The Noble Eightfold Path/Right View October 2, 2009
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Buddhahood, erroneous perceptions, illusion, interbeing, mindfulness, Noble Eightfold Path, Right View, transforming suffering, watering seeds
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On September 27 we read “The Noble Eightfold Path” and Chapter 9, “Right View” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching.
The Noble Eightfold Path: The Buddha described the Eightfold Path – Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration – in his first Dharma talk, continued teaching it for 45 years, and spoke of it to Subhadda in his last Dharma talk, telling him that wherever it is practiced, joy, peace, and insight are there. The name arya ashtangika marga, “a noble path of eight limbs,” suggests they inter-are; each contains and nourishes all the others.
Right View: Right View is a deep understanding of the Four Noble Truths: our suffering, the causes of suffering, the fact that suffering can be transformed, and the path of transforming it. Each of us has wholesome and unwholesome roots or seeds in the depths of our consciousness, and Shariputra described Right View as the ability to distinguish between them. Mindfulness practice helps us identify and water the wholesome seeds.
When we join our palms and bow to another person, we acknowledge the seed of Buddhahood, the capacity to wake up and understand things as they are, in that person. Acting in a wholesome way will help the seeds of happiness to grow. Acting in an unwholesome way waters the seeds of craving, anger, and violence in ourselves. We need to discuss and share with each other to deepen our understanding of this practice.
Our perceptions are at the base of our views, and in many cases these views are illusory. The Buddha advised us not to be fooled by our perceptions, and also taught that most of our perceptions are erroneous, bringing on most of our suffering, and preventing us from having Right View. To see clearly, we have to constantly ask ourselves, “Am I sure?”
To perceive always means to perceive something. The object of perception is not outside the subject. When we perceive the moon, the moon is us. When we smile at our friend, she is us. Looking at a flower, the flower is part of our consciousness, and when we see it, we see the cloud, the sunshine, the earth, and the minerals in it. The source of our way of seeing lies in our store consciousness. When we look at a cloud, whether it has the shape of a dog, a hammer, or a coat depends on our mind: our sadness, memories, anger – all the errors of subjectivity; then we praise, blame, condemn or complain based on these erroneous perceptions made of our afflictions. Whether we are happy or suffer depends on these perceptions. We believe only certain conditions make us happy; our preconceived notion of what happiness is prevents us from experiencing happiness. Touching reality deeply – inside and outside ourselves – liberates us from the suffering caused by wrong perceptions. This insight into reality is Right View.
We cannot explain an orange to someone who has not tasted one. Our children will not listen when we tell them what to do to avoid future suffering; we can only stimulate the seeds of Right View in them. A teacher cannot transmit Right View to us, but can help us have the confidence to entrust the seed of Right View to the soil of our daily life. We are the gardener, and the instrument for watering the seeds is mindful living.
Using the language of Zen, Master Tai Xu said, “As long as the tree is behind you, you can see only its shadow. If you want to touch the reality, you have to turn around.” “Image teaching” uses words and ideas; “substance teaching” communicates by the way you live. We practice to go beyond ideas to arrive at the suchness of things. As long as there is an idea, there is no reality, no truth. There are relatively right and wrong views, but looking deeply, all views are wrong views. Every view changes when seen from different points; from the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is absence of all views. The seeds of Right View are in us, but when we are beginning, they are obscured by many layers of ignorance, sorrow and disappointment. With learning and practicing Right Mindfulness, we see the seed of Buddhahood in everyone. This is Right View, “the Mother of All Buddhas, the energy of love and understanding that has the power to free us all.”
Two Final Commentaries, Heart Sutra December 7, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Avalokiteshvara, dualistic ideas, fear, gate gate, Heart Sutra, illusion, interbeing, mantra, mindful eating, mindful hugging, mindfulness, peace, Prajnaparamita, skandhas
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This week we read the final two of Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra in The Heart of Understanding. Summaries follow:
Freedom
The obstacles which are our dualistic ideas and concepts about birth and death, increasing and decreasing, inside and outside, Buddha and Mara, are no longer obstacles when we see them with the eyes of interbeing. Seeing this way, we are free of illusion and fear.
Svaha!
When you dwell in deep concentration of body, mind, and breath, you can look into and see things clearly. Avalokiteshvara looked deeply into the five skandhas, saw the nature of interbeing, and overcame all pain. During his state of joyful liberation, he provided us with a mantra. A mantra is a statement which, when uttered with one’s whole being, has the power to transform the world.
Avalokiteshvara’s mantra is, “Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.” One translation of this is “Gone, gone, gone all the way over, everyone gone to the other shore, enlightenment, svaha! “ Gate means gone, from suffering and forgetfulness to liberation and mindfulness; paragate means gone to the other shore; sam means everyone. Bodhi means light inside, enlightenment, or awakening. Svaha is a cry of joy or excitement, like “Welcome!” or “Hallelujah!” Study of the Heart Sutra with all body, heart and mind, accompanied by recitation of the mantra with all your being, will bring you real communication with Avalokiteshvara and will help to transform you in the direction of enlightenment. It is not just a chant or object of worship; it is a gift of Avalokita, a tool for liberation of all beings. This gift of non-fear is the heart of the Prajnaparamita.
The Prajnaparamita provides ground for making peace with ourselves. Peace and happiness in yourself help you begin to realize peace in the whole world. If you cannot give yourself peace, how can you share it with the world? When we do something as simple as eating a tangerine in genuine mindfulness, we work for peace. We do not struggle for enlightenment five or ten years from now. Each moment becomes real life. We eat a tangerine for eating a tangerine. We sit for sitting. We walk for walking, alive for each step in real life. This kind of mindfulness can be practiced when we eat breakfast or hold a child or look at another person. When we hug a relative, a spouse, or a friend, we should add conscious breathing to it. Three conscious breaths during a hug will multiply your happiness ten-fold. When eating, we can be happy to have such wonderful food, but we should also be mindful that many people, especially children, are suffering for lack of food. Seeing this way makes us sane, because it shows us that we can make peace with ourselves and the world.
“Each breath we take, each step we make, each smile we realize…is a necessary step in the direction of peace for the world.”
Two Commentaries on the Heart Sutra November 30, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Ananda, Buddha, death, emptiness, Heart Sutra, illusion, increasing and decreasing, interbeing, Mara, senses
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We continued our look at the Heart Sutra this week with two chapters from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra.
The Moon is Always the Moon
We worry that we are decreased upon our death by becoming a speck of dust. But just as a sheet of paper contains the sunshine, the logger, and the forest, a speck of dust contains all the universe. We cannot destroy anything. Though assassins wanted to reduce Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to nothingness, the assassins failed; these two men remain with us. They continue in other forms, including in us. Although the moon appears, as we see it, to increase and decrease, it remains the moon.
Buddha is Made of Non-Buddha Elements
This chapter enumerates the eighteen realms of elements (the dhatus).
1-6 are the sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind;
7-12 are the sense objects: form, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind;
13-18 are the contacts between the organs and their objects – the “six consciousnesses:” eyes + form brings sight; ears + sound brings hearing, etc.
The 18 realms cannot exist by themselves; each inter-is with each other.
Similarly, the twelve interdependent origins, such as birth and death, cannot exist by themselves; each relies on the others to be. The same applies to the Four Noble Truths. All are empty, and because they are empty, they exist. Understanding (prajna), the essence of the Buddha, has no separate existence. It is made of non-understanding elements, just as the Buddha is made of non-Buddha elements.
This is followed by a story of Ananda, Mara, and the Buddha. One day, Ananda was surprised to see Mara coming to visit the Buddha. Perceiving Mara as evil and the enemy of the Buddha, Ananda tries unsuccessfully to turn Mara away. Much to Ananda’s distress, the Buddha is excited to see Mara, greets him warmly, and invites him to sit down for tea.
Mara explains to the Buddha that he is tired of being Mara: tired of talking in riddles, of having to be tricky and look evil, tired of his disciples talking about social injustice, peace, liberation and non-violence. He wants to turn them over to the Buddha so he can become someone else. Ananda now fears that the Buddha will agree with Mara to trade places.
Instead, the Buddha listens compassionately and then replies that his disciples have credited him with things he hasn’t said, have built temples and statues of him to attract good food for themselves, and have packaged him and his teachings for commercial purposes. He says, “Mara, if you know what it is really like to be a Buddha, I am sure you wouldn’t want to be one.”
Happy Continuation November 17, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: ancestors, birth, continuation, death, dharma, emptiness, Heart Sutra, illusion, interbeing, Pure Land, reincarnation
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This week we read “Happy Continuation” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, The Heart of Understanding. A summary follows.
Things are dharmas: a human being, a tree, a cloud, the sunshine. So when the sutra says “All dharmas are marked with emptiness,” it means “Everything has emptiness as its own nature.” This is why things can be. This is a source of joy: “nothing can be born, nothing can die,” despite what our birth and death certificates say. Like the egg in the hen, you already existed inside your mother before you were born, so we should say “Happy Continuation Day” rather than “Happy Birthday!”
Nothing can ever become something from nothing. Even before conception, you were already there, half in your mother and half in your father; and before your parents, you were there in your grandparents and great grandparents. We have been, and are now, the cloud, the river, the air; the rock, gas, sunshine, fungi; a tree, a fish, a deer. This is not reincarnation; it is the history of life.
This is the case with death just as it is with birth. Something cannot become nothing. Scientists know that one form of energy can only become another form of energy. When a sheet of paper is burned, the smoke, heat, and ashes become other things, like a cloud or a rose, but not nothing. Looking deeply into your hand, you can see many generations of ancestors as well as yourself. You are the continuation; you have never died. A speck of dust has electrons traveling around it at 180,000 miles per second. “To return to a speck of dust will be quite an exciting adventure!” One speck of dust can be the Pure Land; one hair on the head of the person you ignore riding in the car beside you can be “the door opening to the ultimate reality.”
The red leaf you see on an autumn day is mother to the tree, communicating to it by a stem, as a child is connected to its mother by the umbilical cord. The idea that we are independent when the umbilical cord is cut is an illusion. We continue to rely on our mother for a long time, and we have several other mothers: the Earth, the cloud…there are hundreds of thousands of stems linking us to everything in the cosmos; therefore we can be. If you are not there, I am not here.
When the leaf goes back to the soil, it will continue to nourish the tree. It is not afraid; it knows nothing can be born and nothing can die. The cloud is not afraid; it has fun falling down as rain and becoming the river, the vegetables, the human being, the ocean. “It is a very exciting adventure.” If a wave sees only its form, it becomes afraid of birth and death; each wave is born and dies, but the water is free of birth and death. In a kaleidoscope, one beautiful sight follows another. Do not cry when the first spectacle disappears, because another appears. If you are the wave, become one with the water and you will not be afraid of going up and down, up and down.
But do not take Thay’s word for it. You must enter it, taste it, be one with it, when meditating, cooking, cleaning, walking. Look at things and see the nature of emptiness, see interbeing, and see that fear and pain, birth and death are just the spectacle in the kaleidoscope. Let us look and penetrate together, be one with the leaf or the cloud or the wave, and be free from fear. Thay says tomorrow he will continue to be a flower or a leaf, and will say hello to you. If you are attentive, you may recognize him and greet him, and he will be very happy.
