The Buddha Sakyamuni isn’t the only one to have given Dharma talks: Everything throughout the universes always speaks the Dharma. Even the huge boulders atop the mountains give Dharma talks hundreds of times greater than the buddhas in the temples.
You’re probably asking how rocks, boulders and clumps of mud could give Dharma talks. But if you come to understand Buddhism, you’ll realise that you should listen to the Dharma talks that the boulders are always giving, albeit not in what we know as spoken language. And the boulders aren’t the only ones giving Dharma talks. Even the formless, shapeless, invisible void gives an eternal Dharma talk.
Once you understand this, you’ll realise that there isn’t a thing anywhere that isn’t giving Dharma talks or performing Buddhist rituals. Really, once you open up the eye of the heart, you’re not just opening the eye—you’re also opening the ear of the heart. And then you can hear the Dharma talks that the boulders are giving. This is what we call ‘Dharma talks by the inanimate.’
[From Opening the Eye: Dharma messages by Ven. SongChol, Korean Chogye Zen Master and Patriarch, Translated by Brian Barry, 2002, Gimm-young International, Korea.]
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Categories: Books, Buddhism, Chan / Seon / Zen, Mahayana
Beautiful. Yes.
Does anyone know the name of the above shrub?
The bush is about five feet high. Photo taken in July this year at Dartington Gardens near the Barn cinema.
Thanks.
R