randomWalks

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:ktMOjIXTb_oC:www.cs.kun.nl/~henk/Quest/bp/node4.html+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://members.aol.com/kyosan1/kobun.htm

"We invite you to join us in memorial activities for our beloved friends Kobun Chino Otogawa and his daughter Maya during the 49 days after their deaths in Switzerland on July 26, 2002.



Memorial Services will be held every Thursday for 7 weeks in the Jikoji Zendo at 8 pm, with zazen at 7:30. The ceremony on the 49th day, September 12, is a celebration of their passing through the seventh stage of Bardo."


http://www.zendo.com/~jikoji/jikoji.html

Here's another story. Once my previous Zen teacher, Tim McCarthy, was with his teacher Kobun Chino while Kobun was giving a talk about Zen. Someone asked Kobun about flying saucers. Kobun told him, "You should ask Tim about that. He reads comic books!"

No Future for You!

THE GREAT HEART OF WISDOM SUTRA



The Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra is the main text of Zen Buddhism. Everything you need to know about Buddhism is contained in this one compact verse. I'm presenting the version translated by Kobun Chino since it was the first one I ever heard. When I heard this I knew it was right even before I had a clue as to what it was about. I'm presenting the complete verse first with explanations of some of the terms used in it at the end.







Avolokiteshvara Bodhisattva



When practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita



Perceived that all five skandhas are empty



And was saved from all suffering and distress







Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness;



Emptiness does not differ from form.



That which is form is emptiness;



That which is emptiness, form.



The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.







Shariputra, all Dharmas are marked with emptiness;



They do not appear nor disappear,



Are not tainted nor pure,



Do not increase nor decrease.







Therefore in emptiness, no form,



No feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness;



No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;



No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind;



No realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind-consciousness;



No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them



No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path;



No cognition, also no attainment.



With nothing to attain



The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita



And his mind is no hindrance.



Without any hindrance no fears exist;



Far apart from every perverted view he dwells in Nirvana.







In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita



And attain Anuttara-samyaksambodhi.







Therefore know the Prajna Paraminta



Is the great transcendent mantra,



Is the great bright mantra,



Is the utmost mantra,



Is the supreme mantra,



Which is able to relieve all suffering



And is true not false.



So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra,



Proclaim the mantra that says;



Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate! Bodhi! Svaha!



EXPLANATIONS



Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva: The Bodhisattva of Compassion, also called Kuan Yin in Chinese and Kanon in Japanese. Avalokiteshvara was originally conceived of as male, but representations of him became more and more feminine until the modern Chinese and Japanese almost always depict Kuan Yin/Kanon as female. A Bodhisattva is a being who puts off attaining full Buddhahood in order to save other sentient beings. Avalokiteshvara is one of the main charcaters in the longer Sutra from which this section is derived. That's her ("her" because it's a Japanese painting) on top of this page.



Prajna Paramita: Prajna is intuitive wisdom which has nothing to do with knowledge. Such wisdom can be developed through the practice of Zazen. Paramita is added for emphasis, the highest prajna.



Shariputa: He's another character in the longer Sutra, a disciple of Gautama's. Our hero Gautama Buddha (who was dead long before this was composed, but we don't worry too much about that), addresses the story to him.



Five Skandhas: Buddhists do not accept the existence of a Soul. Instead they say a human being is a composite of five skandhas, the word skandha literally means "heap." The five are rupa (form), vedanta (feelings), samjnana (perceptions), smaskara (impulses or performance) and vijnana (consciousness).



The word samskara is difficult to understand even in the original Sanskrit. Though Kobun Chino uses the word "impulses" here, Gudo Nishijima prefers to use the word "performance." His reasoning is that the five aggregates should be understood in terms of the four philosophies outlined by Dogen in the Shobogenzo. These four are materialism, idealism, action and reality at the present. In this light we can see rupa or form as representing objective matter, and vijnana or consciousness as representing subjective spirit. The other three are related with human functioning. Vedana is physical perception or feeling and samjnana is human consideration or mental perception. Samskara then would represent concrete action as well as impulses to perform action.



Emptiness: This is the most misunderstood word in all of Buddhist philosophy. The original Sanskrit is Sunyata which means as-it-is-ness, the state of things being as they are without being colored by our views and concepts. It is not a Nihilistic concept of the void.



Suffering, Origination, Stopping, Path: This represents the Four Noble Truths outlined by Gautama Buddha in his first talks after attaining Enlightenment (oh how I hate that word). The usual understanding is that the first truth is that all life is suffering. Gautama Buddha actually used the word "dukkha" a Pali word meaning "unsatisfactory experience." The second is that the origination of suffering is desire. The word Gautama Buddha actually used was trsna which means "thirst." The third truth is that stopping desire leads to the stopping of suffering. The fourth is the Noble Eightfold Path which leads to the stopping of desire.



Gudo Nishijima's interpretation of the Four Noble Truths is a bit different. He sees them as related to Dogen's four levels of philosophy (Idealism, Materialism, Action at the present moment and Reality). When you look at things from an idealistic viewpoint everything sucks. Nothing can possibly live up to the ideals you've created. That is suffering. From a materialistic point of view everything is determined, even our thoughts are the results of chemical interactions following the rules of cause and effect. The origination of suffering is our wish that things could be different from what they are when they cannot possibly be, or the conflict between idealism and materialism. Stopping such wrong views is action at the present moment. The Noble Eightfold Path is reality itself.



The Three Worlds: Past, present and future.



Nirvana: You want me to say "Kurt Cobain's band," don't you? Well I won't. In the West, Nirvana is often misunderstood as some kind of "Buddhist Heaven." Since Nirvana literally means "cessation" or "extinction," scholars in the past have tended to equate the idea with Nihilism. Not too many scholars subscribe to that idea anymore. Sometimes Nirvana is contrasted with Samsara. But since Samsara is also misunderstood, such a contrast isn't too helpful either. Others equate Nirvana with some kind of spiritual bliss. But you'd be better off smoking some big fat doobies if you want that kind of bliss (dude).



The best way to understand Nirvana is as a kind of goal of Buddhist practice. Now, any good Buddhist teachers will tell you it is the aim that is important in Buddhism and not the goal. In his Madhyamika Kaarika, Nagarjuna says that Nirvana is not reality. But isn't Nirvana ultimate reality? Maybe our concept of ultimate reality has no counterpart in ultimate reality.



Anuttara-samyaksambodhi: Complete liberation.



Great Transcendent Mantra: The last section is really different from the rest and seems to be encouraging us to chant that little line at the end, "Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate. Bodhi! Svaha!" ("gate" is pronounced "gah-tay," by the way). This basically means "Gone, gone, all the way gone to the other shore. Hooray!" It's not really meant to be chanted. It's just an expression of the state of realization. "The other shore" is where we are right now.

The teacher, Kobun Chino, was as one would expect a Zen monk to be. Friendly, simple and to the point. His lectures were short and the 1.5 hour the meeting lasted was spent mainly with questions and answers.



An example. One week a woman would ask Kobun whether Buddhism had precepts. ``Yes. I will tell you next week.'' This made us all curious. Next week Kobun said: ``The Buddhist precepts are as follows: do what is good and do not do what is not good.'' In the discussion that followed it was also implicitely made clear that we also had to do something else: purify the mind.
http://www.cs.kun.nl/~henk/Quest/bp/node9.html

I think I have a bigger version, but here's a painting he did of our first house:

I will shortly be posting a tribute to Kobun on my website at this address:


http://www.macgroupusa.com/kobun_chino.html



As my little brothers Adam and Brett know, I spent more time around Kobun as a child, through our family visits (and babysitting). Mom was a spiritual friend of both Kobun and Harriet, and I was a troubled pre-teen who met a very different sort of mentor.



Like Adam, I too expected to be greeted again by Kobun with a smile -- like a sailor who has returned from sea to his family.

I am sorry to hear this news. I was not familiar with Mr. Roshi, but anyone who can inspire someone as visionary as Steve Jobs must be a very special and wise person in his own right.



I am confident that his beliefs and wisdom will continue to benefit him in other ways beyond our present reality.



It is clear from reading the testimonials and reactions that Mr. Roshi was much loved. No greater homage can we pay a person in this life.

I wish, there was anything I could say to make the pain go away of loosing a child, a husband, a friend, a teacher, a master.

As a childhood friend of Katrin (or the sister of one) I hear the disbelief and the helplessness to express feelings of parents who try to follow their child's path and don't know which way to turn.

May both their lifes live on through yours and the lives of others they touched.

Annette