In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind, there are few. - Shunryu Suzuki
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Friday, January 08, 2010
My dear Dharma buddy C just mentioned this blog, having forgotten how to find it. Her email note made me blush, given how long it's been since I've written a word here. This post is for you, C, so you have something new to read. And if you (or Emma) start a blog, I will proudly link to it.
By way of a New Year's greeting, C had sent this beautiful thought a few days ago:
"My teacher Nyogen Roshi is fond of quoting his teacher, Maezumi Roshi, who said something like, 'It is impossible not to do your best. You just don’t think it’s your best.'” - Karen Maezen Miller, The Laundry Line
That generous thought came back to me a few days ago as I watched the 2001 Bollywood movie, "Asoka." I had known only a little about Emperor Asoka, who reigned during the third century BCE, and the movie inspired me to learn more.
Historical accounts differ and may be as much or more legend as fact. But they generally agree that Asoka's early reign was brutal. Some sources say that he dispatched a brother or two to gain his throne. Like an Indian version of Genghis Khan, he seems to have been ruthless in his quest to expand his empire to encompass the whole of the Indian subcontinent. He nearly succeeded in achieving his aim--but then he chose to attack the nearby principality of Kalinga (the present-day Indian state of Orissa).
His invasion of Kalinga proved to be especially bloody, leading to 100,000 casualties, by one estimate. On the day after the battle, the story goes, Asoka walked alone among the piled corpses and wailing survivors, slowly taking in the extent of the death and destruction he had wrought. The legend is that he cried out, "What have I done?," and renounced violence forever on that blood-soaked battlefield.
Emperor Asoka devoted the rest of his life to promoting the welfare of his subjects, and proselytizing Buddhism, at the time a minority religion in his homeland. He declared Buddhism to be the state religion. His missionaries, who included some of his own children, and those who followed after them, spread Buddhism as far as Rome and Egypt to the west, eastward to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and northward into the Himalayas and eventually into China and Japan.
In the following centuries, at the same time that Buddhism was growing deep roots in China and Japan, where it would become Zen; in Southeast Asia, where it would become the Theravada "Forest Monastery" tradition; and in the Himalayas, where Tibetan Buddhism would be the eventual result, Buddhism slowly died out in India, the birthplace and home of the Buddha himself.
Asoka's worldly empire did not outlast him for long, but his spiritual legacy is priceless. It is not a stretch to think that had it not been for Emperor Asoka's determined efforts, Buddhism would not have survived. His Holiness the Dalai Lama might be an illiterate peasant in a remote Tibetan village. We would know nothing of the sound of one hand clapping or mountains walking, and I would be doing something else on Tuesday evenings besides attending the weekly sitting of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society.
It's heartening to think that even if we start out life with our worst imaginable foot forward, even if we live for years as the most bloodstained tyrant of our age, or if in some other way our sheer badness strains imagination, good may be the eventual outcome of our life, through twists and turns of fate we never could imagine. It's a liberating idea indeed that if we just keep on doing our best--and Maezumi Roshi would say that's all we can do, anyway--our story, like Asoka's, will eventually end far better than it began.
By way of a New Year's greeting, C had sent this beautiful thought a few days ago:
"My teacher Nyogen Roshi is fond of quoting his teacher, Maezumi Roshi, who said something like, 'It is impossible not to do your best. You just don’t think it’s your best.'” - Karen Maezen Miller, The Laundry Line
That generous thought came back to me a few days ago as I watched the 2001 Bollywood movie, "Asoka." I had known only a little about Emperor Asoka, who reigned during the third century BCE, and the movie inspired me to learn more.
Historical accounts differ and may be as much or more legend as fact. But they generally agree that Asoka's early reign was brutal. Some sources say that he dispatched a brother or two to gain his throne. Like an Indian version of Genghis Khan, he seems to have been ruthless in his quest to expand his empire to encompass the whole of the Indian subcontinent. He nearly succeeded in achieving his aim--but then he chose to attack the nearby principality of Kalinga (the present-day Indian state of Orissa).
His invasion of Kalinga proved to be especially bloody, leading to 100,000 casualties, by one estimate. On the day after the battle, the story goes, Asoka walked alone among the piled corpses and wailing survivors, slowly taking in the extent of the death and destruction he had wrought. The legend is that he cried out, "What have I done?," and renounced violence forever on that blood-soaked battlefield.
Emperor Asoka devoted the rest of his life to promoting the welfare of his subjects, and proselytizing Buddhism, at the time a minority religion in his homeland. He declared Buddhism to be the state religion. His missionaries, who included some of his own children, and those who followed after them, spread Buddhism as far as Rome and Egypt to the west, eastward to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and northward into the Himalayas and eventually into China and Japan.
In the following centuries, at the same time that Buddhism was growing deep roots in China and Japan, where it would become Zen; in Southeast Asia, where it would become the Theravada "Forest Monastery" tradition; and in the Himalayas, where Tibetan Buddhism would be the eventual result, Buddhism slowly died out in India, the birthplace and home of the Buddha himself.
Asoka's worldly empire did not outlast him for long, but his spiritual legacy is priceless. It is not a stretch to think that had it not been for Emperor Asoka's determined efforts, Buddhism would not have survived. His Holiness the Dalai Lama might be an illiterate peasant in a remote Tibetan village. We would know nothing of the sound of one hand clapping or mountains walking, and I would be doing something else on Tuesday evenings besides attending the weekly sitting of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society.
It's heartening to think that even if we start out life with our worst imaginable foot forward, even if we live for years as the most bloodstained tyrant of our age, or if in some other way our sheer badness strains imagination, good may be the eventual outcome of our life, through twists and turns of fate we never could imagine. It's a liberating idea indeed that if we just keep on doing our best--and Maezumi Roshi would say that's all we can do, anyway--our story, like Asoka's, will eventually end far better than it began.
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