Compass of the Times 248

To Adhere Closely to the World

Keiko Takahashi

A Vividly Revived World

This month, let us ponder on the essence of deepening our way of life in this autumn season when we are invited to delve more deeply into the meaning of what is happening around us.

Those of you who normally wear glasses, at times, can feel that your vision is obstructed when the lenses become dirty over time. If you have experienced this, you can recall such an unpleasant feeling.

At such a time, cleaning the lenses will renew the world we have been seeing. This is a familiar experience and one that makes us feel that we have experienced a vivid transformation.

Of course, this experience does not mean that we have gained new eyesight. It means that we have regained the visual acuity and visual field that had been imperceptibly lost due to the loss of clarity of the lenses.

And if we think about it, a similar thing is also happening in the dimension we humans live in as well.

When the World Is Renewed

As we humans live our daily lives over and over again, each person can end up holding what we might call the sediment of lifestyle. When we spend our time in the same repetitive manner day after day, our feelings can become detached, losing awareness, falling into a rut, and stagnating in the flow of time.

Such stagnation and the sediments that arise cover the feelings we have cherished, and sometimes rust our minds, and our life will be far from the way it should be.

However, there are events that can bring our minds back to their true state in such situations.

Some people are shaken out of their way of life by sudden trials that may befall them. The accumulated sediments and stagnation are blown away, and they begin to live as if they have been awakened to sanity.

There are also others who, one day, are greatly shocked to discover that they have a serious illness. At the same time, they feel that the world around them looks completely different from how it did before. The veil that had covered the world has been ripped away, and they feel their surroundings glow with freshness as if washed by the rain.

These experiences in which a whole world is renewed by having the veil of the mind ripped away are actually prepared for everyone.

To Adhere Closely to the World

The story of Culapanthaka, as recorded in the Buddhist scriptures, is a step in the origin of such a revival of the mind.

Culapanthaka had a poor memory compared to other disciples of Buddha and could not memorize even a single stanza (a poem expressing the Buddhist teachings). He was weeping bitterly and lamenting his own inadequacy, when the Buddha consoled him and gave him a piece of white cloth, admonishing him: “Listen Panthaka, use this cloth and continue to wipe everyone’s footwear while chanting with all your heart, ‘Let there be no dust, let there be no grime!’.”

Since then, it is said that he continued to wipe others’ footwear day in and day out while praying for purity of mind, and, eventually, he attained enlightenment.

This story is none other than the one about mind purification and enlightenment of an innocent soul, but at the same time, I believe it shows a process that will open up a new world by adhering closely to the world with an earnest aspiration.

There are impurities that come between us and the world that become like a veil. When we have that, we cannot touch the world directly. In a real sense, we are prevented from living in the world as it is.

However, when we continue to face the world single-mindedly through our own earnest aspirations, we can break through our limitations. We experience a moment when we uncover our own veil, remove the impurities, and touch the world itself. It is nothing short of a vivid moment of enlightenment when we live by knowing the state of the true world.

We seem to see the world, but we do not. We seem to touch the world, but we do not. We humans can always fall into such a trap. This month, I would like to encourage you to go beyond that trap and move to a closer adherence to the world.

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