Halloween!

I met a new kid at Hibiki School, the boarding school for bad kids. He, like his peers, had homemade tattoos all over his hand and arms. When I first met him he seemed miserable, but then I showed him some tricks, made a fool out of myself, and played a great game of blindfold hid and seek (using simple directions) and he cheered up. We had a great time. That school is by far my favorite I think. I talked to the principal about Halloween and he told me that many Japanese people first heard about it when they read in the news years ago that a Japanese exchange student in America was shot dead after entering a man’s house on Halloween, and after the man yelled “freeze” with the gun out, the boy thought he said “please” and continued in, getting shot in the chest and face, I think. Yep, more reasons to love guns.

Wednesday I had the Mormons over again. We had very interesting conversations about our souls. Do they exist before we are born? Are they made of God, the Ground?? Do they ever separate from God, the Ground?? Are all souls Pure? Is it the Goal of a soul to reunite with the god that it was in the very beginning? So, is God then the Ground and the Goal of existence? We talked about morals, free choice; the topic of homosexuality came up. I mentioned that some gay people kill themselves they are so unhappy with their sexual orientation, making it hard to believe it is a “choice.” Unless they chose it before they were born. In fact, together we received an interesting contemplative revelation about how our choices lead to other choices, cause and effect, and, following all or choices back, we can see that there must have been an original choice, one made before we were born, one that would determine the course of our entire lives. Very interesting idea, yes?

Mormons believe that Satan and the fall of man is all part of god’s plan, and it is a perfect plan, for it gave birth to us humans and our ability to grow and unite back with the god that we never actually left. To quote the Book of Mormon, “And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden…And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin…Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”


Clearly we can never get dislodged from our path from God, to God, as God, “for the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free.” Isn’t that great? It’s free!

Mormons are, I think, a pretty mystical sect of Christianity, for they still believe in visions and a current profit and 12 apostles (all living in Salk lake city and traveling around via secret underground tunnels). They are pictured on my couch. They are coming again next Thursday, and hopeful Ian Horner will be visiting by then and he can meet them too. They really are wonderful, especially because neither of them are American (one is Australian and the other is Japanese and teaches me many Buddhist terms in Japanese for which I am very grateful). Neither one has tried at all to convert me. They just like talking with me. Maybe they don’t get to talk about there ideas very often.
Anyway, I brought up the idea that the Buddhists strongly believe (and I think Jesus thought this too perhaps when he said the thing about becoming a child in order to enter the kingdom of god)… so I said that maybe seeing “good and evil” just keeps us locked out of the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is not until we can rest in that awareness beyond good and evil, or it is not until we can see both good and evil as depending on each other (which we can clearly see they do). Or its not until we can see them both as equally manmade ideas or events that come and go. And it is in that awareness that does NOT see good and evil as inherently real or separate that is able to enter the Kingdome of heaven, where there is neither good nor evil, (or there is both good and evil already self liberated in there own transparent radiance). Happy face. The Eye that can see beyond the duality of good and evil is none other than the Eye of spirit, always already existing as teh Kingdom of Heaven within and without.

Get to that state where you can see the world free from concepts, free from the idea of good and evil, where you can only see (and be) nothing, meaning no-thing, or no separate entity, and there will come the flash that there is only immediate present reality everywhere, The NOW, the Is, the ALL, and there, in that Moment of eternal Reality, you will be released and opened up to the spacious clearing of infinite life, also known at the clear nature of your own mind, (unborn, undying, presence. (See note for more blabber)
Saturday morning I went to a party at a private English class with Trisha. I brought candy that both Lauren and Rick sent me. I love you both. At that party I watched for the first time Charlie brown’s Halloween. And I tell ya that’s some good stuff.

Then at night I went to another Halloween party for all the kids in the neighboring city, (over 300 kids showed). I dressed up like a clown because i forgot my Marilyn Monroe mask and wig, (the only ones I could find at the hundred yen store), and luckily there just happened to be an extra clown wig and mask at the party. Unfortunately, though, I was so scary that most of the smaller kids just ran away or hid behind their mothers, and the older kids thought it would be funny or heroic to stab me with there swords, pull at my mask, or just hit me in the crotch. We played wrap the mummy, where i was the mummy, and that was also a fun, touching adventure. Little kids are great though. One puked from eating too much candy, poor little guy.

On Sunday morning, after the meditation, two Japanese friends and I spent some time appreciating and contemplating an 800-year-old Gingko tree in the temple garden. We discussed how even thought the leaves are new this year, they still have the ancient tree inside each one of them. In the same way, they have the sun inside them. When we look at our hands, we can see, if we look deeply, that our entire family line of ancestors are in our hands, for we cannot be here is they were not here. Zen has a phrase “ji ji mu ge” which means, between all events there is no boundary or separation. Between the sun and the tree, between the tree and its leaves, between you and between me. Boundaries are only superimposed on the seamless One reality by our minds. I love the Buddhists symbol of the universe which is a multidimensional web called Indra’s net. And covering the multidimensional web are countless jewels like dewdrops. And in each dewdrop is reflected all the other dewdrops. And in all the reflected dew drops all the other dewdrops and their reflections are reflected, and so on forever and ever. (Kind of like fractals) (To see the universe in a grain of sand). and every dew drop inn in fact every other dew drop.

Is the tree dependent on the leaves? Or are the leaves dependent on the tree. or do they both depend on each other, like two sticks leaning against one another? Take on away, and the other one falls out of existence too. It is easy to see that we depend upon the universe to be here. It is harder to see that the universe depends upon us to be here. But it does, for it cannot be the way it is without us.
Then, after contemplating codependent origination or mutual interdependency or “inter-being,” I went to another Halloween party, a bowling party for foreigners, where I met even more foreigners that live in Niihama, which was crazy, and I played pathetically, bowling at best 86, with joy, mind you. I was back to my Marilyn goblin costume.

Note: There must be something about our present experience that is already embracing both good and evil equally, and thus, not discriminating between them. There must be an aspect of the present moment that is like a mirror, reflecting whatever it encounters equally, without judgment, while also letting whatever it reflects pass by. There must be an aspect of your present condition that is not grasping or avoiding anything, but is embracing everything equally, like a mirror its objects. and that aspect of your own present condition, which is already occuring naturally, is the primordial ground of Being, or, what the Sufis call teh Secret Essence. It's your Buddha nature, the clear light mind, unborn, and thus, undying. or at least thats what i think it is.