K. Sri Dhammananda Centenary Celebration 2018 - 2019 Venerable Dr Kirinde Sri Dhammananda Mahā Thera was born in 1918 and passed away in 2006, having dedicated over 50 years as a missionary in Malaysia to spread and educate thousands on the teachings of the Buddha. To commemorate his Centenary in 2018, various Buddhist organizations have come together for a year-long Centenary Celebrations to honor his legacy with meaningful spiritual and educational programs throughout the period. The organizations include: Theravada Buddhist Council of Malaysia (TBCM) Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM) Aloka Foundation (Aloka) Bandar Utama Buddhist Society (BUBS) Buddhist Gem Fellowship (BGF) Buddhist Missionary Society Malaysia (BMSM) Kinrara Me�a Buddhist Society (KMBS) Nalanda Buddhist Society Malaysia (Nalanda) Sasana Abhiwurdhi Wardhana Society (SAWS) Siri Jayanti Association (SJA) Subang Jaya Buddhist Association (SJBA) March 17: Opening Celebrations (BMV) March 18: a. 100 Years Memorial Dāna (BMV) b. Gratitude Day 2018 (BGF) c. Centenary Celebrations (Nalanda)
March 31: 28 Buddha Pūjā (SJA) June 12 – 24: 3rd Theravada Samaneri Novitiate Program 2018 (SJBA) July 22: Mahā-Saṅghika Dāna (YBAM) Aug 31 – Sep 2: Book Launch, Intra-Buddhist Forum, Exhibition (BMV)
Forum, Inter-Faith
October 6: Opening of K Sri Dhammananda Centre at Nalanda Buddhist Society and Book Launch. November 16-18: Me�ā Convention: “Opening of Hearts” at Putrajaya (Aloka / BMS) March 2019: Closing Ceremony (BMV). [Keep updated on the latest Centenary Celebration programs on TBCMʹs Facebook here .. h�ps://bit.ly/2GEBzX1 ]
IS BUDDHISM TRUE? Like many spiritual seekers, a Buddhist would also ask three existential questions: How did we get to be born here? How did the world get so messed up with so much conflict and suffering? Is there a way to solve this suffering? The Buddha obviously had answers to the above questions, and so did many of his disciples through the ages. But the focus of the Buddha was more on the third question where he spent 45 years showing the path that leads us out of suffering. However, he did explain, in the context of the law of dependent origination that we are born again and again because of our ignorance. And he rightly pointed out that we messed up the world because of our greed, hatred, and of course delusion, all of which have now been institutionalized!
The Buddha’s explanation of the human predicament has now been given a modern interpretation by Robert Wright, a scholar and journalist, in his recent book “Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment” (Simon & Schuster: New York, 2017, pp 388) which became a New York Times bestseller when it was published. Robert uses evolutionary psychology to support the Buddhist diagnosis of the unsatisfactory nature of human existence known as dukkha which was elaborated at length in the Buddhist teaching on the Four Noble Truths. Robert explained that suffering is conducive to genetic proliferation and so suffering is built into us. From this perspective, it makes sense that we would be engineered to focus more on the gratification that reaching a given goal is going to bring rather than on the fact that the gratification is going to evaporate and leave us restless and unhappy afterwards. This kind of suffering is very subtly and deeply built into us. But what evolutionary psychology doesn’t do is to offer a way to pierce our illusions, and so to lessen our suffering and the suffering we cause others. The Buddha in his teaching on the Noble Eight-fold Path does exactly that. It offers meditative practice that, in the context of Buddhist teaching, helps us begin to see through the distortions that natural selection built into our brains. Mindfulness meditation, for example, can make us more aware of the feelings that natural selection used to shape our thought and action and can help us choose whether to accept their guidance. Eventually, we begin to see reality as it is – i.e. that our suffering is the result of our cravings and negative desires, and our inability to see and live in accordance with the reality of impermanence (anicca). Robert Wright gives the examples when we realize that the happiness we get upon attaining some goal, such as eating our favorite food, achieving success in business, or having sex, tend to evaporate fairly quickly because its very nature is transient or fleeting, just as the Buddha had explained with his teaching on anicca.
With his new book, Robert has helped cleared the misconception that what the Buddha taught was pessimistic or negative; in fact, he has shown that it was realistic, and in line with modern scientific discoveries. This proves again that the lion’s roar of the Buddha was indeed true for all time.
CONTENTS 04
13
04
LEAD ARTICLE
Dharma life, healthy life By Sergio Leone
09
FACE TO FACE
13
TEACHINGS
18 22
The Importance of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta By Venerable Anālayo
Love, Compassion, and the Mahāyāna Path By Venerable Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche
WHAT EXACTLY IS VIPASSANĀ MEDITATION? By Venerable Dr H Gunaratana Māha Thera
Are We Really Meditating? By Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
ISSUE NO.55
MAY 2018
22
33
25 28 30 33 38 43 46 50
How to Read Buddhist Teachings By Dr Judy Lief
The Power of Mindful Leadership By Bill George
Finding Meaning By Dr Karen Derris
Facing the Great Divide By Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha! By Bodhipaksa
What practice is at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism? By David Michie
Wildlife on the Brink By Ajahn Thanissara
Remembrance and Gratitude By Dr Ron Epstein
45
48
...................................................................... MAY 2018 ISSUE NO. 55 (Published 3 times a year)
NEWS
53
‘Thailand ready to Develop buddhist circuit’
54
UBC receives $4.9 Million for global Buddhist academic Network
57
FORUM
62
DHARMA AFTERMATH
By Santosh Patnaik
By Thandi Fletcher
No Self, Not Self or Non-Self? By Venerable Āyasmā Aggacitta, Venerable Ming Wei & Geshe Dadul Namgyal
Right Grasping by Rasika Quek
EASTERN HORIZON PUBLICATION BOARD CHAIRMAN EDITOR SUB-EDITOR
: Dr. Ong See Yew
: B. Liow <Bennyliow@gmail.com> : Dr. Ong Puay Liu
MANAGER : Teh Soo Tyng
ART DIRECTOR : Geam Yong Koon
PUBLISHER : YBAM <ybam@ybam.org.my>
PRINTER : Nets Printwork Sdn Bhd Lot 52, Jalan PBS 14/4, Taman Perindustrian Bukit Serdang, 43300 Sri Kembangan, Selangor, MALAYSIA. Tel : 603-89429858 Email : info@netsgroup.com.my
COVER DESIGN : Geam Yong Koon
COVER PHOTOGRAPHER : Geam Yong Koon
EASTERN HORIZON is a publication of the Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM). A non-profit making project, this journal is non-sectarian in its views and approach. We aim to inspire, stimulate and share.
The opinions expressed in EASTERN HORIZON are those of the authors and in no way represent those of the editor or YBAM. Although every care is taken with advertising matter, no responsibility can be accepted for the organizations, products, services, and other matter advertised. We welcome constructive ideas, invite fresh perspectives and accept comments. Please direct your comments or enquiries to: The Editor EASTERN HORIZON Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia 9, Jalan SS 25/24, Taman Mayang, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, MAlAYSIA Tel : (603) 7804 9154 Fax : (603) 7804 9021 Email : admin@easternhorizon.org or Benny Liow <Bennyliow@gmail.com> Website : www.easternhorizon.org KDN PP 8683/01/2013(031165)
4
EASTERN HORIZON | LEAD ARTICLE
DHARMA LIFE, HEALTHY LIFE By Sergio Leone
Sergio León Candia was born Santiago de Chile, South America. He Holds a Bachelor in Education degree and is a P.E teacher and Personal Trainer. Later he studied English in New York, USA, and became a TEFL teacher. In 2011 he came to Thailand and went on different meditation retreats. He holds a Master’s degree in Buddhist Studies from the International Buddhist College in Thailand. He got a Permaculture Designer Certificate and is the founder and director of an ecological project in Chile.
In the discourse of the mango stone1, the Buddha advised his son Rahula to practice wise reflection. He should reflect on whether his three kinds of action, mental, bodily and verbal, past present and future were for his benefit or affliction, for the benefit or affliction of others and or both.
This is one of my favorite sutras as it makes the practice of the Dharma simple, concrete and applicable to every aspect and moment of our day to day lives. Since the beginning of my own practice and study of the Dharma, my life has been changing deeply. It has been a rollercoaster of events where I’ve been placed face to face with my fears, anxiety, bad habits as well as my own qualities and principles.
Since then, I’ve have abandoned many physical and mental bad habits and increased a few good ones, although of course I still have such a long way to go in terms of improving myself.
When we start practicing the Dharma, we are advised that we should carefully examine causes and conditions of arising phenomena, the results of action and the ceasing of conditioned phenomena. Karma and vipaka, our own volitional action and its results are the most important part of this observation. In our walking the path of the middle way we try to avoid both extremes of indulgence in sense pleasure and self-mortification, a harmonious way of dealing with the mind and the body and their interactions with the world.
LEAD ARTICLE | EASTERN HORIZON
In the Sukhamala Sutta2 the Buddha declares that there are intoxications of being addicted to youth, health and life, and in the Upajjhatthana Sutta3, the master advices us to daily consider that we are not free from sickness, old age and death. It is also a part of the practice of the Dharma, to apply Right Effort to decrease unwholesome states and to increase wholesome ones. So if we carefully observe causes and conditions, we can clearly see how important it is to take care of our mind and bodies to increase wholesome conditions to practice the Dharma. This caring of the mind and the body is without being obsessed with sense pleasures and not neglecting or torturing them with self-mortification. Modern science has repeatedly encouraged humans to eat healthy, exercise and rest properly in order to maintain the homeostasis of our bodies, it´s balance. We as Dharma practitioners, also know that regardless that we are not freed from sickness and death, taking care of the body is a wholesome activity worth to engage in, it
increases the possibilities of a sustained Dharma practice and its therefore beneficial for ourselves and potentially beneficial for others as it could motivate them to do so themselves.
“Mens sana in corpore sano” or ‘a sound mind in a sound body’ is a well-known very old motto that still applies today. As a physical education teacher I know how much difference it can make for you mind state to be in a healthy physical form. It’s hard to stay calm when extremely tired or hungry and we can also relate self-esteem problems to our body shape, link depression to what we eat4 along with a sedentary life and a weak body. As a permaculture designer I can see the resemblance when it is about to the health of the soil you plant your seeds in. We can´t avoid sickness or old age, neither we can completely avoid for plants to be damaged or get affected by plagues, but we still make the effort to provide a healthy environment for them to grow to their full potential, bloom and bring us nutritious fruits.
If we become obsessed with health and youth, with top performance or with fitting into culture beauty standards, then that becomes an obstacle for our practice towards the freedom of the mind.
It’s similar with the human body. We can’t avoid its decay but we can strengthen it, and give it the best conditions possible for it to be in better shape to confront sickness and to perform in the best way it can.
If we become obsessed with health and youth, with top performance or with fitting into culture beauty standards, then that becomes an obstacle for our practice towards the freedom of the mind. It is not the most important thing to look great according to the standards, to become a food freak counting every calories we take or to become a top athlete, but we should consider taking care of our bodies the most we can so we provide the fertile soil for our minds to develop. If we are constantly sick or weak, it would become very hard to reach a calm mind that can stay concentrated, ardent and resolute to achieve the fruits of meditation practice. I have seen how much difference our diet can make. I have followed a vegetarian diet for more than 10 years and recently started following a vegan diet5 and intermittent fasting6 (which we usually do for meditation retreats) and the results have been amazing. Eating less red meat is said to be good for you.
5
6
EASTERN HORIZON | LEAD ARTICLE
Having said that, I cannot stress hard enough that I’m not promoting any special diet, in fact, I’m just promoting the idea of following a healthy/balanced diet that provides all the nutrients your body needs according to you own personal situation and that you should follow professional advice for your nutritional needs.
FOOD FOR THE BODY
While practicing wise reflection, we try to apply it to our everyday lives, so that we can be aware of the things that are wholesome for our minds and bodies. There is a practice of reflecting before eating our food where we consider the food to be eaten ‘Not for fun, indulgence, adornment, or decoration, but only to continue and sustain this body, avoid harm, and support spiritual practice. So that I will put an end to old discomfort and not give rise to new discomfort and so that I will keep on living blamelessly and at ease.’7
We start being more cautious and mindful of the choices we make while putting food into our bodies. Therefore our habits might change. I might start re-considering having too many sugary drinks or that extra portion of that food we love so much. We start caring for our health and the results of our actions. Now we have science to back up most of these decisions. It is so interesting to see how much the digestive system is related to our brain. We know that our brain has neurotransmitters that are the responsible chemicals for feelings like happiness (serotonin) and pleasure (dopamine) which not surprisingly is also mentioned in the sutras as Sukha and Piti which are Jhāna or concentration practice factors. There are certain foods that can actually help the body to produce these neurotransmitters and other hormones responsible for the well-being of our emotional and mental health. Much research is going on about the strong links
We start being more cautious and mindful of the choices we make while putting food into our bodies. Therefore our habits might change.
between gut bacteria and these chemicals8. How important is to help our body to self-manage its own wellbeing! By being aware and practice to be mindful we can start making wise choices to improve our brain functioning and in that way make it a more fertile soil for the practice of meditation. The internet is full of amazing information about the contents of food and the relationship between certain nutrients and our brains health. I do recommend though that if you want to make dietary changes, you seek for the advice of a professional. Food, mood and brain function Certain nutrients directly affect our brain. A balanced diet would be the one that provides the nutrients we need and help keeping sickness at bay and help you improve the functioning of the whole body.
Oily acids like omega-3, present for example in certain fish and walnuts, can fight depression and anxiety and improve risk factors for hearth diseases.
LEAD ARTICLE | EASTERN HORIZON
A lack of the neurotransmitter GABA can lead to stress and migraine.
Tryptophan, present in chocolate and oats for example, is crucial for serotonin production, the happiness “molecule”
Berries are full of flavonoids, a group of potent antioxidants that protect brain cells from oxidative damage. The lack of certain nutrients could decrease you brain capability of producing well-being chemicals, prevent depression, function properly, regulate your mood, etc. If we are constantly training our brain with meditation, it´s beneficial to support our practice with a balanced diet so in that way meditation can do its trick and also help the brain regulate itself and produce this chemicals.9 Besides these nutritional aspects, when we practice wise reflection, it can certainly help us to stop bad habits as you start thinking over the causes of your addiction and the results of your decisions.
Why are we smoking? Why do we over eat? Or why do we drink too much? Which are the causes of the addiction? What am I looking for in these substances or in the quick stress release of devouring a sweet cake or chips? Are there any other things I could do to feel better?
It is a blessing that somehow, nowadays it’s a little bit easier for some, that we can also get help from therapists that can support our will to change for the better, and is a good idea to use all the tools we have to get better. Physical activity, meaningful relationships, a healthy diet, psychotherapy and meditation are all there for us. With the practice of the Dharma we start step by step considering all the factors influencing our habits, addictions and behaviors. A balanced diet plus stopping bad habits and adding some physical activity, which releases endorphins (another well-being chemical) is a great gift we can give ourselves and it’s the best nutrient we can give to our meditation practice.
When we realize that some things are only contributing to increase our stress levels we should consider abandoning them or to approach them in a different way if possible.
Not only this is beneficial for us, but we can start inspiring our close friends and families to make such changes, educate our children about the importance of what we put into our bodies and do our part fighting world health problems as obesity, diabetes and other hearth related diseases.
FOOD FOR THE MIND
Along with the input we give to our physical bodies, we can wisely reflect what we put into our minds. Remembering that dhammapada verse saying that the mind is the forerunner of all10,
and acknowledging the importance of the food we eat for the brains health, we keep in mind this inter-relationship of the mind and the body and cannot neglect the nutrients we give our thoughts. As we move along the practice we also start making more conscious decisions regarding the things we read, watch, the entertainment we choose or the environment we spend time in. All these are seeds in our minds that if we water can become healthy beneficial plants or unwanted weeds that can be counterproductive to our personal development. When we realize that some things are only contributing to increase our stress levels we should consider abandoning them or to approach them in a different way if possible. This can also apply to human relationships, are they are toxic for us or do they push us forward in our development? We test if we can do things differently
7
8
EASTERN HORIZON | LEAD ARTICLE
and if we must abandon some things that might seem dear to us, then we build the strength needed with the help of every tool we have available.
Being in touch with nature can also make a difference. Nowadays we spend a lot of time in front of electronic devices and in big cities and that can become very stressful, try going back to the roots for a while and surround yourself with nature to connect with yourself and the world. Although not an official diagnosis, the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” is being now used to describe the negative effects of the disconnection between humans, specially children and nature.
CONCLUSION
The practice of the Dharma can positively affect every aspect of our lives. It empowers us to explore and test the things that are positive for us, that lead to progress and are beneficial for ourselves and others. The maintenance of our bodies in a way that is harmonious and balanced is one more area of our
lives that will be touched by our practice when we start observing carefully what we are making of this opportunity we have we call life. Observe, question, explore and research the areas of your lives you are not satisfied with, think if you need to make some changes, get support and advice and work diligently towards finding the middle way that allows you to keep growing. As little as ten minutes physical exercise can make a great difference in your life. Consider what you eat and what you share with your close ones, be in touch with nature and rest your mind and body. Give yourself a break once in a while. This modern world seems to be moving faster every day and we need our bodies to refuel the energy needed not only to survive but to fully live.
Your Dharma practice is medicine; help it work by increasing wholesome conditions in you bodies and surroundings. I'm confident that step by step, walking the Dharma path you´ll find more peace, satisfaction and joy. EH
(Endnotes) 1. “Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta: Instructions to Rahula at Mango Stone” (MN 61) www. accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/ mn.061.than.html 2. Sukhamala sutta AN 3.38 www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/ an/an03/an03.038.than.html 3. “Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation” (AN 5.57) www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/ an/an05/an05.057.than.html . 4. www.psychologytoday.com/us/ blog/your-genetic-destiny/201410/ diet-and-depression 5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_ nutrition 6. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Intermittent_fasting 7. suttacentral.net/sn35.120/en/ sujato 8. www.scientificamerican.com/ article/is-your-gut-making-youdepressed-or-anxious/ 9. www.hindawi.com/journals/ np/2013/653572/ 10. www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/ tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.01.budd.html
FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SATIPAṬṬHĀNA SUTTA By Venerable Anālayo
In April 2015 Venerable Bhikkhu Anālayo — renowned German Buddhist monk, scholar, author, and teacher — led an 11-day meditation retreat for advanced practitioners at Spirit Rock centered around his comparative studies of the canonical versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (the Buddha's Four Foundations of Mindfulness). Prior to the retreat, Spirit Rock CoGuiding Teacher Phillip Moffitt interviewed him about the subtle teachings contained in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the role of body awareness in both formal mindfulness practice and daily life.
Phillip Moffitt: I want to start by thanking you on behalf of the entire Spirit Rock community for your practice and your work. Your books have been very important to practitioners at Spirit Rock. From your perspective, why did the Buddha start with the body in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta? Bhikkhu Anālayo: From my understanding, one reason is to build our capacity for awareness based on body awareness. This is a central aspect of the way I teach Satipaṭṭhāna. Whole-body awareness allows a continuity between formal practice and everyday activities. It enables you to find a middle path approach between just trying to be mindful in general, which can lead to losing your awareness for lack of a support, and having too strong a focus, such as mindfulness of breathing, which can close out other things in your field of experience.
Also, many of our attachments and defilements are related to the body. Paying attention to the anatomy of the body divests obsession with beautification of its unrealistic foundations. Contemplation of the elements helps us realize that this body and the nature outside are not separate from each other. The cemetery contemplation, the basic realization that we are going to
die, can help us overcome a whole host of projections, fear and dogmatic holding onto identity constructs. All of this can be worked on with mindfulness of the body as a basis.
The whole Satipaṭṭhāna scheme works from the gross to the subtle, so it’s very obvious to start with the gross part. To some extent, the Satipaṭṭhāna of contemplating the body mirrors the First Noble Truth because with the body you can really experience and understand the unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) of the body.
Lay teachers often emphasize the importance of knowing the direct or “felt” sense of an experience rather than having a concept of it. Thus, we say, “the body feels like this,” “knee pain feels like this,” “a mind that’s restless feels like this.” Would you say that the body is the easiest place to first experience the felt sense? Yes, and I would clarify this felt sense as vedanā. I think what you’re saying is very important. It is precisely why we don’t just have body contemplation being followed by contemplation of mind states, but in between these two we have the second Satipaṭṭhāna, vedanā. So working with the felt sense is precisely what to my mind
9
10
EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE
is the rationale underlying the progression from body to feeling. Then, as feeling is not confined to the body aspect but also takes in the mental aspect, it becomes natural to move on to the mind. That is a beautiful progression.
Vedanā has two characteristics — the characteristic of being pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and the characteristic of worldly or unworldly. How do these characteristics relate? The main instruction for working with vedanā is making the distinction between pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. The potential of mindfulness is to make us aware of this first evaluative significance of pleasant/ unpleasant in particular, or this neutral kind of feeling, and to see how it triggers our reaction. For example, when somebody new comes into a room, based on the first words they say, the way we feel will build up our entire construction of who this person is, whether they are a nice or a bad person and how we are going to interact with them. Then as we move from contemplation of feeling to contemplating mental states, we make the distinction between wholesome and unwholesome states of mind. Distinguishing between what is wholesome and what is unwholesome serves as feedback to worldly and unworldly feeling. Basically it is a way to refine the contemplation of feeling and be aware of the ethical context of the feeling. So, if I have a feeling of pleasure because I have hurt somebody and I have really showed it to them, this is not a wholesome feeling. But the feeling of pleasure I have when I have been compassionate and I helped somebody is a wholesome kind of feeling.
This worldly and unworldly terminology can at first seem a bit obscure, but I think the main message is to introduce this ethical distinction and to make the basic point that not all pleasure needs to be shunned and not all pain is helpful. Sometimes there is this attitude that the more painful it is, the better it will lead you forward, but that is not really the point. There is pain that will help us to progress, but there is also pain that will prevent us from progressing.
So, in addition to the ethical dimension, is it the unworldly that leads toward liberation? Yes, that would be the same. What is skillful or wholesome leads forward and what is unskillful and unwholesome does not lead to liberation. This basic two-way distinction is precisely what underlies contemplation of mind: with lust, without lust; with anger, without anger. In the case of feeling, I suppose the terminology “wholesome” and “unwholesome” is not used because after all feelings are not intentional, so the terms “worldly” and “unworldly” draw attention to the mental context in which a feeling arises, and that context can then be either wholesome or unwholesome. Contemplation of the mind then continues into the realm of tranquility — concentrated, unconcentrated. The same basic distinction that has been introduced at a felt level continues with contemplation of the mind. In this way we have this feedback between contemplation of feeling and contemplation of the mind. For some it is easier to recognize present moment’s condition on a conceptual level. Mind with lust, without lust. But for others it is more the feeling, and they can really feel how that lust is coming up or the not-lust is there. It is the same thing seen from two complementary perspectives and in this way these two contemplations really work together. In your recent book Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna, you talk about the gradual refining of the mind to realize the gold that is hidden there. Students often report that they feel as though they’re not getting anywhere in their practice, that the gold is not getting revealed. Do you have any words of encouragement about taking the gradual path?
I think that for Satipaṭṭhāna to lead to this external dimension of practice is really a keystone. I would even recommend to evaluate our practice — even our retreat practice — from the perspective of how much it helps us to deal with daily life situations. Having a profound experience of Samadhi is very beautiful and is part of the practice but this is not really the question. The question is, how much am I able to relate with understanding, patience and compassion in everyday situations?
FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON
If I shift my perspective from an expectation of extraordinary meditation experience to a focus on putting the meditation qualities into practice in ordinary circumstances, then a shift occurs and I become able to see family, paying a mortgage, home life as opportunities for this external dimension of practice.
This brings me again back to whole-body awareness. Even now as the two of us are talking, it is possible to have this conversation and at the same time be aware of the body. By building up this continuity of mindfulness, one can then really explore the external dimension of practice. If we invest fully into the idea of continuity of mindfulness, then all of a layperson’s household pursuits have their place as an integral part of the practice. Your practice is carried forward by this external form of mindfulness. When you then go into a retreat, the practice becomes much deeper because it has all this momentum already built up. Thus, from the first moment of the retreat, we should be very clear that retreat is not what we will be doing for eternity. Even the monastic sangha was set up in such a way that the monks and nuns were forced to go begging every day. They were not allowed to go just up into the mountains, live as hermits for the rest of their life, because I think the main point is that this interaction is needed even for monastics as a way of working with the practice. When we have the clarity that comes from being on retreat, we realize that the purpose of retreat is not just to create special experiences but instead to recharge our batteries so that we can explore the external dimension of Satipaṭṭhāna. Then there will be more balance between retreat and outside-retreat experience, and in this way everyday life can come to be pervaded by a taste of liberation and compassion. In daily life and on retreat, you emphasize the importance of acknowledging when there is a lack of a defilement in the mind. Can you describe the wholesome joy that comes when the mind is temporarily without defilements?
The importance of wholesome joy is easily underestimated. If we acknowledge the wholesome condition of the mind and rejoice in that, this is such a powerful way of moving forward on the path. Especially
for us Westerners, it seems so natural to be judgmental about ourselves whenever we are doing something wrong. Then when we do it right, we just take it for granted that we are supposed to be able to do well and we do not pay attention to it any further. This is very sad because it loses half of the potential dynamic of Satipaṭṭhāna practice, the experience of this unworldly type of joy. Mindfulness of unworldly joy can diminish the attraction of worldly types of joy. It makes such a huge difference. And it is not a question of deluding ourselves and pretending we are all arahants. We are clearly aware of the fact that there is still work to be done, but every step we take is a positive step in the right direction, and we are entitled to the joy of rejoicing in that. We deserve that. How is it that the human mind so easily fails to recognize the bliss of blamelessness?
Perhaps there are two main reasons. From our Western and predominantly Judeo-Christian background, there is this tendency for some of us to succumb easily to this feeling of guilt and unworthiness. And so from that perspective, it is more natural to look at one’s shortcomings and not so natural to look at one’s strengths. Then there is also this feeling that since the path quite rightly is about avoiding conceit or arrogance and realizing not-self and the concern that by acknowledging our own wholesome qualities we might be straying into that area. These are perhaps the two main reasons why I think that people easily miss out on this other aspect. Wholesome and unwholesome mind states both equally require the presence of mindfulness, and that is what it all boils down to. If I’m not aware of, if I get angry at you and I am not aware of being angry, then there is not much I can do about it. And, conversely, if I am not aware of being free from anger, I will also not have the attraction to remain in that condition and will also not be inspired to progress further in that direction. Maybe we have not sufficiently emphasized the importance of noticing wholesome mind. I can remember in my own early years of practice when I noticed wholesome mind for the first time. It was
11
12
EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE
while I was doing my evening meditation and just by chance I thought, “There’s nothing about today that I feel bad about in any way.” And then I was suddenly aware that I actually had this wonderful feeling, and I realized what I was experiencing was the Buddha’s teaching about the bliss of blamelessness. Yes, exactly.
How do you teach upekkhā (equanimity) as one of the Seven Factors of Awakening? BhA: In the context of the awakening factors, I would prefer to translate upekkhā as equipoise. I feel that for other contexts, equanimity is a very good translation but in this regard I see upekkhā more as equipoise.
Would you give me a definition of equipoise for this context? Balance of the mind.
And by balance do you mean that the mind does not have disruptions or perturbances, or do you mean that when there are perturbances the mind is not perturbed by perturbances? This is both saying the same thing, no? When the mind is in a low energy mode, there are three awakening factors that can energize it — investigation, energy and joy. And when the mind is in a too-energetic mode, there are three awakening factors that can calm it down — tranquility, concentration and equipoise. This is the basic way I think one works with them. The main point is having the ability to monitor one’s own mind during practice because the awakening factors are not the object of the practice. Instead, with awareness as the foundation, we can bring the mind to a balance point. I see the factors in each group as being interrelated. Investigation is really a sense of curiosity and exploration that is maintained by energy. The investigation is of such a type that it is not pushy and leads to joy. In the other group of factors, tranquility leads to a mind that is concentrated and then leads on to equipoise.
After all your years of intense practice, what is your base of mindfulness in daily life activities? When you’re teaching classes or interacting with your colleagues at the university, what is the nature of your mindfulness? This whole-body awareness. Trying to maintain the continuity of whole-body awareness. Also, I try to approach any situation from the frame of the four Brahmāvihāras — mettā (mindfulness), karuṇā (compassion), muditā (sympathetic joy), uppekhā (equanimity). The main basis is mettā, but based on that keeping the whole set of the four Brahmāvihāras ready for use when required, because for any kind of situation one of them will be appropriate. I have found that under pressure mindfulness of the breath is more likely to desert me than body awareness. Have you found that to be true?
Yes, I have the same thing, that this focusing on the breath sometimes can exclude other factors. In fact, in the canonical instructions, we do not get this idea to observe the breath when being out doing things; instead, breath contemplation is specified to be done in the sitting posture and in a secluded setting. In contrast, to be aware of the body as “standing” or “walking” is something that is clearly about being in action in some way. I understand this to correspond to proprioceptive awareness, as it is called in psychology. This is something we always have, and as a reference point it is so broad that you can’t really just focus and exclude things. And it is something that is usually there at the background of our mental experience. So we just have to allow this to come into awareness, and it can coexist with anything. It can coexist with focus, with wide awareness, with activities, with quietness, and it can go from writing e-mails all the way to deep concentration and thereby provide continuity of awareness. Venerable Anālayo, thank you so much for your practice and your generosity in sharing your wisdom. EH Published with kind permission from Spirit Rock Meditation Center, California, USA.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
LOVE, COMPASSION, AND THE MAHĀYĀNA PATH By Venerable Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche
Venerable Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche (1923-2014), a great scholar from Sera Monastery renowned for his insight into the emptiness, was one of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s debate examiners in Tibet, in 1959, just before fleeing the Chinese occupation of Tibet for India. He went to the USA in 1962 and joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1967, where he remained until his retirement. He was the spiritual head of Madison’s Deer Park Buddhist CenterOpens in a new window, until he passed away on August 28th 2014.
Love and compassion have the same basic nature but a different reference or application. Compassion is mainly in reference to the problems of beings, the wish to free sentient beings from suffering, whereas love refers to the positive side, the aspiration that all sentient beings have happiness and its cause. Our love and compassion should be equal towards all beings and have the intensity that a loving mother feels towards her only child, taking upon ourselves full responsibility for the well-being of others. That’s how bodhisattvas regard all sentient beings.
However, the bodhi mind is not merely love and compassion. Bodhisattvas see that in order to free sentient beings from misery and give them the highest happiness, they themselves will have to be fully equipped, fully qualified—first they will have to attain perfect buddhahood, total freedom from all obstacles and limitations and complete possession of all power and knowledge. Right now we can’t do much to benefit others. Therefore, for the benefit of other sentient beings, we have to attain enlightenment as quickly as possible. Day and night, everything
we do should be done in order to reach perfect enlightenment as soon as we can for the benefit of others.
Bodhicitta
The thought characterized by this aspiration is called bodhicitta, bodhi mind, the bodhisattva spirit. Unlike our usual self-centered, egotistical thoughts, which lead only to desire, hatred, jealousy, pride and so forth, the bodhisattva way is dominated by love, compassion and the bodhi mind, and if we practice the appropriate meditative techniques, we ourselves will become bodhisattvas. Then, as Shantideva has said, all our ordinary activities—sleeping, walking, eating or whatever—will naturally produce limitless goodness and fulfill the purposes of many sentient beings.
The life of a bodhisattva
A bodhisattva’s life is very precious and therefore, in order to sustain it, we sleep, eat and do whatever else is necessary to stay alive. Because this is our motivation for eating, every mouthful of food we take gives rise to great merit, equal to the number of the sentient beings in the universe.
13
14
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
In order to ascend the ten bodhisattva stages leading to buddhahood we engage in both method and wisdom: on the basis of bodhicitta we cultivate the realization of emptiness. Seeing the emptiness of the self, our selfgrasping ignorance and attachment cease. We also see all phenomena as empty and, as a result, everything that appears to our mind is seen as illusory, like a magician’s creations. When a magician conjures up something up, the audience believes that what they see exists. The magician, however, although sees what the audience sees, understands it differently. When he creates a beautiful woman, the men in the audience experience lust; when he creates a frightening animal, the audience gets scared. The magician sees the beautiful woman and the scary animals just as the audience does but he knows that they’re not real, he knows that they’re empty of existing in the way that they appear— their reality is not like the mode of their appearance.
Similarly, bodhisattvas who have seen emptiness see everything as illusory and things that might have caused attachment or aversion to arise in them before can no longer do so. As Nāgārjuna said,
By combining the twofold cause of method and wisdom, bodhisattvas gain the twofold effect of the mental and physical bodies [rūpakaya and dharmakāya] of a buddha.
Their accumulation of meritorious energy and wisdom bring them to the first bodhisattva stage, where they directly realize emptiness and overcome the obstacles to liberation. They then use this realization to progress through the ten bodhisattva levels, eventually eradicating all obstacles to omniscience. They first eliminate the coarse level of ignorance and then, through gradual meditation on method combined with wisdom, attain the perfection of enlightenment.
The keys to the Mahāyāna path
The main subjects of this discourse— renunciation, emptiness and the bodhi mind—were taught by the Buddha, Nāgārjuna and Tsongkhapa and provide the basic texture of the Mahāyāna path. These three principal aspects of the path are like keys for those who want to attain enlightenment. In terms of method and wisdom, renunciation and the bodhi mind constitute method and meditation on emptiness is wisdom. Method and wisdom are like the two wings of a bird and enable us to fly high in the sky of Dharma. Just as a bird with one wing cannot fly; in order to reach the heights of buddhahood we need the two wings of method and wisdom.
Renunciation
The principal Mahāyāna method is the bodhi mind. To generate the bodhi mind we must first generate compassion—the aspiration to free sentient beings from suffering, which becomes the basis of our motivation to attain enlightenment. However, as Shantideva
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
pointed out, we must begin with compassion for ourselves. We must want to be free of suffering ourselves before being truly able to want it for others. The spontaneous wish to free ourselves from suffering is renunciation.
But most of us don’t have it. We don’t see the faults of saṃsāra. However, there’s no way to really work for the benefit of others while continuing to be entranced by the pleasures and activities of saṃsāra. Therefore, first we have to generate personal renunciation of samsara—the constant wish to gain freedom from all misery. At the beginning, this is most important. Then we can extend this quality to others as love, compassion and the bodhi mind, which combine as method. When united with the wisdom realizing emptiness, we possess the main causes of buddhahood.
Making this life meaningful
Of course, to develop the three principal aspects of the path, we have to proceed step by step. Therefore it’s necessary to study, contemplate and meditate. We should all try to develop a daily meditation practice. Young or old, male or female, regardless of race, we all have the ability to meditate. Anybody can progress through the stages of understanding. The human life is very meaningful and precious but it can be lost to seeking temporary goals such as sensual indulgence, fame, reputation and so forth, which benefit this life alone. Then we’re like animals; we have the goals of the animal world. Even if we don’t make heroic spiritual efforts, we should
at least try to get started in the practices that make human life meaningful. Q. Could you clarify what you mean by removing the suffering of others?
Geshe Sopa: We are not talking about temporary measures, like hunger or thirst. You can do acts of charity with food, medicine and so forth, but these provide only superficial help. Giving can never fulfill the world’s needs and can itself become a cause of trouble and misery. What beings lack is some kind of perfect happiness or enjoyment. Therefore we cultivate a compassion for all sentient beings that wishes to provide them with the highest happiness, the happiness that lasts forever. Practitioners, yogis and bodhisattvas consider this to be the main goal. They do give temporary things as much as possible, but their main point is to produce a higher happiness. That’s the bodhisattva’s main function. Q. Buddhism believes strongly in past and future lives. How is this consistent with the idea of impermanence taught by Buddha?
Geshe Sopa: Because things are impermanent they are changeable. Because impurity is impermanent, purity is possible. Relative truth can function because of the existence of ultimate truth. Impurity becomes pure; imperfect becomes perfect. Change can cause conditions to switch. By directing our life correctly we can put an end to negative
15
16
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
patterns. If things were not impermanent there would be no way to change and evolve.
In terms of karma and rebirth, impermanence means that we can gain control over the stream of our life, which is like a great river, never the same from one moment to the next. If we let polluted tributaries flow into a river it becomes dirty. Similarly, if we let bad thoughts, distorted perceptions and wrong actions control our lives, we evolve negatively and take low rebirths. If, on the other hand, we control the flow of our life skillfully, we’ll evolve positively, take high rebirths and perhaps even attain the highest wisdom of buddhahood—the coming and going of imperfect experiences will subside and the impermanent flow of pure perfection will come to us. When that happens we’ll have achieved the ultimate human goal.
Q. In the example of the river, its content is flowing water, sometimes muddy, sometimes clear. What is the content of the stream of life? Geshe Sopa: Buddhism speaks of the five skandhas: one mainly physical, the other four mental. There is also a basis, which is a certain kind of propensity that is neither physical nor mental, a kind of energy. The five impure skandhas eventually become perfectly pure and then manifest as the five Dhyani Buddhas.
Q. What is the role of prayer in Buddhism? Does Buddhism believe in prayer, and if so, since Buddhists don’t believe in a God, to whom do they pray? Geshe Sopa: In Buddhism, prayer means some kind of wish, an aspiration to have something good occur. In this sense, a prayer is a verbal wish. The prayers of buddhas and bodhisattvas are mental and have great power. Buddhas and bodhisattvas have equal love and compassion for all sentient beings and their prayers are to benefit all sentient beings. Therefore, when we pray to them for help or guidance they have the power to influence us.
As well as these considerations, prayer produces a certain kind of buddha-result. Praying does not mean that personally you don’t have to practice yourself; that you just leave everything to Buddha. It’s not like that. The buddhas have to do something and we have to do something. The buddhas cannot wash away our stains with water, like washing clothing. The root of misery and suffering cannot be extracted like a thorn from the foot—the buddhas can only show us how to pull out the thorn; the hand that pulls it out must be our own. Also, the Buddha cannot transplant his knowledge into our being. He is like a doctor who diagnoses our illnesses and prescribes the cure that we must follow through
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
personal responsibility. If a patient does not take the prescribed medicine or follow the advice, the doctor cannot help, no matter how strong his medicines or excellent his skill. If we take the medicine of Dharma as prescribed and follow the Buddha’s advice, we will easily cure ourselves of the diseases of ignorance, attachment and the other obstacles to liberation and omniscience. To turn to the Dharma but then not practice it is to be like a patient burdened by a huge bag of medicine while not taking any. Therefore the Buddha said, “I have provided the medicine. It is up to you to take it.” Q. Sometimes in meditation we visualize Shakyamuni Buddha. What did he visualize when he meditated?
Geshe Sopa: What should we meditate upon? How should we meditate? Shakyamuni Buddha himself meditated in the same way as we teach: on compassion, love, bodhicitta, the four noble truths and so forth. Sometimes he also meditated on perfect forms, like that of a buddha or a particular meditational deity. These deities symbolize perfect inner qualities and through meditating on them we bring ourselves into proximity with the symbolized qualities. Both deity meditation and ordinary simple meditations tame the scattered, uncontrolled, elephant-like mind. The wild, roaming mind must be calmed in order to enter higher spiritual practices. Therefore, at the beginning, we try to stabilize
our mind by focusing it on a particular subject. This is calm abiding meditation and its main aim is to keep our mind focused on a single point, abiding in perfect clarity and peace for as long as we wish without any effort, wavering or fatigue.
As for the object to be visualized in this type of meditation, there are many choices: a candle, a statue, an abstract object and so forth. Since the form of an enlightened being has many symbolic values and shares the nature of the goal we hope to accomplish, visualizing such an object has many advantages. But it is not mandatory; we can choose anything. The main thing is to focus the mind on the object and not allow it to waver. Eventually we’ll be able to meditate clearly and peacefully for as long as we like, remaining absorbed for even days at a time. This is the attainment of calm abiding. When we possess this mental instrument, every other meditation we do will become much more successful.
When we first try this kind of practice we discover that our mind is like a wild elephant, constantly running here and there, never able to focus fully on or totally engage in anything. Then, little by little, through practice and exercise, it will become calm and even concentrating on a simple object like breathing in and out while counting will demonstrate the wildness of the mind and the calming effects of meditation. EH
17
18
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
WHAT EXACTLY IS VIPASSANĀ MEDITATION? By Venerable Dr H Gunaratana Māha Thera
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is the founding abbot of the Bhavana Society. Born in rural Sri Lanka, he has been a monk since age 12 and took full ordination at age 20 in 1947. He came to the United States in 1968. “Bhante G” (as he is fondly called by his students) has written a number of books, including the now-classic meditation manual Mindfulness In Plain English and its companion Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness. Bhante G regularly leads retreats on vipassanā, mindfulness, mettā (Lovingfriendliness), concentration, and other topics both at the Bhavana Society and elsewhere.
The distinction between Vipassanā meditation and other styles of meditation which his awareness can chip away at the wall of illusion that cuts him off from the living light of reality. It is a gradual process of ever-increasing awareness into the inner workings of reality itself. It takes years, but one day the meditator chisels through that wall and tumbles into the presence of light. The transformation is complete. It’s called Liberation, and its permanent. Liberation is the goal of all Buddhist systems of practice. But the routes to the attainment of that end are quite diverse.
The Oldest Buddhist Meditation Practice
Vipassanā is the oldest of Buddhist meditation practices. The method comes directly from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta [Foundations of Mindfulness], a discourse attributed to the Buddha himself. Vipassanā is a direct and gradual cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. It proceeds piece by piece over a period of years. The student’s attention is carefully directed to an intense examination of certain aspects of his own existence. The
meditator is trained to notice more and more of his own flowing life experience. Vipassanā is a gentle technique. But it also is very, very thorough. It is
an ancient and codified system of training your mind, a set of exercises dedicated to becoming more and more aware of your own life experience. It is attentive listening, mindful seeing and careful testing.
We learn to smell acutely, to touch fully, and to really pay attention to the changes taking place in all these experiences. We learn to listen to our own thoughts without being caught up in them. The object of Vipassanā meditation practice is to learn to see the truth of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness of phenomena.
We think we are doing this already, but that is an illusion. It comes from the fact that we are paying so little attention to the ongoing surge of our own life experience that we might just as well be asleep. We are simply not paying enough attention to notice that we are not paying attention. It is another Catch-22.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
Therefore Bhavana means to cultivate, and the word is always used in reference to the mind. Bhavana means mental cultivation. Vipassanā is derived from two roots. Passana means seeing or perceiving. Vi is a prefix with a complex set of connotations. The basic meaning is “in a special way.” But there also is the connotation of both “into” and “through.” Monastic retreat at Bhavana Society, USA, 2008
Meditation as Discovery Through the process of
mindfulness, we slowly become aware of what we really are down below the ego image. We wake up to what life really is. It is not just a parade of ups and downs, lollipops and smacks on the wrist. That is an illusion. Life has a much deeper texture than that if we bother to look, and if we look in the right way.
Vipassanā is a form of mental training that will teach you to experience the world in an entirely new way. You will learn for the first time what is truly happening to you, around you and within you. It is a process of self-discovery, a participatory investigation in which you observe your own experiences while participating in them as they occur. “Never mind what I have been taught. Forget about theories and prejudices and stereotypes.”
The practice must be approached with this attitude: “Never mind what I have been taught. Forget about theories and prejudices and stereotypes. I want to understand the true nature of life. I want to know what this experience of being alive really is. I want to apprehend the true and deepest qualities of life, and I don’t want to just accept somebody else’s explanation. I want to see it for myself.” If you pursue your meditation practice with this attitude, you will succeed. You’ll find yourself observing things objectively, exactly as they are-flowing and changing from moment to moment. Life then takes on an unbelievable richness which cannot be described. It has to be experienced.
Vipassanā and Bhavana
The Pāli term for Insight meditation is Vipassanā Bhavana. Bhavana comes from the root bh, which means to grow or to become.
The whole meaning of the word is looking into something with clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct, and piercing all the way through so as to perceive the most fundamental reality of that thing. This process leads to insight into the basic reality of whatever is being inspected. Put it all together and Vipassanā Bhavana means the cultivation of the mind, aimed at seeing in the special way that leads to insight and to full understanding. The method we are explaining here is probably what Gotama Buddha taught his students. The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Buddha’s original discourse on mindfulness, specifically says that one must begin by focusing the attention on the breathing and then go on to note all other physical and mental phenomena which arise. We sit, watching the air going in and out of our noses. At first glance, this seems an exceedingly odd and useless procedure. Before going on to specific instructions, let us examine the reason behind it.
Why Focussing is Important The first question we might have is why use any focus of attention
19
20
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Monks from Bhavana Society on alms round
at all? We are, after all, trying to develop awareness. Why not just sit down and be aware of whatever happens to be present in the mind? In fact, there are meditations of that nature. They are sometimes referred to as unstructured meditation and they are quite difficult. The mind is tricky. Thought is an inherently complicated procedure. By that we mean that we become trapped, wrapped up, and stuck in the thought chain. One thought leads to another which leads to another, and another, and another, and so on. Fifteen minutes later we suddenly wake up and realize we spent that whole time stuck in a daydream or sexual fantasy or a set of worries about our bills or whatever.
We use breath as our focus. It serves as that vital reference point from which the mind wanders and is drawn back. Distraction cannot be seen as distraction unless there is some central focus to be distracted
Lay disciples of Bhante Gunaratana
from. That is the frame of reference against which we can view the incessant changes and interruptions that go on all the time as a part of normal thinking.
Taming Wild Elephants
Ancient Pāli texts liken meditation to the process of taming a wild elephant. The procedure in those days was to tie a newly captured animal to a post with a good strong rope. When you do this, the elephant is not happy. He screams and tramples, and pulls against the rope for days. Finally it sinks through his skull that he can’t get away, and he settles down. At this point you can begin to feed him and to handle him with some measure of safety. Eventually you can dispense with the rope and post altogether, and train your elephant for various tasks. Now you have got a tamed elephant that can be put to useful work. In this analogy the wild elephant is your wildly active mind, the rope
is mindfulness, and the post is our object of meditation, our breathing. The tamed elephant who emerges from this process is a well-trained, concentrated mind that can then be used for the exceedingly tough job of piercing the layers of illusion that obscure reality. Meditation tames the mind.
Why Breathing?
The next question we need to address is: Why choose breathing as the primary object of meditation? Why not something a bit more interesting? Answers to this are numerous. A useful object of meditation should be one that promotes mindfulness. It should be portable, easily available, and cheap. It should also be something that will not embroil us in those states of mind from which we are trying to free ourselves, such as greed, anger, and delusion. Breathing satisfies all these criteria and more. It is common to every human being. We all carry it with us
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
Retreat with Ven Rahula at Bhavana Society
wherever we go. It is always there, constantly available, never ceasing from birth till death, and it costs nothing. Breathing is a non-conceptual process, a thing that can be experienced directly without a need for thought. Furthermore, it is a very living process, an aspect of life that is in constant change. The breath moves in cyclesinhalation, exhalation, breathing in, and breathing out. Thus, it is a miniature model of life itself.
Breath is a phenomenon common to all living things. A true experiential understanding of the process moves you closer to other living beings. It shows you your inherent connectedness with all of life. Finally, breathing is a presenttime process.
The first step in using the breath as an object of meditation is to find it. What you are looking for is the physical, tactile sensation of the air
that passes in and out of the nostrils. This is usually just inside the tip of the nose. But the exact spot varies from one person to another, depending on the shape of the nose. To find your own point, take a quick deep breath and notice and point just inside the nose or on the upper tip where you have the most distinct sensation of passing air. Now exhale and notice the sensation at the same point. It is from this point that you will follow the whole passage of breath.
Not Always Easy
When you first begin this procedure, expect to face some difficulties. Your mind will wander off constantly darting, around like a bumble bee and zooming off on wild tangents. Try not to worry. The monkey mind phenomenon is well known. It is something that every advanced meditator has had to deal with. They have pushed through it one way or another, and so can you.
When it happens, just note the fact that you have been thinking, daydreaming, worrying, or whatever. Gently, but firmly, without getting upset or judging yourself for straying, simply return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again the next time, and again, and again, and again. Essentially, VipassanÄ Â meditation is a process of retraining the mind. The state you are aiming for is one in which you are totally aware of everything that is happening in your own perceptual universe, exactly the way it happens, exactly when it is happening; total, unbroken awareness in present time.
This is an incredibly high goal, and not to be reached all at once. It takes practice, so we start small. We start by becoming totalIy aware of one small unit of time, just one single inhalation. And, when you succeed, you are on your way to a whole new experience of life. EH
21
22
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
ARE WE REALLY MEDITATING? By Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel has studied and practised the Buddhadharma for 30 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongrul Rinpoche. After meeting Rinpoche in Nepal, she became his first Western student. She has been intimately involved with Rinpoche’s work in bringing Buddhist wisdom to the West, in particular to the development of Mangala Shri Bhuti, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage. Elizabeth has an academic background in both Anthropology and Buddhist Studies, but her learning is also grounded in practice. After many years of solitary retreat, Rinpoche appointed Elizabeth as Retreat Master at Longchen Jigme Samten Ling, Mangala Shri Bhuti’s retreat center in southern Colorado. She has edited two of Rinpoche’s books, It’s Up to You and Light Comes Through and teaches the Buddhadharma in the United States and Europe. Her latest book is The Logic of Faith (Shambhala, 2018). Elizabeth delights in wrestling with difficult and juicy ‘koans’ that tend to plague modern day practitioners, while maintaining a deep respect for the tradition she comes from.
What is meditation practice? When are we genuinely practicing and when are we just going through the motions, caught in unexamined assumptions about practice? I often ask myself these questions so I don’t succumb to spiritual vagueness and because I want my practice to continue to grow. The purpose of meditation is to develop a sane relationship to experience. The struggles we have in life—shutting down, pushing away, feeling overwhelmed, and all the neurotic attachment—arise from the confusion we harbor about how to relate to the rich energy of the mind. When eating, we ingest, process, and eliminate food. But how do we digest our experience? It’s not so clear. As meditators we look at the mind and its activity. When we begin to practice, we often feel surprised: “I didn’t realize my mind was so wild and unruly!” Even experienced practitioners will complain, “I have been practicing for thirty years, but my mind is still crazy!”
We often view experience as a problem. So how do we work with it? Is there a way to enjoy the activity of mind? How does practice bring us into a healthy relationship with our world? Meditation puts these questions front and center.
METHODS ALONE ARE NOT PRACTICE
We think of meditation as the act of sitting in the lotus position, reciting a mantra, visualizing, or focusing on the breath. These skillful methods help us navigate our world. They keep our bodies upright and our energy flowing, and more important, they can help guide us away from habitual tendencies.
Sometimes, just following the meditation technique will lead to a moment of clarity, when we experience a sense of liberation. I don’t mean “LIBERATION!!!” in some highfalutin kind of way. I just mean that we may enjoy a moment in which the mind stops trying to fix or push at things, allowing us to open into a larger way of being.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
And yet we know that we can sometimes apply practice techniques without really “practicing” at all. In those moments, such methods don’t touch our habitual tendencies and we find ourselves defaulting to our usual ways of relating to the mind, such as getting lost in the momentum of thoughts and emotions or in rejecting them. We may spend a lot of time wishing we were someone else, somewhere else having a different experience. We may find ourselves wanting or not wanting, grasping or rejecting, even as we sit on the cushion.
The various tools of meditation practice can put us into a purposeful stronghold. When we place our body in a meditation posture, recite a mantra, or follow the breath, we provide ourselves with a supportive structure in which to view the mind and its distractions. We often forget that this “seeing” is a powerful and necessary realization in and of itself. In fact, it is the starting point for our path. Sometimes, however, rather than appreciating our discoveries along the path, we brace against them and our experience. When this happens we miss the genius of the practice methods, which are designed to bring us into a sane relationship with our experience. As the great Tibetan Buddhist master Tilopa said to his disciple Naropa, “Son, it is not experiences themselves that bind you, but the way you cling to and reject them.”
We may be reciting prayers, sitting erect, or watching the breath, but are we actually working with our minds? Is our practice touching and transforming our habitual tendencies of grasping and rejection? These questions about how we apply the practice moment to moment are deeply personal. We need to continually ask them, because if we think meditating means just applying a technique, we may never experience the liberation that genuine practice can bring. Eventually we may conclude that practice doesn’t work, that we’ve wasted our time, and that we’re going to return to the real world. It happens.
TOUGHING IT OUT
We’re told that the great yogis of the past, including Milarepa, Yeshe Tsogyal, and Bodhidharma, spent years practicing austerities, such as sitting naked on snowy
mountaintops and cutting off their eyelids so they wouldn’t fall asleep in meditation.
As we practitioners struggle with our experience, we may begin to associate meditation with suffering. We may even view this struggle as purifying karma, assuming that unless we are uncomfortable, we are not really practicing. When we hold fast to such notions of practice, our suffering grows ever more real along with the “notwanting” we feel toward the unpleasantness of it all. The Buddha, in his very first teaching, said, “There is suffering.” Sometimes we mistakenly interpret this to mean that we are doomed to suffer. I take the Buddha’s words as an invitation to practice nonviolence toward my inner and outer worlds. In this simple but powerful statement, the Buddha suggests that suffering is not something we can fix, ignore, or get rid of. Rather, he is intimating that practice provides the ability to make ourselves big enough to include both the pain and beauty of the human condition—not only our own but also that of others.
Our ability to bear witness to suffering without pushing it away or getting overwhelmed is linked to liberation. What is experience before we shrink from it, try to subdue it, or manipulate it? This is the question for practitioners. The move from “I am suffering” to “there is suffering” allows the pain of the human condition to touch us and releases our deepest wisdom and compassion. In this way, the great practitioners of the past have experienced what we might call suffering as a kind of fierce empowerment.
23
24
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
IT’S NOT LIKE PAYING TAXES
NO PHYSICAL BOUNDARY
If our practice consists of toughing it out, a time will come when we feel we have endured enough. We may decide to give it all up and go dancing—as if practice and enjoyment were at odds. In his book The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Patrul Rinpoche says we often practice “as if we are paying taxes.” We really just want to come home after work and watch TV, but we feel we should meditate.
When people first enter a retreat, they can have an awkward or uncomfortable relationship with the experience of boundaries. Oftentimes they’ll distract themselves from meditation practice by trying to communicate with others or they’ll find “interesting” things to do. Some will withdraw from experience and try to create a protective shield through holding themselves in a rigid and contracted way. These two styles of relating to experience are once again expressions of grasping and rejection. They indicate that we don’t know how to be with our experience in an easy, enjoyable, and intelligent way—in a practice way.
This raises a valuable question: “What is true enjoyment?” My teacher, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, once defined bliss as “the absence of grasping and rejection.” If this is so, enjoyment could be a good way to define “practice.” The purpose of meditation practice is to enjoy the natural vitality of the mind; practice is not something we should do out of a sense of duty. Who are we practicing for? The teacher? Are we doing this so we won’t go to hell? To be good? Who is the arbiter of “good,” anyway? The point of practice is not to be good, but to learn how to be at ease with our experience and deeply enjoy our mind and life.
SHORT PASSING EXPERIENCES
Sometimes we meet a teacher, listen to a teaching, or have an experience—perhaps in nature—that wakes us up. All of a sudden our habitual mind stops, and we enjoy a moment of wonder or openness. Such experiences remind us that there is life beyond grasping and rejection. But when we try to hold on to such passing experiences, we once again find ourselves transported to the conditional world of preferences with all its “wants” and “not-wants,” hopes and fears. This is where we usually live, engaged in struggle with the world. There is a saying in the mind training teachings: “Give up all hope of fruition.” People often interpret this to mean that there is no resting place for the practitioner. What it actually means is that when we grasp at positive experiences, we fall back into ordinary mind. Freedom is just the opposite. It arises from valuing all experience and remaining open to life in all its pain and joy.
During a long-term retreat where a small group of us practiced in separate cabins on the same retreat land, I found myself dreading our occasional group practice sessions and trying to avoid my fellow retreatants at the water tap. Whenever someone walked past me, I would feel my mind and body tighten.
One day I saw someone I didn’t recognize walking toward me on the path and I jumped into the bushes. My teacher, who happened to be standing nearby, playfully teased me, saying, “That isn’t a dignified way for a practitioner to act!” I knew he was right.
Having to grapple with my confusion around boundaries eventually compelled me to ask some very deep and essential questions about practice: Where is the true boundary of practice? Where is the threshold and how do I step across it? Sometimes we mistakenly think of meditation practice as staying within the protective container of a physical environment, such as a retreat, or following a set schedule or precepts. While these act as boundaries for our practice, there is a more subtle boundary that has to do with how we keep our minds oriented toward practice.
People often talk about the challenges of leaving retreat. They say that when they re-enter their ordinary lives, their mind no longer feels protected by or connected to their meditation practice. This is because we mistake the external boundary for the practice itself, when in
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
fact the boundary of practice is not something outside of us, but has to do with how we relate to the rich experience of our inner and outer worlds. The physical boundary and precepts that define the structure of our retreat serve as indispensable supports for retreat practice. They keep us within the sane confines of our intention, which is to find our true resting place beyond grasping and rejection. But they are not the practice itself.
VALUE ALL EXPERIENCE
If practice is not merely a technique or something that can be identified by physical boundaries and short passing experiences, then how do we know when we are practicing and when we’re not? I think we need to look at the fundamental attitude we bring to our experience. Are we valuing all experience? Or are we succumbing to our habitual tendencies to brace against what we don’t like and grasp at what we find pleasurable? Practice provides an opportunity to bear witness to such lapses without judging them. Rather than becoming discouraged, we can appreciate the potency of our ability to discern: What is practice? What isn’t practice? This is a crucial part of our inquiry and the beginning of responding to our experience with nonaggression. Our ability to accept our humanness with all its struggles, insights, and confusions increases our capacity to behold both the beauty and suffering we encounter in the world. This gives rise to fearlessness, compassion, insight, and an appreciation both of ourselves and of others. Because we feel less intimidated by our mind and world, we can walk through life with grace and composure. Our relationship with the world around us is less reactive and more responsive. To be in sane relationship with our experience, our life, our world, we need to learn how to digest experience—to let life touch us, nourish us, and move through us rather than reacting to it with so much fixation and preference. This means we need to find a way of being that is beyond grasping and rejection. Only then can we enjoy our humanness in all its fullness. And isn’t that the point of meditation? EH Published with kind permission of the author.
HOW TO READ BUDDHIST TEACHINGS By Dr Judy Lief
Judy Lief is a Buddhist teacher who trained under Ven. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (19391987). She has been a teacher and practitioner for over 35 years, and continues to teach throughout the world. She is the editor of numerous books on Buddhist meditation and psychology, and author of Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality and numerous articles. Her articles have appeared in The Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, O Magazine, Buddhadharma, and The Naropa Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy. Judy currently lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and their dog Loki. No matter where you begin, says Judy Lief, or whether you are an independent practitioner or affiliated with a particular tradition, all you have to do is to dive in.
25
26
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Judy with Shambhala teachers
Thanks to the efforts of translators, practitioners, and scholars, we have access to an abundance of magazines, journals, books, articles, videos, podcasts, and websites about Buddhism in all its diverse forms. Different Buddhist schools emphasize different aspects of the tradition and have varying guidelines regarding the proper balance of study and practice. And when it comes to study, different schools of Buddhism focus on completely different primary texts and commentaries. Practitioners studying within a particular saṅgha may follow a customary curriculum, and be guided in their studies by teachers within their community. But for the independent practitioner, there is no clear roadmap. The sheer volume of material to study can be overwhelming, and so can figuring out where to start. So it is probably best to begin at the beginning— with yourself.
Some people love to practice and hate to study, and other people love to study and hate to practice. Which type of person are you? If studying
comes easy for you, it is possible to confuse intellectual understanding with real understanding. If studying is more difficult for you and practice is easier, it is possible to hide out in a vague understanding of meditative experience and fail to challenge yourself intellectually or to develop a sophisticated understanding of the dharma. So before you launch into further study, study yourself. If you are more scholarly you could balance that by more practice, and if you are more practice-oriented, you could balance that with more study and analysis. Bringing together study and practice so that they balance and support one another creates a strong ground for developing your understanding of the dharma and progressing along the path.
Having established that ground, look into how to study the teachings. Dharma study is not simply about acquiring information; it is a process of transformation and deep reflection. Instead of reading one book after another, amassing more and more information, you might go over the same text, or even
the same short passage, over and over again, and come back to it year after year. Each time you go over it, question what is really being said, its relevance, how it can be applied, and whether it rings true to your own experience and observation of the world. Traditionally, it is said that dharmic understanding develops in three stages: hearing, contemplating, and meditating. Developing an intellectual understanding of a text or presentation is just the first step, called hearing. You then need to wrestle with the material so that it begins to sink in, so in the practice of contemplation, you make a direct, personal, and quite intimate relationship with the material you are studying. When your understanding deepens to the point of mastery—when it’s in your bones—that is the third stage, meditating. Once you have examined what it means to study, how do you choose what to study? A smorgasbord of options awaits, and you could begin almost anywhere. You could choose to explore a particular tradition
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
such as Zen, or you could begin with an overview of the Buddhist tradition in general, or the life of the founder, Shakyamuni Buddha. You could explore the many different styles of teaching, from traditional sutras and commentaries, to biographies and life stories, to works by contemporary Asian meditation masters or Western Buddhist teachers. You could listen to talks online, read poetry, look at art.
There are many different teachers, many different styles of dharma teaching, and many different media for presenting the teaching. You could begin by exploring widely, and in the process you may discover an affinity for one or another teacher, tradition, or approach, which may help you to narrow your search and guide your studies in a certain direction. It is also possible that as you are looking for the right book, unexpectedly, the tables are turned and the right book finds you. At this point in history, there is a greater abundance of dharma available to ordinary practitioners than in any previous era. That is a great blessing, and at the same time, quite overwhelming. But no matter how much you read, how many talks
you hear, or how many websites you visit, there is no guarantee that there will be any real benefit. It is good to accumulate knowledge, but it is better to let that knowledge transform you. The benefit comes in the meeting point between you and the dharma, when a seemingly outer teaching strikes a deep inner chord.
Only you know how you are approaching your studies. Only you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with the dharma, how deep or how shallow you want it to be. Basically, how much you put into it, is how much benefit will you deriveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;no more, no less. And as you progress, the effect of your study will be determined not simply by your learnedness, but by the changes in your character, by your further gentleness and sanity. The dharma is like an ocean, which is too big to consume and too heavy to carry along as your accoutrement. You cannot put it into your book bag or capture it in your DVD player. No matter where you begin, or whether you are an independent practitioner or affiliated with a particular tradition, there is plenty of room for you there. All you have to do is to dive in. EH
Judy with her late teacher Trungpa
27
28
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
THE POWER OF MINDFUL LEADERSHIP By Bill George
Bill George is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of: Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Fieldbook, Authentic Leadership, True North, Finding Your True North, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis and True North Groups. Dr George is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as president and chief operating officer, was chief executive officer from 1991-2001, and board chair from 1996-2002. Earlier in his career, he was a senior executive with Honeywell and Litton Industries and served in the U.S. Department of Defense. He and his wife Penny reside in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
From the moment you wake up, you’re bombarded with distractions. Emails clog your inbox, requests pile up, and notifications flicker in the background. Within moments your attention is scattered. Given the realities of today’s 24/7 world, how do great leaders slow down and focus in order to make thoughtful decisions?
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of self-observation without judgment with a focus on our minds and inner voices. Mindful practices include daily meditation, prayer, journaling, or jogging alone. In a fast paced world, mindfulness enables you to clear your mind of clutter, focus on what is important, and be creative. Leaders like Arianna Huffington and Steve Jobs are well known for their mindfulness practices. As our lives have become filled with technology, the distractions we face increase exponentially. With it, our ability to focus has diminished, but our need to think clearly in order to make complex decisions has not.
More than ever, leaders need to train themselves to be fully present. Becoming a mindful leader isn’t easy. There are no five easy steps to do so. A few years ago when I asked the Dalai Lama how we can develop a new generation of compassionate, mindful leaders, he replied simply, “Develop a daily habit of introspection.”
Today many more companies are promoting mindful practices to improve the health and decision-making of their leaders. Google, under the tutelage of Chade-Meng Tan, trains 2,000 engineers in meditation each year. When I visited Google this spring, it was evident that mindfulness is one of the key reasons behind Google’s innovative and harmonious culture. Leading financial services firms like Blackrock and Goldman Sachs offer mindfulness courses for their employees. At General Mills Janice Marturano was so successful in mindfulness training that she founded the Institute for Mindful Leadership.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
My Mindful Practice: Meditation
The Growing Importance of Mindfulness
In 1975 my wife Penny and I went to a weekend program on Transcendental Meditation. At the time I was working nonstop, coming home exhausted, and having late dinners. I even got denied for life insurance because of high blood pressure. After the training, I started meditating twice daily—not as a spiritual practice, but for health reasons. Forty years later, I still practice regularly.
Increasingly, companies see mindfulness training as a competitive advantage. Aetna, the nation’s third largest health insurer, partnered with Duke University to study meditation and yoga. Researchers found these practices decreased stress levels by 28%, improved sleep quality (20%), reduced pain (19%), and improved productivity 62 minutes per employee per week. Aetna is now offering similar programs to all employees as well as its insured customers.
Meditation is the best thing I have ever done to calm myself and separate from the 24/7, connected world. By centering into myself, I can focus my attention on the important things, develop an inner sense of well-being, and gain clarity in making decisions. My most creative ideas come from meditating, and meditation has built resilience to deal with difficult times. No doubt it has helped me become a better leader.
The Science of Mindfulness
Mind training, of which meditation is one form, can change the composition of your mind. Research by Wisconsin’s Richard Davidson demonstrated direct correlation between mindfulness and changes in the brain - away from anger and anxiety and toward a sense of calm and well-being. UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center found meditation can improve executive functions (sustaining attention, diminishing distractibility) better than medication in many cases.
Daniel Goleman, the father of emotional intelligence, describes the effect of mindfulness for focusing the mind’s cognitive abilities. As Goleman says in his new book, Focus, “One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.”
The World Health Organization estimates that stress costs American businesses roughly $300 billion dollars per year. Over the past thirty years, we’ve experienced an 18-23% increase of self-reported stress for men and women, respectively. As companies such as Google, General Mills, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs have shown, mindfulness training decreases stress levels.
The key to effective leadership is the ability to integrate your head (IQ) with your heart (EQ). As Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh taught me years ago, “The longest journey you will ever take is the eighteen inches from your head to your heart.” Our hearts are where essential leadership qualities like passion, compassion and courage reside. By practicing mindfulness, mindful leaders exhibit high levels of self-awareness and intentionality in their actions. The best time to start a mindful practice is now, but don’t take the word “practice” lightly. Maintaining the discipline of your practice isn’t easy. To become a mindful leader, you need to make this a daily introspective act. As you do so, you’ll worry less about day-to-day problems and focus on what is most important. As you become more mindful, you will be a more effective, successful and fulfilled leader. That’s worth twenty minutes a day, isn’t it? EH
29
30
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
FINDING MEANING By Dr Karen Derris
Karen Derris is a scholar of Buddhist traditions in South and Southeast Asia. Her work concentrates on the central importance of community in Buddhist ethical and spiritual development. She has cultivated a close relationship with HH the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje since 2002. Her first co-edited book The Heart is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out, (Shambhala, 2013, pp 191) is based on the Karmapa’s insights and teaching. In it, the Karmapa shares his vision for bringing social action into daily life, such as how individuals can manage through the choices they make every day – what to buy, what to eat, and how to relate honestly with friends, family and co-workers. In 2011 and 2013, Karen took her students from Redlands University to visit HH The Karmapa’s home at the Gyuto Monastery in India. Based on insights The Karmapa shared with Redlands students during those visits, a second book Interconnected: Embracing Life in our Global Society, (Wisdom, 2017, pp 248) was written by HH the 17th Karmapa, which she edited. The book comprises conversation sessions over a series
of 12 topics discussed over threeand-a-half weeks. Following each collaborative session, the Karmapa would give his own presentation or would go directly to Q & A. Karen was pleased to see her students respond enthusiastically in the fall of 2016 when she shared chapters of the publication. Her students’ openness to the study of religions that contradict Western beliefs enables them to grasp the idea of world interdependence, the key message of Interconnected which was published in February 2017. Interconnected includes discussions about myriad global issues, including climate warming, migrations and refugees, that illustrate global interdependence. The Karmapa shows readers step by step how they can change the way they use the earth’s resources and continue to improve society. In the process, he helps us move beyond theory to practical and positive social and ethical change. Karen has a Ph.D. in Religion from Harvard University (2000), M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School (1993) and A.B. from Brown University, 1990. She is a professor at Redlands University, California, USA.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
"If you could talk to a spiritual master, what would you want to ask him?" I emailed this clichéd question to a number of my college students in the summer of 2010 hoping it might generate sincere responses. I had just received a remarkable invitation to bring a group of college students to spend a month in conversations with His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, one of the most significant teachers in Tibetan Buddhism and an emerging figure in global Buddhism, at his home at Gyuto monastery in Northern India.
The Karmapa wanted to learn of the concerns, ideas and passions of young adults in the United States, and how together they might speak across the borders of culture, nationality or religion. I was overwhelmed by the students’ heartfelt and thoughtful responses: students described their concerns for the environment, social discrimination and injustice and how to construct a life that holds meaning in our consumer-driven society. How could they shape their lives to bring about productive change? How could they become more compassionate toward others and themselves? What should they do with their lives and careers to find personal satisfaction and also contribute to the world? Their questions gave rise to the topics we discussed with the Karmapa in India. His teachings on these topics became the basis for the chapters in his book, The Heart is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out (Shambala 2013), which is now available. Many of us share these same questions. So many of us also hope to find new perspectives to explore how we might be more compassionate toward the world, to others, and to ourselves. For three weeks, 16 students from the University of Redlands accompanied me on a profoundly transformative journey to learn from the Karmapa’s unique perspective on how we can create a meaningful life.
The Karmapa’s vantage point is a rare one: He was just 25 during our visit, just a few years older than most of the students in the course. While he shared their youth, his wisdom seemed ageless; as the holder of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu Lineage, he was the spiritual
head of one of Tibetan Buddhism’s four schools. He had been recognized as the 17th Karmapa when he was only seven years old while living with his nomadic family in Eastern Tibet in an essentially pre-technological society. Unlike my students’ concerns about making the best or right choice as they set out to construct their adult lives, the Karmapa’s role in life was decided with his recognition and enthronement as the 17th Karmapa.
While their life trajectories seemed to be so vastly different, the Karmapa urged us to focus not solely upon what we do, or the particular roles we fill in life, but how we approach whatever it is that we do. When we approach our commitments and responsibilities with an aspiration to bring compassion to the world around us, any action, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant can be meaningful. The Karmapa taught us to reframe our original questions; we need not determine the right choice about what will be meaningful; instead, we can focus on the inner choices that enable us to approach everything we do with meaning. The time the Karmapa generously shared with the University of Redlands students was an experience in Global Education of a most unusual kind, and yet it suggests several valuable orientations that any of us might think about when we seek to live in a more compassionate, meaningful way. First, just gaining a basic awareness that there are many different ways that meaning is defined creates endless opportunities to author our own.
For example, as young adults starting professional lives in the U.S., my students carried the expectations of financial gain and status as measures of success. What would make for a meaningful life didn’t really even seem to be a part of the equation. The Karmapa offered other vantage points, particularly about the basic, inherent goodness of human beings. The possibilities for defining success by other measures such as happiness, kindness and compassion speak to our natural capacity for goodness, and this approach can be used by anyone.
31
32
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
But redefining success is just the starting point. Another tool is having the courage to try out other ways of being in the world. That openness can start with resetting our attitudes about expectations. In preparing for our trip, we attempted to avoid bringing our own expectations to the experience. We set for ourselves the goal of responding to whatever was presented to us, for none of us could fully imagine what our experience would be like once we were at Gyuto Monastery with His Holiness the Karmapa. The students wondered, Who were they to be representing the view of the “American college student” on these important issues? Our doubts turned out to be entirely unnecessary. His Holiness the Karmapa reflected back to us our sincerity and openness to care for each other and the world, and taught us that we needed nothing else in order to be worthy of this encounter. Anyone with an open heart and good intentions was fully welcome to receive his teachings.
Trying out other ways of being in the world does not have to require large changes; relatively small changes can lead to a more meaningful life. For example, one of the precepts we followed was keeping a vegetarian diet while in India, inspired by His Holiness the Karmapa’s vision of vegetarianism as a central ethical and activist issue. The students all voluntarily fulfilled this commitment, and many later reflected that this was an important part of their experience of self-discovery. The Karmapa offered my students, and me, a rare gift in inviting us to define how we will make our lives meaningful for ourselves and others. The students left India without the easy answer of being told what they should do for their lives they may originally hoped for, but they gained the confidence to shape a meaningful life for themselves in whatever forms it will take. 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!
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
FACING THE GREAT DIVIDE By Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is the founder and chairman of Buddhist Global Relief. He has been a Theravāda monk since 1972. A translator of the Pāli Nikāyas, he lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. Excerpts from his translations of the Pāli Canon are available at wisdompubs.org under ‘Teachings of the Buddha’ in the Wisdom Academics collection. This article was originally published in Inquiring Mind, Vol. 31, #2, Spring 2015.
As the winding river of Buddhist tradition flows beyond the boundaries of its Asian homelands and enters the modern West, it has arrived at a major watershed from which two distinct streams have emerged, which for convenience we may call ‘Classical Buddhism’ and ‘Secular Buddhism.’ The former continues the heritage of Asian Buddhism, with minor adaptations made to meet the challenges of modernity. The latter marks a rupture with Buddhist tradition, a re-visioning of the ancient teachings intended to fit the secular culture of the West. The expressions ‘Classical Buddhism’ and ‘Secular Buddhism’ are to a certain extent abstractions. They do not define fixed categories but stand as the end points of a spectrum of possibilities that may blend and merge in any given individual’s personal commitment to the Dharma. Nevertheless, at certain key points the two branch off in different directions, presenting us with a choice between incompatible alternatives. As we endeavor to find our own orientation to the Dharma, it is helpful to clearly understand where these divergences occur and to recognize the choices before us.
The contrast between Classical Buddhism and Secular Buddhism stems primarily from different ways of understanding the human condition. Classical Buddhism seeks light on the human condition from the canonical texts of Buddhism, particularly from the Buddha’s discourses. Secular Buddhism looks for illumination to modern science and the value systems of secular society. These different perspectives govern their distinctive ways of understanding the Three Jewels of Buddhism – the Buddha, the Dharma and the Saṅgha. They also determine their assessments of the nature and purpose of Buddhist practice. Classical Buddhism sees human existence as embedded in the condition called samsāra, understood literally as the beginningless chain of rebirths. From this standpoint, humans are just one class of living beings in a vast multidimensional
33
34
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
cosmos. Through time without beginning all beings have been roaming from life to life in the five realms of existence, rising and falling in accordance with their karma, their volitional deeds. Life in all these realms, being impermanent and fraught with pain, is inherently unsatisfactory –dukkha. Thus the final goal, the end of dukkha, is release from the round of rebirths, the attainment of an unconditioned dimension of spiritual freedom called nibbāna. The practice of the path is intended to eradicate the bonds tying us to the round of rebirths and thereby bring liberation from repeated birth, ageing, and death.
Secular Buddhism, in contrast, starts from our immediate existential situation, understood without bringing in non-naturalistic assumptions. Secular Buddhism therefore does not endorse the idea of literal rebirth. Some Secular Buddhists regard rebirth as a symbol for changing states of mind, some as an analogy for biological evolution, some simply as part of the dispensable baggage that Buddhism drags along from Asia. But Secular Buddhists generally do not regard rebirth as the problem the Dharma is intended to resolve. Accordingly, they interpret the idea of samsāra as a metaphor depicting our ordinary condition of bewilderment and addictive pursuits. The secular program thus re-envisions the goal of Buddhist practice, rejecting the idea of irreversible liberation from the cycle of rebirths in favor of a tentative, ever-fragile freedom from distress in this present life itself. This difference in fundamental worldviews between Religious and Secular Buddhism shapes their respective ways of regarding the Buddha, the Dharma and the Saṅgha. For Classical Buddhism, the Buddha is an exalted being, the teacher not only of humans but of deities and beings in other realms. He attained Buddhahood as the culmination of countless lives spent as a bodhisattva perfecting the paramitas, the supreme virtues. His enlightenment involved a breakthrough to the ultimate truth, by which he eradicated the mind’s
defilements, penetrated the spiritual laws of the universe and acquired various kinds of psychic powers. As the indispensable guide to liberation, the response he evokes is one of awe, reverence and devotion.
Secular Buddhism has no concern with a multilife background to the Buddha’s achievements, and devotion plays a minor role in its program. The Buddha is seen as a wise teacher who awakened to the truth of the human condition. His teaching was pragmatic and therapeutic, aimed at the alleviation of suffering here and now. Those who aspire to learn from the Buddha need not place trust in principles that transcend the bounds of ordinary cognition. All are welcome to adopt from his teaching whatever provides concrete benefit in their lives. Divergent attitudes towards the Dharma also distinguish Classical Buddhism and Secular Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths, the bedrock of the Dharma, provide a sterling example of how they differ. Classical Buddhism gives priority to a ‘horizontal’ view of the Four Noble Truths, seeing them as an evaluation of samsaric becoming. The truth of suffering underscores the defective nature of life in the round of rebirths. Craving and ignorance function as the hidden levers driving the cycle, propelling the stream of consciousness forward from life to life. The end of suffering is attained by eliminating craving and ignorance through insight into the real nature of things. In contrast, Secular Buddhism gives precedence to a ‘vertical’ view of the Four Noble Truths. It understands
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
them as a diagnosis of our present life itself, offering a pragmatic therapy that can lead to a life of equanimity and contentment lived fully in the here and now.
These different outlooks on the Four Noble Truths in turn determine their divergent views on Buddhist practice. Classical Buddhism affirms the value of practices designed to secure a favourable rebirth and promote gradual progress towards the realisation of nibbāna. It thus includes such elements as ritual, the formal observance of precepts, support for monasteries and monastics, and devotional recitations and meditations. The higher meditation practices of serenity and insight (samatha and vipassanā) aim at disenchantment, dispassion and ultimate release from the rounds of rebirths.
Where Classical Buddhism grounds practice in the cosmology of the Buddhist scriptures, Secular Buddhism seeks to integrate Buddhist practice with existential psychology. It assigns the devotional and ritualistic practices to the sidelines or drops them entirely. The path centers on meditation as a means of dealing with uncertainty and stress alleviating the ordeal of afflictive emotions. Secular Buddhism locates ultimate meaning in the immediacy of life in the here and now, lived deliberately with keen curiosity and open attention. Classical Buddhism and Secular Buddhism also differ in their understanding of the Saṅgha. For Classical Buddhism the ideal focus is on the ‘Saṅgha of noble
ones’ (ariyasaṅgha), those who have attained the stages of awakening culminating in arahantship, or in Mahāyāna Buddhism, on the exalted bodhisattvas. However, because the Sangha of noble ones is a purely spiritual entity, without manifest signs, most forms of Classical Buddhism direct their communal veneration towards the monastic Saṅgha, the order of monks and nuns. The monastics function as the field of merit, recipients of respect and offerings. They are also the supreme teaching authority, whose years of training qualify them to transmit the Dharma. In Secular Buddhism, the Saṅgha of noble ones is not recognized as such, or is treated as marginal. While Secular Buddhists may respect individual monastics as teachers and models, they generally do not give priority to establishing a monastic order. The word saṅgha is in fact broadened in scope to designate all practitioners. Precedence may be given to lay teachers, who share the lifestyles and values of lay students and are thus felt to be more accessible than renunciant monks and nuns. Where Classical Buddhism regards the conservation of traditions as the guarantee of authentic teaching, Secular Buddhism prizes creativity and innovation. As Buddhism evolves in the West, it is likely that the encounter between these two camps will generate competition and rivalry. Yet it may be the attempt to bring together the respective strengths of each that holds the most promise for the future vitality of the Dharma. This is the case not only in the West but in Asia as well, where educated Buddhists now often look to Western Buddhism for inspiration and models to emulate.
In my own opinion, each of these two expressions of Buddhism has its distinctive strengths and weaknesses. The strength of Classical Buddhism lies in the commitment to preserving the teachings that have defined Buddhism through the ages. Classical Buddhism stresses fidelity to the Buddha’s words and thereby
35
36
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
keeps intact the ancient heritage of the Dharma and the potential for deep practice and attainment. By endorsing the ideal of transcendent liberation, it fosters the spirit of renunciation that motivates the traditional quest for awakening. Its values of restraint and fewness of desires challenges the rampant greed and self-seeking fostered by free-market capitalism. With its respect for the monastic life, it upholds the lifestyle that the Buddha himself made available by creating a monastic order governed by a stringent code of discipline.
The weaknesses of Classical Buddhism are typical of other forms of traditional religion. These include a tendency toward complacency, a suspicion of modernity, the identification of cultural forms with essence, and a disposition to doctrinal rigidity. At the popular level, Classical Buddhism often shelves the attitude of critical inquiry that the Buddha himself encouraged in favour of devotional fervor and unquestioning adherence to hallowed doctrinal formulas.
The main strength of Secular Buddhism lies in its ability to make the Dharma meaningful to people nurtured by a secular culture with a deep distrust of religious institutions and scepticism about tenets outside the range of normal experience. Secular Buddhism thereby opens doors to the Dharma for people inclined to the experiential emphasis of the hard sciences. Secular Buddhists have also devised new applications of the Dharma neglected or bypassed by the tradition, bringing Buddhist practices into such areas as health care, education, prison work and psychotherapy. These last features, however, are generic to Western Buddhism, whether secular or religious, and are not unique to the secularist approach. The principal weakness of Secular Buddhism may be overconfidence in the naturalistic premises with which is starts. This can lead to a disregard, even disdain, for principles that clearly spring from the Buddhaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own realisation. This is particularly the case with the
principles of rebirth and karma. To dismiss these teachings as trappings of Buddhismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Asian heritage is to cast off the essential backdrop to the spiritual quest that the Buddha himself emphasized by including them in Right View, the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. If they are discarded in favor of materialistic naturalism, there is a real danger that the very pillars that sustain the Dharma will collapse, leaving us stranded in the wilderness of personal opinion and reducing Buddhist practice to an assortment of therapeutic techniques. On the other hand, if Classical Buddhism holds fast to its original standpoint, it may well expand the horizons of science beyond materialist reductionism, opening the scientific mind to subtler dimensions of reality. Although a cross-fertilization between Classical Buddhism and Secular Buddhism can inspire a revitalization of the Dharma in ways fitting for our time, in my view the relation between them cannot be symmetrical. Since it is Classical Buddhism that has firmer roots in the original teaching, it provides a more solid basis than Secular Buddhism for preserving the integrity of the Dharma against the temptation to dilution and commercialisation. Nevertheless, while unbridgeable differences between them will remain, Classical Buddhism can learn from Secular Buddhism how to respond effectively and intelligently to the unique pressures of modernity. For example, while most forms of traditional Buddhism in Asia follow a hierarchical organizational structure, Secular Buddhist communities have adopted lateral power-sharing and more egalitarian models better suited to the democratic
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
standards of national governance. At the popular level, where Classical Buddhism tends to posit a sharp contrast between serious Dharma practice and everyday life, Secular Buddhism takes everyday life to be the field for successful practice and thus bridges the two domains. Secular Buddhism has also purged ancient biases that still infect traditional Buddhism, affirming the equal capacities of women and giving full respect to people of diverse sexual orientations. Some Dharma teachers go a step beyond Secular Buddhism and hold that Buddhist mindfulness practice must be recast as a nondenominational technique stripped of its Buddhist identity. This, they claim, will enable the Dharma to blend unobtrusively into the cultural mainstream. Few Secular Buddhists, however, endorse this proposition, which even they deem too drastic. For traditional Buddhists, bare mindfulness without the support of refuge in the Three Jewels and the rest of the Eightfold Path loses its transcendent orientation and risks being turned into a mere adornment to a comfortable life. Even more concerning, however, is the fact that this approach can easily be taken up by the corporate mind-set to suit its own agenda, culminating in the triumph of what some have called ‘McMindfulness.’ With some exceptions, adherents of both Classical Buddhism and Secular Buddhism have tended to treat political and social activism as marginal to their understanding of Dharma practice. While they
may engage in certain types of humanitarian service – assistance to the sick and dying, care for orphans and animals, the operation of soup kitchens, or work among prisoners – they often shy away from overt political advocacy, which they may see as a threat to the purity of their practice. This, I feel, is where Buddhism in all its varieties has much to learn from the Abrahamic religions with their prophetic concern for social justice. For billions of people around the world the principal causes of the real suffering they face
on a daily basis are endemic poverty, social oppression and environmental devastation. If Buddhism is to live up to its moral potential, its followers must make a stronger commitment to peace, justice and social transformation. Inspired by the ideals of lovingkindness and compassion, they must be ready to stand up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves, for those burdened by harsh and exploitive social structures. For all its unsavoriness, politics has become the stage where the critical ethical struggles of our time are being waged. Any spiritual system that spurns social engagement to safeguard its purity risks reneging on its moral obligations. Its contemplative practices then turn into the intellectual plaything of an upper-middle-class elite or a cushion to soften the impact of the real world.
It is still too early to determine how in the long run the encounter between Classical Buddhism and Secular Buddhism will play out, much less the broader encounter between Buddhism and modernity. These are matters for the future to determine, and to learn the answers we must be patient. But as followers of the Dharma, it’s not enough just to sit on the sidelines as observers. Whether we lean towards Classical Buddhism or Secular Buddhism, we must be ready to promote fruitful exchanges between the two, undertaken in a shared quest for a wider understanding of the Dharma in its full range, relevance and depth. EH
37
38
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT BUDDHA! By Bodhipaksa
You’ve heard about “fake news.” What about “fake buddha quotes”? Bodhipaksa on why, when it comes to dharma, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Bodhipaksa is a Buddhist teacher and writer who has been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since 1993. He is originally from Scotland but who now lives in New Hampshire in the US. He is the founder of the online meditation center Wildmind (www.wildmind.org) and runs FakeBuddhaQuotes.com. Bodhipaksa’s forthcoming book “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha!” will be published by Parallax Press on November 6, 2018.
They’re everywhere you look. In Facebook memes, quotes sites, blog articles, and even in published books, Hallmark-style Fake Buddha Quotes (FBQ) abound.
I first started to document these a few years ago after spotting some obvious fakes on Twitter. As they accumulated, I began detailing how to tell when quotes are fake, identifying their origins when I could, and offering some genuine scriptural quotations to show what (as best we know) the Buddha really taught. Fake quotes became teachable moments. The most common FBQ giveaway, usually, is the style, which may be too flowery, poetic, or literary. Sometimes it’s the vocabulary, which sounds too contemporary
for someone who lived some 2,600 years ago.
How do Fake Buddha Quotes arise? There are simple errors of attribution, where someone else’s words have somehow been ascribed to the Buddha. Then there are the “lost in translation” quotes where someone has creatively rendered the Buddha’s words into a “new, improved” version that may express their own view of spirituality but are so far from the original meaning that they’re essentially fake. And sometimes people just make up a spiritual-sounding quote and stick “—the Buddha” on the end. But it can be hard to tell; I’ve been convinced a quote is genuine only to discover that it’s not.
If you can’t find a quote in the scriptures we should regard it as fake.
Is there such a thing as a genuine Buddha quote? We can never know! The Buddha didn’t write anything down. The best record we have of what the historical Buddha said is found in the scriptures of Nikaya Buddhism, including, but not limited to, the Pali canon. But these teachings were passed down orally for hundreds of years before being committed to writing, and in the
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
process they were simplified, edited, and made easier to memorize by being made repetitious. There’s no guarantee that anything in the scriptures is exactly what the Buddha said. But it’s the best we have to go on. However, we don’t have to be certain about what the Buddha did say in order to know what he didn’t say. My rule of thumb is this: if you can’t find a quote in the scriptures— any scriptures, including those of the Mahayana traditions—we should regard it as fake. If there’s no evidence of him having said something, then we shouldn’t claim he did. People often tell me that the Buddha was “too spiritual” to be bothered about being misquoted. But the reality is that the scriptures are full of stories in which the Buddha sets some seeker straight about what he’s said, and where he condemns those who have misquoted him. I’ve devoted a lot of time to rooting out and debunking these fake Buddha quotes. Here are some of my favorites.
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Vaguely? Yes.
This quote is often attributed to the Buddha, sometimes to “unknown,” and occasionally (and perhaps more accurately) to the Chan patriarch Seng-Ts’an, aka Sengcan, who died in 606.
The Buddha did in fact have a lot to say about letting go of (or not clinging to) opinions, although the term he used was ditthi, or view. He repeatedly pointed out the need to renounce wrong (spiritually limiting) views and to embrace right (spiritually liberating) views. Only in this way can we reach nonview. In fact, one of the most famous similes in the Buddhist scriptures, found in the Alagaddupama Sutta, describes right view as being like a raft that helps us cross a river to get to the further shore—awakening. The raft is abandoned once its job is done, but without the raft of right view we have no way of making progress.
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? No, the Buddha never told us to “go with the flow.” He did not use metaphors like “the flow of the universe.” He did, however, talk about streams and rivers in a metaphorical way. Here’s a lovely, actual example from the Nalaka Sutta: Know from the rivers in clefts and in crevices: those in small channels flow noisily, the great flow silent. Whatever’s not full makes noise. Whatever is full is quiet.
39
40
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Yes… and no! Many fake Buddha quotes are of course dharmic in spirit, sometimes even being paraphrases of scriptural text. But a number of them misrepresent the Buddha’s teachings. One kind of distortion we see in these fake quotes is the importation of concepts from other spiritual traditions.
The first two sentences of this quote are from Thomas Byrom’s rendering of the Dhammapada, an early Buddhist text. The original Pali literally translates as, “Be devoted to heedfulness. Guard your mind.” Note that there is no suggestion of our “being the witness.” The final sentence—“You are what observes, not what you observe”— comes not from Byrom, but from the writings of Robert Earl Burton, founder of the California-based Fellowship of Friends, which describes itself as a “fourth way” spiritual tradition along the lines of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
The concept of a “witness consciousness” is drawn not from Buddhism but from the Advaita Vedanta tradition. Hinduism is concerned with identifying the “real self” (atman in Sanskrit, atta in Pali), which in this case is taken to be the mind’s observational activity. The Buddha’s position regarding views of the self was utterly different. He pointed out that anything you might take to
be the essence of who you are—your physical form or your consciousness—is in fact anatta (not self). On the way to
awakening, all self-identification is to be abandoned, and you certainly cannot take the part of yourself that observes experience—or any part of yourself—to be the essential “you.” So this quote, which purports to be the Buddha’s teaching—and is often cited by Buddhists—directly contradicts the dharma.
If we fail to look after others when they need help, who will look after us? ~ Buddha
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Actually, yes! This one is more or less legitimate. It’s from a wellknown passage in the Vinaya (the book of monastic conduct) about a monk who was sick. One translation renders it as, “If you don’t tend to one another, who then will tend to you?” In our version here, it’s been changed from second person to first, but otherwise it’s accurate,
and it would seem excessively nitpicking to call it fake.
Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are, it solely relies on what you think. ~ Buddha
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Not really. Often attributed to the Buddha, the quote is actually by the American motivational speaker Zig Ziglar.
You see, the Buddha did not teach that happiness depends solely on our thinking. Our speech, our actions, and (above all) our volitions are all important in determining whether we are happy or whether we suffer. Thought is just one part of it. Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this?
Sorry. Completely bogus. There’s nothing in the Pali canon where the Buddha talks about the meaning of
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
experience greater joy. Again, it is what we do in our thoughts, speech, and action that is the determinant of our happiness, not our thoughts alone.
life, “the secret of existence,” or any such thing. The phrase, “the meaning of life,” is actually quite modern, at least in English. I haven’t found any instance of that expression before the mid-1800s. All the earliest references to the “meaning of life” come in a Christian context, at a time when Christianity was emphasizing the development of character. That makes this quote rather ironic: what does it say about our character if we think it’s acceptable to fabricate a quote and put it in the mouth of the Buddha?
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Well… This is obviously meant to be a version of Verse 2 of the Dhammapada: “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.” But “we become what we think” isn’t quite the same. It’s very similar to “The mind is everything. What you think, you become,” which also purports to be a translation of the Dhammapada. In this verse of the Dhammapada, the Buddha is talking about how our experience becomes habitual. If we habitually respond to life with thoughts and emotions that are aversive or grasping, we’ll experience greater suffering. And if we respond with mindfulness, patience, and compassion, we’ll
Belive nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it. Unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Nope! You might see this quote attributed as being from the Kalama Sutta, but the original sutta says something rather different about reason and common sense: Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical deduction, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, “This contemplative is our teacher.” So some of the very things the Buddha says we should not rely on—such as logical deduction and inference—are examples of the “reason” and “common sense” the fake quote says we should rely on! It’s not that we should disregard reason or common sense, but we should remember they are not in themselves a sufficient basis for accepting the validity of a teaching or practice. As they say, “Don’t believe everything you think.”
41
42
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this?
So what can we rely on? The (real) Kalama Sutta makes this clear:
When you know for yourselves that, “These dhammas [teachings/beliefs/ practices] are unskillful; these dhammas are blameworthy; these dhammas are criticized by the wise; these dhammas, when adopted and carried out, lead to harm and to suffering”—then you should abandon them. The Buddha is suggesting that experience and observation are what we should ultimately rely on for spiritual guidance. Without them, we may end up simply believing what accords with our preconceptions, even if it bears no connection to reality. Logic may tell us, for example, that there has to be some unchanging essence within us (a metaphysical “self”) that defines who we are. But can we find such a self in our direct experience? Is there any part of us that is unchanging? Buddhism offers meditative tools that allow us to make that inquiry in an experiential way. On a more workaday level, our reason and common sense might suggest that attending a meditation retreat would be an unpleasant experience in which we would suffer by being deprived of the familiar and enjoyable experiences of daily life. Actual experience, however, might tell us something quite different.
He might have, but these aren’t his words. Did the Buddha say something even vaguely like this? Definitely not. This is actually a quote from Rev. Charles Caleb Colton, who coined the much better known phrase, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” The main thing that gives this quote away is its polished, literary quality. The Buddhist scriptures come from an oral rather than a written tradition, and tend to be stylistically rather basic, often being highly repetitive and employing lists of synonyms or near-synonyms. Also, the term ennui is strikingly modern.
If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?
One objection I often hear to my investigation of suspicious quotes is that it’s the meaning and spirit of a quote that are important, not who said it. And it’s true that just because a quote is fake doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or spiritually invalid. Some fake quotes are so Buddhist that I wish the Buddha had actually said them. This particular quote is actually based on the words of Mary Ann Pietzker, a Victorian poet, but it certainly isn’t at odds with the Buddha’s teachings. In fact, it strikingly resembles the suttas. So what’s the problem?
The problem is that to attribute a quote to the Buddha is to make a claim about fact: “This is something the Buddha said.” A quote may be in line with the Buddha’s teaching, and may even be inspiring and spiritually useful, but surely it’s better to get our facts straight. After all, didn’t the Buddha have a few things to say about truthful speech? Eastern Horizon would like to thank Bodhipaksa for his kind permission to reprint this article which first appeared in Lion’s Roar (www.lionsroar.com) on November 17, 2017. EH
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
WHAT PRACTICE IS AT THE HEART OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM? By David Michie
Tibetan Buddhism contains a wonderful array of practices to suit many different people, across a variety of circumstances. But at the centre of all these practices, you might say at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism itself, is the cultivation of bodhichitta.
David Michie is the internationally best-selling author of a number of books about mindfulness, meditation and Buddhism. His books are available in 25 languages in over 40 different countries. David is a keynote speaker, corporate trainer and coach on mindfulness and meditation. In 2015 he established Mindful Safaris, leading groups to Africa – and extraordinary encounters both outer and inner.
What is bodhichitta, and why is it so important?
The following extract from my book, Enlightenment to Go, explains more, illustrated by sublime verses from the work of the great Buddhist teacher, Shantideva: Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Bodhichitta Our encounter with bodhichitta, a Sanskrit word meaning ‘the mind of enlightenment’ or ‘the awakening mind’, marks an extraordinary mile-stone in our journey of selfdevelopment. It introduces us to a new purpose with the potential to transform the way we think of everything we do, so that even our most mundane experiences can be used to support an audaciously panoramic and positive interpretation of reality.
So far we have discussed the Buddhist definitions of love—the wish to give happiness to others; and of compassion—the wish to free others from suffering. We have explored the benefits of shifting our thoughts away from our constant preoccupation with self towards a state of being in which we open our mind and heart to others.
Buddha encouraged us to go even further. He also spoke of ‘great love’ and ‘great compassion’, which are different from the ordinary kind because they include the happiness of all beings without exception. ‘Great’ means that we expand the scope of our concern from the family, friends and colleagues who form the typically quite narrow focus of our love and compassion, to include every sentient being, every mind-possessor, in universal space. A tough ask? An impossible objective? It’s important to be clear about what is being suggested. In cultivating an attitude of great love, or the wish for all living beings to be happy, Buddha is not suggesting that our attitudinal change will be complete only when we succeed in making all living beings happy.
43
44
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Given the level of dissatisfaction and suffering that persists in the world, this would imply that all existing Buddhas have failed miserably in their efforts. It’s not what’s out there we’re trying to change but what’s in here. We succeed in developing an attitude of great love when we cease categorising those around us as ‘friends’, ‘strangers’ and ‘difficult people’ and wishing only for the happiness of the first category while remaining indifferent to the suffering of the second, and secretly pleased when the third do it tough. Great love and great compassion require us to develop equanimity, seeing all beings as exactly the same as us in wishing for happiness and the avoidance of dissatisfaction.
Bodhichitta: the jewel of the mind Whether we develop equanimity based simply on the acceptance that all other beings are just like us in wanting to be happy, or from a recognition that the web of relationships connecting us to one another may be more profound than we generally assume, Buddha suggests that instead of wishing only for their mundane happiness we should set our sights very much higher. Just as we might aspire to achieve enlightenment ourselves, we should develop the same aspiration for others. More than this, we should make it the central purpose of our lives. This is the true meaning of bodhichitta. If the thought to relieve Living creatures of merely a headache
Is a beneficial intention Endowed with infinite goodness, Then what need is there to mention The wish to dispel their inconceivable misery, Wishing every single one of them To realize boundless good qualities? The intention to benefit all beings Which does not arise in others even for their own sake, Is an extraordinary jewel of the mind, And its birth is an unprecedented wonder. I love Shantideva’s phrase ‘jewel of the mind’, which underlines the extraordinary preciousness of bodhichitta, as well as his emphasis on the fact that bodhichitta is ‘an unprecedented wonder’. Later on in his Guide, he expresses the same idea with a different image: Just like a blind man Discovering a jewel in a heap of rubbish, Likewise, by some coincidence, An Awakening Mind has been born within me.
This verse emphasizes the mindblowing improbability of our discovery of bodhichitta—how unlikely would it be for a blind man to discover a jewel in a heap of rubbish? In just the same way, the discovery of bodhichitta motivation is as amazingly unlikely, almost random.
The literal definition of bodhichitta, provided by Maitreya in his Ornament of Clear Realization, is: ‘For the sake of others, wishing to
attain complete, perfect enlightenment’. It is significant that ‘for the sake of others’ comes first in the definition, as it reminds us where to place the focus of our attention. Bodhichitta motivation is so powerful in part because it encapsulates the several different agents of transformation already explored in this book within a single motivation. If, for the sake of others, we wish to attain enlightenment, our thoughts are, by definition, directed more to a big picture perspective than to the here and now, more towards working on inner processes than rearranging our external world, and more towards a compassionate focus on other beings than on ourselves. Equanimity is also implicit in bodhichitta—we are not seeking enlightenment only for the sake of those we feel close to, but for all beings equally, wherever in the universe they reside and whatever level of sentience they experience. There is no place for partiality in bodhichitta.
My teacher likens bodhichitta to the fuel in a car or aeroplane—it is the means by which our inner growth is propelled. To extend his metaphor, an intellectual under-standing of the Dharma may be likened to the vehicle itself—and the more deeply realized that understanding, the better. But without the heartfelt purpose of bodhichitta—without the urgent need to put great love and great compassion into action— no vehicle, no matter how many extras and special features it may have, is going to get us very far.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
In Tibetan Buddhist texts on this subject, the Dalai Lama says, ‘We find that compassion is not only highly praised, but the authors also repeatedly emphasize its importance in the sense that it really lies at the root of all spiritual endeavor.’
In a formal sense, the point at which people officially become Buddhists is when they take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (the last is our community of fellow practitioners). It is a simple process in which we commit to abandoning up to five harmful behaviors, namely killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and taking intoxicants (only the first is an absolute requirement). In Tibetan Buddhism, when we take refuge we usually also take bodhichitta vows. These include eighteen root vows and 46 branch vows, providing the guidelines through which the motivation of bodhichitta is translated into action. Cultivating bodhichitta, the compassionate mind of enlightenment, is therefore central to Tibetan Buddhism, and is what distinguishes it from other Buddhist traditions.
People’s reactions when presented with bodhichitta for the first time vary greatly: some want to take a good, hard look at it from all angles, while the response of others is intuitive and heartfelt, a sense of discovering—at last!—the basis of a meaningful life. In my own case, the idea of it instantly caught my imagination and I quickly realised that I couldn’t think of a motivation more altruistic, noble
or worthwhile. When it comes to thinking big, it is impossible to think bigger than bodhichitta.
But this recognition was accompanied by a dispiriting thought: who was I to start telling myself I was working to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings, when the reality was so very different? I am too smallhearted, too self-centred to convincingly make bodhichitta my central motivation, and it would be hypocritical of me to pretend otherwise.
Wishing and venturing bodhichitta The Dharma recognises that it takes time to develop confidence in the goal of bodhichitta and to develop the practice of bodhichitta itself. For this reason a distinction is made between ‘wishing’ and ‘venturing’ bodhichitta. We need to become familiar with bodhichitta, to hear about it, think about it and meditate on it, until the point at which we develop a heartfelt conviction in it. His Holiness the Dalai Lama tells us, ‘Our bodhichitta may not yet be spontaneous. It is still something we have to fabricate. Nevertheless, once we have embraced and begun to develop this extraordinary attitude, whatever positive actions we do . . . while not appearing any different, will bring greatly increased results.’ Initially you may feel like a fraud when you recollect bodhichitta motivation—but even at this stage, simply becoming mindful of the
motivation is extremely beneficial. What starts out as nothing more than a thought can—little by little—become our defining purpose. As Buddha explains in the Dhammapada: ‘The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character . . . As the shadow follows the body, as we think so we become.’
Buddhists a lot further down the Dharma path than me have explained how bodhichitta can gradually evolve from just a superficial idea to a very genuine motivation—how we get to the point where we no longer question the wisdom of thinking of others because we know, from familiarity, that this is the true source of indestructible happiness. A shift occurs at the core of our being. EH Published with kind permission of the author.
45
46
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
WILDLIFE ON THE BRINK By Ajahn Thanissara
Thanissara is Anglo/Irish and originally from London. She was a Buddhist nun for 12 years in the Forest School of Ajahn Chah and has taught meditation internationally the last 25+ years. She cofounded, with Kittisaro, Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in 2000 (www.dharmagiri.org), a small meditation center in the Southern Drakensberg in South Africa, and more recently Sacred Mountain Sangha, USA (www.sacredmountainsangha.org) Her Dharma practice has been influenced by the teachings of Master Hsuan Hua for 35 years, and together with Kittisaro they practice and teach a synthesis of Theravada and Mahayana. Thanissara is co-author, with Kittisaro, of Listening to the Heart: A Contemplative Journey to Engaged Buddhism. Her most recent book is Time To Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth. Thanissara and Kittisaro currently live north of San Francisco.
In 1994, soon after the collapse of the Apartheid state, my husband Kittisaro and I were invited to lead a series of Buddhist retreats in Botswana and South Africa. We had just left monastic training in the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah, where I had lived for 12 years and Kittisaro for 15 years as monastics. Nothing had prepared us for the sweeping landscapes of Southern Africa, with its vast expanses of golden grasses and squat bush trees of the undulating savannah. Most captivating, though, was the magnificence of the game reserves, where herds of elephant, buffalo, impala, flamingos, hippos, giraffes, the mighty lion, and a myriad of other large and small creatures roam, as they have for millions of years. It is thrilling, for example, to witness a massive rhino for the first time, content in its mud bath, its great horn raised heavenward. Since then, we have been deeply involved with South Africa’s journey through the pernicious legacy of racism and the impact of a devastating AIDS pandemic. We launched and guided a Buddhist non-profit organization, built the Dharmagiri Insight Meditation Centre, initiated local welfare projects, and raised funds to secure a home for vulnerable children that is run by Sister Abegail Ntleko, author of the memoir Empty Hands and winner of the Unsung Hero Award presented by the Dalai Lama in 2009.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
Dharmagiri Retreat Being Dharma, Thanissara (front row, 2nd from left), Kittisaro, (front row 3rd left)
Helping to seed the Dharma in such an environment has been highly challenging, but one way we restore ourselves is by spending time at our local game reserve. Over the years, I have noticed that being in the presence of wildlife in its natural environment has the effect of regulating the nervous system, bringing body and mind into a restful parasympathetic state (rest and digest), and out of a stress-activated sympathetic state (flight, fight, or freeze.) For the most part, modern life keeps us in a heightened stress state, in which increasingly we never experience a deeper relaxed state. The loss of wilderness is the hidden cost of our unsustainable lifestyles. It also means we rarely feel the natural, integrated state of being that is possible when in contact with the ancient rhythms of nature. Each year, we host Dharma practitioners on month-long retreats and the safari tours, which enable first-hand encounters with Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wildlife in its natural habitat. On one tour, we drove to the Black Mfolozi River Valley with a small group. There, we walked mindfully from our vehicle to huddle behind a clump of bushes, from where we were able to observe six rhino in the dawn mist surrounded by a flock of delicate marshland birds,
the white sacred ibis. While a truly transcendent and ageless scene, I felt a great poignancy as the rhino, sensing our presence, turned their mighty heads to shield their horns.
In the last decade, Africa has experienced the devastating and tragic decimation of its unique and resplendent wildlife through poaching that supplies growing demand for illegal wildlife parts and products. Due to this insatiable and destructive industry, wildlife trafficking has grown into a highly militarized mafia, dwarfing the teams of park rangers and overwhelming conservation efforts. While many major species are being decimated, the most endangered are rhino, elephant, and the Asian tiger. Kingpins, mostly from Asia, run this brutal trade in cahoots with vast networks of local and regional syndicates that bribe police and government officials, and indenture people, while generating a vastly corrupting influence that is changing the fabric of rural society in the region. It has also created a global wildlife crisis that is annihilating the noble lion, kingly elephant, magical tiger, mighty rhino, and numerous other rare species.
47
48
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Elephant in the wild, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Photo by Frederic Fasano
In the fight for preservation, it is important to educate oneself about the difference between true and false conservation. For example, the hunting industry has close ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful lobby groups in the United States that also promotes hunting safaris. I have been on many flights from Johannesburg direct to the US that are filled with NRA members in khaki bush gear, bragging about their kills. On one flight, I counted more than 30 adults, some with their children, lining up at a door in the Atlanta airport baggage claim to collect their rifles. These so-called brave feats are actually enabled by a canned hunting industry that undermines true wildlife conservation. If you see lions in the wild, you experience the privilege of drawing near to their majesty and power. But to see them caged in small enclosures so they can be exploited for financial gain is a travesty. Lions are hand reared so that tourists can pet them as cubs, which is actually detrimental to their health. Well-meaning visitors are led to believe that cubs are being saved in such sanctuaries, but this is untrue. As they grow, they are hand fed by humans. One day, they will be called to a vehicle and trustingly they will go, but there, some tourist from Europe or America will set their gun sights and shoot, often injuring them first. For this
Leopard at night, Kruger National Park. Photo by Frederic Fasano
supposed privilege, the “hunter” will pay thousands of dollars. Why? Is it so that the person can post pictures on Facebook of themselves on top of a sprawled lion carcass, or with a dead leopard draped around their neck?
As Dharma practitioners, the first precept, “I undertake the training to refrain from intentionally taking life,” means we protect life. Yes, it is true, in the name of conservation, animals need to be culled, but if a Zulu ranger has cause to shoot a lion—say in the event of it escaping into a populated area—he will drop to his knees to beg the lion’s forgiveness. He will honor the lion knowing that he has undertaken a grave act. This awareness is a million miles from the gleeful “big game” photos on social media that betray such a paucity of compassion. The core issue here is that in our era of anthropogenic climate change, not only are we producing the conditions for extreme weather events and countless adverse side effects, we have initiated the sixth great extinction. The fate of countless species and the billions of animals reared and slaughtered for human consumption each week goes to the heart of our apocalyptic times. We simply fail to recognize that the earth and her species have the right to live outside
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
Photo by Rickus Groenewald
our domain. We assume that all animals exist to serve, entertain, feed, and clothe us, and in the process we deny their evolutionary journey, social structures, feelings, needs, even their skin, flesh, blood, bile, and bones. Seeing beyond our human-centric perspective means understanding that we do not have the right to destroy sentient life.
hunting, which sent an important message. But this is not enough if the huge markets in Asia do not respond by outlawing the sale of wildlife parts, while following through by enforcing stiffer penalties, such as the one given to Thai national Chumlong Lemtongthai in 2012 in South Africa who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for masterminding a devastating poaching ring.
The good news is that more people are beginning to wake up to this unfolding tragedy. Pressure is building on governments to halt the trade in wildlife, and conservationists increasingly include rural communities in economic programs as a key aspect of preservation. In 2015, after the much-publicized killing of Cecil the Lion by US national Walter Palmer, Botswana banned
Thanissara, March 2017. Published with kind permission of Ajahn Thanissara.
We can avert this destruction by educating ourselves about the plight of wildlife and the numerous erroneous myths surrounding animal parts. We should not buy or use products derived from rhino horn, elephant tusk, lion and tiger bones, bear bile, and the like. Nor should we buy trinkets, fashion accessories, or other articles that include crocodile, alligator, python and other animal skins, fur, or bone. We should also avoid products that contribute to the decimation of wildlife habitats, for example palm oil (orangutans) and soyafed meat (the Amazon).
Ultimately, the political, economic, and social ills of our times are, in great part, the result of a colonial mindset that sees the world through the lens of acquisition. Buddhist practices have the potential to shift the view that objectifies and projects dominion over everything to the insight of Zen master Dogen: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Enlightenment is the intimacy of all things.â&#x20AC;? If we translate this wisdom into systemic change, it will go a long way to creating a sustainable world for our future. I truly hope that this future is one that allows us to share this beautiful Earth with our fast-diminishing wildlife. EH
49
50
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
The late Master Hsuan Hua
Ron Epstein was born in Kentucky in 1942 and holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. in Chinese language and literature from the University of Washington. He taught Buddhist studies and world religions at San Francisco State University for many years and has recently retired. His research interests include the Māhayāna sutras, Yogācāra Buddhism and applied Buddhist ethics. Ron took refuge with Venerable Master Hsuan Hua in 1967 and was one of the original translators of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra from Chinese to English. Together with a team of translators from the Buddhist Text Translation Society, Ron has worked on the second translation of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.
Master Hua with HH The Dalai Lama
REMEMBRANCE AND GRATITUDE By Dr Ron Epstein
After having been invited to the United States by some disciples from Hong Kong, the Master Hsuan Hua (1919-1995) established a Buddhist Lecture Hall in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1962. In 1963, because some of the disciples there were not respectful of the Dharma, he left Chinatown and moved the Buddhist Lecture Hall to a first-floor flat in a run-down Victorian building on the edge of San Francisco’s Fillmore District and Japantown. The other floors of the building contained individual rooms for rent with communal kitchens. Those rooms were occupied by poor, elderly black people and a bunch of young Americans who were, in various ways, eagerly searching for meaning in their lives.
I first met the Master in January, 1966. I was a poor student in need a place to stay and rented a room on the second floor of the building. The young people in the building all consciously or unconsciously knew that the Master was a very special person, but because we knew next to nothing about Buddhism, we had no categories to use to express our understanding or lack of it. We knew that the Master was a Chinese Buddhist monk, but didn’t really know what that meant. One young man had actually taken refuge with the Master, but we didn’t known what that meant either, or even whether it was different than leaving home. Basic Buddhist courtesy and the notions of making offerings and moral precepts were totally alien to us. The Master never mentioned that he was a Patriarch and had thousands of disciples in China and Hong Kong.
TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON
Dharma Realm Buddhist University started by Master Hua
Many local Chinese Buddhists were angry at him for leaving Chinatown. Only a handful of the most loyal disciples would regularly come to see him and make offerings. Nonetheless, the Master would share what he had with the people in the building. He would put bags of rice in the communal kitchens, so that no one would have to go hungry. Sometimes, on Buddhist holidays or when he had extra food, he would invite several of us to lunch and often prepare the food himself. We all thought the food was delicious.
In those days when sometimes only one or two people who didn’t even understand Chinese came to hear the Dharma, the Master lectured the same way that he did in later years when there were hundreds or even thousands. I remember going to listen to him lecture on the Lotus Sūtra. With the same awesome demeanor that we have all come to know, he would sit at the head of two fold-out picnic tables with an ancient blackboard behind him. Often there was no one to translate, and when there was, it was usually two young high school students who could not translate very well. I didn’t understand the sūtra at all, but when I went, it was to be in the Master’s presence and to listen to the sound of his voice. More popular with some of the young Americans was the Master’s open meditation hour from seven to eight every evening. There were usually a few people there, and I sat with him more and more the longer I lived in the building. Although the popular San Francisco Zen
Center was just a couple of blocks away, I began to be sensitive to a special quality of my meditation when in the Master’s presence.
It took me about six months to have a clear realization about the Master. When it finally came, I was amazed. I still knew practically nothing about Buddhism, but I understood that the Master was like no one else I had ever met in my entire life. I saw that he was truly without any vestige of selfish individuality, and thus I could never feel any real conflict of interest with him. He knew me more deeply than I knew myself, accepted me in a way that no one else did, and was compassionately concerned about my welfare, so that there was nothing to fear from him. I sensed that he had great wisdom and special psychic power, and yet there he was everyday, always appearing ordinary and entirely inconspicuous. I suspect that the insights I had about him at that time were in no way special to me, but that something similar or even more profound was deeply felt by all those, Buddhist or not, whatever their ethnic background or education, who opened their awareness to him. A few months later, with great excitement I traveled to Asia to meet the Buddhadharma in its homeland. How strange it was for me to naively encounter for the first time the 2500 year old shell of Buddhist institutional tradition. With precious few exceptions, I found it to be devoid of any living spirit. Shortly after my return to the United States, I entered the university
51
52
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Dharma Realm University, Talmage, California.
world of academic Buddhist scholarship and became a graduate student first at the University of Washington and then at Berkeley. I marvelled at the extensive and keen intellectual knowledge of the Buddhaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s teachings possessed by some of my mentors. Yet at the same time I wondered why almost all of them vigorously resisted allowing the living spirit of the Buddhadharma to enter their personal lives. The two-fold disillusionment I experienced during those years was painful to bear. Yet perhaps for me, those difficult lessons were necessary to help me learn to cherish the rarity and the preciousness of a genuine Master.
It would have been enough for me just to have had the opportunity to be in the presence of such a genuinely selfless person. Yet the Master was so much more for me and my family. We, like so many others, literally owe our physical lives to him. And he never failed to be there for us, to counsel us in times of personal crisis, and to advise us and our children. It goes without saying that we are grateful beyond words for what we received. Equally or even more valuable to me is that he gave ultimate meaning to my life. He showed me every day
in his every single action that the wonderful world of the Buddhadharma portrayed in the Sutras is not fantasy, fairy tale or intellectual abstraction. He showed me that it is real and alive, and even more importantly, a possibility and practical ideal for our own lives. I remember him saying that we should explain the sutras as if we ourselves had spoken them, to make them our own and not distance ourselves from them. Clearly that is the example that he expressed through his own life.
The time of receiving is now over. It is time to grow up and become an adult in the Dharma. That is not easy for me, even after so many years. It is important not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the debt owed, and the fact that, within the scope of my limited understanding, it can never be repaid. The Master always told us, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do your best.â&#x20AC;? Now more than ever before, it is time for me to do what I can, in my limited way with my limited vision, to continue his work both within myself and in this difficult world of impermanence and suffering. Although he has left his physical body, I know that the Master is still here, deep down in my heart, in the true pure land which has no inside and outside. EH
NEWS | EASTERN HORIZON
‘THAILAND READY TO DEVELOP BUDDHIST CIRCUIT’ By Santosh Patnaik, The Hindu, Feb 11, 2018
Consulate-General says it will attract global tourists to A.P. Visakhapatnam, India -- After announcing construction of a worldclass Buddha temple at Amaravati, Thailand is ready to partner with Andhra Pradesh for development of a Buddhist circuit to promote international tourists from ASEAN member-countries, Japan, Sri Lanka and other countries visiting the State. Thailand Consulate-General Krongkanit Rackcharoen, who was here to visit some of the Buddhist sites and attend an international conference on India-ASEAN relationship, told The Hindu that they would consider in the next phase the development of a circuit connecting Buddhist sites located
at Thotlakonda, Bojjanakonda, Amaravati and other places in the State.
On her recent meeting with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, she said he promised to allot 10 acres at Amaravati for construction of a world-class temple of Lord Buddha. She said there was a huge potential to bring international tourists as Buddhism originated from India.
She said a team from Thailand comprising architects and other experts would be deputed to Amaravati to finalise the temple construction work after landscaping and designing.
Stating that on an average one million tourists from India visit Thailand, she admitted that fewer Thai tourists were visiting India and hoped that their number would go up substantially once Buddhist circuit and the temple project at Amaravati were completed. Direct flight
She said they would consider operating a direct flight either from Visakhapatnam or Vijayawada after they conducted a feasibility study. “Viability will be the sole criterion for introducing the flight,” she said. EH Source: Buddhist Channel, www.buddhistchannel.tv
53
54
EASTERN HORIZON | NEWS
UBC RECEIVES $4.9 MILLION FOR GLOBAL BUDDHIST ACADEMIC NETWORK By Thandi Fletcher, UBC News, Jan 9, 2018
Liuzu temple
British Columbia, Canada -- The University of British Columbia will lead an international network of universities to advance the study of Buddhism and East Asian cultures, thanks to a $4.9-million donation from the China-based Liuzu Temple of Chan Buddhism.
The donation funds the creation of the Tianzhu Global Network for the Study of Buddhist Cultures, an international partnership of universities including UBC,
the University of California, Berkeley, Ghent University, Harvard University, the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) and McMaster University. The funds will be administered over a fiveyear period, with potential for renewal for another fiveyear term. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The creation of the Tianzhu Global Network marks an unprecedented international collaboration of
NEWS | EASTERN HORIZON
top-tier research institutions,” said the Venerable Shi Dayuan, abbot of the Liuzu Temple, based in Guangdong province, China. “We hope this partnership will provide a platform where Buddhist devotees and researchers around the world can come together to understand one another and exchange ideas.” The network is named after the late Venerable Tianzhu, an eminent Chan monk and former abbot of the Liuzu Temple who worked tirelessly over his 90 years to promote benevolence and compassion across Chinese society through Buddhism. In 2013, the Liuzu Temple created the Tianzhu Foundation, a charitable group made up of volunteers whose goal is to carry out activities related to culture, society, spirituality and wisdom.
“We are grateful to the Liuzu Temple for this generous donation,” said Professor Santa J. Ono, president of UBC. “Academic partnerships like these create an opportunity to foster international collaboration between different disciplines around the study of Buddhism, and to place UBC at the forefront of scholarly exchange in religious study.” As leader of the global network, UBC will host a Buddhist cultural festival every year, as well as an international conference, a Buddhist studies week and a lecture series on Buddhist studies. The funding will also provide opportunities for a visiting professorship for two Buddhist studies courses at UBC, two fellowships to support graduate students specializing in East Asian Buddhism studies and Chinese Buddhism studies and an exchange of junior scholars in Chinese Buddhism with other universities. It will also support the launch of Chan Studies, a new English-language research journal, and the creation of a research award for outstanding academic work in the area of Chan Buddhist studies published in a language other than Chinese. The Liuzu donation complements a $2.5-million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to support a project called
From the Ground Up: East Asian Religions through Multi-Media Sources and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. The project aims to build a public collection of religious materials, including texts, artifacts, photographs, and recordings at UBC to enhance public and scholarly understanding of Buddhism and East Asian cultures. “Research in this field has been hindered by distance and borders that make it difficult to share and disseminate new findings,” said Jinhua Chen, From the Ground Up principal investigator and professor in the UBC department of Asian studies. “Thanks to this support from the Liuzu Temple and SSHRC, we have an opportunity to overcome disciplinary boundaries and advance knowledge of Buddhism and East Asian cultures— a vital step forward as the economic and political importance of this region surges.” The partner universities will each receive $105,250 annually to support the study of Buddhism and East Asian cultures, and to host a conference on Buddhist culture during the five-year term of the gift.
“The gift to UC Berkeley will allow us to significantly expand our research, teaching, and public outreach in the area of East Asian Buddhism in general, and Chinese Buddhism in particular,” said Robert Sharf, professor of Buddhist studies in the department of East Asian languages and cultures at UC Berkeley. “We are particularly delighted to be able to join forces with UBC and the other four schools in the Network, each of which is renowned for their contributions to the field.” The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sun Yat Sen University and Peking University, which have already been funded by the Liuzu Temple, will also serve as affiliate partners for the Tianzhu Global Network. EH Source: Buddhist Channel, www.buddhistchannel.tv
55
56
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
FORUM 57
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS FORUM | EASTERN | EASTERN HORIZON HORIZON 5757
NO SELF, NOT SELF OR NON-SELF? One of the core teachings of Buddhism is anattā (Pāli) or anātman (Sanskrit). There have been several translations of this term but Bhikkhu Bodhi, the great Pāli scholar translates it as “non-self” though other translations include “no self” and “not self”. The teaching on anattā seems a stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no self doesn’t fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there’s no self, what or who experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, if there’s no self, is there still a purpose in pursuing a spiritual life to be enlightened? But then did the Buddha really said we have no self? In the Ānanda Sutta, SN 44.10, of the Pāli Canon, the Buddha was once asked whether or not there was a self, and he refused to answer. When Ānanda asked him why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible. Thus the Buddha said the question should be put aside. We have asked three of our teachers to explain and clarify some common misconceptions about the teaching of anattā. Anattā is one of the three characteristics of existence – the other two being impermanence (anicca) and unsatisfactoriness (dukkha). How are these three teachings related and relevant in our everyday life? Aggacitta: Impermanence is obvious when we observe the rapid changes around us – social, cultural, environmental, technological, etc., not to mention the perennial conditions of growth, aging and dying. A more profound understanding of impermanence is the experiential verification of one’s incessantly changing feelings, thoughts and perceptions experienced via the six senses.
Unsatisfactoriness is more difficult to understand, as it refers not only to unpleasant feelings and sensations, but more broadly to the incessant arising, persistence
and passing away of all things produced by causes and conditions (saṅkhārā). In fact, when saṅkhārā are seen with wisdom as they have occurred, they can be viewed as impermanent, unsatisfactory or not-self.
Not-self is perceived in the sense that there is no permanent unchanging entity in control of saṅkhārā because they happen due to various or multiple causes and conditions. Experientially understanding how all our feelings, thoughts, perceptions, views, ideas, beliefs, etc. are the changing products of present circumstances and past experience or conditioning enables one to have a glimpse of anattā. Such an understanding, when repeated continually in as many aspects of one’s life as possible can diminish the sense of a permanent self and result in greater empathy for others. One then begins to realize the futility of blaming self or others since everyone is in the same boat, leading to a greater capacity for forgiveness and understanding.
Ming Wei: The Three Marks of Existence is an important teaching of early Buddhism which is accepted by all Buddhist schools. It guides us to see things and situations as they really are. Everything is impermanent and suffering is part of existence. Nothing exists in and of itself without dependencies. The Three Marks of Existence is not simply an idea or theory. Rather it is a way to explore ourselves and everything around us, and also reveal to us the nature of conditioned existence. Geshe Namgyal: In Tibetan Buddhist literature, we usually speak of four characteristics of existence: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, emptiness, and selflessness. In the context of the four seals of Buddhadharma, the third and fourth are combined in the third seal, allowing for “Nirvāṇa l is peace” as the fourth. In the Sāgaranāgarājapariprçhā sūtra Buddha delineates the four seals and, emphatically dwells on the importance of reflecting on and internalizing their meaning and applying them in daily life.
FORUM 58
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Typically, we find these characteristics presented as: 1) all conditioned phenomena are impermanent; 2) all contaminated phenomena are unsatisfactory; 3) all phenomena are empty; 4) all phenomena are selfless. Each of these understandings counteracts its corresponding misperception. These misperceptions, which we deeply hold, are the underlying causes of our afflictions. In pursuit of true understanding, initially one seeks to understand impermanence and unsatisfactoriness, then on to the understanding of emptiness and selflessness as they are considered more subtle and fundamental in their role of influencing the afflictions. So, in order to cut the root of the afflictions and traverse the path to Nirvāṇa and enlightenment, one must seek the wisdom understanding ultimate reality—emptiness and selflessness.
In the Ānanda Sutta, SN 44.10, the Buddha was silent when Vacchagotta asked him if there is a self. Are there other discourses in the Buddhist scriptures, including those in the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna traditions, where the Buddha was more explicit that there was no self? Or did he also adopt an agnostic position? Aggacitta: The whole of the Sutta Piṭaka is pervaded with explicit teachings on anattā. In SN 44.10 the Buddha adopted an agnostic position out of consideration for Vacchagotta’s confused state of mind. There are three suttas in the Sutta Nipāta (Sn 4.3, 4.10 and 4.11) where the Buddha pointed out that an arahant has gone beyond views of self (attā) and noself (nirattā), the former alluding to eternalism and the latter, annihilation.
Ming Wei: Anattā is one of the core teachings of Buddhism which widely discussed in Theravāda and Mahāyāna texts. For example, the Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna, who extensively expressed his idea in rejecting the metaphysical entity called ātman (self). He asserted in Chapter 18 of his Mulamadhyamakakārikā that there is no such substantial entity and that “Buddha taught the doctrine of no self”. The texts attributed to the 5th century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu of the Yogācara school similarly discussed Anattā as a fundamental premise of the Buddha.
Geshe Namgyal: In the Tibetan Buddhist literature, we generally speak of 62 such so-called unanswered questions. Collectively enumerated in the Brahmājāla Sūtra, they’re believed to be questions presented to the Buddha by particular individuals, at different times when Buddha chose to keep silence instead of answering. It’s given that Buddha kept silent as he perceived that answering them would have been harmful to those individuals in the long run. Since each of those questions were being asked under the presumption of one of the mistaken extreme views, answering the question was either going to further cement their view of eternalism or nihilism. As the Buddha’s primary concern was to benefit others, answering those questions, on those occasions would not have achieved his purpose. However, on other occasions, when it was beneficial to others, such as when bringing the correct view closer into focus, the Buddha would even go to the extent of sounding as though advocating for the existence of an independent selfhood. Examples of this can be found in certain sūtras where he says, “the five aggregates are the burdens, the burden-bearer is the person” implying that there could be a self, independent of the aggregates. However, in general, Buddha didn’t leave those questions unanswered nor did he generally adopt an agnostic position on them. The whole series of Prājñāpāramitā sūtra explicitly deals with the topic of subtle selflessness and emptiness of every phenomenon including a person. Remember, selflessness was one single significant position that set his thought apart from all the existing philosophical thoughts of his time. Did the Buddha actually deny there was a self or was he denying a permanent entity called a self? Surely the Buddha did not deny that we exist as individual selves. Aggacitta: The Buddha used the word ‘self’ (attā) ambiguously depending on context. For example, consider these three quotations:
Dwell with self as a lamp/island, with self as a refuge; with no other refuge... (SN 22.43) Self is self’s protector, for who else can be a protector?
TEACHINGS FORUM | EASTERN HORIZON
With the self well tamed one gets a protector difficult to get. (Dhp 160)
“What do you think, young men? Which is better: to look for the woman or to look for the self?” They said, “It is better, bhante, to look for the self.” (Vinaya Mahāvagga, Mahākhandhaka, Bhaddavaggiyavatthu)
Obviously, in the above examples, the Buddha used the term ‘self’ in a conventional sense with reference to the individual. However in instances where he taught the doctrine of anattā, he used ‘self’ with reference to the illusory permanent, unchanging entity who is eternally happy and in full control of things. Ming Wei: Indeed, the Buddha denied the existence of the self. The doctrine of anattā explains that there is nothing called a ‘self’ in any person or anything else, and a belief in ‘self’ is a cause of suffering (dukkha) in fact. Anattā does not mean there is no afterlife, no rebirth or no fruition of karma. Buddhism contrasts itself from annihilationist schools. Buddha does not talk about existence or non-existence of self. When the appropriate causes arise, belief of existence arises. When the causes secede, everything secedes. Instead, the individual is compounded of five factors (skandha) such as that are constantly changing.
Geshe Namgyal: By now, it should be clear that what the Buddha was objecting to when he taught selflessness or emptiness was the mistaken ways of conceiving the self. He was not denying the existence of a conventional self. He was committed to alleviating the suffering of others and showing them the path to freedom. That would only be possible if he first accepted the existence of those who suffer, and second, accepted the possibility of freedom through right efforts. In this regard, we find a telling statement in the Three Codes of Conduct chapter of the Ratnakuta Mahāyāna Sūtra where the Buddha says: It is the world that argues with me; I have no argument against the world, For I accept or reject what the world accepts or rejects un-erringly. It is recorded that in the second discourse given
by the Buddha called the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, SN 22.59 or Discourse on Non-Self, that all his five disciples attained enlightenment at the end of the teaching. What’s so special about understanding anattā that one can attain enlightenment just after one discourse? Aggacitta: Prior to that discourse, all the five had already attained the Dhamma-eye, i.e. stream-entry, whereby the wrong view of self was eradicated. But they still had a sense of self that is the cause for conceit. Only when one fully understands anattā through direct personal experience and attains arahantship can conceit be uprooted. According to SN 22.15-17, it seems that if one contemplates impermanence, then one has to go on to unsatisfactoriness and then to anattā eventually. But if one contemplates anattā, then the other two are automatically included.
Ming Wei: The concept of ‘Enlightenment’ and its relations to the other concept of ‘no-self’ is truly an element which plays a role for Buddhism apart from any other major religion. After all, Buddha means “The Awakened One”. Enlightenment is attained when you recognize there has never been a thing known as “you” (ego) exists, and it was all just a mental fabrication. It is referred as the concept of “no self” in Buddhism. Geshe Namgyal: The teachings on selflessness are given to eventually counteract the innate delusion of grasping at an inherent selfhood. As the lifeline for all the afflictions, this grasping lies at the root of all our afflictions and contaminated actions. Because this grasping is at odds with reality, it’s called ignorance. This ignorance isn’t a mere not knowing, but a misknowing that diametrically mis-represents reality and fuels the afflictions and resultant suffering. Freedom from the afflictions cannot be effected without generating unmistaken wisdom of reality, thereby expunging ignorance. In wisdom’s absence, no amount of any other practice will lead to nirvana or enlightenment.
What is the relationship between the teaching of anattā with that of emptiness (Pāli: suññatā; Skt. Śūnyatā)?
59
FORUM 60
EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Aggacitta: In the Pāli suttas, suññatā is invariably explained as void or empty of the self or anything related to it, but in the Mahāyāna sūtras there seems to be more emphasis on interconnectivity where Śūnyatā is often explained as being empty of an independent existence. Nevertheless, in the Pāli suttas, dependent origination or arising is often used to refute the wrong view of self.
Ming Wei: The concept emptiness (Śūnyatā) must be understood in relation to no self (anattā) or without own-nature (niḥsvabhāva) which points out there is no lasting reality underlying the world and things do not exist the way our grasping self supposes they do. Therefore, the conditioned and component things are empty in essence. Thus, the anattā doctrine is another aspect of Śūnyatā, it is the true nature of all phenomena, and it is the basic principle of all existence.
Geshe Namgyal: In the Tibetan Buddhist understanding, the teaching of anātman (selflessness) can be approached at varying levels of subtly, viz. 1) absence of a permanent, unitary, and independent self (whereas the mind-body complex is impermanent, and dependent upon its parts); 2) absence of a self, though impermanent and not unitary like the body, but is still self-sufficient (from the body); 3) absence of an objectively existing selfhood (instead of being merely conventionally designated). All of these iterations of ‘selflessness’ can be approached with ‘self’ or ‘person’ as its substratum, but the last one, i.e. absence of an inherently existing or objectively existing selfhood can be applied to all phenomena, including but not limited to person, where the ‘selfhood’ could refer to identity, implying that everyone and everything exists merely conventionally rather than existing in and of itself—inherently. Thus, every phenomenon, person included lacks an inherently existent identity. One sees a progressive subtlety and pervasiveness in the message, but more importantly at each stage of subtlety, it addresses a subtler underpinning of negativity and afflictions within us. If there is no self, then who is it that is reborn as another sentient being or become enlightened as an arahat or a Buddha?
Aggacitta: As explained above, the word ‘self’ can refer to the individual in a conventional sense or to the illusory entity, depending on context. The above question obviously uses it in a conventional sense too.
Ming Wei: Buddha asserted that there is no soul, but rebirth is taking place and the karmic moral responsibility is a must. In the Buddha’s framework of karma, right view and right actions are necessary for liberation and enlightenment. From a Buddhist perspective, the concept of “no self” has no independent reality. Buddhism does not talk about existence or nonexistence of self. When the appropriate causes arise, the belief of existence arises. In contrast, when the causes secede, everything secedes. Instead, the individual is compounded of five factors (skandha) which are constantly changing. In truth, Buddhism believes in karma and rebirth, but denies the existence of soul as an unchanging permanent entity. Geshe Namgyal: From my responses to the previous questions, it is clear that the Buddha did not refute the existence of a self or other phenomena per se. Rather, his intended refutation was of the existence of a permanent, or self-sufficient, or inherently existent self, and affirms the existence of an impermanent, contingent, and dependent self that maintains its continuum through successive lives. Such a self can improve upon its present condition of bondage to the afflictions and affliction-induced actions and attain freedom from them (Nirvāṇa), through right efforts. Such a self can also pursue efforts to eliminate the most subtle and final residues of latencies and instincts of those afflictions and actions (thus attaining enlightenment). If there is no self, what good is there in doing good actions and avoiding bad ones?
Aggacitta: From the ultimate point of view, there’s no one there – just the five aggregates which are changing all the time. There’s no one there who experiences the results of past kamma. The five aggregates are experiencing them. Then, if some bad kamma was done in the past, who did it? The five aggregates. Which one? Saṅkhārā – volitional formations. That’s the one
TEACHINGS FORUM | EASTERN HORIZON
responsible for unwholesome and wholesome actions because they come from volition. The other aggregates – form, feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā) and consciousness (viññāṇa) – don’t have volition. They are resultants. They are the products of past kamma.
In SN 35.145, the Buddha talked about old and new kamma. He said that all the six sense faculties – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind – are old kamma, referring actually to the result of past kamma. So, all the sense bases – the eyes, nose, tongue, body and mind – are the results of past kamma. But they also flourish and develop or they deteriorate because of other circumstances besides all these past kammic forces, e.g. by food (nutrition), mental state, the environment. In other words, there are many influences on the body besides that of past kamma. What is new kamma? New kamma is any volitional activity that one creates now, i.e. present kamma – all those reactions in one’s mind in relation to what one is exposed to through the senses.
So who is suffering? There is no one who is suffering. Who is feeling? There’s no one who is feeling. It is vedanā that feels. Saññā recognises and identifies; viññāṇa is just conscious of its specific object in a very rudimentary way. If one did some bad kamma in the past and it’s time to repay the kammic debts, the aggregates that one is composed of right now will be the ones experiencing them. So vedanā experiences all the unpleasantness and saññā (recognition, identification) recognises what’s happening to one. Ming Wei: In Buddhism, there is no concept of a solid core, controlling entity as the soul. In this world, nothing happens to a person without some reasons or vice versa. Generally speaking, all wholesome and unwholesome actions constitute karma. In other words, it is the results of our past and present actions. In fact, we ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We are actually the architects of our own fate. In its ultimate sense, karma means all wholesome and unwholesome volition. It covers all which is included in the phrase “thought, word and deed”.
Geshe Namgyal: While there is not an independent, permanent and unitary self, there is a dependently, relatedly viable--conventional self that is subject to experience the outcome of its actions. Such a self or person maintains its continuum of existence through successive lives like that of any impermanent thing that has no option but to continue on, in different forms at different stages of its existence. The person reaps as he or she sows. Thus, it is pertinent to engage in actions that lead to joy and peace and avoid those that give rise to sufferings. During our spiritual trainings, while pursuing understanding of selflessness, it is typical for a master to lay out numerous possible ways of going astray in our search and emphasize the need for tiptoeing the delicate balance between conventional truth and ultimate truth. A particular precaution is to comprehend the distinction between the two selves— one that is to be refuted (independent/inherent self) and the other that is to be upheld (dependently arisen/ conventional self). Responses written by Geshe Dadul Namgyal are edited by Martha Leslie Baker. Venerable Āyasmā Aggacitta is the founder of the Sāsanārakkha Buddhist Sanctuary (SBS) in Taiping, Perak, a Pāli scholar and a meditation teacher.
Ven. Ming Wei is a teacher of e-learning at the International Buddhist College (IBC) and an independent translator of Buddhism. Geshe Dadul Namgyal is a Geshe Lharampa and senior resident teacher at Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta, Georgia, USA Written by Geshe Dadul Namgyal, and edited by Martha Leslie Baker. EH
61
Right Grasping by Rasika Quek
Dharma Aftermath
Grasping things the wrong way can lead one to a lot of trouble. For instance, if one were to try to catch a poisonous snake it would certainly be foolhardy if one were to try to catch it by the tail end. The snake will surely be able to swing back and bite your hand while you are holding it by the tail. When we perform tasks, we also have to make sure we have grasped the processes involved correctly, otherwise we will waste a lot of time for nothing and get the wrong results. For those in the corporate world, it may even make the company we are working for vulnerable to legal liabilities and potential law suits. There is a difference between grasping an idea correctly and clinging to it tenaciously in the wrong way. One leads to progress whilst the other may lead to nowhere or harm.
Therefore, grasping ideas and concepts correctly is the key to the successful completion of tasks. The converse, of course, is obviously true. So it is with the Dhamma, when one grasps it wrongly, one may face lots of obstacles and even endanger oneself spiritually. Paraphrasing the Water-Snake simile (Alagaddūpama Sutta), there is the need for grasping Dhammas properly with discernment which does not lead to strife, rather than for Dhammas to be merely superficially considered. Once we have discerned the Dhamma rightly, reaching our final spiritual goal, we can let go of views. If one wants to reach one’s spiritual destination by crossing to the other shore, one has to hold onto the raft properly in order to cross the river. Only when one has reached the safety of the further shore can one let go of the raft. Nibbāna is our final destination and the Dhamma as the raft, is to be properly grasped. In the Alaggadūpama Sutta, Arittha a monk came to the conclusion that it was not a genuine obstruction (e.g. to heavenly rebirth and/or final deliverance) for a monk to enjoy the sight, sound, smell, taste and feel of a woman by making comparisons, such as with those lay saints who live the household life. Regardless of how Arittha actually arrived at his position, the Commentary’s suggestion makes an important point that just because an idea can be logically inferred from the Dhamma does not mean that the idea is valid or useful. The Buddha himself makes the point in AN 2.25:
“Monks, these two slander the Tathāgata. Which two? He who explains a discourse whose meaning needs to be inferred as one whose meaning has been fully drawn out. And he who explains a discourse whose meaning has already been fully drawn out as one whose meaning needs to be inferred ….” The Buddha is quoted in the Water-Snake Simile as saying: “…. Having studied the Dhamma, they don’t ascertain the meaning (or: the purpose) of those Dhamma with their discernment. Not having ascertained the meaning of those Dhammas with their discernment, they don’t come to an agreement through pondering. They study the
Dhamma both for attacking others and for defending themselves in debate. They don’t reach the goal for which [people] study the Dhamma. Their wrong grasp of those Dhammas will lead to their long term harm and suffering. Why is that? Because of the wrong grasp of the Dhammas.”
It stands to reason that right grasping of the Dhammas would therefore lead to discernment, happiness and the spiritual goal. It is distinct from mere grasping which is superficial and leads to harm and suffering.
It is almost eighteen years that Eastern Horizon journal has been in existence. There are times I inadvertently slandered the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha (and individuals) through my own inaccurate descriptions, interpretations and inferences through my articles and sharing here and elsewhere. For that, I ask for forgiveness from the Triple Gem (and individuals) and sincerely hope I have not offended them grievously. One will not take the Buddha Dhamma for granted should one be unable to practice it like before. Mindfulness and the ability to meditate are the most precious things in the Buddhasasana. It is truly regretful for one to grasp the Dhamma incorrectly, or because of sickness or neglect, to let go of the Dhamma raft even before one has reached safety on the further shore of Nibbāna. May All Beings Be Well And Happy and reach the safety of Nibbāna as soon as possible even if they have made grievous mistakes in the past. (Reference: MN 22 Alagaddūpama Sutta, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.) EH
needs your support! The Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia publishes the EASTERN HORIZON journal every four months. The journal is a non-profit making project and needs the support of wellwishers like you to ensure that the Buddhist com munity continues to have a good quality Buddhist journal for their reading pleasure. You can support the EASTERN HORIZON through the following means. Be an Honorary Patron of EASTERN HORIZON and receive 3 copies of each issue published for one year by contributing RM500/SGD250/USD150. Be an Honorary Director of EASTERN HORIZON and receive 2 copies of each issue published for one year by contributing RM200/SGD100/USD60. Be a Sponsor of EASTERN HORIZON and receive 1 copy of each issue published for one year by contributing RM 100/SGD50/USD30. Any General Donation. Subscribe EASTERN HORIZON as a gift for your love ones/ friends/colleagues.
I would like to be an Honorary Patron/ Honorary Director/ Sponsor* of EASTERN HORIZON for year/s. via cheque/bankdraft no. Enclosed is RM/SGD/USD as my contribution to EASTERN HORIZON. Name (Dr/Mr/Mrs/Ms) : Add : Postcode : (Off) (H/P)
Tel : Email : Date :
(Hse)
Signature :
All payment shall be made payable to EASTERN HORIZON. For Fund Transfer, Public Bank Berhad Account no. : 3-1216712-35 For International Fund Transfer, Swift code: PBBEMYKL Kindly send your payment or email or fax your bank-in slip to: EASTERN HORIZON 9, Jalan SS 25/24, Taman Mayang, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, MALAYSIA Tel : (+603) 7804 9154 or (+603) 7804 9157 Fax: (+603) 7804 9021 Email : admin@easternhorizon.org You may also subscribe online and pay by credit card at our website: www.easternhorizon.org
Name: Add :
M
Postcode : (Off) (H/P)
Tel :
F
(Hse)
Email : Date : Gift | Please send to the following as a gift. M
Name: Add :
F
Postcode : ......................................................................
Date :
Published every January, May & September Newsstand price: RM10 per copy (Malaysia) Subscription Yes! I want to subscribe for
1 year 3 Issues (RM25/SGD27/USD27) 2 years 6 Issues (RM50/SGD50/USD50) 3 years 9 Issues (RM70/SGD70/USD70)
Please commence my personal subscription with the next issue with issue no. renewal; subscription no.
I herewith enclosed
RM
SGD
USD
crossed cheque/bankdraft no.
All payment shall be made payable to EASTERN HORIZON. For Fund Transfer, Public Bank Berhad Account no. : 3-1216712-35 For International Fund Transfer, Swift code: PBBEMYKL Kindly send your payment or email or fax your bank-in slip to: EASTERN HORIZON 9, Jalan SS 25/24, Taman Mayang, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, MALAYSIA Tel : (+603) 7804 9154 or (+603) 7804 9157 Fax: (+603) 7804 9021 Email : admin@easternhorizon.org You may also subscribe online and pay by credit card at our website: www.easternhorizon.org
BUDDHA PUJA AND OFFERINGS TO THE DEVAS
Prayer and Merit Cultivation Dharma Assembly Bodhi Park, Shah Alam, Selangor February 24, 2018
Ven Kai Bao giving a dharma talk before the start of the prayers and offerings.
Ven Kai Bao leads members of the Sangha in the Golden Light Repentance ceremony and offerings.
Devotees offer fresh flowers and incense as part of the ceremony.
Offerings to ensure abundant blessings and well-being.
Students in a learning mode after the ceremony.
Ven Kai Bao distributing financial aid to needy students.
Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia www.ybam.org.my
Y B A M
Unites more than 270 Buddhist organisations representing both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions throughout Malaysia Provides guidance to students to establish Buddhist societies in schools, colleges and universities Conducts regular training courses on Buddhist teachings, missionary techniques and leadership building Arranges lectures on Buddhism by both local and visiting foreign Buddhist scholars and teachers Assists in conducting the annual Malaysian Buddhist Examination
Organises various welfare, cultural and education activities for the benefit of the Buddhist community at local, state and national levels Publishes Eastern Horizon, Buddhist Digest, Berita YBAM and other Buddhist books and pamphlets in English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia Makes representation to the authorities on matters related to the Buddhist Community
Be a part of us. We offer Affiliate Membership for organizations and Associate Membership for individuals