Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings August 2, 2009
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: bodhisattva, Buddha, buddhism, Dharma talks, Mahayana, Many-Schools Buddhism, Source Buddhism, sutras, Theravada
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On July 26, we read Chapter 5, “Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings” in Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings. Here’s a summary.
Listening to a Dharma talk, our job is not to compare it to our own ideas to see how it measures up and then accept or reject it; we learn nothing that way. Instead, we listen with an open mind and heart so the rain of the Dharma can penetrate the soil of our consciousness, just as the earth opens herself to the rain. A teacher doesn’t give us the truth; the seeds are already in us waiting to be watered.
Before his own realization of the path the Buddha tried various methods of suppressing his mind which did not work. For example: “I thought, Why don’t I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind?…As a wrestler might take the head and shoulders of someone weaker than he…I did this. I was bathed in sweat…and I was exhausted by these efforts….I was not able to tame my mind.” He was telling us not to practice this way, but later this passage was distorted and presented as a genuine practice method. We need to look at each sutra in light of the overall body of teachings to determine what might be a solid teaching and what might be incorrect.
There are three streams of teachings:
- Source Buddhism, the teachings the Buddha gave during his lifetime. Even during his lifetime many of the teachings were memorized and conveyed incorrectly. For 300 years after his lifetime, his teachings were transmitted only orally. Only one monk had memorized the entire canon, and after another hundred years he was persuaded to recite them so they could be written on palm leaves.
- Many-Schools Buddhism, 18 or 20 schools, each with its own recension of the Buddha’s teachings, written down in Pali in Sri Lanka. These may be viewed as “threads of a single garment.” Two remain today: the Tamrashatiya canon, the Southern Transmission or “Teachings of the Elders” (Theravada) in Pali; and the Sarvastivada canon in Sanskrit and Prakrit, the Northern Transmission, fortunately accessible because they were translated into Chinese and Tibetan. (The Buddha himself spoke none of these languages; he spoke a local dialect, and there is no record of his teachings in his own language.)
- Mahayana Buddhism, from the 1st or 2nd century B.C.E. Laypeople had been excluded from practice of the Dharma. The Mahayanists reacted to this, putting forth the ideal of the bodhisattva who practiced and taught for everyone’s benefit.
The three streams complement each other; Many-Schools and Mahayana Buddhism were needed to renew overlooked or forgotten teachings. “Buddhism needs to renew itself regularly in order to stay alive and grow.”
The sutra or Dharma talk is not itself insight, but is like a map of Paris which you should eventually put aside so you can actually enjoy Paris. It is like “a finger pointing to the moon. Do not mistake the finger for the moon.” The sutras are essential, but we must use our own intelligence and the help of a teacher and Sangha to understand them and put them into practice. We should feel lighter, not heavier; they should awaken us, not be additions to our storehouse of knowledge. Sometimes the Buddha did not reply to a question because he did not want his followers to be caught by even his own words or notions. Like a sculptor who draws on his knowledge to repair an ancient statue in order to study art, when we have an overall view of the teachings we can help fill in missing pieces.
Caring for the Environmentalist March 15, 2009
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: bodhisattva, buddhism, Diamond Sutra, engaged Buddhism, environmentalism, interbeing, life and death, mindfulness, non-discrimination
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Today we read Chapter 7, “Caring for the Environmentalist,” in Thich Nhat Hanh’s The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology. Here’s a summary:
Many people engage in work to relieve the Earth’s suffering, but lack the strength to sustain compassionate action. Inner peace, not power, money or weapons, provides real strength. With sufficient insight, we are not caught by difficult situations. The best way to care for the environment is to care for the environmentalist.
The Diamond Sutra, the most ancient text on deep ecology, can help us understand our connection with Mother Earth. In it, the Buddha tells us that if we are caught in the idea of a self, a person, a living being, or a life-span, we cannot help any being cross the ocean of suffering. These four notions prevent us from seeing reality.
Everything in the cosmos can be found in a flower: sunshine, earth, minerals, consciousness. Likewise the self is made of non-self elements; thus an isolated self cannot exist. The ancestors of humans, animals, plants and minerals can be found in a human being; thus we cannot discriminate between humans and non-humans, and we have to protect all non-human elements. Living beings are comprised of non-living being elements; hence we cannot discriminate against non-living elements. The distinction between life and death is not correct; life is made of death and death is made of life. They are two aspects of the same reality; hence the notion of life-span is a fiction. The ability to face death peacefully brings forth non-fear, non-anger, non-despair, allowing us to make small steps in our work and avoid burning out. When we discard distinctions between self and non-self, and living beings and non-living beings, when we respect other beings besides human ones, when we understand that life and death are one reality, we can work to protect the environment with enough energy to be a bodhisattva on the path of action.
It’s important to stay in touch with suffering in order to be compassionate. But we also must embrace positive elements, seeing people living mindfully and in a loving manner, to remain strong and confident. Practicing mindful breathing, walking, and working, we become a positive element in society. It’s important to live in a way that demonstrates that a future is possible. If we use anger as a source of energy, we do harm. Feeling compassion is not enough; we have to express it. Love must always go with understanding.
Buddhism that is not engaged is not Buddhism. “Engaged Buddhism” is the combination of the activities of daily life with the practice of mindfulness. This kind of engagement is essential, especially in the face of war or social injustice. How can you sit in meditation when people’s homes are being bombed, neighbors are becoming refugees, and wounded children are crying? You must do what you can to relieve their suffering, but if you abandon your mindfulness practice you will not be able to continue for long. Social and relief work done without mindfulness cannot be described as engaged Buddhism. Anger and disappointment are part of us; we should not suppress them, but return to mindful breathing and recognize them with loving kindness, generating energy of being in touch. With understanding and compassion on a collective level, we need to help, not punish, those who in pain and loneliness are unintentionally destroying themselves, society, and the planet. This way we bring liberation to all of us.
A Global Ethic January 19, 2009
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: bodhisattva, Buddha, Buddhist ethic, consumption, Earth Holder, five mindfulness trainings, five precepts, global ethic, Holy Spirit
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This week’s dharma reading was Chapter Two, “A Global Ethic,” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The World We Have. A summary follows.
The Buddha in us must evolve to remain relevant, since the sufferings of our times are different from those of Siddhartha’s time. The Buddha of our time wants to offer a global ethic so that we can protect all species and restore harmony. We are a continuation of the Buddha; we can help continue what he began 26oo years ago.
Dharanimdhara, or Earth Holder, is the bodhisattva who preserves and protects the Earth. Like an architect or engineer who creates space or builds bridges and roads, her job is to help us communicate and protect the planet. We should recognize and collaborate with her.
Although the skin of an orange remains the skin and the sections remain the sections, it is all “orange.” Similarly, though we may be French or Japanese, or Buddhists or Christians, we don’t have to be transformed to live and work in harmony. But harmony is not possible without a global ethic, and the global ethic of the Buddha is the Five Mindfulness Trainings. They are concrete and nonsectarian, and are found at the roots of any tradition; they can be adopted by anyone. They are: to refrain from killing; to refrain from stealing and social injustice; to refrain from sexual misconduct; to refrain from unmindful speech and refusal to listen; and to refrain from unmindful consumption. (For the complete Five Mindfulness Trainings, see our Mindfulness Trainings page.)
The Fifth Training, on mindful consumption and mindful eating, contains the solution to our world’s dilemma. By learning what to consume and what not to consume, we keep our bodies, our minds, and the Earth healthy, and do not cause suffering for ourselves and others. We become the hands and arms of the Earth Holder, able to act quickly.
The Buddha resides inside us as energy, just as in the Christian tradition the Holy Spirit is the energy of God. Wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is healing and love. We can speak in the same way of concentration, mindfulness, and insight, which give rise to understanding, compassion, forgiveness, joy, transformation and healing. “If you are inhabited by that energy, you are a Buddha, at least for the moment.”
Empty of What? October 26, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva, emptiness, Heart Sutra, interbeing, skandhas
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This week we continued our study of the Heart Sutra by way of The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh. This week’s reading was the second commentary, “Empty of What?”
The Heart Sutra is a gift to us from the bodhisattva Avalokita (Avalokiteshvara, also known as Kwan Yin, Quan Am or Kannon). Knowledge can be an obstacle to understanding. As we acquire knowledge or views, we have to be able to transcend them, one step at a time, in order to reach understanding. According to the concept of interbeing a sheet of paper contains everything, but according to Avalokita it is empty, and the five skandhas are empty. Empty of what? “Empty” doesn’t mean anything unless you know “empty of what.”
The five skandhas are like five rivers, all flowing together into one river in us: the river of form (our body), the river of feelings, the river of perceptions, the river of mental formations, and the river of consciousness. When Avalokita says they are empty, he means empty of a separate self alone. Each is made of the other four. They must co-exist, must inter-be. The components of our bodies – lungs, heart, kidneys, stomach, blood – cannot exist alone, rely on the existence of each other. A sheet of paper is empty of an independent self; it is all the things that make it up: sunshine, clouds, trees, logger. Empty of a separate self means full of everything. Form is empty of a separate self, but “full of everything in the cosmos,” as are feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
Heart of Understanding: Preface, Interbeing October 24, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: bodhisattva, Heart Sutra, interbeing, mindfulness bell, Thich Nhat Hanh
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This week we began reading The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, by Thich Nhat Hanh (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1988). Laurie read the text of the sutra, and then together we read the preface by the book’s editor, Peter Levitt, and Thay’s first commentary, “Interbeing.”
Preface: The Heart Sutra is the essence of Buddhist teaching, recited daily in Buddhist communities throughout the world for the past 2,000 years. Levitt describes Thich Nhat Hanh’s efforts since 1987 to help Americans develop “the true face of ‘American Buddhism’.” He describes the activities of Thay’s retreats, including the invitation of the bell, a “bodhisattva” that “helps us to wake up” in the midst of performing our daily chores. Not only the bell, but anything that helps us wake up and relax into the present moment can be a bodhisattva. “Buddhism is a clever way to enjoy life.” We should read this book just like listening to a bell. When it rings, we can put the book down and listen to its sound echo within us.
“Interbeing:” Looking at the paper this book is printed on, we can see a cloud is essential for the paper to exist. The cloud brings rain; the rain helps the tree grow; we need the tree to make the paper. The cloud and the paper inter-are. The sunshine, the logger who cut down the tree, the wheat in the bread eaten by the logger, the logger’s mother and father: all these things are essential to the paper. When we look at the paper, it becomes part of our perception. Our minds are here in this paper. Everything, excluding nothing, co-exists in the paper. You cannot be alone; you have to inter-be with everything else. The paper is made up of non-paper elements; if you take any element away – the sunshine, the logger’s mother – the paper can no longer exist.
But the Heart Sutra seems to say the opposite: that all things are empty. What does this mean?
Realizing Ultimate Reality August 17, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: birth, bodhisattva, children, death, historical dimension, meditation, nirvana, suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh, ultimate dimension, water, wave
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Our dharma reading for this and last week was “Realizing Ultimate Reality” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living, (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992, pp. 117-128). Here’s a summary.
Life has two dimensions: the historical dimension, which is like a wave, and the ultimate dimension, which is like the water beneath. Learning how to touch the water beneath the wave brings us the greatest fruit meditation offers. The historical dimension, the world of waves, is characterized by birth and death, ups and downs, being and non-being. Water, representing the ultimate dimension, does not have these characteristics. Touching it, we are liberated from these concepts.
As 2nd-century philospher Nagarjuna says, nothing can be born from nothing. There is no birth, no death; only continuation. “Instead of singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ we can sing ‘Happy Continuation.’” (p. 118) We are all continuations of our parents and ancestors, and our children continuations of us. We can give solace to others, and take solace ourselves, that we all pass on the good things we have learned, and that when our body departs, we will continue in many other forms.
Who can say that your mother has “passed away?” The notions of being and non-being, alive and dead, belong to the historical dimension. In the ultimate dimension, she is still with you. The same would be true of a flower or a leaf. They are playing hide-and-seek; we can touch them anytime we want. Perhaps this is their game, to teach us to practice peace and happiness. The Buddha said, “When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body is. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body is not.” (p. 120) If you know how to touch your mother in the ultimate dimension, you can see that she is in you, smiling.
Nirvana, the extinction of all notions and concepts, including birth and death, being and non-being, coming and going, is available right now when you breathe, walk, or drink your tea mindfully. “You have been ‘nirvanized’ since the very non-beginning.” (p. 121) We are capable of touching the ultimate dimension; we just need to learn how to do it more deeply and more frequently. “Thinking globally” is an example of touching the ultimate dimension.
Dwelling in the historical dimension, we will be tossed about on the waves of daily events: a bad day at work, waiting in a long line, a bad phone connection. But in the ultimate dimension, visualizing these events, say, a hundred years from now, they lose their significance entirely. We are capable of touching the ultimate dimension. Thay says that when he is aware of his feet on the ground in Plum Village, he is also aware that he is touching France, Russia, India, China, the whole Eurasian continent, the whole Earth. When practicing walking meditation, you see that you are touching the whole beautiful planet Earth with each step.
Touching the ultimate dimension gives us the deepest kind of relief, deeper than other practices. When you touch one thing or one moment with deep awareness, you touch all things in all the past and all the future. According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, “The one contains the all.” (p. 123) We suffer if we touch the waves (the historical dimension), but feel relief when we learn to stay in touch with the water (the ultimate dimension). Meditation helps us learn that the two, the waves and the water, the historical and ultimate dimensions, are one.
Thay tells of a dream in which he and his brother were in a marketplace where all the items represented events from his life or experiences of suffering. As he touched each, feelings of sorrow and compassion arose. Also on display were childhood notebooks containing accounts of many experiences which he had forgotten, or which he had dreamed, or which were from previous lives. Now, the man who had brought them to the marketplace, sounding like God or Destiny, told him, “You will have to go through all of this again!” He felt like he had experienced all this suffering, racial discrimination, ignorance, despair, sorrow, political oppression, war and death through many lifetimes already. Now that they had reached a place of space and freedom, did they have to go through it again? But he faced the man with determination and said, “I will do it thousands of times more if necessary. All of us will do it together!”
Upon awaking from the dream, he thought he had to die soon in order to begin the journey anew. But looking more deeply, he discovered the man represented the seed of fear or laziness arising from his own store consciousness. His first reaction had been in the historical dimension, but his second was in the ultimate dimension, of no birth and no death, and, feeling solidarity with the children everywhere, he became willing to undergo all the hardships with them countless times. He also saw that all of us are ready to join him, bringing along all our collective wisdom and freedom.
In addition to the historical dimension and the ultimate dimension, there is the action dimension of all the bodhisattvas practicing engaged Buddhism, helping in whatever ways they can to transform suffering and offer relief. All of us, Thay’s brothers and sisters, are those bodhisattvas riding the waves of birth and death, ready to join the children in facing the challenges before us.
Love in Action July 6, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: anger, awakening, bodhisattva, consciousness, George H.W. Bush, Iraq, peace, suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh, violence, war
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This week’s dharma reading was Chapter Seven, “Love in Action,” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living, pp. 73-79. Here’s a summary:
We are all bodhisattvas, aware of what is happening and trying to help others wake up. But we are not perfect, of course. Whatever we are feeling, be it peace and joy or anger and hatred, vibrates throughout the cosmos. A bodhisattva angry at another bodhisattva sets up obstacles everywhere in the universe.
The first war in Iraq, ordered by President George H.W. Bush, caused suffering among many people in many places. Thich Nhat Hanh himself nearly canceled his planned trip to the U.S., but later relented and decided to go, realizing Americans working for peace needed his support and his sharing in their suffering. He understood that bodhisattvas and leaders like George H.W. Bush need help and understanding, expressed in language of love and intelligence; anger will not help. When ordering the ground attack, President Bush said, “God bless the United States of America,” but we must tell him, without anger, that God cannot bless one country against another. Simply electing another president will not transform the situation. We can only transform greed and violence in ourselves and our society by changing our own consciousness and our own way of life.
The soldiers in America and other countries and in Iraq could only do what they did by plunging their bayonets into sandbags, practicing killing during the day, and even in their dreams at night. Only in this manner could they become inhuman, learning to kill, practicing fear and violence, in order to survive. The war came, the killing was massive, and we called it a victory. The troops that returned were deeply wounded from practicing violence both in reality and in their consciousness. Generations following them would receive their seeds of violence and suffering. Their wounds will be with us for a long time. How can we call this a victory?
From war, young people learn to see violence as a way to solve problems, making it easier to support the next war. To protect life, we have to see the reality, the true nature of war. Otherwise we will not be ready. Simply protesting the next war when it begins is not enough; that’s too late. We must practice peace now. If we establish peace in our hearts, war will not come.
Those who have experienced a war directly have a duty to communicate the reality of it to those who have not. “We are the light at the tip of the candle. It is very hot, but it has the power of shining and illuminating.” We can “wake people up,” so that we can “avoid repeating the same horrors again and again. The war is in us, but it is also in everyone.” Thich Nhat Hanh uses the example of Rodney King. Watching that incident, we were all beaten. But looking more deeply, we were also the policemen doing the beating. “They were manifesting the hatred and violence that pervades our society.” We are all co-responsible. We all suffer. We accept violence as a way of life, watering the seeds of violence, even by watching violent TV programs and movies. We must transform this violence, or it will be our own child beaten or doing the beating.
Take your little boy or little girl by the hand, away from TV, Nintendo, and war toys, for a slow walk in the park. Sit together, and look closely at the tiny yellow and blue flowers among the blades of grass. Contemplate these miracles together.
We Have Arrived May 19, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: ancestors, bodhisattva, Buddha, happiness, interbeing, Mara, present moment, Thich Nhat Hanh, walking meditation
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Today’s dharma reading was chapter four from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace. Here’s a summary. Please share any thoughts.
Thich Nhat Hanh relates a story about a friend who helped him organize a visit to India. He describes the friend’s discomfort and inability to relax due to the discrimination he has endured throughout his life as a member of India’s lowest social caste. We all struggle in a similar manner, forgetting that “we have arrived;” conditions for our happiness are already here in the present moment, not waiting for us sometime in the future.
The practice of stopping now and looking deeply halts the habit energy of the negative seeds we have inherited from our ancestors and our society, liberating both ancestors and future generations. This is the teaching of interbeing. If we do not liberate our ancestors, we remain in bondage and we will transmit that to our children and grandchildren. Touching the earth, stepping mindfully, we all arrive and find peace at the same moment.
Thay includes several other images to illustrate interbeing: a meeting between Sudhana and Mahamaya, the mother of the Buddha, sitting on lotus flowers of hundreds of millions of petals; millions of Diamond Matrix bodhisattvas giving exactly the same discourse at the same time all over the universe; all of us taking care of the baby inside us, thus taking care of everything. “The moon is in me. My beloved is in me. Those who make me suffer are also in me…there is no hatred or blaming…No one is afraid to die, because dying means being born as something else at the same time.”
Thay goes on to describe the appearances of Mara – anger, darkness, jealousy, craving, despair; skepticism; worldly ambition – to the Buddha. Siddhartha greets Mara with quiet gentleness, touching the Earth, calling on the Earth to testify for him. The Earth trembles and appears as a goddess, offering flowers, fruits, perfumes. Mara just disappears. Similarly, when we recognize Mara, and respond by touching the Earth and walking upon the Earth mindfully and joyfully, Mara goes away. Earth is our nourishment, our refuge, our healer.
Thay continues with a full description of walking meditation. He then concludes by telling us we need not struggle, nor hurry. When we smile, countless bodhisattvas smile with us, and our peace affects our ancestors and all future generations. “Peace is every step. We have already arrived.” (Touching Peace, 35-45)
