Week 6
Maura “Soshin” O’Halloran (1955-1982)
Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind

Topics

Zen Buddhism: Background of Mahayana Buddhism

Two-fold truth (review from Henry Shukman)

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas

The Founder Bodhidharma in China:  “Mind-to-Mind Transmission” & Embodiment

Zen Buddhism: Japan and Maura Soshin O’Halloran

Two Schools: Sōtō and Rinzai

Maura O’Halloran at Kannonji Monastery and her Master BAN Tetsugyū

Daily life of Meditation and Work (samu)

Love, Death, and Religion

Love and Compassion

Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Death

Religion of Form and Formlessness

Turning Points

Idealism to Disilusionment

First and Second Awakening

Monastic and Lay

Bodhisattva Maura

Zen Buddhism: Background

Zen Buddhism: Mahayana Buddhism

Zen is part of Mahayana Buddhism, “The Great Vehicle Buddhism”: East & North Asia

Two-fold truth 

Conventional Truth Ultimate Truth

Form, Appearances Emptiness, Beyond appearances

Word and Concepts Beyond and Before Words

Multiplicity and Proliferation Oneness and Tranquility

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas

Buddhas: “Kill the Buddha (without).” Discover the Buddha-nature within

Bodhisattvas – aspire to enlightenment refusing awakening without all others going first

Maura sees all suffering beings as herself: “We must take of things just because they exist.”

Bodhidharma (~6^th cent.), Dōgen (1200-1253), Hakuin (1686-1769)

Bodhidharma: Founder of Zen: Just bow in silence: Embody the Buddha Way

Dōgen: Founder of Sōtō Zen: Maura’s lineage: Just sit in oneness and radiate to all activities

Hakuin: Founder of Modern Rinzai Zen: Formalized kōan practice: embody emptiness in form

Maura’s master BAN Rōshi (Master Ban) combined Sōtō and Rinzai; Kannonji is Sōtō Monastery

Zen Practice emphasizes daily samu, embodied work: meditation + physical work

Maura “Soshin” O’Halloran
Love, Death, and Religion

Love and Compassion

Western thought: Eros and Agape: Human, particular love versus Divine, universal love

Buddhist thought: Attached love: tanha; Non-attached compassion: karuna

Nonduality of love and compassion; samsara and nirvana: 

Both love & compassion; neither love nor compassion

Death

Physical death: letting go of the body: embodied awareness --> dropping off body

Mental/emotional death: letting go of mind: mindful dropping off mind; mindlessness

Spiritual death: letting go of existence: both life & death; neither life nor death

Many minds --> One mind --> No mind (mu, nothingness)

Religion of Form and Emptiness

Positive (kataphatic) expression: “God,” “Buddha,” “Oneness”

Negative (apophatic) expression: Nothingness, Emptiness

Go Roshi’s view of “God” is not the same as Western view of “faith in transcendent God”

Turning Points

A musical analogy: Silence in music – like mystical experience – dropping down into the depth dimension – yet shaped by the notes and melodies that come before and after

Maura “Soshin” O’Halloran
Turning Points

Maura awakening to the reality of life in a Zen monastery

“This place is totally non-sexist. . . . I’m totally ‘one of the lads.’”

“If I feel resentful, I give Jiko a dish towel, usually with a laugh.”

“But I finally clicked on the reason for all the marriage bit: My purpose is to make kids.”

Initial breakthrough with the practice of the koan Mu. 

"Suddenly I understood why we must take care of things just because they exist."

Climactic confrontation over the prospect of having to marry the monk Tetsugen.

“I begged him not to ask, no, not that. . . . Something left me, some huge oppressive weight. . . . Until last night you were human trying to become god; now you’re god, I’m Buddha. . . . We must help others.”

Encounter with lay woman

“Then I saw her, skinny, 70, down on the floor vigorously scrubbing. . . . Were they all like so many Zen masters, living their koans – digging and digging and only digging?”

Death and Eulogy

“Has anyone known such a courageously hardworking Buddha as Maura?”