Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

This post first appeared on my Patreon page:

I imagine that this kind of thing is a regular annoyance on social media, but it was striking to see this below a recent Instagram story I posted for my weekly class on Within:

I reposted the screenshot with a wry comment about being glad that my teachings were being appreciated (along with another one about the uselessness of the algorithm which seems to suppose that even if I have declined to “turn your stories into a reel” a hundred times, I will do so at the next prompt – and of course it subsequently used that story as an invitation to “turn your stories into a reel,” which I can only call meta-stupidity).

Nevertheless, it put me in mind of an old Buddhist story:

There are many accounts of the virtue of the kashaya, but perhaps the most highly valued story is that of Nun Utpalavarna, included in the fascicles Shukke Kudoku (“Virtue of Home Leaving’), Kesa Kudoku, and Doshin (“Heart of the Way”) of Shobogenzo. This story is originally found in Nagarjuna’s Daichido Ron (Treatise on Realization of Great Wisdom), volume 13. It tells how Nun Utpalavarna accomplished the six miraculous powers and arhatship under Shakyamuni Buddha.

Nagarjuna explains that Nun Utpalavarna was an entertainer who put on a nun’s kashaya as a joke. Because of the virtue of the kashaya, through this action she was reborn as a nun at the time of Kashyapa Buddha. In a later life, she met Shakyamuni Buddha, left home and became a great arhat. She broke the precepts many times during this process but the virtue of putting on the kashaya was much more powerful than her unwholesome deeds.

(To footnote that story, the kashaya is a monk’s outer robe, and for “entertainer,” read “courtesan.”)

And also of a story I posted back on the Ino’s Blog, along with an important comment:

We had just started chanting the Self-receiving and -employing Samadhi at today’s noon service when the doorbell rang. The ever diligent work leader went to get the door, and I could see the UPS man coming in with a cart-load of packages. I suddenly thought of the story of Hui-Neng: having lost his father at an early age, the future patriarch was unable to go to school, but instead supported his mother by selling firewood. He happened to hear a monk reciting from the Diamond Sutra – ‘abiding nowhere, let the mind shine through’ is the version of the line I have in my head – and was suddenly enlightened. He went off to seek the fifth patriarch on the recommendation of that monk. I wondered if the UPS man might hear a line from our chant – we had just reached ‘when even for a moment you express the Buddha’s seal in the three actions by sitting upright in samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha’s seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment’ – and be greatly awakened. From where I was standing, I couldn’t say for sure, but I would like to think it could have happened.

Chris said: Equally important, maybe he’s already had an awakening. We don’t know.