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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The love of trees in Buddhism (video)

Ashley Wells, Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry Bodhi tree
Massive Japanese Buddha  statue in Bodh Gaya, India (Gallery: thezensite.com)
   
Gandhara Buddha (buddhaskulptur.de)
Wayfaring Indian ascetics and Buddhist devotees meditate beneath sacred fig trees to this day.
  
They begin by doing parikrama (circumambulation) around the tree as a mark of reverence.
  
Usually seven walkabouts are done around the lush tree in the morning chanting "Vriksha Rajaya Namaha," which means "Salutation to the King of Trees."
  
Buddhist lore maintains that the historical Buddha Gautama attained enlightenment (bodhi) while meditating underneath the Bodhi tree, a Ficus religiosa or "sacred fig."
  
Idealized image of Siddhartha awakening under a tree
The ancestor of the original tree is in present day Bodh Gaya (Enlightenment Grove, the forested portion of the northern Indian city of Gaya where Siddhartha meditated until he became the Buddha or "Awakened One"), in Bihar (Vihara) state. 
  
The original Bodhi tree and the Sri Maha Bodhi (Sacred Great Enlightenment Tree) propagated from it are notable specimens of the Sacred Fig -- the oldest historically documented tree in the world. The known planting date of this offspring tree, in 288 BCE, actually makes it the oldest verified age for any flowering plant.[Note]
  
In Theravada ("The Teaching of the Enlightened Elders") Buddhist Southeast Asia, the tree's massive trunk is often the site of Buddhist and animist shrines.
   
Not every Ficus religiosa can be called a "Bodhi tree." A Bodhi tree can trace its parent to another Bodhi tree, and the line goes back until the first Bodhi tree, which Siddhartha chose among many kinds of trees to gain enlightenment under.
  

   
Buddhist Prehistory 
Wisdom Quarterly
The love and significance of trees goes much farther than this. In the Buddhist history of previous buddhas, the Buddha lists their names, parents, chief disciples, and the kind of tree they gained bodhi ("enlightenment") under.
  
It is not limited to Ficus religiosa, the sacred fig, or the Buddha's own Bodhi tree.

Moreover, the Bo tree is not the only tree to have gained prominence by the Buddha's life in ancient India. He gained final nirvana under two Sal trees. And he meditated under a Banyan and other trees before choosing that one tree that, according to legend, had waited more than 30 years for him. It is said that at the birth of the Bodhisatta (in his final life born as Siddhartha), his wife Yasodhara and his tree, the Bo, were also born, such is their significance.

The amazing thing about trees, about biotic life interdependent with materiality on this planet, is that they go way back to the beginning of the current cycle. It is said that the "first trees" were in fact massive mushroom with network roots (mycelium) running into the Earth and connecting them. The forbidden fruit in Judeo-Christian lore also seems to refer to a mushroom rather than a viper's apples.

What Controversy? Zen's Four Vows

Barbara O'Brien (Buddhism.About.com), Special Correspondence to Wisdom Quarterly
The Americans are onto something. If there are Gateless Gates, why not wordless words?
  
Controversy? I don't see a controversy, although maybe that's because I've been aware for many years that every Zen center and monastery operating with the English language is using a different translation for the Four Vows and the rest of the chanted liturgy as well.
   
I hadn't realized this was bothering anybody. A big part of the Zen tradition is the understanding that the absolute truth cannot be contained in words and concepts, and so the wording is never perfect.
   
It's actually interesting to compare various translations to see how different people have struggled to get closer to what is being expressed. No one, however, will ever get it right. I don't see that as a problem; it's just how it is. My current sangha [practice community], which is in the San Francisco Zen Center lineage, chants the Four Vows twice in Japanese and once in English.
  
The English translation we use is different from the first one I learned, which was the one being used by the Los Angeles Zen Center in the 1980s or so. FYI: The Four Vows Controversy (Zen)
   
Brian Eno, "Sky Saw," from the album Another Green World 
   
The Final Word
Well now that the grande dame of lay American Buddhism has weighed in -- and Richard, Ron, and Don have had their say on behalf of the rebellious ZCLA crowd, a position WQ can cotton to, and Mara is finished researching -- there's nothing left to say. Case closed! Chant in Japanese, and leave it at that. When the words are meaningless, leave them alone. Brian Eno, the famous glam rocker, ambient innovator, and progressive producer for acts like U2, said it best in his abstract song "Sky Saw":    
   
All the clouds turn to words
All the words float in sequence
No one knows what they mean
Everyone just ignores them

Burma officially ends censorship today!

Aung Hla Tun, Reuters, Aug. 20, 2012, TheStar.com.my; Wisdom Quarterly
Burma's Saffron Revolution saw Theravada monks and lay folk protesting the government
  
1984 is about Burma and UK 
YANGON, Burma - Myanmar abolished direct media censorship on Monday, the latest dramatic reform by its quasi-civilian regime, but journalists face other formidable restrictions including a ban on private daily newspapers and a pervasive culture of self-censorship.
  
Under the new rules, journalists no longer have to submit reports to state censors before publication, ending a practice strictly enforced during nearly half a century of military rule that ended in March last year.
  
"This is a step in the right direction and a good approach, but questions of press freedom will remain," said Aung Thu Nyein, a senior associate at the Vahu Development Institute, a Thailand-based think tank.
  
"We can expect the government to still try to assert some control, probably using national security to keep the media in check," he added.
   
Previously, every song, book, cartoon, news report and planned piece of art required approval by teams of censors rooting out political messages and criticisms of one of Asia's most repressive governments. More