By Ann
I’m wearing my seasonal shirt today. It’s pink, and it has the word MERRY written across it. A number of people have commented on it, and I always tell them the same thing: it’s a non-discriminatory shirt. You can be Merry Christmas, you can be Merry New Year, or you can be Merry Kwanzaa. It’s just a happy day!
That shirt reminds me of something Reverend Ito said early on when I first started coming here. Around Christmas time, he came in and said, “Jesus was a good man.”
To be honest, it startled me. I grew up in a tradition that taught there was only “one way”—one way to be happy, one way to be saved, or whatever it might have been. It was striking to hear a Buddhist priest say that Jesus was a good man.
Yet, I think that is really what Buddhism is about. It’s about seeing the good, both in ourselves and in other people. It’s about not having a preference that something should be this way versus that way. It’s not that we don’t have preferences—because we do—but it’s about not getting so attached to them that we exclude everything else. When we get too attached, we become discriminatory.
Caring for the Numberless
In Buddhist practice, there are vows we commit to. The first one is: “Beings are numberless, I vow to save them all.” To me, that always felt a little extreme. I’ve actually changed it for myself to: “Beings are numberless, I vow to try to care for them all.”
This shift allows for a different perspective. First of all, “beings” can be anything—not just sentient people, but nature and everything around us. For a long time, the idea of these vows being for perpetuity puzzled me. But I’ve realized that these vows are really statements for this moment. It’s not a vow like “I will never eat candy again” for the rest of my life. It’s a vow that, for this moment, I am going to care.
The idea of caring is so much more gentle. It includes ourselves as well as everything else.
You Are the Light
I believe this idea of caring for the numberless brings together all the traditions of this season. It brings in Christmas; it brings in the tradition of Buddha’s Enlightenment Day from earlier in December; and it brings in the Solstice, which is today.
One of the favorite prayers Reverend Ito taught me was:
“You are the light. You are the one who cares for other things. You are the one that cares for yourself.”
So, don’t get stuck. Whether someone is saying “Merry Christmas” or “Merry whatever,” just remember to see the good and keep your heart open to caring for it all.
Hakone Zendo 