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Chapter 18 - Mirror of the Lake If this lake setting were a maiden, how should I describe her? The mountain range is her eyebrows, curved like willow leaves; her body is glittering gold, soft and slender; the trees at the lakeside are her eyelashes, slightly lowered; the water is her clean, smooth, dazzling pair of lips. Even a poet cannot stop his heart from fluttering. I often take walks in a little park by the lakeside. In the park there is a wooden pier where boats can anchor. Sitting down at the end of the pier and viewing the lake, as if I were bowing deeply to it, I can breathe in its fresh fragrance and touch its beautiful sunniness. Once, gazing at the water, I entered into a deep meditation. In my deep meditation, the lake turned into a mirror. I looked at the mirror, without any thoughts or anticipa-tions. However, on the mirror of the lake, some words gradually appeared, words that unexpectedly had to do with me. It was a page from a newspaper, with the three words, "Sheng-yen Lu", in especially large print and a photograph of me on it. Those words appearing on the Mirror of the Lake seemed full of suspicion, contempt, and malice. After reading them once carefully, I took a deep breath. I was speechless. That newspaper was from a very far away place. I did not recognize the name of the writer, and he had based his information sold on books-merely hearsay! I don't think I am worthy enough to take up one whole page of newsprint! I am a Tantric cultivator retreating by the side of Lake Sammamish. I still live like an impov-erished man; the clothes on my back are hand-me-downs. When I walk from my house to the pier, I do not see anyone and no one recognizes me. Even when a morning jogger passes me, all he says is just a "Hi." After I read the Mirror of the Lake, I started laughing. At the shore of Lake Sam-mamish, Westerners only know that there is an Oriental man who strolls at the lakeside during early mornings and evenings, who sometime sits quietly, as if he were resting on the pier, who dives into the water to take a swim in the summer, or faces the sky, praying with his palms joined. No one knows that he is Sheng-yen Lu. Even he, himself, has probably forgotten his name and past because, in the silent meditations, his name is totally unimportant. All the hearsay about him, whether kind or malicious, straight forward or confusing, religious or traditional, do not raise any waves in his mind. A Tantric cultivator, after a night's sleep at his home by the lakeside, walks to the end of the pier in the early dawn and, entering into meditation, reads the jokes in the Mirror of the Lake. He looks like he is just bowing deeply to the lake or, perhaps, dozing off. The Mirror of the Lake is also a kind of training! I have learned it from an Indian lineage holder. I had to find a flower with one hundred petals! But how on earth can one find a flower with a hundred petals? So I just collected a hundred petals of various colors and went to the lakeside. I recited a mantra and invoked the God of Vina of the Brahmans; he came with a deva who tossed out flowers. Throwing a petal into the lake, I recited the mantra once. Tossing two petals into the lake, I recited the mantra twice. So the flowers, lake water, and mantra became one and formed an image of the moon. One cultivator has told me that one can also practice the Precious Mirror of the Aus-picious Goddess (the Goddess of Laksmi). Practitioners have to especially enshrine the Brahmadeva to the left of the Auspicious Goddess, because the Brahmadeva holds a precious mirror in his hand. And the Auspicious Goddess, resembling the deva who tosses out flowers, is extremely beautiful and stately. The Mirror of the Lake is not a supernatural phenomenon. Nor is it something that is merely bizarre. The Mirror of the Lake is just a revelation during meditation of what is already known. I feel that the Mirror of the Lake has no special meaning for me. Whether it reveals the present, the past thousand years, or even the next thousand years, and whether what it shows exists or not, does it really matter? What does it mean even if a thousand years from now there will be another Sheng-yen Lu? Will it make me happy? Will it make me sad? To someone who has already achieved peace and tranquility, all these various roles and portrayals on the stage of life can only bring one a laugh. The Mirror of the Lake has but reflected the myriad forms and desires of the numerous sentient beings, and these will all vanish along with the rocking of the water of the lake. But I will never change, I am what I am. Holy Red-Crown-Vajra-Master does not want to know the Sheng-yen Lu of the past, nor the Sheng-yen Lu of the future. He has forgotten the Sheng-yen Lu of present. Time is the water of Lake Sammamish, rumbling and tumbling away. The various forms will eventually disappear, including the cynical, the scandalous, the malicious; all will disap-pear. So, laugh! Like the water of Lake Sammamish. Mirror of the Lake, Mirror of the Lake, flooded over by the flowing of water in the lake...
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