Thoughts and reflections shared with our sangha amid the pandemic...

Hey mandala,

With things getting more and more constrained, my attention reflexively turns to my experiences with Ajari Tanaka and all the things that he has taught us over the years.

When I first met Ajari he was doing an intensive recitation of the heat sutra.  He has said more than once that he chanted it a million times.  By my math that would take almost four years of uninterrupted practice.  Other times he told me he did it for three hours a day.  More recently, we've all experienced him producing copy after copy of the heart sutra as part of his Oshakyo (sutra copying) practice during his visits to Vermont.  When I visited him in Japan (2008), he did the same each morning, brushing three or four copies before we had breakfast.  I know Ajari has been very generous with his heart sutra copying practice and I hope you all have at least one copy in your personal collection.  It makes a wonderful object of contemplation.

But back to the main point...

Being a little stuck at home and thinking about Ajari's teachings, I've finally started to teach myself to brush the heart sutra.  To begin, I'm working on these opening phrases:

Kan ji zai bo sa

gyo jin

ha nya ha ra mi ta ji

Our text translates this as:

When the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was practicing profound transcendental wisdom...

During my struggle to find the correct characters, the proper stroke orders and the meaning for this opening phrase I was struck by the terms "gyo jin".

"Gyo" means "to do" and "jin" means "deeply"

"Do deeply".  Just stop on that for a brief moment...

The phrase is simply saying that Avaloketesvara was deeply practicing perfect wisdom.  He was just really, really practicing.  I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Ajari has encouraged us to do all these many years.

In this chaotic time, I hope all the training you've already (deeply) done has made your practice a source of strength and stability, a touchstone that can nourish and revitalize no matter what's going on.

Take good care and I hope to see you all on the other side,

jim