Love changes the fiercely independent into couples committed to each other.
Love transforms a group of strangers into friends who are supportive of and are there for each other..
Were it possible to empower a nation wholly with love, then no other nation would conquer it.
With unconditional love, though, sex is a silly waste of time.
For sex is not the end-all and be-all that love is.
This is because love is forever, while sex only lasts until the happy ending.
I don't care if you can have multiple happy endings, the amount of time taken to get to it could have been spent learning about your partner because sex is only a tiny part of the intimacy.
Many a relationship is cut short because both parties just wanted to hook up.
Even animals that are monogamous do not spend the amount of time human beings seem to spend on sex.
Then again, apart from bonobo chimpanzees, no other animals use sex to form close bonds like human beings do.
Maybe it is due to our higher intelligence.
Yet it is still possible to form close bonds with other human beings without sex since it is but one form of expressing love.
This is why poets wax about unconditional love, and why a certain religious writer had this to say about love:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to death that I may boast but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable and does not count up wrongdoing; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. — I Corinthians 13
Seen from the Buddhist perspective, love is defined as "wanting others to be happy."
This implies freedom from conditions that attachment brings to human love, which only fulfills our needs temporarily.
By admitting that we love someone because they make us happy, we become attached to that person. Thus such a love is conditional. If they no longer make us happy, what then?
True happiness ought not be dependent on our attachment to others; it should be free of attachment.
Being free of attachment, the only thing left is unconditional love.
Reference:
I Corinthians 13: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=ESV
The Four Immeasurables: http://viewonbuddhism.org/immeasurables_love_compassion_equanimity_rejoicing.html
Showing posts with label attachment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label attachment. Show all posts
20130421
Becoming Unborn
When we are reborn in the Six Realms of Desire, samsara is not nirvana.
When we are attached to nirvana, nirvana is samsara for it leads to rebirth in samsara.
Samsara consists of the Six Realms of Desire —
When one is attached to rebirth in the human realm, that is not Buddhism but Sanatanadharma and results in rebirth. This attachment consists of a strong belief in transmigration and the permanent soul that is reincarnated solely as a human. It also violates the law of karma, which allows for rebirth in the Six Realms.
In Buddhism, non-attachment is an ideal which may be achieve by purifying the mind. The difficult route is to practice No-thought i.e. let no thought attract you to follow it to its end, but first let each thought go and return to the breath. With practice, it becomes as easy as breathing. This is the essence of Zen.
As for the easy route, Buddha Recitation leads to non-attachment as the Name-that-calls purifies the mind with earnest repetition, burning evil karma as you remember the Buddha. This is why it is called Buddha Remembrance. This is the essence of Pure Land Buddhism.
By remembering the Buddha, the mind is purified so that non-attachment to Nirvana is easily assured!
For non-attachment to Nirvana is essential to becoming Unborn.
When we are attached to nirvana, nirvana is samsara for it leads to rebirth in samsara.
Samsara consists of the Six Realms of Desire —
- the Hells,
- the Realm of Hungry Ghosts,
- the Realm of Animals,
- the Realm of Humans,
- the Realm of Daemons, and
- the Realm of the Gods
When one is attached to rebirth in the human realm, that is not Buddhism but Sanatanadharma and results in rebirth. This attachment consists of a strong belief in transmigration and the permanent soul that is reincarnated solely as a human. It also violates the law of karma, which allows for rebirth in the Six Realms.
In Buddhism, non-attachment is an ideal which may be achieve by purifying the mind. The difficult route is to practice No-thought i.e. let no thought attract you to follow it to its end, but first let each thought go and return to the breath. With practice, it becomes as easy as breathing. This is the essence of Zen.
As for the easy route, Buddha Recitation leads to non-attachment as the Name-that-calls purifies the mind with earnest repetition, burning evil karma as you remember the Buddha. This is why it is called Buddha Remembrance. This is the essence of Pure Land Buddhism.
By remembering the Buddha, the mind is purified so that non-attachment to Nirvana is easily assured!
For non-attachment to Nirvana is essential to becoming Unborn.
20130406
The Finest Place to Practice (poem)
It is because of attachment
to the many distractions of worldliness
that, despite decades of meditation,
many devotees of the Middle Way fail
to develop even a single siddhi.
Therefore, do not become attached at all
to anything in this world,
lest you give up meditation in haste
and return to worldliness,
only to obtain rebirth in the Hells.
However, even if you develop
a siddhi, try not to show off,
lest your attachment delude you.
It is better to take up Vajrayana,
and devote yourself to a Tibetan guru.
Yet, it is said that the Nembutsu
will surely lead to Amida
and his Pure Land of Bliss. O!
The Name-that-calls is
all that the Pure Land practitioner needs!
For the Pure Land is
the finest place to practice and decide
if you wish to return
to help others by being of service
to other sentient beings in Samsara.
to the many distractions of worldliness
that, despite decades of meditation,
many devotees of the Middle Way fail
to develop even a single siddhi.
Therefore, do not become attached at all
to anything in this world,
lest you give up meditation in haste
and return to worldliness,
only to obtain rebirth in the Hells.
However, even if you develop
a siddhi, try not to show off,
lest your attachment delude you.
It is better to take up Vajrayana,
and devote yourself to a Tibetan guru.
Yet, it is said that the Nembutsu
will surely lead to Amida
and his Pure Land of Bliss. O!
The Name-that-calls is
all that the Pure Land practitioner needs!
For the Pure Land is
the finest place to practice and decide
if you wish to return
to help others by being of service
to other sentient beings in Samsara.
20130319
The Root of All Evil
Those people who question basic goodness of people, yet are willing to assume all people are essential bad, see the cup as half empty i.e. wallow in their ignorant delusion called Ego.
It is egocentricity that blinds each of us to the goodness of other people. At the same time, the Ego arises due the lie that essentially all people are bad.
How then do we "cure" ourselves of seeing the cup as half-empty?
It cannot be done through intellectualizing a solution as that is merely the Ego's doing.
Instead the Ego must be pacified through love and patience, lest it wield anger to confuse each of us.
For anger is the root of chaos and confusion, and also death and destruction. Indeed, nothing can be accomplished while the mind is beclouded by anger. Any action done in anger will simply be forgotten, and each of us would have to search for the cause, which is merely the Ego vainly grasping, forming attachment to worldliness, rather than rising above it.
Though this be loathe to the religious, the Ego holds itself as God, not the person. When a person sees only evil in other people, that is a reflection of its own inherent evil. For no good thing comes from the action of the Ego.
Am I suggesting the Ego is "satanic"? No, not in the sense of Christian, Muslim or Jewish moralities.
For the Ego is free of "good and evil" yet each of us has the potential for great good or great evil.
Indeed, what we create may be deemed good if we benefit from such action, and evil, if we are consumed by the Five Poisons.
As well, the Ego is neutral throughout such actions, due to the subtle effects of the Seventh Consciousness. Thus it is innocent of evil karma, even though some of the actions of egocentric people may lead to worldliness rather than the Middle Way.
Anger/fear is the worst of the Five Poisons, and from it are derived the other four (attachment/desire, ignorance/delusion, pride, jealousy).
Anger is the root of anxiety with fear its companion. For what is done in anger is due to fear of non-existence of the Ego. Thus anger and fear are what drives a person to commit crimes and even murder.
Attachment/desire is the root of clinging to this world of birth-life-death, because it is based on the illusion of permanence i.e. the reified form of Ego known as the "soul", which is a hallucination about eternal life and immortality, both of which are superstitions.
Both attachment and desire leads to the carnal life of worldliness. It also motivates decadent hedonism, and thus promotes sloth and torpor when the Ego is not driving a person to live a hectic, fast-paced life which is unnatural.
In society today, productivity is deemed good or bad, based on the quickness to produce a marketable commodity. This commodity must be free of religion, and imbued with the essence of secularism. As well, it must have a short shelf-life. Otherwise, profits are lost when a product is long-lasting.
Ignorance and delusion are the root of the Ego's existence. As long as we remain ignorant of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path of the Fourth Noble Truth, we are "free" to become worldly yet become fearful of loss of wealth to the point of risking our lives just to accumulate consumer goods.
Pride is cause of the Ego's downfall. When everything is "me, mine, and I", that's due to pride. For a person filled with pride becomes a braggart, and in vain tries to make himself look good at the expense of others. A wise person would cure himself of pride by developing humility not only because it serves the greater good, but because by serving the good all sentient being by being humble, we generate compassion.
As for jealousy, that is the doing of the Ego, which leads one to fear sharing the limelight with other sentient beings For those of us who has not learn to control jealousy, everyone else is her rival. As well, jealousy unchecked may lead to much evil, including the willingness to harm a rival.
It is as though all the Five Poisons dance around the Ego, as though in worship of it. In actual fact, the Ego never existed in the first place!
For the Ego does not really exist. All that exists is the conception of the Ego. In its most evil incarnation, it is called the soul, and the Buddhist principle of non-self helps the disciple to see the soul as a figment of the imagination and as a reified mirror image of the Ego.
Since the Ego does not exist, so too the soul does not exist. To believe in the soul, one would have to call Buddhism a fiction. Yet all of the Buddhist sutras confirm that Sakyamuni Buddha lived over 2500 years ago.
For it is the Buddha who declared that belief in a permanent soul that reincarnates is tantamount to the root of evil.
Why? Because it leads to suffering.
If the disciple wishes to be free of suffering, then the Eightfold Noble path is the cure.
For the Eightfold Path is the way out of suffering, and relieves the disciple of mental unrest for good.
All it begins is with taking one breath...
It is egocentricity that blinds each of us to the goodness of other people. At the same time, the Ego arises due the lie that essentially all people are bad.
How then do we "cure" ourselves of seeing the cup as half-empty?
It cannot be done through intellectualizing a solution as that is merely the Ego's doing.
Instead the Ego must be pacified through love and patience, lest it wield anger to confuse each of us.
For anger is the root of chaos and confusion, and also death and destruction. Indeed, nothing can be accomplished while the mind is beclouded by anger. Any action done in anger will simply be forgotten, and each of us would have to search for the cause, which is merely the Ego vainly grasping, forming attachment to worldliness, rather than rising above it.
Though this be loathe to the religious, the Ego holds itself as God, not the person. When a person sees only evil in other people, that is a reflection of its own inherent evil. For no good thing comes from the action of the Ego.
Am I suggesting the Ego is "satanic"? No, not in the sense of Christian, Muslim or Jewish moralities.
For the Ego is free of "good and evil" yet each of us has the potential for great good or great evil.
Indeed, what we create may be deemed good if we benefit from such action, and evil, if we are consumed by the Five Poisons.
As well, the Ego is neutral throughout such actions, due to the subtle effects of the Seventh Consciousness. Thus it is innocent of evil karma, even though some of the actions of egocentric people may lead to worldliness rather than the Middle Way.
Anger/fear is the worst of the Five Poisons, and from it are derived the other four (attachment/desire, ignorance/delusion, pride, jealousy).
Anger is the root of anxiety with fear its companion. For what is done in anger is due to fear of non-existence of the Ego. Thus anger and fear are what drives a person to commit crimes and even murder.
Attachment/desire is the root of clinging to this world of birth-life-death, because it is based on the illusion of permanence i.e. the reified form of Ego known as the "soul", which is a hallucination about eternal life and immortality, both of which are superstitions.
Both attachment and desire leads to the carnal life of worldliness. It also motivates decadent hedonism, and thus promotes sloth and torpor when the Ego is not driving a person to live a hectic, fast-paced life which is unnatural.
In society today, productivity is deemed good or bad, based on the quickness to produce a marketable commodity. This commodity must be free of religion, and imbued with the essence of secularism. As well, it must have a short shelf-life. Otherwise, profits are lost when a product is long-lasting.
Ignorance and delusion are the root of the Ego's existence. As long as we remain ignorant of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path of the Fourth Noble Truth, we are "free" to become worldly yet become fearful of loss of wealth to the point of risking our lives just to accumulate consumer goods.
Pride is cause of the Ego's downfall. When everything is "me, mine, and I", that's due to pride. For a person filled with pride becomes a braggart, and in vain tries to make himself look good at the expense of others. A wise person would cure himself of pride by developing humility not only because it serves the greater good, but because by serving the good all sentient being by being humble, we generate compassion.
As for jealousy, that is the doing of the Ego, which leads one to fear sharing the limelight with other sentient beings For those of us who has not learn to control jealousy, everyone else is her rival. As well, jealousy unchecked may lead to much evil, including the willingness to harm a rival.
It is as though all the Five Poisons dance around the Ego, as though in worship of it. In actual fact, the Ego never existed in the first place!
For the Ego does not really exist. All that exists is the conception of the Ego. In its most evil incarnation, it is called the soul, and the Buddhist principle of non-self helps the disciple to see the soul as a figment of the imagination and as a reified mirror image of the Ego.
Since the Ego does not exist, so too the soul does not exist. To believe in the soul, one would have to call Buddhism a fiction. Yet all of the Buddhist sutras confirm that Sakyamuni Buddha lived over 2500 years ago.
For it is the Buddha who declared that belief in a permanent soul that reincarnates is tantamount to the root of evil.
Why? Because it leads to suffering.
If the disciple wishes to be free of suffering, then the Eightfold Noble path is the cure.
For the Eightfold Path is the way out of suffering, and relieves the disciple of mental unrest for good.
All it begins is with taking one breath...
20060313
Nothing Wrong With Having Pleasures and Enjoyments
Contrary to what some people might believe, there is nothing wrong with having pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and dissatisfaction.
-Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Introduction to Tantra"
Let go of pleasures,
and savor enjoyments now!
Then see the spirit
of the moment with gladness.
Namu Amida Butsu!
-Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Introduction to Tantra"
Let go of pleasures,
and savor enjoyments now!
Then see the spirit
of the moment with gladness.
Namu Amida Butsu!
20050522
How to Master Fear
The cause of all fear is self-grasping ignorance, and all the delusions, such as selfishness, attachment and anger, arise from that ignorance, as well as all the unskillful actions motivated by those delusions. --From Tharpa.com
Thus, the antidotes to the delusions of selfishness, attachment and anger are
selflessness, detachment and unconditional love.
Selflessness is best achieved by helping people without expecting reward, to give of ourselves without thought of being a giver.
Detachment is known as letting go, i.e. to not hold onto something as though it were near and dear to you, even when this turns out to be your own life.
Yet to throw away your life needlessly is not detachment, but foolhardiness.
With a healthy sense of detachment, one learns to balance self-preservation with self sacrifice.
Unconditional love is also known as compassion, the kind of love which makes no exceptions, such that one may love another, regardless of whether s/he is friend or enemy.
It may be that selflessness, detachment and unconditional love are the greatest tools a person may develop to remove all delusions, and even ignorance itself.
And no one is excluded from developing their skills in use of these tools.
Yet, only the good of us continue to use them to benefit us all.
Thus, the antidotes to the delusions of selfishness, attachment and anger are
selflessness, detachment and unconditional love.
Selflessness is best achieved by helping people without expecting reward, to give of ourselves without thought of being a giver.
Detachment is known as letting go, i.e. to not hold onto something as though it were near and dear to you, even when this turns out to be your own life.
Yet to throw away your life needlessly is not detachment, but foolhardiness.
With a healthy sense of detachment, one learns to balance self-preservation with self sacrifice.
Unconditional love is also known as compassion, the kind of love which makes no exceptions, such that one may love another, regardless of whether s/he is friend or enemy.
It may be that selflessness, detachment and unconditional love are the greatest tools a person may develop to remove all delusions, and even ignorance itself.
And no one is excluded from developing their skills in use of these tools.
Yet, only the good of us continue to use them to benefit us all.
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