Editor's Note - This is an excerpt from the March 2005 issue of the Buddhist Wheel

Obstructions of karmic evil turn into virtues;
It is like the relation of ice and water
The more the ice, the more the water
The more the obstructions, the more the virtues.

—Shinran Shonin,
“Hymns of the Pure Land Masters”

When I prepare to ring kansho to open our morning O-asaji service, I look out at the majestic slopes of Mauna Kea. Covered with snow as it has been lately, it is a truly beautiful sight. “The relation of ice and water: The more the ice, the more the water. The more the obstructions, the more the virtues”, wrote Shinran Shonin. I imagine him looking out at the snowy peaks in Echigo and thinking of these lines. More snow on Mauna Kea means more water will flow in our rivers, streams and waterfalls. This relationship between two things that are really halves of each other pervades Buddhist teachings. My blind passions are the ice that the Buddha works to turn into virtues that flow purely.

When we look at the other people who are difficult or challenging for us to get along with, we can choose to be annoyed or we can choose to allow them to teach us important lessons about ourselves. If we choose to let them teach us, that person becomes our bodhisattva, leading us to awareness about our own foolishness. “Myself” is not different from that other person who annoys me so with their constant demands for attention, their selfishness and ego-centeredness. They are merely holding up a mirror that allows me to see something about myself that I don’t like, something that I may otherwise choose to ignore. They are allowing the ice of my foolishness to melt and flow into the pure water of the virtue that it can become.

The whole world is filled with contradictions such as that. If we choose to concentrate on the negativity of this war-torn, strife-filled world, we surely will see only human misery and suffering inflicted by greedy people on people who are powerless. We will see the world as Śariputra did in the Vimalakirti Sutra: “…full of knolls and hollows, thorny underbrush, sand and gravel, dirt, rocks, many mountains, filth and defilement.” If, on the other hand, we see the acts of kindness, such as the outpouring of heartfelt generosity to the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the world becomes the beautiful Buddha-land that Śariputra experiences when Śakyamuni pressed his toe to the earth. The beautiful Buddha-land that Śariputra sees then, adorned with hundreds and thousands of rare jewels, is the way the Brahma king says he sees this world constantly. It’s all a matter of the choices we make daily about how we choose to see this world, to experience other people.

Life is challenging and exciting—and filled with unmet needs, strife, and hatred. It does no good to pretend that evil and ugliness do not exist. But it does no good either not to get involved, not to help melt the ice of the greed and blind passions in us and in the world into the pure water of virtues. Just as that person who is so difficult to get along with can turn into your bodhisattva, helping you to melt the ice of your own blind passions, each of us has a part to play within our temple, within our community to help turn this world in which we live into a beautiful Buddha-land.

As Śakyamuni tells Śariputra, “If a person’s mind is pure, then he will see the wonderful blessings that adorn this land.” May we all see the hundreds and thousands of jewels that adorn this beautiful land in which we live.

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