Showing posts with label Karma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karma. Show all posts

Monday, February 27, 2012

Evolution and Karma

Exploring links between the eastern idea of collective karma for all living beings and the western scientific discovery of evolution. In the San Francisco Zen Center talks on collective karma and Anil Dash's blog about the problems of the western perception of karma it seems we western people understand karma a lot more easily if it is described as being like evolution. Indeed, the understanding of evolution from the western perspective has given rise to much of the modern environmental movement as in David Attenborough's 'Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life'.

At Sterling College in Craftsbury Common Vermont, K. Jeffrey Bickart shared David Quammen's 'The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction' as an introductory ecology course book. At the same time George Gardner introduced us to the work of Thay Thich Nhat Hahn and helped to guide us in mindfulness meditation and shared dharma. We were offered contemplation and compassion as a world view and evolutionary theory for getting closer to the surrounding ecology. The connections that have been arising from these understanding, as well as through the study of Human Ecology, Ethnoecology and the practice of meditation, have been astounding.

As we begin to better understand the mind and nature we become more compassionate toward the rest of life on the planet and we are making our way to a new, more holistic, paradigm.

Refuge of Nocturnal Birds


High on a cliff there's a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.


A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.


Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Smokey The Bear Sutra

Just listening to a podcast from Green Gulch Farm last July. Reb Anderson gave a dharma talk on consciousness and karma, he cited Smokey the Bear in that talk and it reminded me of this poem:

SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA

BY GARY SNYDER

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago, the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite Void gave a discourse to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings, the flying beings, and the sitting beings--even the grasses, to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning Enlightenment on the planet Earth.
"In some future time, there will be a continent called America. It will have great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur, Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon. The human race in that era will get into troubles all over its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."
"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it."
And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR

A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.
Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;
His left paw in the mudra of Comradely Display--indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that of deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;
Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;
Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the west, symbolic of the forces that guard the wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the true path of man on Earth:
all true paths lead through mountains--
With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;
Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;
Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs, smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;
Indicating the task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes, master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.
Wrathful but calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him...

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:
Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam
"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND BE THIS RAGING FURY BE DESTROYED"
And he will protect those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:
And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS

CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

DROWN THEIR BUTTS

CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel.
Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.
Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.
AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT
...thus we have heard...
(may be reproduced free forever)