| Mar 14 @ 7:05 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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I have the book Dzogchen by HHDL. Does he write about it in there?
I am sure when this gets about, this is going to open a newer dimension towards Buddhism.
I'm sure it will, but I wonder if it might also attract people just to see if they can "do it" too.
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| Mar 15 @ 12:25 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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March 15
On that momentous night when Buddha attained enlightenment, it is said that he went through several different stages of awakening. In the first, with his mind “collected and purified, without blemish, free of defilements, grown soft, workable, fixed and immovable,” he turned his attention to the recollection of his previous lives. This is what he tells us of that experience:
I remembered many, many former existences I had passed
through: one, two births, three, four, five . . . fifty, one
hundred . . . a hundred thousand, in various world-
periods. I knew everything about these various births:
where they had taken place, what my name had been,
which family I had been born into, and what I had done. I
lived through again the good and bad fortune of each life
and my death in each life, and came to life again and
again. In this way I recalled innumerable previous
existences with their exact characteristic features and
circumstances. This knowledge I gained in the first watch
of the night.
I can't even begin to imagine what this was like.
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| Mar 16 @ 11:48 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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March 16
Lifetimes of ignorance have brought us to identify the whole of our being with ego. Its greatest triumph is to inveigle us into believing its best interests are our best interests, and even into identifying our very survival with its own. This is a savage irony, considering that ego and its grasping are at the root of all our suffering.
Yet, ego is so terribly convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become egoless terrifies us. To be egoless, ego whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain-dead vegetable
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| Mar 16 @ 1:16 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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To be egoless, ego whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain-dead vegetable
Isn't this what many are afraid of.....to let go meaning we let go of our emotions?
But this is not true. Lettings go gives an indescribable feeling of peace. Letting go allows compassion and love to flow outward and then back to the giver.
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| Mar 18 @ 6:56 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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March 18
As you continue to meditate on compassion, when you see someone suffer, your first response becomes not mere pity but deep compassion. You feel for that person respect and even gratitude, because you now know that whoever prompts you to develop compassion by his or her suffering is in fact giving you one of the greatest gifts of all, as you are being helped to develop that very quality you need most in your progress toward enlightenment.
That is why we say in Tibet that the beggar who is asking you for money, or the sick, old woman wringing your heart, may be the buddhas in disguise, manifesting on your path to help you grow in compassion and so move toward buddahood.
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| Mar 18 @ 7:14 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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uncrazy
Posts: 1,539
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Each person that presents themselve to me is but a hidden part of who I am. To love, honor and respect them is how I learn to do these things for me. To forgive them is how I learn that I am forgiven. Perhaps this discovery is what makes the word Namaste so special to me..."the God in me salutes the God in you
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| Mar 18 @ 7:15 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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| Mar 19 @ 6:27 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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March 19
I always tell my students not to come out of meditation too quickly. Allow a period of some minutes for the peace of the practice of meditation to infiltrate your life. As my master, Dudjom Rinpoche, said: “Don’t jump up and rush off, but mingle your mindfulness with everyday life. Be like a man who’s fractured his skull, always careful in case someone will touch him.”
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| Mar 20 @ 9:48 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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yashaenka
Posts: 4,639
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Controlling the essence.
There is a spirit that spontaneously resides within the person:
it comes and goes, none can anticipate it.
Lose it and one is certain to become disrupted;
grasp it and one is certain to become regulated.
Reverently sweep its abode
and the essence will spontaneously come.
Ponder it with tranquil thinking,
calm your recollections to regulate it.
Maintain a dignified appearance and a manner of awe,
and the essence will spontaneously become stable.
Grasp it and never release it,
and your ears and eyes will not go astray,
your mind will have no other plans.
When a balanced heart lies at the center,
the things of the world obtain their proper measures
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| Mar 20 @ 5:42 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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March 20
At the moment of death, our state of mind is all-important. If we die in a positive frame of mind, we can improve our next birth, despite our negative karma. And if we are upset and distressed, it may have a detrimental effect, even though we may have used our lives well. This means that the last thought and emotion that we have before we die has an extremely powerful determining effect on our immediate future.
This is why the masters stress that the quality of the atmosphere around us when we die is crucial. With our friends and relatives, we should do all we can to inspire positive emotions and sacred feelings, like love, compassion, and devotion, and all we can to help them to “let go of grasping, yearning, and attachment.”
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| Mar 21 @ 8:43 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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yashaenka
Posts: 4,639
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But Mom, where does one get a brace of monks to recite over them for a period of time to help them on their way as the Book of the Dead puts forth?
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| Mar 21 @ 6:07 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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I guess i you are in a monastery, then monks would be handy. 
For the rest of us, hopefully we will have a teacher or a close friend to help us on our way.
Sogyal Rinpoche speaks to this in his book ,The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying which I highly recommend even though I haven't read it all the way through yet.
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| Mar 21 @ 6:08 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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March 21
The most important thing is not to get trapped in what I see everywhere in the West, a “shopping mentality”: shopping around from master to master, teaching to teaching, without any continuity or real, sustained dedication to any one discipline. Nearly all the great spiritual masters of all traditions agree that the essential thing is to master one way, one path to the truth, by following one tradition with all your heart and mind to the end of the spiritual journey, while, of course, remaining open and respectful toward the insights of all others. In Tibet we used to say: “knowing one, you accomplish all.” The modem faddish idea that we can always keep all our options open and so never need commit ourselves to anything is one of the greatest and most dangerous delusions of our culture, and one of ego’s most effective ways of sabotaging our spiritual search.
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| Mar 21 @ 9:07 PM |
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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hrmmmm...... IM BACK!!!!  
One doesnt need a brace of monks!!!! Come on wake up!!!! What are we.... essentially????? Buddhas.... right? Sleeping, dosey, unawakened, unadulterated Buddhas.
Its great to have a bunch of chanting monks to help us through the Bardos of death and Becoming and its even great if we knew something about it. But alas, all is not lost if we are a lonely old Buddhist shacked away in some little lodge all lonely, frightened and dying on some desolate mountain top.
One doesnt need to be in front of ones Master to be there with him or his help. Or your ordinary friends and your dharma friends. Better still remembering who you are and waking up to that fact extinguishes any need for monks, Bardos, etcetera.
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| Mar 21 @ 9:31 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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12knots
Posts: 6,400
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I have to get back to these concepts - citta, especially. When meditating recognising... "this is anger", "this is thinking", "this is feeling"... "oh... and this is the shopping list" and "....this is sleepiness" and so forth.
You know how we are taught when meditating, letting awareness rise and recognising what is happening to us. I have often seen descriptions of meditating how to practice and what to do and then some bright spark comes along and says we need to recognise our emotions, thoughts, feelings and let go of them.
What the heck is this?????? Whats wrong with it? Do we really wish to be meditating for the rest of our lives trying to be aware of ourselves and not achieving the goal because thats what is going to happen.
Why?
Take "aggression" for example. We are sat on our meditation cushion and suddenly aggression arises. As soon as we recognise it we think this is aggression we must let go of it. Sometimes we may apply an antidote of happiness and aggression goes away. If we see anger arise because of a person we think compassion and it goes away.
Well, these things dont go away. Shock horror!!!! Here we are being taught to meditate and it could be wrong. Well it is wrong. They are only temporary fixes to the problem. It might make you a better person for a little while but it isnt going to get you to Buddhahood any time soon.
The crunch factor is that as soon as you recognise that raw emotion aggression and recognise it AS aggression..... you have lost the plot! You have just conceptualised it!!!!! Bingo!!!!! Thats the problem.
You see when it arises and you recognise it, it becomes very real and very solid, you have given that fresh experience solidity and realness, conceptualised it and now its stuck with you. You have missed the opportunity to recognise its true primordial nature. Its energy.
What to do...
When this emotion or any emotion or thought arise just experience it freshly just as it is, then it will naturally dissolves by itself - self liberating. It becomes self liberated with no need of any help.
Nothing made it dissolve all by itself neither you, me or us makes it dissolve. No factors in meditation or anything else makes it dissolve. It dissolves into space naturally and this is its primordial nature.
It is an entire waste of time to start listing all these emotions, thoughts and anything else. Once you recognise the primordial nature of one emotion then you recognise the primordial nature of all emotions. Just try it!!!!! Next time you start getting angry, or any other emotion just be aware of what is happening. Dont try to think this is "anger" or this is "aggression". As soon as you become away of what is happening it will dissolve.
This is why the best and greatest opportunities to become enlightened is when we are faced with the harshest of times in our lives. When we can recognise the opening to primordial nature our Buddha nature. These are the little patches of cloudless sky once recognised brings us to see our true nature of mind, the sky above the clouds.
Oh by the way, Buddhism IS NOT complicated. It is so simple its too easy!
People conceptualise and miss everything.
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| Mar 21 @ 9:31 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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 Welcome back!!
I have always been drawn to hospice work and someday I may take the plunge. Even in my early nursing career, I always loved working with the dying patient. Now I know why. My Buddha-nature was/is calling me to it.
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| Mar 21 @ 9:35 PM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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Oh by the way, Buddhism IS NOT complicated. It is so simple its too easy!
Buddhism is actually one of the easiest things I have done.
And I do see how we get carried away by "naming" our emotions.
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| Mar 22 @ 8:41 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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yashaenka
Posts: 4,639
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12 Congratulations you are making sense because what you put forth is almost identical to what Zen Taoist [not Zen Buddhist] have been saying long before the Buddha brought us his uncomplicated message.
As to Ego and Concepts you are 100% correct we just let things dissolve on their own, when the time is right it will happen as the situation presents itself.
As to meditation specifically forced Zazen, Taoist thought just sitting on your buns was a ludicrous way of attaining enlightenment. They thought of Zazen as something you do because you enjoy doing it, not something one Must do.
They thought of Zen as a tool sans religion or philosophy that allows one to live in the Now moment from moment to moment to not only see things as they really are but to live in the moment. When one had a Awakening Zen was something you could discard or keep, as it really was not needed any longer, but some enjoy Zazen [meditation].
To a Zen Taoist every moment is a meditative moment in the Now of their existence. All this sans any institutionalized version of what one must do, remarkable.
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| Mar 22 @ 11:01 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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This sounds a lot like the Dzogchen practice of Natural Mediation.....just sitting, just breathing, just being.
Lama Das has a book out on this with a guided mediation CD. I put it in my library and forget I had it until a few days ago.
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| Mar 22 @ 11:04 AM |
Buddhism - A New Beginning |
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BandTMom
Posts: 28,448
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 March 22The practice of mindfulness defuses our negativity, aggression, and turbulent emotions, which may have been gathering power over many lifetimes. Rather than suppressing emotions or indulging in them, here it is important to view them—your thoughts and whatever arises—with an acceptance and generosity that are as open and spacious as possible. Tibetan masters say that this wise generosity has the flavor of boundless space, so warm and cozy that you feel enveloped and protected by it, as if by a blanket of sunlight. |
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