The Peace Butterfly 和平蝴蝶

I first heard the story of the Peace Butterfly from a poor Chinese farming family near Tian Mu Shan in Zhejiang Province. The grandmother had heard it from a traditional Chinese Story Teller. It is not known if it is "true" but there is great "truth" in it. Wu said it was sad that the story was discontinued being passed on. He said it had great power. You will find this if you look carefully.

It is a story of Peace. It is not just a “pretty” story or “cute” or “sweet” story. It is a story of transformation. Look below the surface and see what you can find. It is my mission to keep it alive and from it give disadvantaged rural children an opportunity to education.

This story was told to me by a farmer who lives near the village of Shi Ta Wan near Zaoxi in China. He is not sure where the story comes from but he thinks it from Yunnan Province. He said it does not matter. He told me that the people often used to tell the story “to keep it alive.” He regrets that for a long time now the people have forgotten to tell it.

A long time ago there lived a hermit monk called San Qi. He lived in a hut beside a mountain stream. During his time there was much violence and war as local war lords tried to grasp power. There was much sadness and suffering and many families had lost not only their belongings but also family members who were killed in the wars.

San Qi was very sad. Daily he prayed that the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin would bring peace to the land.

One night he had a dream. In the dream Kuan Yin in all her beauty appeared to San Qi. She told him that a battle was to begin between two towns the following day. She instructed him to play his bamboo flute with all his skill beside the mountain stream. With that, she took the form of a butterfly and flew into the clouds.

The following day, San Qi, disturbed by the news of impending battle and astonished by the dream did as he was told in the dream. He sat on a rock beside the gentle mountain stream and began to play a soft melody on his flute. He played with great care and skill. The notes were like wisps of breeze as they floated melodiously about him. Suddenly there appeared a beautiful blue butterfly dancing about his head to the wooden tones of his flute. Then two appeared of different colours; then a third, then dozens then hundreds. Before long there were thousands upon thousands of exquisitely colourful butterflies. As San Qi continued to play the butterflies ascended towards the sky.

Down in the valley the armies and people of both cities were facing each other ready for the battle. The archers had drawn their bows with arrows posed for the kill. Suddenly there descended from the sky the thousands upon thousands of butterflies. There was such a host that the sun was darkened by their presence. Afraid that if they released their arrows the soldiers of both sides would kill the butterflies and afraid that this was a sign from the heavens they put down their weapons and felt great shame.

A young man who had been collecting Bamboo in the mountains above the village told the people he had heard a heavenly sound of flute coming from beside a stream. When he went to investigate he saw the monk San Qi playing his flute surrounded by a host of butterflies.

Before long the word had spread in the two towns. That very evening the people of the waring towns came together and lit candles and incense to the Buddha for showing them the way to peace and happiness.

It was decided that every year the villagers would tell the story of San Qi and remember the way of peace and happiness. People began to grow many coloured flowers to attract the butterflies and there was much happiness through the region.

This is the story of San Qi and the Peace butterflies.

Please keep the story alive by passing it on to your friends. You can download a Power Point Presentation at:http://www.taishendo.com/Peace-Butterfly-Project.html

The Neglectful Woman

This story comes from Xi’An in China. It is the story of a woman who lived by herself in a small house in her village. This woman was quite lonely as she had no husband. However she had many woman friends whom she would spend time chatting to from time to time.

One day when she was in the village market place she came across an old store selling old wares. There she spotted a beautiful golden statue of the Buddha. There was something almost magical about this statue which caught her attention. When she asked the merchant its price she was so happy that she could afford it.

As the merchant was taking her money and carefully wrapping the golden statue in newspaper he beckoned her to come closer and he whispered: “This is no ordinary statue. It will bring you great good fortune.” The woman was not sure if she believed the merchant but nonetheless brought it back home with eager expectation.

After some weeks she noticed her life was getting better. She was happier. She took care of the statue every day, dusting it and around it and admiring it. As her happiness increased her many friends began to visit her. She was certain that the merchant’s words were true. The statue was bringing her much happiness. She became very busy visiting her friends making them rice cakes and dumpling. Everyday she was doing something for her friends and they admired her even the more. However, the gold statue had remained it its place now for some time and it was beginning to gather dust as the woman had little time now to care for it.

One day she was invited to a gathering with other woman friends. She baked cakes all that morning and prepared many dumplings to eat for lunch. Unfortunately she had not noticed the time slipping by and realised she was running late. She rushed out of her house forgetting to close and lock the door.

It happened that a thief passed by her house and noticed that the door was open. He went carefully went inside and noticed the gold Buddha statue. Thinking that it may be real gold and worth a right fortune he quickly took the Buddha from the shelf and ran off amid the lanes and crowded street with the statue tucked firmly under his coat.

When the woman returned at the end of the day she was shocked to see her door open and with remorse remembered that she had not closed it. Then suddenly her heart sank as she noticed that the golden Buddha was no longer on the shelf. She, of course, realised it had been stolen. With that she wept tears of great sadness.

The Beautiful Trap

I have included this article by John Kain about his experience of Naikan. It is well written and was worth putting here in its entirety. For those of you considering Naikan practice you will find this a good read.

The Beautiful Trap
By John Kain

I’m sitting for fifteen hours a day in a four-by-four cell behind a shoji screen. Meals are brought three times a day to my enclosure, and apart from a short work period, two brief outdoor walks, bathroom breaks, a daily shower, and sleep time, I never leave my space.

There are only three of us on retreat here; although hardly mainstream, Naikan practice is beginning to catch on in the United States. It is a gracefully simple practice of reflection on your personal relationships—to your mother, father, siblings, lovers, friends—focused on three pointed questions: What have I received from that person? What have I given that person? What troubles have I caused that person? Fifty to sixty percent of your time, however, is spent on the third question, an emphasis that ties the ego in knots and tends to awaken a healthy dose of responsibility—and guilt.

The Japanese word naikan means “looking inside” or, more poetically, “seeing oneself with the mind’s eye,” an activity that triggers a profound shift in the way you view your relationships. Your responses to Naikan’s three questions, which surface gradually, painfully, joyfully—combined with the imperative to see yourself as others do—force you to renegotiate the boundaries you erect between yourself and others.

While I sit on a zafu, surrounded by the clicking of baseboard heaters and the sound of food being cooked in the kitchen below, it was in a cave that the progenitor of Naikan practice sat, over sixty years ago. A devout Japanese Jodo Shinshu Buddhist (a sect of Pure Land) named Ishin Yoshimoto had an awakening while practicing an austere form of meditation and self-reflection called mishirabe. The essence of that experience, molded by Yoshimoto into a more accessible practice he called Naikan, has rippled through the years—and across the ocean—to where I sit now, at the end of winter, in a beautiful old farmhouse in Monkton, Vermont.

Naikan creates—on one level—a very personal, and often painful, existential balance sheet. It gives you the opportunity to see how much support you’ve received from others over the years. It lets you realize your nonrepayable debts, shines a light on what and how you’ve given, and exposes the missteps you’ve made. But Naikan is more than just a personal accounting. Ultimately Naikan practice exists most comfortably in the murky territory between psychotherapy and Buddhism - and between the intellect and the blood-pulse of the body.

As a Zen practitioner, I’m familiar with the routine of long hours on the meditation cushion and the need for sustained attention, but Naikan brings a new flavor to my practice. Zen invites us to empty our minds in order to gain insight into the emptiness of self, and through this emptiness into the nature of the world. Naikan, on the other hand, urges us to fill our minds, through memory and reflection, with the weave of interpersonal connections that we’ve used (both realistically and unrealistically) to define our existence, and through this process it forces us to reconsider what constitutes our “self.” So while both practices are rooted in single-pointed concentration, in traditional Zen practice this concentration creates stillness of mind, sometimes compared to the gradual settling of sediment to the bottom of a glass of muddy water. The three questions of Naikan practice, however, churn up this sediment—of desire, anger, confusion, tenderness—and set it before us, challenging us at once to see through it, and to keep stirring. I spend the first twenty-four hours of the retreat reflecting on my mother—which is how every Naikan intensive begins. Using Naikan’s three questions, I start by remembering my mother from my birth to age six, and then move forward through memory in three-year increments. Each stage of reflection lasts from two to three hours, after which a Naikan “guide” arrives, opens my shoji screen and, following an exchange of bows, listens to what I’ve recalled. This process is called mensetsu, the Japanese word for “interview,” and generally lasts a brief five to ten minutes. It allows the naikansha, or participant, to give voice to all the thoughts that have arisen, which is a powerful component of the process. Yet there are no judgments, no analyses, no offers of absolution. Occasionally the Naikan guide will give gentle advice to keep you focused, or encourage you to be as specific as possible in your recollections—but that’s all.

As I dredge up specific memories of what I received from my mother in early childhood—the German chocolate cake she made for my birthday, the gentle way she taught me to swim—I am filled with a palpable sense of appreciation. I feel more permeable, less armored. The idea of myself as “solitary” no longer plays. I can see my existence as an accumulation of layers, like colorful sedimentary rock, deposited through the acts of others, the acts of nature.

Yet my expanded sense of appreciation is hard to accept. I struggle to reconcile all of these wonderful memories with my long-held idea that I’ve suffered in the past; I want to be able to feel simply grateful. I stare at the light coming through the shoji screen two feet in front of my face, feel its elemental warmth. I stand up, stretch, and sit back down on the zafu, adjust my legs, take a few breaths. I move on to the second question: What did I give to my mother? Blank. I can’t stop the incoming memories of what I received. Eventually, I manage to dredge up a memory of making her a small table in wood shop, a couple of homemade birthday cards; I once wrote her a poem . . . the self-centeredness of childhood rolls right into my adult years. I move on to the third question: the troubles I caused. Once again, a deluge of memories. When I take my bathroom break I find, taped above the toilet on a fresh sheet of white paper, a written account of a previous participant’s reflection on his mother. He, too, felt he had given so little and caused much pain. I am somewhat reassured, yet when I return to my zafu it seems I can almost see the memories of my selfishness hovering above it, like a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around a favorite camping spot. I sigh and settle back down. Any conceit I might have come with is rapidly deflating; even flushing the toilet seemed a symbolic act.

In Japan Naikan moved quickly away from its religious roots as its memory-dredging effect and deep reflection proved it to be a successful therapy technique in prisons, hospitals, psychiatric wards, and addiction clinics. Although Naikan was still practiced in Buddhist temples, for lay practitioners the traditional weeklong intensive retreat was more popularly supplemented or replaced by outpatient Naikan practices such as journal writing, daily reflections, and counseling sessions.
Naikan was introduced to America through a man named David Reynolds, an American schooled in cultural anthropology. Reynolds began studying Naikan and Morita techniques in the 1960s (developed in the early 1900s, Morita therapy is a Zen-based awareness practice focused on changing behavior by acknowledging and accepting emotions). In 1981 Reynolds conducted the first weeklong Naikan intensive in America at a Jodo Shinshu Temple in San Luis Obispo, California. Eventually Reynolds de-emphasized the religious aspects of both practices and placed them under one umbrella that he called Constructive Living. The ToDo Institute in Middlebury, Vermont, run by Gregg Krech and his wife, Linda Anderson Krech, is the only center in the country that offers traditional Naikan. Krech was introduced to Naikan through Reynolds, yet he also practiced with a number of Japanese Naikan teachers and was a student of Pure Land Buddhism for over ten years. To Krech, Naikan’s religious lineage seemed entirely compatible with its use as a therapy. This holistic perspective was one of the primary reasons Naikan appealed to me as a Zen practitioner. I wanted to be able to explore the “blind spots” in my spiritual practice as I gained a more secular insight into my personal relationships. When you’re in the midst of intense self-examination, however, the question of whether Naikan is closer to a religious practice or psychotherapy seems irrelevant.
Yet a concern for that distinction still hovers around Naikan’s proponents and practitioners. Krech tells me that he doesn’t consider the Naikan retreat to be “religious,” per se. “Some people attend Naikan retreats solely because they have psychological or emotional problems,” he explains. “Others come for spiritual practice. And still others just because they are seeking something to help them move forward with their life in a very practical way. Naikan will accommodate you at any, or all, of these levels.”

Back on my cushion after a short walk, I hear a tapping sound and see, through the crack in my shoji screen, a cardinal pecking at the windowpane. The red is like a flame against the frozen landscape that stretches beyond the frost-laced glass. I imagine it must be tapping at its own reflection, perhaps frightened of it, and I empathize. In the face of all the self-deprecation the morning has unearthed, I find myself wanting to answer a conspicuously absent fourth question: How about all the troubles my mother and father caused me?

But Naikan is a beautiful trap; it leaves little room for the ego to wriggle. No matter what happened in the past, the practice tells us, we are now solely responsible for our own freedom—or our own bondage. Blame can find no purchase.
When a Naikan guide arrives to hear my reflection, my words feel forced and phony as I try to summon feelings of gratefulness to compensate for the raw guilt that gnaws at my center. I confess this to Krech later, and he advises me to focus on remembering as much detail as possible—the colors, the smells, the textures of things—and, most of all, to stop analyzing. “That’s not a part of Naikan,” he reminds me. His guidance helps, yet I continue to swing back and forth between what I feel is “real” and what I feel is forced by my desire to be a “good” Naikan student, filled with newfound humility. A couple of times I actually invent memories, telling them to the guide to complete some requirement I’ve made up in my head: “Be good, be humble.”

Over the course of the week, I reflect on my father, my brother, my ex-wife, my best friend, and my girlfriend, Kathryn . . . it’s like seeing myself from countless vantage points. The key is just to watch the memories, the emotions, and the body sensations. It is not punishment and it is not an attempt to heal. As in Zen, at its core is the persistent probing into the nature of self. But instead of returning to the breath or to a koan or to “just sitting,” the Naikan participant continually returns to one of the three questions and the reflections it gives rise to, asking, Where in all of this enmeshed exchange of giving and taking do I stop and others begin? Miso soup, salad, and two slices of homemade bread with melted cheese are brought to my “cave”—and, surprisingly, it is this simple offering that finally causes me to break down and weep. I walk outside and look at the Green Mountains, to the south. I see bobcat prints in the snow. Confronted by the presence of the still white landscape, a chill wind flushing my cheeks, I find the momentum of the morning’s practice penetrates even here, that somehow it has broken into my mind, limned my thoughts. I remember that my sister once paid for my flight home for Christmas when I was broke. I remember screaming at my mother, calling her terrible names. I remember helping to pay for and organize my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. I remember how little affection I’ve given to Kathryn over the last month. Later that day, a gift arrives from a friend and another from a Naikan participant whom I’ve never met (a not-uncommon occurrence at these retreats), and I experience a flood of emotions, from unworthiness to tender gratitude to a more open awareness of how I’m supported every day by ten thousand different acts of giving.
I think of how different this process is from Zen meditation—one looking inward, one looking outward—yet how they both ultimately point to the emptiness of self. I find that Naikan repopulates my Zen practice, which has a tendency to drift into abstraction, with the specificity of my personal relationships. The treasure of sangha (one of the more difficult—because least controllable—aspects of my Buddhist practice) is revealed. Community nourishes humility, a trait that I tend to forget in my recurring myopic vision of enlightenment. Which is to say, Naikan makes me a better Zen student. Most importantly it helps me (as does Zen) to forget myself by shifting focus onto others. This makes me more aware of how I treat the people I love, and more aware of how much grace is involved in my existence. On my return I express my newfound appreciation to my mother, and it opens a door that had been shut for years. We still have our usual problems, but there’s more trust involved, more honesty. I also tell Kathryn how bad I’ve felt about being so distant. She smiles and says I should go on more of these retreats.

Driving home at the end of the retreat, I take the route through Middlebury and stop at a pottery shop to buy Kathryn a gift, but I find nothing she’d like. I decide to get her some flowers at the florist closer to home. On the road, I admire the late-winter sun’s glow against the fading snow banks. Large patches of dark earth, a red silo, and a string of horses slip by the car window. Suddenly, a strange thought enters my mind: “Naikan has nothing to do with me.” I say it out loud: “Naikan has nothing to do with me.” Tears well up in my eyes, and the landscape blurs. It makes no sense. When I get to the florist near home, it is closed. At first I think I’m returning empty-handed. But then it hits me.

John Kain is a freelance writer and poet living in the Catskill Mountains. His articles and poems have been published in such magazines and journals as the Rocky Mountain News, Terra Nova, and the Mountain Record. Image: Lance Letscher /McMurtry Gallery

http://www.tricycle.com/-practice/the-beautiful-trap?page=0,2

Amitabha Mantra

The recitation of Mantras in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism is a common part of devotions. The Mantra links us with the essence of the Buddha. The Amitabha Mantra is most often recited in the body of the evening chanting liturgy. One may transfer the merits of the recitation of the Mantra to all sentient beings for their liberty and re-birth into the Pure Land. Recited with sincerity and devotion the Manta brings great blessing.

南无 阿弥多婆夜
na mo a mi do ba ye
哆他伽多夜 哆地夜他
dwo ta ga do ye do di ye ta
阿弥利都婆毗 阿弥利哆 悉耽婆毗
a mi li do poh pi a mi li do si dan poh pi
阿弥利哆 毗迦兰帝
a mi li do pi jia lan di
阿弥利哆 毗迦兰多
ami li do pi jia lan do
伽弥腻 伽伽那
jia mi ni jia jia na
枳多迦利 娑婆诃
je do jia li sa poh ho


This Mantra can be recited 3, 5, 7, 21 or 108 times at morning or evening devotions.
The recitation of this mantra with sincerity enables one to be reborn in the Pure Land.

Mantra recitation brings supreme protection and blessing to the practitioner.

Naikan

Imagine yourself enclosed by a small space within traditional Japanese screens. In complete silence and isolation you examine in minute detail your entire life, especially important relationships like mother, father and siblings within the boundaries of the three strategic Naikan questions. Gradually over seven days of silence and deep introspection interrupted only by the Naikan therapist entering your space, bowing giving you food and drink and asking the three questions to the portion of your life you have been examining, piece by steady piece the meditator dismantles the ego that have hovered like dark clouds blocking the blue sky. Like awakening from a dream the meditator opens his/her eyes to the light of day. This is Naikan.

Naikan( From the Japanese Nai = Inner Kan= looking) is a therapy developed in Japan by Yoshimoto Ishin (1916 -1988). It was adapted from a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist practice of a meditation of deep introspection and self examination. Although the basic structure remains the same it has been further developed to be used in modern therapeutic settings.

There is emerging a palpable curiosity towards the Eastern and Buddhist psychology. With the emergence of the now evidenced based “Mindfulness” therapies (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapies etc) Naikan stands to be re-examined with energetic curiosity.

I must add a note of caution here. It is easy to confine the Mindfulness based therapies, of which Naikan belongs, to the therapist’s clinic. This would be a huge mistake. Naikan is essentially a way of life for everyone who wishes to live a more fulfilling and happy life.

Naikan is essentially a method of deep introspection. It is a way of examining one’s life from a different angle by asking strategic questions and arriving at a deep appreciation of life the way it is. The big mistake most people make with Mindfulness based processes is to expect the process to eliminate life’s problems. This is not the aim. After all, none of us are immune from life’s struggles or to put it in plain language: “shit happens”. What Naikan does is to help us look at life’s sufferings from a different angle – one of deep gratitude. It does this by radically placing us in front of our self-centeredness. When we do this a new energy begins to flow and we become better equipped to face life’s issues.

Naikan does this by asking three strategic questions:

 What have I received from person (or event) x?
 What have I given to person (or event) x?
 What troubles and difficulties have I caused to person (or event) x?

In Naikan we examine our entire life in minute detail from the time we were born to the present moment. We focus primarily or relationships rather than events as we are formed by our early childhood relationships and relationships in general. It is a Naikan principle that our mental health is based almost entirely upon how we relate with one another and our environment.

In Classical Naikan the client spends an intense seven day period in meditation on one’s entire life guided at regular intervals by the Naikan therapist. There are shorter versions of this process to suit the client’s schedule. It is often said that one of the “down sides” of Naikan is its intense seven day meditation. However, we must ask ourselves, what is seven days in what often has been a lifetime of struggle with certain issues?
Ideally Naikan is done with a “Naikan Guide” or therapist. However it can also be performed by oneself on a regular basis.

Gratitude in Naikan

The concept of “gratitude” plays a crucial part in Naikan. In Chinese the word for gratitude is “gan ji gan en”. The English word “gratitude” does not do justice to the Chinese words which convey a different concept. In our daily speech we can say we are “thankful” for something but still inwardly hold resentment or grudges. I can say “thank you” to someone for something even if that someone has annoyed me greatly. I do it out of politeness. The Gratitude in Naikan goes far beyond the concept of thankfulness. It is a realization of the “gift” of life and a sense of deep contentment with the way things “are”. . . an acceptance of the “is-ness” in all things. When we have this sense of deep gratitude we are free. Many say after Naikan they experience a feeling like a ton of bricks lifted off their shoulders. This is a happiness which goes beyond what “happens” to us.
Personal Responsibility
Naikan is a therapy and process that places responsibility squarely upon the individual challenged with their issues. Throughout the Naikan process the therapist will not give “advice” but guide the client to take responsibility for their own healing. In this process there is tremendous empowerment.

Much more

There is much more to Naikan than these few words can give justice to. Like all Mindfulness studies – they need to be experienced rather than didactically analyzed. We invite you to join us at the Introductory Naikan Workshops and Naikan Therapist Training in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and China and come with curiosity for a deeper way of living and a compassionate way of helping others. www.taishendo.com

Is that all there is?

Once in Shandong Province China there was a beggar who came to a temple to beg for food. He was greeted by the abbot of the monastery, a very compassionate Master or Pure Land. The old abbot had great compassion on the beggar and told him that if he would travel to a particular rural village he would find a great treasure where the roads intersect.

In delight the beggar set off and finally reached the village. When he found the two intersecting roads he searched in vain but could find no treasure. Disappointed and tired from his long journey he sat down on an old dusty wooden box in which the local farmers would store corn cobs. “Is that all there is!” he sighed in despair, “this decrepit old box full of rocks?” He departed the village disappointed.

Not long after a poor farmer wandered by with his wife and three children. He noticed the old box beside the road and inquired of a passer-by who had left the box there. “I don’t know” replied the village man. “It appeared yesterday morning. Perhaps it is rubbish which someone has left.” The poor farmer was curious. He tried to move the box with his foot but it was heavy. He found a branch from the tree which he broke to make a lever and with great effort prized open the box. To his great astonishment and joy the box was full of gold bars. Out of honesty he immediately notified the village mayor who moved by the poor farmer’s honesty allowed him to keep the gold.

Is that all there is? Many seekers of Pure Land are disappointed as all they see is the seemingly “boring” repetition of the Buddha’s name. Many come seeking profound meditation experiences hoping to see visions, brilliant colours or mind altering experiences. While it is certainly not impossible to have these experiences from Meditation or Buddha Name Remembrance they are to be treated with great caution as they are illusory and impermanent. Such seekers have missed the point and in doing so have foregone a great treasure.

Each repetition of the name of Amitabha Buddha is like a small droplet of pure mystical water falling into our life pond of muddied, stagnant water of lifetimes of negative karmic residue. Each droplet displaces the muddied water until eventually the water become clear and reflects the light of the sun and moon and we can see ourselves as we truly are, a reflection of the Buddha, our Buddha nature. It is then we recognize a treasure of a lifetime and are truly blessed.

Amitofuo

Want to see a miracle?

I was some time ago talking to my Master in the grounds of the Temple. It was a sunny Spring day. The Camphor Laurel trees exuded a beautiful perfume and the leaves rustled like soft whispers of a mantra. Our conversation turned to miracles. I mentioned that many people would like to see miracles occur in their life (trying hard to hide the fact I was also referring to myself!!). "There is one happening right in front of you at this very moment if you look carefully" he stated. Thinking that he was making some reference to our dialogue I nodded that I understood. Then he laughed. Oops!!! Had I misunderstood due to my inferior Chinese? He pointed "这里!Zheli! zheli!. . .here! here!" He pointed to the ground near my feet. In his sharp vision and wit he had seen something and transformed it to a lesson for me. There I spotted a single ant carrying the carcass of a large grasshopper. "Could you do that? Could you carry something by yourself nearly eight times larger than you?" came the Venerable. "We just need to open our eyes." . . .and perhaps the eyes of our mind, I thought.