Hooked! by Stephanie Kaza

Author:Stephanie Kaza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

RENOUNCING DESIRE

The first major ceremony we will observe in our new center is Jukai, the ceremony of taking the Three Refuges, the Three General Resolutions, and the Ten Cardinal Precepts. Twice each year we conduct Jukai; every five years we have Great Jukai. In the expanded ceremony of Great Jukai, participants move through the Center past vivid depictions of the six hell realms.

Participants start with the lowest realms of hell and travel through representations of the hungry ghost, animal, titan, human, and deva realms in turn. At the start of our journey, each person is given a drawing of three animals in a circle: a pig representing ignorance, a cock representing greed, and a snake representing anger. Each animal is biting the tail of the one before them, just as we devour ourselves when we give way to consumer excess. As we walk slowly past the sights, smells, colors, and images of the six realms—some of them frightening, some exquisite, some eerie, some unnervingly familiar—we reflect on the causes of being reborn as a person in war-torn lands or as a starving person, as a dog or a human child, a general or a princess. The consequences of acting on uncontrolled desires stand vividly before us. What a powerful antidote to the forces that drive us to consumerism!

The last realm we pass through in Great Jukai is filled with seductive material comforts and temptations. This is the sweetly scented, beautiful world of the devas. There we linger perhaps a moment longer than in the other realms, enticed by the pleasurable sights and smells. Just beyond is the zendo, where we hear the words of the dharma being chanted by those who have crossed the realms before us. We pass into that tranquil space and, with utmost gratitude, bow down before the Buddha, taking refuge in Buddha, in Dharma, and in Sangha, knowing that this is the path to liberation.

Traveling through the six realms, with body and mind we absorb the teaching on the interrelated causes of being reborn in realms of suffering. We see how our craving and desire in the form of attachment to consumer objects and sense pleasures bind us to the wheel of rebirth. Zen master Dogen’s forceful words echo the teaching that has been passed down for twenty-five hundred years: “Do not idle away the time needed for practice, but rather practice in the spirit of a person trying to extinguish a blaze in his hair.” Dogen admonishes us to abandon all thoughts of fame and desires, get rid of material goods, part with fields and gardens, renounce everything. “You should renounce them even if you do not possess them. What should be clear in this matter is the principle of being free from them whether you have them or not.”8

In Tibetan thangka paintings of the Wheel of Life, there is a graphic image of a man with an arrow piercing his eye, depicting the powerful impact of objects on the senses. This impact generates the

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