Buddhism teaches respect and tolerance for other religions and speaking ill of anyone for their philosophy or religion is a transgression of the Dharma.  Not only does the Dalai Lama respect other faiths, he doesn’t seek converts.  His Holiness states, “People from different traditions should keep their own, rather than change.”

To a man who asked to become a Buddhist, the Dalai Lama replied, “Please don’t. Stay in your own religion, and meditate.”  Further , he has stated, “It is better to stick with the wisdom traditions of one’s own land than to run from them pursuing in exotica what was under your nose all the time.”

After all, love and compassion are the basic elements of every religion. Yet, His Holiness writes in The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace, “For certain people, Buddhism may simply not be an answer.  Different religions meet different people’s needs.  I do not try to convert people to Buddhism.  What I try to explore is how we Buddhists can make a contribution to human society in accordance with our ideas and values.”

His Holiness divides Buddhism into three categories: Buddhist science, Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist religion. Buddhist religion, he says, is the business of Buddhists, but Buddhist philosophy and science have universal application and need to be made available to the world.

“In conclusion, those who like myself, consider themselves to be followers of Buddha, should practice as much as we can. To followers of other religious traditions, I would like to say, “Please practice your own religion seriously and sincerely.” And to non-believers, I request you to try to be warm-hearted. I ask this of you because these mental attitudes actually bring us happiness. As I have mentioned before, taking care of others actually benefits you.” writes the Dalai Lama in Generating the Mind for Enlightenment.

The Samyutta Nikaya states:

“According to the seed that’s sown,
So is the fruit you reap there from,
Doer of good will gather good,
Doer of evil, evil reaps,
Down is the seed and thou shalt taste
The fruit thereof.”

Further On Up the Road

Further on up the road, someone’s gonna hurt you like you
hurt me
Further on up the road, someone’s gonna hurt you like
you hurt me
Further on up the road, baby you just wait and see
You got to reap just what you sow, that old saying is
true
You got to reap just what you sow, that old saying is
true
Like you mistreat someone, someone’s gonna mistreat
you
Now you’re laughing pretty baby, someday you’re gonna
be crying
Now you’re laughing pretty baby, some, someday you’re
gonna be crying
Further on up the road, you’ll find out I wasn’t
lying
Yeah, baby, further on up the road, baby, hmmm, you’ll
find out I wasn’t lying
Further on up the road, when you’re all alone and
blue
Further on up the road, when you’re all alone and
blue
You’re gonna ask me to take you back baby, but I’ll
have somebody new
Hmmm, baby, further on up the road Hmmm, baby, further on up the road

Hmmm, you’ll get yours

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”    -Galations 6.7

“You gotta reap just what you sow; that old saying is true.  Just like you mistreat someone, someone’s gonna mistreat you.” -Bobby “Blue” Bland

A perspicacious Mr. Bland chides the listener into more circumspect behavior by extolling the aptness and inevitability of karma in “Further on up the Road.”  Listen HERE. This song was written by Joe Medwich Veasey and Don D. Robey.

Karma demands that every act, no matter how insignificant, will eventually return to the doer with equal impact. Good will be returned with good; evil with evil.  The idea of reaping what you sow expresses the principle action of karma.  Karma may also be loosely thought of as the ethical law of cause and effect, poetic justice, what goes around comes around, the law of causality, or the chickens coming home to roost.

“Isness Is My Business.”   -J. T. Henry

Isness is the state of being fully present, in the moment, aware, unattached, mindful, awakened, and in the evernow.  Liz Mitten Ryan writes in Sabbatical:  Resting in the Miraculous Power of Isness , “Isness just is — it exists for all time, in all dimensions. It is not a brief interlude, a now experience, but a knowing and becoming — a fluent state of wisdom and grace that embodies all creation.”  Isness as an essential element of enlightenment.  In Letting go of the past and the future, we let go of our unhealthy and ungrounded states of mind.  We move from the world of the hypothetical to the real world. The eternal present calms our busy minds, eliminating hope, fear, and the ego.  Ryan elaborates “When thought ceases, quiet remains, and in that quiet, we let go of our physical identification and allow our spiritual truth to resonate within us.”  For more, read the article, “Isness” and the Moment. “The Evernow” is a song from the album “Sutras” by Donovan Leitch.

From within the endless sky

The silence surges softly through me

Listening to the desert sigh

In the presence for the Bo tree

Comes the dawning of the day

Dreaming as in a trance

Comes the rising of the moon

Weaving in Maya’s dance

The only thing to really learn

Living in the ever now

"Isness is my business." J. T. Henry

To only know the single moment

Living in the ever now

All things they must pass

That which is born will die

Existence as transient

Clouds in an autumn sky

Comes the dawning of the day

Dreaming as in a trance

Comes the rising of the sun

Nothing ever left to chance

The only thing to really learn

Living in the ever now

To only know the single moment

Living in the ever now

Life, as an impermanent phenomenon, is subject to the suffering of change.  John Len Chapman (aka Memphis_Slim ) lays down the bare facts about Impermanence and the great democracy of death in his song, Mother Earth.

Mother Earth

You can high hat me all the time.
You may never go my way.
But Mother Earth is laying for you,
Because there’s a debt you gotta pay.
You know, I don’t care how great you are
And I don’t care what you’re worth.

Because When it all ends up,
You’ve got to go back to Mother Earth.

You may own half a city
Or even diamonds and pearls.
You may buy an airplane, Baby,
And fly all over this world,
But I don’t care how great you are
And I don’t care what you’re worth

Because When it all ends up,
You know, you’ve got to go back to Mother Earth.

You may play the horse races.
You may own a race track.
You may have enough money
To buy anything you lack,
But I don’t care how great you are
People and I don’t care what you’re worth.

Because when it all ends up,
We’ve got to, you’ve got to, go back to Mother Earth.

Memphis Slim

Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda writes, “Buddhism teaches that we must seek harmony on a more profound level. We must achieve a state of compassion deep enough to enable us to find our common humanity and transcend distinctions between ourselves and others.”

After all, we all share the commonality of life itself.  We find ourselves contemporaneously born into this miracle of creation.  We all seek happiness to avoid suffering.  And ultimately, we’ve all got to go back to Mother Earth.

• The scrutiny and questioning which are the soul of Socrates’ ‘examined life’ are also fundamental to Buddhism.   Buddhism has traditions of philosophical debate whose uncompromisingly logical approach to truth seeking mirror the dialectics of the Socratic Method.  Though it ended badly for Socrates, it is this dynamic of critical thinking that has crystallized and clarified Buddhist doctrine through the centuries.  Even today, the Buddhist canon is open to discourse.  The following quotes champion the faculty of reason and the spirit of investigation.

• “Oh monks and wise men,
  Just as a goldsmith would test his gold
  By burning , cutting, and rubbing it,
  So must you examine my words and accept them.
  But not merely out of reverence for me.”   -Buddha
  

  "Think for yourself and question authority." -Timothy Leary

• “This means that, in the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be.” -Dalai Lama from Science-at-the-Crossroads.

• 

  The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis. -Dalai Lama

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.“  -Buddha

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”  -Benjamin Franklin

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”     -Buddha

“We must not be attached to a view or a doctrine, even a Buddhist one. .. . The Buddha said that if in a certain moment or place you adopt something as the absolute truth, and you attach to that, then you will no longer have any chance to reach the truth. Even when the truth comes and knocks on your door, and asks you to open the door, you won’t recognize it. So you must not be too attached to dogma–to what you believe, and to what you perceive.”   -Thich Nhat Hanh

“Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?”

Buddhism has always had a congenial relationship with science.  The Dalai Lama‘s collaborations with scientists at the Mind Life Institute are inspiring new discoveries in neuroscience, quantum physics, psychology, biology, game theory, and other fields.  Scientists are beginning to benefit from the study of Buddhist thought and practice in the study of  altruism, cooperation, consciousness, and positive cognitive states.  Psychology and other sciences (which have primarily focused on disease and mental illness) are now focusing on positive emotions and optimal cognitive performance.

“If ever there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.”     -Albert Einstein

“My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science, so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation.  …Since the emergence of modern science, humanity has lived through an engagement between spirituality and science as two important sources of knowledge and well-being.  Sometimes the relationship has been a close one- a kind of friendship- while at other times it has been frosty, with many finding it incompatible.  Today, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, science and spirituality have the potential to be closer than ever, and to embark upon a collaborative endeavor that has far reaching potential to help humanity meet the challenges before us.“  Dalai Lama from The Universe In a Single Atom 2005.

How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way

But little they know
That it’s so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind

Once I was waitin’
In fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed for
To get a start in life’s game

Then suddenly it happened
I lost every dime
But I’m richer by far
With a satisfied mind

Money can’t buy back
Your youth when you’re old
Or a friend when you’re lonely
Or a love that’s grown cold

The wealthiest person
Is a pauper at times
Compared to the man
With a satisfied mind

When my life has ended
And my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones
I’ll leave there’s no doubt

But one thing’s for certain
When it comes my time
I’ll leave this old world
With a satisfied mind

How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way

But little they know
That it’s so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind.

Money may not buy happiness, but it turns out happiness may attract money. Highly materialistic people who place a high value on being rich tend to be more pessimistic and unhappy.  While happier people tend to be more in demand and have “more initiative and productivity at work, and their customers and bosses are more satisfied, which can lead to a raise in pay,” said Dr. Michael Frisch, an internationally recognized researcher of positive psychology.  This song written by Jack Rhodes and Red Hayes is a perennial favorite performed by hundreds of recording artists including Johnny Cash.

“One or another may outstrip his neighbor in fortune or in fame, but he, who has discovered that to live is to be happy, has more riches than are found in all the world.”  -Unknown

“My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation:  if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims of Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.” -Dalai Lama from The Universe in a Single Atom 2005

“Buddhism and science have increasingly been discussed as compatible.  Some philosophic and psychological teachings within Buddhism share commonalities with modern Western scientific and philosophic thought. For example, Buddhism encourages the impartial investigation of nature (an activity referred to as Dhamma-Vicaya in the Pali Canon) – the principal object of study being oneself. A reliance on causality and empiricism are common philosophical principles shared between Buddhism and science.”  -from Wikipedia article, Science and Religion.

Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts

Travel like a king
Listen to the inner voice
A higher wisdom is at work for you
Conquering the stumbling blocks come easier
When the conqueror is in tune with the infinite
Every ending is a new beginning
Life is an endless unfoldment

Change your mind, and you change your relation to time
You can find the answer
The solution lies within the problem
The answer is in every question

Dig it?

(more…)

Buddha: Consider others as yourself.

Jesus: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Love thy neighbor as thyself.

Mohammed:  Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.  That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.

The Talmud:  What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow man.  That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary.

Egyptian Late Period Papyrus:  That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.

Epicurus: Neither harm nor be harmed.

Confucius: Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.

The Golden Rule is also known as the Ethic of Reciprocity.  It is considered to be the most consistent, moral teaching throughout history.  It is told in story form in the Gospel of Luke in the  Parable of the Good Samaritan.  It has been deemed to be the integral tenet of many of the world’s religions, and officially so in 1993 at the Parliament of World Religions. Today, most countries have some form of Good Samaritan Law.

“Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people’s suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.” -The Dalai Lama