The Light That Shines through Infinity by Dainin Katagiri

Author:Dainin Katagiri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2017-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

Paying Homage and Taking Refuge

The third and fourth lines of the “Verse of Offering Incense” say: “Homage to the countless buddhas in the ten directions permeates into seeing and hearing and manifests nirvana.” Through offering incense with a clear and calm mind, opening yourself and inviting Buddha, you can experience oneness. At that time, your physical life manifests dharma in everyday life, your total personality gives forth light, and you are called Buddha—an awakened one.

If you become an awakened one, you deeply appreciate Shakyamuni Buddha’s life, and very naturally you want to pay homage. So you say, “I take refuge in the Buddha,” or in Japanese you say, “Namu kie butsu,” and then you bow. That bow is namu or namo. In Sanskrit, it is namaste. In India, people always say namaste when they meet. Namas is “to lower your head”; te is “to you.” So namaste is not only exchanging a greeting; it is to bow. Japanese people are always bowing; that is namaste.

When you greet someone, bow and make an effort to open yourself to the stream of basic energy. Invite that energy into your life. Then your life returns to dharma, and you become Buddha. This is your everyday practice: you practice dharma, the dharma comes into you, and you become Buddha. Simultaneously you are a human being belonging to sangha. That is the triple treasure of Buddhism: Buddha, dharma, and sangha.

In Buddhism we take refuge in the triple treasure. Taking refuge is not going someplace to escape from the human world; it is opening yourself to the original place where everyone has to go. If you take the train of life, sooner or later you reach the dead end where you see the depth of human existence. It is the end, but it is also the beginning. From there you can go anywhere.

According to the triple treasure, the source of your being alive in the human world is nothing but energy. The perpetual flow of your energy to live has no form, no color; it is just constant movement. This life force is the original nature of your life, which is called Buddha, emptiness, or freedom. That pure energy is always moving, without taking any form.

But if the source of being is energy, then there must be a way by which being may be manifested. So the source of being doesn’t exist alone; it exists within a universal process, which is called dharma, truth, or the ultimate principle of existence. If there is a process, something must be produced. So when the source of being functions, it creates form, which is called sangha, the whole world, or all sentient beings.

Formative energies are always springing up from the source of being according to causes and conditions functioning in a moment. When they do, something happens; there is an event. Life! Life is just an event. From moment to moment, particles, atoms, and molecules arise from the vast openness of space all at once, come together, and form the world of phenomena: trees, birds, flowers, planets, and your human body.

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