Author Archives: Buddhist Learning Center

Extinction of Concept/ The Eight No’s

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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Nirvana means extinction of all notions and ideas. If we can become free from these notions we can touch the peace of our true nature.

We are scared because of our notions of birth and death, increasing and decreasing, being and non-being. Nirvana means extinction of all notions and ideas. If we can become free from these notions we can touch the peace of our true nature.

There are eight basic concepts that serve to fuel our fear. They are the notions of birth and death, coming and going, the same and different, being and non-being. These notions keep us from being happy. The teaching given to counteract these notions is called “the eight no’s,” which are no birth, no death, no coming, no going, not the same, not different, no being, no non-being.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Practice of Looking Deeply, Shambhala Sun Magazine, 2002

Be Love Now

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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"When someone asked Maharaj-ji how to meditate, he said, "Meditate the way Christ meditated... He lost himself in love." ~Ram Dass, Be Love Now

Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You’re being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or your most intimate lover—anyone. This lover doesn’t need anything from you, isn’t looking for personal gratification, and only wants your complete fulfillment.

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success— none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always  be here.

Imagine that being in this love is like relaxing endlessly into a warm bath that surrounds and supports your every movement, so that every thought and feeling is permeated by it. You feel as though you are dissolving into love.

This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything. When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart—not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, “I am.”

This is your deeper heart, your intuitive heart. It is the place where the higher mind, pure awareness, the subtler emotions, and your soul identity all come together and you connect to the universe, where presence and love are.

"Never disturb anyone's heart. Even if a person hurts you, give him love."~Maharaj-ji (Pictured: Statue of Neem Karoli Baba or Maharaj-ji from library of Ram Dass.)

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not “I love you” for this or that reason, not “I love you if you love me.” It’s love for no reason, love without an object. It’s just sitting in love, a love that incorporates the chair and the room and permeates everything around. The thinking mind is extinguished in love.

If I go into the place in myself that is love and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That’s the entrance to Oneness. That’s the space I entered when I met my guru.

Years ago in India I was sitting in the courtyard of the little temple in the Himalayan foothills. Thirty or forty of us were there around my guru, Maharaj-ji. This old man wrapped in a plaid blanket was sitting on a plank bed, and for a brief uncommon interval everyone had fallen silent. It was a meditative quiet, like an open field on a windless day or a deep clear lake without a ripple. I felt waves of love radiating toward me, washing over me like a gentle surf on a tropical shore, immersing me, rocking me, caressing my soul, infinitely accepting and open.

"Love is the strongest medicine. It is more powerful than electricity."~Maharaj-ji

I was nearly overcome, on the verge of tears, so grateful and so full of joy it was hard to believe it was happening. I opened my eyes and looked around, and I could feel that everyone else around me was experiencing the same thing. I looked over at my guru. He was just sitting there, looking around, not doing anything. It was just his being, shining like the sun equally on everyone. It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. For him it was nothing special, just his own nature.

This love is like sunshine, a natural force, a completion of what is, a bliss that permeates every particle of existence. In Sanskrit it’s called sat-cit-ananda, “truth-consciousness-bliss,” the bliss of consciousness of existence. That vibrational field of ananda love permeates everything; everything in that vibration is in love. It’s a different state of being beyond the mind. We were transported by Maharaj-ji’s love from one vibrational level to another, from the ego to the soul level. When Maharaj-ji brought me to my soul through that love, my mind just stopped working. Perhaps that’s why unconditional love is so hard to describe, and why the best descriptions come from mystic poets. Most of our descriptions are from the point of view of conditional love, from an interpersonal standpoint that just dissolves in that unconditioned place.

When Maharaj-ji was near me, I was bathed in that love. One of the other Westerners with Maharaj-ji, Larry Brilliant, said:

"The heart never grows old." ~Maharaj-ji

How do I explain who Maharaj-ji was and how he did what he did? I don’t have any explanation. Maybe it was his love of God. I can’t explain who he was. I can almost begin to understand how he loved everybody. I mean, that was his job, he was a saint. Saints are supposed to love everybody.

But that’s not what always staggered me, not that he loved everybody—but that when I was sitting in front of him I loved everybody. That was the hardest thing for me to understand, how he could so totally transform the spirit of people who were with him and bring out not just the best in us, but something that wasn’t even in us, that we didn’t know. I don’t think any of us were ever as good or as pure or as loving in our whole lives as we were when we were sitting in front of him.

Welcome to the path of the heart! Believe it or not, this can be your reality, to be loved unconditionally and to begin to become that love. This path of love doesn’t go anywhere. It just brings you more here, into the present moment, into the reality of who you already are. This path takes you out of your mind and into your heart.

~Ram Dass Be Love Now 2010, Harper Collins Publishers

 

Lonesome Valley

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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"Although you make much out of “my friends” and “my relatives,” they cannot help you at birth or at death; you come here alone, and you have to leave alone. If on the day of your death a friend could accompany you, attachment would be worthwhile, but it cannot be so." ~Dalai Lama

“Although you make much out of “my friends” and “my relatives,” they cannot help you at birth or at death; you come here alone, and you have to leave alone. If on the day of your death a friend could accompany you, attachment would be worthwhile, but it cannot be so.

When you are reborn in a totally unfamiliar situation, if your friend from the last lifetime could be of some help, that too would be something to consider, but it is not to be had. Yet, in between birth and death, for several decades it is “my friend,” “my sister,” “my brother.” This misplaced emphasis does not help at all, except to create more bewilderment.”  ~Dalai Lama

"You got to go to the Lonesome Valley. You got to go there by yourself. Nobody else, nobody else can go for you. You got to go there by yourself." ~Fairfield Four

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Lonesome Valley (by the Fairfield Four)

You got to go to the Lonesome Valley
You got to go there by yourself
Nobody else can go for you
You got to go there by yourself
Oh, you got to ask the Lord’s forgiveness
Nobody else can ask him for you
You got to go to the Lonesome Valley
You got to go there by yourself
Nobody else, nobody else can go for you
You got to go there by yourself

"You gotta walk that lonesome valley, You gotta walk it by yourself, Nobody here can walk it for you, You gotta walk it by yourself. Mamma and Daddy loves you dearly, Sister does and Brother, too, They may beg you to go with them, But they cannot go for you." ~Woody Guthrie

Lonesome Valley (by Woody Guthrie)

You gotta walk that lonesome valley,
You gotta walk it by yourself,
Nobody here can walk it for you,
You gotta walk it by yourself.

Mamma and Daddy loves you dearly,
Sister does and Brother, too,
They may beg you to go with them,
But they cannot go for you.

I’m gonna walk that lonesome valley,
I’m gonna walk it by myself,
Don’t want to nobody to walk it for me,
I’m gonna walk it by myself.

Fairfield Four “Lonesome Valley”

Woody Guthrie “Lonesome Valley”

Ralph Stanley “O Death”/Famous Death Masks From Beethoven to Shakespeare

Finding a Lost Loved One

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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Eventually we grow up and we all lose our mothers, but if you know how to practice, when the time comes for the separation you will not suffer too much. You will very quickly realize that your mother is always alive within you.

When I lost my mother I suffered a lot. When we are only seven or eight years old it is difficult to think that one day we will lose our mother. Eventually we grow up and we all lose our mothers, but if you know how to practice, when the time comes for the separation you will not suffer too much. You will very quickly realize that your mother is always alive within you.

The day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tenderly, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine along but a living continuation of my mother and father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

When you lost a loved one, you suffer. but if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestation of just one person. But with practice and with effort you can do it.

From that moment on the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

When you lost a loved one, you suffer. but if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestation of just one person. But with practice and with effort you can do it.

So, taking the hand of someone who knows the practice, together do walking meditation. Pay attention to all the leaves, the flowers, the birds and the dewdrops. If you can stop and look deeply, you will be able to recognize your beloved one manifesting again and again in different forms. You will again embrace the joy of life.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death No Fear

Thousands of Buddha Statues Unearthed/ Ozymandius

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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Once highly cherished, this ancient Buddha statue is broken and covered with the dust of time -the very picture of impermanence. But upon closer examination, the plucky 6th Century Chinese statues (buried for protection by the sangha) show the strength of the dharma and the Buddha to outlast countless long forgotten dynasties.

Once highly cherished, these ancient Buddha statues are broken and covered with the dust of time -the very picture of impermanence. But upon closer examination, the plucky 6th Century Chinese statues (buried for protection by the sangha) show the strength of the dharma and the Buddha to outlast countless long forgotten dynasties.

National Geographic Magazine says of the picture, “The head of a Buddha statue peeks above the dirt in Handan, China, where archaeologists have reportedly unearthed nearly 3,000 Buddha statues, which could be up to 1,500 years old.”

Anthropologists suspect the statues were buried to protect them from political turmoil after the fall of the Northern Qi dynasty when later emperors attempted to purge the country of Buddhism.

Anthropologists suspect the statues were buried to protect them from political turmoil after the fall of the Northern Qi dynasty when later emperors attempted to purge the country of Buddhism.

It is reminiscent of the story of Ozymandius told in the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Ozymandius

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Both Ozymandius and Buddha statues are found partially buried and neglected, but each leaves a different legacy. If when you die, you will be remembered more for what you gave away than how much you amassed for yourself, then Buddha certainly outstrips Ozymandius. Ozymandius’s stern countenance and braggadocio of material gain and world conquest look ridiculous in retrospect. Meanwhile Buddha’s serene countenance, life and message still reverberate with us today.

Ancient Buddhas China World Science

The Three Dharma Seals

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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"We can see that nothing remains the same for even two consecutive moments. Because nothing remains unchanged from moment to moment it therefore has no fixed identity or a permanent self. So in the teaching of impermanence we always see the lack of an unchanging self. We call this 'no self.'" Thich Nhat Hanh

“All authentic practices of the Buddha carry within them three essential teachings called the Dharma Seals. These three teachings of the Buddha are: impermanence, no self and nirvana. Just as all-important legal documents have the mark or signature of a witness, all genuine practices of the Buddha bear the mark of these three teachings.

If we look into the first Dharma Seal, impermanence, we see that it doesn’t just mean that everything changes. By looking into the nature of things, we can see that nothing remains the same for even two consecutive moments. Because nothing remains unchanged from moment to moment it therefore has no fixed identity or a permanent self. So in the teaching of impermanence we always see the lack of an unchanging self. We call this “no self,” the second Dharma Seal. It is because things are always transforming and have no self that freedom is possible.

The third Dharma Seal is nirvana. This means solidity and freedom, freedom from all ideas and notions. The word “nirvana” literally means “the extinction of all concepts.” Looking deeply into impermanence leads to the discovery of no self. The discovery of no self leads to nirvana. Nirvana is the Kingdom of God.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

The Practice of Looking Deeply Using Three Dharma Seals: Impermanence, No Self and Nirvana

 

Jesus And Buddha; The Parallel Sayings, Eternal Life

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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"Open to all are the doors to the Deathless. Let those who will hear respond with faith... An unsurpassed teacher am I; alone am I the All-Enlightened. Cool and appeased am I. To establish the wheel of Dhamma, to the city ...I go. In this blind world I shall beat the drum of deathlessness." ~Buddha

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.”   ~Jesus

“An unsurpassed teacher am I; alone am I the All-Enlightened. Cool and appeased am I. To establish the wheel of Dhamma, to the city …I go. In this blind world I shall beat the drum of deathlessness.”   ~Buddha

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“I am telling you the truth:  he who believes has eternal life.”  ~Jesus

“Open to all are the doors to the Deathless. Let those who will hear respond with faith.“   ~Buddha

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"This is deathless, the liberation of the mind through lack of clinging." ~Buddha

“I have obtained deliverance by the extinction of self. My body is chastened, my mind is free from desire, and the deepest truth has taken abode in my heart. I have obtained Nirvana, and this is the reason that my countenance is serene and my eyes are bright. I now desire to found the kingdom of truth upon earth, to give light to those who are enshrouded in darkness and to open the gate of deathlessness.” ~Buddha

 

Nothing Ever Truly Dies

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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‎"Our true nature is the nature of no birth and no death. Only when we touch our true nature can we transcend the fear of non-being, the fear of annihilation." ~Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Our greatest fear is that when we die we will become nothing. Many of us believe that our entire existence is only a life span beginning the moment we are born or conceived and ending the moment we die. We believe that we are born from nothing and when we die we become nothing. And so we are filled with fear of annihilation.

The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence. It is the understanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion

"Rien ne se cree, rien ne se perd." ("Nothing is born, nothing dies.") ~Antoine Lavoisier (1743 –1794), the Father of Modern Chemistry. Science led him to the same conclusion that the Buddha reached more than two thousand years earlier.

that causes our suffering. The Buddha taught that there is no birth; there is no death; there is no coming; there is no going; there is no same; there is no different; there is no permanent self; there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief. We can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

Thich Nhat Hanh describes a kind of conservation of spiritual energy, similar to the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy in physics that led Antoine Lavoisier (1743 –1794), the Father of Modern Chemistry, to conclude, “Nothing is born, nothing dies.”

The concept was also touched on in the popular science fiction movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still, wherein the main character reveals, “Nothing ever truly dies. The universe wastes nothing. Everything is simply, transformed.” The film was based on the short story, “Farewell to the Master” (1940) by Harry Bates.

"Nothing ever truly dies. The universe wastes nothing. Everything is simply, transformed." ~Klaatu, The Day The Earth Stood Still

Compassion Is Wise!

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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"As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision." ~Helen Keller

“Our lives are in constant flux, which generates many predicaments. But when these are faced with a calm and clear mind supported by spiritual practice, they can all be successfully resolved.

When our minds are clouded by hatred, selfishness, jealousy, and anger, we lose not only control but also our judgment. At those wild moments, anything can happen. Our own destructive emotions pollute our outlook, making healthy living impossible.

We need to cleanse our own internal perspective though the practice of wise compassion.”

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama, How To Be Compassionate; A Handbook for Creating Inner Peace and a Happier World

 

How To Fill A Sieve With Water

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Buddhist Learning Center
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How is Meditation like filling a sieve with water?

A wise teacher, instructing his students to meditate, told them, “The process is like filling a sieve with water.”

All of the students were confused by this statement. How was it possible to fill a sieve with water? Some thought it meant meditation was very difficult, and others thought it meant they could only expect temporary gains from their practice.

Discouraged, they stopped meditating. One student, however, approached the teacher and asked him to explain. The teacher took the student to the edge of the ocean, gave him a sieve, and told him to try to fill it with water. The student scooped the water into the sieve, but it immediately ran out.

The teacher took the sieve from the student and said, “I will show you how.” The teacher threw the sieve into the water, where it sank almost immediately. He told the student, “The sieve is full of water now and will stay that way forever.

Meditation works the same way. It’s not about scooping small amounts of Spirit into your individual life, but about dropping yourself into the ocean of Spirit and merging with that Spirit more and more each day.”

Meditating-your-way-to-greater-happiness-and-health-in-20-minutes-a-day