Lights Out?

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.

Albert Schweitzer

Appreciating our troublemakers...

Be Grateful to Everyone

 
Work on taking and sending with these considerations in mind:

In general, all methods for attaining buddhahood rely on sentient beings. Therefore, to the individual who wishes to awaken, sentient beings are as worthy of gratitude as buddhas. Specifically, all sentient beings are worthy of gratitude since there is not one who has not been my parent. In particular, all those who hurt me are worthy of gratitude since they are my companions and helpers for gathering the accumulations of merit and pristine wisdom and for clearing away the obscurations of disturbing emotions and conceptual knowledge.
Do not be angry, not even at a dog or an insect. Strive to give whatever actual help you can. If you cannot help, then think and say:
May this sentient being (or troublemaker) quickly be rid of pain and enjoy happiness. May he come to attain buddhahood.

Arouse bodhicitta:

From now on, all the virtuous acts I do shall be for his welfare.

When a god or a demon troubles you, think:

This trouble now occurs because I, from time without beginning, have made trouble for him. Now I shall give him my flesh and blood in recompense.

Imagine the one who troubles you to be present in front of you and mentally give him your body as you say:

Here, revel in my flesh and blood and whatever else you want.
Meditate with complete conviction that this troublemaker enjoys your flesh and blood, and is filled with pure happiness, and arouse the two kinds of bodhicitta in your mind. Or:

Because I had let mindfulness and other remedies lapse, disturbing emotions arose without my noticing them. Since this troublemaker has now warned me of this, he is certainly an expression of my guru or a buddha. I'm very grateful to him because he has stimulated me to train in bodhicitta.

Or, when illness or suffering comes, think with complete sincerity:

If this hadn't happened, I would have been distracted by materialistic involvements and would not have maintained mindfulness of dharma. Since this has brought dharma to my attention again, it is the guru's or the jewels' activity, and I am very grateful.

To sum up, whoever thinks and acts out of a concern to achieve his or her own well-being is a worldly person; whoever thinks and acts out of a concern to achieve the well-being of others is a dharma person. Langri-tangpa has said:

I open to you as deep a teaching as there is. Pay attention! All faults are our own. All good qualities Are the lords', sentient beings. The point here is: give gain and victory to others, take loss and defeat for ourselves. Other than this, there is nothing to understand.

From The Great Path of Awakening : An Easily Accessible Introduction for Ordinary People by Jamgon Kongtrul, translated by Ken McLeod. Copyright 1993 by Ken McLeod.
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.

Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path of Right Views, Right Thoughts, Right Speech, Right Conduct [Action], Right Livelihood, Right Effort or Lifestyle, Right Recollection [Mindfulness], and Right Meditation [Concentration] was preached by the Buddha to his first five disciples at Benares, and it remains for us the basic guide for our lives as Buddhists. It begins with Right Views and ends with Right Meditation, but each element of the path depends on all others, so really there is no first step and no last step. The key word is right, from words in Sanskrit and Chinese that mean upright, straight, right, correct. Finding what is upright in attitude, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and meditation, and then doing it - this is our life work.

-Robert Aitken, Encouraging Words
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

What's the Rush?

Most of the time we go through the day, through our activities, our work, our relationships, our conversations, and very rarely do we ground ourselves in an awareness of our bodies. We are lost in our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our stories, our plans.

A very simple guide or check on this state of being lost is to pay attention to those times when you feel like you are rushing. Rushing does not have to do with speed. You can rush moving slowly, and you can rush moving quickly. We are rushing when we feel as if we are toppling forward. Our minds run ahead of ourselves; they are out there where we want to get to, instead of being settled back in our bodies. The feeling of rushing is good feedback. Whenever we are not present, right then, in that situation, we should stop and take a few deep breaths. Settle into the body again. Feel yourself sitting. Feel the step of a walk. Be in your body.

The Buddha made a very powerful statement about this: Mindfulness of the body leads to nirvana. Such awareness is not a superficial practice. Mindfulness of the body keeps us present.

-Joseph Goldstein, Transforming the Mind, Healing the World
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

How to be angry....

[This post is quoted from the blog at Wildmind.org, where they have wonderful online meditation courses, and inspiring resources. I found it a real paradigm shift to consider HOW to be angry, rather than find ways to annihilate anger. I hope you find it useful as well. -- your blogger pal]

Once when I was listening to the Dalai Lama talk in Edinburgh, he was asked a question that went something like this: “You keep talking about changing the world through meditation and compassion, but isn’t anger faster?” His Holiness answered to the effect that it’s precisely because anger acts so swiftly that we have to be wary of it.

His Holiness’s reply reveals Buddhism’s ambivalent attitude to the emotion of anger. Anger’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact it can accomplish a lot of good in the world. Anger can simply be a passionate response to something that we know in our hearts is wrong. His Holiness has himself admitted that he frequently feels angry when he thinks about injustice, and particularly the way that the Communist Chinese have treated his homeland and his people. It’s natural — and even right — for us to feel anger in such circumstances. We’d scarcely be human if we didn’t.

At the same time, anger can be such a powerful force that we lose our mindfulness and find that
the heart has become filled with ill will or hatred, which is a desire to hurt others. We move from being angry to wanting to punish or wanting revenge. Just as the Dalai Lama says he experiences anger towards the Chinese, he also says he holds no hatred for them in his heart.

Hatred, with its inherent desire to hurt and damage others is never seen in Buddhist practice as being an appropriate response. Anger may be passionate and fiery, but it simply wants to remove an obstacle or to change things for the better, not to hurt.

Yet although anger and hatred are different emotions — one potentially skillful, the other very definitely unskillful — many people fail to see the distinction. The experience of being angry — the sense of physical arousal, the quickened pulse, the tingling in the hands as we prepare for action — is in many ways very similar to the experience of hatred. And anger, once aroused, can easily lead to the less healthy emotion of hatred, just as a campfire can lead to a forest conflagration.

So how can we teach children — and ourselves — to experience anger in a healthy way? Here are seven steps to a healthier relationship with anger.

1. First, we can learn to accept that anger is a normal, healthy, and potentially creative form of energy. Too often we’ve been taught, as Abbott suggests, that anger is something to be avoided and believe that we’ve failed when anger has stirred. When we try to confine our anger it’s inclined to burst out uncontrollably, or to gnaw us away from the inside, as resentment. When we accept our anger we can relate to it in a more healthy way.
   
2. Second, breathe! Create a sense of space between you and your emotions by breathing deeply into the belly. Connecting with the body helps stop our emotions spiraling out of control, keeps them in perspective, and helps us to calm down so that we don’t do or say anything rash. If you’re angry when you receive an email, don’t reply at once but wait until you’ve had time to quiet your mind and reflect more calmly.
   
3. Third, we can appreciate that our anger is our anger. Other people don’t make us angry. Our anger is not their fault. Our anger, rather, is our response to our interpretation of our experience. We need to own our anger and to see that it’s something we’ve given rise to, ourselves.
   
4. Fourth, we can learn to recognize the difference between anger and hatred. To do this requires a great deal of introspective practice, especially since it’s harder to be mindful when our energy is aroused in anger. We have to examine our motivations, our thoughts, and our words: Do we have a desire to hurt? Do we use belittling, condescending, or insulting language? Are we fixated on winning at any cost? Do we distort the truth? Do we still feel a basic sense of sympathy, friendliness, and compassion towards our opponent?
   
5. Fifth, we can acknowledge our hurt. Often anger arises in response to a sense of hurt. Even when someone else has suffered an injustice, this can lead to a sense of hurt arising in our own experience. And that in turn can lead to anger. When we mindfully acknowledge the sense of hurt that we ourselves are experiencing we find that we’re less inclined to lash out.
   
6. Sixth, we have to be prepared to let go of our anger. Healthy anger arises quickly and departs quickly. It doesn’t hang around and fester.
   
7. Seventh, and lastly, we can cultivate lovingkindness in our meditation practice and in daily life. As we go about our daily activities we can repeat phrases such as “May you be well; may you be happy; may you live in peace.” The basic sense of sympathy that this practice helps cultivate makes it easier to avoid anger in the first place and makes it possible for us to experience anger “cleanly,” without it slipping into hatred.
   

These seven steps can help us to experience anger less frequently, less intensely, and more cleanly. Rather than experiencing anger as a destructive force we can use it creatively. Rather than our anger hurting people it can become a powerful tool for putting our compassion into action.

What is karma, anyway?

In simple terms, what does karma mean? It means that whatever we do, with our body, speech, or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is pregnant with its consequences. It is said by the masters that even a little poison can cause death, and even a little seed can become a huge tree. And as Buddha said: "Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain." Similarly he said: "Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel." Karma does not decay like external things, or ever become inoperative. It cannot be destroyed "by time, fire, or water." Its power will never disappear, until it is ripened.

 

- Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying from Everyday Mind,

Even Though You are Distracted, if You can do it, it is Still Mind Training

What does he mean by 'if you can do it?' This is of great importance. If you can be attentive to your inattention, if you can be aware that you have fallen into the trap of the negative, it is still meditation, it is still mind training, you are still growing.

Yes, many times you will fall, it is natural. And many times you will forget, it is natural. And many times you will be trapped and it will take time for you to remember. But the moment you remember, remember TOTALLY. Wake up totally and say "I have fallen".

And see the difference: If you ask the ordinary religious person he will say "Repent- punish yourself." But Atisha is saying: if you are attentive, that's enough. Be attentive to your inattention, be aware that you have not been aware, that's all. No repentance is needed... To fall many times is not something to feel guilty about. To commit errors, to go astray, is part of our human frailty and limitations. So there is no need to repent.

Repentance is ugly. It is like playing with your wound, fingering your wound. It is unnecessary, and not only unnecessary but harmful - the wound may become septic, and fingering the wound is not going to help it heal either.

If you have fallen, just know that you have fallen, with no guilt, with no repentance. There is no need to go anywhere to confess it, just knowing it is enough. And knowing it, you are helping your awareness to grow. Less and less will you fall, because knowing will become more and more strong in you.

From The Book of Wisdom : Discourses on Atisha`s Seven Points of Mind Training, by Osho
Used by kind permission of Osho Foundation International

Hidden wealth?

Imagine a very poor man living in a decrepit little shanty, the only thing he owns in the world. What he does not know is that just beneath his shanty, but hidden in the dirt, is an inexhaustible vein of gold. As long as he remains ignorant of his hidden wealth, this pauper remains in poverty; but when he attends more closely to his own dwelling, he is bound to discover his own fathomless wealth. Similarly, all we need to do is unveil our own nature, and we will find an inexhaustible source of wisdom, compassion, and power. It is nothing we need to acquire, from anywhere or anything. It has always been there. Seen in this light, the Buddha-nature requires no additions. One does not have to memorize sutras, recite prayers or accumulate virtues to create it. All one needs to do is unveil it.

 

--B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up

Guerilla Bagging!

Let's do something positive to reduce the hideous number of plastic bags being used - 1 million are consumed per minute globally - of which hundreds of thousands end up in the oceans.

 

The idea is to get together with people in your local community, enjoy beverage and conversation, and make reusable cloth bags (from old duvet covers, curtains from charity shops etc) and hand them out to the unsuspecting public for free on specified dates outside different supermarkets. (That's the guerilla part. No. Not gorillas.)

 

Meet new people, do something marvellous for the planet and beat other pods (groups) of baggers with your morsbag tally.

 

Go to www.morsbags.com to be a part of a wonderful thing!

 

p.s. non-commercial/ non-profitable - just full of beneficial things for everyone, especially whales!

 

I'm thinking of starting a pod of morsbaggers... to save a pod of whales.

 

Leave a comment. What do you think!?

Doctor WHO?

Doctor Buddha, of course...

 

Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively. It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness. One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second optimistic. Both are equally dangerous. But a third physician diagnoses the symptoms correctly, understands the cause and the nature of the illness, sees clearly that it can be cured and courageously administers a course of treatment, thus saving his patient. The Buddha is like the last physician. He is the wise and scientific doctor for the ills of the world.

 

- Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

What seeds are resting in the desert of your mind?

How is it that harmful results follow from harmful actions? It is by the force of an imprint placed on our mind that the potential to experience future suffering comes about. For example, a person who commits murder plants a very strong negative impression on his or her own mind and that impression, or seed, carries with it the potential to place that mind in a state of extreme misery. Unless the impression of that non-virtuous action is purified this latent seed will remain implanted in the mind, its power dormant but unimpaired. When the appropriate circumstances are eventually met, the potential power of this impression will be activated and the seed will ripen as an experience of intense suffering. . . . The situation is analogous to that of an arid piece of ground into which seeds were placed a long time ago. As long as these seeds are not destroyed somehow, they will retain their potential to grow. Should the ground be watered sufficiently these long-forgotten seeds will suddenly sprout forth. In a similar fashion our karmic actions plant their seeds in the field of our consciousness and when we encounter the proper conditions these seeds will sprout and bear their karmic fruit.

 

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

I am what I think. (and you can too!)

In a well-known phrase, the Buddha said, Hatred can never cease by
hatred. Hatred can only cease by love. This is an eternal law. We can
begin to transcend the cycle of aversion when we can stop seeing
ourselves personally as agents of revenge. Ultimately, all beings are
the owners of their own karma. If someone has caused harm, they will
suffer. If we have caused harm, we will suffer. As the Buddha said in
the Dhammapada:

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
and trouble will follow you
as the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart...
Speak or act with a pure mind
and happiness will follow you
as your shadow, unshakable.

Happiness and unhappiness depend on our actions.

--Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Does this work for you?

Begin the Development of Taking With Yourself

You cannot do anything with others that you have not done in the first
place with yourself. you can hurt others if you have hurt yourself,
you will be a pain in the neck to others if you are a pain in the neck
to yourself, you can be a blessing to others only if you are a
blessing to yourself.
..
Rather than starting by taking the whole misery of the world and
absorbing it into your heart, start with your own misery. Don't go
into the deep sea so fast; learn swimming in shallow water... You can
say to yourself "Yes, I am taking the misery of the whole world" - but
what do you know of the misery of the whole world? You have not
experienced even your own misery.

We go on avoiding our own misery. If you feel miserable, you put on
the radio or the TV and you become engaged. You start reading the
newspaper so that you can forget your misery, or you go to the movies,
or you go to your woman or your man...just somehow to keep yourself
away from yourself, so that you need not look at how much it hurts
within.

First, you have to begin with yourself. If you are feeling miserable,
let it become a meditation. Sit silently, close the doors. First feel
the misery with as much intensity as possible. Feel the hurt. Somebody
has insulted you: now, the best way to avoid the hurt is to go and
insult him, so that you become occupied with him. This is not
meditation.
..
If somebody has insulted you, feel thankful to him that he has given
you the opportunity to feel a deep wound...Just close the room, sit
silently, with no anger for the person but with total awareness of the
feeling that is arising in you - the hurt feeling that you have been
rejected, that you have been insulted. And then you will be surprised
that not only is this man there: all the people who have ever insulted
you will start moving in your memory... Stop all occupation, because
that too is a subtle drug. Just be silent, utterly alone. Don't even
pray, because that again is a drug, you are becoming occupied, you
start talking to God, you start praying, you escape from yourself.

Atisha is saying: just be yourself. Whatsoever the pain of it and
whatsoever the suffering of it, just let it be so. First experience it
in its total intensity. It will be difficult, it will be
heart-rending: you may start crying like a child, you may start
rolling on the ground in deep pain, your body may go through
contortions. You may suddenly become aware that the pain is not only
in the heart, it is all over the body - that it is aching all over,
that it is painful all over, that the body is nothing but pain.

If you can experience it - this is of tremendous importance - then
start absorbing it...Absorb it, drink it, accept it, welcome it, feel
grateful to it. It may take a few days for you to be able to digest
it, but the day it happens, you have stumbled upon a door which will
take you really far away. A new journey has started in your life, you
are moving into a new kind of being - because immediately, the moment
you accept the pain with no rejection anywhere, its energy and its
quality changes. It is no longer pain.

In fact one is simply surprised, one cannot believe it, it is so
incredible. One cannot believe that suffering can be transformed into
ecstasy, that pain can become joy.
..
Whenever anything is total it transforms into its opposite. This is a
great secret to be remembered...You will not believe it when it
happens the first time, that your own suffering absorbed willingly,
welcomingly, becomes a great blessing. The same energy that becomes
hate becomes love, the same energy that becomes pain becomes pleasure,
the same energy that becomes suffering becomes bliss.
..
Ride on the incoming breath and your small heart is bigger than the
whole universe, if you know what miracles it can do... Then let
blessings go riding on the outgoing breath to all the nooks and
corners of existence.

Atisha says: This is compassion. Compassion is to become a
transforming force in existence - transforming the ugly into the
beautiful, kissing the frog and transforming it into a prince,
transforming darkness into light. To become such a medium of
transformation is compassion.

From The Book of Wisdom : Discourses on Atisha`s
Seven Points of Mind Training, by Osho
Used by kind permission of Osho Foundation International

Pay ATTENTION!!!

Nonviolence belongs to a continuum from the personal to the global,
and from the global to the personal. One of the most significant
Buddhist interpretations of nonviolence concerns the application of
this ideal to daily life. Nonviolence is not some exalted regimen that
can be practiced only by a monk or a master; it also pertains to the
way one interacts with a child, vacuums a carpet, or waits in line.
Besides the more obvious forms of violence, whenever we separate
ourselves from a given situation (for example, through
inattentiveness, negative judgments, or impatience), we kill something
valuable. However subtle it may be, such violence actually leaves
victims in its wake: people, things, one's own composure, the moment
itself. According to the Buddhist reckoning, these small-scale
incidences of violence accumulate relentlessly, are multiplied on a
social level, and become a source of the large-scale violence that can
sweep down upon us so suddenly. One need not wait until war is
declared and bullets are flying to work for peace, Buddhism teaches. A
more constant and equally urgent battle must be waged each day against
the forces of one's own anger, carelessness and self-absorption.

--Kenneth Kraft, Inner Peace, World Peace
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Near Enemies

The near enemies are qualities that arise in the mind and masquerade
as genuine spiritual realization, when in fact they are only an
imitation, serving to separate us from true feeling rather than
connecting us to it . . .

The near enemy of loving-kindness is attachment. At first, attachment
may feel like love, but as it grows it becomes more clearly the
opposite, characterized by clinging, controlling and fear.

The near enemy of compassion is pity, and this also separates us. Pity
feels sorry for that poor person over here, as if he were somehow
different from us . . .

The near enemy of sympathetic joy (the joy in the happiness of others)
is comparison, which looks to see if we have more of, the same as, or
less than another . . .

The near enemy of equanimity is indifference. True equanimity is
balance in the midst of experience, whereas indifference is withdrawal
and not caring, based on fear.

If we do not recognize and understand the near enemies, they will
deaden our spiritual practice. The compartments they make cannot
shield us for long from the pain and unpredictability of life, but
they will surely stifle the joy and open connectedness of true
relationships.

--Jack Kornfield, in A Path with Heart
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

The Emperor Has NO Clothes!!!

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point
out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a
half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

- Neil Gaiman

Analysis Paralysis?

A . . . great distraction at times are so-called "running commentary" thoughts such as, "Now I am not thinking of anything," "Things are going very well now," "This is dreadful; my mind just won't stay still" and the like . . . . All such thoughts should simply be noted as "Thinking," and, as Huang Po says, just "dropped like a piece of rotten wood." "Dropped," notice, not thrown down. A piece of rotten wood is not doing anything to irritate you, but is just of no use, so there is no point in hanging on to it. . . . Nor is there any need to try to retrace the links in a chain of associated thoughts, nor to try to ascertain what it was that first started the chain. Any such impulse should itself be noted simply as "Thinking," and the mind should revert to the breathing. However badly things have just been going, one should take up again at the only place one can--where one is--and go on from there.

 

- - Bhikkhu Mangalo, The Practice of Recollection

Toddler Mind,,,

"Discipline" is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. The words on this page won't do it. But look within and watch the stuff coming up-restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain-just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.

 

- Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

Don't share your grumbly mind space. OK????

Talking disparagingly about a third person is inviting the listener to share your grumbly mind space.

--Sylvia Boorstein

Where's Glurg when you need him?

Where is Glurg? Does anybody know?

We last saw Glurg sitting quietly by a river in the Mango forest. Peaceful, forlorn, whistfully mourning lost love, gleefully soaking up the mango juice, softly whimpering, thriving on the warmth of new love, and quietly meditating. Yes, Glurg was having a party of attitudes in his brain. Not exactly a roller coaster... More of a mini-putt.

The ideas and feelings start off moving in some direction, bounce off a wall, get distracted by some quirky hump in the landscape, tumble through a pipe in the darkness, and end up 270 degrees in the other direction and a level down.

And nothing changes. Glurg is there. Thoughts bouncing and bumbling on the artificial turf of the mind.

On a good day, Glurg watches the bouncing just as if it were perky colored balls on the mini-putt course. On a bad day... Glurg gets stuck in the tunnel of darkness not knowhing why he is rolling downhill and curving unexpectedly.

Stuck. That's the epitome of the darkness. Locked onto the careening balls and bouncing around wildly, forgetting to manage the trajectories of the mind. Mindlessly rolling and surprised by every bounce and bump in the turf.