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Basic Buddhist Teachings 07 - The Five Universal Mental Formations - Contact, Feeling, Perception
The cuckoo calls on time, the hills warm up, the telephone rings out across the mountains. Spring rain falls lightly, the earth of the mind is moist, the old bean seed opens its mouth in a smile. Someone has come to visit, the moon in a pocket, perilla leaves call to the malabar spinach seed. Dense green, sparse pink, the bell invites each step, feet kiss the earth, eyes embrace the sky. A thousand years in a moment, the season surges forth, even the snow is green, even the sunlight falls. This poem – excerpted from Cu Cu Telephone (Call Me by My True Name, page 76) – is sung in mindfulness to discover “the seed of happiness, of enlightenment, of joy” spontaneously sprouting within.
The Sangha is a very good, very fertile piece of land, a place to water and nourish the practitioner. In the Badali Sutta and Cātuma (Ekottara Āgama, volume 41, sutra 2), the Buddha teaches loving kindness, patience with practitioners who are still weak, and encourages: “What can I do today in order to make the Sangha happy?” The Dharma talk also reminds us of eating in one sitting (Ekāsana bhojana), “Eating rice with soup, practicing with friends,” and the responsibility to build and preserve the Sangha.