Month: February 2024

The Character of the Buddha

The qualities perfected by the Buddha are the paramitas: generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, wisdom. We see these qualities in the Pali Suttas on right speech, and helpful here are two suttas in the Middle Length Discourses, MN58 and MN41. The Buddha is the embodiment of the perfections and so when he speaks of, for example, right speech, he is describing himself.

Then we look at speech and silence in the koan collections. The trifecta of koans in the Blue Cliff Record, Cases 70, 71, and 72, all revolve around the koan: “How can words be spoken when your mouth is sealed shut?” And, finally, we venture onto Case 3 of Record of Empty Hall – “The World-Honored One Finally Pays Attention.”

Opening to Love

Here we go from St Francis of Assisi’s Prayer for Peace, to the Zen Koan “I have already become like this”1. From there we accompany “Seven Wise Women in the Charnel Grounds”2 and then see what thirteenth century Zen priest Eihei Dōgen has to say about “Birth and Death” in his fascicle of that name.3

1 Susan Murphy’s take on Case 41 of Transmission of Light from her book Red Thread Zen

2 Case 9 from The Hidden Lamp collection edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon

3 “Birth and Death (Shōji)” translated by Arnold Kotler and Kazuaki Tanahashi from Moon in a Dew Drop edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi.

Image by winterseitler from Pixabay