Rev. Danny Fisher

Today’s quote is from our friend and past interviewee the Venerable Kobutsu Malone, an American Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, co-founder of the Engaged Zen Foundation, and author of Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism: A Source Book for Prison Chaplains, Administrators, and Security Personnel.  This is it, from his teaching “Bodhisattva as Revolutionary”:

Engaged practice requires looking at the big picture, not just one little aspect. We cannot be concerned only about the few people sitting in meditation with us, while others, no less our brothers and sisters, are living lives of deprivation and neglect. Engagement involves dealing with the fundamental materialistic paradigms that exist at the foundation of the global socioeconomic system, which operates and propagates our society. To awaken means looking deeply into the practice of scapegoating whole classes of people – not only those of other races, but also those who may function with a different psychology than what has been defined as “mainstream.” Walking on the path of the awakening – the Bodhisattva ideal – requires insight into the quality of our community structures and social order. It requires a thorough examination of the physical environment, the psychological environment, and the political and governmental environments. Ultimately, the path of full awakening – the Bodhisattva ideal – involves revolution.

The awakened state of mind – the revolution of the Bodhisattva – calls for far more than personal enlightenment, more personal entitlement through a kensho experience, more than insight into our “true nature”, and more even than the complete experience of anatta – “no self.” It is more than transmission received from a teacher, and more than a title, clerical garb or a certificate on the wall. Our preconceived ideas of the nature of “enlightenment” delude us into thinking that, somehow, insight is the be-all-and-end-all and, once it occurs, all of life’s problems are magically solved. Hardly. The notion that there is some sort of instantaneous insight experience that does all of our work for us, leaving us completely free of all psychological and social baggage, is just another savior myth. It is more wishful thinking. Awakening is not like that at all.

Our responsibility in approaching this Bodhisattva ideal is heavily weighted with the need to question authority and to think for ourselves. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own choices and our own awakening. Nobody can do it for us – no teacher, no Bodhisattva. We are obliged to discard our preconceptions, toss our ideals into the trash can and continue on our own two feet. In time, we may come across that instant in our lives when our stress and loss are at just the right point for a breakthrough into genuine insight to be possible. Should that take place, we will have gone beyond foolish talk, and the gate of the oneness of cause and effect will be opened. Once true awakening begins, the “Bodhisattva ideal” becomes irrelevant.