雨寶益生滿虛空
This rain of jewels benefits all life, filling all space.
A few weeks ago, my brother stepped into the cabin where we were staying with our mother and invited us to look at a moose he’d just seen in a nearby lake. When we arrived, there were many folks on the shore looking, but the moose had left, annoyed by all the onlookers. We sat as an evening squall blew in over the towering cliffs of the continental divide to the west. In the shelter of a pine, we watched the droplets pelt the water, mesmerized as patterns of rippling circles intersected and disappeared. The sun burst through above the divide as the clouds flowed east, and as the rain poured into the thirsty earth, the rays of the sun turned the air into a field of glittering gems. Drops flashed and glinted and disappeared in the space of the sky and the space of the lake.
The Avatamsaka says, “The Buddha, in every single instant / everywhere showers the boundless rain of truth.” This truth is that we are not subjects and objects, but total intimacy. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer mourns the fact that her students believe that the human relationship to the earth is inescapably extractive and harmful. She shows ways that Indigenous folks view the earth and act in a way that is mutually supportive. People and land can care for each other. She writes, “Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.” Karma teaches that what we do, how we view the world, and the quality of intention we offer are what create the experiences we have and the world we live in. What if we realize that nature and humans are not separate things? Just as oaks and black-eyed Susans drink the water from the sky then give it back, so do you and I. The path of destruction and exploitation that has been part of human life for oh so long is not destiny. Buddhist teachings are clear: we have a choice, and what we do matters. The earth goddess gave Sudhana the jewels to use. How will you and I meet this boundless Dharma rain?
"They give us an eightfold path of practice that leads to the truth, the boundless healing rain of Dharma, the end of suffering."
This rain of jewels fills all of space. Everything that appears is empty, and thus full of the radiant sustaining goodness of Buddha. If everything is empty of separateness, and liberation from suffering is merely knowing this, how can it not be so? Dogen opens his most central essay thus: “As all things are Buddhadharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, and birth and death, and there are Buddhas and sentient beings.” These teachings say the truth is not somewhere else; it is available in this very moment.
Many Mahayana teachings say the truth is right here, but we may not know we are seeing it. Seeing the truth from a Buddhist perspective means seeing in a way that is free from suffering and from the causes of suffering. It means knowing what to do that will be of benefit, and doing it. I know people often don’t see a world of abundance and goodness. I cling, I judge, and I push away— and I’m not alone in this regard. The Four Noble Truths don’t explain why suffering arises and then just tell us to stop doing it. They give us an eightfold path of practice that leads to the truth, the boundless healing rain of Dharma, the end of suffering. The paramitas, which we explored earlier in the chapter “An Awakening Heart,” offer a path of practice in the Mahayana that is both the way and the destination. Addiction, violence, and abuse are personal, but they are also completely collective grounds for suffering. No one act, and no one person, will end the path of environmental devastation we are on. None of us can end transphobia, antisemitism, trauma, Islamophobia, or racism alone. But what we do matters. The Buddha awakened, and then he stayed awake for the world. If we give ourselves to practice for liberation, we may sometimes see the Dharma rain, and we may see it in unique ways. We may find the beauty in the path, so fraught with the anguish of samsara. The Chan nun Zukui left us a verse:
The yellow elm tree at the corner of the house
Has stood there for who knows how many years.
This morning the winds whipped up a storm,
Leaving the ground strewn with coins of gold.
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Huayan Buddhism arose in the sixth century in China rooted in the Mahayana Flower Garland Sutra. The teachings of Huayan and the sutra that inspired it had a profound influence on Chan and Zen. Huayan is relational, practical, and positive. Its emphasis on interdependence, celebration of the sensual world, and diversity of people and practices provides inspiration for what Thich Nhat Hanh called “engaged Buddhism”. With Inside the Flower Garland Sutra Zen teacher Ben Connelly explains the significance of Huayan teachings for Buddhist practice. Each chapter is a commentary on one of the thirty lines of Uisang’s “Song of Dharma Nature”—a seminal Korean text that summarizes key aspects of Huayan thought—thus providing a broad overview of Huayan teachings and their practical implications for contemporary life, with a mix of testimonies from real-life situations and references to influential Buddhist texts.
