Samadhi: The Meditation of Pure Joy

The cure for anger is simple:
cultivate love and practice patience
in the face of anger, desire, hatred, jealousy
and worldliness too base for comfort.
Show compassion for all sentient beings,
and know that loving kindness leads to
compassion so powerful, it burns away
evil karma until all that is left is merit.

May all sentient beings be happy!
May all sentient beings attain the pure joy of liberation!
May all sentient beings focus on the one-pointedness of mind!
May all sentient beings aspire to attain Buddhahood!
May all sentient beings become determined to be bodhisattvas!
May All sentient beings be loving in the face of anger and hatred!
May all sentient beings remember the kindness of their parents!
May all sentient beings be excellent to each other!

Gone away is this vain grasping self,
for in its place is selflessness as virtue
which drives away selfishness and its companions.
All that is left is the pure joy of liberation.

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Originally posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:09 AM

Faith that removes all Doubt

Faith that removes all doubt is what Amida Buddha offers.
This is why I believe earnestly in Amida's Primal Vow —

In the Infinite Life Sutra, Amida's Primal Vow is the 18th Vow of his 48 Vows:

If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings
in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely
and joyfully entrust themselves to me,
desire to be born in my land, and
call my Name, even ten times, should not
be born there, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment.
Excluded, however, are those who commit
the five gravest offences and abuse the right Dharma.

When I recite the Buddha's Name, I do so to confirm this faith through working of this Vow and the original intent behind the 48 Vow Amida made in his incarnations as Dharmakara.

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Reference:

Dharmakara: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmakara
Infinite Life Sutra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Life_Sutra
Primal Vow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Vow

The Pure Land of One's Own Essence of Mind

Hui-Neng said:

For a fair mind,
observation of precepts (Sila)
is unnecessary.

For straightforward behavior,
practice in Dhyana (contemplation)
may be dispensed with.

On the principle of gratefulness,
we support our parents and serve them filially.

On the principle of righteousness,
the superior and the inferior stand
for each other (in time of need).

On the principle of mutual desire
to please, the senior and junior
are on affectionate terms.

On the principle of forbearance,
we do not quarrel even in
the midst of a hostile crowd.

If we can persevere until
fire can be obtained through
rubbing a piece of wood,

Then the red lotus (the Buddha-nature)
will shoot out from the black mire (the unenlightened state).

That which is of bitter taste
is bound to be good medicine.

That which sounds unpleasant
to the ear is certainly frank advice.

By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom.

By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind.

In our daily life we should
always practice altruism,
but Buddhahood is not to be attained
by giving away money as charity.

Bodhi is to be found
within our own mind,
and there is no necessity
to look for mysticism from without.

Hearers of this stanza
who put its teaching
into actual practice
will find paradise in
their very presence.

"All of you should put into practice what is taught in this stanza, so that you can realize the Essence of Mind and attain Buddhahood directly. The Dharma waits for no one." — Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng

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Reference:
Formless stanza quote: http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/buddhism/huineng/huineng3.html

Four Popular Bodhisattvas of Compassion

In Buddhism, the devoted practitioner develops the Bodhi Mind on hearing the Dharma.

The Bodhi Mind consist of the determination to achieve Buddhahood and the aspiration to rescue all sentient beings.

Arising from the aspiration to rescue all sentient beings is the concept of the bodhisattva.

According to certain schools of Buddhism, the four most popular bodhisattvas are Avalokiteshvara, the Taras, Manjusri, and Ksitigarbha.

Avalokiteshvara is the most popular bodhisattva, being the symbol of compassion. In his female form, popular in China, she is called Kuan-yin; and in Japan, as Kwannon or Kannon. She is known as the spiritual mother of all sentient beings.

In Tibetan Buddha, Avalokiteshvara is the essence of the speech of all the buddhas and the incarnation of their compassion.


The Taras are most popular in Tibet. They range from two (the white Tara, which is represented by the white lotus symbolizing day, and the green Tara, which is represented by the blue lotus symbolizing night) to as many as 21 Taras.

In all of her many forms, Tara represents compassion and enlightened activity.

One form of White Tara in Tibetan Buddha is White Tara Wishfulfilling Wheel. She is associated with longevity and one of the three deities of long life.

Green Tara is the popular form of Tara in Tibetan Buddhism. She represents protection of the disciple by the Buddhas.

Overall, Tara presents prosperity.

Today, Tara practice has been introduced to the New Age religions in the West.

It is said that in ancient Tibet that every virtuous and pious woman is the incarnation of Tara.


Manjusri is another popular bodhisattva in Buddhism. He represents wisdom, intelligence and willpower. In Buddhism, Manjusri is the spiritual father and mother of bodhisattvas.

Known as the King of all tantras in Tibetan Buddhism, Chanting the Names of Manjushri is a famous praise of the bodhisattva.

Adoration of Manjusri empowers his devotee with divine wisdom, mastery of the Dharma, an infallible memory, mental perfection, and eloquence.


Ksitigarbha is known as the bodhisattva of hell. He consoles the beings in hell.

Motivated by compassion, he delayed becoming a buddha so that he could help the beings destined through their karma to rebirth in hell.

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References:

Bodhisattvas of Compassion: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/b_fbodi.htm
Avalokiteshvara: http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Avalokiteshvara
White Tara Wishfulfilling Wheel: http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=White_Tara_Wishfulfilling_Wheel
Tara: http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Tara
Chanting the Names of Manjusri: http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Chanting_the_Names_of_Manjushri

Pure Joy of Liberation

Enhanced by quiet meditation,
pure joy takes the disciple
the journey from ignorance to
wisdom through the mindful practice
of loving kindness — treating
all sentient beings with kindness,
and patience until compassion
uncovers the treasure of Buddha Nature.

When I uncover Buddha Nature,
that same pure joy arises in my heart,
yet I dare not blow my horn
lest anyone who has an "Aha!" moment
be disturbed by my happiness,
for this is the pure joy of liberation.
Such moments are a blessing
to us all, when they happen.

Though, if I had such a moment,
I would have doubts, because
the joy after meditation is
different from the manic happiness
that comes from an awful place.
True happiness is buoyed by the joy
attained through meditation.

For such joy is due to liberation
be it through chanting or via zazen.
Either practice helps one develop
the samadhi called one-pointedness,
until one achieves Nirvana.
If this happens suddenly or gradually,
then would it be easy or difficult
to achieve the goal of Buddhahood?

For both the Zen master
and the Pure Land devotee
aspire to become bodhisattvas
and are determined to
attain Buddhahood, though
this is not for the lazy and indolent,
but for the wise along us.

Be Mindful of Your Mind! (poem)

Be mindful of your mind in your daily practice.
With all sincerity, serenity is what you find
When breath leads to the single-mindedness
Of samadhi so pure that Nirvana is but
A heartbeat away from a walk in the Buddha Field
leading towards bliss and the non-abiding Nirvana.

The Bodhi Mind is Emptiness

When you contrive to eradicate all thought in your mind, this is no-thought. However, a mind cannot be empty of thought, for thought always flows through it.

Thus, the practice of no-thought is all in vain, since each thought you eradicate only leads to more thoughts to eradicate. It is like trying to find the needle in the haystack.

Indeed, it is impossible to remove all thought from the mind, just as it is impossible to stop the flow of a stream with your hands. It is this impossible task that vexes the mind, producing even more thoughts.

How vain is it then to even attempt to stop all thought in the mind!

Thus the act of emptying your mind is in vain. For your mind is already empty. It has Buddha Nature, which is emptiness itself, and is capable of achieving Bodhi Mind, which is the motivation to achieve Enlightenment with the determination to achieve Buddhahood and the aspiration to rescue all sentient beings.

Even though your mind is full of thoughts, it is empty of clinging to these thoughts.

By attempting to empty your mind of thoughts, this is clinging. By clinging, the ego arises.

For what is ego but a kind of insanity, grasping in ignorance, and always craving?

Meditation, Dhyana and Samadhi

Hui Neng said:

What is sitting for meditation? In our School, to sit means to gain absolute freedom and to be mentally unperturbed in all outward circumstances, be they good or otherwise.

To meditate means to realize inwardly the imperturbability of the Essence of Mind.

What are Dhyana and Samadhi? Dhyana means to be free from attachment to all outer objects, and Samadhi means to attain inner peace. If we are attached to outer objects, our inner mind will be perturbed. When we are free from attachment to all outer objects, the mind will be in peace. Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure, and the reason why we are perturbed is because we allow ourselves to be carried away by the circumstances we are in. He who is able to keep his mind unperturbed, irrespective of circumstances, has attained Samadhi.

To be free from attachment to all outer objects is Dhyana, and to attain inner peace is Samadhi. When we are in a position to deal with Dhyana and to keep our inner mind in Samadhi, then we are said to have attained Dhyana and Samadhi. The Bodhisattva Sila Sutra says, "Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure."

Let us realize this for ourselves at all times. Let us train ourselves, practice it by ourselves, and attain Buddhahood by our own effort.

The Pure Land Explained

In this blog entry, I will first explain what a Buddha is and isn't. Next, the Pure Land of Bliss will be briefly explained. Then I'm going explain it in terms of the multiverse hypothesis.

Buddha is originally defined as a person who decides to become spiritually awakened out of compassion for the suffering in the world.

However, within certain Mahayana sects, a Buddha is also defined as the incarnation of a person who becomes a Buddhist monk of a spiritually high rank. He then vows to be reborn as a Buddha by making a series of vows to realize the Buddha world in which he is reborn.

In his meditations, he visualizes this Buddha world in detail. Then he reports it to his fellow Buddhists to help inspire them to reach the same spiritually high rank.

But is a Buddha a god? Not in the sense of a Creator since a Buddha is reborn in his Buddha world.

So is the Buddhist monk who realizes this Buddha world a god? Not at all, for the karma of his vow to be reborn as a Buddha resulted in that world being "created."

Yet that monk is still a man, who was born, sought to relieve suffering by becoming a monk, and reached parinirvana on his death.

Therefore a Buddha is not a god.

In the case of the Pure Land of Bliss, the Buddha reborn in it is Amida Buddha. In his previous incarnation, possibly in another system of worlds, he was the monk Dharmakara. Formerly a king, he learned of the Buddhist teachings through the Buddha Lovesvararaja and renounced his throne.

Resolving to become a Buddha, he came into the possession of a Buddha world, a world existing in the primordial universe outside of ordinary space time through the merit of his meditation practice, a world having many perfections.

Through his 48 vows, his resolutions were expressed. These vows described the type of Buddha world Dharmakara visualized in his meditations, the conditions for beings that might be born in that world, and the kind of beings that would be reborn there.

After many rebirths accumulating great merit, Amida achieved buddhahood and still dwells in the Buddha world called the "Pure Land of Bliss."

Suppose for a moment though, that Buddha worlds, Pure Lands and even other systems of worlds, are a part of a specific multiverse. Let's call that multiverse Buddhadharma.

In Buddhadharma, the Indian gods also come to visit a Buddha world of their choice. Once they appear there, the gods listen as the Buddha who resides there instructs the bodhisattvas on their mission before each one of them is reborn in anther part of the Buddhist multiverse. These bodhisattvas are Buddhist laymen, monks and nuns who aspired to be reborn in that Buddha world, and have yet to achieve Buddhahood.

As well, there are also many pesky demons which that Buddha has met in previous incarnations who wait outside the gate to this Buddha world, hoping to hear the Buddha as he instructs his disciples.

Furthermore, let's also imagine that the three worlds of existence (formless, form, and desire) of Buddhist cosmology also exist in the Buddhist multiverse.

Now, where do you suppose that multiverse exists? Why, in our imagination! Perhaps in our dreams, were we to aspire to be Buddhist, and in our lives, were we to dedicate ourselves to the Buddha.

Yet, I am of the opinion that the Buddhist multiverse exists in any sentient being's mind who learns the Buddha's teachings.

God, the Buddha and Jesus as forms of the Higher Power

The Christian God cannot be fathomed because He is apart from man i.e. not on our level.

This is why there is only one belief, that Jesus died for our sins, and faith in salvation through that belief.

Though a part of us may be on the level of God, that is the soul which I consider metaphorically as a sliver of Him created by His hand. Though the offer of immortal life is a metaphor for something of which the Bible does not address because of the anathema of reincarnation.

Were reincarnation offered, people wouldn't toil in this life for immortal life by aligning with Christianity, because the morally weak would use suicide as a way to avoid their responsibility both to society and to themselves to live a full life.

That's why I would rather have a New Age kind of Christianity than just the fundamentals of Christianity.

Then I privately could use my Buddhist heritage to fill in the blanks when God's elite are at a loss for words. Though, Buddhism does not promote reincarnation; it only teaches that karma is a causal effect going back through one's lifetime both via one's ancestors and especial by one's actions in the here-and-now

In my eyes, both the Buddha, Jesus and God are forms of the Higher Power, and thus are God as I know Him.

How do I explain this admission of heterodoxy except as a wonderful series of compromises?

Notes on the Female Buddha Tārā

Known as Jetsün Drolma in Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) and Ārya Tārā in India, Tara is the female Bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhsm. She appears as the female Buddha in Vajrayana.

She is the "mother of liberation" who represents the virtues of success in work and achievements, which is one of the eight parts of the Eightfold Noble Path, right livelihood.

In Japan she is called Tarani Bosatsu, and Tuoluo in Chinese Buddhism, where Kuan Yin is more popular.

On Tara, HH the Dalai Lama said:

• There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, "I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman."

Within the Buddhist tradition Tara is bodhisattva, deity, and saviouress.

As deity, she personifies the perfection of wisdom (Prajnaparamita). As bodhisattva, she personifies compassion and action. As saviouress, she is the Mother of Buddhas.

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References

Female Buddha Taras Mantra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibm1QysfhgQ
Wikipedia entry for Tara: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism)
Prajnaparamita: http://thenewheretics.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/the-perfection-of-wisdom-in-eight-thousand-lines/

Buddhahood (Poem)

All, many and one,
birth, life, and death,
body, mind, and spirit,
foolish, ordinary and wise,
natural, preternatural and supernatural,
self, other and non-self:
being incomprehensible to ordinary people.
all of these and none of these at once,
is Buddha Nature being self nature,
for all beings are buddhas,
due to each one of them
having heard the Buddha's Teaching
and, through skillful actions,
strives for Buddhahood.

Buddhahood

"Buddha Nature is not something that comes to an end. Though wicked men should be born beasts or hungry demons, or fall into hell, they never lose their Buddha Nature." However, buried in the defilement of flesh or concealed at the root of worldly desires and forgotten it may be, the human affinity for Buddhahood is never completely extinguished." - p.144, Teaching of the Buddha - Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra

Thus, Buddha Nature does not come to an end, nor can any living being lose it.

"Affinity" means "a natural attraction or feeling of kinship" and "a close connection marked by similarity in nature". This is similar yet not the same as the Christian sentiment that people are created in God's image.

Indeed, Buddhahood is not godhood because it is a universal and innate goal, for the journey there is as incomprehensible as knowing God.

For people have a natural tendency to perfect themselves, and thus have "affinity for Buddhahood".

In each of us is Buddha Nature, yet only by letting go of, and not clinging to, desire are we able to uncover Buddha Nature.

"Defilement of flesh" means "temporary mental states resulting from the feelings arising from each of the six senses of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch, and the mind which bring forth unskillful actions" and also "mental and behavioral negativities".

Despite having ego, and all the mental and behavioral negativities that entails, the human desire for perfection is strong. Therefore, Buddhahood is a worthy goal that the truly dedicated will seek.

Why? Because one's affinity for Buddhahood never completely goes away.

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Reference:
Buddhahood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhahood
Teaching of the Buddha: http://mynameisfufu.com/1999/theteaching/theteaching.htm, page 144
Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana_Mahaparinirvana_Sutra
defilement of the flesh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kle%C5%9B%C4%81_%28Buddhism%29
skillful actions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma

The Secret of Peace

A questioner asked the Buddha: "I would like to know about the state of peace, the state of solitude and of quiet detachment. How does a person become calm, independent, and not wanting to grasp at anything?"

"A person does this," replied the Buddha, "by eradicating the delusion of 'I am.' By being alert and attentive, he begins to let go of cravings as they arise. But whatever he begins to accomplish, he should beware of inner pride. He must avoid thinking of himself as better than another, or worse or equal, for that is all comparison and emphasizes the self.

"The person should look for peace within and not depend on it in any other place. For when a person is quiet within, the self cannot be found. There are no waves in the depths of the ocean, it is still and unbroken. It is the same with the peaceful person. He is still, without any longing to grasp. He has let go the foundations of self and no longer builds up pride and desire."

-Sutta Nipata

Likewise, a nation should look for peace within, for it cannot come from outside its own borders. When that nation is quiet within its borders, the cult of selfishness will have been vanquished. For the depths of the ocean makes no waves. The same goes for the peaceful nation. It is still, lacking any longing to hold onto anything. It has released the root of selfishness and no longer invests in pride and desire.