Week 8 Essay
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Wow, week 8 already! This week: please describe an image or a place (or an emotion) that captures the feel of one of the Buddha families.
Reading, from the brilliant Kevin Townley: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RNXR98Fvm_vjcOmhUrqrH8aJs8WFZx8A/view
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On a recent trip to Japan my husband took a photo of the “Super Mario Marunouchi Bright Holiday” I-don’t-know-quite-what-you’d-call-it. A scene? When I first saw the photo I remember feeling both repulsed and intrigued by it.
It is quite a sight: with smiling mushroom headed folk standing on bright, colorful, white-spotted mushrooms at different levels in the foreground and in the background there are a couple of bare trees with one leafy tree in the middle and what seems like a leafy plant at the base of the middle tree. I can’t see to the very top, but I imagine that the buildings in the background are skyscrapers. There’s a semi-circular “cover” to the left, a golden, metallic, ridged “column” in the middle and stripes of window and stone blocks on the top right, “resting” on a fairly traditional looking brick structure of sorts, on the right. There are also different sized shiny, colored balls on the floor of the “mushroom” display, none of them much larger than the feet of the energized Mario Bros. folk.
It’s something to sense into this “full-catastrophe”. I am repulsed by the commericial nature of what is foregrounded and yet fixated on the colors and crispness of the figures, “mushrooms” and balls. They dwarf the “natural world” background and yet don’t fully clash with it in my perception.
Buddha family exploration:
-Choked to find any space within it so not strong with Buddha family energy
-The crispness, sharpness and precision of the foreground codes as vajra family to me
-The living trees in the background definitely bring an “earthy quality” to the scene, but the skyscrapers and buildings back there with them, neutralize this somewhat. A dash of ratna family energy?
-Not catching any heat off this scene so not connecting with padma family energy.
-The outstretched, exuberant legs of the “Mario creature” atop the highest blue spotted mushroom infuses some karma energy into the picture to me, as does the two open-mouthed smiling ones to the bottom left. They seem so earnest, so ready – “let’s do this!!” they seem to be saying.Bottom line, with the eyes and heartmind that are taking in this image, today…it’s a karma~vajra experience for me 😀
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This is the hardest of the essays for me to date, probably because I have always struggled a bit with the five Buddha families’ classifications. I am also a wee bit cautious about segregating people with their complexities into any sort of rubric. But here goes. I was hiking at the Alaska state park where I work, and stopped to contemplate the late winter scene at one of our viewing decks. There’s a pond (lately expanded by a new beaver dam), in a valley between two 3000+ foot mountain ridges, surrounded by the spruce and birch of the northern boreal forest. The sky is cobalt blue with those tiny puffballs of cirrocumulus clouds drifting east. Snow-covered mountains and blue sky are reflected in the nearly still water, rippled only by an American Dipper bobbing and dunking at the edge of receding ice. It is still yet not motionless – a slight breeze shifts the spruce branches, chickadees chitter in their hidden boughs. No fish have returned yet, but there are slow-swimming salmon fry circulating deep in the quiet nooks by the deck pilings. This seems to breathe Vajra, with the water element, literally mirror-like and reflecting, brilliant and fresh. In this pause between seasons, it is my happy place.
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This past week Spring has sprung in my yard! Most evident are many clusters of yellow daffodils growing up from the darkened earth (from the rain) and set up against a greener grass than what was during the winter.
It’s easy to see the daffodils exhibiting their bright yellow; they seem to dance with joy in the breeze. (When I was a child, I remember my classmates and I having head-dresses shaped like flowers. I was a pansy. And, we danced on stage in these costumes. This is one of my favorite childhood memories.)
I would suggest that the scene with the daffodils represent the Ratna family. “The color of Ratna is a rich golden yellow.” (from Kevin’s book) Daffodils are so unique that for many children they are the first and easiest of flowers to recognize and name. And, they are one of the first to emerge in Spring. (Though Ratna is associated with autumn, I think.)
Earth is the element associated with Ratna. Upon viewing daffodils, I see the richness of the earth that fosters their growth. I also see that because it is one of the first flowers to bloom, it takes pride in that. I’ve rarely seen just one daffodil. As with the Ratna family, it’s about “excess and amassing bling to prove what a hotshot you are.” (Kevin)
Lastly, Ratna’s wisdom energy is “equanimity”…”we have enough”. (Kevin)
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Dear Betsy,
Loving the connection of dancing daffodils and a favorite childhood memory 🙂 I found myself emotional reading your reflection, remembering the energy of what it was like to be young and within joyful and uncomplicated moments. Your recollection that daffodils are rarely “all by themselves” also evoked the spirit of sangha in me. So sweet <3
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When I think of Ratna a true sense of the earth takes hold. What comes to mind is a beautiful place not too far from me.
Fern Canyon is a place that appears otherworldly-blanketed in the most exquisite varieties of bright green ferns.
A creek carved it through time and it is vibrant and rich.
If you go, prepare to get wet and experience the aliveness of Ratna. The ferns are excessive and you can see nothing but green wherever you look in the walled canyon. -
Each of these essays is wonderful. Thank you, writers.
I’m inspired to learn more about the Buddha families, understanding that this might help me see more clearly, and better understand my responses.
Sue Ellen’s description of viewing her beloved Alaskan site describes how I feel when I’m by the Bay – an experience I longed for each day when I moved away for a few years. And Fern Canyon . . . I visited a Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park – in 1978 – and can still feel the experience of its excessive -!- beauty. And Japan! Gotta go.
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