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Good Intentions with Self-Reflection One of the most important aspects of practicing Buddhism is to become aware of our thinking. Our actions and our words originate in our intentions, and they have consequences, which may be good or bad. In the Nibbedhika Sutta, AN 6.63, the Buddha said, “Intention, I tell you is kamma. It is with intention one does kamma by way of body, speech, and mind.” Very few of us actually set out consciously with bad intentions. But good intentions are empty if they don’t result in positive action. While we act on good

intentions because we want the best for someone, the end result might be otherwise. We often make decisions based on feelings, and naively think that because our intentions are good, the result will be positive. There’s an old saying attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This became an adage because it is so true for many of us. If our intentions are rooted in greed, hate, and delusion, then indeed our road will lead us to hell or misery. But good intentions — in proportion to their true goodness — tend toward happiness and peace. But, why then do they have such a bad reputation?

Ajahn Thanissaro, in one of his teachings, provides three main reasons. One is that not all good intentions are especially skilful. Even though they are wellmeaning intentions, they can be misguided and inappropriate for the occasion, thus resulting in pain and regret. The second reason is that we often misunderstand the quality of our own intentions. We may mistake an ambiguous intention for a good one, for instance, which may be disappointing when it gives mixed results. The third reason is that we easily misread the way intentions yield their results — as when the painful results of a bad intention in the past obscure the results of a good intention in the present, and yet we blame our present intention for the pain.

All these reasons, acting together, lead us to become disillusioned with the potential of good intentions. As a result, we either grow cynical about them or else simply abandon the care and patience needed to perfect them. One of the Buddha’s most penetrating discoveries is that our intentions are the main factors shaping our lives and that they can be mastered as a skill. If we subject our intentions to the various components of the Eight-fold Path such as right speech; right action; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; right

concentration; and most importantly, right view, in developing any skill, we can perfect them to the point where there will be no regrets or damaging results in any given situation. Ultimately, they can lead us to the truest possible happiness. To train our intentions in this way, though, requires a deep level of self-awareness or self-reflection. In the Ambalaṭṭhikārāhulovāda Sutta, MN 61, a sermon the Buddha preached to his son, Rāhula, he said, one must consider, before, during, and after every action whether it was potentially abusive or exploitative, or genuinely rooted in good intentions. This requires sufficient clarity of mind, through wise mindfulness and concentration. Only then, will we be able to discern negative intent, and with wise effort, to exercise selfrestraint. Wise understanding allows us to deeply intuit the legacy of losses that we share with other living beings, and wise intention expresses our ever-growing resolve to respond to all life with compassion . If we follow it mindfully, we can be sure our good intentions will yield good results for ourselves and others. August 31, 2019

CONTENTS 04

LEAD ARTICLE The Soothing Rays of Moonlight: Loving-kindness and Compassion, the Foundations for Genuine Peace and Happiness By Geshe Palden Drakpa

08 15 18 21 24

TEACHINGS Bodhicitta: The Perfection of Dharma By Lama Thubten Yeshe

ISSUE NO.59

SEPTEMBER 2019

27 30 34

FEATURES The Paradox of Prayer By Dr Roshi Jan Chozen Bays

What It Means to Harmonize Your Diet By Ven Chang Xiang Fashi

Christian Europe once celebrated the story of Buddha without even knowing it By Jana Igunma

Right Understanding By Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield

The Buddhist Perception of Humility By Chen Yu-Hsi, Ph.D.

The First Truth By Venerable Ajahn Sumedho

Talking to Our Enemies By Sharon Salzberg

BOOK REVIEWS The Wanderer

By Venerable Master Sheng Yen

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

REFLECTION Why Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re Addicted to Your Phone

By Venerable Dr H Gunaratana Maha Thera

By Kurt Spellmeyer

...................................................................... September 2019 ISSUE NO. 59 (Published 3 times a year)

FACE TO FACE A Transformative experience at Abiding Heart Education

FORUM Do Buddhists Pray?

BOOKS IN BRIEF

By Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

By Venerable Āyasmā Aggacitta, Venerable Ming Wei & Geshe Dadul Namgyal

NEWS A rare 2,000-year-old scroll about the early years of Buddhism is made public By Allen Kim

DHARMA THOUGHTS What price Happiness? By Vijaya Samarawickrama

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Drepung Loseling Monastery, Karnataka, India.

Thangkas painted on the walls of the monastery

The Soothing Rays of Moonlight: Loving-kindness and Compassion, the Foundations for Genuine Peace and Happiness By Geshe Palden Drakpa

The great Indian Buddhist master, Acharya Chandrakirti says in his Madhyamakāvatāra: Compassion alone is seen as the seed Of a Victor’s rich harvest, as water that nourishes it, And as the ripened fruit that is the source of long enjoyment. Therefore, at the start I praise compassion. Thus, concerning the Buddha’s rich-harvest-like excellent qualities, loving-kindness and compassion are like the fresh seeds that are indispensable at the beginning in giving birth to the yet un-born sproutlike initial qualities. In the middle, they are like the nourishing water that is poured repeatedly over the plant-like qualities of the six far-reaching practices such as generosity to grow fuller. In the end, they are like the fully-ripened-fruit-like nectar of teachings of the Victor’s rich harvest that is ready for the disciples to enjoy for a long time to come. It is in those senses

that the author so respectfully offers the praise to loving-kindness and compassion at the outset of the text. Likewise, it is fitting for us to make concerted efforts to give birth to loving-kindness and compassion with a similar energy of appreciation, conviction, and aspiration as that of the author.

Therefore, in this journey of cultivating loving-kindness and compassion, it is imperative that we first correctly identify these qualities. Let’s deal with these in terms of their (a) nature, (b) classifications, (c) causes giving rise to them, (d) the measure of giving birth to them, (e) supportive reasoning (for the possibility of developing them infinitely), (f) modes of cultivation, and (g) the steps of cultivating familiarization with them. As for their nature, great compassion is a deep-felt natural wish for all the sentient beings to be completely free from all shortcomings and faults. Whereas, great

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Geshe Palden Drakpa was born in the Tehor region of Kham, Eastern Tibet and became a monk of Drepung Loseling Monastery while in his early teens. He excelled in his studies, and eventually was awarded the Geshe Lharam, the highest academic degree offered in the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism after his exodus to India. He served as scholar-in-residence at Tibet House in New Delhi; has represented Tibetan Buddhist scholarships in the bi-annual Mind and Life Conferences held at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala; and has also served as Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. He currently lives at the re-constructed Drepung Loseling Monastery in Karnataka state in South India, where he continues to teach and guide thousands of students in their studies and practice. Author of many books and articles, Geshe Palden Drakpa is regarded as one of the greatest living masters of both the Buddhist Madhyamaka tradition and the science of mind.

loving-kindness is similarly a deeply-felt natural wish for all sentient beings to be everlastingly adorned with joy and happiness. The only difference between the two qualities is that while one aspires for the shortcomings and faults to be done away with, the other aspires for prosperity and wellbeing to be met with.

As for the different forms they come in, great compassion is presented in three forms: a compassion observing [just] the sentient beings, a compassion observing their impermanence [as well], and finally, a compassion observing their [intrinsically] unobservable [nature as well]. The distinction among them is made on the basis of whether [an individual’s] great compassion is directly informed by an insight into the impermanent nature of things, or an insight into the absence of inherent existence nature of phenomena, or none of the above two. [An individual’s] great compassion that is not directly informed by either of the above insights is the first type of great compassion, i.e. the great compassion observing [just] sentient beings. A great compassion, though not directly informed by an insight into the absence of inherent existence of things, but is nonetheless directly informed by an insight into the impermanent nature of things is the second type of great compassion, i.e. the great compassion observing impermanence [has transience as its object]. [An individual’s] great compassion that is directly informed by an insight into the absence of inherent existence of things is the third type of great compassion,

i.e. the great compassion observing the unobservable [devoid of reference]. Thus, this distinction can also be understood respectively as follows: the first is an attitude that merely wishes all sentient beings to be free from the dukkha of saṃsāra, whereas the second is an attitude that wishes sentient beings to [also] be free from the dukkha that occurs due to the distortion of seeing impermanent things as permanent. The last is an attitude that wishes sentient beings to [also] be free from the dukkha that occurs due to the distortion of seeing non-inherently existing things as inherently existing. The same criteria of classification is applicable to loving-kindness.

Let’s now look at the causes giving birth to them. If you wonder what might be the main unique causes giving birth to great compassion, it is (1) the recognition of all sentient beings as [having been] one’s mother, father, or benefactors (anyone who’s shown us the kindness of having benefited us in some way); (2) remembrance of their kindness as mothers, fathers or benefactors, (3) the mind aspiring to repay their kindness, and (4) cherishing love [that sees all sentient beings as pleasing no matter what]. Since [according to Buddhist world view,] there is no beginning to our births, i.e. all sentient beings excluding none, there is not a single sentient being that has not been one’s mother similar to the one from this life. When they were our mothers, to the extent they were capable of providing, they always cared for us with all benefits,

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care, and gave us protection from all harms and dangers, and they, themselves, experienced so many hardships and sacrificed their own comforts in order to provide us with their care and protection. They even sacrificed their lives for us when we were steeped in sorrow and bereft of joy. They have tried all means available to place us in happiness and free us from suffering. [Perhaps we do not have the view of or confidence in reincarnation or haven’t had the fortune to have had caregivers who were so kind as this. We can still remember those who at different points in our life, benefitted us in some way. Perhaps we had a neighbor, a close friend, a coach, a mentor of some kind person, who showed concern for our well-being or provided

us with some essential knowledge or skill. We all came into this world naked and ignorant of even the knowledge or ability to speak, feed or clean ourselves, etc. Whoever taught us these essential survival skills, whether with gentleness or firmness, did provide us with abilities we didn’t possess under our own power, alone. We can remember how kind these people were to take an interest in and spend time with us in these ways. On top of this, we can also change the way we see kindness, in order to skillfully stretch our minds and expand our ability to see kindness in many places, thereby expanding our own hearts/minds and capacity for the development of compassion. The typical way we see kindness, is by having someone who knows us and has some concern for our well-being, who provides us with something we want and appreciate, whether affection, knowledge, material comforts, etc. If we can also include, that it’s a kindness we’ve received, simply by virtue of having benefited from someone’s actions, whether they are even aware of us or not. From this view we can consider anything that we typically take for granted, such as one of our cotton socks. Consider how, in order for us to have this sock, so many people were involved with getting it from the cotton field—from planting seeds, tending the plant, harvesting the cotton, cleaning it, spinning it into thread, dyeing and weaving it into cloth, etc. From this practice we can see that there are infinite numbers of beings who were involved

with just that one simple article of clothing. When we do this with every other object we use during the day, tracing them back, from our hands, through the process to their inception, we can see that we are connected to infinite numbers of other. There’s no end to this type of investigation.] Thinking along these lines, we remember their kindness. These reflections naturally lead to the mind aspiring to repay their kindness. However, we need to repeatedly familiarize ourselves with these above causes.

In particular, compassion is said to be generated from the cherishing-love that holds all sentient beings dear and precious. That is, one must hold all of our kind mother sentient beings dear and precious for they have showered us with extreme kindness when we were

in sorrowful and wretched conditions. Today, when they are in a similarly wretched and poor condition, it is befitting to repay their kindness for they are all the ones who have been kind to us. Thus, the above are the modes of thinking that we should train ourselves in and help generate compassion for them. Again, the same approach can be applied in cultivating loving-kindness. [For those who are uncomfortable contemplating life after life, they can ponder on our conditions of dependence and connections with each other across time and space in the present lifetime].

Now, as to the measure of giving birth to them. In general, when one trains in these attitudes, (1) there is a time when one has to resort to mimicking others and generate superficial attitudes, faking them while one does not have a genuine one. (2) Then, there is a time when one begins to feel them from the depth of one’s heart and even manages to generate sporadically sincere ones. However, one may still fall short of possessing stable experiences of them. (3) With continued training this way, one may eventually possess uncontrived stable experiences. This way, one could speak of these three stages of training in these attitudes. Of them, the first one does not even qualify as a [mind of] compassion. The second is a contrived, superficial [mind of] compassion, though not a genuine one. An actual or a genuine one arises only at the third stage.

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That is the stage when it is no longer dependent on any efforts; rather it arises naturally and spontaneously. That’s how the scriptures explain [the process]. Now, the supportive reasoning [for the possibility of developing them infinitely]. If you wonder what supporting rationale one might have for training in them to the point of spontaneity and naturalness, Acharya Shantideva says the following in his Bodhicaryāvatāra: Not becoming easier upon practice, There is no such thing anywhere.

Likewise, the great sage-logician, Acharya Dharmakirti says in his Pramāṇavārttika: Compassion and others that one generates in mind through training Will eventually develop to a natural, spontaneous level. So, the rationale behind the possibility of generating genuine compassion and loving-kindness through training in the above way is as per the elaborate reasoning captured in the context of deliberations such as the above. To summarize this whole concept in a syllogism form is as follows:

Subject: Consider the contrived compassion [or lovingkindness] that wishes all sentient beings to be free from sufferings [or wishes them to be adorned with happiness];

Predicate: It is possible to develop it to a natural, spontaneous level if one persists in familiarizing with it through the proper conditions; Reason: Because it is a quality or property of mind which possesses a stable basis and has the tendency of not requiring to depend on repeated efforts on the already familiarized aspects.

Example: Like the mental quality of attachment. Thus, the veritableness of the above claim is established through valid reasoning such as the above.

Now, the modes of cultivating compassion and lovingkindness. In the case of cultivating clarity of the object of meditation such as with selflessness, one primarily resorts to placement meditation. However, in the case of engaging in meditation which involves augmenting the strength of an attitude such as in the context of meditating on compassion, one primarily resorts to analytical meditation. That, too, in contexts such as this, one engages in repeated reasoning along the line of how all sentient beings have served as one’s kind parents for innumerable times, etc. Finally, as for the steps of familiarization to be undertaken. In the case of beginners, they have to first begin cultivating compassion and loving-kindness to their parents, relatives, friends, etc. that have been kind to them, generating the heartfelt attitude wishing them to be free from all shortcomings and faults, and wishing them to be adorned with all prosperities and well-being. Next, they should move on to strangers in the immediate neighborhood, those who have neither benefitted nor harmed oneself. Thereafter, gradually move on to one’s enemies who have done small, middling, and great harm to oneself. Finally, direct one’s focus on all sentient beings of the three realms who are swept away by their afflictions and karmic actions, and wish them, from the depth of one’s hearts, to be free from all shortcomings and faults, and to be adorned with all prosperities and well-being. This way, try to familiarize oneself with the means of generating great compassion and great loving-kindness towards all sentient beings. With sincere prayers that we may be successful in generating such genuine attitudes of compassion and loving-kindness towards all sentient beings. Written by Geshe Palden Drakpa on August 03, 2011.

Translated from its Tibetan original into English by Geshe Dadul Namgyal with editing assistance from Martha Leslie Baker in March 2019. EH

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Bodhicitta: The Perfection of Dharma By Lama Thubten Yeshe

Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered the great Sera Monastic University, Lhasa, where he studied until 1959, when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him into exile in India. Lama Yeshe continued to study and meditate in India until 1967, when, with his chief disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later he established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, in order to teach Buddhism to Westerners. In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching tours to the West, and as a result of these travels a worldwide network of Buddhist teaching and meditation centers—the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT)—began to develop.

In 1984, after an intense decade of imparting a wide variety of incredible teachings and establishing one FPMT activity after another, at the age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away. He was reborn as Ösel Hita Torres in Spain in 1985 and recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986.

I think it is absolutely essential for us to have loving kindness towards others. There is no doubt about this. Loving kindness is the essence of bodhicitta, the attitude of the bodhisattva. It is the most comfortable path, the most comfortable meditation. There can be no philosophical, scientific or psychological disagreement with this. With bodhicitta, there’s no East-West conflict. This path is the most comfortable, most perfect, one hundred percent uncomplicated one, free of any danger of leading people to extremes. Without bodhicitta, nothing works. And most of all, your meditation doesn’t work, and realizations don’t come. Why is bodhicitta necessary for success in meditation? Because of selfish grasping. If you have a good meditation but don’t have bodhicitta, you will grasp at any little experience of bliss: “Me, me; I want more, I want more.” Then the good experience disappears completely. Grasping is the greatest distraction to experiencing single-pointed intensive awareness in

meditation. And with it, we are always dedicated to our own happiness: “Me, me I’m miserable, I want to be happy. Therefore I’ll meditate.” It doesn’t work that way. For some reason good meditation and its results— peacefulness, satisfaction and bliss—just don’t come. Also, without bodhicitta it is very difficult to collect merits. You create them and immediately destroy them; by afternoon, the morning’s merits have gone. It’s like cleaning a room and an hour later making it dirty again. You make your mind clean, then right away you mess it up - not a very profitable business. If you want to succeed in the business of collecting merits, you must have bodhicitta. With bodhicitta you become so precious—like gold, like diamonds; you become the most perfect object in the world, beyond compare with any material things.

From the Western, materialistic point of view, we’d think it was great if a rich person said, “I want to make charity.

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Sera Monastery, India

I’m going to offer $100 to everybody in the entire world.” Even if that person gave with great sincerity, his or her merit would be nothing compared with just the thought, “I wish to actualize bodhicitta for the sake of sentient beings, and I’ll practice the six paramitas as much as I can.” That’s why I always say, actualization of bodhicitta is the most perfect path you can take. Remember the story of the Kadampa geshe who saw a man circumambulating a stupa? He said, “What are you doing?” and the man answered, “Circumambulating.” So the geshe said, “Wouldn’t it be better if you practiced Dharma?” Next time the geshe saw the man he was prostrating, and when he again asked what he was doing, the man replied, “One hundred thousand prostrations.” “Wouldn’t it be better if you practiced Dharma?” asked the geshe. Anyway, the story goes on, but the point is that just doing religious-looking actions like circumambulation and prostration isn’t necessarily practicing Dharma. What we have to do is transform our attachment and self-cherishing, and if we haven’t changed our mind in this way, none of the other practices work; doing them is just a joke. Even if you try to practice tantric meditations, unless you’ve changed within, you won’t succeed. Dharma means a complete change of attitude—that’s what really brings you inner happiness, that is the true Dharma, not the

words you say. Bodhicitta is not the culture of ego, not the culture of attachment, not the culture of samsara. It is an unbelievable transformation, the most comfortable path, the most substantial path—definite, not wishywashy. Sometimes your meditation is not solid; you just space out. Bodhicitta meditation means you really want to change your mind and actions and transform your whole life.

We are all involved in human relationships with each other. Why do we sometimes say, “I love you,” and sometimes, “I hate you”? Where does this up-and-down mind come from? From the self-cherishing thought—a complete lack of bodhicitta. What we are saying is, “I hate you because I’m not getting any satisfaction from you. You hurt me; you don’t give me pleasure. That’s the whole thing: I—my ego, my attachment—am not getting satisfaction from you, therefore I hate you.” What a joke! All the difficulties in inter-personal relationships come from not having bodhicitta, from not having changed our minds. So, you see, just meditating is not enough. If that Kadampa geshe saw you sitting in meditation he’d say, “What are you doing? Wouldn’t it be better if you practiced Dharma?” Circumambulating isn’t Dharma, prostrating isn’t Dharma, meditating isn’t Dharma. My

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goodness, what is Dharma, then? This is what happened to the man in the story. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. Well, the best Dharma practice, the most perfect, most substantial, is without doubt the practice of bodhicitta.

You can prove scientifically that bodhicitta is the best practice to do. Our self-cherishing thought is the root of all human problems. It makes our lives difficult and miserable. The solution to self-cherishing, its antidote, is the mind that is its complete opposite—bodhicitta. The self-cherishing mind is worried about only me, me—the self-existent I. Bodhicitta substitutes others for self. It creates space in your mind. Then even if your dearest friend forgets to give you a Christmas present, you don’t mind. “Ah, well. This year she didn’t give me my chocolate. It doesn’t matter.” Anyway, your human relationships are not for chocolate, not for sensory pleasures. Something much deeper can come from our being together, working together.

If you want to be really, really happy, it isn’t enough just to space out in meditation. Many people who have spent years alone in meditation have finished up the worse for it. Coming back into society, they have freaked out. They haven’t been able to take contact with other people again, because the peaceful environment they created was an artificial condition, still a relative phenomenon without solidity. With bodhicitta, no matter where you go, you will never freak out. The more you are involved with people the more pleasure you get. People become the resource of your pleasure. You are living for people. Even though some still try to take advantage of you, you understand: “Well, in the past I took advantage of them many times too.” So it doesn’t bother you.

Thus bodhicitta is the most perfect way to practice Dharma, especially in our twentieth-century Western society. It is very, very worthwhile. With the foundation of bodhicitta you will definitely grow. If you take a proper look deep into your heart you will

see that one of the main causes of your dissatisfaction is the fact that you are not helping others as best you can. When you realize this you’ll be able to say to yourself, “I must develop myself so that I can help others satisfactorily. By improving myself I can definitely help.” Thus you have more strength and energy to meditate, to keep pure morality and do other good things. You have energy, “Because I want to help others.” That is why Lama Tsongkhapa said that bodhicitta is the foundation of all enlightened realizations. Also, bodhicitta energy is alchemical. It transforms all your ordinary actions of body, speech and mind—your entire life into positivity and benefit for others, like iron transmuted into gold. I think this is definitely true. You can see, it’s not difficult. For example look at other people’s faces. Some people, no matter what problems and suffering they are enduring, when they go out they always try to appear happy and show a positive aspect to others. Have you noticed this or not? But other people always go about miserable, and angry. What do you think about that? I honestly think that it indicates a fundamental difference in the way these two kinds of people think. Human beings are actually very simple. Some are a disaster within and it shows on their faces and makes those whom they meet feel sick. Others, even though they are suffering intensely, always put on a brave face because they are considerate of the way others feel.

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attitude because when you dedicate yourself to others with loving kindness you get a lot more pleasure than you would otherwise. With our present, usual selfish attitude we experience very little pleasure, and what we have is easily lost. With “great selfishness” you help others and you help yourself; with small it’s always “me, me, me” and it is easy to lose everything.

I believe this is very important. What’s the use of putting out a miserable vibration? Just because you feel miserable, why make others unhappy too? It doesn’t help. You should try to control your emotions, speak evenly and so forth. Sometimes when people are suffering they close off from others, but you can still feel their miserable vibration. This doesn’t help—others with even momentary happiness forget about leading them to enlightenment. To help the people around you, you have to maintain a happy, peaceful vibration. This is very practical, very worthwhile. Sometimes we talk too much about enlightenment and things like that. We have a long way to go to such realizations. Forget about enlightenment, I don’t care about buddhahood—just be practical. If you can’t help others, at least don’t give them any harm, stay neutral.

Anyway, what I’m supposed to be telling you here is that bodhicitta is like atomic energy to transform your mind. This is absolutely, scientifically true, and not something that you have to believe with blind religious faith. Everybody nowadays is afraid of nuclear war, but if we all had bodhicitta, wouldn’t we all be completely secure? Of course we would. With bodhicitta you control all desire to defeat or kill others. And, as Lama Je Tsongkhapa said, when you have bodhicitta all the good things in life are magnetically attracted to you and pour down upon you like rain. At present all we attract is misfortune because all we have is the self-cherishing thought. But with bodhicitta we’ll attract good friends, good food, good everything.

As His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, if you’re going to be selfish, do it on a grand scale; wide selfishness is better than narrow! What did His Holiness mean? He was saying that, in a way, bodhicitta is like a huge selfish

Remember, Atisha had over 150 teachers? He respected them all, but when he heard the name of one—Lama Dharmarakshita—he would come out in goosebumps. He explained this by saying, “I received many teachings from many, many great gurus, but for me, Lama Dharmarakshita, who gave me the bodhicitta ordination and teachings on the method and wisdom of bodhicitta and the six paramitas, was the most helpful for my life.” This is very true. Sometimes techniques of deity meditation are extremely difficult, but bodhicitta meditation is so simple, so incredibly profound and real. That’s why Atisha would shake when he heard the name of his main teacher of bodhicitta. The main point, then, is that when you contact Buddhadharma you should conquer the mad elephant of your self-cherishing mind. If the Dharma you hear helps you diminish your self-cherishing even a little, it has been worthwhile. But if the teachings you have taken have had no effect on your selfishness, then from the Mahayana point of view, even if you can talk intellectually on the entire lam-rim, they have not been must use at all. Do you recall the story of Shantideva and how people used to put him down? They used to call him Du-shesum-pa, which means one who knows how to do only three things: eating, sleeping and excreting. This was a very bad thing to call someone, especially a monk. But that’s all that people could see him doing. However, he had bodhicitta, so whatever he did, even ordinary things, was of greatest benefit to others. Lying down, peacefully, he would meditate with great concern for the welfare of all living beings, and many times, out of compassion, he would cry for them. Westerners need that kind of practice. Fundamentally we are lazy. Well, maybe not lazy, but when we finish work we are tired and don’t have much energy left. So, when you come home from work, lie down comfortably and meditate on bodhicitta. This is most worthwhile. Much better

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than rushing in speedily, throwing down a coffee and dropping onto your meditation cushion to try to meditate. It doesn’t work that way; your nervous system needs time and space. You can’t be rushing through traffic one minute and sitting quietly meditating the next. Everything takes time and space. It is much better to r have a quiet, blissful cup of coffee, And don’t pressure yourself either; that too is very bad. Don’t punish yourself when you are too tired to meditate: “I should be meditating; I am very bad.” You destroy yourself like this. Be wise. Treat yourself, your mind, sympathetically, with loving kindness. If you are gentle with yourself you will become gentle with others so don’t push. Pushing doesn’t work for me, that’s why I tell others not to force themselves. We are dealing with the mind, not rocks and concrete; it is something organic. The Western environment offers lots of suffering conditions that act as causes for our actualizing bodhicitta, so life there can be very worthwhile. For example, it is much better to subdue an adversary with bodhicitta than with a knife or gun. When attacked, you can practice loving kindness. We could also do this in the monasteries of Tibet, where there were often horrible monks. Don’t think that Tibet was full of only holy people—we had unbelievably wild monks there that nobody in authority could subdue! If you would try to control them wrathfully they would get only more aggressive. But arya bodhisattva monks, people who had completely given themselves up for others, would treat them with loving kindness, and the wild monks would calm down completely. They would feel, “This man loves me; he has great compassion. He has given up everything for others and has nothing to lose.” In that way aggressive people would be subdued, without authority but with bodhicitta. There are many stories about this kind of thing, but I’m not going to tell them now. Perhaps you think they’re funny, but it’s true—you can conquer your enemies, both internal and external, with loving kindness and bodhicitta. It is most worthwhile and there’s no contradiction bodhicitta is the totally comfortable path to liberation and enlightenment.

In his text Lama Chöpa, the Panchen Lama says, “Selfcherishing is the cause of all misery and dissatisfaction, and holding all mother sentient beings dearer than oneself is the foundation of all realizations

and knowledge. Therefore bless me to change selfcherishing into concern for all others.” This is not some deep philosophical theory but a very simple statement. You know from your own life’s experiences without needing a Tibetan text’s explanations that your selfcherishing thought is the cause of all your confusion and frustration. This evolution of suffering is found not only in Tibetan culture but in yours as well. And the Panchen Lama goes on to say that we should look at what the Buddha did. He gave up his selfattachment and attained all the sublime realizations. But look at us we are obsessed with “me, me, me” and have realized nothing but unending misery. This is very clear isn’t it? Therefore you should know clean clear how this works. Get rid of the false concept of self-cherishing and you’ll be free of all misery and dissatisfaction. Concern yourself for the welfare of all others and wish for them to attain the highest realizations such as bodhicitta and you’ll find all happiness and satisfaction.

You people are young, intelligent and not satisfied with what you have in your own countries. That’s why you are seeking further afield. And now you have found that most worthwhile of all things, bodhicitta. But it is not an easy thing. Easy things bore you quickly. It is quite difficult, but there’s no way you’ll get bored practicing it. People need to be most intelligent to actualize bodhicitta, some, though, have no room for it. “Forget about yourself and have a little concern for others?” they’ll ask. “That’s not my culture.” It is very difficult to change holding yourself dear into holding others dear instead—the most difficult task you can undertake. But it is the most worthwhile and brings the greatest satisfaction. After practicing some meditations, such as impermanence and death, for a month you’ll say, “I’m tired of that meditation.” But you’ll never get tired of meditating on bodhicitta. It is so deep; a universal meditation. You’ll never get tired of bodhicitta.

You have heard of many deities that you can meditate on, many deities to be initiated into—Chenrezig and the rest. What are they all for? I’ll tell you—for gaining bodhicitta. As a matter of fact, all tantric meditations are for the

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development of strong bodhicitta. That is the purpose of your consciousness manifesting as a being with one thousand arms so that vou can lend a hand to a thousand suffering beings. If you don’t like to manifest yourself this way you can relate the meditation to your own culture and see yourself as Jesus. Avalokiteshvara and Jesus are the same: completely selfless and completely devoted to serving others. Remember what happened the first time that Avalokiteshvara took the bodhisattva ordination? He vowed to guide all universal living beings to enlightenment from behind, like a shepherd.’I do not want to realize enlightenment until first I have led all mother sentient beings there first. That will be my satisfaction.’ He worked for years and years, leading thousands of beings to enlightenment, but when he checked to see what was happening he found there were still countless more. So again he worked for years and years and again when he checked there were still so many left, and this cycle was repeated until finally he was fed up and thought to himself, “For aeons and aeons I have struggled to lead all sentient beings to enlightenment but there are still so many left. I think it is impossible to fulfil my vow.” And because of the intensity of his emotion his head split into eleven pieces. Then Amitabha Buddha came and offered to help, and blessed him to be successful.

So I’m sure some of you people can be like Chenrezig. The main thing is to have strong motivation. Even if it comes strongly only once, it is extremely powerful. It is very rare to have this kind of thought. A mere flash is so worthwhile; to have it for a minute for a day... Lama Yeshe gave this teaching at Kopan Course No. 16, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in Nov-Dec 1983. This was the last public teaching by Lama Yeshe before his tragic passing away in March 1984, so it has a special significance. Kopan Monastery, Nepal 1K983 (Archive #395). EH Source: Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, www. lamayeshe.com

Do you know what this mind is? By Venerable Ajahn Chah (1918-1992)

Venerable Ajahn Chah was born on June 17, 1918 in a small village near the town of Ubon Ratchathani, NorthEast Thailand. His early monastic life followed a traditional pattern, of studying Buddhist teachings and the Pali scriptural language. Ajahn Chah practiced in the style of the austere Forest Tradition, wandering through the countryside in quest of quiet and secluded places for developing meditation. In 1977, Ajahn Chah was invited to visit Britain by the English Sangha Trust, a charity with the aim of establishing a locally-resident Buddhist Sangha. He took Venerable Sumedho, the American Buddhist monk, and Venerable Khemadhammo along to England. Seeing the serious interest there, he left them in London at the Hampstead Vihara, with two of his other Western disciples who were then visiting Europe. He returned to Britain in 1979, at which time the monks were leaving London to begin Chithurst Buddhist Monastery in Sussex. He then went on to America and Canada to visit and teach. Renowned for the beauty and simplicity of his teachings, Ajahn Chah was Thailand’s bestknown meditation teacher. His charisma and wisdom influenced many American and European seekers, and helped shape the American Vipassana community.

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What people usually refer to as peace is simply the calming of the mind, not the calming of the defilements. The defilements are simply being temporarily subdued, just like grass covered by a rock. In three or four days you take the rock off the grass and in no long time the grass grows again.

The grass had not really died; it was simply being suppressed. It is the same when sitting in meditation: the mind is calmed but the defilements are not really calmed. Therefore, samādhi (concentration) is not a sure thing. To find real peace you must develop wisdom. Samādhi is one kind of peace – like the rock covering the grass – but this is only a temporary peace. The peace of wisdom is like putting the rock down and not lifting it up, just leaving it where it is, then the grass can’t possibly grow again. This is real peace, the calming of the defilements, the sure peace which results from wisdom.

We speak of wisdom (paññā) and samādhi as separate things, but in essence they are one and the same. Wisdom is the dynamic function of samādhi; samādhi is the passive aspect of wisdom. They arise from the same place but take different directions. They have different functions, like this mango here. A small green mango eventually grows larger and larger until it is ripe. It is the same mango, the small one, the larger one and the ripe one are the same mango, but its condition changes. In Dhamma practice, one condition is called samādhi, the later condition is called paññā, but in actuality sila, samādhi, and paññā (morality, concentration and wisdom) are all the same thing, just like the mango.

In our practice, no matter what particular aspect we are referring to, we should always begin from the mind. Do you know what this mind is? What is the mind like? What is it? Where is it? Nobody knows. All we know is that we want to go over here or over there, we want this and we want that, we feel good or we feel bad, but the mind itself seems impossible to know. So, what is the mind? The mind doesn’t have form. That which receives impressions, both good and bad, we call ‘mind’. It’s like the owner of a house. The owner stays at home while visitors come to see him. He is

the one who receives the visitors, but who receives sense impressions? What is it that perceives? Who lets go of sense impressions? That is what we call ‘mind’. But people can’t see it; they think themselves into confusion: ‘What is the mind? What is the brain?’ Don’t confuse the issue with questions like these.

So what is it that receives impressions? Some impressions ‘mind’ likes and some it doesn’t like. Who is that? Is there one who likes and dislikes? Certainly there is, but you can’t see it. That is what we call ‘mind’. “In our practice it isn’t necessary to talk of samatha or vipassanā; just call it the practice of Dhamma, that’s enough. And conduct this practice from your own mind. What is the mind? The mind is that which receives or is aware of sense impressions. With some sense impressions there is a reaction of like; with others the reaction is dislike. The receiver of impressions leads us into happiness and suffering, right and wrong. But it doesn’t have any form. We assume it to be a self, but it’s really only nāmadhamma [a mind object]. Does goodness have any form? Does evil? Do happiness and suffering have any form? You can’t find them. Are they round or are they square, short or long? Can you see them? These things are nāmadhamma [mind objects]. They can’t be compared to material things. They are formless, but we know that they do exist.

Therefore, it is said, to begin the practice by calming the mind, put awareness into the mind. If the mind is aware, it will be at peace. Some people don’t go for awareness; they just want to have peace, a kind of blanking out. So they never learn anything. If we don’t have this ‘one who knows’, what is there to base our practice on? EH [Excerpt from: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah]

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Right Understanding By Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield

Joseph Goldstein (born 1944) first became interested in Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in 1965. He is one of the first American vipassana teachers, and co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in the US with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. He is the author of numerous books on Buddhism, resident guiding teacher at IMS, and leader of retreats worldwide on insight (vipassana) and lovingkindness (metta) meditation. Since 1967, Goldstein has practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under well-known teachers from India, Burma and Tibet, including Anagarika Sri Munindra, Sri S.N. Goenka, Mrs. Nani Bala Barua (Dipa Ma), Venerable Sayadaw U Pandita, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche. While the majority of Goldstein’s publications introduce Westerners to primarily Theravāda concepts, practices and values, his 2002 work, One Dharma, explored the creation of an integrated framework for the Theravāda, Tibetan and Zen traditions. Jack Kornfield (born 1945) trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967 he joined the Peace Corps and worked on tropical medicine teams in the Mekong River valley. He met and studied as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. Over the years, Jack has taught in centers and universities worldwide, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings, and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father, husband and activist. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies.

In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom Goldstein and Kornfield present the central teachings and practices of insight meditation in a clear and personal language. The path of insight meditation is a journey of understanding our bodies, our minds, and our lives, of seeing clearly the true nature of experience. The authors guide the reader in developing the openness and compassion that are at the heart of this spiritual practice. For those already treading the path, as well as those just starting out, this book will be a welcome companion along the way. Among the topics covered are: • The hindrances to meditation—ranging from doubt and fear to painful knees—and skillful means of overcoming them • How compassion can arise in response to the suffering we see in our own lives and in the world

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• How to integrate a life of responsible action and service with a meditative life based on nonattachment

Useful exercises are presented alongside the teachings to help readers deepen their understanding of the subjects. Though written more than 30 years ago, this book is still fresh and relevant for all practitioners of the Buddha’s teaching. The following is a brief excerpt from the book, which is easily available from Shambhala Publications (www.shambhala.com), The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding. Right understanding has two parts. To start with, it asks a question of our hearts. What do we really value, what do we really care about in this life? Our lives are quite short. Our childhood goes by very quickly, then adolescence and adult life go by. We can be complacent and let our lives disappear in a dream, or we can become aware. In the beginning of practice we must ask what is most important to us. When we’re ready to die, what will we want to have done? What will we care about most? At the time of death, people who have tried to live consciously ask only one or two questions about their life: Did I learn to live wisely? Did I love well? We can begin by asking them now.

This is the beginning of right understanding: looking at our lives, seeing that they are impermanent and fleeting,

and taking into account what matters to us most deeply. In the same way, we can look at the world around us, where there is a tremendous amount of suffering, war, poverty, and disease. What does the world need to foster a safe and compassionate existence for all? Human suffering and hardship cannot be alleviated just by a simple change of government or a new monetary policy, although these things may help. On the deepest level, problems such as war and starvation are not solved by economics and politics alone. Their source is prejudice and fear in the human heart— and their solution also lies in the human heart. What the world needs most is people who are less bound by prejudice. It needs more love, more generosity, more mercy, more openness. The root of human problems is not a lack of resources but comes from the misunderstanding, fear, and separateness that can be found in the hearts of people. Right understanding starts by acknowledging the suffering and difficulties in the world around us as well as in our own lives. Then it asks us to touch what we really value inside, to find what we really care about, and to use that as the basis of our spiritual practice. When we see that things are not quite right in the world and in ourselves, we also become aware of another possibility, of the potential for us to open to greater loving-kindness and a deep intuitive wisdom. From our heart comes inspiration for the spiritual journey. For some of us this will come as a sense of the great possibility of living in an awake and free way. Others

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of us are brought to practice as a way to come to terms with the power of suffering in our life. Some are inspired to seek understanding through a practice of discovery and inquiry, while some intuitively sense a connection with the divine or are inspired to practice as a way to open the heart more fully. Whatever brings us to spiritual practice can become a flame in our heart that guides and protects us and brings us to true understanding.

Right understanding also requires from us a recognition and understanding of the law of karma. Karma is not just a mystical idea about something esoteric like past lives in Tibet. The term karma refers to the law of cause and effect. It means that what we do and how we act create our future experiences. If we are angry at many people, we start to live in a climate of hate. People will get angry at us in return. If we cultivate love, it returns to us. It’s simply how the law works in our lives. Someone asked a vipassana teacher, Ruth Dennison, if she could explain karma very simply. She said, ‘‘Sure. Karma means you don’t get away with nothing!’’ Whatever we do, however we act, creates how we become, how we will be, and how the world will be around us. To understand karma is wonderful because within this law there are possibilities of changing the direction of our lives. We can actually train ourselves and transform the climate in which we live. We can practice being more loving, more aware, more conscious, or whatever we want. We can practice in

retreats or while driving or in the supermarket checkout line. If we practice kindness, then spontaneously we start to experience more and more kindness within us and from the world around us. There’s a story of the Sufi figure Mullah Nasruddin, who is both a fool and a wise man. He was out one day in his garden sprinkling breadcrumbs around the flowerbeds. A neighbor came by and asked, ‘‘Mullah, why are you doing that?’’

Nasruddin answered, ‘‘Oh, I do it to keep the tigers away.’’ The neighbor said, ‘‘But there aren’t any tigers within thousands of miles of here.’’ Nasruddin replied, ‘‘Effective, isn’t it?’’

Spiritual practice is not a mindless repetition of ritual or prayer. It works through consciously realizing the law of cause and effect and aligning our lives to it. Perhaps we can sense the potential of awakening in ourselves, but we must also see that it doesn’t happen by itself. There are laws that we can follow to actualize this potential. How we act, how we relate to ourselves, to our bodies, to the people around us, to our work, creates the kind of world we live in, creates our very freedom or suffering. Source: Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, Boston: Shambhala, 1987, pp 3-5 EH

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The Buddhist Perception of Humility By Chen Yu-Hsi, Ph.D.

Dr. Chen Yu-Hsi was chairperson of the Department of Religious Studies, Fo Guang University, Taiwan, from 2000 to 2003. He is currently a full professor teaching religious psychology and psychotherapy at that Department. He has published many articles and papers on spirituality and religious psychology. Like other spiritual traditions, Buddhism sees humility as a virtue. In the Buddhist text on Mahā Karuṇā (great compassion), humility is one of the ten sacred qualities attributed to Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, or Buddha of Compassion. Within that context, it appears to be a natural by-product of supreme spiritual attainments that transcends the ego, just as are the four noble states of mind -- love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

However, Mahāyāna Buddhism also advocates humility as a moral precept. As such it is often expressed in terms of exhortation against an arrogant or haughty attitude. Being a sign of ego-centeredness, pride is seen as impeding acceptance of the Buddha’s teachings and progress towards spiritual liberation. Buddhist practitioners believe that only a humble mind can readily recognize its own defilements of craving (or greed), aversion (or hatred) and ignorance, thereby embarking on the path of enlightenment and liberation. The Platform Sutra tells a story about how the Sixth Patriarch, Master Hui Neng, of the Chinese Zen Sect reprimanded a follower for his arrogant attitude. That follower felt selfconceited about his knowledge of a major Buddhist sūtra and knowingly or unknowingly kept his head above the ground while bowing to the master. At that point the master gave him a lecture that his lack of humility suggested that having a great knowledge of the sūtra fettered his mind rather than liberating it. In other words, when religious knowledge, like other knowledge, adds to “intellectual arrogance” and self-conceit, it becomes an impediment to what religious practice is supposed to attain. Elsewhere in the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch teaches that behaving humbly and according to propriety is a merit and a desirable moral quality that comes from insight into the spiritual reality. Humility in this sense is both a prerequisite for liberation and salvation from the deluded ego and a manifestation thereof.

The quintessence of humility is manifested in a practitioner’s realization that he is nobody or nothing. This state of enlightenment comes when he transcends all worldly desires,

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illusions and mental constructs and labels associated with the ego. Buddhism refers to this as “emptiness” - empty of the contents of an illusory ego. On an in-depth psychological level, when one realizes that one is nothing, one is also everything. That means that through unconditioned love and compassion, one is now connected with all things and all beings. There is no more “I” and “mine.” We are all one.

Some Buddhist practitioners place so great an emphasis on humility that they are prepared to yield to others in any situation that involves a dispute or contention. A Buddhist master writes that he always considers himself to be the least knowledgeable and capable as compared with other people. This approach is seen as a way to “humble” the ego so that spiritual liberation can be facilitated. Whether this is the right way of practice is open to questions. Within the Chinese cultural milieu, such a humble attitude is doubtless regarded as a virtue commensurate with the Confucian ethics of social order. Chinese Buddhism accepts it as a norm rather than an anomaly. In fact, the Buddhist principle of “no contention” (wu-cheng) requires that a practitioner refrain from quarreling or contending for personal interests, including intellectual interests. “No contention” implies a humbled ego through which the light of enlightenment may shine. In this connection, a parallel can be drawn between the Buddhist approach and the Christian teaching that one who is humble before God is exalted by Him.

Outsiders, however, may dispute the validity of such an approach. For instance, a junior lama from Tibet once told me that it was wrong to behave humbly because humility suggests that one is “smaller” than he/she really is. He thought that self-depreciation was as counter-productive as self-aggrandizement when it came to mental cultivation. He did not touch upon psychological repression, but I think that would be a relevant point to make if humility becomes a moral norm superimposed by social institutions, whether religious or otherwise.

Some spiritual masters such as Osho argue that a repressed ego makes it difficult for a practitioner to be liberated from the ego. Psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield makes the point that only when one develops a healthy self along with a deep realization of the empty nature of the self identity can one fully discover “true self,” which shines through our whole being with all its divine spiritual qualities.

Humility or modesty as practiced in traditional Chinese society is often criticized as being less than honest or even bordering on hypocrisy. A morally cultivated person is supposed to refrain from talking about his/her own merits and strengths, or to talk about them in a roundabout way that suggests modesty. Furthermore, the norm of humility demands that one use stereotyped language that depicts oneself as being worthless but is nevertheless understood to be mere ceremonial courtesy. Even today, a scholar is supposed to refer to his/her publications as “my clumsy works”, and an entertainer would beg “excuse” for a “homely and plain” feast and “less than satisfactory hospitality,” even though deep down he feels very proud of what he has offered to the guests. Such superficial courtesy appears to be a strong value in societies on which Confucianism has left its mark, including Japan and Korea.

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Although humility is important to Buddhism, ultimately spiritual attainments are associated with such personal qualities as the “middle way,” a balanced personality that is neither arrogant nor “humble” in the sense of self-abasement. Thus a semantic question may be raised as to exactly what we mean by humility. Does it necessarily imply an underevaluation of one’s own worth and merits that led the Tibetan lama to reject humility as a virtue for practitioners? From a true Buddhist perspective, the answer is “No.” And we may add the following criteria to define genuine humility: Behave without arrogance, self-conceit and other egoist tendencies such as jealousy and an impulse to show off.

Respect others and show a genuine human interest in them without a desire to please or to impress. Come up with an objective and honest understanding of our own strengths and weaknesses, with a realization that we are far from perfect and have a lot more to learn, to improve and to accomplish. While we do not recognize self-depreciation or self-effacement as part of humility, we must recognize that our biological self is fraught with frailties and ignorance and that a true self characterized by such divine qualities as love, compassion, joy and wisdom is innate in everyone of us.

With the above understanding, it is safe for Buddhists to speak of humility as a norm of personal conduct and a mark of supreme attainments that is consistent with the Buddhist “middle way.” Reference Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. Sharon Salzburg, Loving-kindness: A Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1995.

Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1991.

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Random House,1994. The Sutra of Hui Neng (Platform Sutra). Hong Kong: Buddhist Youth Association Ltd., 1994. EH

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The First Truth By Venerable Ajahn Sumedho

Luang Por Ajahn Sumedho (born Robert Jackman, July 27, 1934, Seattle, USA) is the most senior representative of the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravāda Buddhism the West. He has been an ordained bhikkhu for more than 40 years and a seminal figure in the transmission of the Buddha’s teachings to the West. He was abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the UK, from its consecration in 1984 until his retirement in 2010. Ajahn Sumedho has also written numerous books on Buddhism. He currently lives in Thailand.

The significance of the Buddhist teaching lies in the fact that it isn’t doctrinal. It’s not an attempt to tell us how things should be, it’s more a way of bringing our attention to the way things are.

Most of us are educated to think in terms of how things should be, and we often don’t understand why life is the way it is. So it surprises us, shocks us, upsets us. We become overwhelmed, even with good fortune, not to mention bad. The Buddhist teachings are guides that help us to look at the experience of being alive. I think modern materialism is the attempt of humanity to create a world as it should be—a world that’s secure, happy, beautiful and comfortable. But even when we have a certain amount of success—as we have in countries like Australia, for example—still somehow it’s not really what it should be, is it? Even if we could

have every wish fulfilled, every dream come true, there would still be some element missing. All the shoulds and shouldn’ts, all the ideas about how things should be—that is a function of our minds. And if we attach to those ideas, then of course we are going to suffer. Life is never going to be as it should be on a permanent basis. It can only be the way it is. The sensory world is ephemeral, evanescent, impermanent. There is no substance or essence to sensory experience. It is merely change, impermanence. And when we want it to be something it cannot be, then of course that’s what we call suffering—we suffer from the delusion that it should be something that it can never be.

We can see how idealistic we sometimes are. When we are young, we may long to meet the right person, have the perfect relationship, the perfect marriage, where things are as they should be. We can spend a good part of our lives looking, hoping, expecting, demanding, contriving, in every possible way, to meet the right person, or to make someone we know into what we think he or she should be. No one has ever been successful at this. Reflecting on the way things are is what the Buddhist teaching is all about. It’s a way of beginning to look at that which we generally ignore, such as suffering. We can react to suffering by either indulging in it or suppressing it. But to really look at suffering takes a different attitude. The natural way, being sensitive, is to just react. If something is beautiful, we grasp it. If it’s ugly, we reject it. This is the pleasure/pain principle of just reacting to sensory stimulation. What we are involved in during a lifetime as a human being is sensitivity, or sensory consciousness. And all this means is that from the time the body is born to the time it dies, we are going to be subjected to all kinds of impingements that we have little ability to control. We don’t have that much control over how pleasant it’s going to be. When we have sight, we are going to see both the beautiful and the ugly. Our ears are going to hear both melodious

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sounds and cacophonous noises. We are going to taste pleasant and unpleasant flavors, smell pleasant and unpleasant odors. The body is going to feel pleasure and pain, heat and cold. And our minds are able to think and remember. We have powerful memories, don’t we? We especially remember anything unpleasant that has either happened to us, or that we have done. All this is a way of saying how sensitive it is to be born as a human form and having to live a lifetime, for however long that might be.

We have to bear with whatever happens whether it should be that way or not. Since we aren’t the creators, we can’t create a world that is only pleasurable, beautiful, and fulfilling. We have to accept its opposite— the pain, the criticism, the blame, the illness, the ageing process of the body, separation from loved ones, having to be with the unloved, and so forth.

Suffering is the First Noble Truth. The Buddha used this Noble Truth as a way of awakening human beings to this experience we all have. Whether we are awakened to it or not, we still have it. Whether we are the most fortunate gifted person in the world, or the most wretched, we still suffer. The Queen of England suffers! The wretched beggar suffers! Men and women, rich and poor, European, Asian, African—the common experience to all humanity is suffering. Now suffering is to be understood. This is the First Noble Truth. And to understand something means we have to accept it rather than reject it. Rejecting suffering is, of course, what we like to do—get rid of it as quickly as possible. Any pain, any depressing feeling, any failure, any unpleasantness, any ugliness—we just like to get rid of it immediately. Life in a modern materialistic country provides us with very immediate

escapes from unpleasantness, doesn’t it? We can always distract ourselves with pleasant things—televisions, automobiles, computers. Technology can provide endless, interesting, and pleasing distractions. But be distracted from what? What are we trying to get away from? From boredom, despair, fear, anxiety, and worry. When I first practiced meditation, I didn’t have a teacher. I thought I’d just sit for ten minutes and not think. I remember sitting in my apartment trying to do it. And it was utter hell! The more I decided I wouldn’t think, the more frantic my thoughts became— the restlessness, the boredom. Ten minutes was an eternity—eternal hell! I experienced eternal hell the first ten minutes I meditated.

Fear haunts humanity, doesn’t it? There is fear and anxiety because there is a lot to be frightened of, actually. I’m not talking about personal neurosis. The actual human experience involves being very vulnerable. We have very vulnerable bodies that can be damaged. Wild animals can attack such vulnerable bodies at any time. We don’t have to worry about that now. Yet in modern cities the rebirth of wild tigers and bears seems to be taking place in the human form. What were once called civilized cities—safe and secure— have now become like the jungle—cities like London and New York (I don’t know about Australia). Some of the beings in those places are much more ferocious than bears and tigers. So there is a lot to fear—just instinctual fear for self-preservation. It’s very natural to fear when you realise your life is in danger. We have a retentive memory. And because we can remember, we can also project any situation into the future, any possibility for pain. This is because we have this intelligent mind with the ability to create ideas, to remember and to believe in the concepts that we create in the mind. So then we have anxiety. Anxiety is a mental state that gnaws away at us—the ever-present possibility for failure, the ever-present possibility for rejection, for being criticized, for being unwanted, being hurt or damaged. This is possible at any time. We recognize this. We can dwell in a continuous state of anxiety about possible pain and suffering which we aren’t actually experiencing in the present. That comes

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from remembering what we’ve done in the past, what others have done to us in the past, and what we’ve heard.

What are newspapers and magazines about? About romance, unrequited love, tragedy, scandal, corruption, brutality, rape and murder. Violence in all its forms are popular subjects for selling newspapers and magazines. Try to sell a magazine about a Buddhist monk meditating! Nothing to write about. Some of the things that go through our minds might be pretty spicy at times, but as the years go by, these fade out. There is nothing much really, nothing entertaining, nothing that would sell a newspaper. But bad Buddhist monks, corrupt Buddhist monks—they make the news. Kindness, goodness, the positive side of life somehow isn’t as exciting as corruption, scandal, and violence. These things are very stimulating. When they make movies, it has to be about violent war or sex. Things that completely absorb and hold our attention are often equated with things like sex, violence, danger, adventure, all this. The tendency then is to constantly seek that which excites the senses.

Our life can be just a series of experiences on the sensory plane. That can be a lot of fun for a while, especially when we are young. But as we get older, even that becomes boring. Nothing is more boring than continuous excitement. One gets weary of being excited and stimulated. So there is a desire to not be stimulated.

You find people who spend their time sleeping for hours every day, or getting drunk, taking drugs, knocking themselves out with sleeping pills and tranquilisers, just so as not to have to put forth any energy, not to have to be stimulated or sensitive at all. If we just react to life and don’t understand it, if we think life should be otherwise, then we suffer. We take it all very personally—life is terrible! We find it depressing. We feel contempt for ourselves, and have anger and bitterness towards others. And all this is a totally negative creation of the mind; it is a projection onto the world of an ignorant human being. The above article is from a talk given in Australia in March 1987.] EH

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Talking to Our Enemies By Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation teacher and the cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She is the co-author of Love Your Enemies. Her other books include Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation, and Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace. This article was first published in her blog on December 18, 2017

I was sitting in the living room of my friend’s house scanning the titles of his books, listening as he described his well-considered intentions to talk to those he disagreed with politically. We are cordoned off in our silos, he said, and we rarely meet the people who have opposing views. This is the problem with our country now, he asserted — we no longer talk to one another and we don’t even try to find common ground. He then asked me if I shared his goal. I said, “I don’t want to harm people and I believe that hating anyone inevitably takes too much energy. I want to have conversations with those with radically different views from those I hold, but the truth is I also want to keep them from having power over my life.” Just then my eye fell on Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s book entitled The Art of Power.

Saying I want that power is not an expected Buddhist response, but it is the truthful response from me even at a time when people are questioning modes of dominance in power, and urgently working toward a shift. Riane Eisler is one, through the work of the Center for Partnership Studies. They describe their work as “moving from domination to partnership, from control to care, from power-over to empowerment.”

I am inspired by that vision and want to help work towards it. At the same time, as long as in reality there is a dominance model at work, one that is deciding policy

and affecting peoples’ lives every day, I’m also moved to work to try to make sure those who seek to harm me or others don’t have the power to dominate. My mantra for a long time has been “Vote, vote, vote.” I believe that we each have to participate in the system as it is: It’s what we’ve got, and through our elected representatives vital issues of peoples’ lives — like health care and civil rights — are decided every single day. This isn’t an academic exercise or an abstract consideration — hope is being whittled away for real people struggling just to live. I have never heard the word “despair” used so much as I have this year. I remember riding to New York City in a car from Massachusetts, watching on my phone as the Climate March made its way through the streets of Manhattan. I saw all these jubilant faces on Facebook and Twitter

happy to participate in this show of solidarity, yet I kept thinking, “Do all of you vote?” As long as we refuse to exercise this power we will become subject to the actions of those who seek to keep it from us.

This is why I don’t think of sincere conversations as a singular remedy. In the same vein, I don’t think a new vision of power is remedy enough. Both are important, even essential. But in the heart of how things actually work right now I’d rather not have my life choices determined by folks who march on the weekends while waving Nazi flags.

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The Buddha said that lovingkindness is the antidote to fear, and this is something I repeated often in this year as people coming to talk to me described themselves as struggling with anger and fear. I want to do what I can to soothe people and at the same time inspire them to action, so that our actions can come more from a place of wisdom than hate. I’m very aware though, that no sooner would I advise that we should meet the powerful chaos and fear with powerful love than a trans person or a person of color or, more commonly these days, a Jewish person, would write me to disagree. As one wrote, “Why should I listen politely to someone who hates me, who does not believe I should exist?”

the streets of New York the Christmas after 9/11. He said he observed how parents changed the way they shepherded their children through the crowds, holding them tightly to their sides and more closely when the parents faced a person who frightened them. As those children maneuvered through the world clutched by mom and dad, they absorb their trauma. This how trauma ripples through the generations.

deep in the marrow that connects me to my ancestors, the inter-generational transmission of trauma. Those descended from survivors of genocide can feel that trauma even if they cannot remember its origin. The children of those who survived the recent murders in Sutherland, Texas could be affected by this, and their children as well.

differently.

That response made me examine my approach, as did the demonstration in Charlottesville this summer. The men who marched in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil” touched a fear

How does fear move across generations to reside in the bodies of those who never experienced the original trauma? In Lost in Transmission: Studies of Trauma Across Generations, one essay described the point of view of a sidewalk Santa who was ringing his bell on

I felt that within me watching the demonstrations in Charlottesville, and I expect that those who faced down that racing car in the street may transmit the terror they faced to their children and beyond. This is why talking to one another best takes place at the very least on the common ground that we each have the right to exist. Because that’s not always there, we work to keep power from those preaching hatred and division, and if we have power ourselves we choose to exercise it In a recent episode of Reveal, host Al Letson tested the common ground. He was covering the antifa/Nazi conflict outside the U.C. Berkeley campus. Letson, a fit and muscular African-American man, walked with his crew right into the center of crowd where he saw a mob attacking a man, kicking and beating him. Letson leapt in to save the man on the ground. Only later did he find out that the man he rescued was one of the Nazis. He had saved the life of someone who did not believe Letson should exist.

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Letson invited the man he rescued to the studio. Their conversation is well worth hearing, as it set both of them off their moorings. They confront each other and dispute facts, but the fact that Letson’s action granted them both the right to exist means that action created common ground. His conversation with a man who would be his enemy captures a rare moment when this new trauma they experienced together muffles the ones from generations ago that set up this conflict.

The way that people talk about common ground, it sounds almost magical, as if one could define a space and all would come there with open hearts and minds to build on what they share. In these conflicted times our wounds and vulnerabilities, some of which occurred generations back, make it difficult for dialogue to begin or to succeed in creating a feeling of safety. That

beautiful impulse my friend has to try to talk to his enemies may spring from his deeply-held convictions and a sense of his personal power. Yet for those who do not share his confidence, any encounter with political opponents may place them too much at risk to chance it.

The actions we take when we are really disconnected come from a place of suffering. We can and should develop greater compassion for those we consider disconnected from themselves and the world, those who propagate hatred or bias. In addition to working on compassion for the frightened, fearful and disconnected, along with building bridges and reducing your own hatred, vote! Aside from anything else we do, we also should do everything we can to not foster the power to create harm. EH

Are you searching for a spiritually challenging work? Do you enjoy meeting fellow Dharma practitioners, Buddhist leaders, and Dharma masters? Would you like to introduce the latest Buddhist book you read recently? How about researching into the latest web-sites on Buddhist activities around the world? And of course, what about telling us how you first came in contact with the dharma and what the dharma means to you today. Well, if you find all of these interesting, we can make it spiritually challenging for you too!

In every issue of EASTERN HORIZON, we publish special chat sessions with leading Buddhist personalities, essays on all aspects of Buddhism, book reviews, and news and activities that are of interest to the Buddhist community. We need someone to help us in all these projects. If you are keen to be part of this exciting magazine, please e-mail to the editor at Bennyliow@gmail.com, and we will put you in touch with what’s challenging for the next issue!

Let us share the dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings!

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The Paradox of Prayer By Dr Roshi Jan Chozen Bays

Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi has studied and practiced Zen Buddhism since 1973. She received Jukai (lay precepts) in 1975 and priestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ordination in 1979 from Taizan Maezumi, Roshi. From 1978 to 1983 she lived at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, studying with Maezumi Roshi and directing the Zen Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s non-profit Medical Clinic. She finished formal koan study in 1983 and was given Dharma transmission (authorization to teach) that same year. Following the death of Maezumi Roshi in 1995 she has continued her training with Shodo Harada, Roshi, a Rinzai Zen teacher and the abbot of Sogen-ji monastery in Japan. Since 1985 Chozen Roshi has been the teacher for the Zen Community of Oregon. In 2002 she helped to found Great Vow Zen Monastery and is the co-abbot. In 2011 she also helped found Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple in Portland, Oregon.

Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple, Oregon

She has published many articles about Zen in the periodicals Tricycle and Buddhadharma. Her first book, Jizo Bodhisattva, Modern Healing and Traditional Buddhist Practice (Tuttle, 2002), has been re-issued in paperback as Bodhisattva, Guardian of Children, Women and Other Voyagers (Shambhala). She is the author of How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness (Shambhala, 2011), and Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food (Shambala, 2011). Chozen Roshi is also a pediatrician and world-renowned child abuse consultant, mother and wife, ceramic artist, and lover of marimba.

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Photo by A. Jesse Jiryu Davis. Prayer is alive and well in Western Zen, says Jan Chozen Bays, even as it challenges us to make sense of what we’re doing.

Do Zen Buddhists Pray? This question was raised recently among Zen teachers online when someone in a drought-affected area requested that others join in a collective effort “beseeching the blessing of rain in any way that speaks to you.” The ensuing online conversation made it clear that there is no “party line” regarding prayer. One teacher called prayer “wellmeaning superstition,” akin to rubbing crystals or sacrificing goats; however, the same person later confessed to praying hard when his child was critically ill. Another teacher worried that if we pray for a resource like rain to fall in one dry area, we might effectively be asking for the rain to be diverted from another area. It turns out that’s not the case, but it would entail more water evaporating from oceans and lakes, which could then result in violent storms and flooding. Cause and effect are complicated. A scientist whom I consulted on the question advised, “Be careful what you pray for.”

Many teachers answered that they do pray. But in a nontheistic religion, this raises some questions: to whom? to what? In daily Zen practice, it seems that often we are praying to our self—both our individuallimited-lifespan self and our larger self of boundless-

interbeing. We aren’t praying for personal material gain; rather, we are praying in order to turn our hearts and minds toward the positive qualities of compassion and clarity. We are voicing an aspiration that we become able to extend compassion and wisdom to ourselves and others. We pray to be able to turn obstacles into fuel for enlightenment. We pray to cultivate a mind like a lotus, growing pure and upright out of the muddy water of delusion.

We also know that there are invisible presences all around us. There are comedies, tragedies, soap operas, rap music, and 911 calls in the room, but we can’t hear them if we don’t have the right receiver, such as a radio, computer, cell phone, or tv. The range of light and sound that our human bodies are able to perceive is quite narrow. It seems entirely possible that there are many unseen forms of existence surrounding us. Perhaps they dwell in other dimensions of spacetime. Why not be humble and ask them for assistance? our asking makes us a receiver, a vehicle through which they may be able to move and act.

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Meditation session at Zen Temple

Dharma lecture and discussion

Image of the Buddha, the Enlightened One

If our practice at Great Vow monastery is any indication, prayer is alive and well in Western Zen. We hold chanting services four times a day in which the word “pray” comes up again and again. We pray for the well-being of a list of people who are ill and for serene transitions for those who have recently died. We pray that the world be free from violence, war, and disasters. We pray for assistance from all the enlightened and holy beings who have come before us. We express our deep gratitude to our dharma ancestors and pray that their vows will be fulfilled through us. We pray to maintain steady practice up until the time of death and beyond. One chant begins, “our deepest prayer is to be firm in our determination to give ourselves completely to the Buddha’s Way so that no doubts arise, however long the road seems to be” and ends with “our further prayer is not to be extremely ill or to be suffering at the time of departure… So that we can quiet the mind to abandon the body and merge infinitely into the whole universe.”

We pray with meals. We reflect with gratitude on all the beings whose life energy has flowed into the food in our bowls, sacrificed so that we might have more abundant life, and we pray that all beings will be as well nourished as we are. We pray to be able to turn obstacles into fuel for enlightenment. We pray to cultivate a mind like a lotus, growing pure and upright out of the muddy water of delusion. Before beginning our work, we pray that our labor will purify our hearts, benefit the earth, and help free all beings from suffering. We pray that we will cultivate, accomplish, and manifest the enlightened way together. EH

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What It Means to Harmonize Your Diet By Ven Chang Xiang Fashi

Ven. Chang Xiang Fashi was born in the city of Gaoxiong, Taiwan. He entered the Dharma Drum Mountain Sangha University in 2004, and in 2006 received his full ordination. During this time, he attended over 20 intensive Chan retreats, as well as received training and gained extensive experience and familiarity with leading the Dharma Drum lineage style of Chan practice. During this period, he also served as the Sangha University Student Services Health Services Manager, Planning Department Leader, as well as student counselor. He is fluent in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and speaks English.

To harmonize your diet is to know how to eat properly. I come from Taiwan, and I think many people know that in Taiwan, there are lots of delicious foods. So Taiwanese people love to eat, and they know how to make good food. I like delicious food too, but when I came here as a monk, I was put in charge of the kitchen; so it’s my duty to serve people healthy food, and to harmonize their diet, because the food we serve here at the monastery is what the practitioners have to eat – they don’t have much choice. There are certain principles we have to follow in the kitchen. We couldn’t serve hamburgers and French fries every meal – that would make practitioners sick. So we have to serve a healthy diet, and we have to make the nutrition balanced, because that’s very important during a retreat: if you can’t eat good food, or enough food, that would generate many problems. The four principles we have to follow in the kitchen are clear – the food must be: 1. Nutritious 2. Healthy

3. Hygienic 4. Reasonably Priced

Those are the four principles we have to follow when we serve food. You can notice there’s no ‘Delicious’ principle there. Making the food delicious is not our first priority. That’s not even in the four principles, even though most people like delicious food, and most of the time that’s the first reason why they eat a particular meal. When you go out to eat, the first concern is: “Does this restaurant’s food taste good?” For the majority of people, taste is what matters most. But people come here to the monastery to practice – we don’t want them to expect too much from the food; although, our chefs are very good at cooking food, so most of the time our food is delicious. But that’s not what is most important. The Connection Between Diet & Buddhist Practice

Why do we have these four principles about our food? If you ever attended one of our retreats, you would know that before we eat, we will recite a short liturgy. There’s a part of the liturgy called The Five Contemplations, which I’ll read now:

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i. Considering how much merit has brought me this food, I reflect on where this food came from. ii. Measuring my own virtue and practice, am I worthy of receiving this offering? iii. Protecting the mind from mistakes, abandoning greed, hatred, and ignorance is essential. iv. Correctly considering this food as salutary medicine, it will prevent this body from withering away. v. Now, I receive this food for the sake of accomplishing the Buddha path.

The Buddha & The Farmer There’s a story from the Buddha’s time about what happened when the Buddha went out to beg for food one day. During his time, the monks and nuns made a living by going out and using their bowl to beg for food. They’d go to people’s houses, knock on the door, stand there, and people knew they were begging monks, and they could give them food if they liked.

But if the person was not a Buddhist, or didn’t like this monk or that monk, they could just refuse to give any offering. If the monk didn’t get any food, he’d just go to the next house.

So that’s the liturgy we read before we start to eat. We read this liturgy to remind us that the reason we eat is not to enjoy or to entertain – and it’s not just because we paid money for the food. We also have to contemplate on the food, and ask ourselves:

“Did we really practice hard enough to receive this food?” Because in the monastery, all the money for food, buildings, and expenditures comes from donations – so we have to cherish every cent. We have to really figure out why we’re here, so we can fully receive and deserve all those donations.

So one day, the Buddha led all his disciples out to beg for food. There was a farmer who saw Buddha come to him to beg. And you know, Buddha was very goodlooking, because he was already a Buddha, already enlightened. He didn’t look homeless or very poor – he was a very healthy, good-looking guy. So the farmer saw the Buddha, and he thought: “Huh…this good-looking guy, he’s very healthy and looks very strong – why doesn’t he work? Why does he come here to beg for food?” The farmer becomes very angry by this, and says to Buddha, “Hey, I’m a farmer and I work very hard to feed myself. Why don’t you learn from me? Why don’t you work? You are quite a strong and healthy guy, so you should work like me.”

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And the Buddha just told him, “I’m a farmer too.” The farmer was surprised, and said, “You’re a farmer? If you’re a farmer, where’s your seed? Where’s your cow? Where’s your field? How can you call yourself a farmer?” The Buddha replied, “All my teachings are my seeds. I practice diligently – that is my cow. And all the sentient beings in the world – that’s my field. So I just diligently instruct people in my teaching. I diligently plant my seed into peoples’ minds, so that after I plant this seed, in the future they have a chance to get liberation, and avoid vexations.”

We have to choose healthy food here. When you’re at home, you can choose the food you like. Of course, we suggest people be vegetarian, because that’s what we do here – we don’t eat meat or eggs. It’s good for your health, and it’s also good for the environment: if you use the same space, water and resources that are used to produce meat, you can actually make much more vegetarian food than meat-based food.

Then the farmer realized, “Oh – the Buddha is a much better farmer than me.” So the farmer repented, took out all his best offerings, and sang to Buddha, saying, “For the day you plant your seed in my mind, for the chance that I can get liberated – you deserve this best offering.” Food For Spiritual Thought

Coming back to the present time, we monks and nuns can still call ourselves farmers. Of course it’s just an analogy, but it’s the same principle: we practice Buddha’s teaching, and we have to practice diligently. We pass these teachings on to people as also a kind of ‘planting of a seed,’ so that in the future, after they learn these methods and teachings, they have a chance to get liberated. That’s why we can receive the offerings of food. But when most people eat, they don’t think that way; but when they come to the monastery, we will teach them this kind of concept. Instead of just eating because you paid for it, it’s better you have this kind of grateful mind when receiving the food, to help you practice more diligently.

So the reason we eat is to try and sustain this body, and to make this body healthy and suitable for practice. That’s why we eat. In order to keep our body healthy, we have to choose what to eat, and how to eat. To eat or not to eat – that’s the question.

There are many documentaries that all say a vegetarian diet is much better, because to produce meat, you have to produce a lot of food and water to feed the cattle. Instead, we can use those same resources to feed people – a lot of people. A vegetarian diet is not only good for you, but it’s good for the earth. So first of all, our food here is vegetarian. But at home, that’s up to you – you don’t have to feel guilty.

There’s also another documentary that talks a lot about sugar. It’s not good to eat too much sugar, especially considering the country’s problem with obesity. Oftentimes, the reason you gain weight is because you consume too much sugar. When you eat sugar, the sugar levels in your body spike, and your body has to deal with that; so there’s something in your body – I can’t remember the name – that comes out and tries to balance the high sugar levels in your blood, and during that process, it will generate lots of fat in your body.

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That fat will accumulate very fast, causing you to gain more and more weight

But most food nowadays contains a lot of sugar – like Coca-Cola, all kinds of nutrition bars, beverages, and more. If you look at the label, you’ll see they all contain lots of sugar – but the food companies want the food to taste good, so they have to add more sugar.

Once you add more sugar, the food will taste more delicious. So the more you choose food based on the taste, the more you will want to eat sugar – that’s the fact we have to face.

If you look online, you will find many theories about how to eat healthy. But even when we know all those theories, when you go to the restaurant or supermarket, it’s not so easy to just change our habits. People like to stay inside their comfort zones – they don’t have much motivation to change. That’s what that Avengers: The Age of Ultron movie trailer reminds me of, that line:

“You want to protect the world, but you don’t want to change.”

It’s better you just eat real food. For example, if you want to eat fruit, then it’s better you eat the actual fruit, and don’t just drink the juice. When companies make juice, they filter out all the fibers and other natural ingredients, so its only juice left – and that’s mostly just water and sugar. Even if you drink those 100% juices, that’s still just sugar and water.

So it’s better to eat real food. Also, don’t eat anything too sweet or salty, and don’t eat fried food, like French fries. Actually, I like fried food, but after becoming a monk, I don’t have much of a chance to eat fried food, because we don’t offer it in the monastery – and that’s good for me.

For many practitioners it’s the same – so we can make a movie called, Practitioner: The Age of Buddha. We have to change. We want to get liberated, but we don’t want to change – but if you don’t want to change, there’s no chance that you can get liberated. EH

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Christian Europe once celebrated the story of Buddha without even knowing it By Jana Igunma

The Buddha as Josaphat became a saint in medieval Europe with his own feast day: November 27.

Illustration of Josaphat’s, or the Bodhisattva’s, renunciation of the world in a German printed version from Augsburg, circa 1470 CE. He takes his leave from Barachias (left), whom he made king and then embarks on the path of an ascetic (right). | Credit: British Library Jul 04, 2019 · 08:30 pm Europeans became increasingly interested in the cultures and religions of Asia, or what they later called the Orient, as a result of trade relations throughout the first millennium CE. Images of

and Georgian have been discovered. The story became commonly known as Barlaam and Josaphat in medieval Europe. The name Josaphat, in Persian and Arabic, spelt variously Budasf, Budasaf, Yudasaf or Iosaph, is a corruption of the title Bodhisattva which stands for Buddha-to-be, referring to Prince Siddhartha who became Gotama Buddha with his enlightenment.

Buddha with the Greek lettering ΒΟΔΔΟ – Boddo for Buddha – were found on gold coins from the Kushan empire dating back to

the second century CE. Buddha was mentioned in a Greek source, Stromateis, by Clement of Alexandria as early as around 200 CE and another reference to Buddha is found in St Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum written in 393 CE. A religious legend inspired by the narrative of the Life of Buddha was well known in the Judaeo-Persian tradition and early versions in Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian

A mention of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat in a marginal illustration in a manuscript famously known as the ‘Theodore Psalter’, although the story itself is not narrated here. Theodore, proto-presbyter of the Studios Monastery in Constantinople, made the manuscript in ancient Greek for

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Abbot Michael, in 1066 CE. Credit: British Library

Fragments of early versions of the legend seem to have been preserved in Manichean texts in Uighur and Persian from Turfan and it is thought that Manicheans may have transmitted the Buddha narrative to the West. From there the story was translated into Arabic and into Judeo-Persian and Syriac. An early Greek version is attributed to St John of Damascus from circa 675-749 CE in most medieval sources, although recent researches reject this attribution as it is more probable that the Georgian monastic Euthymios carried out the translation from Georgian into Greek in the 10th century CE. It became particularly popular throughout the Christian world after it was translated into many different languages in the Middle Ages, including Latin, French, Provençal, Italian, Spanish, English, Irish, German, Czech, Serbian, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish.

First page of an 18th-19th century poetical version of Barlaam and Josaphat with the title Shāhzādah ṿe-Tsūfī by Elisha ben Samuel in Persian in Hebrew characters. Credit: British Library

The spread of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat in medieval Europe was a cultural phenomenon second to none at the time. Poetic and dramatised versions of the legend became what would be called bestsellers, today. In Christian Europe, these two names were commonly known and the Buddha as St Josaphat became a Saint with his own feast day in the Christian calendar: 27 November.

Devotional miscellany in Old French including the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat on 69 pages, from France in the first half of the 14th century. The illustration depicts Barlaam in black and Josaphat in white dress. Credit: British Library Although based on the narrative of the Life of Buddha, the content of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat was reshaped and supplemented to make it suitable for the Christian

believer. In the Christianized story, an astrologer predicts that the newly-born son of King Avennir, or Abenner, in India, Josaphat, will become a follower of the Christian religion. To prevent this, the king forbade his son to leave the royal palace. The young prince was brought up in ignorance of sickness, old age and death. However, he found out about the dangers to life during excursions from the palace when he met a leper and a blind man, a decrepit old man and finally a corpse. To this point the parallels between the Buddha narrative and the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat are obvious, although names have been corrupted: King Suddhodana became King Avennir and Prince Siddhartha became Josaphat, for Bodhisattva. Then events in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat take a different turn, and some figures are mixed up with others, like for example Buddha’s enemy Devadatta and Mara, the lord of desire.

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A 12th-century Latin translation of Barlaam and Josaphat from the Greek version attributed to John of Damascus. The manuscript was owned by the Weissenau Abbey in Germany. Credit: British Library

A German version continues that after learning about sickness, old age and death, Josaphat met the Christian hermit Barlaam who converted him. Josaphat’s father attempted to dislodge his son from his new faith. He threatened him and then he promised him half the kingdom, but without success. Then the king met the sorcerer Theodas – a corruption of the name Devadatta – who advised him to send Josaphat beautiful women to seduce him, in which they did not succeed. In the Buddha narrative, this scene is related to Mara instead of Devadatta. Josaphat was also attacked by Theodas’ evil spirits which he fought off. Josaphat decided to renounce the world and to spend the rest of his life as an ascetic. In the wilderness of the desert, he was attacked by wild beasts and demons. Finally, he was reunited with the hermit Barlaam and they passed away shortly after one another.

An illustrated German version of Barlaam and Josaphat, printed in Augsburg around 1470 CE. Shown here is an illustration of Josasphat’s encounter of a blind man and a leper, and the text narrates how his attendants explain the reality of human suffering to him. Credit: British Library

The legend became particularly popular in Germany through the Austrian poet Rudolf von Ems’ poetic German version that was composed on the basis of a Latin version around 1230 CE. In Scandinavia, a translation into Old Norse was ordered by King Haakon Haakonsøn in the 13th century, which was the basis of later translations into Norwegian and Swedish. From a Syriac version, translations into Old Slavonic and then Russian and Serbian were produced.

’ Rappresentatione di Barlaam et

Josafat’, an Italian poetic version by Bernardo Pulci printed in Florence in 1516 CE. The title page illustration depicts the birth of Josaphat in the imagination of a Christian artist. Credit: British Library

Printing technology helped to mass-produce copies of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat which made it more widely accessible. Frequently, pictures of Barlaam and Josaphat were added on the title page of printed works. Illustrations depicting scenes from the story were included in some printed books. Although the artistic representation of such images is characterized by the European fashion of that time, based on the imagination of artists who had never been to India, it is possible to identify certain scenes that are well known from the Life of Buddha. These include the Buddha’s birth as a prince, his four encounters, his renunciation of the world, Mara’s attack and assaults by Devadatta.

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Illustrated Italian version of Barlaam and Josaphat printed in Venice around 1650 CE. The illustration depicts one of the four signs: Josaphat’s encounter with a leper. Credit: British LibraryTitle page of a version in Spanish which attributes the legend to John of Damascus, ‘Doctor of the Greek Church’. It was printed in Madrid in 1608 CE. Credit: British Library

Europe was not the final destination of the Buddha narrative in the form of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. The existence of the story was also known in Ethiopia, perhaps well before the 16th century. It was documented by Abha Bahrey, a 16th-century Ethiopian historian who mentioned the book, possibly a translation into Ge’ez or Ethiopic from Greek, in his Psalter of Christ dated 1528 CE. After the official adoption of Christianity in 330 CE, Ethiopian Christians began to translate the sacred texts: the Bible, the New Testament and the Pentateuch into the Ge’ez language. Many writings that were first compiled in Aramaic or Greek have been fully preserved only in Ge’ez as the sacred books of the Ethiopian Church. There is a vast corpus of scriptures that have survived exclusively only in Ge’ez. ADVERTISEMENT Another translation into Ge’ez with the title Baralam and Yewasef was executed from the Arabic version of Bar-sauma ibn Abu ‘l-Faraj by one Enbiikom, or Habakkuk, for the king Galawdewds, or Claudius. It is dated AM 7045 which corresponds to 1553 CE. A surviving copy was written during the reign of king ‘Iyasu II from 1730-55 CE.

Handwritten version of Barlaam and Josaphat in Ge’ez with the title ‘Baralam and Yewasef’, copied at around 1746-’55 from an older translation from Arabic into Ge’ez. Credit: British Library Jana Igunma is the lead curator of Buddhist artefacts at the British Library.

This article first appeared on the Asian and African Studies Blog, a publication of the British Library. EH

EASTERN HORIZON | BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

Dharma Drum Mountain Taiwan

The Wanderer By Venerable Master Sheng Yen

Master Sheng Yen has dedicated his life to spreading the teachings of Chan Buddhism in China and in the West. In this excerpt from his autobiography, Footprints in the Snow,Master Sheng Yen tells the story of his arrival in New York and how he learned to live without a home.

Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts, Taiwan AFTER I RESIGNED from my post as an abbot in Taiwan, Dr. C. T. Shen [a cofounder of the Buddhist Association of the United States] brought me back to New York to spread the dharma there. My return to the United States did not restore me to my former position of strength, however. There was no room for me to live at the Temple of Great Enlightenment, which was occupied by nuns. I stayed at Shen’s villa, named Bodhi House, on Long Island and traveled back and forth to the city. But I wanted to move out because I was too far away from my students. Shen told me, “If you move out, I can no longer take good care of you.” “That’s okay,” I said. “I will wander.” I had no money for rent, so I slept in front of churches or in parks. I learned how to get by from three of my students, who had experience living on the street.

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BOOK REVIEW

Dharma Drum Retreat Center New York, USA

Dharma Drum Center Vancouver, Canada They taught me to find discarded fruit and bread in back of convenience stores and food markets. They showed me that I could make a little money here and there from odd jobs, sweeping up shops or tending a pretzel stand. I learned that I could store my things in a locker at Grand Central Terminal and wash clothes at a laundromat. My students pointed out the fast-food restaurants that were open twenty-four hours, and they told me that I could spend my nights at these places, resting and drinking coffee.

I wandered through the city, a monk in old robes, sleeping in doorways, nodding with the homeless through the night in coffee shops, foraging through dumpsters for fruit and vegetables. I was in my early fifties, no spring chicken, but I was lit from within by my

mission to bring the dharma to the West. Besides, what did it matter? The lessons Dongchu had taught me made it a matter of indifference to me whether I slept in a big room or a small room or in the doorway of a church. Some people may have felt pity for me, but I didn’t pity myself. I didn’t feel that I was unlucky. Some people feared me and worried that I would ask for money or other help. I decided it was best not to call on anyone, although I did accept some offers of help. I spent nights at the apartments of my followers. Master Haolin welcomed me and let me stay at his monastery in Chinatown. But I did not want to stay there too long, because I did not know if I would be able to repay him for this service. I preferred to wander. This may strike some of you as strange—that a friend and fellow monk would let me leave his monastery to

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BOOK REVIEW live out on the street. But Haolin had a very small place without much income. When I lived there, it was an added burden on him. If he was wealthy and had a big place I would have felt differently about imposing on his hospitality. I think that being out on the streets was a good thing, because it taught me not to rely on anyone and pushed me to find my own place to propagate Chan. There is a long tradition of bodhisattvas enduring difficulties as they spread the dharma. Shakyamuni Buddha taught that to be a great practitioner, a bodhisattva, you do not look toward your own happiness and security. You only wish for sentient beings to cease suffering. In India, Buddhist monks had to travel to areas without Buddhism, and they would inevitably encounter resistance. When they arrived in China, Confucianism

and Taoism were dominant, and the Confucians wanted to keep the Buddhists out, especially the monastics. Shakyamuni Buddha believed that if you could withstand difficulties, you would be able to inspire others and thus influence them. Ordinary people just want life to be smooth, without problems. But Buddhist practitioners have a different attitude. They are ready to endure many difficulties if they are in the service of transforming others.

HOW DO WE endure hardship? Master Mazu taught that it is necessary to have a mind of equanimity. This means always maintaining a calm, stable mind, which is not ruled by emotion. When you encounter success, you don’t think that you created it. Don’t get too excited or proud of yourself. Your success happened for a reason and came to pass because of many people and circumstances. If you work hard at something but find that too many obstacles prevent you from accomplishing it, you may have to give up. In that case, you shouldn’t get depressed. Conditions aren’t right. Perhaps this will change, perhaps it won’t. You are not a failure. Becoming upset only causes suffering. To be a great practitioner, you do not look toward your own happiness and security. Keeping a mind of equanimity, though, does not mean being inactive or passive. You still need to fulfill your

responsibilities. Master Xuyun said, “While the business of spreading Buddha’s teachings is like flowers in the sky, we ought to conduct them at all times. Although places for the practice [monasteries, retreat centers] are like the reflection of the moon in the water [referring to the fact that they are illusory and impermanent], we establish them wherever we go.” This means that these jobs are illusory, but we still need to do them. Sentient beings are illusory, but we still need to help deliver them. A place of practice is like the reflection of the moon in the water. It’s not real, but we still build monasteries so we can deliver sentient beings. This is our responsibility. We must try our best to fulfill our responsibilities, without being attached to success and failure. Chan masters apply the mind of equanimity in all aspects of their lives. If they don’t, they are not truly

Chan masters. In my time of wandering, I kept a mind of equanimity. I didn’t think of myself as homeless. I thought of Master Hanshan [1546–1623], who lived on Tiantai Mountain. He used the sky as his roof, the earth as his bed, the cloud as covers, a rock as a pillow, and the stream as his bathtub. He ate vegetables if vegetables were available. If rice and vegetables were available in a monastery, he ate that. If nothing was available, he ate tree leaves or roots. He felt free and wrote beautiful poems. Beneath high cliffs I live alone swirling clouds swirl all day inside my hut it might be dim but in my mind I hear no noise I passed through a golden gate in a dream my spirit returned when I crossed a stone bridge I left behind what weighted me down my dipper on a branch click clack

When you have nothing, you are free. When you own something, then you are bound to your possessions. I felt very happy. I did not feel that I had no future. In fact, I felt my future was rich and great indeed because I had students. I still had a mission to fulfill. I just did not know where I would sleep at night. I knew that I was much better off than homeless people, who really did not have anything and were without a future. And I knew that I would not wander forever.

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BOOK REVIEW

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness By Venerable Dr H Gunaratana Maha Thera

My life is very different now. I have met with world leaders and given a keynote address in the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations. My disciples include high-level officials in Taiwan. I was received as a VIP in motorcades in mainland China and Thailand. I am venerated by my followers. People feel that if they don’t treat me this way, it’s not right, but it does not make any difference to me whether they treat me this way or not. I am famous today but tomorrow, when I can no longer do what I do now, I will be forgotten. How many people have their names remembered in history? Fame, like wealth and power, is illusionary. So a mind of equanimity is necessary in all circumstances. There is a Chinese saying that goes: “After experiencing wealth and property, it is hard to return to poverty.” This is true if you don’t have a mind of equanimity. If you can maintain a mind of equanimity, you are free, no matter what the conditions.

Master Sheng-Yen (1931-2009) was the resident teacher at the Chan Meditation Center in Elmhurst, New York, founder of Dharma Drum Mountain, and author of many books. EH

In this excerpt from Bhante Gunaratana’s book Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English, the great Theravada

teacher explains why all practitioners should meditate on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, at every stage on the Buddhist path.

Mindfulness practice has deep roots in Buddhist tradition. More than 2,600 years ago, the Buddha exhorted his senior bhikkhus, monks with the responsibility of passing his teachings on to others, to train their students in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. “What four?” he was asked.

“Come, friends,” the Buddha answered. “Dwell contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, unified, with concentrated one-pointed mind, in order to know the body as it really is. Dwell contemplating feeling in feelings… in order to know feelings as they really are. Dwell contemplating mind in mind… in order to know mind as it really is. Dwell contemplating dhamma in dhammas… in order to know dhammas as they really are.” The practice of contemplating (or as we might say, meditating on) the Four Foundations—mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind, and dhammas (or

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BOOK REVIEW

phenomena)—is recommended for people at every stage of the spiritual path. As the Buddha goes on to explain, everyone—trainees who have recently become interested in the Buddhist path, monks and nuns, and even arahants, advanced meditators who have already reached the goal of liberation from suffering, “should be exhorted, settled, and established in the development of these Four Foundations of Mindfulness.” We can assume that the word “bhikkhu” is used to mean anyone seriously interested in meditation. In that sense, we are all bhikkhus.

In this sutta, the Buddha is primarily addressing the community of bhikkhus, monks and nuns who have dedicated their lives to spiritual practice. Given this, you might wonder whether people with families and jobs and busy Western lives can benefit from mindfulness practice. If the Buddha’s words were meant only for monastics, he would have given this talk in a monastery. But he spoke in a village filled with shopkeepers, farmers, and other ordinary folk. Since mindfulness can help men and women from all walks of life relieve suffering, we can assume that the word “bhikkhu” is used to mean anyone seriously interested in meditation. In that sense, we are all bhikkhus.

Let’s look briefly at each of the four foundations of mindfulness as a preview of things to come.

Mindfulness of Body By asking us to practice mindfulness of the body, the Buddha is reminding us to see “the body in the body.” By these words he means that we should recognize that the body is not a solid unified thing, but rather a collection of parts. The nails, teeth, skin, bones, heart, lungs, and all other parts—each is actually a small “body” that is located in the larger entity that we call “the body.” Traditionally, the human body is divided into thirtytwo parts, and we train ourselves to be mindful of each. Trying to be mindful of the entire body is like trying to grab a heap of oranges. If we grab the whole heap at once, perhaps we will end up with nothing! Moreover, remembering that the body is composed of many parts helps us to see “the body as body”—not as my body or as myself, but simply as a physical form like all other physical forms. Like all forms, the body comes into being, remains present for a time, and then passes away. Since it experiences injury, illness, and death, the body is unsatisfactory as a source of lasting happiness. Since it is not myself, the body can also be called “selfless.” When mindfulness helps us to recognize that the body is impermanent, unsatisfactory,

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BOOK REVIEW and selfless, in the Buddha’s words, we “know the body as it really is.”

Mindfulness of Feelings Similarly, by asking us to practice mindfulness of feelings, the Buddha is telling us to contemplate “the feeling in the feelings.” These words remind us that, like the body, feelings can be subdivided. Traditionally, there are only three types—pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings, and neutral feelings. Each type is one “feeling” in the mental awareness that we call “feelings.” At any given moment we are able to notice only one type. When a pleasant feeling is present, neither a painful feeling nor a neutral feeling is present. The same is true of an unpleasant or neutral feeling. The mind alone cannot exist, only particular states of

mind that appear depending on external or internal conditions. Paying attention to the way each thought arises, remains present, and passes away, we learn to stop the runaway train. We regard feelings in this way to help us develop a simple nonjudgmental awareness of what we are experiencing—seeing a particular feeling as one of many feelings, rather than as my feeling or as part of me. As we watch each emotion or sensation as it arises, remains present, and passes away, we observe that any feeling is impermanent. Since a pleasant feeling does not last and an unpleasant feeling is often painful, we understand that feelings are unsatisfactory. Seeing a feeling as an emotion or sensation rather than as my feeling, we come to know that feelings are selfless. Recognizing these truths, we “know feelings as they really are.”

Mindfulness of Mind The same process applies to mindfulness of mind. Although we talk about “the mind” as if it were a single thing, actually, mind or consciousness is a succession of particular instances of “mind in mind.” As mindfulness practice teaches us, consciousness arises from moment to moment on the basis of information coming to us from the senses—what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch—and from internal mental states, such as memories, imaginings, and daydreams. When we look at the mind, we are not looking at mere consciousness. The

mind alone cannot exist, only particular states of mind that appear depending on external or internal conditions. Paying attention to the way each thought arises, remains present, and passes away, we learn to stop the runaway train of one unsatisfactory thought leading to another and another and another. We gain a bit of detachment and understand that we are not our thoughts. In the end, we come to know “mind as it really is.” Mindfulness of Dhammas By telling us to practice mindfulness of dhammas, or phenomena, the Buddha is not simply saying that we should be mindful of his teachings, though that is one meaning of the word “dhamma.” He is also reminding us that the dhamma that we contemplate is within us. The history of the world is full of truth seekers. The Buddha was one of them. Almost all sought the truth

outside themselves. Before he attained enlightenment, the Buddha also searched outside of himself. He was looking for his maker, the cause of his existence, who he called the “builder of this house.” But he never found what he was looking for. Instead, he discovered that he himself was subject to birth, growth, decay, death, sickness, sorrow, lamentation, and defilement. When he looked outside himself, he saw that everyone else was suffering from these same problems. This recognition helped him to see that no one outside himself could free him from his suffering. So he began to search within. This inner seeking is known as “come and see.” Only when he began to search inside did he find the answer. Then he said: Many a birth I wandered in samsara, Seeking but not finding the builder of this house. Sorrowful is it to be born again and again. Oh! House builder thou art seen. Thou shall not build house again. All thy rafters are broken. Thy ridgepole is shattered. The mind has attained the unconditioned. Reproduced from The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English with permission of Wisdom Publications. Source: Lion’s Roar www.lionsroar.com, May 9, 2018 EH

EASTERN HORIZON | REFLECTION

Why You’re Addicted to Your Phone By Kurt Spellmeyer

Kurt Spellmeyer, Kankan Roshi trained with Takabayashi Genki and Kangan Glenn Webb, founders of the Seattle Zen Center. In 1985, Kankan completed his training under Webb Roshi and was authorized to teach. He received the dharma name Kankan (Ch. Guan Han, “Sees the Cold”), at a private ceremony with Webb in 1991. In March 2010, Webb Roshi gave Inka, his personal seal of final approval to Kankan. Kankan Roshi has practiced Zen meditation for 35 years. He has directed the Cold Mountain Zen since 1994, and supports himself by working as a professor in the English Department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The Cold Mountain (Kanzan) lineage of Rinzai Zen can be traced back to the Han Shan Temple in Suzhou, China. After Webb Roshi received dharma transmission from Miyauchi Kanko Roshi in Japan, he and his teacher made a journey back to the Han Shan Temple on the Chinese mainland. There Kangan’s transmission was acknowledged by the abbot.

Kurt has written several books. His latest book Buddha at the Apocalypse: Awakening from a Culture of Destruction takes a critical look at the role western religions have played in shaping the modern worldview. The book challenges our assumptions about time, about religion, and about the nature of “progress,” and invites us to explore the vantage point of Buddhism where the complexity and circularity of life are embraced.

About two years ago, I lost my phone. Waiting at Newark International Airport, I heard the cancellation of my Chicago flight, closed down by a blizzard. I took out my phone to call home, but then I learned about another plane, soon departing from a different terminal. Stampeding down the concourse with the crowd, I must have dropped my aging Samsung.

In the weeks that followed, I added “Buy a phone” to my list of undone tasks, but as each list replaced the former one, something held me back. Gradually, I understood: losing the phone felt liberating. Living as I do in central New Jersey, I wouldn’t have the same sense of relief if my Toyota disappeared. And I’d surely miss my Kenmore washing machine, still running after 20 years. But cell phones differ from technologies like these—and in ways we might not appreciate.

Pinging, ringing, and vibrating all the time, phones can be annoying, but that’s not what sets them apart. Lying in my bed at the end of a day, I don’t feel so overwhelmed by anxiety that I can’t relax unless I run downstairs

REFLECTION | EASTERN HORIZON

to do another load of dirty clothes. But anxiety, guilt, loss, loneliness—these emotions can arise when I’m unconnected to my phone, and I’m not the only one this happens to. The mystery is why. Most of our machines have been designed to replicate or enhance our bodies’ functioning. A hammer is a prosthetic hand; bicycles are prosthetic legs. But cell phones, iPads, and PCs are prostheses for our minds. Related: AI, Karma & Our Robot Future People often talk about the mind as though it’s a computer when the relationship is just the reverse: computers imitate our mental processing. Our grandparents didn’t need Steve Jobs to watch the screens behind their eyes. They’d admire mental snapshots of their patios or replay movies in their heads, adding sound to the images.

Computers and their spinoffs are machines designed to simulate these capacities, and like all tools, they soon become extensions of ourselves. The mind is no computer, but our consciousness still merges with our phones and tablets as seamlessly as a painter’s hand fuses with her brush or musicians vocalize through their instruments. This fusion can happen, Buddhist teaching holds, because consciousness is formless and adopts the qualities of everything it “touches.” Once we’ve immersed ourselves in our screens, they become our whole reality—and that’s why texting drivers look up with surprise when they rear-end the car in front of them. We’d like to believe there’s a clear boundary between the real and the virtual, but if screens have become extensions of our minds, that assumption could prove fatally naïve, especially now that IT visionaries claim an implant linking our brains to the Web is less than a decade away.

Long before the Internet, early Buddhists coined a term— prapañca in Sanskrit—to describe the tendency of our thoughts to proliferate like “entangling vines,” as Zen teachers say. Mahāyāna Buddhists expanded the term to include not only words and ideas but also

images, memories, and other mental fabrications. Now, the time has come for us to add everything streaming into our heads from our new prostheses: YouTube videos, online news, music, selfies sent from far away.

The trouble with prapañca, the Buddha taught in the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta MN 18, is that the nonstop novelty prevents us from uncovering the sources of our suffering. We shuttle from one screen to the next, trying to allay our nagging sense that something’s missing or not right. But nothing we find satisfies for long, and so we start Googling again. Instead, we need to turn our devices off. When the screens in front of us go blank, we have a better chance to become aware of another screen “behind our eyes,” the screen of the mind. Then, if we sit quietly, watching the breath or reciting the Buddha’s name, that inner screen will empty out until it appears formless and radiant. And once we make contact with this bright, empty mind, our craving for fresh screens comes to a stop. No matter what displays we encounter when we switch our devices on again, all of them will convey the same “one taste.”

The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra describes this “one taste” as a timeless “now” that is “unproduced, unceasing, quiescent from the start, and naturally in a state of nirvana” (trans. John Powers). In that state, where you have nothing to achieve and nowhere left to go, it won’t hurt to make an occasional call or look up a restaurant on an app because the mind behind your eyes hasn’t changed. Still, I’m not planning to buy a new phone. Phones come in handy if your car breaks down or you get lost in Brooklyn. But when I’ve found myself in those predicaments, I’ve had to reacquaint myself with two often overlooked dharma practices. The first is giving a person on the street the chance to offer me assistance. The other practice goes to the very heart of our real, not virtual, connectedness. That practice is asking for help. EH

EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE

A Transformative experience at Abiding Heart Education By Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was born in 1975 in the Himalayan border regions between Tibet and Nepal. From a young age, Rinpoche was drawn to a life of contemplation. He spent many years of his childhood in strict retreat. At the age of seventeen, he was invited to be a teacher at his monastery’s three-year retreat center, a position rarely held by such a young lama. He also completed the traditional Buddhist training in philosophy and psychology, before founding a monastic college at his home monastery in north India.

In addition to extensive training in the meditative and philosophical traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Mingyur Rinpoche has also had a lifelong interest in Western science and psychology. At an early age, he began a series of informal discussions with the famed neuroscientist Francisco Varela, who came to Nepal to learn meditation from his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. In 2002, Mingyur Rinpoche and some long-term meditators were invited to the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of WisconsinMadison, where Richard Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and other scientists examined the effects of meditation on the brains of advanced meditators. The results of this groundbreaking research were reported in many of the world’s most widely read publications, including National Geographic and Time.

Mingyur Rinpoche teaches throughout the world, with centers on five continents. His candid, often humorous accounts of his own personal difficulties have endeared him to thousands of students around the world. His best-selling book, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into over twenty languages. Rinpoche’s most recent books are In Love with the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying. Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism, Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom, and an illustrated children’s book entitled Ziji: The Puppy that Learned to Meditate. In early June, 2011, Mingyur Rinpoche walked out of his monastery in Bodhgaya, India and began a “wandering retreat” through the Himalayas and the plains of India that lasted four and a half years. When not attending to the monasteries under his care in India and Nepal, Rinpoche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide.

FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON

Debbie Tan from Singapore arrived in Nepal on 4 Jan 2019 to register for an ‘Experiential Buddhist Foundation Studies Course’ under the guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. She was wide-eyed and filled with curiosity and excitement. Not much had been said about the course except that the days would be filled with Buddhist philosophy classes, meditation, art and pilgrimages. She was all geared up and ready to learn about the three Buddhist vehicles, to practice meditation and to apply the Buddhist teachings in daily life. But as the weeks went by, she realized that she was getting a whole lot more than what she had bargained for! She was overwhelmed by the vastness of the Buddha’s teachings and the profoundness of the Bodhisattva path. The stories of all the Buddhist masters, which the teachers shared, were immensely inspiring and left a deep impression within her. The Buddhist teachings and stories learnt in class were woven seamlessly into the various activities the students participated in, hence reinforcing and integrating the intellectual knowledge into their lived experiences. It was very obvious to the students that Mingyur Rinpoche had meticulously planned the curriculum, to help them deepen their understanding of Buddhist philosophy at the experiential level and to apply them to current life situations. Debbie graciously requested Mingyur Rinpoche for an interview about the program on April 17, 2019 so that it details could be shared with readers of Eastern Horizon. As such, we are deeply appreciative of Debbie’s kindness in this interview for our benefit.

Debbie: Rinpoche, what made you decide to start ‘Abiding Heart Education’? Mingyur Rinpoche: When I was young, around the age of 6 or 7 years old, there was a school in my hometown. It was a government school and the teachers were not so good. They did not teach well and they were there to just get some money from the government. The local children went to the school and they did nothing or just played. The adults also went there to drink local alcohol – Cham. The school became a really bad place. Instead of getting education, the children were getting a lot of bad influence. So I have been thinking about education.

EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE

I learnt a lot of things from my father and my teacher, Vajradhara Tai Situ Rinpoche and many other teachers. Their approach was easy, very experiential and very practical. Then, when I went to Buddhist Philosophy school, it became difficult. It was not easy to understand. Later, I finished my studies and my 3-year retreat and I began to teach in the West. So I thought maybe they would have some good ideas. The Western mainstream education also focuses so much on the head. There is a lot of thinking, competition and stress. Students are not happy. Then I visited a Waldorf school in Norway. There were some new scientific research on education, to teach in a fun and experiential way, where students could learn easily. At that moment, I realized that we actually also have this form of teaching in our Buddhist experiential style, pith instruction style teaching. The only difference was the topics. We have different fields of study within Buddhism but we don’t have modern subjects like mathematics, science and so on. Therefore now, we are here to combine ancient wisdom with modern knowledge - using ‘View’, ‘Meditation’ and ‘Application’. ‘View’ – Starts from the cognitive level. ‘Meditation’ – This is at the experiential level, from the heart. ‘Application’ – How to apply the learning practically in life.

What is your vision/ long-term goal for Abiding Heart Education? Mingyur Rinpoche: Now the main problem is that normal education is very stressful and there is a huge side effect, where many students get illnesses. Everywhere, when I go to the big schools, there are students with depression and anxiety. Hence, I think the education system needs to change. I think learning through experience and having fun, where there are no examinations and no competition is better. In this way, not only can education help one to get material success but also lead to inner transformation. There should be inner development for the student. In this way, I think the children will also become more successful. If they really unlock their potential, material-wise they will become more successful. This success will also be beneficial for everybody. It is a win-win situation. Otherwise, when you learn something, you may use your knowledge in a way that is destructive to society, isn’t it? Some parents may be concerned that Buddhism encourages renunciation and non-competitiveness and this may not be compatible with the modern world. Do you think these concerns are valid?

FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON

Mingyur Rinpoche: I think many people have misunderstood what is the Buddhist meaning of kindness and compassion. Kindness and compassion doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean that you are just passive. Kindness and compassion means that you need to be of benefit to others. When you benefit others, you also benefit yourself, so this is a win-win situation! If you really want to benefit others, then also that is through transforming yourself. But if you only look for success, then there are a lot of side effects. In the end, even if you look like you have a lot of achievements, you are still not happy right? So I think it is the way in which we look at kindness and compassion. Some people think that you just let bad people have their way. This is not real compassion. The Buddha said compassion needs wisdom. Many people have misunderstood the meaning of compassion. Abiding Heart Education is going to train teachers; is the program only suitable for Buddhist schools and institutions?

Mingyur Rinpoche: We are mainly focussing on Buddhist education here in Nepal, because up till now there is no integration between Buddhist principles and modern education. So there are now Buddhist schools, but they teach Buddhism and modern subjects separately. So far, I have not seen schools integrating Buddhism and modern subjects together. Personally, I think that there is no contradiction between modern

education and Buddhism. In fact, there is much more in Buddhism to help you develop your path and compassion, which leads to transformation. So now we are focusing on Buddhist schools, but in the future we may open up to others. You will be starting the Kindergarten teacher training program next year? Are there certain qualities or types of candidates you are hoping to attract for this teacher training program?

Mingyur Rinpoche: I think the most important thing is the personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s motivation. Whoever decides to take this program should be keen on the subject and have great interest in education. Otherwise, if you are not deeply interested, it will become merely a job. Presently there are plans for teacher training programs covering both kindergarten and primary school education. Are there plans for the high school and tertiary levels as well?

Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes, first we have a teacher training program for kindergarten up till grade 8. We are now thinking about creating a program to train teachers to teach up to grade 12, but the program (for grades 9-12) is not solidified yet.

EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE

Is there a reason why you start with the teacher training program first, before setting up the school? Mingyur Rinpoche: It is very important that the teacher is first trained, because we are going to have a lot of living experiential wisdom being experienced in the school. We also don’t have a curriculum. The students will make the curriculum by themselves, so the teachers would have to teach from their experience, from their hearts. Therefore teacher-training is very important. Normally in regular schools in Nepal, a person who has completed his Masters degree doesn’t need to go through any teacher-training. He just picks up the class book and he is ready to teach.

However, here we are very particular about having a strong teacher-training program. Even with the existing mainstream teacher-training programs, there is already too much focus on intellectual training. So even though at present we cannot set up a big school here, but if you train the teachers, they can sprout out in many places. How is the Experiential Foundation Buddhist Course at Abiding Heart Education different from other Buddhist philosophy programs and retreat programs?

Mingyur Rinpoche: We try to put ‘View’, ‘Meditation’ and ‘Application’ together. Furthermore, we integrate and emphasize a lot of ‘doing’. We have art, sculpture and many other activities to apply meditation. In the morning, you learn the theory and meditation. In the afternoon, you apply them in different forms. We also distil the essence of the three yānas – Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna. This is like a key. Once you know this, you have the map of the entire BuddhaDharma. Many students are confused, especially Buddhist students who go to many different teachers. One teacher says Dharma is like that. It is almost as if you are looking at an elephant with closed eyes. When you touch one part of the elephant, you think the elephant is like a snake. When you touch the trunk of an elephant, you think the elephant is like a tree. When you touch the belly of the elephant, you think the elephant is like a drum. Hence you get confused. Furthermore,

sometimes teachers say things that are opposite of each other, so you don’t know which one is correct. Here in the foundation studies program, you have the entire map of the Buddha-Dharma. Subsequently, you will have a key. So after that, whatever you learn, you can put it into different parts of the map. Some teachings are based on the Theravāda, some teachings are based on the Mahāyāna and some teachings are based on the Vajrayāna. Then your knowledge will become richer and richer. Is the Foundation Buddhist Course at Abiding Heart only open to Buddhists? Mingyur Rinpoche: This program is open to anyone who is interested. They can be Buddhists or nonBuddhists. But the teachings are Buddhist teachings!

Rinpoche, is there anything else you would like the readers to know about Abiding Heart Education? Mingyur Rinoche: The main thing is that Education and the way of life – both inner and outer, should be one. Education is not just for our external life. Education purely for our external life has limitations, but if education transforms our inner life, from inside to out, then there are no limitations. This is what we want to emphasize here at Abiding Heart Education. When we were at Tergar Osel Ling Monastery, we saw much construction taking place. Can you please tell us a bit about the projects that are ongoing at Tergar Osel Ling Monastery? Mingyur Rinpoche: In the monastery, there are two main projects. One is the traditional Buddhist studies project combined with meditation practice for the monastic sangha. Many institutions teach Buddhist philosophy, but there is not much meditation. There are retreat centers with lots of meditation, but people don’t have the background knowledge. So here in this institution they will be combined. Our monastic sangha will both study and meditate.

FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON

The second project is open to international students. In traditional study, we are going to make the essence of Buddhism easy to understand, combined with view, meditation and application. This program will be open to anyone who is interested.

Rinpoche, approximately when will these programs be made available? Mingyur Rinpoche: They will be ready in 4 years. Oh, FOUR years!

Mingyur Rinpoche: Well the program for international students may be available after another 2 or 3 years later.

Thank you Rinpoche for sharing with us about the upcoming programs made available by the Tergar community. As a student of the Experiential Foundation Buddhist Course, I have benefited immensely from the program and I am really excited to see how this transformative education will enhance and improve the well-being and happiness of future generations. About Abiding Heart Education “At Abiding Heart Education, we utilise the Buddhist Tripartite of view, meditation and conduct with Waldorf/Steinerian-based pedagogy for a unique approach to education that effects head, heart, and habit.

“Experiential Buddhist Education is a transformational learning process of discovering our inner well-being. The path to this discovery begins with understanding and deepens through direct experience. We then learn to apply our insights in everyday life. This style of learning thus engages the head and the heart, and is expressed by building healthy habits that inform every aspect of our lives. True transformation occurs when our innate qualities of wisdom and compassion are fully expressed, enabling us to care deeply for ourselves, for each other, and for the world. Abiding Heart Education developed and embodies this approach, bringing together contemporary transformational approaches to learning and ancient contemplative principles.” – Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche For more information, please visit:

https://www.abidingheart.education/

Debbie Tan is an English language teacher based in Singapore. Besides her love for teaching, she has developed a love for seeking. She seeks to understand and live the Dharma through study and practice. Having obtained 2 Masters degrees in Buddhist Studies, she only recently found true joy in practicing and experiencing life, that is wholly immersed in the Buddha-Dharma. This is something which books alone cannot provide. Debbie is very grateful to all the spiritual masters and teachers who have made her exploration of the Dharma so joyful, insightful and fruitful. EH

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Do Buddhists Pray? The modern definition of prayer is that it is a request for help or expression of gratitude directed to a divine being, a God, gods, saints, or other godlike beings. In most monotheistic and polytheistic religions, prayer is the central devotional activity. But since Buddhism is nontheistic -- meaning gods aren’t necessary -- do Buddhists pray? We ask our three experts from the Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna traditions to explain the meaning of prayer, its significance, if any, how should Buddhists do prayers, and if prayers work. The Buddha lived at a time when there were many religious traditions. Did the Buddha encourage his followers to pray to the divine like many of his contemporaries? Aggacitta: In the Pāli canon, the Buddha’s most prominent contemporaries are actually portrayed as atheistic or materialist philosophers. Even the Brahmins are portrayed as priests whose ultimate goal was to be reborn in the company of Brahma. Therefore, prayer to the divine is hardly mentioned in the early suttas for Buddhists and others. However, honoring and making offerings to deities at their shrines was condoned by the Buddha in Vassakāra Sutta [AN 7.22]. The Buddha also said that a wise person who feasted virtuous, restrained renunciates at his home, and then dedicated the offerings to the devas there would always see the auspicious due to their reciprocatory sympathy [Pāṭaligāmiya Sutta, Ud 76].

Min Wei: In fact, Śākyamuni Buddha didn’t try to eradicate native beliefs or deny the existence of various gods, deities, or devas. However, what Buddha taught was that they were never seen as holding the keys to the attainment of enlightenment, liberation, and happiness. According to Buddha, human beings have more opportunities to attain such conditions, and the deities have less chances in this respect.

A deva might help someone out now and then, but a spiritually awakened person, or a Buddha, was seen as being far superior to the many gods, spirits, and other supernatural beings. Whether they are great or small, the fact is both human beings and deities are subject to rebirth. Therefore, it is clear that praying or worshipping such gods or deities are not encouraged by the Buddha.

Dadul: Perhaps there is a problem with the use of the term ‘prayer,’ an English term loaded with its own cultural meaning that may not completely fit within the Buddhist context. Naturally then, there is a need for considering different connotations of the term to see if any or some of them might be applicable in the Buddhist world. Surely, praying in the sense of propitiating or making a request of Buddha or other holy beings, for one’s spiritual growth or accomplishments, with the expectation that the holy being will do that for the individual, without any effort on the individual’s part, is completely unrealistic. This will not be something that the Buddha could have encouraged his followers to do. It is believed that some devas are able to answer requests from human beings. As such, humans do pray to devas for help. In the Mahāyāna tradition, Buddhists pray to Bodhisattvas, such as Guan Yin. Is this practice of praying to devas or Bodhisattvas taught in the scriptures of the Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna traditions, or are they later practices that crept into Buddhism? Aggacitta: Apart from the reciprocatory favors of the devas mentioned above, the granting of requests made by mere prayer as such cannot be found in the early Pāli suttas. The closest resemblance to prayer in this sense is the set of verses paying homage to the seven Buddhas and extolling the kingdoms of the Four Great Kings, which was given by Yakkha King Vessavana to the Buddha. He urged the Buddha to allow His followers to recite them often as a form of protection against attack by hostile yakkhas [Āṭānāṭiya Sutta DN 32].

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However, there are many references to guardian devas found in the commentaries, thus showing that this is a later development. Probably the only suggestion of such devas is found in a list of 11 benefits for a monk who is well developed in the cultivation of loving-kindness, i.e. devas protect (him) [Mettā Sutta, AN 11.15]. Min Wei: Mahāyāna teachings are mainly based upon the path of a bodhisattva. Therefore, the basic practice of Mahāyāna tradition is bodhicitta, a compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for the sake of sentient beings.

The bodhisattva is the ideal of all Mahāyāna Buddhists. The bodhisattva’s path is for all of us, not just the beings in the statues and pictures. Mahāyāna Buddhists take the bodhisattva vow to generate the Four Great Vows. The Four Great Vows are as follows:

Beings are numberless; I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to learn them. The Awakened Way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it. There was originally no such thing as prayer in Buddhism as we do not have the concept of creator God. We find the equivalent in the Mahāyāna tradition, which is “vow” or “bodhisattva vow.” Dadul: Looked at from the traditional Mahāyāna and, within that, Vajrayāna perspectives, these vehicles are no different from the Theravāda vehicle in having been taught by the Buddha himself, albeit to different group of disciples, with different disposition, at different occasions. Beings are diverse and require different methods to gain the understanding that Buddha hoped to point toward. Prayer, in a pertinent sense, is taught as one way to engage the path and cultivate the various qualities necessary for the attainment of Nirvāṇa or Enlightenment, namely the purification of

our negative karma that we have been creating since beginningless time, which is the obstacle to realizations, and the accumulation of the extensive merit, which is the cause to achieve realizations. The Seven Limb Prayer illuminated so eloquently in The King of Prayers: The Extraordinary Aspiration of the Practice of Samantabhadra (Samantabhadracaryä praôidhänaraja), from the Gaôçavyüha chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, which summarizes the activities of Bodhisattvas, is a wonderful example. One may engage in such a prayer in honor of a Buddha. The first of the seven is prostration. Prostrations are physical-bowing, verbal-expression of the qualities of Buddha, Dharma, and Saṃgha, and mental-contemplation of those qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṃgha, and generating appreciation. Prostrations serve as the antidote to the poison of pride and the cause for one to attain the holy body, speech and mind of a Buddha. The second limb is offerings, which is the antidote to attachment and greed, and the cause of wealth and success in this and future lives up until one’s own enlightenment. It is a practice in generosity. Next is confession of one’s misdeeds of body, speech, and mind. It is the antidote for anger, attachment and ignorance and all negative karma. Rejoicing in virtue is next and the antidote to jealousy. It creates the cause for success in all one does. Requesting teachings is the fifth limb and is the antidote to the very heavy negative karma of having abandoned the Dharma in the past. It’s the cause to achieve the perfect holy speech of a Buddha, to give teachings to many beings in the future. The sixth limb is requesting the holy teachers to remain for a long time with us. It is the antidote to the heaviest negative karma of having disturbed or disrespected one’s teachers in the past. It creates the cause for one’s own long life, and to achieve the holy body of a Buddha. Finally, we come to the dedication of merit. This is the antidote to wrong views and anger and the cause to achieve the dharmakāya and rūpakāya.

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The Oxford Learners Dictionary explained that “prayers are words that you say to God giving thanks or asking for help.” How would a Buddhist define prayer then since we do not have a concept of a God in Buddhism? Aggacitta: Buddhism may not have the concept of an almighty creator God, but it nevertheless admits to a hierarchy of devas. Therefore if we follow the commentarial attitude, the above definition of prayer can therefore still hold by the mere substitution of “a deva/s” for God.

Min Wei: Originally, dictionaries define prayer as a request for help or expression of gratitude directed to God or saints. Prayer is the central devotional activity of many religions.

In Buddhism, prayer is not simply addressed to an external being. Prayer is an organized way of changing the mind. By repeating good thoughts, sincerely from the depths of our heart, over and over again, they become habitual ways of thinking. In the end, the way one reacts to life’s situations will be made very different, just through constant prayer. However, most Buddhist don’t pray to a divine authority, Creator God or for anything. Yet, Buddhist practitioners turn their attention to let go of everything.

Dadul: Surely, when the term ‘prayer’ is used in the context of approaching an almighty God in giving thanks for a favor received or in asking for help in the future, then of course, Buddhists could not be spoken of as ‘praying.’ That is simply because the Buddhists do not have the concept of an almighty God who is not only allloving, all-knowing, but also all-powerful. There is a case to be made for Buddha being omnipresent, and certainly omniscient, but not omnipotent. Any individual mind can only be changed by one’s own efforts. Buddha, Dharma and Saṃgha are refuge in their respective ways of being examples for us and something to aspire to ourselves. Buddha, having completely embodied the culmination of the path, is the infallible guide; Dharma, as the infallible teachings or path, Saṃgha as infallible

companions, having through their own experience, realized their respective level of the path. The Buddha is quoted as having said, “I have shown you the path to liberation, but know that its achievement depends on you.” So, you see, prayer in the Buddhist context is not merely mouthing words in recitation of verses. Nor is it asking to be given inner qualities without making effort oneself. Rather, it is the full engagement of one’s body, speech and mind, in order to move the mind in the direction of virtuous transformation, as pointed out by Buddha. When Buddhists visit temples, they usually bow to the Buddha image, make some aspirations and do some chanting. If this is not considered praying, what is their purpose?

Aggacitta: This can certainly be considered praying if the intent is meant to be so. In fact, many traditional Buddhists do this very often, believing that the Buddha is a very powerful deva (par excellence) who can compassionately grant wishes and offer protection in times of danger. I would think such a phenomena is the natural outcome of “folk” Buddhism, i.e. when Buddhism becomes embedded in the culture of a society and its lofty ideals lie buried under multiple layers of rites, rituals and superstitions. Theoretically, the Buddha image is merely meant to symbolize the historical existence of a perfectly selfawakened being who rediscovered and taught us the sublime Dhamma. When Buddhists come to its presence, it is supposed to inspire faith and evoke feelings of gratitude for His sublime teachings, respect for His impeccable virtues and love for being their teacher. Such feelings can be physically expressed by bowing thrice. If the chants are related to the recollection of His qualities or those of His Dhamma or His community of awakened followers, then they are relevant.

In reality, however, pious Buddhists tend to go beyond that and make aspirations as described above and chant non-canonical verses or passages of protection or success.

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Min Wei: According to Buddhism, chants are not merely prayers but are reminders of the beneficence or merit of the Buddha, Dharma and Saṃgha or the Triple Gem of Buddhism. The main prayer of the Buddhist practitioner is a commitment to help all sentient beings, by achieving the perfection of Buddhahood. It means to recollect the qualities of the Buddha leads to the deepest conviction in following his example. If we understand the deep meaning of prayer, it is simply based on our practice of mindfulness and concentration. Therefore, we can say that reciting the sūtra is also prayer. In Buddhism, prayer must go along with mindfulness, insight, loving kindness and compassion. Praying and sending spiritual energy to those who are sick, as we do in Buddhism, is very important for their healing. We all have wishes and aspiration which serve as the motivation for our prayers.

However, chanting or reciting a sūtra can be considered as prayer in Buddhism. The purpose of sūtra chanting is to be in touch with the teaching of the Buddha. We chant with mindfulness, faith and compassion, as well as some hidden meanings behind them. Dadul: Whether we call that ‘praying’ or something else is another matter. The important thing is to establish what they are actually doing. They are paying their respect, honoring the Buddha’s qualities of universal love, universal compassion, all-knowing wisdom, etc., and drawing inspiration to follow the Buddha’s example to cultivate the paths to achieving those same qualities. Can we not regard prayer as an aspiration or mental wish for something wholesome and as setting our mind in a certain direction to achieve our spiritual goal? Aggacitta: Aspiration is certainly distinct from prayer as defined above because the former is not dependent on a third party for fulfilment, as in the latter. While I do not know of any Pāli word for prayer, I do know that the Pāli word cetopaṇidhi can be translated as mental inclination or aspiration. In fact, the Buddha

categorically stated that after having given dāna, one could wish to be reborn in any fortunate realm of existence; and that aspiration could be fulfilled provided one is morally virtuous and not otherwise [Dānupapatti Sutta AN 8.35]. Min Wei: Buddhist practitioners do not pray requesting anything from anyone, but setting one’s own intentions. Believing in prayer, we will become what we believe. Buddhists believe that our ability to be touched by strong emotions is proof of the working of compassion within us. Some forms of Buddhist practice that look like prayers don’t in fact involve the Buddha or any other enlightened figure. When Buddhists are cultivating loving kindness and they are repeating phrases like

“May all beings be well; May all beings be happy,” they are not invoking any kind of external energy. On the contrary, they are strengthening their own desire to see beings flourish and be free from suffering. Indeed, in the spiritual goal of Buddhism, we are not praying for personal material gain, wealth, or fame; rather, we are praying in order to turn our mind towards the positive qualities of compassion and understanding.

Dadul: Certainly, and that is the case when it comes to how prayer can be so useful within one’s own Buddhist practice. The above example of the seven-limb prayer is an example of this. We can think of aspiration as getting the mind ready to move in a particular direction, making it more flexible and receptive to the particular virtuous qualities one seeks to cultivate. Buddha spoke of how our minds can be made more or less receptive to teachings with regard to our attitude, by first recognizing our intention, perspective, or attitude as a key factor in our development of inner qualities and creation of virtuous karma.

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Professor William James, the famous psychologist, said that “men will continue to pray to the end of time because it is a human instinct unless their mental nature changes in a manner which nothing we know should lead us to expect”. If prayer has no place in Buddhism, what is the Buddhist solution to this human instinct? Aggacitta: I’m not sure what James means by “pray”. If it also includes aspiration, then there’s no problem. If he means the OLD definition, then the Buddhist solution is (a) as described by the commentaries in my answer to the 2nd question and (b) as I answered to the 3rd question above. Min Wei: Some Buddhists do pray, although prayer is not part of what the historical Buddha taught. It seems that praying is a natural human instinct. People often pray because they want to request a God or the Buddha to do something that they cannot do. What the Buddha taught us was to rely on our own self rather than others. The Buddha directly taught his followers to rely only on themselves and the Dharma, and to believe only what they could verify for themselves, through their own direct experience. Buddhism focuses on what we do through body, speech and mind in this life. According to the teachings of the Buddha, each of us has the potential to awaken just as the Buddha did. Our ideals are not simply meant to remain outside of ourselves, as objects of worship. If we consider them in our prayers, it’s because we want to come closer to those ideals in a real way.

Therefore, in Buddhism, we have faith, but our faith is not superstition, because we know that this kind of prayer is to radiate spiritual energy. If our prayer is without compassion, insight and transcendent wisdom, then the prayer becomes mere superstition.

Dadul: Certainly, asking for help, reaching out to others, is quite a natural occurrence among us humans and can be part of Buddhist prayer if we understand requesting as a way of making one’s mind open to receiving direction toward growth, direction that one then follows in order to transform one’s own mind. However, as we’ve established above, it wouldn’t be a Buddhist practice to expect that Buddha or another holy being would make the adjustment to our mind for us, without any effort on our part. Can we see praying to devas or Bodhisattvas as merely a skilful means to develop our inner strength before we proceed to the ultimate practice of meditation?

Aggacitta: Buddhist meditation is either extrospective as in the Four Lofty Abidings (Brahmavihāras) or introspective as in other samatha and vipassanā practices. In both these aspects, self-reliance is still imperative, so I don’t see how prayer to external beings can be a stepping stone to developing inner strength for meditation. However, if a meditator encounters insurmountable obstacles or life-threatening danger, she could resort to such prayers to supplement her own inner strength. Min Wei: Praying in Buddhism is not simply asking for protection from the Buddha or Bodhisattvas. Instead, prayers are used as skilful means to bring the mind to the noble way and to cultivate oneself with the habits of noble qualities such as discipline, selflessness and equanimity. However, in the true spirit of Buddhism, we need to understand the real meaning of prayer. The main objective of prayer is to provide a moment of spiritual reflection on the teachings. So it is not just to seek the help of Buddha or Bodhisattvas for our problems.

The purpose of Buddhist prayer is to awaken our spirit and our inner ability of compassion, wisdom and

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insight, rather than to request external forces based on power, fame or heavenly gain. In fact, Buddhist prayer is a form of meditation because it is a practice of mindfulness, inner peace, happiness and equanimity.

Dadul: Just as in ordinary sense, we can ask someone more powerful or able for some external help, likewise prayer in the similar sense of asking for support and help is conceivable. However, that would only be confined to help from the outside, not in doing the inner work for us.

qualities himself/herself. In short, we pray in the spirit of the seven-limb prayer mentioned above. In line with that spirit, the Buddha has said in the Dhammapada: Each one is one’s own refuge; No other can be your refuge; Only when one has fully tamed oneself, Then, will one have attained the rare and sought for refuge. (Verse 60) Written by Geshe Dadul Namgyal, and edited by Martha Leslie Baker.

If non-Buddhists were to ask you what is the Buddhist approach to prayer what would be a simple but meaningful answer to them?

Aggacitta: Buddhists who try to follow the teachings of

the Buddha recorded in the Pāli Canon endeavor to be self-reliant in their quest for liberation. However, when they have exhausted their own efforts to overcome obstacles along the way, they may resort to prayer for help to proceed. Min Wei: I would tell them that Buddhists don’t pray to a God, but we do have meditation practices which is similar to praying. Cultivating loving-kindness to all living beings is a practice which will benefit all beings. The sharing of merit is a practice where one dedicates the goodness of one’s life to the benefit of all living beings as well as praying for a particular person.

In fact, in Buddhism, we are taught to rely on our own practice or cultivation rather than the power of others. It means we have to take our destiny into our own hands. We can’t just have faith in another person, even if that other person has the stability and wisdom of the Buddha, Jesus, or Mohammed. Dadul: We pray as a way of reflecting on the teachings and qualities of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas, etc. and celebrate them while wishing he/she would be successful in living the teachings and realizing the

Venerable Āyasmā Aggacitta is the founder of the Sāsanārakkha Buddhist Sanctuary (SBS) in Taiping, Perak, a Pāli scholar and a meditation teacher.

Geshe Dadul Namgyal is a Geshe Lharampa and senior resident teacher at Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta, Georgia, USA Ven. Ming Wei is a teacher of e-learning at the International Buddhist College (IBC) and an independent translator of Buddhism.

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members and various disciples, the poem communicates a fuller sense of the humanity of everyone involved and the depth and power of the Buddha’s loving-kindness. EH

This book includes striking depictions of each of the mahāsiddhas by a master Tibetan painter, whose work has been preserved in pristine condition. Published here for the first time in its entirety, this collection includes details of the painting elements along with the life stories of the tantric saints, making this one of the most comprehensive works available on the eighty-four mahāsiddhas. EH

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NEWS | EASTERN HORIZON

A rare 2,000-year-old scroll about the early years of Buddhism is made public By Allen Kim, CNN

“This is a unique item because it is very old compared to similar manuscripts and, as such, it does bring us, historically speaking, relatively close to the lifetime of the Buddha,” Jonathan Loar, reference librarian in the Asian Division at the Library of Congress, said in a statement. The library’s scroll retains nearly 80% of the original text, with only the beginning and end missing. Most other Gandharan scrolls known to scholars are more fragmentary.

A portion of the Gandhara scroll from the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress made public a rare 2,000-yearold text of early Buddhism on Monday, and it offers a glimpse into early Buddhist history during its formative years. The scroll originated in Gandhara, an ancient Buddhist region in northern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only a few hundred Gandharan manuscripts are known to scholars worldwide, and each is vital to understanding the early development of Buddhist literature. For instance, using linguistic analysis, scholars study these manuscripts to chart the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia.

The Gandhara text is narrated by Shakyamuni Buddha, the religious leader also known as Siddhartha Gautama, and tells the story of the 13 Buddhas who preceded him, his own emergence and the prediction of a future Buddha. Information on how long each Buddha lived, the social class they were born into and how long their teachings endured are all chronicled in the text.

“I wanted to find a way to share this incredibly unique item with the public,” Loar told CNN. “The scroll is very well-preserved thanks to the work of the Library’s conservators, but it is still incredibly fragile.” Purchased in 2003 from a private collector, the scroll is one of the most complicated and fragile pieces that the Library of Congress has ever treated. It took conservators several years to devise a treatment strategy, and they practiced unrolling techniques on dried-up cigars. The treatment of the text would’ve never been possible if not for the unique conditions in which it was stored. “One reason is that Gandharan scrolls, like the one at the Library of Congress, were typically buried in terra cotta jars and interred in a stupa, a dome-shaped structure often containing Buddhist texts or relics,” Loar said. “Another reason is that the relatively high, arid climate of the Gandharan region helps preserve materials like manuscripts on birch bark.”

Although the manuscript itself is too fragile for public display, by digitizing the text, the library is able to share this important piece of history with the public. Source: CNN News, July 30, 2019 EH

EASTERN HORIZON | DHARMA THOUGHTS

Dharma Thoughts Vijaya Samarawickrama is an accomplished Dharma educator, teacher, and author. He retired after 60 years of teaching in schools, colleges and universities. However, he continues to give Dharma talks throughout the country, participates in inter-faith dialogues, speaks at various international seminars, and writes for Buddhist books and journals.

Creating Heaven on Earth By Vijaya Samarawickrama

Since about two hundred years or so ago when Buddhism was introduced to the West some scholars described it as a cheerless religion which denies the possibility of salvation through faith and devotion. Quoting the Buddha and his disciples out of context scholars and missionaries alike sought to portray Buddhism as a life negating religion which condemns its followers to an eternity of bondage in saṃsāra as a punishment for karma. One example is the 19th century Max Weber (1866-1920) who is regarded as the father of the sociology of religion. He described Buddhism as ‘asocial’ and ‘anti political’ besides being ‘other-worldly’. (The Religion of India. NY.The Free Press.1960. p206)

Much more recently Pope John Paul 11 had this to say: The ‘enlightenment’ experienced by the Buddha comes down to the conviction that the world is bad, that it is the source of evil and of suffering for man. To liberate oneself from this evil, one must free oneself from this world, necessitating a break with the ties that join us to external reality—ties existing in our human nature, in our psyche, in our bodies. The more we are liberated from these ties, the more we become indifferent to what is in this world, and the more we are freed from suffering, from the evil that has its source in the world. (Crossing the Threshold of Hope. 1994). It is worth noting in passing that his holiness was speaking in his capacity as the spokesman of God and therefore infallible. But there are also Buddhists who complain that Buddhism is difficult to practice, demanding that its followers give up all the pleasures of the senses and harping on suffering at every turn.

Nothing of course can be further from the truth. One only has to read the biographies of the disciples of the Buddha to understand how happy they were in their everyday lives. In the early days of Buddhism some monks and nuns described the happiness they experienced in the form of poems which are recorded in the Thera-Theri gāthas or Songs of the Elders. Here are just two examples: “I’m well freed, so very well freed, freed from the three things that bent me over: the mortar, the pestle, and my hump-backed husband. I’m freed from birth and death; the attachment to rebirth is eradicated.” Thig 1.11 Muttā Therīgāthā

Dharma Thoughts “… Seeing the danger of the world, both of us went forth. Now we are tamed, our defilements have ended; we’ve become cooled and quenched.”- Thig 4.1 Bhaddānāpilānī Therīgāthā

A certain deity who had noted this all-pervading sense of calm and happiness which was experienced by the monks and nuns asked the Buddha what was his secret and the Blessed One replied: “They do not worry about the past They do not worry about the future By remaining ever in the present Are they calm and peaceful”

Instead of encouraging followers to focus on happiness in heaven after death the Buddha declares

that the secret of happiness is to remain ever mindful of the present moment because we have no control over the future or the past whereas we can control the present. While staying in the present moment a person should develop what in Buddhism is referred to as the Four Brahma Vihāras (Divine Abidings). One need not wait to go to heaven after death to experience bliss – this can be developed in each present moment in this life itself by developing four elevated mental states – mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā. Mettā is usually translated as loving kindness which entails a general sense of friendliness and harmlessness radiated to every living being in the universe—seen or unseen. When one lives suffused with such an all-encompassing sense of goodwill towards everything this is akin to living in a heavenly state. Then we can practice karuṇā, compassion for any living being in the universe which is in a suffering state and doing what we can to alleviate this suffering. Compassion is not simply feeling sorry for others complacently: it must be accompanied by the strenuous effort to eradicate suffering in all its forms. When one is so occupied with eradicating suffering one has little time to be concerned with one’s own petty problems. More difficult to practice than compassion is the third Brahma Vihāra: muditā, sympathetic joy. It is relatively easy to develop karuna because in this case one is in a fortunate position oneself. But with muditā one is required to rejoice at the good fortune of others, even when one is not so fortunate oneself. Finally we come to the fourth and highest level of divine abiding—Upekkhā or equanimity. At this stage one has reached such a high level of spiritual development that one maintains an unperturbed mind completely unshaken by the eight vicissitudes of worldly life: gain and loss, praise and blame, honor and dishonor, happiness and sorrow. Like a lotus rising above the muddy waters of a pond, the mind remains calm and serene unaffected by the turbulence around it. Yet this is not a cold (or indifferent, as the pope maintained) aloofness in the face of mundane realities. Like a Bodhisattva one strives to eliminate suffering but does not succumb to it. All the Brahma Vihāras are developed by oneself without the need to seek assistance from a divine benefactor and one enjoys the positive results in this life itself. Happiness means experiencing a state of well- being. Happiness is experienced in the present moment without reference to the past or future, as we saw in the Buddha’s explanation to the deity

EASTERN HORIZON | DHARMA THOUGHTS

earlier. Note the significance of the word ‘Be-ing’ – with emphasis on the present moment. When each present moment has been experienced it becomes the past and by living these moments cumulatively we can say at death that we have lived a ‘happy life ‘.

In the Kālāma Sutta, AN 3.65 the Buddha declares that if we live nobly then when we die it is reasonable to expect to maintain this state of mind in heaven, if there is such a place. If, however, there is no after life and no heaven, then we have lived a heavenly existence here anyway!

The entire teaching of the Buddha consists of helping human beings to be happy in this life. In the Mangala sutra for example the Buddha enumerates 38 mangalas which help one to experience happiness. Mangala means ‘that which cuts off undesirable states’, hence a blessing. One of the blessings listed is ‘kataññu’ meaning knowing or recognising a benefit or boon one has received and developing a strong desire to reciprocate that good deed. Kataññu is therefore generally translated as gratitude. Gratitude gives rise to humility and combats cynicism and thoughts of entitlement. Closely associated with gratitude is another positive attitude and that is appreciation. We saw that kataññu means ‘recognizing what has been done’. Of course, if what has been done has benefitted us in some way we feel joyful over it and it increases our sense of well-being. Someone said ‘Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey’. So the purpose of our life is not to gain happiness at the end of it, but to live daily, constantly suffused with a sense of well-being. Gratitude and appreciation will go a long way towards achieving it. It is ironic that while we are living in an era of unprecedented development in science and technology which has made available undreamed-of creature comforts as well as access to knowledge, humans are probably suffering anguish, fear and despair at a level unsurpassed at any other time in history. The Buddha referred to this in the Aggañña Sutta, DN 27 where he showed how suffering arose as a result of spiritual development not keeping pace with material progress. Today many believe that happiness can be achieved by pandering to the desires of the senses. But pleasing the senses can only give pleasure. Happiness, according to the Buddha, entails the wisdom to go beyond the senses and developing the virtues such as contentment, friendliness and compassion. Health is the greatest gain Contentment is the highest wealth The trustworthy are the best relatives Nirvana is the highest happiness Dhp 204

Wealth and materialism by themselves are not evil. In fact they can be a source of great good. What we need to guard against is the delusion that materialism is the source of ultimate, permanent happiness. The world can continue to pursue material wealth but this progress must be balanced with a concern to cater for the needs of our spiritual goals by developing the four Brahma vihāras, contentment, gratitude and appreciation. Only then can we combat the evils of greed, hatred and delusion. It is only when positive attitudes like these are globally practised that we can achieve a truly successful civilisation which develops human potential to its highest level. Then we can have heaven on earth. EH