Realizing Ultimate Reality
Mar. 17th, 2025 08:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mickiI think this new practice of mine, slow reading, is very good for certain kinds of Buddhist texts. I remember being so impatient with the opening chapters of this book, since the flower metaphors seemed very trite, but then they became more powerful metaphors as the book went on. Now I actually think Touching Peace is one of the most powerful books I've read, and I may have to return to this last chapter tomorrow since I am a little emotionally overwhelmed. Many of the examples he uses in the beginning of the book are of a parent's death, and since I woke up this morning with a very vivid dream of Dad dying, and then spent a while being quite anxious about my parents' health, it felt a little too close.
So this morning I will focus on the main message of the chapter, which is the distinction between ultimate reality and present reality, or as he calls it, the wave and the water. "[T]he deepest kind of relief is the realization of nirvana. There are two dimensions to life, and we should be able to touch both. One is like a wave, and we call it the historical dimension. The other is like water, and we call it the ultimate dimension, or nirvana....the world of waves...is characterized by birth and death, ups and downs, being and nonbeing. A wave has a beginning and an end, but we cannot ascribe these characteristics to water. In the world of water, there is no birth or death, no being or non-being, no beginning or end. When we touch the water, we touch reality in its ultimate dimension and are liberated from all these concepts."
The he talks about life and death as existing only in the historical dimension, not the ultimate dimension. "A flower may pretend to be born, but it has always been there in other forms. Later it may pretend to die, but we should not be fooled. She is just playing a game of hide-and-seek. She reveals herself to us and then hides herself away." "Nirvana means extinction, the extinction of all notions and concepts, including the concepts of birth, death, being, non-being, coming and going. Nirvana is the ultimate dimension of life, a state of coolness, peace, and joy....You can attain nirvana right now by breathing, walking, and drinking your tea in mindfulness." He tells the story about St. Francis asking the tree to tell him about God (in winter) and suddenly the tree began to blossom. From a Buddhist perspective, the tree didn't actually bloom but instead Francis saw into the ultimate dimension where the tree is in fact blooming.
He points out that if we learn to live in the ultimate dimension, many of the frustrations and small sufferings in life go away--the small daily frustrations (waiting in line too long, phone not working, etc.--in the light of eternity are really insignificant; even by the next day they are gone.
"When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything. The same is true of time. When you touch one moment with deep awareness, you touch all moments. According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, if you live one moment deeply, that moment contains all the past and future in it....As you touch the present moment, you realize that the present is made of the past and is creating the future."
He talks about a dream he had of walking with his brother and finding records of all their sufferings and all their joys, and then a man pronouncing that he would have to go through all of that again. "Do I really have to go through all that suffering again, all that fire, flood, storm, hunger, racial discrimination, ignorance, hatred, despair, fear, sorrow, political oppression, misery, war, death?" He initially resisted that thought, but came to the realization that those fears, and his initial reactions, represented the seeds of fear from his storehouse consciousness. "When I touched the world of no birth and no death, I was no longer afraid." And that's what a bodhisattva does. "Having touched the ultimate dimension, these bodhisattvas return to the historical dimension to help however they can to transform the suffering to relief. They live the life of a wave, but they also live the life of water, and in doing so they offer us non-fear."
So this morning I will focus on the main message of the chapter, which is the distinction between ultimate reality and present reality, or as he calls it, the wave and the water. "[T]he deepest kind of relief is the realization of nirvana. There are two dimensions to life, and we should be able to touch both. One is like a wave, and we call it the historical dimension. The other is like water, and we call it the ultimate dimension, or nirvana....the world of waves...is characterized by birth and death, ups and downs, being and nonbeing. A wave has a beginning and an end, but we cannot ascribe these characteristics to water. In the world of water, there is no birth or death, no being or non-being, no beginning or end. When we touch the water, we touch reality in its ultimate dimension and are liberated from all these concepts."
The he talks about life and death as existing only in the historical dimension, not the ultimate dimension. "A flower may pretend to be born, but it has always been there in other forms. Later it may pretend to die, but we should not be fooled. She is just playing a game of hide-and-seek. She reveals herself to us and then hides herself away." "Nirvana means extinction, the extinction of all notions and concepts, including the concepts of birth, death, being, non-being, coming and going. Nirvana is the ultimate dimension of life, a state of coolness, peace, and joy....You can attain nirvana right now by breathing, walking, and drinking your tea in mindfulness." He tells the story about St. Francis asking the tree to tell him about God (in winter) and suddenly the tree began to blossom. From a Buddhist perspective, the tree didn't actually bloom but instead Francis saw into the ultimate dimension where the tree is in fact blooming.
He points out that if we learn to live in the ultimate dimension, many of the frustrations and small sufferings in life go away--the small daily frustrations (waiting in line too long, phone not working, etc.--in the light of eternity are really insignificant; even by the next day they are gone.
"When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything. The same is true of time. When you touch one moment with deep awareness, you touch all moments. According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, if you live one moment deeply, that moment contains all the past and future in it....As you touch the present moment, you realize that the present is made of the past and is creating the future."
He talks about a dream he had of walking with his brother and finding records of all their sufferings and all their joys, and then a man pronouncing that he would have to go through all of that again. "Do I really have to go through all that suffering again, all that fire, flood, storm, hunger, racial discrimination, ignorance, hatred, despair, fear, sorrow, political oppression, misery, war, death?" He initially resisted that thought, but came to the realization that those fears, and his initial reactions, represented the seeds of fear from his storehouse consciousness. "When I touched the world of no birth and no death, I was no longer afraid." And that's what a bodhisattva does. "Having touched the ultimate dimension, these bodhisattvas return to the historical dimension to help however they can to transform the suffering to relief. They live the life of a wave, but they also live the life of water, and in doing so they offer us non-fear."
