Just As You Are
My life is fleeting and finite and I do not know with certitude what tomorrow has in store for me. But in the transitory boundaries of my existence is the timeless flow of Amida’s life. In the finite sound of my Nembutsu is Amida’s voice of Compassion, tirelessly calling me. Like a small stream that enters the mighty current of the great river, so does my insignificant life, in the Nembutsu, join the majestic flow of Amida’s Infinite Life. Namo Amida Butsu ~ Kenryu T. Tsuji, The Heart of the Buddha-dharma, p.77
Recently, it was reported that a giant sequoia came crashing down across a popular walking path in the Sierra Nevada. Fortunately, nobody was injured and a tourist even managed to take a video of the event as it happened. The tree was over three hundred feet tall and seventeen feet in diameter at its base. Moreover, it was determined that it was some 1500 years old! Apparently such trees can actually live for about 4,000 years and not surprisingly, have the greatest mass of any living organism on earth.
A call has been put out for ideas as to what to do with the tree. Should the path now go under it, over it, around it, or through it? Someone suggested cutting up the tree, but the best solution seems to be to leave it just as it is, in its natural state. When you think of all the years that it stood quietly and majestically in the forest, not bothering anyone, but instead providing shelter, shade, and perhaps even food for other living beings, why should it not go on serving its natural course as part of an ecological system? Perhaps people will be brought to reflect upon impermanence and change; about their own place in this vast universe and how all beings, past, present, and future are linked together; and about the natural beauty that all beings emanate just as they truly are.
As I write this, a huge Norway spruce is being readied to be trucked to the Rockefeller Center in New York City for the holiday season. It is to be festooned with five miles of wire bearing 30,000 LED lights, and topped with a Swarovski crystal star. Similarly, a Sierra white fir from the Stanislaus National Forest is being shipped across the country to the Capitol. People will be awed by the superimposed simulation of beauty that matches so much of our artificially enhanced lives. Consider, though, the mystery of a single, unique snowflake that glistens with a billion others, no two exactly alike. Imagine snow-covered pines on a moonlit night. There’s no comparison.
Somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, noble “ever-“greens live with all their might, just as they are in each moment, until the endless flow of time and existence calls them to lie down. Even then, they inspire awe for the wonder of infinite, interdependent life. Shantideva, an Indian Buddhist scholar of the 8th century, observed in a famous poem, “The trees do not speak harsh words, nor do they try to please by artifice.” They are magnificent, just as they are.
May each of us hear the calling voice of the Infinite resounding within us and, mindful of our indebtedness to all life, let us truly live each day with all our hearts. On the spectrum of longevity, we are somewhere between the giant sequoia and the diamond glint of a snowflake and we cannot know with certitude what awaits us in the blink of an eye. But we can be beautiful simply by being who we truly are, without artifice. That is all that counts in the timeless flow of Great Life. Thank you for everything and best wishes today and everyday. Namo Amida Butsu.
Gassho,
Rev. P. Usuki
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