Ready For The Buddha's Birthday

Yes, it's the Buddha, not just Buddha, as it is a title, not a name, and in this context it refers to a specific person -- born Siddhartha Gautama, son of a minor king in a kingdom which is now part of Nepal -- whose life is commemorated in this, the 2,570th year, of the Buddhist calendar.  His birthday is the 8th day of the fourth lunar month, and this year it falls on the 24th of May by the Gregorian calendar.

To mark the holiday a stupa of colorful paper laterns has been set up in the plaza.  It's surrounded by a fence of miniature lanterns, each of which carries a prayer or wish written by a devotee on a mock gold-leaf leaf (ha!).

The Six Realms

Preparing the last post reminded me that this particular set of masks has never been shown in public in their intended form.  This is how they should ideally be displayed, in accordance with the Buddhist view of life and the universal law of karma.

I sent this photo to someone who majored in Buddhist studies, and he immediately recognized it for what it is, without any explanation from me.  At top center are the deva, "gods" who reside in paradisiacal realms and are the most superior entities in existence, overwhelmingly the greatest of all living beings in power, intelligence and wealth.  The main characteristic of their lives is the absence of suffering;  they live their extremely long lives knowing nothing but pleasure and joy (save perhaps for the occasional challenges from the asura).  But when finally the time comes, when you've been at the top of the heap for so long, there's no place but down...

And slightly lower than the gods, to their right in the photo, are the asura, also known variously as demi-gods, jealous gods, anti-gods, titans and even demons.  They are also powerful and intelligent, much superior to humans -- their realm actually overlaps that of the gods -- but they are not as gifted as the gods, and they are by nature jealous and suspicious;  they constantly scheme and plot against each other and the gods, but being the lesser of the two superhuman species, when they do war against the gods they always lose, which makes them even more jealous and angry and vulnerable to a lower incarnation next time.

Opposite them on the left is the realm inhabited by us manusha.  Fortunately filled with extremes of both comedy and tragedy -- joy balanced out by misery, delight by regret, and of course, kindness by cruelty -- it provides the best starting-off place for self-development... or self-debasement.

Just below humans are the tiryag, animals.  As with the deva and asura, animals and humans dwell in a shared realm, but being brutes (literally), animals know nothing but base instincts;  their lives, if in the wild, are filled with fear and wariness;  and in domestication, are short and toilsome, their lives (and deaths) being absolutely controlled by their human masters.  But they still experience emotion just like humans, and they can learn from experience, also just like humans.  Responding to kindness with what gratitude they are capable of expressing, they may yet evolve and be reincarnated in the future as humans.

Across from animals are the preta, beings driven by the obsession to possess.  They are often shown in art as humanlike but with big distended bellies and thin, narrow throats -- symbols of their characteristic greed and avarice combined with the accursed incapacity to satisfy them.  They are forever seeking but never finding satiation.  Although the object of their desire tends to be stereotyped as food (hence their common cognomen "hungry ghosts"), but actually it can be anything, including such repellent things as corpses, blood and dung (hmm... me and my hoarding...).

And at the bottom are the naraka, the beings (self-)condemned to hell.  While they may not necessarily be subject to physical pain (although of course this can be the case), their lives are mainly characterized by hatred and anger, in both doling them out to others and in receiving them back from everyone else.  These unfortunate beings' lives are filled with torment and brutality, for which they blame everyone but themselves (I'm reminded of the gangbanger who raped and murdered two schoolgirls -- and when time came for his execution, allegedly said "Well, sometimes the good guys don't win").

I have also considered displaying these masks in this arrangement,

emphasizing an empty space in the center, to show that in Buddhist cosmology reincarnation is not really a matter of judgment, but the natural working-out of the impersonal law of karma, like attracting like.  "You go where you fit".  Maybe I still will.

Related post:  Continuing On...

A Few From Yesterday's Visit

to JoGyeSa, which dates back to the 14th century.  One unusual feature of this temple is that it is located right next to a noisy intersection in the JongNo district, one of the busiest, most heavily trafficked areas in all of old Seoul (that is, north of the Han river;  the city expanded in recent decades to encompass large areas south of the river and now the nouveau-riche live there).  Despite all the activity and distractions right outside the gates, a certain (dare I say... otherworldly?) calmness of mind and spirit prevails on the grounds of the temple -- this I have found to be true of Buddhist temples in general, no matter where they may be.

Phobos And Deimos

After a long hiatus, I just randomly started drawing a face and finished it after a few minutes of scribbling (O.K., and then I worked on it some more on the computer).  As is usually the case, I started out without any particular ideas in mind as to what sort of expression it should bear, other than "big round eyes".  Now it reminds me of the preta (and also of Nosferatu, the Vampire...)

[In Buddhist cosmology the preta are the unfortunate beings who are reincarnated -- possibly from prior lives as human beings -- into a life of unrequited desire and longing, typically for nourishment (hence their other name of "hungry ghosts" and their depiction in art as having big bloated bellies and tiny thin throats through which food cannot pass), but more broadly, the objects of their desire can be anything, including such repellent things as corpses and feces]

What The Buddha Saw

 

An old man

A sick man

A dead man

and

A monk

A Visit To MokJeongGul

It's a Buddhist retreat located in a small cave just below GeumSunSa temple.  As day-treks go, it was not the easiest.  To get there I had to climb part way up a mountainside by a steep narrow path that barely pretended to be "paved" with uneven, rough-hewn stone steps which were a bit nerve-wracking, especially as I was bundled up against the cold in thick clumsy clothing that impeded movement somewhat, and that at one point were rather dangerously close to a drop-off without a railing;  I'm halfway convinced it was deliberately designed as a symbolic pilgrimage intended to weed out the weak-willed^.  Once I got to the temple though, I have to say I was pretty impressed.  Insulated against the bustling city below by its location, it offered a feeling of quietude, contemplative calm and spiritual refuge, possessed in common by Buddhist temples everywhere but especially palpable there.

However, for me the most interesting part of the visit was not the temple complex but the little sanctum associated with it.  It was memorable for its similitude to the ideal cave/subterranean retreat I've built in my imagination over the years -- a place of isolation both physical and psychological, and free of distraction of any kind.  I remember when I was little I sometimes would climb into the large wardrobe that stood in "the other room" downstairs, shutting out the world and enjoying the quiet darkness.

 

Living Illustration

Of a famous Buddhist parable, which goes like this (in one of a number of versions):  On the surface of the World Ocean there floats a piece of driftwood with a hole in it that's just large enough for a turtle's head to poke through.  And at the bottom of the ocean there lives a turtle.  Once every thousand years the turtle surfaces to breathe -- so what is the likelihood of that turtle breaking surface once in a thousand years and just randomly happening upon that piece of wood and putting its head through the hole?  That's the kind of odds that you've had to overcome already, just to be born as a human being after millions of lifetimes as a lower being.  And that is why life as a human is such a precious opportunity, not to be frittered away -- and murder such a terrible sin.

This red-eared turtle seems to be illustrating the parable using a leaf.

Ambiguous Beetle

Taken at JinGwanSa temple.  In Buddhist iconography the lotus occupies a significant place as a symbol of purity, as it grows out of the murky dark waters of a pond or lake and opens clean and unsullied.  But when a lotus blossom is claimed by a big black beetle as its own territory, what does it mean?  Is it a reminder that, after all, all things in samsara are imperfect, and one should endeavor not be attached -- not even to lotuses (or in my case, to the many books and movies that I had to leave behind in L.A. -- collected over the decades, they included many rare works that you can't even find any more😞)?  Or does it serve to elevate the pristine beauty of the flower even more by contrasting it with the unexpected presence of a humble bug?

Or perhaps it's an admonition that enlightenment is available to all living beings regardless of their station in life;  noble or humble, it does not matter in the end, and that to react with repellence is just a reflection of one's own spiritual immaturity.

[And I freely admit to my own inadequacy in this department.  Cockroaches, for example.  Especially the really big giant ones in warm climates.  I remember the shock and disgust I experienced when one morning soon after I moved into my old live-in studio in south central L.A., I woke up and discovered a huge dead roach at the foot of my bed (at least it was dead, whew..!).  Yeah, what can you do... what you feel is what you feel, but what's important is what you do with your feelings -- sounds kind of Zen, doesn't it]

Beatific Boy Monk

As the afternoon sun lights up his face, he beats on his moktak to keep rhythm as he mentally recites a mantra -- probably 108 times, the standard number of distracting hardships that can keep a person from concentrating on the path to enlightenment.

 

Sand Mandala

MUSINGS ON IMPERMANENCE

Saturday I went to watch the dismantling of a sand mandala.  A group of Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in Karnataka, India, had constructed the mystic figure at the county library in nearby Rosemead, and while I was unable to attend the opening ceremony, I was determined to witness the closing.

The mandala in situ:

A mandala is a kind of cosmogram -- a drawn or painted image that serves as a symbolic map or diagram of a universe or realm.  Being a very visual-arts oriented person, I myself like to think of them primarily as visual aids in meditation and contemplative focus, but there are many different mandalas, representing different 'buddhaverses' or states of mind, used for different purposes.

A near-overhead shot of the mandala:

Considering that the medium used to create the 'painting' is fairly gross by nature -- grains of sand -- it's pretty amazing the level of fineness the monks manage to attain.  The photo above was uploaded without downsizing so it can be expanded to full size (after clicking on the image, you may need to right-click and 'open image', or whatever, to get the full expansion).  To obtain this image I stepped right up to the edge of the table and extended my camera arm as far as I dared -- I actually thought it would be a perfect 'Seinfeld moment' if someone tried the same thing, craned too far and fell over the sacred image, sending multihued sand flying everywhere^ (later I found out that such accidents have actually happened in the past).

The monks file in and make preparations:

The  Ven. Geashe Lobsang Tsetan, the leader of the group, spoke briefly about what mandalas are and why the monks travel the west creating and destroying them (he mentioned that this is the mandala of the Medicine Buddha, which would be the Buddha Bhaisajyaguru -- written སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ། in Tibetan and 약사여래 in Korean); then those who had been instrumental in making the event possible were recognized.

At last the ceremony proper commenced in earnest.  Here began the solemn and mysterious chanting that I had previously only heard in recordings.  Here is a short video clip of it:

Then, without any special announcement, the actual dismantling of the mandala began.

The initial 'crossing-out' of the mandala, followed by a spiraling sweep toward the center:

Finally, the sand was divided up into little portions, to be given away as reminders of a very special experience.

After I came home I poured some of mine into a tiny bottle (which I purchased years ago without any special purpose in mind -- everything finds a use, or a reason is found for everything, eventually) so I could carry it around with me, as a kind of rainbow-colored charm.