Hay Bales of Foolishness
"Persons of the Pure Land tradition attain birth in the Pure Land by becoming their own foolish selves." --Honen Shonin, as quoted by Shinran Shonin in " Lamp for the Later Ages ." It’s hay season here in Southwest Idaho and Northeast Oregon. As I drive around the countryside, I see hay bales in 3 shapes/sizes. First, there’s a smaller rectangular kind, that weighs about 55 pounds—this is the kind a grew up with, the kind that I can actually lift up and stack on my own . Then there’s a larger rectangular shape that needs a machine to lift: And, finally, there are enormous circular bales that weigh about 1000 pounds each! Seeing these bales as I drive around Idaho reminds me of an incident that happened a few years ago at the Monastery of St. Gertrude, a community of Catholic nuns just outside Cottonwood, ID. The nuns own land, including a tree farm, a small orchard, garden plots, and farm land that they lease out to a neighboring farmer. The whole p