Recently I vacationed at an all-inclusive, gated, 5 star resort in Jamaica. Well, 4.5 stars, actually; but that is another story. This was my first ever vacation of any kind, let alone the chance of this lifetime to belong to a highly privileged demographic. Not least of the privilege was the guilt-free culture shift that we, the guests, were entitled to, with every easement available. Oddly, it was faintly reminiscent of Tassajara, my Buddhist alma mater, which also becomes a rather exclusive resort each summer. Of course the very raison d'etre of Tassajara is radically different from the Jamaican resort, but there is still that sense of entering an alternate, highly contrived and exclusive place. With a smack of realization it occurred to me that this, all this and even more, was, for his first 29 years, the everyday reality of the man who we today revere as the Buddha; Siddhartha Gautama. This really was interesting. I recall leaving Tassajara after only a few months and how the outside world whelmed. After three decades, how much greater the whelming?
The legend of the Buddha's life relates how his father, who was wise in the ways of the world, used his wealth to create a perfect, problem free world. Because of a prophecy that his son would grow to be either a worldly king or a holy leader, he believed the contrived, exclusive, abundant upbringing would help his son grow up preferring the former. He knew the ability to get anything at any time is far more conducive to thinking of one's self as kingly rather than a seeker of truth.
In approximately his 30th year, the future Buddha was exposed to the un-groomed and unsupported world outside his personal resort. In so doing he awakened a deep compassion in response to disease, age, frailty and death. Imagine; to have such a juxtaposed shock after 29 years of paradise; it shook him to the core. On these excursions into the un-staged, everyday reality he also encountered a holy mendicant, whose path the Buddha emulated in response to this blooming compassion.
These are the founding moments of Buddhism and the effects of them redound in Buddhist practices large and small to this day; the idea that kindness is more important than rightness, for example. Or, think of the common and unusual Buddhist attitude toward food; food is medicine, something that prevents and alleviates suffering. We should use only what is needed. Food is spiritual medicine. Buddhist customs respect the fact of food: it comes to us through the work of many people and the suffering of various forms of life.
To be sure, this scrupulous view of food I found to be easily abandoned and hard to remember in the face of effortless plenty. In some way, those few days of being waited upon completely with all consumables available at all times, for free, provides a glimmer of how energizing it might be to experience this intense compassion.
Historical movements and innovations need an initial, energizing source of some kind. Most religions derive from an infusion of celestial or divine power, which can be inspiring to generations of believers; but Buddhism emerges from a completely scrupulous and thorough surrender to compassion. It is this quality of receptivity to compassion that fuels the changes in any person and it is this that also energizes the Bodhisattva path.
Wayne Codling is a former Zen monastic and a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. He teaches Zen style meditation in various venues around Victoria. Wayne’s talks and some writings can be found on his blog http://sotozenvictoria.wordpress.com
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*This article was published in the print edition of the Times Colonist on Saturday, March 25 2017
