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Talk to the Rose Bush Group
A cell of the body now is no longer a cell of 70, 71 years ago, containing the suffering and insight that have passed. All smiles, tears, joys, sorrows, and mindfulness enter into every cell and into the cosmos, because “the all is contained in the one.” Ms. Margaret Brazier, a law professor at Manchester University, asked the question: “If a clone was allowed to develop as a normal child. Who would be responsible for her welfare? Who would be her parents? How would she cope psychologically and socially?” If we allow the creation of a biological body, we need to look deeply to see who is responsible for the well-being, suffering, and resolving the psycho-social issues for that child. In the Sutras, the Buddha taught about worlds where birth does not occur through sexual intercourse, asexual reproduction. From that, the idea of Immaculate Conception arises, visualizing the mother carrying the pregnancy like carrying a diamond, a holy manifestation body like the Virgin Mary or Queen Maya.
The desire to see oneself continue in a separate biological body is like an attachment to the self, because all children being born are identical and need to go through suffering to attain insight. Recalling the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha had to call back all manifestation bodies from worlds everywhere to open the door of the Many Treasures Buddha’s stupa and the door of the Ultimate Dimension. When we realize that we have countless manifestation bodies in the past, present, and future, we transcend birth and death and the view of self. Each student is a manifestation body who has received the insight, the Dharma doors, and the heart transmitted from generations of Buddhas and ancestral teachers.
When massaging the teacher’s head, if there is mindfulness, then the teacher’s head, the Grandfather Teacher’s head, the heads of the ancestral teachers, and the head of the Buddha will enter into the disciple’s head, becoming deathless; otherwise, that head can only become soil. The practice is called the practice of happiness, cherishing every moment so as not to waste the heritage of the generations. There are times one feels like Ananda or Katyayana to read and reinterpret the sutras to clarify the Buddha’s intention. Books like The Miracle of Mindfulness and The Essentials of Walking Meditation are also manifestation bodies, nourishing the spiritual life of adults and sustaining orphan children.
