Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘I was thinking this morning as I was writing out a list of the names of the arhats how maybe the contribution here in this country or in the West to the list of arhats will be that eventually there will be a woman arhat’s name on the list. I hope so. Fortunately, some of the paintings of these arhats, they’re pretty androgynous looking, and that helps. And in this prayer, the prayer begins with some recognition and reverence for Shakyamuni Buddha, that Buddha who lived in the world as a human being just like all of us and who attained this great awakening, this great consciousness, which has been the source for our practice and study.

For those of you who don’t know much about the arhats, I encourage you to meet them. They’re often depicted as craggy, eccentric, funky types. And they’re described in this prayer as being the ones who opened, first of all, they received the teachings from the Buddha, so that’s part of their function. They then are described as opening the treasure chest of the true teachings and spreading those teachings, upholding the teachings. I suppose that means living what you say, what you’re teaching. That’s how I understand it. Protecting the teachings and being examples of the possibility of that condition called unexcelled in attainment.

They’re also revered because they maintained the manner of listening. That means listening to the suffering of all beings in the world, not turning away to being free or liberated from suffering and abandoning all of us, but listening, staying with the world of samsara, of suffering. One of the central practices in the Buddhist tradition is this acknowledgement, remembering, turning to the ancestors, because, of course, the tradition is about that which is past, literally mind to mind and body to body, from one practitioner to another. And when one begins to realize the degree to which this is a literal and exact description of how it happens, the longevity and breadth and depth of the tradition is a marvel.’ (from the San Francisco Zen Center Archive)

I wonder about Yvonne Rand now being on the list of women arhats who have contributed to the practice in the west. At Engage Wisdom, we digitised much of her archive, though I don’t believe it is publicly available. This talk is on the main SFZC page.