Refuge and Refugees
From CNN.COM
Living like animals
Posted: 1:07 p.m. ET
CNN’s Chris Lawrence in New Orleans, LouisianaIt’s hard to believe this is New Orleans.
We spent the last few hours at the New Orleans Convention Center. There are thousands of people lying in the street. (See the video of people living among the dead — 4:36 )
We saw mothers holding babies, some of them just three, four and five months old, living in horrible conditions. Diapers littered the ground. Feces were on the ground. Sewage was spilled all around.
These people are being forced to live like animals. When you look at the mothers, your heart just breaks.
Some of the images we have gathered are very, very graphic.
We saw dead bodies. People are dying at the center and there is no one to get them. We saw a grandmother in a wheelchair pushed up to the wall and covered with a sheet. Right next to her was another dead body wrapped in a white sheet.
Right in front of us a man went into a seizure on the ground. No one here has medical training. There is nowhere to evacuate these people to.
People have been sitting there without food and water and waiting. They are asking — “When are the buses coming? When are they coming to help us?”
We just had to say we don’t know.
The people tell us that National Guard units have come by as a show of force. They have tossed some military rations out. People are eating potato chips to survive and are looting some of the stores nearby for food and drink. It is not the kind of food these people need.
They are saying, “Don’t leave us here to die. We are stuck here. Why can’t they send the buses? Are they going to leave us here to die?”
It’s heartbreaking.
Impossible to watch - and not to watch.
Just like 9/11. Just like the Christmas Tsunami.
It’s a vision of hell - the great negative epiphany that Prince Gotama was struck by, that day he encountered an old man, a sick man and a dead man - for the very first time in his 26 years.
It’s been happening - to you, to me, to all of us - over and over again - for endless lifetimes. I know that, because my heart tells me so - and so does the one who knows - Shakyamuni Buddha.
We’re not talking about Buddha-lite, suburban sanghas, or weekend retreats. We’re talking about endless rounds of ignorance, disease, anguish and ultimately death.
Over and over again.
Since you’re reading the SHIN UGLY blog, I’ll ask you the SHIN UGLY question: As you look at the dead and the dying, the looting and the raping, the frustration and the helplessness - have you had enough, yet?
If not, then go about your busines. Ignore Shakyamuni. Ignore Shinran. And by all means call me a cracked pot for saying such blunt and politically incorrect things.
But…
- If you HAVE had enough - and more than enough…
- If you really ARE sick and tired of being sick and tired…
- If you truly WANT this to be your very last lifetime of darkness and ignorance, sickness and death, and utter helplessness in the face of it all…
Then you’re on the right website, because there’s only one thing we talk about here: suffering, and the END of suffering at last.
We’re all refugees - fleeing from darkness to darkness - but unable to escape. That’s not judgment - but it IS karma - your karma and mine - and everyone’s in this Age of Dharma Decline.
The problem is - we just don’t KNOW how desperate our situation really is - until we end up in a situation like the burning towers - or the churning sea - or the howling hurricane - and their horrific aftermaths.
Here’s the truth: Amida Buddha - and only Amida Buddha - has made a way you, and me, and ANYONE - to stop being a refugee once and for all.
Here’s the truth: That happens when we finally give up, exhausted, burned out, overcome, unable to do more - and finally TAKE REFUGE.
Take REFUGE - in Amida’s dharma, not yours.
Take refuge - and RECEIVE: Amida’s karma, not yours.
His dharma - freely offered through the final teaching - the teaching of Dharma Master Shinran - to anyone, and everyone, who will flee to Amida Buddha naked - as only a refugee who KNOWS he is a refugee will do.
His karma - freely transferred in one thought-moment of true entrusting to every refugee who truly flees naked from his own thought, his own life, his own ego - into the arms of OYASAMA - our perfect parent Amida Buddha.
His karma - the singular “true and real” benefit of Amida’s transferred merit that causes us to be grasped, never to be abandoned, by Amida himself.
True refuge for true refugees - for anyone, and everyone, who’s had enough of suffering.
As you remember the dead and the living - the refugees from hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast of the USA, the most important gift you can give right now is cold, hard cash - if you’ve got some extra.
Because this is samsara, phony relief agencies have already sprung up. So if you’ve got some cash to spare, even a little bit, give it to the American Red Cross and tell them it’s for KATRINA. Here’s a link:
American Red Cross Online Donations
NamuAmidaButsu. May Amida’s light and life illuminate all darkness, everywhere - and may every being hear the True Teaching of the Pure Land Way and thereby quickly become a True Buddha in Amida’s Pure Land.
Paul R.