SHUNDO AOYAMA 77
shouldering all the responsibilities of their family, may collapse from
sudden illness at the peak of their career.
Life goes on without regard to our partial or selfish desires.
Accordingly, joy and anger, sadness and happiness, love and hate,
and all kinds of thoughts and emotions are woven together. If every-
thing, including misfortune, illness, and failure, is unconditionally
accepted as it is, then all experience may be constructively enjoyed.
The merciful world of the Buddha embraces all people exactly as
they are. It is a world in which people who swear they will never be
deluded, but who will soon fall into bewilderment, are generously
embraced as they are by the Buddha. If one wished to express this
concept on a scroll, I would suggest the words “Meandering lines
and missing letters make it more interesting.”
This brings to mind a phrase from The Book of Equanimity (Jpn.,
Shoyo-roku): “A woven brocade contains all colors.”
Birth, old age, illness, and death, as well as happiness and misfor-
tune, gain and loss, love and hate—all these are important tools for
weaving the brocade of human life. A brocade cannot be woven with
the single color of happiness. Given time, place, and occasion, every-
thing “contains all colors.” It is in this way that the Pure Land, the
Other Shore, is made manifest.SERVING OTHERS AS A BRIDGE
One day while perusing the analects of Tang dynasty Zen monks,
I was struck by the lines “Helping donkeys to cross and horses
to cross.” Even nuns in training sometimes lose sight of the right
course. So many different kinds of people are nuns. To be a bridge
on which all these believers could somehow cross to the Other Shore
of enlightenment is my work. Those lines taught me my vocation,
and I have taken them to heart.photo Priscilla du Preez / UnSplash