The Journey begins

Leagues of sky silent lie,

blue and free, calling me.

Where the horizon fair,

binds earth and air.

Cloud ships gaily,

venture daily,

on the silent sea.

eagle rock (Los Angeles), California, 1931, kindergarten, spring semester. At age four years-ten months, anticipating school as an exciting adventure, eager to learn, as exhilarating today as it was then. After eighty-six years, how can it be that this song still lingers in the very heart of me?  Silent skies, blue and free, calling me.

  Confession: many times to have been resistant to “learning” or accepting all offerings; at age thirteen, after reading the King James translation of the Bible cover-to-cover, announcing to the world (well, at least to immediate family), “I am an atheist.” Dear-hearted Mother simply shrugged and smiled. (Dad not present—divorced when I was two, but assured he too would’ve shrugged; neither parent ever talked about religion.) Continuing to delight, however, in the Nativity, Christmas stories (especially British and  European), singing Christmas carols, Easter rituals, especially sunrise services, Gregorian chants, Cantors singing in Synagogues, raising the flag and singing “The Star Bangled Banner.”  

  Confessing also to periods, hopefully not long-lasting, square jawed, irritatingly fanatic. Happy to say, this “condition” hasn’t found its way into the psyche or behavior for at least twenty years, with exception of contemporary political arena; and in the chaos of the last seventeen years, recently withdrawing altogether from debates and confrontations; yet attempting to keep up-t0-date, and informed.

  As for debating or allowing entrance of disputes regarding the teachings of the Buddha or other religions—never. Bodhisattvas observe that the nature of all existence is not in two opposing forms, but like space.

  Returning to the historical dimension of life, shortly after declaring atheism, along came Dr. Ernest C. Wilson from the Unity School of Christianity, and “Lessons in Truth” by H. Emilie Cady (published 1894). Will not expand on this here; suffice to say, the concept of a “God” in Cady’s book should be quite accessible to a Buddhist—the creative energy that is the cause of all visible things. Not surprised in the least to find this revelation some fifty years later in Nikkyo Niwano’s “Buddhism for Today, a Modern Interpretation of The Threefold Lotus Sutra”: There is a great invisible force which cannot be seen, a universal life-force that causes everything to live. Pausing to note in the Buddha’s teachings the “Law of Cause and Effect” allows for no creation story.

  Wilson’s “sermons” were sublime, sprinkled with humor, consistently absent were ranting, raving, exhortations. Also to note that before Wilson, originally lecturing at the Ebel Club in Los Angeles, then founding “Christ Church Unity,” had studied with Buddhist groups in Southern California.

  A year at UCLA in 1943-44 before induction into the army, and during war years, religion more or less forgotten once again; although during that first pre-war year at UCLA, accumulating life-rewarding (spiritual?) experiences never to be forgotten, including another “leagues of sky” moment in the first line spoken as the juvenile, Wu Hoo Git in George C. Hazelton and Benrimo’s “Yellow Jacket” in Royce Hall 170 in March, 1944.

I am Wu Hoo Git! I’m tired of classics! I long for the free air of life!

  Longing for the free air of life, always and forever, no doubt, a given. After the war, a rather lack-luster semester at Michigan State, summer stock on Mackinac Island (not so much lack-luster as chaotic) and, strictly in the “historical dimension,” in California again, a turning point in the realm of sexual desire; and then all religious or spiritual revelations and ruminations capitulated to new found shift-shaping conjurers—new friends at UCLA, 1948, introducing great artists and French cinema, Jean Louis Barrault’s “Children of Paradise,” “Cage of Nightingales,” Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

  Blue and free leagues of sky now filled with Horowitz at the piano, Marian Anderson, Roland Hayes, Jussi Bjoerling’s steel-tempered voice soaring into the rafters singing “Nessun Dorma” on RCA Victor 78 rpm recordings in musky rooms; Bobby Short at the Ambassador, Laurence Olivier’s “Henry V” and “Hamlet”; on stage speaking lines courtesy of Tennessee Williams, George Bernard Shaw, and, once again a never-t0-be forgotten declaration longing for the free air of life, playing Denis Dillon in Paul Vincent Carol’s “The White Steed.”

Oh God, it’s wonderful. I feel as if I have the taste of blood in me mouth, the taste of the blood of me enemies, the taste of the blood of the men who taught me to love their laws and hate life. I that have warm blood and the laugh of a giant!

  Enemies—always would it be so, had been so—men (and/or women) who would teach me to love their laws and hate life. “I that have warm blood. . .” and the never-ceasing desire to celebrate life.

  In “The Pilgrimage Play” for the first time that summer of 1948, playing disciple James, comforting to discover cast members, including the man who played Jesus, Nelson Leigh, very much aligned with the open spirit of Unity’s teachings—also to note very lighthearted and not resistant to humor, as when the donkey offstage would bray—hee-haw, hee-haw—during the quiet Last Supper scene. No one suggested burning the poor creature at the stake. A favorite story Nelson loved to tell, at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood, sitting in the audience with a friend with a resounding, booming voice, during intermission, said in a quiet moment, “Nelson, what you need is a good strong Peter—one you can play against.”

  For those Christians, comforted in their beliefs, you may skip this paragraph, but for those confused Christians beset by doubts or haunted, even giving into life-denying, extremist, right wing religionists of today, it is suggested you watch “The Pilgrimage Play” film. You should find it a breath of fresh air—an escape from your life-denying views. Filmed in 1949, the film is available on DVD and free for viewing at Amazon Prime video.

  Years later, as I began to appreciate one of the most profound teachings of the Buddha, all equally possess the buddha-nature, a quote rings out from our Last Supper scene when Jesus tells his disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled. He will send you another comforter that he may abide with thee forever. . . even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.”

Pilgrimage Play Theatre

On Paths toward Awakening

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Seed Period, the Transformative 1970s

  After the last year in The Pilgrimage Play in summer 1950 (now produced with an Actors Equity Broadway contract), New York beckoned many of us, so fade out religious/spiritual matters and activities. It was not until 1970 in New York that the direction of “spiritual” or other-worldly matters veered me into paths untrodden. Links which would carry me to the Buddha’s teachings seem disparate at first glance, but it is not so:

  To have been living in New York at all was occasioned by a season in “The Pilgrimage Play” in Hollywood in 1961, meeting Frank Dunand through a member of that cast, resulting in a return to New York in April, 1963 and a quite astounding series of adventures and jobs, deciding in October, 1969, to enroll in the Lee Strassberg Theatre Institute, and try my hand at theatre once again. So it was that I would in January 1970, meet Robert LuPone in an acting class with Ed Kovens. Bob became a close friend; hanging out with him—meeting his family and friends, auditioning with him at Playwrights Unit and for soap operas. We were to see each other often during the next few years. By June, 1976 (after a couple of years living in Los Angeles and San Francisco), I had lost touch with him, and returning to New York once more decided to look him up.

  Was I out of touch! soon learning from his then partner, Katherine Duke, that he was starring as Zach in “A Chorus Line,” nominated for a Tony Award for best supporting actor in a musical; that he now was in San Francisco on tour with “A Chorus Line” with the original Broadway cast—and I had just left San Francisco! Kathy’s voice was hoarse; she’d been participating in a grand march down Sixth Avenue, and chanting in a big rally in Shea Stadium. A small meditation center was tucked into a wall in the small apartment Bob had been living in since the time we met in 1970, a scroll at its center. Kathy had little to say beyond that, except that she and Bob had been “chanting” for a year by themselves, deciding they should join the “community” and do some proselytizing for new members. Unknown to me at the time, several members of “A Chorus Line” cast, and the co-writer, Nicholas Dante, had become members of N.S.A.

  A word about method acting and Tai-chi. One easily could condense the “Strassberg method of acting” based on Stanislavski’s “Lessons in Acting” as “living each moment with a completely relaxed state of mind; getting in touch with one’s emotional memories, sensory perceptions. Of course the process and its application are much more intense. At the same time, I was studying Tai-chi with Sophia Delza—and soon realized the discipline was in synch with Strassberg’s teaching—total concentration on a series of body movements, moment to moment.

New York, 1973: Another link which was to enhance the introduction to the Buddha’s teachings quite remarkably: living with Tony Doknovitch on West 79^th Street, searching for some means of livelihood; thought it might be fun to take up astrology, and after reading many books, decided it might be a good idea to go directly to the source of the frequently quoted Dane Rudhyar who obviously had revolutionary ideas about astrology, viewing human experience in terms of cycles and transformations, rather than event-centered predictions, and who in 1968 had originated person-centered “Humanistic -Transpersonal Astrology.”

  In a book store on lower Broadway in New York, discovering all of Rudhyar’s writings, a dozen or so titles dating back many years: “The Pulse of Life” (Sun Signs), “The Lunation Cycle.” “The Astrological Houses, the Spectrum of Human Experience.”

  Today on the breakfast table lies an old, dilapidated copy of the first edition of Dane Rudhyar’s “An Astrological Mandala–The Cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases” published by Random House, copyrighted by Rudhyar in 1973; its hard covers detached from note-filled tattered pages often consulted, attesting to its extraordinary content, mind-blowing on many occasions in its synchronicity with certain transformative life moments during the journey on the path, commencing in October, 1976. (I found this first edition in 1975 at a book store on Hollywood Boulevard.)

On Paths toward Awakening

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A Beginning at 50 Years

Discovering the Five Realms of Human Destiny

October 24, 1976, a Nichiren Shoshu temple in Etiwanda, California. connecting with the teachings of the Buddha, thanks to Robert LuPone and Katherine Duke, “the good friends, the great cause whereby one is led to see the Buddha and roused to Perfect Enlightenment,” to quote from the Lotus Sutra. I had reconnected with Bob and Kathy in Los Angeles and resided for a couple of months with them in their leased, rambling house in Laurel Canyon. “A Chorus Line” on tour was now at the Shubert Theatre in West Los Angeles.

  Those who have followed the Ancestral Well blog will know this story, one of the most extraordinary turning points, and a thrill to find in the rising sign (the true nature of the moment) that Rudhyar’s Astrological Mandala symbolically described and confirmed the full impact of the moment—one might say, pointing to its karmic direction, or “unfinished business from past lives,” as did many other symbols for Sun, Moon, and planets in the chart. Ascendant, point on eastern horizon, rising sign, 23° Sagittarius:

A Group of Immigrants as they fulfill the requirements of entrance into the new country. Consciously accepting the ways of a new stage of experience, in readiness for the opportunities it will present. . . We find ourselves in a period of transition. We have to imitate, yet retain our inner integrity.

House watching two years later, tuesday, December 5, 1978 ”Eagle’s Nest” before dawn, Brentwood (Los Angeles), California. The year so far, a disaster. A brief flirtation with the biker community; failed relationship – no place to live, so ended up house sitting for our Theatre District leader, Dick Bond, at his sprawling home on a hillside in Brentwood, California, close to familiar territory – UCLA campus. A separate and complete apartment sitting just above the main house – living room and bath – no kitchen, so must go below to main house kitchen to cook meals. We call it “The Eagle’s Nest.” Dick has a crew of fellow-N.S.A. members remodeling before he and his wife Donna move in.

  After the “connection” on October 24, two years earlier, our group, Theatre District-West, met at the home of Patricia (Trish) Garland and her live-in boy friend, George Tomashevsky. Trish plays Judy with the original Broadway cast of “A Chorus Line” on tour at the Shubert, close by. Boy friend George wants no part of our practice and hides out in the basement while we’re chanting our hearts out upstairs.

  One night after a meeting, on the way back to West Hollywood in the Ford Pinto, riding down Robertson Boulevard, suddenly in the distant sky, a huge silver/turquoise meteor plummets to earth and disappears behind the Santa Monica mountains. This was to be the first of a series of “shooting-star” sightings over the next two years, but no moment could compare to what occurred that morning in December, 1978.

  Tuesday, December 5, three days before the traditional celebration of the Buddha’s enlightenment, December 8; in the ”Eagle’s Nest,” chanting Nam Myoho-Renge kyo for almost two hours; through the window behind the altar which housed the Gohonzon (the same Mandala at the meditation center today some forty-one years later), the planet Venus as a morning star could be seen, and perhaps this is why I chanted for such a long period; Venus, the morning star Siddhartha contemplated in the eastern sky as he meditated before his awakening—and hastening to add another reason for the extended chanting, my life in a shambles.

  Copious long-handed notes were written about that morning; not recalling the exact sequence of events, but the mind very much searching for some kind of “fulfillment.” This thought segued into consideration of full moon moments as described in Rudhyar’s lunation cycle; the moment revealing possible fulfillment or completion, or possible failure as the cycle continues. I then recalled that a full moon occurred less than twenty-four hours after I was born – so, a “First Progressed Full Moon.” A chart of that moment might reveal some direction in the unfinished business of karmic residues found in the birth chart—perhaps, and why not? promises made in past lives.

  Concentrating now on the number 5, a pentagram division of the 360° Zodiac (prompted by considerations below), the idea presented itself that the lowest point in the chart called the nadir, the cusp of the fourth house, which in the flow of human experience is considered to tell the story of one’s personal integration after passing through the drama of self-discovery—emerging into the more or less “not-self,” though still subjective phase of human experience.

  Thus, at this point in the flow of life one might ask, what is the intent as one proceeds?  Overall the moment of full moon so soon after the birth cause moment, could indeed indicate a signal for the fulfillment of promises made in past lives. The moment has the advantage over the birth moment because it is an exact moment, unlike the birth moment of cause in which the exact moment of first breath might be questioned, even though methods of discovering close to the exact moment of birth are available.

  Why not consider this exact moment in the lunar phase after the birth moment as an indication of causes to be made from the unfinished business left over from past lives? Having decided the “Original Intent” would be found at the nadir, root and radix of the chart at the fourth  house cusp, a five-division of the chart from that point would give us a pentagram from a division of 72° each in the circle, ”Five Realms of Human Destiny.”

  Why five? First of all, each point would relate to the “five roots or powers” mentioned in the Lotus Sutra and we would have “Original Intent” (faith), “Continuing” (zealous progress), “Recognizing” (memory), “Participating” (meditation), and “Constructing” (wisdom). Also noting at the time, that the title of “The Mysterious Law of the Lotus,” Japanese title of the Lotus Sutra, is in five kanji (Chinese characters sounding in the Japanese words): Myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo.

  The Original Intent at the progressed full moon was (is) 9°13’ or 10° Capricorn, and I was struck first of all that this degree in Capricorn was in an exact waning square (90°) to the Original Intent of the “Great Pure Vow” or Gojukai chart at 10° Aries. Also, the Original Intent of the Birth Moment of cause, 26° Aquarius, was within one degree of the midpoint, or semi-square (45°) between Promises Made and Gojukai! All three moments, linked in near exact primary astrological aspects representing construction, and focus or release.

  The clincher, however, which convinced me of the profound significance of these interlocked life moments. hit me while standing in the kitchen below where I’d gone to make breakfast, taking along Rudhyar’s Astrological Mandala. Reading the symbol for the Original Intent of Promises Made in Past Lives, 10° Capricorn, choking up with tears, I cried aloud, “This is something I’ve always wanted in my life!” the Original Intent of the Five Realms of Human Destiny, Promises Made in Past Lives:

an albatross feeding from the hand of a sailor

keynote: The overcoming of fear and its rewards

  Persons who radiate perfect harmlessness can call the wildest creatures to them . . . Every living entity plays a role in the world’s ritual if existence . . . the communion of love and compassion can bring together the most disparate lives.

  Rudhyar: At this last stage of the fifty-sixth sequence we are presented with a picture extending the ideal of peace and happiness through culture so it now includes all living organisms on this planet. The power of such a culture of harmlessness and compassion generates trust everywhere.

  The remarkable thing about this and all the symbols, particularly in the two charts, Promises Made, and Gojukai, is that they resonate with the Buddha’s teachings. The symbol for the Original Intent for the “Great Pure Vow” (Gojukai) at 10° is, a teacher gives new symbolic forms to traditional images. key note: Revision of attitude at the beginning of a new cycle of experience.

10 Billion Years Ago

On Paths Toward Awakening

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The Journey Continues

Two More turning points

in new york in 1983, a “revolution” in n.s.a., largely against the Japanese leadership taking over Nichiren Shoshu of America, resulting in many of us, including friend Robert LuPone, quitting Theatre District; this, largely because of N.S.A.’s unfulfilled promise they would develop American leadership. Actually, other issues were afoot, but no need to explore them here; today with another name, the former N.S.A. is alive and well in the United States. Making the attempt (trusting this was not one of those fanatical, uncompromising periods) to gather certain members of our group, known as “Theatre District,” to encourage them not to give up on their devotion to the Lotus Sutra. It didn’t work.

  Drifting away from N.S.A., in the succeeding seven years, continuing to study and practice with   Nichiren daily rituals, chanting Nam Myoho-Renge kyo, and very limited parts of the sutra, a fragment of Chapter 2, “Tactfulness” and all of Chapter 16, “The Eternal Life of the Tathagata” in the ancient Japanese Shindoku.

  However, even before the “revolution” in New York, living in West Hollywood sometime in 1982, on the shelves of the Bodhi Tree bookstore, a title beckoned—The Threefold Lotus Sutra. An English translation!

  Unbelievable—is it possible? Now to discover just exactly what we had been chanting all these years. Before returning to New York in 1983, this English translation of The Threefold Lotus Sutra had been read and reread several times and some passages memorized. Oh, what we all had been missing!

enter science – the new frontier in physics

Also in 1982, more or less at the same time, another discovery: in the New York Times Sunday Supplement, September 26, “Beyond Newton and Einstein / on the New Frontier of Physics” by Timothy Ferris, visiting professor at the University of Southern California School of Journalism, the author of  “Galaxies.”

  No turning back now! Easily, one might have read Ferris’s astounding, eye-opening article and chucked the Lotus Sutra and the Buddha’s teachings altogether, declaring, “Science alone offers a true picture of the reality of existence.”

  Quite the contrary; the article, the sutra, and my own meager knowledge accumulated up to that moment, outlined above, aligned magnificently, and profoundly, with the Buddha’s teachings.

  From the second paragraph of the article [italic emphasis added] – “These [unified] theories which stand on the very frontier of physics, are most precisely not expressed in words, but as mathematical equations. They imply that all the known forces in nature are manifestations of one basic interaction, and that once, long ago, all were part of a single universal force or process.

  In tune with the Buddha’s “Profound Law of the Void” a few pages later in the article, Ferris continues: “Normally we think of virtual particles as restricted to the quantum world of the very small. But in the first moments of cosmic history, the universe was very small. Conceivably, the whole show could have begun as a speck of quantum foam in a vacuum. Nothingness contains all of being, writes the physicist, Heinz R. Pagels in his book “The Cosmic Code.” “All of physics – everything we hope to know – is waiting in the vacuum to be discovered.”

  And this from The Threefold Lotus Sutra, Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, Preaching: “Bodhisattvas, if they want to learn and master the doctrine of Innumerable Meanings, should observe that all laws were originally, will be, and are in themselves void in nature and form; they are neither great nor small, neither appearing nor disappearing, neither fixed nor movable, and neither advancing nor retreating; and they are nondualistic, just emptiness. . .”

  The subject of virtual particles appearing then disappearing suddenly in a vacuum, has been explored at length in several television documentaries.  Continuing with the quote from the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings we find: ”According to the nature of an existence, such an existence emerges. According to the nature of an existence, such an existence settles. According to the nature of an existence, such an existence changes. According to the nature of an existence, such an existence vanishes. . . . Settling, changing, and vanishing are also like this . . . none of these existences settles down even for a moment, but all emerge and vanish anew every moment; and observe that they emerge, settle, change, and vanish instantly. . .

  The Innumerable Meanings originate from one law. The one law is namely, nonform.  Such nonform is formless, and not form. Being not form and formless, it is called the real aspect of things . . .

  At the time, reading the Ferris article, I knew I had stumbled on something profound; not specifically, but certainly aligned with the Buddha’s teachings; the point being that through succeeding years, never would I find a single word or sentence or concept in the Buddha’s Mahayana teachings that were not in alignment with “Beyond Newton and Einstein” article, nor in other advances science was making in this “new frontier in physics.” In 1983, Timothy Ferris wrote, produced, and narrated the PBS special, “Creation of the Universe” which brought the article to life on screen, and introduced the idea of “vacuum genesis” – everything that exists could have come from a single spark of energy in a vacuum.

  The PBS special, “The Buddha” narrated by Richard Gere, brought to mind once more that sentence from the Timothy Ferris article, all the known forces in nature are manifestations of one basic interaction, and that once, long ago, all were part of a single universal force or process; a realization of Siddhartha sitting beneath the Bodhi tree at the time of his awakening; that we are, all of humanity and all living things, a fulfillment of  this universal force and process that began billions of years ago.

  “Siddhartha meditated throughout the night, and all his former lives passed before him. He remembers all his previous lives, numbers of previous lives, male and female, and every other race, and every other being in the vast ocean of life forms; and he remembered it viscerally, so that means his awareness expanded—so that all the moments of the past were present to him.”

On Paths toward Awakening

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Nikkyo Niwano, Rissho Kosei-kai

and “Buddhism for Today”

reading the english translation of The Threefold Lotus Sutra for the first time in 1982, a thrilling experience, toting the book with me everywhere – on a bus coughing its way to work in downtown Los Angeles. The sutra opens with “Thus have I heard” (“I” most likely the Buddha’s cousin, Ananda, born the night of Siddhartha’s enlightenment who followed the Buddha for years and is said to have memorized all his preaching); swept into a world full of extraordinary beings, disciples, bodhisattvas, and other worldly beings listening to the Buddha’s preaching. Awesome, to say the least. 

  Some thirty-five years later on my birthday, 2017, discovering Thich Nhat Hahn’s “Buddhahood in Three Dimensions” this inspiring experience of first reading, `extolled in this celebrated Zen master’s words  taking its place here as the most recent event in the long path toward awakening.

  ”Chapter 1 of the Lotus Sutra takes us to Vulture Peak, near the city of Rajagriha in the kingdom of Magadha (present-day northeast India), where the Buddha has gathered with a large assembly of disciples, including Kashyapa, Shariputra, Maudgalyayana and Ananda, as well thousands of bhikshus and bhikshunis, including the Buddha’s aunt, Mahaprajapati and his former wife, Yashodhara. In addition, there are tens of thousands of great bodhisattvas in attendance, among them Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Bhaisajyaraja (Medicine King) and Maitreya. Also present are many thousands of gods, including Indra and the kings of the nagas, kinnaras, ghandharvas, asuras and garudas. The ruler of Magadha, King Ajatashatru, and his royal family and retinue are also in attendance. This vast multitude of many different kinds of beings is present in the assembly when the Buddha is about to deliver the Lotus Sutra.

  “This not only sets the stage for the delivery of the sutra in the historical dimension, but also reveals the ultimate dimension. The vast numbers of shravakas and bodhisattvas, the presence of gods and mythical beings, give us our first taste of the ultimate dimension and show us that the opportunity to hear the Lotus Sutra delivered by the Buddha is something very special, a great occurrence not to be missed.” / / /

  These words explicitly and profoundly validated all the years studying the Lotus Sutra and attempting to practice its teachings; and in a certain way describe my own experience of first reading. On one occasion, probably when I returned to West Hollywood from New York and its N.S.A. “rebellion,” a former member of N.S.A. noticed I was reading The Threefold Lotus Sutra and suggested if I really wanted to understand the sutra, I should read Nikkyo Niwano’s “Buddhism for Today, a Modern Interpretation of the Threefold Lotus Sutra.” At the time I was recording the complete Threefold on cassette tape.

  Discovering Rissho Kosei-kai and one of its co-founders turned out to become a giant leap forward. The few years I was a member of this Buddhist lay organization in Los Angeles, participating with our American, English-language group, chanting something from each chapter of the sutra in English--indeed memorable, as perhaps some notes for Niwano’s writings will make clear:

formation and propagation of the Lotus Sutra – Notes from Niwano’s “Buddhism for Today”: “No widespread writing system in India in Shakyamuni’s time. . . sermons memorized and spread by word of mouth: people had powers of memory beyond our imagining, and people’s lives less complicated. . . it is almost certain that they [great disciples of the Buddha] did not mishear Shakyamuni’s sermons. . .

  “Frequent conferences held often after death of Buddha.” [Mahayana sutras begin often with the phrase: “Thus have I heard.”] / / /

  In the west we have similar traditions: legends, histories, stories origi­nating from oral transmission passed down from generation to generation, most notably by the wandering blind poet Homer reciting Trojan War Epics—the Iliad and Odyssey; The Song of Roland, 11^th Century Chanson de Geste ascribed to the Norman troubadours Théroulde, or Turoldus, which tells the death of Roland and stories related to Charlemagne.

Continuing notes from nikkyo niwano’s buddhism for today: “There is no sutra that is not holy. Teachings have been recorded in Agama, Prajñaparamita, and Amitabha sutras, and many others. But only in the Lotus Sutra was the fundamental spirit of all Shakyamuni’s teachings during his active life clearly expressed for the first time . . . important spirit of all his teachings has been unified and described in easily understood terms; essentials of Buddhism’s very core of Shakyamuni’s teachings explained exhaustively in simple, yet powerful words.

  “After the Buddha’s death, a gulf opened between monks and lay devotees before either group was aware of it . . . This continually widening gap came about because some monks attached much more importance to the formalities of keeping the precepts than to the fundamental spirit of why the precepts should be kept.

  “The Lotus Sutra appeared under circumstances of a clash between the new and old (Hinayana and Mahayana). Mahayana (great vehicle) stresses that in Buddhism there is only one vehicle to be followed equally by all people, and that the ultimate object of Shakyamuni’s teachings is to bring all people to this vehicle [ultimately to self-attained enlightenment, compassionate mindfulness, and Perfect Enlightenment as the Buddha himself attained].”

discovering hui-neng, “enlightenment here and now” – Two years as a member of Rissho Kosei-kai at their center in East Los Angeles, creating the newsletter, “Sands of the Ganges” – reciting the Lotus Sutra in English with fellow-members, participating in what is called the hoza, a kind of group therapy session, a truly rewarding experience. The head guy, the Japanese minister, was married to an American woman which had prompted the recent recruitment of Americans. Some of the Japanese members of Rissho Kosei-kai also joined our English chanting group.

  By the autumn of 1993, I had left Rissho Kosei-kai and moved from West Hollywood to San Clemente.  It must be noted here that the teachings of Rissho Kosei evolve from The Threefold Lotus Sutra and the writings of Nikkyo Niwano, still on the shelf today and frequently referred to, and his devotion to this sutra. The practice of Rissho Kosei-kai today is defined as “Ekayana” or the One Buddha Vehicle—The Lotus Sutra.

  Therefore, significant to note here the universality and openness of Rissho Kosei-kai which always has explored other disciplines—including classes in Zen meditation; and in their publication, “Dharma World.” It was in this publication, at the time of practicing with Rissho Kosei-kai, that I discovered a noteworthy article, July 1982 Vol. 9, written by George Pracy Pugh, committee member of the Buddhist Society of N.S.W., Australia, Hui-neng’s Enlightenment – Here and Now, richly rewarding. Certain passages memorized; for example:

   . . . In this enlightened awareness, we can all see the marvelous wonder of our universe, blemishes and all, and find our home and comfort in a cosmos that is magically a part of us, and us a part of it. This interpenetration of the individual in the universe is what the Buddha’s teachings are all about. This is their scope and majesty.

On Paths toward Awakening

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Today, 2018

“Life is a magnificent accumulation of . . .”

living on effie street, echo park, california, 1958, fragment of a poem never finished: “Life is a magnificent accumulation of sights and sounds.” Writing this history of a spiritual journey sixty years later reveals the kaleidoscopic, multi-layered accumulation of “sights and sounds” on a path being followed through the years—an undefined path, seldom realized that it was a path at all—yet here we are today at the start of a New Year, 2018, approaching the forty-second year of connection to the supernatural, pervading power of the Buddha and his teachings through the ultimate, mysterious wonderful Law of the Lotus, The Threefold Lotus Sutra.

  As the Lotus Sutra reveals the accumulation of all the Buddha’s teachings, thus do all events related here—this compendium of sights and sounds—reveal a path toward awakening. Only because of a disciplined, daily return to the life and teachings of the Buddha in the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law have I attained this state of mindfulness.

  And the journey continues. There’s a lot of karmic unfinished residue to overcome before moving on. In this century, apart from the pivotal moment of discovering Thich Nhat Hahn, his celebrative essay on the Lotus Sutra, and his perception of “Buddhahood in Three Dimensions,” this has been a century in which I have found Ken Wilbur in the archives of “Shambala Sun,” now “Lion’s Roar,” in an extensive interview:

  “Buddhist contemplation is sufficient for ultimate truth . . . all boundaries and dualisms have been transcended and all individuality dissolves into universal, undifferentiated oneness. . . the simple, direct, clear recognition in which it becomes perfectly obvious that you do not see the sky, you are the sky. You do not touch the earth, you are the earth. The wind does not blow on you, it blows within you. In this simple one taste, you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, and swallow the universe whole. . . . and it is all as simple as the sound of a robin singing on a crystal clear dawn.” Ken Wilbur is active today and may be found at the web site, Integral Life.

  In this century, other writings in quantum physics and biology have enriched this tapestry of sights and sounds along the path toward awakening. Perhaps this is, without my knowing it, an expression of intent suggested in the Lotus Sutra: I see also bodhisattvas who seek association with the wise, and with all their mind get rid of distraction.

  Turning 80 in 2006, coming upon a friend, Dr. Cody Masek, who, himself, at the time of our meeting, was exploring paths toward awakening. I had gone to him because of severe back pains, which he happily took care within a few weeks, we connected like two long-lost friends (he is 48 years younger than I) and was to discover that at his birth moment of cause the Sun and Jupiter were in conjunction in his sixth house (the experience related to learning, healing) at 25° Aquarius, the mid-point degree of a Jupiter and Mars conjunction at both my birth moment of cause and promises made in past lives. At my birth, the Sun is also in the sixth house. Our exchanges at times seem almost psychic in nature.

  He was, and is today, already close to completing the journey—this revealed, not only in our frequent contacts and conversations, but his rather amazing attentiveness—he is a man who lives fully in the moment. This doesn’t mean he hasn’t lived without trouble or adversities, and also to note he has never even approached becoming a Buddhist or studying the Buddha’s teachings, although exploring many other disciplines for self-awareness; yet I have learned much from him about the “path Buddha” and infinite Buddha-truth; for as with Thich Nhat Hahn, his life is a validation of the truths to be discovered and celebrated in the Lotus Sutra.

  I believe that if the tapestry of the Buddha’s pro­found dharma is woven again, again, and again in our hearts and minds, perhaps more than a few will be encouraged to discover that it’s possible to leave weary discourse behind and find a consistent, day-to-day practice that will enrich our lives, “advancing together to the place of jewels”—to find liberation from anguish and despair; to discover Perfect Enlightenment in this lifetime, as the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree. . . as has been my own  good fortune through the years. I now realize, and only recently, that what is related here is all part of one, single tapestry, leading to this moment in time.

  Ken Wilbur: “One’s own mind is intrinsically one with primordial energy."

  Nikkyo Niwano: “The ultimate substance of the Buddha is the eternal, imperishable life-force; the Buddha abounds within us all. . . We ourselves are one substance with the Buddha.”

Dana Forline Skolfield
Temecula, California
February 14, 2018