2012/03/28
“If there’s one lesson that runs through pretty much every Buddhist tradition, it’s this: there are no magic solutions. Our belief in magic solutions that may happen some day in the future keeps us from doing what we really need to do right here and right now.”
from a Tricycle article, “A Minty Fresh Mind” by Brad Warner
2012/01/07
The Eightfold Path, Part Five (an ongoing introduction to Buddhism…as I understand it)
Wisdom
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
Ethical Conduct:
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
Mental Development
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
We should earn our living legally and peacefully; in addition, we should be aware of the consequences of our vocation: how we make our living can either cultivate or corrode compassion.
The Buddha specified four professions that harm sentient beings and should be avoided: dealing in sentient beings (e.g.: prostitution), dealing in weapons, selling intoxicants and poisons, and working in meat production and butchery.
Of course, we are all interconnected, and it is impossible to be completely separated from ‘impurity.’ For example, a construction worker may find herself erecting a building that is used to sell alcohol, and worry about ‘crossing the line.’ But we should be careful that we do not obscure the message by becoming too pedantic. Even though the consumption of alcohol is a huge problem in our society, it is an acceptable, social convention, and most people are able to enjoy it without difficulties. I do believe that in an enlightened society alcohol would not be necessary, but we’ve a little way to go before we get there.
And we must all make a living.
Sometimes it is difficult — if not impossible — to choose (or change) careers in order to follow the teachings to the letter. And if, for example, we eat meat, aren’t we enabling the butcher? We should not judge his vocation; rather, we should thank him for helping to feed us and/or others that we know (there are even Buddhist monks who will eat meat if it is offered to them). Perhaps it is enough to think about, make a case for, and work toward a future in which none of us feels the need to eat the flesh of animals (right view, right intention…).
The Eightfold Path is a guide, an experiential map through life’s labyrinth. We shouldn’t get tangled in words; words illuminate the path, but they are not the path itself. Each of us experiences the path in our own way; beyond words, and even beyond thoughts.
In practicing Right Livelihood you should try to settle into a career that doesn’t contravene your ideals. Choose as wisely, and compassionately, as you are able to.
2011/12/18
“The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn’t stir inside, the world doesn’t arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.”
Excerpted from The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, copyright © 1987 by Red Pine. Published by North Point Press. [the entire article is on tricycle’s website]
2011/12/03
The Eightfold Path, Part Three (an ongoing introduction to Buddhism…as I understand it)
Wisdom
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
Ethical Conduct:
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
Mental Development:
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
Right speech follows from right intent; and, specifically, it involves speaking with honesty, harmony, affection, and good will. You should understand why you want to speak before you speak. If you detect destructive motives (an intent to misrepresent, disruptive speech, harsh speech, or idle speech with no focused intent), then withhold your words. You will become more aware of yourself as a result of withholding these destructive modes of speech; and, as an added bonus, you will avoid saying things that you’ll regret. Further, your words will develop into offerings; others will pay attention when you speak, and will be inclined to respond in kind.
Humor can provide a major hurdle to right speech; many of us (and I am certainly guilty of this) are practiced at the art of procuring laughter with sarcasm, stereotypes, embellishment, and inanity. It is difficult, but not impossible, to sharpen the mind by expressing humor constructively, honestly and astutely, and to direct our minds to reveal humor that arises naturally.
In summary, it is wise to concentrate on what you say and why you say it; you may find that your mouth is more valuable without a foot inside it.
2011/11/08
The Eightfold Path, Part Two (an ongoing introduction to Buddhism…as I understand it)
Wisdom
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
Ethical Conduct:
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
Mental Development:
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
Right Intention follows from Right View. When we have gained Right View, we find it easier to manage the psychological influences that manipulate our actions. Right Intention is a personal commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement.
The Buddha made distinctions between three varieties of intention:
When Right View has been achieved, we are motivated to renounce attachments to pleasure, wealth, power and fame. We understand that all sentient beings are caught up in the web of dukkha and we feel a connectedness, which is accompanied by a flowering of loving-kindness. As these sensations evolve, we naturally renounce aversion, hatred, violence and cruelty.
2011/10/29
The quote below (found at Tricycle Daily Dharma, Oct. 29) is from an article by Cynthia Thatcher (What’s So Great About Now?):
“The current myth among some meditation circles is that the more mindful we are, the more beauty we’ll perceive in mundane objects. To the mind with bare attention, even the suds in the dishpan—as their bubbles glint and wink in the light—are windows on a divine radiance. That’s the myth. But the truth is almost the opposite: in fact, the more mindfulness we have, the less compelling sense-objects seem, until at last we lose all desire for them. It’s true that strong concentration can seem to intensify colors, sounds, and so forth. But concentration alone doesn’t lead to insight or awakening. To say that mindfulness makes the winter sky more sublime, or the act of doing the dishes an exercise in wonder, chafes against the First Noble Truth.”
2011/08/01
The Buddha taught that it is possible to escape the bonds of dukkha and extinguish all forms of sensual craving and conceptual attachment.
Dukkha can be overcome by removing its causes and ultimately attaining a state of Nirvana, freedom from worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications, and ideas. Nirvana is incomprehensible to those of us who have not attained it, but the Buddha presented a road-map for us to follow; The Eightfold Path, which is the foundation of the Fourth Noble Truth…
2011/07/14
Craving and ignorance are the roots of dukkha (see my previous post on The First Noble Truth and my understanding of dukkha).
We crave and grasp onto pleasures of the senses, which eventually leads to a dissatisfaction
that can only be alleviated with further or new cravings, ad nauseam.
We are also incapable of observing the universe as it truly is and we wander through life with illusions based on ignorance.
The Second Noble Truth states that the origin of dukkha is attachment to the three categories of desire:
2011/07/06
You are what you do.
Karma, to a Buddhist, is not fate; rather, it is an energy shaped through conscious thoughts, words, and actions.
The common understanding is that your karma has been determined by something you did in a past life or earlier in this life; karma is viewed as a cosmic justice system. But in Buddhism, karma is an intentional action; we create karma every moment, and the karma from the past, and the present, effects us every moment we live (this is a key point: your past and present actions affect the present, and your present actions affect the present and the future). Your actions are karma; and your future is not set, but can be altered by changing your willful acts and self-destructive behavioral patterns (e.g.: Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol). Karma is the action, not the result: the results of your conscious actions are the fruits of karma.
2011/06/29
In an attempt to explain Buddhism — as I understand it — I’m planning to scribe several posts (about one a week). This, the first post, is my rudimentary understanding of the Buddha’s First Noble Truth, which is
generally translated as: “Life is suffering” (or life is filled with suffering, or something similar).
But the Buddha wasn’t English, and he did not use the word ‘suffering.’ He told his disciples that life is dukkha, a Pali word with many meanings; unfortunately, there is no English counterpart for the word.
Dukkha can mean suffering (or pain), but can also indicate anything that is impermanent (even happiness), or something that is dependent on, or affected by, something else.
The Buddha’s message was simply one of non-attachment; so enjoy your bliss, but don’t grasp onto it, because it is impermanent and dependent on something else…
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db johnston
almost falling 