{"id":3173,"date":"2009-08-03T12:20:28","date_gmt":"2009-08-03T04:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/?p=3173"},"modified":"2009-08-03T12:29:32","modified_gmt":"2009-08-03T04:29:32","slug":"our-dusty-samsara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/2009\/08\/our-dusty-samsara\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Dusty Samsara"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" < Dust of the X-Men<\/em><\/p>\n

An SMS conversation with a friend:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sophie: <\/span>Monday… Arghhh…
\nShi’an: <\/span>How about this… Monday might be the last day of your life. Might as well make the best of it.
\nSophie:<\/span> Then I wish I didn’t spend my last moments sitting at this dusty bus-stop waiting, while getting covered in dust.
\nShi’an:<\/span> Ours is the world of dust, which urges us to go Pureland. This Samsara is a stepping stone, tiresome but necessary. We can’t guarantee our last moments to be dust-free externally, but it can be so internally. Phew!
\nSophie:<\/span> Haha. I’ll try to remember that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

From Wikipedia, on the recurrence of dust as a symbol of defilements:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In Buddhism, dust is a commonly used metaphor for the sensation, knowledge, and entanglement with the world that inhibits enlightenment. As a first example, in the Viveka Sutta of the P\u0101li Canon, a deva says to a Buddhist monastic who had become distracted:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
Let me remind you of that which is good \u2014<\/span><\/dd>\n
For the dust of the regions below is hard to transcend.<\/span><\/dd>\n
Don’t let the dust of the sensual pull you down<\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

In the Mahayana Shurangama Sutra, the Buddha gives a detailed metaphor of dust for individual consciousness and is quoted as saying, “It is because living beings are impeded by guest-dust and affliction that they do not realize Bodhi or become arhats”<\/span> and later affirms that, “considering it this way, what is clear and still is called space, and what moves is called dust. The word ‘dust,’ then, means ‘that which moves.'”<\/span>. Here, space refers to the Buddha-nature and dust refers to the defiling consciousness.<\/p>\n

Another example comes from the Sixth Patriarch Platform Sutra, famous in the Chan (aka Zen) school of Buddhism. The Fifth Patriarch Hongren sets up a poetic contest to determine his successor which features two poems that would become integral to the Chinese and Japanese culture, history and thought. The first, composed by Yuquan Shenxiu, states that<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
The body is the bodhi tree<\/span><\/dd>\n
The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand.<\/span><\/dd>\n
At all times we must strive to polish it<\/span><\/dd>\n
and not let dust collect.<\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

To which Huineng, the eventual Sixth Patriarch and successor of Hongren, replies<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
Bodhi originally has no tree.<\/span><\/dd>\n
The bright mirror also has no stand.<\/span><\/dd>\n
Fundamentally there is not a single thing.<\/span><\/dd>\n
Where could dust arise?<\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Related Article:<\/strong>
\nThe Meaning of the Poems of Tree, Mirror and Dust
\nhttp:\/\/www.moonpointer.com\/index.php?itemid=2372<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

< Dust of the X-Men An SMS conversation with a friend: Sophie: Monday… Arghhh… Shi’an: How about this… Monday might…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[154,41,105],"class_list":["post-3173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotes","tag-defilements","tag-pure-land","tag-samsara","wpcat-44-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}