Sheltering in sacred space
from Hoko
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As we continue our exploration of nyoho shelter, let’s consider the meaning of shelter itself. In English, "shelter" derives from "shield," and in a religious context, a shelter is a place of physical and spiritual protection that provides refuge (aha!), security and safety from danger. We go to Buddha, dharma and sangha for refuge, but refuge from what? From the suffering that happens as a result of greed, anger and ignorance and the karma that our unskillful actions of body, speech and mind set in motion. Taking refuge isn’t about escaping from the consequences of our actions, but helping us see how to avoid making those mistakes in the first place.
Shelter is a physical protection for our practice. Not only does it keep us out of the weather and safe from other kinds of harm, but temples, dharma centers, or our home practice spaces enable and support zazen, work, study and liturgy. What we do there makes these sacred spaces, and we’ll come back to that shortly. Shelter is also an emotional and spiritual protection. In the temple or zendo we know that even though we’re doing a challenging practice, it’s safe to do it. We’re embarking on this thing together with others who share our aspiration. If we feel some strong emotions, we know we’re not going to get up off the cushion and go act them out. We can just sit still in the midst of that storm and know that we’re going to be OK. We also trust that practice and Buddha’s teachings are good things. They’re wholesome and meaningful and will help lessen our suffering. There are five elements of spiritual health in the human experience:
All of these dimensions of our practice give us a sense of security. Now, how do we consider the intersection of shelter, safety or refuge and nyoho, things that don’t create attachment? We saw in our look at the shichido garan that nyoho buildings are unpretentious, appropriate in size, color and materials, and all the other usual nyoho characteristics, but now we’re talking about non-attachment to a non-physical space that doesn’t have concrete elements. I think this intersection has something to do with our willingness to take risks in our practice. We may come to practice initially because we’re looking for comfort. We realize we’re suffering, though we might not articulate it that way, and we might not know exactly how or why we’re suffering, but we want something to make us feel better. That’s perfectly reasonable . . . but we quickly see that being what we think of as comfortable isn’t the goal of our practice. If we’re attached to our practice and the three treasures as shields or painkillers, we’ve missed the point. If we’re waiting for the perfect circumstances in which to practice, trying to make everything just right, then again we’ve missed the point. Well, I can’t sit at home today because the neighbors are making too much noise. Really? Isn’t that attachment to a certain kind of shelter? What’s the real shelter and refuge, the room you’re sitting in or the space and spaciousness of your practice? How about I’m scared to sit because things will come up in my mind that I don‘t want to think about. Well, isn’t that attachment to a certain kind of shielding from things that make us uncomfortable? Protection isn’t the same as avoidance or escape. Our practice can help to protect us from perpetuating suffering by seeing the nature of it and how we create it for ourselves and others, but it’s not designed to help us ignore unwholesomeness and its karmic consequences. Our practice is a challenge, and sometimes it’s difficult and awkward and uncomfortable. If we’re attached to our own comfort, we’re going to bypass myriad opportunities to get to clarity that are healthier for us in the long run. On the one hand, anywhere and everywhere that we engage in practice is sacred space, and that means there’s no real difference between sacred and not sacred. Yet there are places that we somehow consider to be special, and we treat them with respect and reverence. When we enter these spaces, we may carry out rituals like removing shoes or bowing, or we agree to refrain from certain activities, like talking loudly or moving carelessly. Something feels significant about sacred space, either because of something that happens there now, like zazen, liturgy or ceremonies, or because it reminds us of a being or event, like Buddha’s awakening or 20 years of people taking precepts and commiting to a lifetime of practice. Sacred space might be found in a location that everyone says is sacred, whether that’s followers of a particular religious tradition or people who appreciate a certain natural setting. It might be your own personal sacred space because it means something special to you. There’s some particular meaning for you there and it gives you an opportunity for reflection and connection with the small self and the universal self. After my mother died, I sponsored a brick in her name during a library renovation. She loved to read and she had two grandchildren, and the bricks went to make the path in the children’s reading garden. Whenever I go back to the Twin Cities I try to go to the library to visit Mom’s brick. It’s sort of a sacred space for me. In any event, usually a sacred space is where we go to connect with something larger than ourselves, to step back for awhile from distractions of the busy samsaric world on fire and remind ourselves that there’s also the world of emptiness. We might do that in man-made structures like churches and temples, or in a home practice space that we use consistently over time and starts to feel spiritually significant, or we might visit nature, sacred mountains, trees or waters. You may have seen robes and paper chains tied around huge rocks or ancient trees in Japan. That’s a Shinto practice that recognizes those natural features as sacred. Sacred space doesn’t come into existence simply as another physical nyoho object. In this case, “things made according to dharma” is also about what we do in the space that makes it sacred. The most important thing going on there is connection: connection between past, present and future, between form and emptiness, or small self and universal self, between practitioners and sangha members, creating and reinforcing community identity. Expressing reverence and paying attention to our deportment is part of making that connection. For us, that includes putting on rakusu, or dressing appropriately in modest clothes that aren’t distracting to others, and also carrying ourselves in a certain way and going along with the customs of the sangha about what we do and don’t do in the space. When we considered the shichido garan, we saw that it includes a series of gates into the complex, and that when we pass through the gates, we’re freed from the three poisons and we enter into a purified space. This is a space which is separate from the mundane world. There’s something particular or special about it. In this space we act in a certain way and do certain things, and that’s part of what purifies it. I think also that entering into this space is a means of breaking preoccupation. We see that every time we enter the zendo. We step in, do a gassho and bow. In a traditional sodo, there’s an actual threshhold we have to step over, so we’re very consciously and intentionally entering into something. We’re leaving behind worldly activities and orienting ourselves toward zazen the same way we enter the complex through the gate and leave that world behind. We do some more elaborate purification when the activity we’re entering into is ryaku fusatsu. We should be bathing before arriving for the ceremony, though if we can’t do that, we should at least wash our hands. Then we offer incense on the way into the zendo and purify our robes. Once we’re gathered all the buddhas and ancestors and done repentance, we purify the actual physical space by walking around scattering water along the outside edge of the group. Ryaku fusatsu is a practice of removing or letting go of defilement and delusion and returning to purity and sacredness, and the way we interact with the space reflects that. What we do here at Sanshin is also a nyoho version in that it’s much less elaborate than the traditional ceremony, but it’s appropriate for who and where we are. Within sacred space, we ourselves and the sangha as a whole are pure or sacred, no matter how we think of our selves individually otherwise. The last thing the doshi chants at the end of the ryaku fusatsu is: May the sweet dew of the merit of expounding the precepts moisten the entire dharma world, and may all living beings venerate the sacred assembly. We’ve got the purification that goes with renewing the precepts extending to the entire dharma world, and we ourselves are now a sacred assembly, worthy of veneration. That comes from practicing in a certain way within this sacred space. What we do here is a reflection and manifestation of the most important and central beliefs and values of our tradition, and here we have a physical experience of emptiness and awakening. Every time we arrive at the cushion, we’re arriving at the bodhi tree. Every time we sit, we re-enact Buddha’s awakening. As we’ve discussed previously, there is only one temple, one bodhi tree, one sacred space, one awakening. It’s all right here At the same time, there’s something called pilgrimage and I can tell you, it can be a very powerful experience to physically travel to a place where something really important happened or someone really important to the tradition practiced. There are eight major Buddhist pilgrimage sites; four are where he was born, experienced awakening, gave his first sermon, and died; and four are places where he spent significant time or sites of famous stories from scripture. I don’t live in the magic world, but I had a very strange experience when I visited Sarnath, where the first sangha gathered and Buddha began to teach. When I’ve been in Dogen’s temples I imagine him walking around there and teaching and practicing with his monks. You can’t help but feel some awe and reverence, and that makes these places sacred. A nyoho approach helps us feel our connection to the past. The good news is that you don’t have to go to India or Japan to experience sacred space. If nature really speaks to you, simply being outdoors is entering into a sacred space. You can also be intentional about creating sacred space to encompass and support your practice at home. Decide what kind of sacred activities you’re going to be doing in that space, and that means whatever is sacred for you. Then decide what space needs to be like in order to support your intention. Dogen tells us clearly what he thought the optimal zazen space was like: a quiet room, with a thick mat and a cushion, someplace without smoke or drafts that provides shelter from rain or dew, warm enough and cool enough and not completely dark. That’s all! It sounds like nyoho shelter to me. We can help the purity of the space by keeping it clean, both of dust and whatnot but also of clutter and miscellanous stuff. It should be comfortable enough to practice in without being distracting, and we should keep it fresh. Changing the water or the flowers or other offerings, lighting a candle and ringing a bell all have a cleansing, freshening effect. We can enter into and care for our sacred space with attention and intention. Part of creating and maintaining a sacred space of your own can be considering nyoho elements: the color, the atmosphere, what materials and artifacts you put in there, the size of the space. If you have an altar, it's good to include elements of earth, air, fire and water. Here at Sanshin, we have small water offerings that we change every morning, offering the pure, fresh water of wisdom to those who thirst for the dharma. The fresh flowers represent the earth and remind us of impermanence. The incense burner represents air; fragrance is a purification of the space. The candle represents fire and wisdom that dispels darkness of ignorance. There’s usually an inspirational figure like Shakyamuni on an altar. Traditionally there’s an image of Dogen at right and Keizan at left, representing “One Buddha and Two Founders” (ichibutsu ryoso). Shakyamuni is raised on a platform or the highest shelf that represents Mt. Sumeru. When we discussed the shichido garan we saw that in Buddhist cosmology, this is a mythological mountain in the center of the universe, the home of the gods with everything else arranged around them. In the temple complex, the closer you move toward the buddha hall at the center of the complex, the more sacred the space, so again here on the altar we have a representation of sacred space. Now as much as we need to take care of our physical spaces and the things in them, we also need to practice nonattachment. The sacredness of the space doesn’t reside in the objects themselves as separate from the complete functioning of this moment. They’re dharma gates, but they’re also just cushions and candles and floors and walls. We set some intention about practice and awakening, and then ascribe various meanings to the space in which we do that practice. It’s the intention, experience, forms, rituals, emotions of the people engaging with that space that make it sacred. The space and the objects within the space support our practice, but they aren’t where awakening reside. We’re reminded of this every time a new visitor arrives and doesn’t know how to step into the room, where to stand in relation to an altar, how to hold a sutra book. These things don’t have sacred meaning for them -- yet. This doesn’t mean that any place or object is more sacred than any other, or that awakening isn’t everywhere already, but it can help our practice to designate even temporarily a sacred space, and then focus our practice there or come together as a community there. We started with the three refuges as our ultimate shelter, and that’s where we’re going to end up today. We take refuge in buddha, dharma and sangha as shelter, but of course these three refuges are really one thing, and that’s the complete functioning of this moment of reality. Okumura Roshi says: This reality is what we take refuge in. This is the shelter, this is home. Home means wherever we go, we return to reality. We are born within reality, we are living within reality; we are dying within reality. This is a shelter, this is a home, this where we live, and nothing else. This absolute reality is Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and we take refuge within this absolute reality. Like nyoho clothing and nyoho food, nyoho shelter and dharma are one thing. This one thing is ichinyo, one and the same. Ehou ichinyo: the robe and dharma are one. Zenkai ichinyo: zen and precepts are one. Studying and practicing with nyoho begins to show us all the ways that whatever we’re dealing with and dharma are one thing. They’re all completely nonseparate from total universal functioning. Home means wherever we go, we return to reality. We wake up and see that there’s nothing outside of this one unified reality, no matter where we go in body and mind. The refuge, the shelter, is in understanding that this is what’s real, this is what we’re really encountering and dealing with, not the stuff in our heads. If we’re responding only to the stuff in our heads, then we’ve actually lost touch with reality, and then there’s no way that whatever we’re doing is going to make sense or be skillful. You’re asking a question, and I’m responding to a different question. A need arises, and I’m responding to a different need. It’s a complete disconnect. Buddhas and ancestors are telling us: go home! seek shelter! Do your best to ensure that you and others are spiritually safe by looking up and seeing what’s really going on. Are you really here, or are you somewhere else? It can certainly be tempting to try to escape our karmic circumstances by pretending they don’t exist or that things are different. That can be a fun and perhaps necessary break sometimes, but in end, we all know that's not the optimal solution. It just perpetuates suffering. Although it seems counterintuitive, the real shelter is what’s right here, as challenging as that can seem. Here and now is the only place and time in which we can take action. At the same time, Sawaki Roshi said that everyone is homeless, and it’s a mistake if we think we have a fixed home. (He was known as Homeless Kodo, after all.) If there’s no fixed home, no fixed shelter, then all of universal functioning is our shelter. There’s only one shelter, and this is it. It might be a temple or your house or a garden or a mountaintop. Something we designate as a sacred space might feel a little more like a refuge than a shopping mall or a gravel quarry, and we might create or visit sacred space in order to take shelter and get back in touch with reality as universal functioning, but actually we carry shelter with us everywhere by carrying out practice and embodying awakening. We can return home at any time. |
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