Buddhism

My Grandfather’s Clock

Cate Kodo Juno 3 Comments

There is a wonderful medieval Japanese folktale that tells of a group of discarded tools and household items, thrown onto a pile of rubbish, who became animated spirit objects called tsukumogami. The tsukumogami, which included abandoned teapots, fans, shoes, scissors, rosary beads, pots, hammers, etc, were angry at their previous owners, who had failed to honour all their hard work by throwing them away, and so they wreaked havoc and mischief on their owners until they are pacified by a Shingon Buddhist ritual. The tsukumogami then became devout Buddhists and subsequently all achieved enlightenment.

It is believed that when they reach one hundred years of age, all tools and household articles become sentient beings. Therefore, there are many rituals held still in Japanese temples where you can offer your used tools and pray for their enlightenment. One lovely ritual, observed annually at temples and shrines throughout Japan on February 8th, is called Hari Kuyo and involves placing your used sewing needles into a block of tofu so that they might retire in a soft place after all their hard work.

In the Shingon Buddhist tradition, all things are said to possess a spirit and thus all things – humans, animals, plants, rocks, fabricated objects – are ‘alive’ and are all capable of being enlightened beings. This stems from the deeper principle that no thing in the whole universe exists as separate to any other thing – we are all completely interdependent. The great Vietnamese monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls this “interbeing“. And enlightenment is the deep realisation of the truth of this interdependence.

This belief that everything is alive is also very prominent in the worldview of First Nations peoples and accounts for their inseparable connection to Country, of which they are not only the custodians but Country is an integral part of their very being.

My grandfather’s clock

Many years ago, my grandfather made me a clock: he found the various pieces he needed strewn amid the discarded debris at the local shire rubbish tip in Shark Bay, where he lived in the far north-west of Australia. He found an old clock face, bits of metal to make the workings, some metal tubing cut to fit the clock face, a piece of wood to house it in, and the handle of a discarded sewing machine case.

Although my grandfather died in 1992, the clock remains as the manifestation of the actions of his body moving through the red dusty country of Shark Bay, amid the heat and smells and sounds of the rubbish tip; the actions of his hands manipulating tools, which he also found or crafted, as he fashioned the clock in the hot corrugated iron shed that looked out over the blue ocean on one side and the red desert on the other; the sounds of his breath as he sighed over mistakes or sang snatches of old bush songs.

All of my grandfather’s thoughts and actions and breath are the clock itself, not inside it, but of its very essence and substance. And when I received the clock from his hands, with gratitude and delight, I too became a part of that story, that being, that clock. And of course, in a very real DNA way, I am also my grandfather on a cellular level. And so my grandfather’s clock is a living being, that is at once my grandfather and also not-my-grandfather. The clock and my grandfather and myself all inter-be.

And as I walk past the clock many times every day, glancing at the time, I feel a deep gratitude when I hear his heartbeat tick-tick-ticking in syncopated rhythm with my own heartbeat as we continue to inter-be: my grandfather, the clock and me.

Meditation:
What if everything you interact with is alive? How does that change your relationship to the things around you: your phone, a cup of tea, the trees, the ants, your house, the clouds? Feel your breath flowing out into the living world, feel your breath drawing that living world back into your body. What does it feel like to inter-be with all the things present right now in the space around you?

Healing a Lost Pregnancy

Cate Kodo Juno 11 Comments

Mizuko Kannon, Mt Koya, Japan

Mizuko Kannon, Mt Koya, Japan

Rituals of healing for the grief of miscarriage and abortion: In my experience, rituals performed in memory of an unborn baby, lost though miscarriage or abortion, helps to heal the deep pain of loss and to bring a sense of closure for many women, who often cannot even tell anyone of the dark secret they hold. This post is a reprint of an article I have written in June’s NOVA Magazine, Healing a Lost Pregnancy, which you can read online here (the article is on page 6).

The Water Babies

In Japan, nestled in a grove of trees or on the mountainside looking out over the ocean within the grounds of the temples that are dedicated to Quanyin, the Goddess of Compassion, you will find rows of little stone figures lined up along tiered benches. These statues represent the spirits of babies who have been miscarried or aborted; they are called “mizuko,” which means “water-babies,” because they have come from the waters of their mother’s womb and have returned back into the flow of life.

The statues are placed there by parents after they have participated in a memorial ritual at the temple, praying for a good rebirth for the baby and asking for forgivenness for not being able to give them a life at this time. The little statues wear tiny bonnets and bibs that are made by the old ladies of the village to keep the spirits of the babies warm. The parents often place gifts in front of the statue, such as toys, pinwheels and candy, along with letters to the baby written on small wooden plaques.

When I first encountered these grottos dedicated to the spirits of the water-babies, I was deeply moved because I had never seen such public acknowledgement of miscarriage and abortion in Australia. When I talked to the temple priest, I was impressed by his refusal to engage in any kind of moral judgment: he did not ask whether the pregnancy loss was as a result of a natural miscarriage or the result of the woman’s choice to terminate the pregnancy. His compassion was entirely focussed on helping to ease the grief of the woman who was suffering from the loss of her baby, regardless of the cause.

To me, this was in stark contrast to the situation in Australia, where there is a deep divide in social attitudes between a woman who has had a miscarriage and a woman who has had an abortion. With a miscarriage, a woman is encouraged to be open with her feelings and to receive appropriate support from her family, friends and society at large. However, if a woman has an abortion and suffers grief from her loss, because she may have complex feelings of shame or guilt, or feel she doesn’t even have the right to grieve, then she is left alone to carry her pain in secret and the usual ways of finding healing for her grief are closed to her.

When I returned home to Australia, as a Buddhist priest, I began to offer memorial rituals of healing for pregnancy loss here at Wabi’an, a chapel dedicated to Quanyin, the Goddess of Compassion. Every woman’s experience is unique and each memorial ritual is individually created to help her find closure for her grief.

Mizuko in bibs & bonnets at Hasedera Temple

Mizuko in bibs & bonnets at Hasedera Temple

Healing Stories

For many women, healing the grief of an early miscarriage is difficult because the baby just “disappears” and there is nothing tangible to mourn: When Laura had a miscarriage, she felt her grief as a great empty space within her, unable to find expression or closure. Although well-meaning in their support, her family and friends did not appreciate the depth of her grief, saying “It just wasn’t meant to be” or “You’re young – you’ll have a baby one day”. But Laura grieved for this baby, of which nothing remained. So as part of a memorial ritual, Laura made up a box of mementos, photos, and letters that gave her something tangible to bury in a special place that fully acknowledged and celebrated the baby’s life with dignity and honour. A year later, Laura carried another pregnancy to full term and gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

For many women, events much later in their lives may trigger the deep pain of suppressed grief: Jackie was 56 years old when her own daughter had a miscarriage. While comforting her daughter, Jackie became overwhelmed by a grief of her own that related to the abortion she had been forced by her parents to have when she was 16 years old, 40 years earlier. She had tried to forget all about it but suddenly, in sharing her own daughter’s loss, she grieved for the loss of her own baby all those years before. So a ritual of healing was performed that honoured the spirits of both babies, sending messages and mementos up to heaven tied to balloons, which brought Jackie a great sense of peace that she had finally acknowledged her loss and healed her own deep grief.

For many women, illness and fertility issues bring up feelings of having created bad karma from having an abortion: Christine was in her mid-30s and had been undergoing IVF treatment for some time, without success. Because she was having difficulty in conceiving, she began to believe that she was being punished for having had an abortion when she was younger. She had never told anyone about her abortion and was worried that the spirit of the baby was seeking revenge by preventing her from getting pregnant. After performing a memorial ritual to honour the spirit of the lost baby, Christine confided that she felt a huge burden was lifted from her by just being able to share her story and not being judged or condemned for the choice she had made. The following year, Christine gave birth to a healthy baby girl – naturally and without fertility treatment.

Letters written to mizuko babies on wooden plaques

Letters written to mizuko babies on wooden plaques

Rituals for Pregnancy Loss

Every woman has her own individual way of grieving and so each memorial ritual is unique. For some women, it is enough to share her story and be relieved of the burden of her secret, in which case she may decide to perform her own ritual in private. For others, a formally conducted ritual using traditional language and structure provides the sense of an important occasion that suits their need to express their loss as a life ceremony. In every case, I encourage the mother to begin the process by naming her baby and writing a letter that expresses how she feels and what she wants to tell the spirit of her baby.

Many memorial rituals are created using one of the elements of earth, water, wind or fire: for example, the focus of an earth ritual may be to bury something and perhaps plant a tree; in a water ritual offerings are made into a river, lake or the ocean; a wind ritual may involve using a balloon to send a message up to the heavens; a fire ritual is an ancient way of mourning though fire, smoke and ashes, or by lighting candles or incense. I have found that each person tends to naturally be drawn to creating a special ritual of their own through one these elements, or using this as a starting point for their own creative journey. I have helped to create rituals that involved painting a picture, sewing a quilt, knitting a story, playing music, writing poetry, scupturing an image, or making a photo album. With nurturing support, each person is able find their own expression of their grief and healing.

In the ongoing heated and emotional debate between pro-choice and pro-life lobbyists, it is the lonely voice of each individual woman, with her own unique experience and personal grief, that is drowned out in the political rhetoric. When a woman comes to me who is grieving the loss of her baby, I do not ask questions: Regardless of politics and religion, my objective in offering a memorial ritual is to bear witness to each person’s particular experience, to acknowledge their grief without judgement and to support their healing process. My role is to welcome each individual with compassion and respect for the choices they have made in their lives and to offer comfort and healing for their grief in a way that honours their life choices and their own spiritual path.

Although until now I have offered rituals only to mothers who have come to Wabi’an, I also encourage and welcome fathers who are suffering grief from pregnancy loss to seek healing as well.

 

Happy New Year of the Wood Horse

Cate Kodo Juno 2 Comments

[This is a repost from my Buddhist Astrology blog]

2014.01.31_horse copy

Happy New Year of the Wood Horse, fellow pilgrims 🙂
I wish you all blessings for a joyful year full of nurture, peace and love.

Today is the first day of the Year of the Wood Horse. Because the Horse element is fire and this year’s element is wood, it is considered an auspicious interaction: wood is the mother to its fire child; that is, wood will nourish a fire, so it indicates a generally good luck year. This is a YANG year; that is, it is full of outwardly directed masculine energy that is very active. The wood element suggests a time of growth, of working on and developing current projects, and a horse year is full of activity and forward motion, so this year is one of great activity and the potential for transformation – galloping into the sunset, so to speak. However, this year contains many YANG-heated elements and it will be very easy to get burnt or to suffer burnout. You must be careful not to burn up all that precious growth wood energy early in the year or you might find yourself in the midst of an out-of-control fire before the year is out! You need to reign in that horse and keep it firmly in control, carefully pacing out the year, using your energy with a focussed awareness.

For your spiritual practice it indicates a year of positive growth and development in your current practice, which will lead to a sense of satisfying progress. It is the Springtime of your practice where you have laid the foundations and now you can really move forward and experience some sense of achievement in your practice. Wood indicates growth and fire indicates transformation, so these are very productive elements for spiritual maturity. However, because this is a very YANG hot year, if you just go headlong, feet-first into your spiritual practice, without taking time to add periods of quiet, inwardly focussed activities that will keep you in harmony, then you will burn up the opportunities presented by the year’s energies before you reap its promising rewards.

2014.01.31_windhorse copyIn Tibetan Buddhism, the horse represents our soul, or rather our life force vitality, and is called Lungta, which means “Wind Horse”. This horse represents our innate enlightenment and our unlimited capacity for love and compassion. When this horse is strong, then our vitality enables us to transform, when it is weak, then we feel flat and discouraged. So this year of the horse gives us energy to transform and feel really alive.

During the year of the horse, if you do find yourself feeling overwhelmed or overdoing things, take time to sit quietly and take a few deep breaths. The wind horse is there to help you this year, so meditate on the image of a white horse galloping gracefully and effortlessly through a spring meadow full of flowers and on into the cool forrest, where the trees are green and flourishing and nurturing. The wind horse is full of vitality and freedom, so if you ride that horse you too will feel its strength and power, carrying you on. The horse is full of energy but galloping is natural and effortless, and so it should be too with the energy you focus on all elements of your life. This is a very empowering image and will help to encourage the positive energy that comes with the Year of the Wood Horse and its potential for profound transformation.

Why Astrology?

Cate Kodo Juno 2 Comments

03teishukuFor many people it may seem strange that as a Buddhist priest I would work with astrology, because astrology is often condemned as irrational and mere superstitious nonsense, whereas Buddhism is a highly respected philosophy and religious institution based firmly on sound rational principles. Certainly in other religions, such as mainstream institutional Christianity, it would be considered heretical for a priest or minister to work with astrology. However, although there also some conservative Buddhist priests in Japan who view astrology with scepticism, my own venerable teachers have embraced astrology as useful tool in helping people to overcome their suffering and to live a life free from fear and anxiety. Their use of astrology is in no way a departure from their roles as Buddhist priests, or as some kind of side practice outside of their normal Buddhist practices; in fact, astrology sits very comfortably within Buddhist doctrine and practice.

Most important is the idea of upaya, meaning “expedient means” or “effective way”, which is a concept that is central to my role as a Buddhist priest: it comes from the Way of the Bodhisattva, whereby a teacher must find the right “language” with which to teach the way out of suffering and into awakening. “Language” in this sense means using a system of signs and words and practices that a fellow pilgrim will be able to understand and apply to their own lives. That is, what if you came to see me at Wabi’an to talk about your spiritual path, using English as our language of communication, and then I answered you in Japanese? Even if what I had to share might really help you on your path, speaking to you in a language you couldn’t understand would be a worthless and unskilful reply. There needs to be a translation for us to be able to communicate and be on the same page. My work as a Buddhist priest, committed to passing on the wisdom of my teachers to you, requires finding the right tools, the right translation ‘software’ to share this important knowledge. So astrology can be seen as a particular kind of “language” that can be used as an effective tool in offering the keys to enlightenment. It is upaya in action.

Furthermore, in Esoteric Buddhism, everything in the cosmos is seen as a manifestation of  enlightenment and whatever aspect of the cosmos a person chooses to venerate or as a focus of their meditation reflects qualities and energies within themselves. For example, venerating Kuan Yin as the deity of compassion and love, is honouring our own capacity for compassion and love that we want to draw into our own lives to help guide us towards enlightened happiness. So in focussing our spiritual attention on the stars, from whose stardust we are literally composed, we are bringing that cosmic energy into our own consciousness in order to expand our awareness out beyond this tiny object called “me,” into a recognition of our connectedness with all the universe. Every single object and element in the cosmos is an embodiment of Buddha, the awakened mind.

Star Mandala

Star Mandala

Actually, there are many many Buddhist sutras (sacred texts) that include astrological data about how to find the most auspicious days for performing spiritual and religious activities. This aspect of astrology is very important in Tibetan Buddhism especially, which has a very complex astrological component. Also, one of the defining characteristics of a Buddha, an enlightened being, is to be able to suspend time and to see the past and future lives of others. There are many Buddhist stories and legends that incorporate seeing into future lives as a way of explaining karma; that is, how your present actions will have future consequences. So the idea of divination generally is quite deeply embedded into traditional Buddhism, but because this doesn’t quite fit with the Western rational, pragmatic leanings found in Western Buddhism, these stories are not seen in English-language accounts of Buddhism. I have noticed that many writers in English about Buddhism avoid anything that might sound irrational or not in keeping with our practical rational Western way of thinking 😉

So, for me, regardless of arguments about the ‘truth’ of astrology, I find it fascinating to work with and also deeply respect the wisdom of those sages who compiled these methods over many hundreds of years during a time when humans were generally much more in tune with the energetic physiology of the cosmos and in harmony with nature. I want to help you to find that harmony in your own life, so I incorporate astrology into my own practice and in personal consultations. I hope you too find some resonant symbols in Buddhist Astrology.

Winding up the Year of the Snake

Cate Kodo Juno 12 Comments

Hello Fellow Pilgrims 🙂

At last I have finished my BA in Japanese at Curtin University and I’m looking forward to returning to my role as a Buddhist priest and counsellor, renewing my acquaintance with you and continuing our journey together. Although in many countries where the Gregorian calendar is used the New Year has already past, according to the traditional lunar calendar, we are now in the last phase of the Year of the Snake before the New Year of the Wooden Horse, which starts on February 4th. Although I have shed my University-student skin, I am still very much the student and I would like to continue to share with you the teachings that are bestowed on me.

I have now set up a website, several blogs that cover my various and eclectic interests, and a Facebook page where I will be coordinating my work, writing, teaching, counselling, services, classes, etc.
Website: http://www.catekodojuno.com
Facebook: Wabi’an page and Cate Kodo Juno page – I’m a newbie to this, so please be patient with me as I follow the learning curve to understanding how this works 🙂
Blogs:
Buddhist Astrology (based on the almanacs of Japanese Buddhist astrology)
The Temple Kitchen (about shojin Buddhist vegetarian cuisine)
Kuan Yin Oracles (applying the oracles to everyday life with one oracle per month)

Sacred white snake in Japan

Sacred white snake in Japan

The Year of Snake is very much about shedding skins and beginning anew – how was it for you? I had a very auspicious sign on the eve of the first day of the New Year: I was driving home after having watched the sun go down over the Indian Ocean and toasting the old year with my husband, when across the width of the road there seemed to be a banking of white sand. It had been raining and often the sand gets washed over the road in wave-like ripples. But my husband suddenly cried out, “Stop!” And as I jammed on the brakes, we both watched in awe as an enormous albino carpet python continued its path across the road into Yalgorup National Park, adjacent to where we live. We had never seen anything like it! In Japan, a white snake is considered to be the incarnation of Kannon (Kuan Yin) and a sighting of a white snake is said to be harbinger of good fortune. What an auspicious beginning to the Year of the Snake!

We hadn’t seen a snake on our block for several years because Russell has been keeping the long grass cut and the ground clear. However, in November, we were just going to bed and Russell was about to open the bedroom window when, to our great surprise, we encountered a large brilliantly coloured carpet python climbing up the window frame. Although we are quite happy to have a resident carpet python in roof cavity, where they keep away any rodents (there was one in our bunkhouse for some years), I didn’t really want to have one living in the bedroom! Russell manoeuvred it out the window and encouraged it into the garden.

Wargyl eggs = thrombolites

Wargyl eggs = thrombolites

Now at the end of the year, we have found that there is a large dugite snake living under Wabi’an. Although dugites are poisonous, they are very timid and avoid human contact, so as long as I stomp up the path and let it know I’m coming each day, I’m not at all worried about it. In fact, according to the Buddhist tradition in Japan, it is very auspicious to have a snake living in a temple because they are considered incarnations of protector deities. My home temple in Koyasan has a large snake that tends to curl up near the fire altar in cold weather because it’s warm. Furthermore, Wabi’an has been acknowledged by a Nyungar elder as a site that is sacred to the Wargyl, the Rainbow Serpent. It is said that the Wargyl traced a path that goes under Wabi’an, from the estuary to the east to the shore of Lake Clifton, where she laid her eggs. These eggs are known today as thrombolites, the oldest living organisms on our planet. So I feel very blessed to have these associations with the Wargyl and Kannon emerging in the Year of the Snake.

What will the Year of the Horse hold? I’ll talk more about the signs for the Horse in a future entry in my Buddhist Astrology blog.