Live at the Sacred Buddha Purnima (LBC)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly, May 21, 2022, California Bodhi Vihara, Long Beach, CA (Vesak)

Los Angeles' extensive South and Southeast Asian community is celebrating "Buddha Day" (Buddha Purnima or Jayanti), the historical Buddha's birthday.

It falls on the full moon of the month (Vesakha, roughly aligning with our May) but is spread out in terms of each temple and center taking a different date to celebrate.

It's Buddhist Xmas, in a sense, and we've come to Long Beach, between LA and OC, to the first South Asian Buddhist temple in the country, the California Bodhi Vihara.

Monks have assembled in saffron robes. Women are dressed in colorful saris and men in their finery. Food is being prepared and set out.

The abbot, Ven. Dr. Karunananda, Ph.D., who studied archeology in India, is fond of saying, "Find the Deathless (amata = nirvana) before Death (Mara, the personification of marana) find you."

Sacred group chanting is followed by short talks on the theme of the significance of the day and a demonstration of folkloric music performed with a harmonium, bells, and tambourines.

Nearby, the Queen Mary is parked being renovated, and the Spruce Goose sits derelict. Cambodian viharas and a Tibetan Buddhist temple surround the vihara or temple complex on an unassuming street a few blocks from famous Pine Street. It's commencement day at neighboring California State University Long Beach (CSULB).

How to awaken to Truth?

What is the secret? Dependent Origination.

And we are here to answer a very important question, What is the way to realize the Timeless Truth now, the realization that brings immediate quenching of all the complexities of our lives? The abbot promises an answer.

We did not realize that we were not wise enough to fathom what was said. That would take practice, as practice trumps book learning. All things that originate (come into being) do so dependent on factors and conditions.

For example, there is no coming into being of fire without five factors: heat, fuel, oxygen (or some oxidizer), a medium (a wick or kindling), and the complex process of combustion.

Similarly, "I" (the ego, self, soul, or atman) originates or comes into being dependent on five aggregate-factors: form, feeling, perception, formations, and the process of consciousness. The "self" does not differ from these. It is not in them nor apart from them. It originates with these as the basis, the causes and conditions, the factors.

We asked for a simpler example. We were asked to stare at our hands: Fist or wave? Neither...until we clenched (the palm) then a "fist" appeared. We opened our palm then a wave appeared.

The five factors, our fingers, were present, just like the Five Aggregates. And when doing this they were this, and when doing that they were that, fist or wave. Verbs were being turned into nouns as if they were objective things apart from their function.

The earliest human depictions of the Buddha, like this one, come from ancient Gandhara.

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Is there any goddess energy to tap into?

Gobsmacked, we sat in stillness. Our minds temporarily cleared, wiped clean, appeased, we had peace. Peace of mind was present. Now stillness came. And with still, reflecting on Dependent Origination, insight arose. Knowledge arose. Light arose, like a candle spontaneously combusting (and a flame coming into being) because, for an instant, all the five factors it depends on to originate, or come into existence, were present.

That is the Buddha's great message, expanded on in the Perfection of Wisdom literature (Prajnaparamita) then condensed in the Heart Sutra (the Hadrya), the pithy essence of it. What is the Heart Sutra about? It explains the realization of emptiness or the impersonality of all things in terms of the Five Heaps or Aggregates:

The Heart of Wisdom Sutra (Buddha Weekly)

"Form is emptiness [insubstantial, without a self, utterly dependent on causes and conditions, and not self-produced, not a unit but a composite], and the very emptiness is form [those factors themselves are the thing that comes into being, like a fist or the designation, a "wave"].

What we call a flame is nothing but those factors upon which it depends. That is what those five factors look like when combined in a certain (interdependent and interacting) way. This is what a "self" looks like, only those Five Aggregates (heaps of similar factors) being present in a certain way. And this process goes on and on, changing form, arising on different "planes" of existence, scattering on awakening. Where does a flame go when it goes out? Up, down, sideways...east, west?

These are nonsensical designations. None of them apply. It simply goes out (is "blown out," nirvanered, like a candle). It wasn't really in, for only an illusion (maya) came into being, and only ignorance (avidya) goes out. All that we have to lose through enlightenment is ignorance of how things really are, as when a candle is brought into the dark. Where did the "dark" go? It went out.

If one wishes to directly realize "enlightenment" (bodhi) here and now, what factors must be present. That's an academic question and easy to answer with a little research, when the many lists come in handy:

There are Seven Factors of Enlightenment:

1. sati
2. dhammavicaya
3. viriya
4. piti
5. passadhi
6. samadhi
7. upekkha.

Practice and experience go beyond words. Go.

In order to get to the point where practicing them comes to fruition, it is wise to know that these seven are embedded among a collection known as the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment.

When those are present, these seven will be present. When these seven are present, awakening will originate, will come into being, will be directly and personally experienced. Until then it is just academic and theoretical.

Fortunately, there are places, there are wise teachers (like Pa Auk Sayadaw and his qualified student-teachers) who can take one from stillness (the absorptions) to insight (liberating wisdom).

How to close an exposition like this? Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu! which is a kind of "amen" or "aum" thrice intensified. It is a "bravo," an "I applaud, and I approve! (I accept, and I'm in agreement!)," a hurrah! Maybe it would be better to culminate with this mantra:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!