Gender: Female
Status: In a Relationship
Age: 31
Sign: Capricorn
State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 9/23/2005
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January 21, 2009 - Wednesday
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Current mood:  blissful
Making Ordinary Life Actions Meaningful
While going for tea after the teachings I was putting on my watch and I told Ven Yangchen that when you do this you can visualize yourself as the guru deity and put on, offer ornaments to the guru deity. So this is not publicizing that I am practicing, but is a suggestion of how to make life meaningful, how to make your belongings meaningful and use them to collect extensive merits. This is just one example, one advantage, it helps to think when you offer to the guru deity that it's not yours, it is the guru's, so that helps you not to cling on to it as if it is yours.
At a tea shop I bought some pistachio nuts. If you visualize yourself as the guru deity and then take each nut in your mouth it becomes like a fire puja (jinsek in Tibetan), which means 'offering burning' practice. So with each nut you throw in your mouth and eat you collect the most extensive merits, more than having made offerings to numberless buddhas, Dharma, Sangha, statues and scriptures, all the holy objects in the ten directions.
Similarly when you go to eat in a restaurant, think you are offering to the guru deity, think that this food is not for you. This helps to prevent the thought of possession, this is mine.
So this helps you to practice the bodhisattva vows. It is also an antidote to attachment. When you practice like this there is peace and happiness in your heart. Otherwise every single thing, whatever you do through attachment based on ignorance becomes negative karma.
Similarly when you go shopping, watch your motivation, prepare your motivation. When you are in the shop either fulfill the wishes of the guru or shop to benefit and serve other sentient beings. Think that the ultimate purpose is to fulfill the guru's advice. So you buy these things to survive and to fulfill the wishes of the guru or benefit sentient beings. In this way shopping becomes the antidote to attachment, becomes virtuous activity, Dharma, and you collect extensive merit.
Also in the street that same day as we were waiting for a taxi, as it took some time to get a taxi to go back, the thought came that it's good to practice rejoicing when the taxi comes and other people get into it. It's good to practice rejoicing that this other person got happiness, what they need.
This is an excellent practice and helps negative emotional mind, anger, upsetness not to arise. This way you keep the mind in virtue, Dharma, because you are sincerely wishing happiness to others. So this is very pure Dharma and also keeps your mind in a state of happiness.
Wishing happiness for others opens the door of all happiness. Whether wishing happiness to one insect or one person or many. In Lama Choepa it says "The mind that cherishes all mother beings and would secure them in bliss is the gateway leading to infinite virtue." So this is from Buddha's Mahayana teaching. So this means it becomes a cause for enlightenment.
If you want to be like His Holiness says, if you want to be intelligently selfish, in this case the common result of one time rejoicing in this life is that in hundred thousands of future lives you will have no difficulty finding a taxi, you will immediately find a vehicle when you are traveling. Even if it is difficult for other people, for you it will be easy to find [a taxi/vehicle], that rejoicing creates the karma for that. Your rejoicing, doing something good such as this practice of thinking of the karmic result which is happiness for yourself.
You doing this is called intelligently selfish, because at least from this you get the karmic result of happiness in your future life, and at least it becomes Dharma, virtue.
Scribe Ven Yangchen, New York, USA. Sept and Oct 2007. Lightly edited by Claire Isitt.
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October 11, 2008 - Saturday
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Current mood:Joyous!!
Category: Religion and Philosophy
From The Official Website of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
www.dalailama.com -
http://www.dalailama.com/news.296.htm
Media Statement
Published: Friday, 10 October, 2008
His Holiness the Dalai Lama underwent a successful removal of gallstones this morning at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, which is a simple routine procedure. He will rest a few days in New Delhi before returning to Dharamsala.His schedules, including travel programmes, remain unchanged.Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Dharamsala
10 October 2008
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September 24, 2008 - Wednesday
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Current mood:  grateful
Category: Religion and Philosophy
THE SUFFERING OF PLEASURE?
It can be a sobering experience when one deeply reflects in meditation on what we normally describe as pleasure. The Buddha said that relative to the blissful experience of release of cyclic existence, everything within cyclic existence is suffering. (See also the first of the "4 Noble Truths".)
Can this make sense?
Please take a few moments to reflect the following thoughts, while taking a pleasurable experience in mind:
- In how far is this "pleasure" simply an escape or a temporary forgetting of daily problems?
- How nice would it be if I kept doing this without interruption for a few days?
- How fulfilled do I feel by this experience after 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days?
- To achieve the same great feeling as the first time, do I need more of the same the next time?
The Buddha concluded that putting our energy in grasping for temporary pleasures is not only useless, it creates many problems, also karmic actions which we had better avoided.
From a Buddha's point of view this is exactly what sentient beings do all the time; holding themselves prisoner with their attachment to temporary pleasures and life itself.
"Let me tell you about the middle path. Dressing in rough and dirty garments, letting your hair grow matted, abstaining from eating any meat or fish, does not cleanse the one who is deluded. Mortifying the flesh through excessive hardship does not lead to a triumph over the senses. All self-inflicted suffering is useless as long as the feeling of self is dominent.
You should lose your involvement with yourself and then eat and drink naturally, according to the needs of your body. Attachment to your appetites - whether you deprive or indulge them - can lead to slavery, but satisfying the needs of daily life is not wrong. Indeed, to keep a body in good health is a duty, for otherwise the mind will not stay strong and clear."
From Discourses II
HANDLING ATTACHMENT
"One man can conquer a thousand times thousand men in battle,
but one who conquers himself is the greatest of conquerors."
The Dhammapada
The following antidotes can be applied throughout daily life, but are profound meditation exercises as well.
ANTIDOTE 1 - Observe Yourself: Do I exaggerate positive qualities of things I am attached to, are they really worth all my troubles? Is it really worth to work hard for days, weeks or months to have an hour of fun?
ANTIDOTE 2 - Use Your Inner Wisdom: Discover how exaggerated attachment is and how desire works against oneself. Try to be wiser than the monkey and let go of the candy to be free.
ANTIDOTE 3 - Reflect on the Unsatisfactory Nature of Existence. This is also called the First Noble Truth. How much fun is fun really, and how much is it forgetting the pain? Do desires ever stop or is it an endless job to fulfil them?
ANTIDOTE 4 - Reflect on Impermanence. How important is the person or object: everything will end someday, people die, things break.
ANTIDOTE 5 - Reflect on the Problems of Attachment. Lying in the sun is great, but it quickly leads to sunburn. Eating nice food is great, but it leads to indigestion and obesity. Driving around in big cars is great, but how long do I have to work to enjoy this?
ANTIDOTE 6 - Reflect on bodily attraction (lust for sex). Loving someone is great, but what happens when the "honeymoon-days" are over? But what is the body really? What more is it than a skin bag filled with bones, flesh, disgusting organs and fluids?
ANTIDOTE 7 - Reflect on the Results of Attachment. Greed and craving lead to stealing and all kinds of crime, including war. Addiction to alcohol and drugs are simply forms of strong craving; they destroy the addict and the surroundings. Uncontrolled lust leads to sexual abuse. The feeling of greed, craving and lust in themselves can be easily seen as forms of suffering.
ANTIDOTE 8 - Reflect on Death. What are all objects of attachment worth at "the moment of truth" or death?
ANTIDOTE 9 - Emptiness. The ultimate antidote to attachment and all other negative emotions is the realisation of emptiness, see more in the page on Wisdom.
SOME NOTES ON "ORDINARY" LOVE
- "Love with attachment consists of waves of emotion, usually creating invisible iron chains." Ordinary love tends to create bonds that may turn very unpleasant.
- Ordinary love is based on selfishness: attraction to others because they help us.
- Ordinary love is often based on opinions like beauty and status, which may be quite irrelevant or even obstacles for being able to live happily together with the person. - "Being in love" may be a very exciting emotional condition, but is it really happiness, or is it often mixed with a fair amount of suffering?
- Attachment gives us the feeling of: How can this relationship fulfil MY needs? Real love would ask: What can I do for the OTHER?
- Attachment based on selfishness: if you are good to me, I am good to you. Altruistic love is based on equanimity: one realises that others are like me and want happiness. It is wishing others to be happy just because they exist.
- Attachment leads to possessiveness: MY husband, MY wife, MY friend, MY family. Did you ever realise that we cannot own people, unless you believe in slavery? Possessiveness leads to FEAR of losing, fake affection out of fear, overprotection, craving, jealousy or even the feeling: I can't live without her/him/my car/my cat/chocolate/pizzas/my job/my jewellery/my music....
- Is the perfection we think to see in the loved one really there, or do we simply close our eyes for the negative qualities?
- Is the perfection we are looking for achievable?
PRIDE
Pride is defined as an exaggerated positive evaluation of oneself, often based on a devaluation of others. It results in a kind of attachment to oneself and aversion to others.
TRANSFORM: inferiority feelings, fears for attack create a shield, leading to isolation
WITH: observation, analysis, equanimity, courage and tong-len.
ASK: Who caused my: education, intelligence, beautiful body, money? Does someone with self-confidence need to be proud?
INTO: self-confidence, honesty with yourself & others, fearlessness, gratitude, friendship, equanimity.
"How can you be proud if you are not enlightened?
How can you be proud if even the enlightened are not?"
Stonepeace
(THE NEXT TEACHING - CLOSELY RELATED TO THE ABOVE (PRIDE) I CONSIDER MY GREATEST OBSTACLES AT THIS TIME) These quotes pretty much sum up how I've felt about myself, especially in my job for many , many years LOL: "Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."
Frank Lloyd Wright "I don't have an attitude problem.You have a perception problem." "People who think they're superior are exceedingly annoying to those of us who really are." Author Unknown BRUISED EGO / DEALING WITH CRITICISM
Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche - from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archives.
Rinpoche gave the following advice for situations where one's ego gets bruised.
"When one's ego is harmed, one should rejoice. How great it is! How wonderful it is! In the same way as ordinary people react when their enemy is harmed or when some trouble happens to them, one should rejoice and feel so happy when one's ego is hurt. Exactly like that, one should think: How fantastic it is for this ego to be harmed!
If a person is practising lam rim, thought transformation, and bodhicitta, then when something hurts their ego, they should think, "How fortunate! This is exactly what I need. Let the ego have this, and even greater harm!"
The stronger the harm to the ego, the more quickly one destroys the ego. Without ego, there is bodhicitta, and when there is bodhicitta, one creates so much merit and that leads one to generate wisdom quickly. Then one can accumulate the two causes, and achieve enlightenment. That is the purpose of being alive. It is what makes life meaningful.
Without bodhicitta, it is not possible to get enlightened. The highest level you can reach is that of arhat. The reason why the arhat cannot achieve enlightenment is lack of bodhicitta. So think, "How wonderful it is that my ego is being harmed."
Treat the ego the way many Americans treat Osama bin Laden: How pleased they are when his cause is harmed. Think, my ego is trillions of times more harmful than bin Laden."
QUOTES AND STORIES WHICH SPEAK TO ME :)
INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. You'll die, but may achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and compassion with reckless abandon. (THIS ONE BRINGS ME TO THE EGDE OF TEARS EVERYTIME I READ IT - THE FIRST DOZEN TIMES I ACTUALLY CRIED :) )
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
A friend was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean. As my friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had washed up on the beach, and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water. My friend was puzzled.
He approached the man and said. "Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing."
"I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here from lack of oxygen."
"I understand," my friend replied, "but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can't possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And don't you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast. Can't you see that you can't possibly make a difference?"
The local native smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied, "Made a difference to that one!"
SMILE !
She smiled at a sorrowful stranger.
The smile seemed to make him feel better.
He remembered past kindnesses of a friend
And wrote him a thank you letter.
The friend was so pleased with the thank you
That he left a large tip after lunch.
The waitress, surprised by the size of the tip,
Bet the whole thing on a hunch.
The next day she picked up her winnings,
And gave part to a man on the street.
The man on the street was grateful;
For two days he'd had nothing to eat.
After he finished his dinner,
He left for his small dingy room.
He didn't know at that moment that he might be facing his doom.
On the way he picked up a shivering puppy.
And took him home to get warm.
The puppy was very grateful
To be in out of the storm.
That night the house caught on fire.
The puppy barked the alarm.
He barked till he woke the whole household
And saved everybody from harm.
One of the boys that he rescued
Grew up to be President.
All this because of a simple smile
That hadn't cost a cent.
(THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE READ THIS ONE...AND I DID CRY...)
EYES
There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend, who was always there for her. She said that if she could only see the world, she would marry her boyfriend. One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. She could see everything, including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend asked her, "Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?"
The girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind, and refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away in tears, and later wrote a letter to her saying - "Just take care of my eyes dear."
VERY COMMON AND BASIC, PERFECT SHORT ANECDOTE REGARDING LEARNING THE DHARMA
Beginner's Mind
Once, a professor went to a Zen Master. He asked him to explain the meaning of Zen. The Master quietly poured a cup of tea. The cup was full but he continued to pour.
The professor could not stand this any longer, so he questioned the Master impatiently, "Why do you keep pouring when the cup is full?"
"I want to point out to you," the Master said, "that you are similarly attempting to understand Zen while your mind is full. First, empty your mind of preconceptions before you attempt to understand Zen."
"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."--Suzuki Roshi
LASTLY- MY FAVORITE BUDDHIST STORY REGARDING COMPASSION AND SELFLESSNESS
The other side of compassion is selflessness. In the hearts and minds of bodhisattvas, there is no self, just us sentient beings. Regardless of what we need-be it money, property, or even his or her life-bodhisattvas willingly give to us without reservation. In the Jataka Sutra, a sutra about the previous lives of the Buddha, there is a story about a time when the Buddha was cultivating to be a bodhisattva. In this particular life, the Buddha was also born as a prince. One day, when he was out travelling in the woods with two of his brothers, he saw below a cliff a mother tiger that had just given birth to seven baby cubs. Because of over-exertion, the mother tiger became so weak that her life was hanging in the balance. In the meantime, the baby cubs were all crying to be nursed.
When the prince saw how pitiful the situation was, his compassion arose in him, and he decided to sacrifice his life to save the life of the mother tiger. He distracted his two brothers and jumped down to where the mother tiger was so that he might offer himself as a meal for the mother tiger. The mother tiger was, however, so weakened that she did not even have the strength to feed on him. Anxious to save the tigress, he used a sharp blade of bamboo bark to sever his own throat. With the blood gushing out, and disregarding his own pain, the prince slowly crawled to the side of the mother tiger so that she could drink his own blood. In giving up his own life, he was able to save the life of the mother tiger and her cubs.
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September 24, 2008 - Wednesday
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Current mood: blessed
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Reprinted From:
http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/behaviour.html1
SECRET GOOD DEEDS "When we are humble everyone is a potential best friend and our generosity naturally grows. We want to do things, to help out. A wonderful Zen tradition is called "inji-gyo," or secret good deeds. The virtue gained through performing a secret good deed is believed to be immense. So, in a monastery, if one watched closely, you might see a monk secretly mending another's robes or taking down someone's laundry and folding it before the rain comes. In our temple I often find chocolate spontaneously appearing in my mailbox, or a beautiful poem, unsigned. This year the Easter Bunny visited our Sunday service, leaving chocolate eggs under everyone's cushions, even the one prepared for a visiting Zen master. Sometimes the bathrooms are miraculously cleaned overnight. And flowers spontaneously appear in a neighbor's yard, thanks to the children in the temple. Secret good deeds. They are so much fun. In their doing you can't help but smile."
Geri Larkin in "Tap Dancing in Zen"
THE TRUE PATH, OR EIGHT-FOLD NOBLE PATH If we can control our body and mind in a way that we help others instead of doing them harm, and generating wisdom in our own mind, we can end our suffering and problems. The Buddha summarised the correct attitude and actions in the Eight-fold Noble Path: (The first 3 are avoiding the 10 non-virtues of mind, speech and body:) - Correct thought: avoiding covetousness, the wish to harm others and wrong views (like thinking: actions have no consequences, I never have any problems, there are no ways to end suffering etc.)
- Correct speech: avoid lying, divisive and harsh speech and idle gossip.
- Correct actions: avoid killing, stealing and sexual misconduct
- Correct livelihood: try to make a living with the above attitude of thought, speech and actions.
- Correct understanding: developing genuine wisdom.
(The last three aspects refer mainly to the practice of meditation:) - Correct effort: after the first real step we need joyful perseverance to continue.
- Correct mindfulness: try to be aware of the "here and now", instead of dreaming in the "there and then".
- Correct concentration: to keep a steady, calm and attentive state of mind.
The Buddha explained that we can use the Four Yardsticks to assess if we are practicing the correct way:
one should feel happiness, compassion, love and joyous effort when practicing.
FREE E-BOOKS/TEACHINGS ON BUDDHISM (THERAVEDA Tradition)
(Not particularly dissimilar from the Mahayana Tradition generally posted here, at least not in this passage, I can't speak for all of the other information, but the teachings are said to be the branches, leaves, roots and fruits from the same tree :)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index.html
This excerpt from :
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel006.html
The Four Sublime States: Contemplations on Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity by Nyanaponika Thera
Four sublime states of mind have been taught by the Buddha: - Love or Loving-kindness (metta)
- Compassion (karuna)
- Sympathetic Joy (mudita)
- Equanimity (upekkha)
I. Love (Metta) Love, without desire to possess, knowing well that in the ultimate sense there is no possession and no possessor: this is the highest love. Love, without speaking and thinking of "I," knowing well that this so-called "I" is a mere delusion. Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to do so means to create love's own contrasts: dislike, aversion and hatred. Love, embracing all beings: small and great, far and near, be it on earth, in the water or in the air. Love, embracing impartially all sentient beings, and not only those who are useful, pleasing or amusing to us. Love, embracing all beings, be they noble-minded or low-minded, good or evil. The noble and the good are embraced because love is flowing to them spontaneously. The low-minded and evil-minded are included because they are those who are most in need of love. In many of them the seed of goodness may have died merely because warmth was lacking for its growth, because it perished from cold in a loveless world. Love, embracing all beings, knowing well that we all are fellow wayfarers through this round of existence — that we all are overcome by the same law of suffering. Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns, scorches and tortures, that inflicts more wounds than it cures — flaring up now, at the next moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and loneliness than was felt before. Rather, love that lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings, ever unchanged in its sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any response it meets. Love that is comforting coolness to those who burn with the fire of suffering and passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned in the cold desert of loneliness, to those who are shivering in the frost of a loveless world; to those whose hearts have become as if empty and dry by the repeated calls for help, by deepest despair. Love, that is a sublime nobility of heart and intellect which knows, understands and is ready to help. Love, that is strength and gives strength: this is the highest love. Love, which by the Enlightened One was named "the liberation of the heart," "the most sublime beauty": this is the highest love. And what is the highest manifestation of love? To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
II. Compassion (Karuna) The world suffers. But most men have their eyes and ears closed. They do not see the unbroken stream of tears flowing through life; they do not hear the cry of distress continually pervading the world. Their own little grief or joy bars their sight, deafens their ears. Bound by selfishness, their hearts turn stiff and narrow. Being stiff and narrow, how should they be able to strive for any higher goal, to realize that only release from selfish craving will effect their own freedom from suffering? It is compassion that removes the heavy bar, opens the door to freedom, makes the narrow heart as wide as the world. Compassion takes away from the heart the inert weight, the paralyzing heaviness; it gives wings to those who cling to the lowlands of self. Through compassion the fact of suffering remains vividly present to our mind, even at times when we personally are free from it. It gives us the rich experience of suffering, thus strengthening us to meet it prepared, when it does befall us. Compassion reconciles us to our own destiny by showing us the life of others, often much harder than ours. Behold the endless caravan of beings, men and beasts, burdened with sorrow and pain! The burden of every one of them, we also have carried in bygone times during the unfathomable sequence of repeated births. Behold this, and open your heart to compassion! And this misery may well be our own destiny again! He who is without compassion now, will one day cry for it. If sympathy with others is lacking, it will have to be acquired through one's own long and painful experience. This is the great law of life. Knowing this, keep guard over yourself! Beings, sunk in ignorance, lost in delusion, hasten from one state of suffering to another, not knowing the real cause, not knowing the escape from it. This insight into the general law of suffering is the real foundation of our compassion, not any isolated fact of suffering. Hence our compassion will also include those who at the moment may be happy, but act with an evil and deluded mind. In their present deeds we shall foresee their future state of distress, and compassion will arise. The compassion of the wise man does not render him a victim of suffering. His thoughts, words and deeds are full of pity. But his heart does not waver; unchanged it remains, serene and calm. How else should he be able to help? May such compassion arise in our hearts! Compassion that is sublime nobility of heart and intellect which knows, understands and is ready to help. Compassion that is strength and gives strength: this is highest compassion. And what is the highest manifestation of compassion? To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
III. Sympathetic Joy (Mudita) Not only to compassion, but also to joy with others open your heart! Small, indeed, is the share of happiness and joy allotted to beings! Whenever a little happiness comes to them, then you may rejoice that at least one ray of joy has pierced through the darkness of their lives, and dispelled the gray and gloomy mist that enwraps their hearts. Your life will gain in joy by sharing the happiness of others as if it were yours. Did you never observe how in moments of happiness men's features change and become bright with joy? Did you never notice how joy rouses men to noble aspirations and deeds, exceeding their normal capacity? Did not such experience fill your own heart with joyful bliss? It is in your power to increase such experience of sympathetic joy, by producing happiness in others, by bringing them joy and solace. Let us teach real joy to men! Many have unlearned it. Life, though full of woe, holds also sources of happiness and joy, unknown to most. Let us teach people to seek and to find real joy within themselves and to rejoice with the joy of others! Let us teach them to unfold their joy to ever sublimer heights! Noble and sublime joy is not foreign to the Teaching of the Enlightened One. Wrongly the Buddha's Teaching is sometimes considered to be a doctrine diffusing melancholy. Far from it: the Dhamma leads step by step to an ever purer and loftier happiness. Noble and sublime joy is a helper on the path to the extinction of suffering. Not he who is depressed by grief, but one possessed of joy finds that serene calmness leading to a contemplative state of mind. And only a mind serene and collected is able to gain the liberating wisdom. The more sublime and noble the joy of others is, the more justified will be our own sympathetic joy. A cause for our joy with others is their noble life securing them happiness here and in lives hereafter. A still nobler cause for our joy with others is their faith in the Dhamma, their understanding of the Dhamma, their following the Dhamma. Let us give them the help of the Dhamma! Let us strive to become more and more able ourselves to render such help! Sympathetic joy means a sublime nobility of heart and intellect which knows, understands and is ready to help. Sympathetic joy that is strength and gives strength: this is the highest joy. And what is the highest manifestation of sympathetic joy? To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
(MY OWN WORDS- I would like to make a personal comment here, I hope no one minds...I was neglected as a child, my mother left when I was a toddler for a few years, and when she came back into my life, she was not...a "good influence" if you will.
I was exposed to many frightening things and ended up raising myself from a very young age. I did not grow up with affection, compassion, understanding, or concern for others. I was focused on survival alone for a very long time..Throughout this time I was plagued by severe depression and anxiety. I lived in constant fear and loneliness.I still have problems with this, but believe I am making great strides.
The most surprising thing to me, after striving to practice Buddhism in a sincere and consistent way for the last 4 years or so, was the sudden awakening of this "Mudita" or Sympathetic Joy in my heart. I had never been one to reach out to people I didn't know, I had a very small circle of friends, limited contact with my paternal family, and was never interested in "small talk", hearing about or seeing pictures of other people's pets, children, lives. I felt I was extending my compassion to those less fortunate, I dedicated any merit I might gain through my meditation to the benefit of others. But I never felt really "connected" to others (Though I didn't exactly know that was a problem I experienced and that things could be different).
Then a casual friend at work became pregnant in a ..."scandalous" way..at least as far as many people were concerned. I found myself trying to stem incredible amounts of gossip, lying and backbiting against her. I felt I could understand how things happened the way they did, and did not feel it was anyone else's place to judge her.
She and I became quite close during this period and I felt honored by the opportunity to experience her much desired pregnancy through our friendship. I knew of her past pain and losses, and began to find myself lighter in my thoughts and warmed in my heart when I thought of her and her unborn daughter. Quickly and quite unexpectedly I grew to feel this Joy and Love for her and her daughter. I found myself speaking about her to others almost as though her experiences were my own. I was SO excited to meet the tiny child I had witnessed growing within my friend!
I am overflowing with this Joy of which these teachings speak now! For close friends, family, strangers even! "My Starfish" will be one year old on October 4th, and she is not only a blessing to her parents, but her presence here on this earth has been an AMAZING gift to me as well! I have found that while I previously believed I had a only bottomless well of pain inside, I now know that my capacity for JOY and LOVE and COMPASSION by FAR exceeds even my capacity for suffering, sadness and pain. I LOVE to love others! It makes me feel whole, and I pray that it benefits others even more - so far this has been the greatest lesson and blessing Buddhism has brought to my life. I work to gain further insight in order to create the causes of merit and good Karma for others everyday.
Thank you for allowing me to express this to you. I am overflowing with this newly discovered ability to feel compassion, empathy, and love for others and wanted to share it with you :)
IV. Equanimity (Upekkha) Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight. Looking at the world around us, and looking into our own heart, we see clearly how difficult it is to attain and maintain balance of mind. Looking into life we notice how it continually moves between contrasts: rise and fall, success and failure, loss and gain, honor and blame. We feel how our heart responds to all this with happiness and sorrow, delight and despair, disappointment and satisfaction, hope and fear. These waves of emotion carry us up and fling us down; and no sooner do we find rest, than we are in the power of a new wave again. How can we expect to get a footing on the crest of the waves? How can we erect the building of our lives in the midst of this ever restless ocean of existence, if not on the Island of Equanimity. A world where that little share of happiness allotted to beings is mostly secured after many disappointments, failures and defeats; a world where only the courage to start anew, again and again, promises success; a world where scanty joy grows amidst sickness, separation and death; a world where beings who were a short while ago connected with us by sympathetic joy, are at the next moment in want of our compassion — such a world needs equanimity. But the kind of equanimity required has to be based on vigilant presence of mind, not on indifferent dullness. It has to be the result of hard, deliberate training, not the casual outcome of a passing mood. But equanimity would not deserve its name if it had to be produced by exertion again and again. In such a case it would surely be weakened and finally defeated by the vicissitudes of life. True equanimity, however, should be able to meet all these severe tests and to regenerate its strength from sources within. It will possess this power of resistance and self-renewal only if it is rooted in insight. What, now, is the nature of that insight? It is the clear understanding of how all these vicissitudes of life originate, and of our own true nature. We have to understand that the various experiences we undergo result from our kamma — our actions in thought, word and deed — performed in this life and in earlier lives. Kamma is the womb from which we spring (kamma-yoni), and whether we like it or not, we are the inalienable "owners" of our deeds (kamma-ssaka). But as soon as we have performed any action, our control over it is lost: it forever remains with us and inevitably returns to us as our due heritage (kamma-dayada). Nothing that happens to us comes from an "outer" hostile world foreign to ourselves; everything is the outcome of our own mind and deeds. Because this knowledge frees us from fear, it is the first basis of equanimity. When, in everything that befalls us we only meet ourselves, why should we fear? If, however, fear or uncertainty should arise, we know the refuge where it can be allayed: our good deeds (kamma-patisarana). By taking this refuge, confidence and courage will grow within us — confidence in the protecting power of our good deeds done in the past; courage to perform more good deeds right now, despite the discouraging hardships of our present life. For we know that noble and selfless deeds provide the best defense against the hard blows of destiny, that it is never too late but always the right time for good actions. If that refuge, in doing good and avoiding evil, becomes firmly established within us, one day we shall feel assured: "More and more ceases the misery and evil rooted in the past. And this present life — I try to make it spotless and pure. What else can the future bring than increase of the good?" And from that certainty our minds will become serene, and we shall gain the strength of patience and equanimity to bear with all our present adversities. Then our deeds will be our friends (kamma-bandhu). Likewise, all the various events of our lives, being the result of our deeds, will also be our friends, even if they bring us sorrow and pain. Our deeds return to us in a guise that often makes them unrecognizable. Sometimes our actions return to us in the way that others treat us, sometimes as a thorough upheaval in our lives; often the results are against our expectations or contrary to our wills. Such experiences point out to us consequences of our deeds we did not foresee; they render visible half-conscious motives of our former actions which we tried to hide even from ourselves, covering them up with various pretexts. If we learn to see things from this angle, and to read the message conveyed by our own experience, then suffering, too, will be our friend. It will be a stern friend, but a truthful and well-meaning one who teaches us the most difficult subject, knowledge about ourselves, and warns us against abysses towards which we are moving blindly. By looking at suffering as our teacher and friend, we shall better succeed in enduring it with equanimity. Consequently, the teaching of kamma will give us a powerful impulse for freeing ourselves from kamma, from those deeds which again and again throw us into the suffering of repeated births. Disgust will arise at our own craving, at our own delusion, at our own propensity to create situations which try our strength, our resistance and our equanimity. The second insight on which equanimity should be based is the Buddha's teaching of no-self (anatta). This doctrine shows that in the ultimate sense deeds are not performed by any self, nor do their results affect any self. Further, it shows that if there is no self, we cannot speak of "my own." It is the delusion of a self that creates suffering and hinders or disturbs equanimity. If this or that quality of ours is blamed, one thinks: "I am blamed" and equanimity is shaken. If this or that work does not succeed, one thinks: "My work has failed" and equanimity is shaken. If wealth or loved ones are lost, one thinks: "What is mine has gone" and equanimity is shaken. To establish equanimity as an unshakable state of mind, one has to give up all possessive thoughts of "mine," beginning with little things from which it is easy to detach oneself, and gradually working up to possessions and aims to which one's whole heart clings. One also has to give up the counterpart to such thoughts, all egoistic thoughts of "self," beginning with a small section of one's personality, with qualities of minor importance, with small weaknesses one clearly sees, and gradually working up to those emotions and aversions which one regards as the center of one's being. Thus detachment should be practiced. To the degree we forsake thoughts of "mine" or "self" equanimity will enter our hearts. For how can anything we realize to be foreign and void of a self cause us agitation due to lust, hatred or grief? Thus the teaching of no-self will be our guide on the path to deliverance, to perfect equanimity. Equanimity is the crown and culmination of the four sublime states. But this should not be understood to mean that equanimity is the negation of love, compassion and sympathetic joy, or that it leaves them behind as inferior. Far from that, equanimity includes and pervades them fully, just as they fully pervade perfect equanimity.
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September 22, 2008 - Monday
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Current mood: inspired
Category: Religion and Philosophy
REPRINTED FROM
http://www.lamayeshe.com/lamayeshe/byot/byot_2.shtml
Becoming Your Own Therapist
An Introduction to the Buddhist Way of Thought
Lama Thubten Yeshe
Index
Chapter 1 - Finding Ourselves Through Buddhism
Chapter 2 - Religion: The Path Of Inquiry
Chapter 3 - A Glimpse of Buddhist Psychology
Chapter Two - Religion: The Path Of Inquiry
People have many different ideas about the nature of religion in general and Buddhism in particular. Those who consider religion and Buddhism at only the superficial, intellectual level will never understand the true significance of either. And those whose view of religion is even more superficial than that will not even consider Buddhism to be a religion at all.
First of all, in Buddhism we're not that interested in talking about the Buddha himself. Nor was he; he wasn't interested in people believing in him, so to this day Buddhism has never encouraged its followers simply to believe in the Buddha. We have always been more interested in understanding human psychology, the nature of the mind. Thus, Buddhist practitioners always try to understand their own mental attitudes, concepts, perceptions and consciousness. Those are the things that really matter.
Otherwise, if you forget about yourself and your delusions and focus instead on some lofty idea—like "What is Buddha?"—your spiritual journey becomes a dream-like hallucination. That's possible; be careful. In your mind there's no connection between Buddha, or God, and yourself. They're completely separate things: you're completely down here; Buddha, or God, is completely up there. There's no connection whatsoever. It's not realistic to think that way. It's too extreme. You're putting one thing down at the lower extreme and the other way up at the upper. In Buddhism, we call that kind of mind dualistic.
Furthermore, if humans are completely negative by nature, what is the point of seeking a higher idea? Anyway, ideas are not realizations. People always want to know all about the highest attainments or the nature of God, but such intellectual knowledge has nothing to do with their lives or their minds. True religion should be the pursuit of self-realization, not an exercise in the accumulation of facts.
In Buddhism, we are not particularly interested in the quest for intellectual knowledge alone. We are much more interested in understanding what's happening here and now, in comprehending our present experiences, what we are at this very moment, our fundamental nature. We want to know how to find satisfaction, how to find happiness and joy instead of depression and misery, how to overcome the feeling that our nature is totally negative.
Lord Buddha himself taught that basically, human nature is pure, egoless, just as the sky is by nature clear, not cloudy. Clouds come and go, but the blue sky is always there; clouds don't alter the fundamental nature of the sky. Similarly, the human mind is fundamentally pure, not one with the ego. Anyway, whether you are a religious person or not, if you can't separate yourself from your ego, you're completely misguided; you've created for yourself a totally unrealistic philosophy of life that has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
Instead of grasping at intellectual knowledge, wanting to know what's the highest thing going, you'd be much better off trying to gain an understanding of the basic nature of your own mind and how to deal with it right now. It is so important to know how to act effectively: method is the key to any religion, the most important thing to learn.
Say you hear about an amazing treasure house containing jewels for the taking but don't have the key to the door: all your fantasies about how you'll spend your new-found wealth are a complete hallucination. Similarly, fantasizing about wonderful religious ideas and peak experiences but having no interest in immediate action or the methods of attainment is totally unrealistic. If you have no method, no key, no way to bring your religion into your everyday life, you'd be better off with Coca-Cola. At least that quenches your thirst. If your religion is simply an idea, it's as insubstantial as air. You should be very careful that you understand exactly what religion is and how it should be practiced.
Lord Buddha himself said, "Belief is not important. Don't believe what I say just because I said it." These were his dying words. "I have taught many different methods because there are many different individuals. Before you embrace any of them, use your wisdom to check that they fit your psychological make-up, your own mind. If my methods seem to make sense and work for you, by all means adopt them. But if you don't relate to them, even though they might sound wonderful, leave them be. They were taught for somebody else."
These days, you can't tell most people that they should believe something just because Buddha said, because God said. It's not enough for them. They'll reject it; they want proof. But those who cannot understand that the nature of their mind is pure will be unable to see the possibility of discovering their innate purity and will lose whatever chance they had to do so. If you think that your mind is fundamentally negative, you tend to lose all hope.
Of course, the human mind has both positive and negative sides. But the negative is transient, very temporary. Your up and down emotions are like clouds in the sky; beyond them, the real, basic human nature is clear and pure.
Many people misunderstand Buddhism. Even some professors of Buddhist studies look at just the words and interpret what the Buddha taught very literally. They don't understand his methods, which are the real essence of his teachings. In my opinion, the most important aspect of any religion is its methods: how to put that religion into your own experience. The better you understand how to do that, the more effective your religion becomes. Your practice becomes so natural, so realistic; you easily come to understand your own nature, your own mind, and you don't get surprised by whatever you find in it. Then, when you understand the nature of your own mind, you'll be able to control it naturally; you won't have to push so hard; understanding naturally brings control.
Many people will imagine that control of the mind is some kind of tight, restrictive bondage. Actually, control is a natural state. But you're not going to say that, are you? You're going to say that the mind is uncontrolled by nature, that it is natural for the mind to be uncontrolled. But it's not. When you realize the nature of your uncontrolled mind, control comes as naturally as your present uncontrolled state arises. Moreover, the only way to gain control over your mind is to understand its nature. You can never force your mind, your internal world, to change. Nor can you purify your mind by punishing yourself physically, by beating your body. That's totally impossible. Impurity, sin, negativity or whatever else you want to call it is psychological, a mental phenomenon, so you can't stop it physically. Purification requires a skillful combination of method and wisdom.
To purify your mind, you don't have to believe in something special up there—God, or Buddha. Don't worry about that. When you truly realize the up and down nature of your everyday life, the characteristic nature of your own mental attitude, you'll automatically want to implement a solution.
These days, many people are disillusioned with religion; they seem to think it doesn't work. Religion works. It offers fantastic solutions to all your problems. The problem is that people don't understand the characteristic nature of religion, so they don't have the will to implement its methods.
Consider the materialistic life. It's a state of complete agitation and conflict. You can never fix things to be the way you want. You can't just wake up in the morning and decide exactly how you want your day to unfold. Forget about weeks, months, or years; you can't even predetermine one day. If I were to ask you right now if you can get up in the morning and set exactly how your day was going to go, how you were going to feel each moment, what would you say? There's no way you can do that, is there?
No matter how much you make yourself materially comfortable, no matter how you arrange your house—you have this, you have that; you put one thing here, you put another there—you can never manipulate your mind in the same way. You can never determine the way you're going to feel all day. How can you fix your mind like that? How can you say, "Today I'm going to be like this"? I can tell you with absolute certainty, as long as your mind is uncontrolled, agitated and dualistic, there's no way; it's impossible. When I say this, I'm not putting you down; I'm just talking about the way the mind works. What all this goes to show is that no matter how you make yourself materially comfortable, no matter how much you tell yourself, "Oh, this makes me happy, today I'm going to be happy all day long," it's impossible to predetermine your life like that. Automatically, your feelings keep changing, changing, changing. This shows that the materialistic life doesn't work. However, I don't mean that you should renounce the worldly life and become ascetics. That's not what I'm saying. My point is that if you understand spiritual principles correctly and act accordingly, you will find much greater satisfaction and meaning in your life than you will by relying on the sense world alone. The sense world alone cannot satisfy the human mind.
Thus, the only purpose for the existence of what we call religion is for us to understand the nature of our own psyche, our own mind, our own feelings. Whatever name we give to our spiritual path, the most important thing is that we get to know our own experiences, our own feelings. Therefore, the lamas' experience of Buddhism is that instead of emphasizing belief, it places prime importance on personal experimentation, putting Dharma methods into action and assessing the effect they have on our minds: do these methods help? Have our minds changed or are they just as uncontrolled as they ever were? This is Buddhism, and this method of checking the mind is called meditation.
It's an individual thing; you can't generalize. It all comes down to personal understanding, personal experience. If your path is not providing solutions to your problems, answers to your questions, satisfaction to your mind, you must check up. Perhaps there's something wrong with your point of view, your understanding. You can't necessarily conclude that there's something wrong with your religion just because you tried it and it didn't work. Different individuals have their own ideas, views, and understanding of religion, and can make mistakes. Therefore, make sure that the way you understand your religion's ideas and methods is correct. If you make the right effort on the basis of right understanding, you will experience deep inner satisfaction. Thus, you'll prove to yourself that satisfaction does not depend on anything external. True satisfaction comes from the mind.
We often feel miserable and our world seems upside-down because we believe that external things will work exactly as we plan and expect them to. We expect things that are changeable by nature not to change, impermanent things to last forever. Then, when they do change, we get upset. Getting upset when something in your house breaks shows that you didn't really understand its impermanent nature. When it's time for something to break, it's going to break, no matter what you expect.
Nevertheless, we still expect material things to last. Nothing material lasts; it's impossible. Therefore, to find lasting satisfaction, you should put more effort into your spiritual practice and meditation than into manipulating the world around you. Lasting satisfaction comes from your mind, from within you. Your main problem is your uncontrolled, dissatisfied mind, whose nature is suffering.
Knowing this, when any problem arises, instead of getting upset because of your unfulfilled expectations and busily distracting yourself with some external activity, relax, sit down and examine the situation with your own mind. That is a much more constructive way of dealing with problems and pacifying your mind. Moreover, when you do this, you are allowing your innate knowledge-wisdom to grow. Wisdom can never grow in an agitated, confused and restless mind.
Agitated mental states are a major obstacle to your gaining of wisdom. So too is the misconception that your ego and your mind's nature are one and the same. If that's what you believe, you'll never be able to separate them and reach beyond ego. As long as you believe that you are totally in the nature of sin and negativity you will never be able to transcend them. What you believe is very important and very effectively perpetuates your wrong views. In the West, people seem to think that if you aren't one with your ego, you can't have a life, get a job or do anything. That's a dangerous delusion—you can't separate ego from mind, ego from life. That's your big problem. You think that if you lose your ego you'll lose your personality, your mind, your human nature.
That's simply not true; you shouldn't worry about that. If you lose your ego you'll be happy—you should be happy. But of course, this raises the question, what is the ego? In the West, people seem to have so many words for the ego, but do they know what the ego really is? Anyway, it doesn't matter how perfect your English is, the ego is not a word; the word is just a symbol. The actual ego is within you: it's the wrong conception that your self is independent, permanent and inherently existent. In reality, what you believe to be "I" doesn't exist.
If I were to ask everybody here to check deeply, beyond words, what they thought the ego was, each person would have a different idea. I'm not joking; this is my experience. You should check your own. We always say, very superficially, "That's your ego," but we have no idea of what the ego really is. Sometimes we even use the term pejoratively: "Oh, don't worry, that's just your ego," or something like that, but if you check up more deeply, you'll see that the average person thinks that the ego is his personality, his life. Men feel that if they were to lose their ego, they'd lose their personalities, they'd no longer be men; women feel that were they to lose their ego they'd lose their female qualities. That's not true; not true at all. Still, based on Westerners' interpretation of life and ego, that's pretty much what it comes down to. They think the ego is something positive in the sense that it's essential for living in society; that if you don't have an ego, you can't mix in society. You check up more deeply—on the mental level, not the physical. It's interesting.
Even many psychologists describe the ego at such a superficial level that you'd think it was a physical entity. From the Buddhist point of view, the ego is a mental concept, not a physical thing. Of course, symptoms of ego activity can manifest externally, such as when, for example, someone's angry and his face and body reflect that angry vibration. But that's not anger itself; it's a symptom of anger. Similarly, ego is not its external manifestations but a mental factor, a psychological attitude. You can't see it from the outside.
When you meditate, you can see why today you're up, tomorrow you're down: mood swings are caused by your mind. People who don't check within themselves come up with very superficial reasons like, "I'm unhappy today because the sun's not shining," but most of the time your ups and downs are due to primarily psychological factors.
When a strong wind blows, the clouds vanish and blue sky appears. Similarly, when the powerful wisdom that understands the nature of the mind arises, the dark clouds of ego disappear. Beyond the ego—the agitated, uncontrolled mind—lie everlasting peace and satisfaction. That's why Lord Buddha prescribed penetrative analysis of both your positive and your negative sides. In particular, when your negative mind arises, instead of being afraid, you should examine it more closely.
You see, Buddhism is not at all a tactful religion, always trying to avoid giving offense. Buddhism addresses precisely what you are and what your mind is doing in the here and now. That's what makes it so interesting. You can't expect to hear only positive things. Sure you have a positive side, but what about the negative aspects of your nature? To gain an equal understanding of both, an understanding of the totality of your being, you have to look at your negative characteristics as well as the positive ones, and not try to cover them up.
I don't have much more to say right now, but I'd be happy to try to answer some questions.
Q: Lama, were you saying that we should express rather than suppress our negative actions, that we should let the negativity come out?
Lama: It depends. There are two things. If the negative emotion has already bubbled to the surface, it's probably better to express it in some way, but it's preferable if you can deal with it before it has reached that level. Of course, if you don't have a method of dealing with strong negative emotions and you try to bottle them up deep inside, eventually that can lead to serious problems, such as an explosion of anger that causes someone to pick up a gun and shoot people. What Buddhism teaches is a method of examining that emotion with wisdom and digesting it through meditation, which allows the emotion to simply dissolve. Expressing strong negative emotions externally leaves a tremendously deep impression on your consciousness. This kind of imprint makes it easier for you to react in the same harmful way again, except that the second time it may be even more powerful than the first. This sets up a karmic chain of cause and effect that perpetuates such negative behavior. Therefore, you have to exercise skill and judgment in dealing with negative energy, learn when and how to express it and, especially, know how to recognize it early in the piece and digest it with wisdom.
Q: Could you please explain the relationship between Buddhist meditation techniques and hatha yoga?
Lama: In Buddhism we tend to focus more on penetrative introspection than on bodily movement, although there are certain practices where the meditation techniques are enhanced by physical exercises. In general, Buddhist meditation teaches us to look within at what we are, to understand our own true nature. All the same, Buddhist meditation does not necessarily imply sitting in the lotus position with your eyes closed—meditation can be brought into every aspect of your daily life. It is important to be aware of everything you do so that you don't unconsciously harm either yourself or others. Whether you are walking, talking, working, eating...whatever you do, be conscious of the actions of your body, speech and mind.
Q: Do Buddhists control their prana [wind energy] completely through the mind?
Lama: Yes. If you can control your mind, you can control anything. It's impossible to control your physical body without first controlling your mind. If you try to control your body forcibly, if you pump yourself up with no understanding of the mind-body relationship, it can be very dangerous and cause your mind great harm.
Q: Can you reach as deep a state of meditation through walking as you can through sitting?
Lama: Sure, it's theoretically possible, but it depends upon the individual. For beginners, it is obviously much easier to attain deeper states of concentration through sitting meditation. Experienced meditaters, however, can maintain single-pointed concentration, a fully integrated mind, whatever they're doing, including walking. Of course, if someone's mind is completely disturbed, even sitting meditation may not be enough for him to integrate his mind. One of the hallmarks of Buddhism is that you can't say that everybody should do this, everybody should be like that; it depends on the individual. However, we do have a clearly defined, step-like path of meditation practice: first you develop this, then you move on to that, and so on through the various levels of concentration. Similarly, the entire path to enlightenment—we call it the lam-rim— has been laid out in a graded, logical fashion so that each person can find his or her own level and take it from there.
Q: Lama, can the various negative thoughts that arise in our minds come from a source outside of ourselves, from other people, or perhaps from spirits?
Lama: Well, that's a very good question. The real source, the deep root of negativity, lies within our own minds, but for this to manifest usually requires interaction with a cooperative, environmental cause, such as other people or the material world. For example, some people experience mood swings as a result of astrological influences, such as the vibration of planetary movement. Others' emotions fluctuate because of hormonal changes in their bodies. Such experiences do not come from their minds alone but through the interaction of physical and mental energy. Of course, we would also say that the fact that we find ourselves in a body susceptible to this kind of change originally comes from our minds. But I don't think Lord Buddha would say that there is some outer spirit harming you like that. What is possible is that your inner energy is relating to some outer energy, and that it is that interaction that makes you sick.
You can see from your own life experiences how the environment can affect you. When you're amongst peaceful, generous, happy people, you're inclined to feel happy and peaceful yourself. When you're amongst angry, aggressive people, you tend to become like them. The human mind is like a mirror. A mirror does not discriminate but simply reflects whatever's before it, no matter whether it's horrible or wonderful. Similarly, your mind takes on the aspect of your surroundings, and if you're not aware of what's going on, your mind can fill with garbage. Therefore, it is very important to be conscious of your surroundings and how they affect your mind.
The thing that you have to understand about religion is how your religion relates to your own mind, how it relates to the life you lead. If you can manage that, religion is fantastic; the realizations are there. You don't need to emphasize belief in God, or Buddha, or sin or whatever; don't worry about all that. Just act out of right understanding as best you can and you'll get results, even today. Forget about super consciousness or super universal love—universal love grows slowly, steadily, gradually. If, however, you're just clinging to the notion, "Oh, fantastic! Infinite knowledge, infinite power," you're simply on a power trip. Of course, spiritual power really does exist, but the only way you can get it is by engaging in the proper spiritual actions. Power comes from within you; part of you becomes power, too. Don't think that the only true power is up there, somewhere in the sky. You have power; your mind is power.
Q: Perception is one of the five aggregates that, according to Buddhist philosophy, constitute a person. How does it work?
Lama: Yes, that's another good question. Most of the time, our perception is illusory; we're not perceiving reality. Sure, we see the sense world—attractive shapes, beautiful colors, nice tastes and so forth—but we don't actually perceive the real, true nature of the shapes, colors and tastes we see. That's how most of the time our perception is mistaken. So our mistaken perception processes the information supplied by our five senses and transmits incorrect information to our mind, which reacts under the influence of the ego. The result of all this is that most of the time we are hallucinating, not seeing the true nature of things, not under- standing the reality of even the sense world.
Q: Does past karma affect our perception?
Lama: Yes, of course. Past karma affects our perception a lot. Our ego grasps at our uncontrolled perception's view, and our mind just follows along: that entire uncontrolled situation is what we call karma. Karma is not simply some irrelevant theory; it's the everyday perceptions in which we live, that's all.
Q: Lama, what is the relationship between the body and mind as far as food is concerned.
Lama: Body is not mind, mind is not body, but the two have a very special connection. They are very closely linked, very sensitive to changes in each other. For example, when people take drugs, the substance doesn't affect the mind directly. But since the mind is connected to the body's nervous system and sense organs, changes induced in the nervous system by the drug throw it out of harmony and cause the mind to hallucinate. There's a very strong connection between the body and the mind. In Tibetan tantric yoga, we take advantage of that strong connection: by concentrating strongly on the body's psychic channels we can affect the mind accordingly. Therefore, even in everyday life, the food you eat and the other things your body touches have an effect on your mind.
Q: Is fasting good for you?
Lama: Fasting is not all that important unless you are engaged in certain special mind training practices. Then, fasting may even be essential. This is certainly the lamas' experience. For example, if you eat and drink all day and then try to meditate in the evening, your concentration will be very poor. Therefore, when we're doing serious meditation, we eat only once a day. In the morning, we just drink tea; at midday we have lunch; and in the evening, instead of eating, we again drink tea. For us, this kind of routine makes life desirably simple and the body very comfortable; but for someone not engaged in mind training, it would probably feel like torture. Normally, we don't advocate fasting. We tell people not to punish themselves but simply to be happy and reasonable and to keep their bodies as healthy as they can. If your body gets weak, your mind becomes useless. When your mind becomes useless, your precious human life becomes useless. But on special occasions, when fasting enhances your meditation practice, when there's a higher purpose, I would say yes, fasting can be good for you.
Thank you very much. If there are no further questions, I won't keep you any longer. Thank you very much.
Brisbane, Australia, 28 April 1975
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September 18, 2008 - Thursday
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Current mood: hopeful
Category: Religion and Philosophy
REPRINTED FROM
http://www.lamayeshe.com/lamayeshe/byot/byot_1.shtml
Becoming Your Own Therapist - CHAPTER 1
An Introduction to the Buddhist Way of Thought
Lama Thubten Yeshe
* Chapter 1: Finding Ourselves Through Buddhism
* Chapter 2: Religion: The Path Of Inquiry
* Chapter 3: A Glimpse of Buddhist Psychology
Chapter One - Finding Ourselves Through Buddhism
When we study Buddhism, we are studying ourselves, the nature of our own minds. Instead of focusing on some supreme being, Buddhism emphasizes more practical matters, such as how to lead our lives, how to integrate our minds and how to keep our everyday lives peaceful and healthy. In other words, Buddhism always accentuates experiential knowledge-wisdom rather than some dogmatic view. In fact, we don't even consider Buddhism to be a religion in the usual sense of the term. From the lamas' point of view, Buddhist teachings are more in the realm of philosophy, science or psychology.
The human mind instinctively seeks happiness. East, West—there's no difference; everybody's doing the same thing. But if your search for happiness is causing you to grasp emotionally at the sense world, it can be very dangerous. You have no control.
Now, don't think that control is an Eastern thing, a Buddhist thing. We all need control, especially those of us caught up in the materialistic life; psychologically, emotionally, we're too involved in objects of attachment. From the Buddhist point of view, that's an unhealthy mind; the person is mentally ill.
Actually, you already know that external, scientific technological development alone cannot satisfy the desires of your attachment or solve your other emotional problems. But what Lord Buddha's teaching shows you is the characteristic nature of human potential, the capacity of the human mind. When you study Buddhism, you learn what you are and how to develop further; instead of emphasizing some kind of supernatural belief system, Buddhist methods teach you to develop a deep understanding of yourself and all other phenomena.
However, whether you are religious or a materialist, a believer or an atheist, it is crucial that you know how your own mind works. If you don't, you'll go around thinking you're healthy, when in reality, the deep root of afflictive emotions, the true cause of all psychological disease, is there, growing within you. Because of that, all it takes is some tiny external thing changing, something insignificant going wrong, and within a few seconds, you're completely upset. To me, that shows you're mentally ill. Why? Because you're obsessed with the sense world, blinded by attachment, and under the control of the fundamental cause of all problems, not knowing the nature of your own mind.
It doesn't matter if you try to refute what I'm saying by telling me that you don't believe it. It's not a question of belief. No matter how much you say, "I don't believe I have a nose," your nose is still there, right between your eyes. Your nose is always there, whether you believe it or not.
I've met many people who proudly proclaim, "I'm not a believer." They're so proud of their professed lack of belief in anything. You check up; this is important to know. In the world today there are so many contradictions. Scientific materialists boast, "I don't believe"; religious people say, "I believe." But no matter what you think, you still need to know the characteristic nature of your own mind. If you don't, then no matter how much you talk about the shortcomings of attachment, you have no idea what attachment actually is or how to control it. Words are easy. What's really difficult is to understand the true nature of attachment.
For example, when people first made cars and planes, their intention was to be able to do things more quickly so that they'd have more time for rest. But what's happened instead is that people are more restless than ever. Examine your own everyday life. Because of attachment, you get emotionally involved in a concrete sense world of your own creation, denying yourself the space or time to see the reality of your own mind. To me, that's the very definition of a difficult life. You cannot find satisfaction or enjoyment. The truth is that pleasure and joy actually come from the mind, not from objective phenomena.
Nevertheless, some intelligent, skeptical people do understand to a degree that material objects do not guarantee a worthwhile, enjoyable life and are trying to see if there really is something else that might offer true satisfaction.
When Lord Buddha spoke about suffering, he wasn't referring simply to superficial problems like illness and injury, but to the fact that the dissatisfied nature of the mind itself is suffering. No matter how much of something you get, it never satisfies your desire for better or more. This unceasing desire is suffering; its nature is emotional frustration.
Buddhist psychology describes six basic emotions that frustrate the human mind, disturbing its peace, making it restless: ignorance, attachment, anger, pride, deluded doubt and distorted views. These are mental attitudes, not external phenomena. Buddhism emphasizes that to overcome these delusions, the root of all your suffering, belief and faith are not much help: you have to understand their nature.
If you do not investigate your own mind with introspective knowledge-wisdom, you will never see what's in there. Without checking, no matter how much you talk about your mind and your emotions, you'll never really understand that your basic emotion is egocentricity and that this is what's making you restless.
Now, to overcome your ego you don't have to give up all your possessions. Keep your possessions; they're not what's making your life difficult. You're restless because you are clinging to your possessions with attachment; ego and attachment pollute your mind, making it unclear, ignorant and agitated, and prevent the light of wisdom from growing. The solution to this problem is meditation.
Meditation does not imply only the development of single pointed concentration, sitting in some corner doing nothing. Meditation is an alert state of mind, the opposite of sluggishness; meditation is wisdom. You should remain aware every moment of your daily life, fully conscious of what you are doing and why and how you are doing it.
We do almost everything unconsciously. We eat unconsciously; we drink unconsciously; we talk unconsciously. Although we claim to be conscious, we are completely unaware of the afflictions rampaging through our minds, influencing everything we do.
Check up for yourselves; experiment. I'm not being judgmental or putting you down. This is how Buddhism works. It gives you ideas that you can check out in your own experience to see if they're true or not. It's very down-to-earth; I'm not talking about something way up there in the sky. It's actually a very simple thing.
If you don't know the characteristic nature of attachment and its objects, how can you generate loving kindness towards your friends, your parents or your country? From the Buddhist point of view, it's impossible. When you hurt your parents or your friends, it's your unconscious mind at work. When acting out his anger, the angry person is completely oblivious as to what's happening in his mind. Being unconscious makes us hurt and disrespect other sentient beings; being unaware of our own behavior and mental attitude makes us lose our humanity. That's all. It's so simple, isn't it?
These days, people study and train to become psychologists. Lord Buddha's idea is that everybody should become a psychologist. Each of us should know our own mind; you should become your own psychologist. This is definitely possible; every human being has the ability to understand his or her own mind. When you understand your own mind, control follows naturally.
Don't think that control is just some Himalayan trip or that it must be easier for people who don't have many possessions. That's not necessarily true. Next time you are emotionally upset, check for yourself. Instead of busily doing something to distract yourself, relax and try to become aware of what you're doing. Ask yourself, "Why am I doing this? How am I doing it? What's the cause?" You will find this to be a wonderful experience. Your main problem is a lack of intensive know-ledge-wisdom, awareness, or consciousness. Therefore, you will discover that through understanding, you can easily solve your problems.
To feel loving kindness for others, you have to know the nature of the object. If you don't, then even though you say, "I love him; I love her," it's just your arrogant mind taking you on yet another ego trip. Make sure you know how and why. It is very important that you become your own psychologist. Then you can treat yourself through the understanding wisdom of your own mind; you'll be able to relax with and enjoy your friends and possessions instead of becoming restless and berserk and wasting your life.
To become your own psychologist, you don't have to learn some big philosophy. All you have to do is examine your own mind every day. You already examine material things every day—every morning you check out the food in your kitchen—but you never investigate your mind. Checking your mind is much more important.
Nevertheless, most people seem to believe the opposite. They seem to think that they can simply buy the solution to whatever problem they're facing. The materialistic attitude that money can buy whatever you need to be happy, that you can purchase a peaceful mind, is obviously not true, but even though you may not say the words, this is what you're thinking. It's a complete misconception.
Even people who consider themselves religious need to understand their own minds. Faith alone never stops problems; understanding knowledge-wisdom always does. Lord Buddha himself said that belief in Buddha was dangerous; that instead of just believing in something, people should use their minds to try to discover their own true nature. Belief based on understanding is fine; once you realize or are intellectually clear about something, belief follows automatically. However, if your faith is based on misconceptions it can easily be destroyed by what others say.
Unfortunately, even though they consider themselves religious, many spiritually inclined people are weak. Why? Because they don't understand the true nature of their mind. If you really know what your mind is and how it works, you'll understand that it's mental energy that prevents you from being healthy. When you understand your own mind's view, or perception, of the world, you'll realize that not only are you constantly grasping at the sense world, but also that what you're grasping at is merely imaginary. You will see that you're too concerned with what's going to happen in a non-existent future and totally unconscious of the present moment, that you are living for a mere projection. Don't you agree that a mind that is unconscious in the present and constantly grasping at the future is unhealthy?
It is important to be conscious in your everyday life. The nature of conscious awareness and wisdom is peace and joy. You don't need to grasp at some future resultant joy. As long as you follow the path of right understanding and right action to the best of your ability, the result will be immediate, simultaneous with the action. You don't have to think, "If I spend my lifetime acting right, perhaps I'll get some good result in my next life." You don't need to obsess over the attainment of future realizations. As long as you act in the present with as much understanding as you possibly can, you'll realize everlasting peace in no time at all.
And I think that's enough from me. Better that we have a question and answer session, instead of my talking all the time. Thank you.
Q: When you were talking about meditation, you didn't mention visualization. It seems that some people find it relatively easy to visualize while others find it quite difficult. How important is it to develop the ability to visualize things in the mind?
Lama: Many people have trouble visualizing what's described to them simply because they have not trained their minds in it, but for others it's because they have a poor imagination; they're too physical. Perhaps they think that all there is to their being is their physical body, that there's no mind apart from their brain. However, Buddhism has methods whereby you can train your mind and develop the ability to visualize in meditation. But in reality, you visualize all day long. The breakfast you eat in the morning is a visualization. Whenever you go shopping and think, "This is nice," or "I don't like that," whatever you're looking at is a projection of your own mind. When you get up in the morning and see the sun shining and think, "Oh, it's going to be nice today," that's your own mind visualizing. Actually, visualization is quite well understood. Even shopkeepers and advertising agents know the importance of visualization, so they create displays or billboards to attract your attention: "Buy this!" They know that things you see affect your mind, your visualization. Visualization is not something supernatural; it's scientific.
Q: From what you say, I get the impression you're somewhat critical of the West, that you laugh at what we do and the way we try to civilize the uncivilized. I don't really have a question, but what future do you see for mankind in terms of what the so-called progressive West is developing: bigger planes, bigger houses, bigger supermarkets? What future do you see for the West?
Lama: I see that Western people are getting busier and busier, more and more restless. I'm not criticizing material or technological development as such, but rather the uncontrolled mind. Because you don't know who or what you are, you spend your life blindly grasping at what I call "supermarket goodness." You agitate your own life; you make yourself restless. Instead of integrating your life, you splinter it. Check up for yourself. I'm not putting you down. In fact, Buddhism doesn't allow us to dogmatically put down anybody else's way of life. All I'm trying to suggest is that you consider looking at things another way.
Q: Lama, like yourself, most of the Tibetan teachers we see are men. I was wondering if there are any female rinpoches or tulkus?
Lama: Yes, of course. Men and women are completely equal when it comes to developing higher states of mind. In Tibet, monks would sometimes take teachings from female rinpoches. Buddhism teaches that you can't judge people from the outside; you can't say, "He's nothing; I'm special." You can never really tell by outer appearances who's higher and who's lower.
Q: Is the role of a Buddhist nun very different from that of a monk?
Lama: Not really. They study the same things and teach their students in the same way.
Q: Sometimes it's hard to find a teacher. Is it dangerous to try to practice tantra, for example, without a teacher, just by reading books?
Lama: Yes, very dangerous. Without specific instructions, you can't just pick up a book on tantra and think, "Wow, what fantastic ideas. I want to practice this right now!" This kind of attitude never brings realizations. You need the guidance of an experienced teacher. Sure, the ideas are fantastic, but if you don't know the method, you can't put them into your own experience; you have to have the key. Many Buddhist books have been translated into English. They'll tell you, "Attachment is bad; don't get angry," but how do you actually abandon attachment and anger? The Bible, too, recommends universal love, but how do you bring universal love into your own experience? You need the key, and sometimes only a teacher can give you that.
Q: What should people in the West do when they can't find a teacher? Should those who are really searching go to the East to find one?
Lama: Don't worry. When the time is right, you'll meet your teacher. Buddhism doesn't believe that you can push other people: "Everybody should learn to meditate; everybody should become Buddhists." That's stupid. Pushing people is unwise. When you're ready, some kind of magnetic energy will bring you together with your teacher. About going to the East, it depends on your personal situation. Check up. The important thing is to search with wisdom and not blind faith. Sometimes, even if you go to the East, you still can't find a teacher. It takes time.
Q: What is the Buddhist attitude towards suicide?
Lama: People who take their own lives have no understanding of the purpose or value of being born human. They kill themselves out of ignorance. They can't find satisfaction, so they think, "I'm hopeless."
Q: If a person, out of ignorance perhaps, believes he has achieved enlightenment, what is his purpose in continuing to live?
Lama: An ignorant person who thinks he's enlightened is completely mentally polluted and is simply compounding the ignorance he already has. All he has to do is to check the actions of his uncontrolled mind and he'll realize he's not enlightened. Also, you don't have to ask others, "Am I enlightened?" Just check your own experiences. Enlightenment is a highly personal thing.
Q: I like the way that you stress the importance of understanding over belief, but I find it difficult to know how a person brought up in the West or given a scientific education can understand the concept of reincarnation: past, present and future lives. How can you prove that they exist?
Lama: If you can realize your own mind's continuity from the time you were a tiny embryo in your mother's womb up to the present time, then you'll understand. The continuity of your mental energy is a bit like the flow of electricity from a generator through the wires until it lights up a lamp. From the moment it's conceived, as your body evolves, mental energy is constantly running through it—changing, changing, changing—and if you can realize that, you can more easily understand your own mind's previous continuity. As I keep saying, it's never simply a question of belief. Of course, initially it's difficult to accept the idea of reincarnation because these days it's such a new concept for most people, especially those brought up in the West. They don't teach you continuity of consciousness in school; you don't study the nature of the mind—who you are, what you are—in college. So of course, it's all new to you. But if you think it's important to know who and what you are, and you investigate your mind through meditation, you will easily come to understand the difference between your body and your mind; you will recognize the continuity of your own consciousness; from there you will be able to realize your previous lives. It is not necessary to accept reincarnation on faith alone.
Q: Could you please explain the relationship between meditation, enlightenment and supernormal mental powers, such as seeing the future, reading other people's minds and seeing what's happening in a place that's far away?
Lama: While it's definitely possible to achieve clairvoyance through developing single-pointed concentration, we have a long way to go. As you slowly, slowly gain a better understanding of your own mind, you will gradually develop the ability to see such things. But it's not that easy, where you meditate just once and all of a sudden you can see the future or become enlightened. It takes time.
Q: If you are meditating, working towards enlightenment, do these powers come with control or just all of a sudden, with no control at all?
Lama: True powers come with control. They're not like the uncontrolled emotional hallucinations you experience after you've taken drugs. Even before you reach enlightenment, you can develop insight into your past and future lives and read other people's minds, but this comes about only through the controlled and gradual development of wisdom.
Q: Do you yourself have the power to separate your mind from your body and astral travel or do other things?
Lama: No.
Q: Does His Holiness the Dalai Lama have the power to do that?
Lama: The Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet certainly does contain an unbroken oral tradition of teachings on the development of supernormal powers, which has passed from realized guru to disciple from the time of the Buddha himself down to the present, but even though that teaching exists, it doesn't mean that I have accomplished it. Furthermore, Tibetan Buddhism prohibits any lama who does have such realizations from proclaiming them. Even when you do attain enlightenment, unless there's a good reason, you're not allowed to go around telling everyone that you're a buddha. Be careful. Our system is different from yours. In the West, you hear of people who say, "Last night God spoke to me in my dreams." We think it can be dangerous for people to broadcast details of their mystical experiences, therefore, we don't allow it.
Q: Some years ago I read a book called The Third Eye about a gentleman who had extraordinary powers. Have many people had their third eye opened?
Lama: What the author of that book, Lobsang Rampa, says is a literal misconception. The third eye is not a physical thing but rather a metaphor for wisdom. Your third eye is the one that sees beyond ordinary sense perception into the nature of your own mind.
Q: Since Buddhism believes in reincarnation, can you tell me how long there is between lives?
Lama: It can be anything from a few moments up to seven weeks. At the moment the consciousness separates from the body, the subtle body of the intermediate state is already there, waiting for it. Due to the force of craving for another physical body, the intermediate state being searches for an appropriate form, and when it finds one, it takes rebirth.
Q: How does Buddhism explain the population explosion? If you believe in reincarnation, how is it that the population is expanding all the time?
Lama: That's simple. Like modern science, Buddhism talks about the existence of billions and billions of galaxies. The consciousness of a person born on earth may have come from a galaxy far away, drawn here by the force of karma, which connects that person's mental energy to this planet. On the other hand, the consciousness of a person dying on this earth may at the time of death be karmically directed to a rebirth in another galaxy, far from here. If more minds are being drawn to earth, the population increases; if fewer, it declines. That does not mean that brand new minds are coming into existence. Each mind taking rebirth here on earth has come from its previous life—perhaps in another galaxy, perhaps on earth itself, but not from nowhere—in accordance with the cyclic nature of worldly existence.
Q: Is Buddhist meditation better than any other form of meditation or is it simply a case of different forms of meditation suiting different people?
Lama: I can't say that Buddhist meditation is better than that of other religions. It all depends upon the individual.
Q: If someone were already practicing one form of meditation, say, transcendental meditation, would there be any point in that person trying Buddhist meditation as well?
Lama: Not necessarily. If you find that your meditation practice completely awakens your mind and brings you everlasting peace and satisfaction, why try anything else? But if, despite your practice, your mind remains polluted and your actions are still uncontrolled—constantly, instinctively giving harm to others—I think you have a long way to go, baby. It's a very personal thing.
Q: Can a bodhisattva be a Marxist in order to create social harmony? I mean, is there a place for the bodhisattva in Marxism or, vice versa, is there a place in Marxism for the bodhisattva? Could Marxism be a tool in the abolition of all sentient beings' suffering?
Lama: Well, it's pretty hard for someone like me to comment on a bodhisattva's actions, but I have my doubts about a bodhisattva becoming a communist in order to stop social problems. Problems exist in the minds of individuals. You have to solve your own problems, no matter what kind of society you live in, socialist, communist or capitalist. You must check your own mind. Your problem is not society's problem, not my problem. You are responsible for your own problems just as you're responsible for your own liberation or enlightenment. Otherwise you're going to say, "Supermarkets help people because they can buy the stuff they need in them. If I work in a supermarket I'll really be contributing to society." Then, after doing that for a while, you're going to say, "Maybe supermarkets don't help that much after all. I'd be of more help to others if I took a job in an office." None of those things solve social problems. But first of all you have to check where you got the idea that by becoming a communist, a bodhisattva could help all mother sentient beings.
Q: I was thinking that many people in the world today are hungry and deprived of basic needs and that while they're preoccupied with hunger and the safety and security of their family, it's hard for them to grasp the more subtle aspects of phenomena, such as the nature of their own minds.
Lama: Yes, I understand what you are saying. But don't forget that the starving person preoccupied by hunger and the obese person obsessing over what else to buy in the supermarket are basically the same. Don't just focus on those who are materially deprived. Mentally, rich and poor are equally disturbed, and, fundamentally, one is as unhappy as the other.
Q: But Lord Krishna united India in a spiritual war, the war of Dharma, and as a result, at one time, all the people of India had the ability to engage in spiritual practice. Couldn't we now spread the Dharma amongst all the people on earth and establish a better global society through a kind of spiritual socialism?
Lama: First of all, I think that what you're saying is potentially very dangerous. Only a few people would understand what you're talking about. Generally, you can't say that actions that give harm to mother sentient beings are those of a bodhisattva. Buddhism forbids you to kill other sentient beings, even for supposedly religious reasons. In Buddhism, there's no such thing as a holy war. You have to understand this. And secondly, it's impossible to equalize everybody on earth through force. Until you fully understand the minds of all beings throughout the universe and have abandoned the minds of self-cherishing and attachment, you will never make all living beings one. It's impossible.
Q: I don't mean making all people the same, because obviously there are going to be different mental levels. But we could establish a universal human society on the basis of socialistic economic theory.
Lama: I think you shouldn't worry about that. You'd be better off worrying about the society of your own mind. That's more worthwhile, more realistic than making projections about what's happening in the world around you.
Q: But is it not a spiritual practice to strike a balance between your own self-realization and service to humanity?
Lama: Yes, you can serve society, but you can't homogenize all sentient beings' actions simultaneously, just like that. Lord Buddha wants all sentient beings to become enlightened right away, but our negative karma is too strong, so we remain uncontrolled. You can't wave a magic wand, "I want everybody to be equally happy," and expect it to happen just like that. Be wise. Only a wise mind can offer equality and peace. You can't do it through emotional rationalization. And you have to know that communist ideas about how best to equalize sentient beings are very different from those of Lord Buddha. You can't mix such different ideas. Don't fantasize; be realistic.
Q: In conclusion, then, are you saying that it's impossible to create one common spiritual society on this planet?
Lama: Even if you could, it would not stop people's problems. Even if you made a single society of all the inhabitants of the entire universe, there would still be attachment, there would still be anger, there would still be hunger. Problems lie within each individual. People are not the same; everybody is different. Each of us needs different methods according to our individual psychological makeup, mental attitudes and personality; each of us needs a different approach in order to attain enlightenment. That's why Buddhism completely accepts the existence of other religions and philosophies. We recognize that they are all necessary for human development. You can't say that any one way of thinking is right for everybody. That's just dogma.
Q: What do you say about drugs that expand the consciousness? Can one experience the bardo under the influence of drugs?
Lama: Yes, it's possible—take an overdose and soon enough you'll experience the bardo. No, I'm just joking. There's no way to get the bardo experience through taking drugs.
Q: Can you read people's auras?
Lama: No, but everybody does have an aura. Aura means vibration. Each of us has our own mental and physical vibration. When you are psychologically upset, your physical environment changes visibly. Everybody goes through that. As science and Buddhism both assert, all physical matter has its own vibration. So people's mental states affect that vibration of their body, and these changes are reflected in the person's aura. That's the simple explanation of the aura. To gain a deep understanding, you have to understand your mind. First learn to read your own mind, then you'll be able to read the minds of others.
Q: How does meditation remove emotional blockages?
Lama: There are many different ways. One is through understanding the nature of your emotions. That way, your emotion is digested into knowledge-wisdom. Digesting your emotions by wisdom is really worthwhile.
Thank you. Good night. Thank you so much.
Auckland, New Zealand, 7 June 1975
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September 18, 2008 - Thursday
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Current mood: inspired
Category: Religion and Philosophy
From the Official website of His Holiness the 14th Dalai lama
www.dalailama.comHealth News - His Holiness the Dalai Lama is back in Dharamsala after undergoing medical tests and treatment following some discomfort recently. The physicians have informed His Holiness that his general health condition is good but strongly advised him to curtail his travel schedule. In the immediate future the physicians have advised him to take good rest before resuming his schedule. We are therefore canceling his proposed travel to Europe in October. His Holiness very much regrets the inconvenience this will cause to the organizers of his programs as well as to those who were looking forward to participating in them. We hope everyone will understand the situation.
Published: Saturday, 13 September, 2008
Schedule
Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from September 25 to 27: His Holiness will give three-day teachings on Je Tsongkhapa's Song of the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (lamrim dhuedon) primarily for people from southeast Asia at the request of the The Tibetan Buddhist Center (Singapore). Contact: The Tibetan Buddhist Center (Singapore), 02-28 No. 1 New World Center, Singapore 209037 Singapore Tel: +65 6491 1027 Website: www.tibetanbc.org Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from September 30 to October 4: His Holiness will give five-day teachings on Arya Nagarjuna's Commentary on Bodhicitta (jangchup semdrel) and Kamalashila's The Middling Stages of Meditation (gomrim barpa). The teachings are primarily for Chinese Buddhists mainly from Taiwan. 2009 Teaching in Sarnath, U.P., India from January 8 to 14: His Holiness will give seven-day teachings on Arya Asanga's Compendium of Higher Knowledge (ngonpa kuntue) & Shantideva's A Guide To the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (chodjug). The teachings will be held near the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Teaching in Dharamsala, H.P., India on March 11: His Holiness will give a teaching from the Jataka Tales at the Main Tibetan Temple. Spring Teachings Earlier Scheduled from March 12 to to 21 have been canceled this year. Teaching in Copenhagen, Denmark from May 29 to 31: His Holiness will give two and a half day teachings on Nagarjuna's Commentary on Bodhicitta (jangchup semdrel) & Kamalashila's The Middling Stages of Meditation (gomrim barpa) at the Bella Center. Contact Website: www.dalailama.dk Public Talk in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 31: His Holiness will give a public talk on Peace Through Inner Peace at the Bella Center. Contact Website: www.dalailama.dk
Teaching in Kaza, H.P., India from July 10 to 12: His Holiness will give three-day teachings at the request of the Sakya Monastery in Kaza. On July 10 His Holiness will give a Buddhist teaching (topic yet to be decided). On July 11 and 12 His Holiness will confer the Avalakotieshvera Initiation (chenresig wangchen). Teaching in Frankfurt, Germany from July 28 to 31: His Holiness will give four-day teachings on Kamalashila's The Middling Stages of Meditation (gomrim barpa). On the morning of July 31 he will confer an Amitabha Empowerment (opakmey jenang). Contact Website: www.dalailama-frankfurt.de Public Talk in Frankfurt, Germany from on August 1 & 2: His Holiness will have a dialogue on the theme One World One Mind One Heart on the subject of global responsibilities with selected scientisits and political and/or political personalities. He will also participate in an inter-religious event. Contact Website: www.dalailama-frankfurt.de Public Talk in Lausanne/Prilly, Switzerland on August 4: His Holiness will give a public talk on World Peace Through Inner Peace. Contact Website: www.dalailama-lausanne2009.ch
Teaching in Lausanne/Prilly, Switzerland from August 5 & 6: His Holiness will give two-days of teachings on Lama Tsongkhapa's The Three Principal Aspects of the Paths (lam ghi tsowo nampa soom). On the morning of August 6 His Holiness will confer a Medicine Buddha Initiation. Contact Website: www.dalailama-lausanne2009.ch
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September 2, 2008 - Tuesday
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Current mood: inspired
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Copied From www.berzinarchives.com from the section on "Ebooks"
Alexander Berzin
July 1999
Revised February 2003
Part I: Dealing Constructively with Sensitivity Issues
Exercise 5: Resolving to Refrain from Destructive Behavior
The ten destructive actions
- causing physical harm
- taking what has not been given
- indulging in inappropriate sexual behavior
- lying
- speaking divisively
- using harsh language
- speaking idle words
- thinking covetous thoughts
- thinking thoughts of malice
- distorted, antagonistic thinking
I. While focusing on someone from your life,
In relation to your general previous behavior
- Create a quiet and caring mental space with respect to yourself, by using the key sentences
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- "I am not going to make up or tell any stories about myself."
- "I accept myself as I am."
- For each of the ten destructive actions, recall an incident in which someone acted in this way toward you
- Remember how hurt you felt or how you repressed your feelings
- Recall an incident in which you acted in the same way toward someone else, while looking at a photograph or simply thinking of the person
- Think of the pain that he or she must have felt
- Acknowledge your mistake
- Regret your behavior
- Determine to rid yourself of it
- Promise the person to try not to repeat such behavior
- Reaffirm the positive direction you are trying to go in your life: developing balanced sensitivity
- Clear any residual thoughts or emotions about the incident, by reaffirming
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- "I am not going to make up or tell any stories about myself."
- "I accept myself as I am."
2. In relation to your behavior toward specific persons from your life
- Create a quiet and caring mental space with respect to yourself, as in the previous step
- Look at a photograph or simply think of someone with whom you have or have had a close, warm relationship
- Create a quiet and caring mental space with respect to the person, by using the key sentences
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- "I am not going to make up or tell any stories about you."
- "You are a human being and have feelings."
- Check if you have ever acted in each of the ten destructive ways toward the person
- If you have not acted like that toward the person, rejoice in that fact
- After each of the ten, if you have acted that way
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- Think of the pain you caused
- Acknowledge your mistake
- Regret your behavior
- Determine to rid yourself of the destructive habit
- Assure the person that you shall try not to act like that toward him or her in the future
- Reaffirm the positive direction you are trying to go in your life: you wish to enjoy a healthy relationship with the person, based on balanced sensitivity.
- If you are prone to low guilt and low self-esteem, clear any residual thoughts or emotions about your behavior, either after each of the destructive actions or after a few of them, by reaffirming the quiet and caring mental space toward yourself, as before
- Fortify your intent, by repeating after the group facilitator, or by saying out loud by yourself, key sentences with common examples of each destructive action
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- "I shall not treat you in a rough physical manner."
- "I shall not use anything of yours without permission."
- "I shall not push myself sexually on you or your partner."
- "I shall not lie to you about my feelings or intentions."
- "I shall not try to part you from your friends by saying bad things about them."
- "I shall not verbally abuse you."
- "I shall not betray your confidence by revealing your private matters to others."
- "I shall not think jealously about what you have achieved."
- "I shall not think with malice about how to harm you if you say or do something I do not like."
- "If you are striving to improve yourself or to help others, I shall not think you are stupid, even if what you have chosen is not my own interest."
- Repeat the procedure while focusing on a photo or on a thought of a mere acquaintance
- Repeat the procedure while focusing on a photo or on a thought of someone with whom you have or have had a difficult relationship
3. While focusing on magazine pictures of anonymous people, repeat aloud the key sentences and, after each line, look at the persons one at a time and promise not to act in this way toward him or her
II. While focusing on someone in person
1. While sitting in a circle with a group and focusing on each person in turn at each step
- While looking downward, create a quiet and caring space with respect to yourself
- While looking around the circle, create a quite and caring space with respect to each member
- Repeat the procedure followed while focusing on the magazine pictures of anonymous people
2. While facing a partner
- Repeating the procedure followed with the members of the circle, one partner repeats the ten key sentences aloud at a comfortable speed, pausing for some moments after each, while the other partner listens
- The speaker focuses on the sincere wish to try never to harm the other person and on the person's accepting and believing the assurance and trusting him or her
- Proceeding through the ten points, the speaker feels progressively more responsible for his or her behavior in the relationship
- The listener focuses on feeling secure and safe with the speaker
- Let the experience settle by looking downward or closing the eyes and then focusing on the breath
- Switch roles
- For each of the ten sentences, the partners alternate: first one gives the assurance and then the other repeats the same words, with both persons focusing on the mutual generation and acceptance of responsibility, security, and trust.
III. While focusing on yourself
1. While looking in a mirror
- Create a quiet and caring mental space toward yourself
- Check whether you have acted in any of the ten destructive ways toward yourself
- If you have not acted like that toward yourself, rejoice in that fact
- After each of the ten, if you have acted that way
- Acknowledge the problems and pain you caused yourself
- Admit that your behavior was mistaken
- Feel regret
- Determine to rid yourself of the destructive habit
- Reaffirm the positive direction you are trying to go in your life: you wish to relate to yourself in a healthy manner, based on balanced sensitivity
- Promise yourself to try to stop being self-destructive, by repeating after the group facilitator, or by saying aloud by yourself, the key sentences
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- "I shall stop mistreating myself physically by overworking, by eating poorly, or by not getting enough sleep."
- "I shall stop wasting my money on trivial things or being stingy and niggardly when spending on myself."
- "I shall stop engaging in sexual acts that may endanger my health."
- "I shall stop deceiving myself about my feelings or motivation."
- "I shall stop speaking so obnoxiously that my friends become disgusted and leave me."
- "I shall stop verbally abusing myself."
- "I shall stop speaking indiscriminately about my private matters, doubts, or worries."
- "I shall stop thinking about how to outdo myself because of being a perfectionist."
- "I shall stop thinking in self-destructive, irrational ways that sabotage my relations with others or my position in life."
- "I shall stop thinking I am stupid for trying to improve myself or to help others."
- If necessary, reaffirm the quiet and caring mental space toward yourself
2. Repeat the ten pledges without a mirror
3. While looking at a series of photographs of yourself spanning your life
- Create a quiet and caring mental space toward yourself as you are now
- Look at the photos one at a time and create a quiet and caring space toward yourself as you were then, by repeating aloud the key sentences
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- "I am not going to make up or tell any stories about myself as I was then."
- "I accept myself as I was then."
- Check whether you have been thinking negatively about yourself as you were then
- If you have not thought like that, rejoice in that fact
- If you have thought negatively about yourself as you were then
- Acknowledge the problems and pain you have caused yourself
- Admit that your way of thinking has been a mistake
- Feel regret
- Determine to resolve your emotional issues about your past
- Reaffirm the positive direction you are trying to go in your life: you wish to relate to your past in a healthy manner, based on balanced sensitivity
- Pledge to try to stop thinking negatively of yourself during those periods, by repeating aloud the key sentences
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- "I shall stop thinking with dissatisfaction about how I was then, wishing that I had acted differently."
- "I shall stop thinking with self-hatred about myself then."
- "I shall stop thinking I was stupid then for what I did to try to improve my lot or to help others."
- If necessary, reaffirm the quiet and caring mental space toward yourself as you were then
- Look downward and, if necessary, reaffirm the quiet and caring mental space toward yourself as you are now
4. Reaffirm the ethical foundation for your behavior toward others and toward yourself, by repeating aloud the key sentences:
- "I care about myself."
- "I care about both the short-term and long-term effects of my actions on myself."
- "I also care about being able to respect myself for how I act, speak, and think."
- "I do not wish ever to lose my self-dignity."
- "I care about others."
- "I care about both the short-term and long-term effects of my actions on others."
- "I also care about others being able to respect my family, my friends, my gender, my race, my religion, and my country for how I behave."
- "I do not wish ever to bring them disgrace."
- "Therefore, I shall try not to act, speak, or think out of attachment, greed, anger, arrogance, jealousy, or naivety."
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July 3, 2008 - Thursday
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Current mood:  contemplative
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Copied from www.BuddhaNet.net *****************
Prajnaparmita Hrdaya Sutra
Translated by Tripitaka Master
Hsuan Tsang of the Tang Dynasty
With Commentary by Grand Master Tan Hsu
The Prajna literature is very extensive; it covers approximately twenty years of the Buddha's teaching career. The seven translations of the sutra display minor differences but the essential meaning was respected in each case. There is no major difference between the seven of them. According to the Tripitaka Master Kumarajiva's translation, this sutra was spoken by the Buddha.
Every translation of the Heart Sutra includes a commentary which consists of three parts: i) The reason for the sutra; 2) the method used to convey the meaning; 3) the sutra's history. The Heart Sutra was composed of excerpts from the Mahaprajnapdramita texts, and simple words were carefully employed to convey profound meanings. Although the Chinese version contains only two hundred sixty single characters, nevertheless it embodies the entire Prajna literature in all its depth and subtlety. As to the reason for this sutra, we only need to look at the method used to put the text together and we realize that the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was chosen as the model for the rest of us, and that the sutra was spoken by the Buddha. To understand it thoroughly is to understand all of the Prajna literature.
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"When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Was Coursing in the Deep Prajna Paramita."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"He Perceived That All Five Skandhas Are Empty."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Thus He Overcame All Ills and Suffering."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Oh, Sariputra, Form Does not Differ From the Void,
And the Void Does Not Differ From Form.
Form is Void and Void is Form;
The Same is True For Feelings,
Perceptions, Volitions and Consciousness."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Sariputra, the Characteristics of the
Voidness of All Dharmas
Are Non-Arising, Non-Ceasing, Non-Defiled,
Non-Pure, Non-Increasing, Non-Decreasing."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Therefore, in the Void There Are No Forms,
No Feelings, Perceptions, Volitions or Consciousness."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"No Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body or Mind;
No Form, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch or Mind Object;
No Realm of the Eye,
Until We Come to No realm of Consciousness."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"No ignorance and Also No Ending of Ignorance,
Until We Come to No Old Age and Death and
No Ending of Old Age and Death."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Also, There is No Truth of Suffering,
Of the Cause of Suffering,
Of the Cessation of Suffering, Nor of the Path."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"There is No Wisdom, and There is No Attainment Whatsoever."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Because There is Nothing to Be Attained,
The Bodhisattva Relying On Prajna Paramita Has
No Obstruction in His Mind."
[Commentary on above text]
"Because There is No Obstruction, He Has no Fear,"
[ Commentary on above text ]
"And He passes Far Beyond Confused Imagination."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"And Reaches Ultimate Nirvana."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"The Buddhas of the Past, Present and Future,
By Relying on Prajna Paramita
Have Attained Supreme Enlightenment."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Therefore, the Prajna Paramita is the Great Magic Spell,
The Spell of Illumination, the Supreme Spell,
Which Can Truly Protect One From All Suffering Without Fail."
[ Commentary on above text ]
"Therefore He Uttered the Spell of Prajnaparmita,
Saying Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha."
[ Commentary on above text ] | ....
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June 10, 2008 - Tuesday
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Current mood: happy
Category: Writing and Poetry
In conclusion, I would like briefly to expand my thoughts beyond the topic of this short piece and make a wider point: individual happiness can contribute in a profound and effective way to the overall improvement of our entire human community.
Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister. No matter how new the face or how different the dress and behaviour, there is no significant division between us and other people. It is foolish to dwell on external differences, because our basic natures are the same.
Ultimately, humanity is one and this small planet is our only home. If we are to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to. experience a vivid sense of universal altruism. It is only this feeling that can remove the self-centered motives that cause people to deceive and misuse one another. If you have a sincere and open heart, you naturally feel self, worth and confidence, and there is no need to be fearful of others.
I believe that at every level of society - familial, tribal, national and international - the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.
I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion.
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