Guardian of the three baskets
Mouse-size musings from the Dalai Lama's Cat
A moment of enchantment, dear reader: I padded into the kitchen one morning to find something new. No - not a delicious soupҫon, although such a discovery is always most welcome. Nor even His Holiness’s VIP Chef, Mrs. Trinci, who can always be relied upon to lavish bountiful affection on The Most Beautiful Creature That Ever Lived.
Instead, on the wooden kitchen table were three baskets. Rectangular in shape and in three different sizes, they were woven from strands of cane and bamboo. Through the medley of different smells pervading the room, I instantly caught a bouquet of herbaceous reediness, along with the scent of long, warm days drying out in the sun. The tang of resin varnish, pungent, cloying and curiously beguiling. I must investigate further.
Hopping from floor to chair and chair to table, I sniffed at the receptacles, drawing in the full redolence of them, mouth parted in vomeronasal mode. I pressed them tentatively with my paw, checking for pliancy. Before, with a certain inevitability, I climbed into the first one, which I found rather small. I could sit down in it alright, but it wouldn’t allow for a supine cat to lie in comfortable repose. The second basket, however, had ample room for a luxuriantly fluffy body such as mine to settle nicely. The third was altogether larger – but not as snugly enclosing as the previous one.
I returned to the medium-sized basket, circling about several times as we cats like to do, before sitting upright to survey the view. Taking in the familiar vista of the kitchen and simply abiding in the present moment from this aromatically different vantage. Gradually, I settled down further, front paws tucked beneath me.
I must have dozed off, because the next thing I heard was Oliver, one of His Holiness’s Executive Assistants, saying with mock-seriousness, “Are you suggesting, Mrs. Trinci, that we send each of the earthquake victims a cat?”
“Mamma Mia!” Catching sight of me, Mrs. Trinci was soon caressing me with great adoration. “She is blessing the baskets, don’t you see?” she said after a few moments, having found a reason for my being there. Mrs. Trinci had always been extravagantly indulgent when explaining my behaviour.
“Is she really?” Although Oliver’s tone was more sceptical, he was looking at me with a smile.
At that moment, Tenzin arrived through the back door with a cardboard tray holding mugs of take-out coffee from Ricardo at The Himalaya Book Café. The three of them were soon sipping their morning flat whites and cappuccino while Mrs. Trinci told them about her plan.
The day before, His Holiness had received word of an earthquake that had destroyed part of a monastery further along the Kangra Valley. Although damage had been limited, the monastery’s entire food store had been destroyed, leaving not only the monastery without any provisions, but also leaving destitute the small community who also stored their harvest in the facility.
The Dalai Lama had put out an urgent appeal for assistance. Bulk pledges of staples like barley, rice, lentils and beans had already been made, and transport was being arranged. For her part, Mrs. Trinci had the idea of non-essential treats to everyone, including baskets for the local community – a small basket for those who lived alone, a medium size for couples, and the largest container to be given to families. She proposed making large quantities of cookies. Sid and Serena were sourcing other items – sugar, spices, butter and tea.
After discussing what would be valued most by the monks and villagers, there was a pause before Oliver said to Mrs. Trinci, “It’s very good of you to be doing this.”
She shrugged. “Part of my Dharma practice. I’m not a very good meditator. And I know that we Buddhists need to experience the true meaning of shunyata, but this subject I find difficult.”
Tenzin, suavely attired in his suit as always, nodded towards the table, “The three baskets,” he murmured.
Mrs. Trinci looked somewhat puzzled by this sudden turn in conversation.
“What you just said,” he explained, for Oliver’s benefit as well as hers. “You described the three baskets, the Tripitaka, the core teachings of the Buddha.”
“Which are?” Mrs. Trinci wanted to know.
“The sutra basket, is about ethics. How we are to behave in accordance with the principle of non-harmfulness. Your practice of generosity-” he made a sweeping gesture towards the table. “Fits in with the first basket.”
Mrs Trinci was following him closely.
“You said you’re not a very good meditator?” he continued. “That’s the second Vinaya basket. It’s about developing our concentration. Meditation.”
“Si.”
“And therefore entirely appropriate that HHC should be in it!” Oliver butted in, eyes twinkling.
“And the third basket, the Abidharma basket, is the understanding of shunyata. Wisdom. The nature of reality. Each of these sets of teachings-,” with his free hand he indicated layers, “-builds on the previous one. You can’t perfect wisdom without concentration, and you can’t perfect concentration if you lack ethics.”
There was a pause before Mrs. Trinci said, “Thank you for explaining, Tenzin. Even though I have been practising Buddhism for many years, all the time I keep learning new things.”
“Same for us all,” chuckled Oliver.
“But sometimes,” her expression turned pensive. “I can’t help wondering if there’s something wrong with me. Not only me. With most of us Buddhists these days. We all seem to find it so difficult. So many things to learn! Why do we never hear of anyone attaining nirvana or enlightenment? Why did His Holiness and the Dharma suffer the great cruelty of being driven out of Tibet? Are we in the last days of the Buddha Dharma?”
It was rare to hear Mrs. Trinci sound quite so melancholy, or give expression to ideas so sweeping in their implications. She seemed to be suffering grave doubts about the spiritual path on which she had found herself, beginning to doubt if it led anywhere.
“My dear Mrs. Trinci,” Tenzin instantly reached over, taking her by the arm. “What you say is quite understandable, quite normal for all of us practitioners.”
Oliver was nodding.
“And very perceptive about fewer people attaining nirvana than in the past. But some do – and they also attain full enlightenment. You should be in no doubt. But you know this-” he paused as if reluctant to say the word out loud, “degenerate age was predicted millennia ago. You might say that there is nothing at all surprising about what we’re experiencing.”
“Predicted?” she asked, eyes narrowing.
Tenzin gestured towards Oliver, the more scholarly than the two.
‘You’re talking about the 5,000 years?” he confirmed.
“Yes,” said Tenzin.
“It goes back to the three baskets, as it happens,” Oliver glanced towards the table – and to where I was watching him with the same anticipation as Mrs. Trinci. “According to the Abidharmakosa, after the time of Shakyamuni Buddha there would be a period of 5,000 years when the Dharma would degenerate. This divides up into three periods of 1500 years, and then the so-called ‘final 500’.
“For the first 500 years after Buddha, there were still many people attaining nirvana, the result of wisdom. For the next 500 years, many still became non-returners, that is, people who once they died would not be reborn in samsara – the result of meditation. For the third 500 years, many people still became what’s known as “stream enterers” – you know, like something that falls into a stream and then is moved rapidly downstream because of the current. The result of good ethics.
“In that first 1,500 years, practitioners were still seeing many results. Now we’re in the second 1,500-year cycle and we’re seeing fewer results, but at least we are still practising. At this stage, in the 21st century, we are practising wisdom, but this practice will decline. In the next 500-year period, the practice of meditation will decline. Then in the following 500 years, so will the practice of ethics or morality.”
Mrs. Trinci was looking aghast.
“During the 1,500 years that follows, there will be no results, no practice and even whatever physical remnants of the Dharma exist – things like books, texts, teachings in whatever form they take – will be destroyed. First any physical evidence of shunyata, of wisdom. Then of meditation teachings. Then even books about ethics or morality. They simply won’t exist. Nada.”
“Fifteen hundred,” Mrs. Trinci was counting on her fingers. “Plus fifteen hundred. Plus another fifteen hundred. What,” she scarcely dared ask, “about the last 500 years?”
“As it happened, Buddha spoke about exactly this in The Diamond Cutter Sutra. His student, Subhuti, also fearing the worst, asked him directly.”
“And what did he say?” she wanted to know.
Oliver shot a self-conscious glance towards Tenzin. Tenzin nodded insistently that he should continue. Part of the reason Oliver was His Holiness’s Translator was that he had memorised large numbers of verses from many sutras and could recite them at will. With Tenzin’s urging he quoted:
“‘O Subhuti, in the future, in the days of the last five hundred, when the holy Dharma is approaching its final destruction, there will come bodhisattvas who are great beings, who possess morality, who possess the fine quality’ – that means perfect concentration,” explained Oliver, “‘and who possess wisdom. And these bodhisattvas who are great beings, O Subhuti, will not be ones who have rendered honour to a single Buddha, or who have collected stores of virtue with a single Buddha.
Instead, O Subhuti, they will be ones who have rendered honour to many hundreds of thousands of Buddhas, and who have collected stores of virtue with many hundreds of thousands of Buddhas. Such are the bodhisattvas, the great beings, who then will come.’”
For a long while, silence reined in the kitchen, as three humans and a rather resplendent feline absorbed what Oliver had said. Before Mrs. Trinci finally said, “We may not be getting so many results. But we are still practising.”
“And if we keep practising,” continued Oliver. “It is inevitable that we will see the results. Perhaps at the time of death. Or in a pure land or other realm in the future. Causes will always produce effects.”
“I hadn’t heard about this prophecy,” Mrs. Trinci looked at him appreciatively. “To think this was all known about thousands of years ago.”
“For a Buddha, all things are knowable,” said Oliver.
“But they must despair!” Mrs. Trinci warbled, mascara-lashed eyebrows fluttering with feeling. “All the Buddhas. To see how bad things have got since the time of Shakyamuni.”
“Those who are making a genuine effort, however, and accumulating great merit,” said Oliver. “They rejoice for them.”
“You asked if we are in the last days of the Buddha Dharma,” Tenzin returned to the starting point of their conversation, smiling wryly. “We have some way to go before then. The destruction of Tibet and the diaspora may have brought the Dharma from out behind the Himalayas for the benefit of the whole world. But it seems to me that although there are a lot of armchair Buddhists out there - people who like the ideas of the Dharma - there aren’t so many real practitioners.”
Oliver was nodding in fierce agreement.
“People who have chosen to become part of a living lineage.”
“Which means that those who are trying to practise properly,” Oliver continued from him. “Who are doing the best that we can even if we don’t always feel like we’re making progress, are not only doing it for ourselves. We’re also doing it to keep the Dharma alive. To ensure that the authentic practices can continue to be handed down from one generation to the next.”
Tenzin was nodding seriously. “The teachings, the practices, the empowerments have been handed down orally from one generation to the next ever since the time of the Buddha. It has been an unbroken transmission. If that transmission was ever halted, something would be gone from the world. That special exchange of prana, from guru to student would be lost forever.”
Mrs. Trinci was engrossed – this was evidently another idea that was new to her. “With our practice we are helping to preserve the Buddha’s teachings?” she confirmed.
“Exactly,” said Tenzin.
“Preserving meditation practices as the source of inner peace,” added Oliver. “And Dharma as a path that leads to enlightenment. Most people are not doing these things. If they don’t have the karma, they may not ever have heard of them. We are a tiny minority of custodians of the Dharma.”
“Holders of the flame,” Mrs. Trinci contributed, more poetically.
Feeling rested, I rose to my feet, placed my front paws on the edge of the basket and yawned luxuriantly, legs quivering as I did.
“In our own way,” Tenzin’s voice reverberated with significance as all three watched me, smiling. “Each of us is like the invincible snow lion: we are guardians of the three baskets.”
A note from David Michie:
I often reflect how, when our life ends, it is only consciousness that continues - not any of the elements of our external world that absorb so much of our time and mental bandwidth. Of course the outer reflects the inner: living with love, compassion and wisdom is a holistic purpose.
But it is inner development that most interests me and I feel that my job is to be something of a cheerleader on this extraordinary journey towards transcendence. An alternate to the many powerful voices that tell us to focus on a mundane, outer world which turns out to be far more ephemeral and unsubstantial than it appears.
If any of this resonates with where you are in your own journey, you may like to consider becoming a paying subscriber to my newsletter. Each Saturday I post an article sharing the wisdom I have learned from my own lamas. In their gentle, but incisive way, their teachings help cultivate our self-reliance, compassion and wisdom. Ultimately, they lead us on the most direct path to enlightenment.
In becoming a paying subscriber, you not only support me and my work. About 40% of your subscription money goes to charities whose founders and work I have personally supported for a long time:
Wild is Life/Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery - an elephant orphanage and wildlife rescue in Zimbabwe),
Twala Trust Animal Sanctuary - an animal rescue in Zimbabwe,
Dongyu Gyatsal Ling Initiatives - which supports Buddhist nuns in the Himalayas, and
Gaden Relief - which supports Buddhist activities in India, Nepal, Mongolia and Tibet.
I am looking forward to continuing on this path together with our community of kindred spirits. Wishing you many blessings of gratitude, enthusiasm and wonder!
Really interesting HHC - many thanks David
“…our community of kindred spirits…”
These simple, few words struck me especially as I read to the end of your offering, here David. Simple words and “community” is bandied about a lot these days it seems — but, knowing the unlimited depth and breadth, the ever-fluid work and love that these words impart — here — really hit my grateful, gladsome soul. I feel a wealth beyond measure. Thank you, our friend.