Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;The Clouded Dragonand#8221;, is an excerpt from a gem of a talk from Abhaya. With his customary dry wit and sharp eye he leads us on the crazy paving path through the Diamond Sutra and#8211; a text guaranteed to turn your world upside-down. Sharing his love for one of Sangharakshitaand#8217;s poems titled The Clouded Dragon, Abhaya makes some excellent evocations of rigorous Dharma practice as part of the everyday business of life.
This is an excerpt from the talk titled and#8220;The Diamond Sutraand#8221; given at the Triratna Buddhist Order National Order weekend 2003
[music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you, and happy listening. [music] So this sutra, the Diamond sutra, has got hold of me. I'm hooked. You know, in Buddhist iconography, that one of the Bodhisattvas is wielding a lasso. He throws the lasso, and once the Dharma has got you, you're hooked. Sometimes I don't like it, I struggle with it. It leaves me utterly perplexed, not understanding. Sometimes I read the Diamond sutra when I've got insomnia, and sometimes it works. [laughter] It sends me to sleep. But for some weird reason, I persevered with it. I keep coming back to it, and I can feel myself, "Oh, no." And I do it, and I open it. And why? Because it's cloudy dragon. This is something that's come into my talk from last night. It's very taken by that reading of Sangha Devas. It's a poem of Bante's called "Cloudy Dragon." "Behold the cloudy dragon, imperial, gold, divine," while he feels the central silence in the storm of the divine. So the Diamond sutra, for me, is a kind of cloudy dragon. One can feel, or on a good day, that central silence, capital C, capital S, at the center of its storm, at the center of the storm of paradoxes that are battering you, and bashing you, and pummeling you. So if we read it when we're really alert, we can experience the Diamond sutra like a disembodied Zen master. And it's a rinsized Zen master, not a Soto Zen master. It's coam Zen. The Zen master has text. It's as if it's not a disembodied abstract bashing away. It's not just a deconstruction of the superficial meaning of the words that are used in the text. Sometimes you get the hint of a powerful spiritual, even, well, obviously, transcendental force behind the contradictions. Sometimes one has a hint of a narrow slit, the narrow slit of brilliant light between statement and denial. And I wonder if it's Vajra Pani. I wonder if it's Vajra Pani. Vajra fits, of course. It's the Vajra cutter. And the Vajra, interestingly, is one of Prangnya Paramita's implements on the cover of wisdom beyond words, the forearmed form, the outer right hand holds the Vajra. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
