THE GREAT MYSTERY - TEXTS
The One Mind of heaven and earth is dyed
into a thousand different grass colors.
(Buddhism, Zen poem)
"If a fire were blazing in front of you,
Vaccha, would you know that it was?"
"Yes, good Gotama."
"And would you know the reason for its blazing?"
"Yes, because it had a supply of grass and sticks."
"And would you know if it were to be put out?"
"Yes, good Gotama."
"and on its being put out, would you know thedirection the fire had gone to from here
east, west, north, south?"
"Please, sire, show the wind by its colour or configuration or as thin or thick or long or short."
"But it is not possible, revered Nagasena, for the wind to be shown; for the wind cannot be grasped in the hand or touched; but yet there is the wind."
"If, sire, it is not possible for the wind to be shown, well then, there is no wind."
"I, revered Nagasena, know that there is wind; I am convinced of it, but I am not able to show the wind."
"Even so, sire, there is Nirvana; but it is not possible to show Nirvana by colour or configuration."
"Very good, revered Nagasena, well shown is the simile, well seen the reason; thus it is and I accept it as you say.
(Samyutta-Nikaya and the Questions of King Milinda)
When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was engaged in the practice of the deep Prajnaparamita, he perceived that there are five skandhas; and these he saw in their self-nature to be empty. He resolved to save all the suffering beings.
O Sariputra, form is here emptiness, emptiness is form
Gate, gate, gate, para sam gate, bodhi svaha! (O, Bodhi, gone, gone, gone to the other shore, landed at the other shore, Svaha!)
(The Heart Sutra)
THE GREAT MYSTERY - MUSINGS
Where does the wind come from and where does it go? And why? And how? And what is it?
Try to grasp it. It slips through your fingers.
Try to see it. It is invisible. It carries the light, but has none of its own.
Try to smell it. It carries fragrances of fresh mown grass as easily as the smell of excrement, but has no scent of its own.
Try to hear it. It may whistle or roar or whisper or sigh. It carries sound, but has none of its own.
Try to taste it. You open your mouth and the wind makes it dry.
Try to capture it with your mind. You find its essence to be formless.
The Great Mystery is the breath of the world, the ever-fresh energy that sweeps all before it. In Sanskrit the word for wind is prana. In Chinese it is chi, in Hebrew it is Ruah, and in Latin it is spiritus. The creative urge without form. Ever new and ancient, ever still and dynamic, beyond form, formless.
It is impossible to describe the Great Mystery. The Buddha never tried. He said it was fruitless.
It is impossible to say whether there is a Creator of the world. The Buddha never tried. He said it was fruitless.
It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of the Great Mystery. The Buddha never tried.
In fact, when asked all these things, as he was many times, he said, it is a mystery. Something we cannot know. Life itself is a mystery. All of existence is mysterious. When looked at closely, it is all empty. Nothing is there between the moments. All we can know is that we suffer. Release from suffering depends on loosening our grasp on what is empty. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
The experience of release is beyond all comprehension. Gone, gone, gone to the other shore.
THE WORLD - TEXTS
Whether the world is eternal or transient, there is suffering, and I teach the way to understand it.
(Majjhima Nikaya)
Life is a journey.
Death is a return to the earth.
The universe is like an inn.
The passing years are like dust.
Regard this phantom world
As a star at dawn,
A bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp -
A phantom - and a dream.
(Vairacchedika 32 (Diamond Sutra))
The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness and death are sufferings. To meet a man whom one hates is suffering, to be separated from a beloved one is suffering, to be vainly struggling to satisfy one's needs is suffering. In fact, life that is not free from desire and passion is always involved with distress. This is called the Truth of Suffering.
(The First of the Four Noble Truths)
THE WORLD - MUSINGS
Wind may be clear or carry dust. It may be hot or cold, gentle or fierce. It is never the same from moment to moment. No one can say from whence it comes or where it goes.
The world is ever new, constantly arising. No one can say where its creatures and its time have gone. All things pass.
Bubbles form on a stream and quickly disappear. Seasons come and they go. Volcanoes erupt and obliterate vast landscapes. The ice of the ages levels mighty mountains. The very stars explode into their own deaths.
Reality is ephemeral.
All of it.
Just as you cannot grasp the breeze or the fragrance borne on it, you cannot grasp the world. What was new grows old, what was hot grows cold, what was living dies, what was shining gathers dust and rust. Thoughts arise and disappear as if made of smoke.
It is an illusion to think we can possess the world for our own selfish use. Even our beloved dies.
Therefore the mind of insight sees the things of the world as passing wonders. The clear mind sees that no being has an existence separate from all beings. The world is constantly originating in a vast interdependent dance of becoming - and yet it is empty.
Form is emptiness, emptiness, form.
And the pure stillness that is pure emptiness, the primal energy that is pure empathy, is the ground of it all.
HUMANITY - TEXTS
So I declare that in this six-foot-long body with its perceptions
and thinking lies the world, the beginning of the world, the ending of the world, and the way to the ending of the world.
(Majjjhima Nikaya)
The world is full of suffering.
Birth is suffering,
old age is suffering,
sickness and death are sufferings.
(Setting in motion the wheel of Truth,
The First Sermon of the Buddha)
The nature of every sentient being is Buddha,
But because they don't recognize it, they circle in the sufferings of samsara,
May I develop pure compassion, Limitless one, towards all sentient beings.
(Karmapa prayer)
HUMANITY - MUSINGS
My individual self is an illusion. What "I" am in any given moment is the outcome of all I have been before - before my old age, before my death, before my birth. There is no "I" as a real, enduring self. Even the atman of Hinduism is an illusion. There is no self. There is only becoming. There are only consequences that reverberate throughout the worlds.
Everything, even "I," arises co-dependently and simultaneously. Any "thing" or "self" exists only in relation to everything else. What "I" perceive as reality is like a vast living web whose warp and woof are constantly changing texture and hue. It is like a living ocean whose disturbances and stillness make ripples and waves. The world is a bubble, and I am cast about in its fizz.
Hinduism believes that the atman or self has a reality that is actually one with Brahman. For Buddhism, nothing, not even Brahman, can have existence in itself.
All is burning with the suffering of attachment. The reality of life is this:
Life is suffering.
I know we have experiences of joy and love and accomplishment - we humans are conscious of this. Yet the joy and love and youthful vigor of life must pass. I also know we are all subject to birth, old age, sickness and death. Paradoxically, it is our very ability to know, to be self-conscious that both causes our suffering and provides the way out. We can see life for what it is, a journey.
The universe is like an inn. The passing years are like dust.
Let it be. Let the joy and the love, the sickness and the grief all just be. By seeing the beginning and the end, by ceasing to grasp, allow the self to disappear into the ineffable emptiness between the thoughts, between life and not-life. By this faculty of letting be, emptiness can be experienced as the fullness of bliss. To arrive at this real-ization is to be awake. It is to attain the great Space, the Void that is Nirvana.
THE TEACHER - TEXTS
“Are you a god?” “No, brahman, I am not a god.”
“Then an angel?” “No, indeed, brahman.”
“A spirit, then?” “No, I am not a spirit.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am awake.”
(Anguttara Nikaya)
Because He saw them consumed by the fires of pain and sorrow, yet knowing not where to seek the still waters of samadhi,
For this He was moved to pity.
Because He saw them living in an evil time, subjected to tyrannous kings and suffering many ills, yet heedlessly following after pleasure,
For this He was moved to pity.
Because He saw them living in a time of wars, killing and wounding one another; and knew that for the riotous hatred that had flourished in their hearts they were doomed to pay an endless retribution,
For this He was moved to pity.
Because many born at the time of His incarnation had heard Him preach the Holy Law, yet could not receive it,
For this He was moved to pity.
Because some had great riches that they could not bear to give away,
For this He was moved to pity.
Because He saw the men of the world ploughing their fields, sowing the seed, trafficking, huckstering, buying and selling; and at the end winning nothing but bitterness,
For this He was moved to pity.
(Buddha's Pity)
THE TEACHER - MUSINGS
The word buddha is the perfect description of Gotama's attainment. It means he who is awake. The Buddha was the man who was awake. We can look to him as the embodiment of the state to which we all aspire.
He could not transmit or impart his holiness to seekers. We all have to achieve buddhahood on our own. What he could do was point the way. In his forty years of teaching kings and beggars, scholars and householders, he modeled the life that leads to enlightenment.
Beginning life as a prince, and living the greater part as a humble beggar and teacher, he was attached to nothing, not even the security of storing up provisions. He and his bhikkus or monks formed a spiritual community of compassion. In seeking their own centers (that were not really "their own") through meditation, they came into blissful unity with the Source. Emerging from Source, they, like the Buddha, they were moved to pity.
The message of the Buddha is that we can all shed our veils of ignorance and come face to face with that which is beyond all forms.
Looking at the flower he holds up for us to see, we see, and he smiles.
THE WAY - TEXTS
The Noble Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of suffering is this: It is simply the Eightfold Path, namely right view; right thought; right speech, right action; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; right concentration.
(The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path)
The wise man, carefully, moment by moment, one by one, eliminates the stains of his mind as a silversmith separates the dross from the silver.
Whoever in the world takes life,
tells lies, steals, commits adultery, is addicted to drinking intoxicating liquors,
Is digging up his very roots even when alive.
There is no fire like lust,
No vise like hatred,
Not trap like delusion,
And no galloping river like craving.
It is easy to see the flaws of others,
Hard to see one's own. There is no track through the air. There is no recluse outside this Dhamma,
There are no compounded things that are permanent.
There is no perturbance in Buddhas.
(Dhammapada 25)
THE WAY - MUSINGS
If life is suffering and suffering results from attachment, the way to release from suffering is to first become aware of this fact. When we are aware of our ignorance and realize that our attachment is the root cause of our pain, we can begin to free ourselves from selfishness and greed. Free from ignorance, we too are waking up to our presence in every moment.
The path we tread is guided by the skillful means we acquire by insight. In understanding the whole cosmos is interconnected, the illusion of separate existence is removed. When this happens, we are moved to compassion. Thus it becomes natural for us to improve our conduct, our speech, our occupation, our efforts, and our attention. Practicing meditation cultivates centerdness and supports our use of skillful means in the service of all sentient beings.
As someone used to the idea of unquestioning obedience to the will of God, I find the possibility of direct perception of the nature of reality along with the use of skill as a way to serve others, as a breathtaking insight. As my Chinese Buddhist-Christian friend said, the beauty of Buddhism is that it ascribes complete self determination and responsibility to all human beings, and the beauty of Christianity (and it's sister-monotheistic religions of Judaism and Islam) is that there is someone to ask for help.
The later variations of Mahayana Buddhism allowed for the great beings of compassion like Avalokitesvara, Tara and Kwan Yin, to become goddess-like. They are Bodhisattvas "who hear the cries of the world," to whom one can pray.
MEDITATION - TEXTS
Om mani padme hum.
The Jewel is in the lotus.
(Buddhist mantra)
When a fish swims, he swims on and on, and there is no end to the water. When a bird flies, he flies on and on, and there is no end to the sky. From the most ancient times there was never a fish who swam out of the water... Yet if there were a bird who first wanted to examine the size of the sky, or a fish who first wanted to examine the extent of the water - and then try to fly or to swim, they will never find their own ways in the sky or water.”
(Shabogenzo)
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I say that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.
(Ch’uan Teng Lu)
MEDITATIONS - MUSINGS
When I look attentively into my mind, I am appalled to find see how unruly it is. My thoughts are like a restless stream that is noisily and ceaselessly tumbling, easily diverted by the rocks strewn in its bed. Sometimes it collects in stagnant pools. Sometime it rushes over precipices. Sometimes seems it will never find its way to the sea or the sky.
What I seek in meditation is the sea that is the Source of my rushing waters. I seek the expansiveness of the great blue sky. I seek it first in centering my "self" - the self who is breathing. I sit, I gather my concentration, and I breathe. Then I search for that center which is beyond breath. Finally, coming to rest in the center of time, in the empty endless now, I am at the root of my being that is silent. I am Here. I am This.
Becoming real, real-izing this in meditation, I breathe with the Breath of Life and lose myself.
This Breath is the wind and the water of life.
I am as free as a fish swimming unimpeded in the boundless depths, for whom the water is invisible.
I am as free as a bird riding through the sky, for whom the wind is invisible.
I am as free as the unencumbered no-self riding in the Primal Emptiness.
In this real-ization I attain a glimpse of what it is to be released. Buddhism
Evil and Suffering -Texts
Suffering, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and pain… and despair are suffering, association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering - in short suffering is the five [groups] of clinging objects.
Thus the origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is the craving that produces renewal of beings, accompanied by enjoyment and lust - in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being.
(Setting in motion the wheel of Truth, the Buddha's first sermon)
Long have you suffered the death of father and mother, of sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. And while you were thus suffering, you have indeed shed more tears upon this long way than there is water in the four oceans.
Truly, because beings, obstructed by ignorance and ensnared by craving, seek ever fresh delight, fresh rebirth continually comes to be.
And the action… that is done out of greed, hatred and delusion… wherever this action ripens there one experiences the fruits of this action, be it in this life, or the next life, or in some future life…
(Setting in motion the wheel of Truth)
EVIL AND SUFFERING - MUSINGS
Life is suffering. This is the first Noble Truth. At first this seems like an unduly pessimistic view of life. My life isn't always suffering. Sometimes I suffer, and sometimes I am content. Life has its ups and downs, its joys and pains.
But that's the key. Nothing ever stays the same.
When things are good, I want them to stay that way. When things are bad, I want them to change.
It's a delusion to think that I can hang onto good things, that love, joy, youth, vigor and wealth are mine to possess. It's a delusion to think that bad things, sickness, grief, old age and death, can somehow be avoided that causes our suffering. We cannot control these things. Ups and downs are inherent in life. The problem is that both good and bad things change - you can depend on it! We may try to prolong the good aspects, and we may try to ignore the bad ones, but it is impossible. And so we suffer.
We cannot allow ourselves to ignore, to remain ignorant of the ephemeral nature of the world. Nothing stays the same. In fact no-thing, no state, no time even really exists in itself.
In modern times the West has developed the extraordinary concepts of equality and human rights: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The problem is that some of us have come to feel entitled to happiness at any cost. This may include pain, disease, deprivation and suffering to most of humanity. Pleading ignorance to these conditions is the "evil" that causes suffering.
The Second Noble Truth is that desire, grasping, and ignorance cause suffering. The remedies for overcoming desire and ignorance are skillful means, and compassion.
STRUGGLE - TEXTS
All the effort must be made by you; Buddhas only show the way.
Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
(Dhammapada 20)
Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth is this: It is … letting go and rejecting, of that same craving.
(Setting in motion the wheel of Truth)
All the effort must be made by you; Buddhas only show the way.
Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
(Dhammapada 20)
You are like a withered leaf, waiting for the messenger of death. You are about to go on a long journey, but you are so unprepared.
Light the lamp within; strive hard to attain wisdom. Become pure and innocent, and live in the world of light.
Your life has come to an end, and you are in the presence of death. There is no place to rest on this journey, and you are so unprepared. Light the lamp within; strive hard to attain wisdom.
Become pure and innocent, and you will be free from birth and death.
Make your mind pure as a silversmith blows away the impurities of silver, little by little, instant by instant…
But there is no impurity greater than ignorance. Remove that by wisdom and you will be pure.
(Dhammapada 18)
STRUGGLE - MUSINGS
The goal of our struggle is to see clearly. It is to find those moments of blinding illumination that elicit our "aha!" "Yes, that's it!"
But to get to those moments of insight, to gain the inner poise and peace they bring, we must work at our practice with all the discrimination and skill at our disposal.
In the Theravada tradition there is no Personal God to whom we can appeal for help. Our struggle requires vigilance.
Attachment to the outer world of samsara, is unskillful behavior that will not lead to our release from suffering. Meditation and compassion are skillful behavior. Concentration and attention are skillful habits. Sloth and lust are unskillful habits. Therefore we must guard our worldly habits and shift our focus inward to make our minds as clear as a mirror or transparent glass.
The Buddha said:
All the effort must be made by you; Buddhas only show the way.
Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
In the Mahayana traditions of Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and numerous other Buddhist schools, there is aid. We can chant the sutras and mantras; we can turn prayer wheels, create yantras and sand paintings, rake stone gardens, and bend our minds to koans. We can plead for Bodhisattvas' help, and we can turn to the teachers who propound the untransmitted wisdom of Buddha.
But common to all Buddhist practice is the striving to be compassionate and to practice loving-kindness.
DEATH - TEXTS
My teaching does not depend on whether I exist after death or not, because I am concerned with suffering here and now.
(Majjhima Nikaya)
O child of noble family, now what is called death has arrived. You are not alone in leaving this world, it happens to everyone, so do not feel desire and yearning for this life. . Remember the three jewels.
O child of noble family, whatever terrifying projections appear in the bardo of dharmata, do not forget these words...
Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light from which everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns; the original nature of your own mind. The natural state of the universe unmanifest.
Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge with it. It is your own true nature, it is home. The visions you experience exist within your consciousness; the forms they take are determined by your past attachments, your past desires, your past karma. These visions have no reality outside your consciousness. No matter how frightening some of them may seem they cannot hurt you. Just let them pass.
No matter where or how far you wander, the light is only a split second, a half breath away, it is never too late to recognize the clear light. If you recognize it as the natural radiance of your own mind, even though you do not feel devotion and do not say the inspiration prayer, all the forms and lights and rays will merge inseparably with you and you will attain enlightenment.
(The Tibetan Book of the Dead)
DEATH - MUSINGS
Not once, twice, do we die. We live and die innumerable times.
There are several critical states that occur in a human life that Tibetans call bardos. At these critical junctures we have heightened opportunities for spiritual advancement. The appearances of these windows of opportunity require our full attention, or we can miss them. One of these bardos is death.
We do not die at one instant in particular. Like life, death is a process. It is sort of devolution and disengagement from the body that is followed by an evolution into an ever-expanding awareness after life.
If we have become familiar with our own minds and the tricks they can play on us during life, we will be better able to navigate the process of death.
Just as we can mistake appearances for reality in our human consciousness, we can mistake frightening or beautiful appearances in the death process for reality instead of projections of our own minds.
If we have familiarized ourselves with these tricks of illusion, and trained our minds to see beyond them during life, we will be properly prepared for death. Having penetrated to the "aha!" state, we are in a better position to break through all the barriers of appearances after death to gain Nirvana. If we repeatedly fail to recognize them we will return to innumerable new lifetimes.
Until we have learned all that we must learn in the crucible of human life we cannot rest.
When the veil of ignorance is finally burned away and disappears, so do "I."
THE ULTIMATE - TEXTS
“Now, what, your reverence, is Nirvana?"
"Whatever, your reverence, is the extinction of passion,
of aversion, of confusion, his is called Nirvana."
(Questions of King Milinda)
When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was engaged in the practice of the deep Prajnaparamita, he perceived that there are five skandhas; and these he saw in their self-nature to be empty. He resolved to save all the suffering beings.
O Sariputra, form is here emptiness, emptiness is form
Gate, gate, gate, para sam gate, bodhi svaha! (O, Bodhi, gone, gone, gone to the other shore, landed at the other shore, Svaha!)
(The Heart Sutra)
May all beings be happy.
May all be joyous and live in safety.
Let no one deceive another, nor despise another, as weak as they may be.
Let no one by anger or by hate wish evil for another.
As a mother , in peril of her own life, watches and protects her only child.
Thus with a limitless spirit must one cherish all living beings.
Love the world in its entirety above, below and all around.
Without limitation.
With an infinite goodness and with benevolence.
While standing, or walking, sitting or lying down, as long as one is awake,
Let one cultivate Loving-Kindness.
This is called the Supreme Way of Living.
(Metta Sutta, Hymn to Love)
THE ULTIMATE - MUSINGS
Before I was enlightened, the mountains were mountains and the water was water. When I became enlightened, the mountains were mountains and the water was water. And after being enlightened, the mountains are mountains and the water is water.
The ten cow-herding or ox-herding pictures of Zen Buddhism (seen in the appendix) are a visual depiction of stages on the journey to enlightenment - and beyond.
At first we have only an inkling that there is something to search for, the ox that symbolizes our true mind. We track the ox till it is partially in our sight, and then we see it in full. Now we have to catch it and we can tame it so that we can ride on its back, and then let it find its way home without guidance. At home we relax while the ox plays on its own. Relaxed completely we lose ourselves in the ineffable void. The circle looks empty, yet perhaps it is full. No-thing is there because what is there is impossible to describe. It is bliss.
Refreshed, we come back to the world. We see the world as it is, and, unknown by the world we shed our blessings upon its countless beings. The mountains are just mountains and the water is just water.
How mysterious.
How ordinary
