Hakuin Zenji said, "The life of the Bohdisattva is like filling a bottomless well with snow". You understand the very delicate feeling he expressed about the Bohdisattva's aim of life, the vow of his life. No matter how much snow you bring it will all go in and never be filled up. It seems impossible to fulfill this vow. So the Bohdisattva is doing something knowing it is not possible to have completion of it and knowing it is not imperfect to do so. The Bohdisattva is not feel- ing dissatisfaction about his life or her life, but there is endlessness of it.
When you see the Four Vows of Bohdisattva, on some level it is a very ethical and moralistic expression. You are different from sentient beings, all beings, and they suffer and you save them or cut off their delusion, and how to do so is to study Dharma and doing so you accomplish the Buddha's way. But there is a deeper re- cognition which Hakuin Zenji's simile is guiding us to know--to know what it is which feels endless and count- less and inexhaustible, unsurpassable.
You say, "Here I am another day". That feeling is Bohdisattva's feeling. Maybe confronting a big job which should be done, sometimes facing nothing, you say, "Here I am another day". Awareness of other beings and aware- ness of space is very clear in this Bohdisattva's mind. If the historical Buddha stops his life at the point of complete awakening, he cannot move toward this vow. Actually that was the beginning of the Buddha's life, not the destination of his life. So the Bohdisattva's vow begins from the same awakening the historical Buddha experienced. This is the most important point to realize. In another word, this vow expresses what we most deeply want to do.
Kobun Chino — sensei
The deep root of ignorance is in the endless future, as the past is a flower of the future. If you perceive things in this way, it completely fits to this vow. If you know what happens today, and from now on what will happen tomorrow, pretty soon you'll be bored. You'll begin to sleep in the heavenly world. That is the biggest ignorance--to plan so and direct things so, today this will happen, tomorrow this will happen. It's like throwing step- ping stones into the future and walking on them.
Kobun Chino — sensei
[Illustration: Botanical line drawing of a wild ginger or similar plant with large round leaves, flowering stems, and visible root system]
SOLITUDE
b. eagle, poet loses faith in his illusions leaves mankind & lives alone 40 years seeking evidence that he exists holding water like small birds in his hands nailing light to himself hooting
he gathers wild lettuce & tries to come to terms with things evenings he constructs a mathematical model of the universe using only pine needles & even numbers & finds he has left himself odd out
so b. eagle looks into zen shaves his head & face wanders the empty earth with a basket of blue sky apples for the horses of enlightenment & listens for the one hand
buff bradley
Mary Kate: Well, I went down to the beach and read over some of these transcripts (from the Monday study group) and I'm beginning to feel that something has to go outward from us, instead of always from you to us.
Janice: That feels good to me, going out to Kobun in- stead of taking all the time. Like how can you be my teacher and I give something to you? How can I not take so much from you?
Kobun: Nothing was given to you.
Janice: That's not true.
Kobun: That's strange, I have never felt such way.
Mary Kate: I feel, being a teacher myself, you're darn lucky to have somebody to teach. One of the things we might do is to translate the Four Vows according to our own understanding.
Kobun: That's a nice idea.
Many students worked to express the Four Vows. Some of these efforts:
I joyfully go with all other beings with all my heart and mind endlessly to another shore. Desires are numberless, they are endlessly being put aside. The truth is forever unfolding, I am with it endlessly. The Buddha's way is the zenith, I am continually reach- ing to it as it recreates itself on new heights.
Mary Kate Spencer
Sentient beings are numberless, I am one with them. Passions are infinite, I vow to observe them. The Law is infinite, I vow to study it and find its essence. Buddha's way is eternal, I vow to understand it.
Carmelia MacNichols
Sentient beings are infinite, they will save themselves. Desires are infinite, they will reach an end by them- selves. Dharmas are infinite, so there is learning, study. Buddha's way is not above, so it is always accomplished.