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Taiwan laymen produce the Bodhi mind and
make offerings to Sangha members.
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Although one can
see his breath frost the late afternoon air, a visible warmth
pervades the fourth floor city temple, as everyone at the Buddhist
Lecture Hall puts down his individual work and gathers for a Chinese
lesson. Heng Ching straightens his back after having been bent over
the gatha from the Prajna Chapter of The Sixth Patriarch's Sutra
that he has been translating; Orne Grant runs in after work to set
up the sound equipment; Heng Shou reluctantly breaks full lotus and
leaves the makeshift desk at which he has been studying; Ron Epstein
happily closes his Sanskrit reader; Gary Linebarger returns from
school; Maya, Carol, Sharyn, Betsy, and others come in from work;
Heng Yin and Fred Klarer leave their meditation cushions, and others
join in, continuing a hard days work.
Disciples of
Buddhism are divided into four categories. Two are represented by
the Chinese, "ch’u chia" which means to have "left home" or "gone
forth".en and women who have left home are called Bhiksus and Bhiksunis.
The other two categories are represented by the Chinese, "tsai chia"
which means "at home". Men and women who are at home are called
Upasakas and Upasikas.
The central
figures of this group of cultivators are three Bhiksus
and two Bhiksunis, Americans between the
ages of twenty and thirty, who have recently returned from a
thirty-day ordination ceremony in a mountain monastery in Taiwan
where they received the complete precepts. These five have formally
"left home". One of them has commented, "In this work of
cultivation, old connections, habits, and understandings drop away.
Personal attachments must, of necessity, be put down, for in being
attached to the small, one will never realize the great." Needless
to say, the work demands uncommon courage, patience, and persistence.
Anticipating an
interest in those who have devoted themselves entirely to the
completion of this work, this issue presents a general article on
"leaving home". Elsewhere in this issue appears the first in a
series which will introduce "ch’u chia"and "tsai chia" Buddhists
who are cultivating strictly in the flow of the Buddhist tradition
from Shakyamuni Buddha through Bodhidharma and the Sixth Patriarch to the present.
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