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Kiyosato Retreat Day 4 — Reconciliation With Parents
Breathing in, see yourself as a five-year-old child; breathing out, smile to that child. The little boy or girl is always alive within, often suppressed and deeply hurt, and practice involves recognizing this presence. To reconcile with a father, one looks at the nature of transmission: the transmitter, the object transmitted, and the receiver form one reality. You are the continuation of your father; you are your father. Visualizing a father as a vulnerable five-year-old boy reveals that he also suffered and was hurt by adults. Understanding this suffering gives rise to compassion, allowing for reconciliation and peace.
The most precious gift parents can make to their children is their own happiness. The practice of the Three Prostrations helps restore this harmony. The first prostration is a vertical line, visualizing spiritual and blood ancestors, as well as descendants, accepting both the perfect and the imperfect. The second prostration is a horizontal line, touching the earth to visualize those alive in the present moment. This includes identifying with the suffering of a hungry child or a frog swallowed by a snake, while simultaneously identifying with the Bodhisattvas bringing joy and relief to the world.
The third prostration is a circle embracing the others, surrendering the idea that this body is the self with a limited life. Like a banana tree where the young shoot and the old tree share one root, we share the same reality with our ancestors. This relies on the Diamond Sutra and the practice of removing four notions:
- Self: realizing the self is made only of non-self elements, just as a flower is composed of sun, rain, and minerals.
- Man: understanding that humans cannot exist without non-human elements like animals and vegetables.
- Living beings: seeing that living beings are made of inanimate substances.
- Lifespan: discovering that life is infinite and not limited to a period between birth and death.
