lotusinthemud

our minds are used to thinking

Our minds are used to thinking, but when we want to become calm and peaceful that is exactly what we have to stop doing. It is easier said than done, because the mind will continue to do what it is used to doing. There is another reason why it finds it difficult to refrain from its habits: thinking is the only ego support we have while we are meditating, and particularly when we keep noble silence. "I think, therefore I am." Western philosophy accepts that as an absolute. Actually it is a relative truth, which all of us experience. When we are thinking, we know that we are here; when there is no chattering in the mind, we believe we lose control. . . Our first difficulty is that although we would like to become peaceful and calm and have no thoughts, our mind does not want to obey. . . So instead of trying over and over again to become calm we can use whatever arises to gain some insight. A little bit of insight brings a little bit of calm, and a little bit of calm brings a little bit of insight.

~ Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies

unsatisfactory

The Buddha declared that all our experiences of joy, indifference, and pain are unsatisfactory. Are not even our greatest mundane pleasures tainted with dissatisfaction? When these pleasures pass away are we not left with unfulfilled longing and discontent? But in spite of this, we tend to cling to the pleasures of life, ignoring their transient nature

The suffering we must recognize includes not only the kind we experience at the loss of a loved one, or when we lose our job, for example, but also includes the more fundamental conditions of our human existence, namely, aging, sickness, and death.

~ B. Alan Wallce, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up

dharmavidya's quotation on the 'do no harm' site

Do No Harm is one of those wonderful impossible ideals that inspire us. "Cease from ill; Do only good; Do good for others. Purify your mind." As what the Japanese call "bombu" i.e. ordinary fallible beings of wayward passion and boundless karma we all do harm while wishing to do less of it and it always helps to have that aspiration strengthened as it is by the love of our friends. The key is to embrace, to esteem all that is in our world as best we can. Esteem and embrace the other. All forms of enlightenment are intended to help us become open to others. Shakyamuni became enlightened when he saw the morning star - our life is full of such stars and if we can allow each thing to be a star it will start to glow and our world will be full of new light.

These days there is a strong tendency to see everything in selfish terms. The reason for doing something is, apparently to be located in the good that will come back to us. No doubt good does come back... however, it is just possible that the impulse to love is actually more fundamental in our lives than the impulse to gain. Whether it is true or not, simply thinking so makes huge difference to one's life. How lucky we all are to have such a beautiful world full of loveable beings of so many kinds.

Dharmavidya (David Brazier)
http://www.amidatrust.com

::link to 'do no harm'

new pureland buddhist book: 'never die alone'

The book, Never Die Alone: Death as Birth in Pure Land Buddhism, published by Jodo Shu Research Institute is on the brink of publication and copies can be pre-ordered from Amazon. Authors include: Mark Blum author of The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism; Carl Becker author of Breaking the Circle: Death and the Afterlife in Buddhism; David Brazier (Dharmavidya), head of the Amida Order, author of Who Loves Dies Well: On the Brink of Buddha’s Pure Land; Yoshiharu Tomatsu the Director of the Jodo Shu Research Institute’s Ojo and Death Project; and a group of Thai Buddhists offering a different view of Buddhist dying.

::link

wholehearted commitment and spiritual practice

Few people are capable of wholehearted commitment, and that is why so few people experience a real transformation through their spiritual practice. It is a matter of giving up our own viewpoints, of letting go of opinions and preconceived ideas, and instead following the Buddha's guidelines. Although this sounds simple, in practice most people find it extremely difficult. Their ingrained viewpoints, based on deductions derived from cultural and socila norms, are in the way.

We must also remember that heart and mind need to work together. If we understand something rationally but don't love it, there is no completeness for us, no fulfillment. If we love something but don't understand it, the same applies. If we have a relationship with another person, and we love the person but don't understand him or her, the relationship is incomplete; if we understand the person but don't love him or her, it is equally unfulfilling. How much more so on our spiritual path. We have to understand the meaning of the teaching and also love it. In the beginning our understanding will only be partial, so our love has to be even greater.

~ Aya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies, from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

transparent and clear

There is a famous saying: "If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear." I often compare the mind in meditation to a jar of muddy water: The more we leave the water without interfering or stirring it, the more the particles of dirt will sink to the bottom, letting the natural clarity of the water shine through. The very nature of the mind is such that if you only leave it in its unaltered and natural state, it will find its true nature, which is bliss and clarity. So take care not to impose anything on the mind, or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control, and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, and your breath as you find it. Think of yourself as the sky, holding the whole universe.

~ Sogyal Rinpoche, in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

an answer to the question "what does Buddhism say about 'religions'..?"

::stableboy says:

It doesn't say much really. But you can infer some things from what it DOES say:

- Buddhist teaching generally challenges the notion of a fixed self or entity which serves as the core of being. In Buddhist ontology, all things are considered to be composites -- you and I are the result of the conditions which produce our existence, and those conditions are in turn produced by other conditions, ad infinitum. So nowhere can you get your hands on some solid unchanging "essence of being".

This is what it means when Buddhism talks about "no self". It's not that there's no self at all, it's that there's no permanent entity like a core upon which our qualities and characteristics are "glued". The implication for other religions is that Buddhism challenges the existence of the soul as it's normally conceived -- a permanent essence which transcends the conditions of body, time, space, cause-and-effect.

- Buddhism is silent on the existence of God. So in a sense, it does not conflict with religions which place God at the center of everything. Buddhism neither denies nor affirms the existence of God -- that is considered a matter which is outside the scope of Buddhism's concerns. Buddhism is concerned with awakening -- recovering the true nature of being in a practical way which makes a practical difference in ordinary life. It's not particularly interested in large-scale metaphysical questions about the origin of man or the nature of God, etc. Those are basically considered irrelevant to the core problem Buddhism addresses: suffering.

- Buddhism is strongly critical of the human tendency to cling to beliefs of any kind. That doesn't mean Buddhism is intolerant of beliefs in general, it means that CLINGING is considered very unwise. So since many religions implicitly encourage the very clinging that Buddhism is working to disrupt, in that sense Buddhism is anti-religion. However, it is possible (and some people do it) to merge other religions with Buddhism... i.e. I know Christian Buddhists who believe in the redemption offered by Christ, etc., and still practice Buddhism. I presume they've dialed down the clinging aspect of their Christianity to make it all work, but don't really know the details.

In general, Buddhism promotes tolerance and peaceful coexistence as essential qualities to be developed by all humans, regardless of their religious orientation. It would be completely antithetical to Buddhist teachings to (for example) discriminate against others based on their religion, and completely unthinkable to use religious differences to justify a conflict or war. While Buddhism doesn't really promote the notion that "all religions are one", it promotes the notion that all of REALITY is one, and religions are a part of reality as a whole. In that respect, it makes no sense for Buddhism to adopt an aggressive or hostile stance toward other religions.

::link

the necessary condition is love

Dharmavidya has written:

29 May 2008:

Writing: The past week I have been writing pretty solidly. Since my last weblog entry I have written more than 54,000 words, which constitutes the main body of the new book. I expect it will be called "The Necessary Condition is Love: An other centred approach", or something like that. It develops the ideas first set out in the article that I published in my Beyond Carl Rogers fifteen years ago. This all came about because I was invited to give a day seminar on that paper at a psychotherapy institute on 15th May. It went well. Afterwards it occurred to me that the principles in the paper are still central to my conception of life, spirit and therapy and that perhaps there was the makings of a book, so I set to work and this is the result. Still quite a bit of revision and editing to do but the basic work is complete.

::and more here

k.d. lang comes out spiritually

::kd lang Comes Out Spiritually

The March issue of Shambhala Sun Magazine features Melvin McLeod's interview with kd lang about her Nyingma Buddhist practice with teacher, Lama Chodak Gyatso Nubpa , and her new album, Watershed: 

"The idea of watershed has a great deal of pertinence to becoming a Buddhist and following the path.  It seems to me that the flow of dharma - or the flow of one's own innate buddhanature - is like water.  There are obstacles, but eventually the water will find its way around them. 

"A change of direction happens when you take refuge and become a practitioner.  For me, it's been about reassessing, reviewing and reprioritizing everything in my life.  It's been about revitalizing my morality and my relationship to cause and effect, meaning what I do as a person - with my body, speech and mind - and how it affects all other beings.  Each song is about my relationship to something, and it's also about the cause and effect of each of those relationships."
::link

the expression of emptiness is love....

The expression of emptiness is love, because emptiness means "emptiness of self." When there is no self, there is no other. That duality is created by the idea of self, of I, of ego.When there's no self, there is a unity, a communion. And without the thought of "I'm loving someone," love becomes the natural expression of that oneness.

~ Joseph Goldstein, The Experience of Insight