Higanbana: the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore- Senyuji Temple, Imabari City

PILgrims at the Daishi Hall of Temple 58 reciting the Heart Sutra

SKY Above

EARTH BELOW

What attracts my attention next: HIGANBANA

Higanbana

This flower is the Red Spider Lily, known as Higanbana (彼岸花) in Japanese. It's called a "naked lady" because it blooms on leafless stalks in late summer and early autumn, making it appear as if the flowers have sprouted directly from the ground.

These striking red flowers bloom around the autumnal equinox and are deeply rooted in Japanese culture, often associated with the "other side" or the spirit world.  

Heart Sutra- Translation by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore

Avalokiteshvara
while practicing deeply with
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore,
suddenly discovered that
all of the five Skandhas are equally empty,
and with this realisation
he overcame all Ill-being.

“Listen Sariputra,
this Body itself is Emptiness
and Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.
The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
and Consciousness.

“Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness;
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.

“That is why in Emptiness,
Body, Feelings, Perceptions,
Mental Formations and Consciousness
are not separate self entities.

The Eighteen Realms of Phenomena
which are the six Sense Organs,
the six Sense Objects,
and the six Consciousnesses
are also not separate self entities.

The Twelve Links of Interdependent Arising
and their Extinction
are also not separate self entities.
Ill-being, the Causes of Ill-being,
the End of Ill-being, the Path,
insight and attainment,
are also not separate self entities.

Whoever can see this
no longer needs anything to attain.

Bodhisattvas who practice
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore
see no more obstacles in their mind,
and because there
are no more obstacles in their mind,
they can overcome all fear,
destroy all wrong perceptions
and realize Perfect Nirvana.

“All Buddhas in the past, present and future
by practicing
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore
are all capable of attaining
Authentic and Perfect Enlightenment.

“Therefore Sariputra,
it should be known that
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore
is a Great Mantra,
the most illuminating mantra,
the highest mantra,
a mantra beyond compare,
the True Wisdom that has the power
to put an end to all kinds of suffering.
Therefore let us proclaim
a mantra to praise
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore.

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!”

Verses for Environmental Practice- Ginkakuji, Kyoto

gardeners at the temple of the silver pavilion

SKY Above

Sky

Earth Below

Earth

surprise!

POEM

Verses for Environmental Practice by Robert Aitken Roshi

Waking up in the morning
I vow with all beings
to be ready for sparks of the Dharma
from flowers or children or birds.

Sitting alone in zazen
I vow with all beings
to remember I’m sitting together
with mountains, children, and bears.

Looking up at the sky
I vow with all beings
to remember this infinite ceiling
in every room of my life.

When I stroll around in the city
I vow with all beings
to notice how lichen and grasses
never give up in despair.

Watching a spider at work
I vow with all beings
to cherish the web of the universe:
touch one point and everything moves.

Preparing the garden for seeds
I vow with all beings
to nurture the soil to be fertile
each spring for the next 1000 years.

When people praise me for something
I vow with all beings
to return to my vegetable garden
and give credit where credit is due.

With tropical forests in danger
I vow with all beings
to raise hell with the people responsible
and slash my consumption of trees.

With resources scarcer and scarcer
I vow with all beings
to consider the law of proportion:
my have is another’s have-not.

Watching gardeners label their plants
I vow with all beings
to practice the old horticulture
and let plants identify me.

Hearing the crickets at night
I vow with all beings
to keep my practice as simple –
just over and over again.

Falling asleep at last
I vow with all beings
to enjoy the dark and the silence
and rest in the vast unknown.

From Crisis to Possibility: Showing Our Green Badges

From Crisis to Possibility: Showing Our Green Badges

I’ve stopped using the word “Climate Crisis” 
and I call it the civilizational opportunity. 
~Brian Eno

Cultivating Timefulness- Resources and Practices

Books:
Active Hope- How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason
Timefulness- How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Save the World. by Marcia Bjornerud
All We Can Save- Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
Sacred Instructions- Indigenous Wisdom for Living a Spirit-Based Change - by Sherri Mitchell- Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset

Podcast: 
Andri Magnason On Time and Water on Emergence Magazine

Videos: 
Timefulness- Marcia Bjornerud 
The Gifts of UncertaintyJoanna Macy

Articles:
The UnderStory- Issue 25- Contours of Time - Adam Lerner

App:  Deep Time Walk

(Coming Soon) Practices: 
-Pancake Sci-Fi 
-Ancestors Story Intro 
-Future Acknowledgement

The Whole Within Us All by Duane Elgin

What is your responsibility?

To anchor, not argue.
To transmit, not preach.
To co-create, not react.
To be, not withdraw.

Yes — offer your prayers.
Yes — tend your nervous system.
Yes — show up in local action, when guided.

But do not do these things from separation.

Do them from the Field. The unitive field.

The One that breathes through you as presence, and remembers that this world is not being destroyed — It is being reborn.

And your coherence is midwifing it.
This is sacred activism. 

Let your presence become the protest.
Let your love become the legislation.
Let your integrity become the invitation.

We are not here to escape the world.
We are here to infuse it with something real.

 So, let’s not argue over which spiritual reaction is right.

Let’s dissolve the question entirely.

 And instead — let us meet here,
in the field of becoming,
where we no longer ask,

What do I do? but instead whisper,

What do I need to embody now,
that the world might remember its wholeness through me?

What do we do? What can we do?

Do we retreat into silence or rise into action?Do we shield our peace or confront the pain?Do we serve from the subtle or speak to the tangible

Beloveds, the truth is not either/or.
The truth is not in the polarity,
but in the presence that can hold both.

We are not here to choose sides between action and stillness, between politics and prayer, between inner peace and outer response.

 We are here to remember that we are the field through which all things arise.

The world is not “out there.” It is not separate from your practice, your presence, your path.

The burning forests, the trembling democracies, the breaking hearts
—they are all you, too.

But here is the paradox:
You cannot fight this fire with more fire.
You cannot meet chaos with a lack of coherence.
You cannot serve awakening by collapsing into the dream.

This is not a call to tune out.
Nor is it a call to armor up. 
This is a call to become the frequency of the world we long to see.

To embody the coherence of a future not yet visible but already pulsing in your heart.

To model a way of being that is rooted in love, resonant with truth and grounded in action
— not from fear, but from wholeness.

 

Blackbirds by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn’t know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings
just feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning
the whole flock taking a long, wide turn
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society
with its cruelty and fear
its apathy and exhaustion
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it’s meant to be.