| Feb 29 @ 9:52 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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yashaenka
Posts: 4,639
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Mum, I thought you would find this interesting. Tathagata Zen teaches that self is space, incomplete emptiness. Emptiness is inherently clear, unattached, and selfless. This space is incomplete because it is embraced within and without by past and future. This space of self is utterly fluid. We turn our head to the right and we see flowers, we turn our head to the left and we see garbage. We have beautiful thoughts; we have terrible thoughts. Our subjectivity may react favorably to one, adversely to the other; but space freely reveals whatever arises. When we manifest our self as emptiness, subjectivity and objectivity manifest without the distortion of self-generated activity. Every moment Dharmakaya divides. The present arises embraced by past and future. This embrace is the momentary experience of our objective and subjective worlds. Every moment Dharmakaya reunites. Past, present, and future dissolve into the embrace of complete emptiness. Beat, square, dark, original, Buddhist Zen. Just shows that Zen is a tool which can be used by any and all belief systems and Zazen meditation in all forms is useful.
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| Feb 29 @ 4:53 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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I agree, Yash, that anyone can apply any teachings of the Buddha to their lives no matter what "faith" they are.
I know this is not what Martin was talking bout in his posts on thoughts and the present moment, but the Glimpse of the Day is about "thoughts"
February 29
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 sorrow 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, unshakeable.
---THE BUDDHA
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| Feb 29 @ 5:02 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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I read this Glimpse of the Day after I returned home from a field trip with 72 kindergarteners.
When riding on the bus to the children's museum, on of the teachers said "Mrs. ***** said we would crash on the way back".
Now I thought this was a rather ignorant statement but I didn't say anything.
Funny thing, on the way back we would have had a potentially fatal accident if not for the expertise of our driver. I then told the teacher that she need to tell Mrs. ***** not to throw out anymore negative thoughts.
That got me thinking. What really prevented the accident? Was it the karma of the bus driver? Or maybe the karma of the 18-wheeler pulling a load of concrete beams? Was it the combined karma of the passengers (mostly children) on the bus? Or maybe a combination?
I'd like to hear others thought on this.
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| Feb 29 @ 5:20 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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"If we are neither in the past nor in the future, then where are we? We are here, now. We have emerged from the past and we have not yet projected the future. When we can relate directly to the present moment in this way, it is very subtle, profound and powerful experience. From this point of view, death is taking place every moment. Every moment ceases, and that is the death of that moment. Another moment arises, and that is the birth of the next moment.
If we truly penetrate this experience, there is a sense of nonconceptuality - of clear awareness without thought. Whenever mind's steady stream of thought ceases, these is a sense of openness, of being nowhere, I am not talking about being "nowhere" in the mundane sense, In the conventional speech, when we say someone is nowhere, they are still somewhere. In this context, nowhere is actually nowhere. In this experience of the present, of nowness there is already a sense of non-solidarity, of dissolution.
From a tantric perspective, that is how we understand the bardo. We feel that we are neither here nor there, neither in the past nor in the future.
At this point, we begin to encounter the sense of dissolution that occurs constantly in our present life but is almost never noticed. When thought dissolves, we dissolve with it. Whoever we think we are dissolves into awareness that is free of the concept of self. In that very moment, we can directly experience the non-solidity of phenomena, the reality of emptiness, or shunyata. At the same time, there is so much energy present- so much so that it forms into another moment. The energy brings a sense of clarity that is so sharp, it is like a clear mirror in which mind can at last recognize itself. In this mirror of mind, we see the radiant yet transparent nature of our own awareness.
Whether we focus our minds on the perceptions of form, sound, smell and so forth, or on conceptual thoughts, or place our minds in a meditative state through the practices of shamatha and vipashyana, in every case there is this sense of nowness. When we look at it on the the subtle level, it is the same experience. We have the experience of being nowhere. There is a sense of groundlessness, of having no solid ground on which to stand; yet there we are. Being in that space is a somewhat mysterious experience. It is also the experience of bardo."
Mind beyond Death - Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
[Edited on 2/29/2008 5:26 PM]
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| Feb 29 @ 5:26 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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Mom, it is everything.
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| Feb 29 @ 5:35 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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Well, I was actually meditating at the time. 
KIDDING!
I WAS meditating, but I know the "I" was not the cause of the accident not happening. 
This is how my mind works now. Instead of just "thanking God" or what ever, I actually think of cause and effect and adding to my knowledge base.
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| Feb 29 @ 5:43 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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The bardos confused me when I first began my practice and when reading [I]The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rincophe, i was booged down and put the book aside for a while.
As I learned more, I was more able to understand what he was talking about.
There are four bardos:
1. The natural bardo of this life.
2. The painful bardo of dying.
3. The luminous bardo of dharmata.
4. The karmic bardo of becomming,
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| Feb 29 @ 6:21 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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Dont forget the other two.....
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| Feb 29 @ 7:09 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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The bardo of the dream state.
The bardo of meditation.
we just got home from the park
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| Feb 29 @ 7:28 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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Often they reference the four but they use the six Bardos but it doesnt really matter.
The dream Bardo is very interesting especially if you wake up in the Bardo.
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| Feb 29 @ 7:43 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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Is that like waking up, but you are not really awake....or you think you are not really awake?
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| Feb 29 @ 8:08 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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It is like waking up in the normal sense although that could be in multitude ways. One minute you are asleep, the next awake, wiping your eyes.
I remember once a long time ago of reading about a little boy that had nightmares. It really stressed him out to the point he was so frightened to go to sleep. His dad asked him what was so wrong. The little boy said a tiger kept coming to him when he was asleep and he was scared that it might eat him.
His dad said, "well, say hello to him and pat him on his head because he is a very friendly tiger and only wanted to play with you".
The little boy remembered this during his sleep and did exactly what his dad told him to do. He never had the nightmares again.
At the time I found this very profound. When I had nightmares I remembered this story and worked it too my own advantage. I have had many supernatural nightmares of the most scary kind in the past but remembered ways to realise their nature and hence they fade out.
A mantra that I use to say, "I shall sleep restfully and peacefully and when I awake I shall remember everything I have done in the astral world" say three times before going to sleep also has a profound effect. The dreams became clear. I did this for several years.
The Tibetans have another mantra because they practice that the dream state is the doorway. Rather someone else talk of that :)
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| Feb 29 @ 8:16 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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I wish I would have known that when I was younger. But even now, if I have a bad dream it is a BAD dream so I can use it now.
I remember you posting that phrase a long time ago and have used it. The dreams i remember, I remember clearly, but unfortunately many of them are lost.
I have had those dreams that you dream you are awake, but you are not. But then again you may be awake and the body is not.  That's what i was referring to above.
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| Mar 1 @ 1:39 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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"Why are there fierce protectors? Peaceful deities such as Tara have a certain energy that calms and gladdens our mind. But sometimes our mind is so belligerent and stuck that we need the kind of energy that goes "Pow!" to wake us up or to pull us out of unproductive behavior. For this reason, the Buddhas' wisdom and compassion appear in the form of these wrathful deities to demonstrate clean-clear wisdom and compassion that act directly. This active wisdom doesn't vacillate and pamper us. This wisdom doesn't say "Well, maybe," or "Poor you. You deserve to be treated well, not like that horrible person treated you." Instead, it's forceful: "Cut it out! Stop those false expectations and preconceptions right now!" Sometimes we need that strong, wise energy to be in our face to wake us up to the fact that our afflictions and old patterns of thought and behavior are making us miserable."
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| Mar 1 @ 5:24 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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Yes we do, for it is easy to fall in the dark pit and stay there huddled in our own selfishness and misery.
It's like disciplining a child. Sometimes they need rude awakening so they can see their unacceptable behavior.
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| Mar 1 @ 6:09 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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Today's Glimpse of the Day
March 1
The practice of mindfulness unveils and reveals your essential Good Heart, because it dissolves and removes the unkindness or the harm in you. Only when you have removed the harm in yourself do you become truly useful to others. Through the practice, by slowly removing the unkindness and harm from yourself, you allow your true Good Heart, the fundamental goodness and kindness that are your real nature, to shine out and become the warm climate in which your true being flowers.
This is why I call meditation the true practice of peace, the true practice of nonaggression and nonviolence, and the real and greatest disarmament.
As usual this hits home again as I am trying to teach my boy "mindfulness" when he is on the ball field.
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| Mar 2 @ 7:57 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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Martin666
Posts: 2,142
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There is often the understanding that “emptiness” or “voidness” (sunnata/shunyata) exists in the “in-between” places not occupied by a mental formation or sensory consciousness, or in the "in-between" place between the past and the future that we call the present. So for example, there is the statement: “Whenever mind's steady stream of thought ceases, these is a sense of openness, of being nowhere.” Or sometimes it is described as “gaps” in ongoing perception. And sometimes, too, it is "discovered" during deep jhanic meditation. Another interesting notion of how to perceive or find sunnata comes about when the observer is commanded to fix on the perceived emptiness of an object, for example, the emptiness of a bowl or a piece of blank white paper.
This “nowhere” is often called the “void,” and in later Buddhist traditions it has even been represented as showing a peek at the unconditioned itself. In some cases, the direct experiencing of it has even become the ultimate purpose of buddhist practice.
When the observer grasps at the experience of emptiness in these ways by believing in it’s ontological reality, and then thinks about it, he might be led to believe that he is experiencing sunnata.
In each of these cases, sunnata is believed to be experienced in the place where active consciousness is not found. And by consciousness here is meant the six types of conscious perception: input from the ear, eye, nose, taste, touch, smell, and mental formation (ideas). So that when active consciousness in any form is shunted aside or sidestepped or seen “beyond”, then there—in the in-between or the “beyond” place—can be found sunnata.
But what is even more profound is to understand that we need not wait for cessation, that we need not shunt aside or look in the in-between or “beyond” places not occupied by conditioned consciousness, to experience sunnata. Here is why: the Buddha taught that all conditioned phenomena themself—the five sensory consciousness and mental formations—are void, lacking in substance, fleeting, and insubstantial. That is where sunnata is to be found: within conditioned phenomenah themselves, not "between" them. So instead of “sunnata exists in the gaps between conditioned phenomenah,” it is “sunnata exists in conditioned phenomenah.”
Sunna Sutta SN35:
Then Ven. Ananda went to the Blessed One and on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, "It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?"
"Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ananda, that the world is empty. And what is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self? The eye is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Forms... Eye-consciousness... Eye-contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self.
"The ear is empty...
"The nose is empty...
"The tongue is empty...
"The body is empty...
"The intellect is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Ideas... Intellect-consciousness... Intellect-contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Thus it is said that the world is empty."
In other words, the empty world (sunna-loka) is synonymous with the concept of annata, “no self.” Conditioned objects, although they appear solid and real to us, are de-void of true substance. It is this lack of trtue self, substance, or "I-ness" that is sunnata. Sunnata is not found in the "gaps" between formations, it is found within the formations themselves.
How is consciousness itself void of substance if consciousness itself is a paramattha dhamma, or “ultimate reality?” Because we make the mistake of believing that anything "ultimate" or "real" must therefore be composed of true substance, when actually what is "ultimate" and "real" about it is that it is void of true substance. Sunnata.
[Edited on 3/2/2008 9:21 AM]
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| Mar 2 @ 10:34 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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ceecee1952
Posts: 126
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could be that is what i refer to as dissolving ...
thanks all for the questioning thoughts
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| Mar 2 @ 11:06 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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We should really say that phenomena, or sometimes called "apperances" is devoid of inherent existence. It really can be confusing when we talk of a phenomena having:
"The ear is empty...
"The nose is empty...
"The tongue is empty...
"The body is empty...
Because this isnt so. Although they have no inherent self they are not "empty" as in containing nothing. This is a wording problem. They are empty as in devoid of identity.
They are very real to us. That is a problem! Again, although devoid of inherent existence and are interconnected phenomena they do provide us with the best opportunity to attain enlightenment. They exist as all phenomena do from the "Ground" of all that there is.
Sunyata, ??????? (Sanskrit noun from the adj. sunya - 'void' ), Suññata (Pali; adj. suñña), stong pa nyid (Tibetan), Kuu, ? (Japanese) qo?usun (Mongolian) meaning "Emptiness" or "Voidness", is a characteristic of empirical phenomena arising from the fact (as observed and taught by the Buddha) that the impermanent nature of form means that nothing possesses essential, enduring identity (see anatta). In the Buddha's spiritual teaching, insight into the emptiness of phenomena (Pali: suññatanupassana) is an aspect of the cultivation of insight (vipassana-bhavana) that leads to wisdom and inner peace. The importance of this insight is especially emphasised in Mahayana Buddhism...
Wiki.
The Dalai Lama:
"One of the most important philosophical insights in Buddhism comes from what is known as the theory of emptiness. At its heart is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own experience in it, and the way things actually are. In our day-to-day experience, we tend to relate to the world and to ourselves as if these entities possessed self-enclosed, definable, discrete and enduring reality.
For instance, if we examine our own conception of selfhood, we will find that we tend to believe in the presence of an essential core to our being, which characterises our individuality and identity as a discrete ego, independent of the physical and mental elements that constitute our existence.
The philosophy of emptiness reveals that this is not only a fundamental error but also the basis for attachment, clinging and the development of our numerous prejudices. According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is simply untenable.
All things and events, whether ‘material’, mental or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence. To intrinsically possess such independent existence would imply that all things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely self-contained. This would mean that nothing has the capacity to interact with or exert influence on any other phenomena.
But we know that there is cause and effect – turn a key in a car, the starter motor turns the engine over, spark plugs ignite and fuel begins to burn… Yet in a universe of self-contained, inherently existing things, these events could never occur! So effectively, the notion of intrinsic existence is incompatible with causation; this is because causation implies contingency and dependence, while anything that inherently existed would be immutable and self-enclosed.
In the theory of emptiness, everything is argued as merely being composed of dependently related events; of continuously interacting phenomena with no fixed, immutable essence, which are themselves in dynamic and constantly changing relations. Thus, things and events are 'empty' in that they can never possess any immutable essence, intrinsic reality or absolute ‘being’ that affords independence."
The Dalai Lama on Shunyata.
[Edited on 3/2/2008 11:23 AM]
[Edited on 3/2/2008 11:27 AM]
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| Mar 2 @ 11:22 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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More on Shunyata
This had some interesting points on "Who am I?".
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