UPASIKA KUO AN HENDERSON
It’s said
in the sutras that in a single thought the entire world appears. Such is the power of the mind. It can create worlds, it can transcend
worlds, and in between, it can color and influence our perceptions of this
world, the people in it, and our relationship to it.
When Kuo
An was eight years old she awoke one morning with the realization that someday
she would die. Prior to that morning
she had been innocent, free and happy.
That thought had never occurred to her before and she began to feel
separated from her world. Constant
contact with nature provided the means to remembrances of wholeness as a child
for many years thereafter. But growing
up brought the inevitable battle between social pressures and the desire to get
back to remembered innocence, and she began to make tentative explorations into
methods to bring her world back to wholeness.
Her experimentation led her eventually to try meditation and healing, as
a young married woman. For the most
part, her instructor and peers did not keep the precepts and instinctively she
began to keep her distance. Eventually
she abandoned the study, but what skill she had developed, showed her a bit
about the effectiveness of concentration.
One evening she was intent upon recitation of holy names with sincerity
and faith. She held to this
single-minded concentration for a period of time before she fell asleep. Toward morning she had a dream in which she
and her husband were standing in the kitchen.
Out the window, over a long distance, she could see a golden tree under
which stood two spiritual beings – one purple and the other golden. They were surrounded by a teeming mass of
humanity. The more she concentrated the
more she was drawn, out the window, up to and through the masses, to the holy
beings who then merged into one. She
asked, “Where am I going?” Her answer
was a laugh – a universal sound, wonderful and clear, deep and full of
understanding. Then as the holy being
embraced her, she merged into its body and found she was floating on the sea of
the mind. It was only when she gave
rise to discursive thought that she awakened:
Several
years later, she found herself entangled in karmic patterns and began
recreating a visual expression of that ineffably wonderful state of
blissfulness she had experienced in her dream.
Try as she would, she had not been able to recapture it. And she began to realize that she had not
been directing her energy in ways that were clear enough to allow her to
accomplish this. Coincidently Kuo Ling
Pecaites happened along. Gathering Kuo
An’s state of mind, she invited her a session at Buddha Root Farm. The impression she holds of that day is
other worldly, as she remembers crossing the winding Smith River to the
pavilion. “There was an unmistakable
aura of purity about the place that made me want to examine myself and get
clean. It seemed unlikely, finding the
Abbot in radiant robes in the Oregon forest, but I felt very fortunate to have
encountered him.”
At first
she preferred to observe, but the next few hours slipped into days. Gradually
she began to take part, and upon perceiving the Abbot and the Sangha as natural
people with merit and virtue, she was inspired to look into Buddhism and change
her life.
During
those days she heard the Abbot’s vivid description of “contemplating by thought
Buddha-recitation” in which he related:
Amitabha Buddha emits light from his eyes, his ears, his nose, and his mouth. His entire body pours forth light, and from every hair pore on his body appear Buddhas from boundless universes. See? Your mind can’t possible conceive of anything so big. No one now ho many transformation Buddhas he creates.
She heard
the Master describe the magnanimous spirit of the Buddha:
Previously the Buddha was
the same as every other living being.
Not only was he the same as human being, he was the same as all living
creatures, even mosquitoes, bees and ants.
Because he shared his kinship, he later brought forth the thought of
enlightenment, practiced the Boddhisattva Way, benefiting himself and
benefiting others, saving himself and saving others. There was no selfishness of the things he did; he was open and
public-minded. He helped everybody.
Kuo An
listened closely to the Abbot’s lectures.
“When he
talked about holding precepts, his manner was very simple, but it went straight
to my heart. The gurus I had heard
speak in the past had many things to say about becoming an enlightened one, but
they never moved me to follow them. The
Abbot simply said, “Don’t do these things because they are not good for you,
and do these beneficial practices because they are good for you and for
others.” I could understand that and was inspired to try. At the end of the session I wanted very much
to take refuge and to keep the precepts, but since I had arrived late, I was an
“unofficial participant.” However,
after the ceremony, the Abbot spoke briefly, saying that everyone there had
taken refuge with the Triple Jewel that day.
I was very moved by his compassion, and wanted to see him again. From that day on my life began to change in
many good ways. I immediately stopped
smoking and drinking and became a committed vegetarian. What is harder, I began to look into my
selfishness. In the past I didn’t think
I had the strength to make these changes, but I began to find it. As I changed myself, I began to see that my
world changed around me. For me it has been a slow process of learning how to
be a good person and learning how to cultivate.”
Later, Kuo
An went to Gold Mountain and officially received the five and the eight lay
precepts. Now residing at Buddha Root
Farm with her husband Stuart and her two children, Nick and Asia, she often
comes to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas to hear the Dharma and join in the
sessions.
“Hearing
the Dharma spoken by the Abbot is a great gift. His endless patience and ability to teach people how to
discipline themselves has put me back on the path to wholeness, and has enabled
me to begin to regain my skills so that I can be of benefit to my family and
community. Buddhism teaches us to place
no limits on finding the merit and virtue in ourselves that will eventually
benefit the world.”
BHIKSHU HENG CHAU
Where was
there ever a person of wisdom
Who got
to see and hear the Buddha
Without
cultivation of pure vows, and
Walking
the same path the Buddhas walked?
-Avatamsaka
Sutra
Contemplating this verse from the Sutra of the Dharma Realm, Bhikshu Heng Chau remarks:
Although all beings have the Buddha-nature, all are not Buddhas. We are “gems in the rough” that need to be rubbed, ground, and polished before we shine like a jewel. Without hard work we are just uncut stones, sunk in the mud, buried in the earth.
There are not shortcuts or bargains. Walking the Buddha’s path is an inch for an inch. Dharma Master Heng Sure and I are learning about the truth of self-reliance: out here we get back exactly what we put out. There’s no one to lean on and nothing to climb on for a free ride. That’s just how it really is.
Sincerely dong our work, we should be mirrors, not sponges. When things arise, respond and reflect; when they are gone, be still and quiet. By not absorbing and clutching after things, we don’t interfere with others. Standing on our own gives other people room to stand on their own and grow strong in their own light.
“Out here” arefers to the monks’ bowing pilgrimage on the open road for two and a half years. Bowing from Los Angeles to theCity of Ten Thousand Buddhas has been the cultivation of Bhikshu Heng Chau since he began his life as a left-home person in 1977. Granted the scene was constantly changing, including a shift to the other side of the world when the two monks joined the Asia-region Delegation on a Dharma propagation tour of Southeast Asia, but the Dharma door of bowing and the true words of the Avatamsaka Sutra have remained constant throughout al the changes. As Bhikshu Heng Chau points out:
Here we are in the middle of the Sutra – it’s all around us and we can’t see it. Ur teacher does everything to get us to wake up and we still stumble on, unaware of the totality of states. It’s all there within the Sutra, the entirety of the mind. But th eonly way to reach it is by developing perfect virtue.
In 1979, simultaneous with the Opneing of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, the bowing pilgrims arrived at the City. Heng Chau, then a Shramanera, was subsequently ordained as a Bhikshu during the historic Precept Transmission Platform in which the Ten Masters included representatives from both the Mahayana and Theravada traditions, joining in the traditional rituals to insure the preservation of the Triple Jewel in the world.
The bodhisattva cares only about solidly upholding the pure precepts…This is what he thinks: “I am holding pure precepts so I must rid myself of all bondage and fetters. I must abandon all greed and seeking, all difficulties and oppression.”
-Avatamsaka
Sutra
Once fully ordained, Bhikshu Heng Chau chose to go right on with the practice of bowinto contnue the prigrimage with Bhikshu Heng Sure thre within the pure Bodhimanda. Having reached the City, the journey did ot end, for they had not yet arrived at the Buddha of their own minds.
If one hears the Dharma as it is –
That all Buddhas are born from it,
Although one might pass through measureless suffering,
One will not forsake the practices leading to enlightenment.
-Avatamsaka Sutra
Of that particular Dharma door Bhikshu Heng Chau has chosen he has this to say:
Bowing is not being moved by forms and sounds. Always returning the light to illumine within, bowing is just “recognizing our own faults and not discussing the faults of others.” Bowing is taking kindness, compassion, joy, and giving as our function and universally transferring merit and virtue to all beings everywhere as our work. Bowing is borrowing a path to go back home.