Shoyoroku (Book of Serenity) #4, “The Buddha Points to the Ground”
10:59PM Mar 31, 2025
Speakers:
Dhara Kowal
Keywords:
Buddha
Indra
temple
ground
koan
Shoya Roku
Siddhartha Gotama
suffering
middle way
interdependence
Indra's net
spiritual practice
Zen temple
ground blessing
four vows.
This is the sixth, sixth day of this March, 2025, seven day seshin. Today we're going to take a look at a koan. It's a very short one and beautiful in its simplicity. The Buddha points to the ground. The Buddha points to the ground. It's case number four of the Shoya Roku, also known as the book of serenity, or book of equanimity. And it's an exchange between the Buddha and Indra.
When the Buddha was walking with his disciples, he pointed to the ground and said, Now, this would be a good place to build a temple Indra took a stem of grass, stuck it into the ground, and said, the temple is built. But the Buddha smiled, and that's it. That's the case.
Of course, the Buddha doesn't need much by way of introduction, most of us know his story, but it is helpful to set the scene. He was born the son of a king. He was a prince named Siddhartha Gotama. So he lived in a royal palace, along with his wife and their son, and everything was taken care of all the accommodations, luxuries, pleasures one could imagine at that time, which was around the fifth or sixth century. The story goes that one day, when he was at the age of 29 he left the grounds of the Royal Palace, possibly for the first time in his very sheltered life. I and as he walked through the streets, or more likely, maybe he was taken by carriage, because he was a prince, after all. Anyway, as he went through the streets, he was deeply affected by three sites. He saw an old person, a sick person and the body of a dead person who is being carried down the street.
And this shook him to his core. He realized that being a royal didn't protect him from aging, sickness and death.
For him, it was, it seems, the first time that he had been confronted with the. The truth of impermanence in a really powerful way, the fact that as a living being, he is bound to suffer, and somehow he he also recognized in seeing these three sites that he shared this suffering with all of humanity.
But then he came upon a fourth sight. Prince Siddhartha saw a mendicant monk, a holy man, wandering through the streets. It was plain to see that this man had given up material things and worldly life. He was solely relying on alms. Oh,
and devoting himself completely to spiritual work, surrendering to it. So with this new awareness and seeing the possibility of of living a different kind of life, one that wasn't centered on wealth or material things, but on the great matter of birth and death, Siddhartha left the comfort of the palace. He left his family and took up life as a wandering ascetic,
and as a ascetic, spiritual seeker, he punished his body, taking extreme measures, all in an attempt to transcend suffering, not just a vow of poverty, but fasting for long periods of time, going without sleep, living out in the open air, no shelter, abstaining from anything pleasurable. This was all in an effort to free himself from attachments and cravings. He did this for six years, according to the story. But all this excessive exertion, grasping, only left him frustrated and his body weak.
He was confronted by a storm of thoughts, temptations, self doubt.
But it was through that experience that he came to see the middle way we which form the basis of the Zen school.
The middle way is not to fall into the trap of chasing, chasing after what we want and rejecting, running away from what we don't want. The middle way is. To simply merge with things as they are,
and in merging experiencing this, not to ness and directly,
we can all relate to his story. It's really a very human story. It doesn't matter how much privilege or success in life you have or don't have,
if you're caught up in constantly pursuing your preferences, you're living life as if it's separate and in conflict with what is and It's that separation that's the root of our suffering.
So that's the Buddha, and then there's Indra. Indra is a deity in Buddhist cosmology. He's not really important to Zen practice, per se, but the the symbolism that's associated with him is and he's primarily known through the image of Indras net, A vast, infinite network of jewels
where each jewel reflects all the other jewels. And it's a metaphor that conveys our our Inter being, our interdependence with all beings and things, all phenomena.
There's a verse in the avatamska Avatamsaka Sutra that expresses the immeasurable vastness of our Inter being,
the vastness of these interconnected jewels, and it's translated by Thomas Cleary,
if untold Buddha Lands are reduced to atoms in one atom are untold lands, and as in one, so in each the atoms to which these Buddha Lands are reduced in an instant are unspeakable. And so are the atoms of continuous reduction, moment to moment, going on for untold eons. These atoms contain lands unspeakably many, and the atoms in these lands are even harder to tell.
Of course, atoms are the building block of matter,
they're incredibly small, and within them, they contain even smaller particles and. Neutrons, protons, electrons,
way smaller than the tiniest speck of dust and
an atom can only be seen by way of a special microscope, microscope,
and yet they smash together, smashing around all the time, continuously transferring energy and giving form to matter, the matter which we can see.
So despite appearances, even though things can look solid and unchanging like the wood floor here in the Zen do,
in fact, everything, all phenomena, including us,
are comprised of this fluid, ever changing energy and
so let's look at the case when the Buddha was walking with his disciples. He pointed to the ground and said, this would be a good place to build a temple. And we can picture the scene of Shakyamuni Buri Buddha walking along, joined by his disciples. He was said to have 10 great disciples, and it's possible that this walking took place in the context of a pilgrimage. It is said that he and his disciples traveled around extensively by foot, spreading the Dharma wherever they went for it. And so the group arrives at a certain location where the Buddha points his finger at the ground and says, This place, right here. This is a good place to build a temple,
as far as for his pointing his finger, there are actually several koans that involve fingers in one way or Another, pointing, raising, cutting one off. And there's also this Zen saying, Don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.
Don't mistake the teachings, don't mistake words about this, about mu, about the breath, about one's true self and. I don't mistake that for the pure direct experience.
So then, why was the Buddha pointing at the ground? Should we understand it in a literal way? Was he out scoping possible locations for a new temple? I
that certainly is one, one sense of ground as the as in the ground of building sits on the ground that you stand on.
It's a geographic location that you can find on a map. You
but looking at the map is really kind of the equivalent of pointing a finger. It's not the same as being there standing on that ground. I
and as for it being a suitable site for a Zen temple to be built, as we typically understand it, of course, to build a temple is to construct a building, a building that's dedicated to practice, a place to uphold The Buddha Dharma, a place for Sangha to gather a place where monastics live, work and practice together In a disciplined environment, and also a place where rituals and ceremonies and devotions are performed, of
course, in the time of the Buddha such a building would have likely been a monastery,
distinguished by walls, a rooftop, an entrance gate And inside the walls, Zen do a Buddha Hall, dining room, a place to sleep,
a large temple bell and so on.
It's kind of a microsm microcosm.
Everything one needs to live a simple life devoted to practice is provided inside the walls and grounds of a monastery and
when this site, this location, right here, where we're sitting, was chosen As the place to build Chapin Mill or build the retreat center in particular, from what I remember, it wasn't the only location that was considered. It's 135 acre property. So. No doubt there were other possibilities, and some of the factors that had to be considered were practical. Have to work around the wetlands and the contours of the property. You also have to consider accessibility in terms of utilities,
consulting and architecture firm and the town board with all its rules and regulations
prior to choosing this site to build the retreat center, a Feng Shui expert was even consulted,
and when the building committee walked around the property with this feng shui expert or firm, became very clear that this, this was it, this is the place for one. It's close to the creek, which is ever flowing and fed by spring water,
which itself seems very auspicious. I and also the sloping hill behind the building was considered to be a favorable feature because it protects the building from the coldest winds coming from the north. And I remember that ridge behind the building was called a dragon's tale.
But my most vivid memory of that time, which is not long after I became a member of the center, was participating in the ground blessing ceremony, which was held before the shovels went into the ground, or more accurately, the excavators we had a chanting Service standing right on this building site.
There was a special echo directed at all the creatures, large and small that would be affected, possibly displaced by the construction and it was so moving.
So we have this one sense of building a temple that involves constructing an actual building, a beautiful building and grounds that are conducive to spiritual practice. And one can see it as a very sacred space, a space that should be treated with great respect and care. And it's true, so much care throughout the year goes into maintaining the atmosphere of Chapin Mill and of any temple I'd imagine, cleaning, gardening, food preparation,
respecting all the rules that support practice. Traditionally in Zen temples, among the most important rules are respecting the silence
and staying with your practice being mindful in activity, not just during zazen,
just as we are Here in seshin, there are other kinds of rules, like removing your street shoes upon entry, dressing modestly, wearing a robe, not exposing too much skin, and then the devotions, like bowing, prostrations, chanting,
and outwardly, what This practice looks like inside a temple like this can appear very sacred and even holy. Sometimes newcomers find this kind of intimidating or off putting, but Zen we we recognize holy and unholy as just ideas, concepts. You can't trust appearances
and at the same time to be sitting in this wonderful surround sound Zen do.
It's hard not to see it as a very special place. The same thing with the one at Earl park,
to space that invites us to sit, to look
and to keep at it.
But in these modern times, we don't just have physical temples built in physical locations. We also have this temple on zoom the Zoom Zen do, as we call it, that's a good place to build a temple. You and in this session, we have a dozen or so who are joining us here at Chapin Mill, and we are joining them in their homes. We have people participating from as far away as California and Mexico City. You
but there's another sense of Temple, another sense of ground, the ground when we would build a temple on hence, one that's much more fundamental, and that's the ground of our being,
this ground that we all share.
There's a beautiful verse in the Lotus Sutra that speaks to this, the rain for. Falls everywhere, coming down on all four sides, its flow and saturation are measureless, reaching to every area of the earth, to the ravines and valleys of the mountains and the streams to the remote and secluded places where where grow plants, bushes, medicinal herbs, trees, large and small, 100 grains, rice seedlings, sugar cane grape vines, the rain moistens them all. None fails to receive its full share. You
This is the kind of ground that we can't point to, because it's who we are. We are this ground.
It's not a object outside us, we can't even say that it has an inside.
It's a ground that has no borders and
and just just like the literal ground that we can stand and walk and sit on and
the ground of our being gives us stability, the stability of being one with things as they are and calmly, seeing that all is one.
Everything is ground and
and so again, the Buddha, pointing to the ground says this, this would be a good place to build a temple
Indra then took a stem of grass, stuck it into the ground, and said, the temple is built, just like that. The temple is built. Time for the ribbon cutting.
The fact that it was Indra that responded to the Buddha in this way is very telling, because something as ordinary and plain as a blade of grass is a temple. A
single blade of grass is part of this vast network of brilliant jewels, each jewel reflecting everything else, every other jewel you
the Haiku poet bachelor wrote the temple bell stops, but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers and.
Every single thing illuminates mind in all its forms and
the temple is built,
but to Enter it, we kind of have to do some deconstruction work In the form of dropping our clinging to ideas and
dropping everything, dropping time, thoughts feelings,
should and shouldn't, right and wrong, good and bad, dropping everything. And when we do that, what we find is that there are temples everywhere You
zazen mats and chairs are temples, tooth brushes and
soap, teacups,
trees, cars, pencils and
everything, including this body,
wherever there's undivided attention, there's a temple.
I remember there was this popular phrase, the body is a temple. Think it was like in the 1970s or 80s that it became popular.
It was used to promote exercise, but it actually has a connection to a verse in the Bible as well, either way to say the body is a temple is to say it's a precious thing. We need to take care of it and respect it. It's the only one we have. We couldn't practice without it.
And actually, in Buddhism, the body is often referred to as a vessel, and we can see how calling it a vessel is kind of similar to a temple, a vessel for practice, for being in the world.
It has form. It's shaped by mass. Matter.
There's matter inside, and the skin that covers it is also matter,
and each body is unique and different.
That's only the half of it. Our body also extends far beyond our skin. It's part of that infinite, vast network of jewels beyond our ordinary perception we
what? What separates your hand from the cup you drink from? I
what separates your feet from the ground that you walk on, what separates the air that you breathe as you're doing zazen, you take an inhale. It's the same one as the person next to you and on the other side of the Zen do. It's the same air inhaled by deer and squirrels. How can we say any of that is separate?
So Indra stuck the blade of grass in the ground and said the temple is built and
