Dharma Message from Rev. Marvin Harada

“ It's All In The Soil ”

Taken from the October 2006 Edition of KORIN, the
official newsletter of Orange County Buddhist Church

 

Anyone who has ever raised a plant or has a garden in their backyard knows the importance of good soil in raising plants and vegetables. I was raised on a farm and soil is almost everything for the farmer. Of course you also need water, sunlight, cultivation, and fertilizer, but without good soil to start with, you cannot raise good crops.

There were portions of alkali soil on our farm that just never raised good crops. No matter how much water or fertilizer you might give it, if the soil is bad, it just won't produce good crops.

In the Southern part of Japan, on the island of Kyushu, there is a place called Sakurajima. Sakurajima is known for raising daikon, or Japanese radishes. From what I understand, the daikon from Sakurajima are huge. For some reason, in all of Japan, Sakurajima is the only place that such huge daikon can be raised. It has something to do with the soil there that is conducive to raising daikon.

Good soil is the basis for raising, nurturing good plants and vegetables. Our life as Buddhists is also the same. A person who has come to receive the teachings deep within their heart and mind just doesn't pop up out of nowhere. A person has to be nurtured within the teachings. A person has to be cultivated in the Dharma. A person has to be raised on fertile soil in order to develop as a Buddhist. Soil is everything in Buddhism as well. Without the proper environment, a person cannot be nurtured or raised within the teachings.

If there is good soil, however, many, many Buddhists, many people can be nurtured and raised. Just like fertile soil can produce a bumper crop, so too can the right soil produce an unlimited number of sincere and dedicated Buddhists.

To me, everything that we do here at the Orange County Buddhist Church is raise and nurture individuals within the Dharma. We are tilling the soil so that others might find the nutrients to spiritually grow and bloom as true human beings.

This soil that we are nurturing is not just the work of our own doing however. It has taken centuries and centuries to make this soil fertile, to make it possible to raise and nurture people in the Dharma.

It took the sacrifices and efforts of countless masters and teachers who transmitted the Dharma through centuries and across continents. It took the pioneering members and ministers of OCBC who helped establish this temple, who tilled the soil and made it rich and fertile.

Our Buddhist tradition, the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, talks about a “land,” a “pure land.” This Pure Land is a metaphor for something really meaningful and beautiful when you think about it.

Some look to the Pure Land as a kind of heaven to go to in their afterlife, but that is only the shallow, popular view of the Pure Land. The deeper meaning of the Pure Land, is that it is the soil that enriches our spiritual life. It is the basis for our spiritual sustenance. It is the spiritual ground that we stand on, walk on, live on, and die on. The Pure Land illuminates my heart and mind and makes my own realization of truth possible. The Pure Land is my true home of homes. It is the place of my ultimate serenity, of my ultimate comfort.

Where is this Pure Land? Is it in the afterlife? Is it in Las Vegas? No, it is right here, it is where my life is nurtured in the Dharma. It is the ground beneath my feet, if my life is nurtured in light of the teachings. If my life is not being nurtured by the teachings, then I cannot say that the ground I stand on is the Pure Land. But once my life is illuminated by the light of the Dharma, then the Pure Land appears all around me.

The Pure Land is the fertile soil that nurtures my spiritual life. In that sense, the books that I read, the teachers that I learn from, the Dharma friends that I am fortunate to have, they are all part of that fertile soil that raises me spiritually. The Sangha here at OCBC, the questions from newcomers, the smiles and laughter of the Dharma School children, they are all the fertile soil of the Pure Land that sustains my life.

When we reflect in that manner, what we do here at OCBC is so very important. Not only are we being nurtured in the rich soil of the Dharma, we are interacting and making that soil richer and more fertile with each day, with each generation of Buddhists that are raised here.

Just like the farmer who plows back into the soil, the stalks of corn to enrich the soil, so too, do we participate in making the soil here more and more fertile. We have a responsibility to put something back into the ground as well. Our own deepened understanding and then sharing of the teachings with others, is our contribution to “plowing something back into the land.”

Dr. Nobuo Haneda translated an essay by Prof. Rijin Yasuda, in which Yasuda Sensei explains what he feels the Pure Land is. Yasuda Sensei writes that to him, the Pure Land is the “Sangha.” The place where a true Sangha listens to the Dharma and shares the Dharma is the Pure Land to him, to paraphrase from his essay.

The great Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh also writes something similar in the following poem:

Here is the Pure Land

The Pure Land is here

I smile in mindfulness

And dwell in the present moment

The Buddha is seen in an autumn leaf

The Dharma is a floating cloud

The Sangha body is everywhere

My true home is right here.

— “Finding our true home” by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

May we be continue to be nurtured by the rich soil of the Pure Land, and may our lives help to enrich the soil for future generations.

 

Namuamidabutsu,

Rev. Marvin Harada

Rev. Harada is a resident Minister at the Orange County Buddhist Church

 

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