Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Diaries 1963-2Mudra Class.Last Tuesday night attended Mudra Class and since then found a lot of stuff in the lesser Upanishadswhich are not very available. Besides, the copy sent me is falling to pieces. So I am copyingit as fast as possible (this letter started at 6:30am) and finding a lot of material, available or not. Thismorning or tomorrow will turn some of it over to an old friend who is also a friend of Evans West.Rev. Iru Price. My Prajna then told me to break an engagement so I visited the Buddhist-TaoistAssociation in time to hear a long dissertation on Wesak day and plans for a joint celebration on 5 thMay. The brochure is enclosed. I shall find out tomorrow whether Roshi Soyen will be here then,otherwise I am to go as representative of the Rinzai School. After all I do have the written credentialsof the two Roshis at Kamakura which not a single “professional” Buddhist has been willing to evenlook at, illustrating non-ego. In any event I shall let you know more later.The talk was very good on this point.Soto Temple. An urgent telephone call asked me to attend, for on the former Sunday only fourpeople showed up. Rev. K. Kato is now directing the services. There were but 20 people present andhe is giving a series of talks on early Buddhism in China. Very informative indeed, but totally unlikethe other talks there which were mostly on Prajna.Universal Church. Before going there and above the above I listened to a television programcalled “Problems Please” by three clergymen on why scientists don’t attend church and they concluded,“It is a problem.” Well I suspect there were quite a few scientists at the Universal Churchand if Paul Fung gives another talk like the one he gave yesterday there will be more scientists andmore and more.Paul gave a talk on the early life of Buddha and I suppose it was drawn from Lalita-Vistara butI have not read that nor “The Light of Asia” for years. I am glad he included the “myths” for in thisday we are beginning to recognize the validity of many of these myths. But Paul’s talk was largelyconcerned with the problems of suffering and sickness and those who go in for “Dzen” never touchthe subject. Only I am beginning to feel, “When the gods arrive, the half-gods go.”It is unusual and wonderful to sit in the middle of a large and apparently comfortable audiencelistening to fundamentals. Paul calls his teaching, “Pristine Orthodox Dharma.” When I was underSokei-an’s influence I gave my first public talk on Buddhism as “Dharma, Abhidharma and Saddharma.”Roughly speaking one could identify Dharma with Hinduism, Abhidharma with Hinayanaand Saddharma with Mahayana.