Home › parting words

parting words
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    Parting Words Paid Member

    By Clark Strand
      One day P’u-hua went about the streets asking people he met for a one-piece gown. They all offered him one, but P’u-hua declined them all. Lin-chi had the steward of the temple buy a coffin, and when P’u-hua came back the Master said: “I’ve fixed up a one-piece gown for you.” P’u-hua put the coffin on his shoulders and went around the streets calling out: “Lin-chi fixed me up a one-piece gown. I’m going to the East Gate to depart this life.” All the townspeople scrambled after him to watch. More »
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    Parting Words Paid Member

    What goes through the mind of the person who chooses to go to jail rather than betray his spiritual convictions? The person who, refusing to be swept up in the militant patriotism that precedes most wars, chooses loneliness and isolation instead? It is hard enough to imagine how such a person passes the days and weeks—what of the hours and minutes? More »
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    Brushing Up Against the Buddha Paid Member

    I am not a Buddhist although I have enjoyed Buddha’s company for many years. Cast in cement, he sits quietly on the deck outside my painting studio surrounded by lumpy concrete animals all purchased at Pizzarilli’s Lawn Decoratives, Inc. on Long Island. More »
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    Mind of Embracing All Things Paid Member

    Reading an early passage of the Kegon Sutra, I came across a poem by the Ho-E Bodhisattva which made me want to cry out, “How Wonderful!” Here it is: More »
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    Easy Practice Paid Member

    By Clark Strand
    Honen's "One-Page Document": In China and Japan, many learned masters have taught that the nembutsu is to meditate deeply on Buddha. But that is not my understanding. Nembutsu is not meditation, nor does it come from study. It is nothing but reciting namu-amida-butsu and believing in our birth in the Pure Land. The Three Minds and Four Modes of Practice are all contained in this. If I am withholding any deeper knowledge than simple recitation of namu-amida-butsu, may I be lost to the compassion of the two buddhas and slip through the embrace of Amida’s original vow. Those who accept this in faith, though they master all the teachings of Shakyamuni, ought to avoid putting on airs and simply recite namu-amida-butsu alongside illiterate followers of little understanding, no matter whether they be women or men.More »