Unconditional love (loving-kindness)

While greatly treasured, unconditional love can only be shared with all sentient beings, lest the dragon within us hide all our feelings and emotions while we live in social isolation.

Thus, the goal of all self-actualized people is to be sociable. This goal is a guide, an ideal for which we strive. Some of us have a lot of friends, while other people have only a few friends or none at all.

Even so, that should not stop anyone from trying to sustain the sharing of unconditional love.

This is no quest of intellect, but the journey of the heart!

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Original post: December 23, 2010 0744H
Update posted: March 16, 2013 0035H

Healing the Broken Heart Through Faith and Belief (poem)

I give thanks to the Buddha, for his role in helping us.
I give thanks to the Dharma for dependent arising explains the Four Noble Truths to us.
I give thanks to the Sangha who wrote the sutras that guide us.

When it feels like your heart has broken
free of your mind's gentle embrace,
make them whole again with breath meditation,
mantrayana and devotion to the Buddha.

May the comprehensive love of Amida tame the mind.
May the great compassion of Avalokiteshvara heal the heart.
May the active security of Mahasthamaprapta protect
one's Buddha Recitation and be mindful of Amida.

For the heart-mind, being the Bodhi Mind,
may only be formed from feelings and reason
being acted upon by one's sincere belief
that all sentient beings are our mothers!

Namu Amida Butsu

Meditation at Work Pays Off

Homage to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

Earlier this morning, I worked from midnight until 6 AM.

Afterwards, I felt my emotions and feeling with a freshness that happens after being up all night, being of service to my boss.

Work consisted of patrolling an underground parkade.

In between each other, I decided halfway through the shift to meditate, specifically breath meditation. Additionally, I also quietly chanted the Nembutsu after finishing the final patrol.

Later, on the bus home I felt sad that my roommate is back under psychiatric care temporarily.

Then it happened: the same joy I had experienced last month.

This joy though had a loving-kindness touch to it. Yet I cannot discount it as the result of fatigue.

Because I put my sincere faith in Amida Buddha's Primal Vow and belief in rebirth in the Pure Land, this explains how meditation for three hours resulted in the pure joy that loving-kindness causes bubble out of my heart-mind.

Through meditation, the heart of feelings was brought closer to the mind of reason to become one as the heart-mind.

After Buddha Recitation (Buddha Remembrance by chanting the Nembutsu - Namu Amida Butsu), the heart-mind became Bodhi Mind.

Arising from the Bodhi Mind came this joy, all due to loving-kindness.

Once again, meditation and Buddha Recitation in earnest results in liberation from repression and introversion for this follower of Amida Buddha.

In giving homage to Amida Buddha's boundless life of compassion and boundless light of wisdom, Buddha Remembrance set my heart-mind free.

Now this follower of Amida is humbled, for this joy arose out of loving-kindness due to the Name-that-calls!

Namu Amida Buddha!

Breath Meditation (poem)

With the breath it begins,
the quiet meditation
of the skillful one.
Without preconceptions,
the mind is emptied of bias.
Each thought comes and goes,
with focus on the breath.
Heart and mind become as one
yielding the blessed heart-mind.
Amidst the one-pointedness of mind.
the Bodhi Mind arises until
Emptiness is filled with bliss.
In pure joy, the skillful one
returns to the breath and rises.

Peace Exists (poem)

Peace exists as it is, without clinging.

He who understands stands free. He who places it within remains calm before danger.

Yet he who yearns for peace without clinging causes his heart to be at one with his mind.

Polish the diamond mind, and the heartmind sees with clarity that peace is the natural state of the mind.

Emptiness is Inconceivable and Indescribable

"The Victorious Ones have announced that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible." — Nagarjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

"The Victorious Ones" refers to Buddha's disciples.

"Emptiness" is shunyata, the middle way between eternalism and nihilism.

"Relinquishing of all views" is to let go of conceiving of all the different views of reality.

"Those" refer to Buddhists, and anyone who has heard with the heartmind of Buddha's teachings (the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination).

"Possessed of the view of emptiness" means clinging to any concept of emptiness, be it nihilism or eternalism and any variation of these two extremes.

Thus, emptiness is inconceivable and indescribable.

For the absolute truth of emptiness is that it is empty of conception and description.

As for eternalism and nihilism, belief in either would lead to delusions about immortality and fear of death.

For immortality is empty of impermanence, and the fear of death is empty of the will to live.

This is why emptiness as the absolute truth and that which is empty are associated with each other.

---

For further explanation, click on the tags included with this article.

Two Extremes of Non-Buddhist Thought: http://gandhara.blogspot.com/2013/01/two-extremes-of-non-buddhist-thought.html

The Buddha is not a God but Inspiration for Buddhahood

Regarding Buddhism, the Buddha is not a god, yet Buddha-essence is like a gift given to everyone on birth. She who accepts this wisdom shall uncover the Buddha within.

It takes listening carefully to the Buddha's story to awaken this essence, and every Buddhist who keeps his own story a secret is turning the Buddha away. For everyone is free to become a Buddha, yet few of them are ready.

For they who are not ready have yet to understand what the Buddha means to them.

For me, the Buddha means peaceful bliss and the aspiration to be of service to anyone seeking the calm awakening that meditation provides.

If this is a turn-off to atheists, then that's their karma for confusing Mahayana Buddhism with monotheism.

In my opinion Zen Buddhists are closet atheists. They achieve their Buddha-hood by self-power.

Because self-power sometimes leads to ego delusion, this may explain why Zen Buddhists do not think much of chanting a mantra or Buddha Remembrance (repeating the Nembutsu (Nian-fo) until one reaches samadhi).

Yet the fathers of Zen and the Chinese Ch'an master before them praised the Nian-fo practice since it quickly hastens the practitioner's path to Buddha-hood due to intent to be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Zen masters do not understand this as their self-power path blinds them, and thus prevents them from considering the easy way to Buddha-hood.

I on the other hand find zazen practice to only contribute to hemorrhoids rather than satori. YMMV

For Nian-fo practice quickly aids the mind-stream in achieving Buddha-hood, as the Pure Land that in which the practitioner believes he will be reborn is surely the optimal place to swiftly achieve Buddha-hood.

Any Zen master who doubts this is thus blinded by the ego delusion arising from his flavor of self-power.

Indeed, it is the Other-power of Nian-fo that helps the Nembutsu practitioner to achieve what the Theravada and Zen practitioners cannot: rebirth in a Pure Land that helps all Buddhists who have faith in Other-power to quickly help them achieve Nirvana and ultimately, Buddha-hood.

For the Pure Land is conducive to achieve Buddha-hood.

Thus it is by Buddha Remembrance that Nembutsu practitioners become Buddha.

The Meaning of Good (poem)

Listen: right means good.
Good means pure, pure means right, and
once again, listen:
Right concentration arises
from a good meditation
to help attain the pure mind.

See: loving-kindness is good.
For compassion pours from a pure heart
working with the right mind to see
the Buddha world in all its goodness
certainly is the Pure Land,
until everything is right with the world.

Speak of the goodness
in the heartmind that is pure,
for right-mindedness speaks
with a good heart to all
who seek the pure mind
For this is the meaning of good.

Buddhism is not Mysticism

Buddhism is not a mysticism. Rather, Buddhism is a toolkit to relief psychic suffering. As part of that relief, it teaches transcendence of ego — the self which arises through ignorant craving.

That transcendence of ego is called the transcendent Self and is also known as the Diamond Mind.

Rejection of the transcendent Self is rejection of the Diamond Mind, and of the Buddha himself.

For the true Reality of the Self is often occulted by academics whose commentaries on the Buddhist sutras sometimes leads the skeptics to the false belief that Buddhism is a form of mysticism.

By hiding the fact that Adi Buddha is reflected in the Five Wisdom Buddhas, so too is the fact that personal experience is reflected in the experience of everyone.

Yet academics who have no experience in Buddhism, who have not heard the Buddhadharma, and who then write of the Diamond Mind and the transcendent Self, suggest that each of us has the potential to become bodhisattvas and ultimately Buddhas.

For the fallacy of potential nirvana is that the average person is often adverse to exercise his potential under the mistaken assumption that it's not for him and that it's all a bunch of hogwash, too.

However, I beg to differ and present you with the following analogy to encourage the willing among you to exercise your potential to become awakened and achieve Nirvana.

When we were children, we had the potential to graduate from high school. We learned to read and write, and to do math. Today, we are able to read and write, as well as add, subtract and multiply.

Likewise, in learning about the Four Noble Truths, and dependent arising, it is then possible to go on to learn about the Diamond Mind and the transcendent Self. It is even possible to understand that the spiritual nature of Adi Buddha is reflected in the 102 Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana).

For Buddhism is not mysticism, for the Four Noble Truths is proof of that.

Learning about the Diamond Mind and the transcendent Self helps us to go beyond meditating to achieve the clear mind to see that the Diamond Mind is achieved through meditation and study of the sutras. Such learning is also not mysticism.

As well, Adi Buddha is not mysticism.

For mysticism requires only one thing: a mind confused by the ego lost in ignorant craving. Since the purpose of Buddhism is to remove confusion by pacifying ignorant craving through meditation to achieve the mind of clarity and the heart of peace, the result is the true heartmind which is able to see that Buddha-Nature is in all sentient beings.

Indeed, the heartmind is able to see that all sentient beings are originally bodhisattva who have the potential to become Buddha.

Be True to Yourself (poem)

Touch not my heart
with love insincere,
lest we both forget
all sense of self.

Be true to yourself.
For each of us is
inspired by true love
to act with the heart
of compassion.

Listen to the Heart-mind (poem)

When in meditation, listen
to the heart-mind —
the discriminating mind working
together with the discerning heart.
In the heart-mind
is the seed of Buddha-essence.
Cultivate that seed
with meditation, and nourish it
by being helpful and of service
to all living beings,
for they are all Buddhas.
In doing so, you cultivate compassion
with the heart-mind.

AA Journal Entry: January 11-25, 2011 - Two weeks of Confession and Spiritual Healing

Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 10:20 AM

IMHO, at the root of all my issues is the social conditioning known as never say "No" to others in need.

Yet, to avoid saying "No", often I will stay at home.

Actually, after careful reflection, the reason why I stay home as a recluse has to do with a blatantly honest picture of myself as physically imperfect.

In contrast to this self-perception, I have concluded that a pure heart-mind implies a perfect soul, the concept of which was gifted to me at age 16.

So I had worked at perfecting my mind from an early age, despite the errors which crept up into my life due to shaming.

Age 1, I was hit in the head by my brother with a hoe. My crime was not yielding his fair share of the sandbox on my family's property.

Age 2 or 3, pressured into lighting a match by my brother, I nearly burned the barn down. Both my brother and I suffered for this.

Yet I was innocent then.

Because of those errors' effect, I acted out. Perhaps it was out of a sense of shame that my youth was a descent into madness.

If I defied my mother, then she punished me. I was constantly blamed for anything wrong that happened at home.

Then there were incidents outside of the home which eventually helped me to learn that my acting out would lead to harmful repercussions.

If it weren't for learning to read and write in public school, and for computers later in life, then I might have been in a sorry state.

Today I have learned the wisdom of non-action clearly. While thoughts may come and go, this body remains, another day older and deeply indebted to the mercy that God has shown me through His creation.

Even though each person is equally capable of great good or great evil, I view my currently life as balancing out the innocent evil done as a child.

Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 10:50 AM

Dear Lord, help me to see my life with the innocent eyes of a man redeemed by God's gift of salvation. I knew that You walked by my side as a child to help me realize today that my life before majority was innocent of guile.

Sunday, 16 January 2011, 2:49 PM

Since God has been with me since the day I was born, then my soul has been with me since then.

Soul is an abstract thing which I should take care not to reify unnecessarily, lest my understanding of it be muddied, rendering a fallacy of which I'll now explain.

The fallacy is that the soul is an object which is precious due to the process of reification, which means to make it a personal object which is more valuable than my life and the world around me.

Reification is also called hypostatization.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 4:43 PM

Life moves in mysterious ways, for which only God knows the reasons.

Never Alone (poem)

Just sitting serenely,
with Oya-sama nearby,
never alone is this heart-mind.

すぐ近くおやさまと、
穏やかに座って、
この心心であることだけ。

Sugu chikaku oya-sama to,
odayaka ni suwatte,
kono kokorogokorodearu koto dake.

Meditation on Self Justification

He who always justifies his actions lacks inner conviction. In lacking inner conviction, egoistic desire may motivate him to justify himself in order to regain control over his life.

Instead, stop justifying your actions. Be silent and listen with your heart-mind to the wise counsel of a good friend.

Always the battle is not with a thousand enemies, but with our greatest enemy: the ego-self. Each of us has no enemy stronger, for each of us has had doubts about the self. Indeed, there are no enemies, only potential friends.

In context of this meditation, "ego-self" refers to belief that the ego exists as an independent self as a permanent thing. With respect to that definition, "healthy ego" refers to the self that is aware of interdependence on others yet is self reliant.

"Interdependence" refers to the true nature of relationships. Even though there may be a causal relationship between myself and another person A, it also affects that person's causal relationship with yet another person B. Even though I do not know person B, and person B does not know me, my relationship with person A cannot help but affect person B indirectly.

Thus it makes sense to be of harm to no one.

---

Originally posted on May 26, 2005 9:25 PM
Edited August 24, 2010 at 11:54 PM
Edited January 29, 2013 at 19:35 PM

Nembutsu Muzen

Muzen is no Zen, the emptiness of Zen.

Muga refers to emptiness of self; mushin refers to emptiness of mind.

Emptiness refers to the heart-mind being empty of ego through mindful practice of meditation.

In meditation, each breath brings together the body and mind as one.

Together, body and mind works as one without thought of the self as the body-mind.

Thus, muga mushin is when self and mind act as one until no-mind and no-self remain.

No-mind is the egoless state of mind when one is mindful of the Buddha. Though one is mindful of the Buddha, one is essentially at one with the world.

No-self is that selfless state of mind when one utters the Name-that-calls, the Nembutsu, as though Amida Buddha is calling.

This is the essence of muzen.

The Oneness of Heart-Mind

Not craving, not clinging,
full of primordial goodness,
no-mind and no-self arise
from Buddha Nature...
the heart and mind are one.

Unquestionably,
with joy the heart embraces
what the mind reasons!

For nothing drives apart
the heart and mind - only
ego occults the truth that
the heart-mind is as one.

Meditation On Ignorance

First Truth

At the root of suffering (mental unrest) is dissatisfaction with life.

Second Truth

This mental unrest is rooted in ignorance about its cause in the past, craving for continued contact with feelings, and contact with the external world and the senses.

As a result, one clings to life to the point where one forgets the distinction between self and other.

Thus does one become attached to the world.

Indeed, this attachment to the world becomes so strong that one thinks of the mind and body as permanent in the form of the ego, and considers the personality to have identity independent of others.

In this way, mental unrest arises due to spiritual ignorance about the transient nature of everything including the ego.

Third Truth

So why not stop dissatisfaction with life by illumining ignorance with the wisdom of the Buddhadharma.

Fourth Truth

So as to quiet mental unrest, one practices appeasement of the ego through breath meditation.

For long-lasting stress relief, just be aware of breathing. Done daily, the positive benefits of breath meditation will last a lifetime.

Without restriction, this activity may be done anywhere. However, the quality of breathing is different because you are aware of it.

Indeed, relief of mental unrest is as easy as breathing.

Breath Meditation in Detail

One breathes through one's nose, inhaling positive energy and transforming it into spiritual light. In this light, all stress cannot escape; they are instead illumined and reveal their usefulness to you.

When illumined by meditation, anxiety is transformed into inspiration which turns fear into respect for that which is feared.

If one fears old age and death, the clear mind arising from meditation is able to reflect on growing respect for old age and death.

The Illumined Mind Reflects Easily on Dependent Arising

Indeed, once illumined the mind is able to reflect on dependent arising, and then develop respect for each of its twelve parts (ignorance, formations, consciousness, mind and body (personality or identity), the six sense bases (five physical senses and the mind), contact (between objects and the senses),feeling (registering the contact),craving (for continued contact), clinging, becoming (similar to formations), birth and old age & death).

Once the mind is calm, clear insight into dependent arising manifests itself. Indeed, one is able to validate its twelve conditions.

When one's mind is calm, mental unrest is replaced with calm insight into its root cause and its cure.

Meditation, the Ego and the Gift of Serenity

At this point, with stress forgotten, one is able to practice the deeper meditation needed to reduce dissatisfaction with life, which is the root of stress, mental unrest.

So as to relieve mental unrest, one reflects on ignorance and its relationship with clinging and craving.

This deeper meditation consists of reading the following text and reflecting on its deeper meaning:

What drives the heart and mind apart?
Craving and clinging:
ignorance bears fruit as ego.
What brings the heart and mind as one?
Not craving, not clinging:
wisdom bears fruit by letting go.
Having let go of the world, the mind
free of unrest is calm and serene,
being illuminated by wisdom
to the depths of its very heart.
Thus it is called the heart-mind.

---

Reference
Dependent arising: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da

Nembutsu Meditations (poem)

Within my room, friendliness
towards my true self
results in serenity
of the heart-mind - Oh!
How precious is solitude!

Quiet and serene in the home,
happiness comes near
to celebrate the oneness
within the heart-mind,
a smile as its only trace.

Life is a celebration
precious and dear to all --
with yesterday's memories,
tomorrows awaits
as the Buddha calls us now.

No-thought, just breathing...
No-mind, no-self - only thanks
with sincerity.
Namu Amida Butsu!
Namu Amida Butsu!

Not Clinging (poem)

Not clinging to belief,
my heart-mind is embraced by Amida
whenever he calls through me.
Namu Amida Butsu.

Because it arises
from not clinging to Amida,
my faith is unwavering.
Namu Amida Butsu.

---

The above poem was inspired by reading "Reflections on the Religious Case Against Belief" by Carl von Baeyer of the Saskatoon Unitarian Church.

Through this poem, I am freeing my heart-mind of clinging to ideology with regard to my faith.

For each time one calls to Amida gives less fuel for belief to burn until all that is left is faith.

Many thanks for Mr. von Baeyer for inspiring me to study the Buddhist Upādāna.

---

References:
Reflections on The Religious Case Against Belief: http://www.ucsaskatoon.org/wp/guest-speakers/reflections-carse

Clinging or Upādāna: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%C4%81d%C4%81na#Buddhism
http://gandhara.blogspot.com/search/label/Up%C4%81d%C4%81na

Meditation on The Nembutsu

By calling to Amida as He simultaneously calls to her, the devotee consistently affirms one's gratitude through the Name-that-calls.

With consistent affirmation, the Name-that-calls helps her uncover the precious treasure known as Buddha Nature.

Uncovering Buddha Nature, the devotee realizes that she is a sentient being, subject to the limits of existence.

Knowing these limits helps the devotee to devote herself to the Buddha.

In devoting herself to the Buddha, she deepens her faith in Him, His teachings, and the Buddhist community.

In deepening her faith, she continues her affirmation through gratitude to Amida.

This affirmation through gratitude to Amida Buddha is called Buddha Remembrance

Buddha Remembrance helps the devotee to listen with her heartmind.

Listening with her heartmind, she is able to hear Amida Buddha calling, and simultaneously call to Him.