While we in the West are hesitant to admit it, the recordings of the heart of Buddhism still lie hidden within its texts. These texts are essentially thousands of different maps and fingers pointing to the Buddha's recondite Dharma that he realized under the Bodhi-tree. If we truly intend to practice Buddhism we will need these maps and fingers because the territory where the Bodhi-tree grows is not in our all-too-human world. It lies quite beyond it.
I just finished watching Edward A. Burger’s documentary film, Amongst White Clouds, who, by the way, is himself a serious Buddhist practitioner. In the film, the last Buddhist hermit monk Burger meets and interviews provides us with the essence of what real Buddhist practice entails.
“The text [Sutras] contain the true path to buddhahood. With a little ability ... wherever your mind arrives ... you say, hey! this text talks about that place. Your mind is there, and the text talks about it, so you have arrived there, right? Now if you don't have this ability ... even if you read something in a text ... if your mind isn’t there, then you won’t understand, so you practice more. It’s easy to read a text, difficult to understand it.”
The hermit monk who said this, along with the other Buddhist hermits in the film, including a hermit nun, live in China's Zhongnan Mountain range where supposedly Lao-tzu/Laozi composed the Tao Te Ching/Daodejing. All the hermits who dwell here live in small, rustic stone dwellings scattered throughout this verdant mountain range.
Not in any showy or pretentious manner, these hermits keep the tradition of Buddhism alive through their practice. From what I could see, their practice seems not to have succumbed to any of the modern tendencies which seem, regrettably, to have made inroads into Western Buddhist practice. One regrettable example is the enthronement of zazen or seated meditation over the text, not to mention the psychologization of Buddhism, in general, changing its focus to self-help.
What is evident from Burger’s documentary is the daily life of tending a sizable garden, cooking, building and repairing hermitages, fetching water and firewood, are integral elements of practice, not just sitting. But of more importance was the place of the Buddhist text. It was like the Buddha was still teaching; who was alive and well in these mountains.
To some extent, the flim reminded me of what I used to do at my ranch many years ago. I would rise early in the morning; light the kerosene lamp; stir the coals in the old iron stove; add an oak log; then crack the Lankavatara Sutra which I can assure you, at the time, I didn't understand! For the rest of the day I hoped that I might understand just a tiny portion of it. Maybe when cutting firewood I might even understand one word of it!
Burger’s film conveys the impression that the life of the Buddhist hermit monk and nun is not by any means easy nor is it brutally painful or sad. It is exactly made to order for a seeking mind—a mind fully given to comprehending itself which when it happens, hurls one beyond the sphere of birth and death. In a way, there is a very positive and uplifting side to the life of the Buddhist hermit if they have faith that all of the Buddhist texts do, in fact, point to liberation as a real and attainable goal.
By the way, I would highly recommend this movie to be included in the reader's list of great Buddhist flicks. It is not going to enlighten you nor does it romanticize the Buddhist path, but it will show you a great deal of ‘practice’ in its proper context.
I remember one time after chanting the Heart Sutra I realized it wasn't saying anything. It just had a beginning and an end with nothing in the middle. ;)
Posted by: Ted Bagley | November 18, 2009 at 02:02 PM