Prose

Applied Zen—Creating the World Around Us

I spoke at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City a few summers ago, at a conference for elementary school teachers on creation myths. Every religion has a creation myth except Buddhism. So then, what to say? This situation initially presented a kind of cosmic humor. Yet, when we look into this, the Buddhist teaching on creation runs quite deep.
What we teach in Buddhism is that we are always creating the world around us through
our intentions and actions; at every moment, we have a choice. What world will we
create? Every thought affects the world around us. In traditional Buddhist art, this
teaching is represented through the Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life shows various
phases of the cycle of becoming: sensation, impulse, thought, action, and so forth. We
can see these elements as contributing together to create the weather patterns of our
lives—just as moisture, temperature, barometric pressure, and other factors contribute to
snowfall. When we attach to a certain place on the wheel—for instance, a pleasant
situation that we want to keep permanently, or an unpleasant situation that we cannot
accept, perhaps triggering our reactivity—we suffer. When we are able to stay centered
within these weather patterns, the coming and going of phenomena is simply the rhythm
of life and the natural expression of our Bodhisattva path. When I was travelling sometime through Oakland Airport, and experiencing that rhythm of life in its more staccato form, I came upon the perfect teaching, through this stained glass window in the airport corridor:

There is nothing that involves only going without returning. It is the nature of Heaven
and Earth. When there is going, there also must be returning.

This passage from the I Ching captures something that we innately know: arrivals and
departures are one movement, separated only by the optical illusion of time. This
installation was graced with eighty red-crowned cranes, signifying good luck and
auspicious travel, imparting a lightness and movement that raised my spirits. Since the
beginning of time, it has been like this: we are part of this movement, this grace. Like the
cranes, we are practicing the arts of departure and arrival.

Zen Master Dōgen wrote about the way we create our world, comparing this to our image
of water:
Dragons see water as a palace or a pavilion. Some beings see water as the seven
treasures or a wish-granting jewel. Some beings see water as a forest or a wall.
1

Where we put our eyes, what we choose to see, or not—through this, we create the world
around us. At every moment, there are thousands of details of sensory input we filter out
in favor of what is more stimulating, in a pleasant or unpleasant way. Very often,
experiences that trigger fear receive high priority. Traditional Buddhist and Vedanta
philosophy describes this process well, using the same Sanskrit word, samskara, to liken the mental pattern to a rivulet, which follows the path worn by previous waters, the path
of least resistance. These mind habits are reinforced by repetition, and over time, the
original imprint that initiated this samskara is obscured. So then, as a powerful emotion
arises, then the habitual patterning that is associated with it will be heavily charged, and
its seeds will be buried deep in the unconscious. When these charged traces come up,
whether in response to a current situation or recognizably as memories, it is easy to bite
the hook and become entangled. We get caught in an internal narrative and may speak or
take action based on this storyline. This reinforces the samskara, provides it more fuel.
On the other hand, if we are able to see that familiar pattern arise, and not touch that
hook, it loses force—and eventually loses its power over us.
As Pema Chodron puts it, we can choose not to “believe everything we think”– a choice
necessary for our well-being, which is supported by mindfulness. By choosing to focus
on compassion and peace, we can create a world of compassion and peace. By seeing the
wholeness within people and situations, we call that forward. For example several
research studies have shown that when a teacher has high expectations of her students,
she discovers those met; when a teacher has low expectations, students’ performance
drops in equal measure.
My teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn, had a tremendous capacity to see the potential
within his students. When returning their letters, he often concluded by lifting this
potential to their shared awareness: “I hope that you will soon finish your homework,
attain enlightenment, become a keen-eyed lion, and save all people!” This encouraged
students to go the extra mile and step into their innate wisdom. In this way, we can
practice seeing our world with eyes of wholeness. This creates a sacred world within our
here-and-now experience. This is tangible; it begins with ordinary people, you and me,
and our basic sanity. When we are in traffic, breathing deeply. Making eye contact with a
store clerk. Practicing loving-kindness in a challenging, interpersonal moment, or simply
disengaging—through which we return to our original luminous awareness, like clear
water. It all begins with us and how well we are doing in transforming our own passion
into compassion and our own anger into discriminating wisdom. As my teacher, Maha
Ghosananda, has taught:
A peaceful heart makes a peaceful person.A peaceful person makes a peaceful family.A
peaceful family makes a peaceful community.A peaceful community makes a peaceful
state.A peaceful state makes a peaceful country.A peaceful country makes a peaceful
world.
May we attain that peace—and through this, create world peace, step by step.

  1. Dogen, Eihei. “Mountains and Rivers Sutra,” Pond Village Chanting Book.
Ji Hyang Padma

Ji Hyang Padma, Ph.D. is a spiritual teacher and chaplain who serves as Director of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at California Institute for Human Science. Ji Hyang has been teaching Zen for twenty-five years, currently in the service of Open Gate Zen Collective in San Diego County. Her work can be found here: https://www.mountainpath.org.

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