Find an interesting dharma talk at DharmaSeed.org, listen to at least 30 minutes of it, and take notes. Post your notes in the Comments section of the blog by class on Tuesday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Posts
27 comments:
The Dharma talk that I listened to is called “Power of Compassion” by Mark Coleman. Coleman first talked about how metta is the primary quality of the heart in Buddhism comes from a word translated as mind or heart-mind and that this heart-mind is like a multifaceted jewel with a central quality of love. He says compassion arises out of loving-kindness and that when we open our hearts to meet painful situations, our heart naturally wants to relieve the suffering that has arisen. He says that compassion is a courageous quality and one that is central to our lives. He says that being alive requires open-heartedness because there is so much suffering and pain in this world and that it is a challenge to keep your heart open when surrounded by all of this suffering because it is painful, but it is important to be conscious. We have to have courage to learn about global suffering and to be open to it. He says that even on the spiritual path there is suffering because we have to face ourselves and our pain and the ways we create suffering for ourselves and others. We function through a level of ego most of the time; we want attention and to be liked and noticed and to feel special. We want to impress others and try to bolster ourselves; we try to prop up our ego. Coleman describes how we feel pain when we are acting out of the desire to build up our ego because we are so desperate to do so and we fear the loss of attention, of feeling special. He says that it’s essential to have kindness and not judge because we all suffer from a layer of a longing from our ego and that we have to look beyond the surface of people. He says that we are awakened when we realize the depth of the ego striving to be seen.
Coleman also depicts how Buddha defined compassion as quivering of the heart; a physical emphatic response. Coleman says that when our hearts are open we sense the suffering of others and feel empathy and wish that people weren’t suffering. He says that our hearts are tenderized when we keep them open to pain in the world. There is an instinctual nature to love and to be warm; the heart naturally wants to care and for others to be free of pain. We bond through feelings commonality, feelings that we are all sharing a sense of suffering and of the fragility of life. Coleman tells the story of Gotami and about how she realizes that death is a universal human experience.
Coleman says that to develop the quality of compassion in our lives, we can do it as a daily practice or as go throughout the day or while meditating. He says that in distress all we can do is to wish ourselves to hold with ease and kindness. Compassion arises when we turn towards suffering and pain. As humans we naturally run from suffering but “by running away from suffering we run towards it.” When we run away from it, it still pops up when you least expect it. He says it’s better to have an open heart and acknowledge the existence of suffering. He describes a personal experience in which he was suffering at a retreat and when he came to the realization that he was experiencing suffering, he went from resisting to awareness and allowed his heart to open. He said that how we hold and relate to suffering brings about the transformation. He tells us to allow our hearts to be open during times of suffering and not try to be numb because if we allow our hearts to be open we bring more love into the world. He quotes a poem that says “out of brokenness comes unbroken.” We are afraid that we will be overwhelmed by pain but when turn towards pain, it is not as big or as intimidating as we thought it was. Coleman says we suffer because what we long for still doesn’t help when we finally get it and that we say a lot of times if only I had something then I would be happy and we feel the suffering of that contraction. We fear being overwhelmed by suffering if we stop the habit of ignoring suffering. However, he warns us to be discerning of how much pain we can take in at one time, but he clarifies that this is not making ourselves numb but that it’s just being wise about how much we can tolerate.
Coleman reads a quote that says “before you know kindness, you must know suffering.” He talks about how the extent that we are open to suffering effects how open we are to joy because joy and suffering are linked. He says that compassion is really a verb because it propels us to do something about the suffering of others. He also quotes the Dalai Lama; “if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want yourself to be happy, practice compassion.” This quote means that when we feel compassion, we feel a beautiful feeling of lightness and we feel connected.
Katy
I listened to the Dharma talked called Perception of Impermanence by Carol Wilson. She talked about the idea of annica in Buddhism, how everything is always changing. She started out with a quote from Buddha on the nature of impermanence, “when the perception of impermanence is developed and cultivated, it eliminates all sensual lust. It eliminates all lust for existence. It eliminates all ignorance. It uproots conceit.” She said awareness and acceptance of impermanence leads to “complete liberation of the heart and mind.”
She went on to discuss what exactly perception means and how that affects our view of impermanence. Buddha said that perception arises “in every moment of conscious experience.” If you hear a sound and then identify that sound as a bell, that is a perception. It is a recognition or insight that changes our views of things. Wilson used the metaphor of a drawing to illustrate her point. You look at a drawing and see a vase with shading around the outside; however, when you look at it again you see the outline of two faces. Both the images are there in the drawing it just depends how you look at it. She said it takes just a split second to have a sudden insight into impermanence and realize that everything is always changing, but after you realize that, you are more aware and open to the impermanence.
Wilson said, “nothing is forever, including us.” However, it is human nature to get caught up in the moment and assume permanence. The story of the children guarding their sandcastles violently then knocking them down at the end of the day illustrates the unnecessary attachments we have to things that will not last forever. We cling to things to find joy, peace, and contentment but it is this attachment that keeps us from finding the ultimate joy. When someone dies, we people sad and shrink away from the idea of change. Change is both a trigger of sadness and fear. But we must realize that change is inevitable. It is not something to be feared. Wilson says if you open up to sorrow and changes it “turns into a tenderness that is open to life.”
When one of Buddha’s followers heard Buddha would die in three months he began to weep. Buddha called the man to him and said, “Do not sorrow. Have I not told you many times that everything changes and vanishes?”
The Dharma talk I was listening to was story about a man name Norm Fisher who wrote for this talk an essay named The Raw Spot. The essay he wrote for this talk show was about teaching of hard times. He used his life story as an example how to use Buddhist meditation to use it in your life.
One of his close friends died in Baltimore. He was his closest friend. He explained his feeling with this metaphor: breathing in the air something you do not miss until it is gone. About four weeks before the tragedy he and his friend were practicing meditation in the meditation center. There they were talking about death and dying. After his friend died he began to do a lot of Buddhist meditation to solve his problems in his own mind. The idea with his practicing was not to fix what had happed; it was more to ‘clean the ground’. Instead of trying to forget what happen the idea was to try to go forward with his life. Dharma sutra says there is no coming or going no birth or death there us no suffering or end of suffering. But still you need to see and cover everything and tears will come. When he showed his feeling with crying he did get a lot of support from people. As he said when you lose someone the burse of the heart and it open and you can see all love you had but you didn’t respect.
Before his death his friend collected pens. I was a large collection with 300 pens. It was worth a lot of money. He decided to sell the pens to get money for his children for school payment. A man who was supposed to buy the pens dies and he concluded that if you are dead you can not do anything anymore.
In the meditation center we realized that we as a group needed to do something. We can not escape the death; we need to open ourselves and find our life that is love. The natural thing is that all seems to be wrong. He planned his life, and under after one night everything was changed. All is to realise what has happened. He was in despair but it is how the mind works. For this many people feel that spiritual practice has been helpful in the progress. Simple practice includes figuring out your mind. It does not mean that when you have trouble you try to get the idea to go away it is just the opposite: you need to face your problems. As another practice, he was telling in his talk was that to have a group of four to six people. Where they first have five minutes silence and the one at a time talks about their problems and no one gives any advice just listens. Then someone tells the person what he just said. There you may find something new and the other person is listening to you and they maybe get their own problems out of there mind for a while.
This was the first half hour.
Here are some basic bullet points from the first 30 min of the talk called. Essential Buddhism - Hinderances.
Maya surrounds us all – we are surrounded by enemies
We are undertaking a very difficult task, the highest undertaking
Previous Buddhas have pointed our enemies
Enlightenment is for everyone, not a select few
Doubt is our biggest enemy – a tremendous obstacle on our path
Doubt can be overcome with meditation
All of are senses are beautiful, but can block and cloud our path.
Attachment to scenes and our body hinders us
All of us must die and separate from our impermanent body
Moderation and reflection and mindfulness can allow us to overcome our physical attachments
Senses come and go quickly if we do not dwell or cling to our emotions
Loving kindness is the best state of mind for our own well-being and the well –being of those around us
Every moment of loving kindness bring us closer to Nirvana
Practicing with Fear Part II
The nature of fear and how we practice with it. “where there’s a self, there’s fear”. We can deny the fact that we fear something, but it turns out that fear is ordinary. There are different kinds of fear, and the greatest fears are unconscious ones. A woman under house arrest who was unable to be with her husband while he was dying had to live with a terrible fear of her choice. “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear”. We actually practice with fear because we don’t realize the different types of fear we encounter. Deep emotions take us out of balance, and fear can confuse, paralyze, and give us different feelings. So the first step is to come back to balance. Some people are frightened of public speaking, and his clown nose is one method to overcome simple fears like this. You just have to use methods to make you feel more comfortable. Fear is not the problem, it’s the way we get stuck in fear that paralyzes us. “The most dangerous mountain climber is one who does not possess fear”. One participate of the fear lesson described her fear as a sense of block and free flow, and that accelerates the fear. I find this to be a pretty effective way to describe it because you panic and do stupid things. How do you notice when your mind is running away to even more fear? It gets caught in a web of fear, and you have to use mindfulness to know when you are fearing something, and attempt to calm and control it.
From Ignorance come Impulses:
Guy Armstrong
During his talk, Guy first off reminds his listeners of their states of mind they first entered the retreat in (or the mind of ordinary daily life with its normal daily experiences and ongoing rush of thoughts and emotions). He talks about this feeling of being stirred up; never feeling at peace or at rest to such an untrained mind. Through mediation, we reach a kind of inner peace which helps to show us how reality and its experiences look like such a rush. And he wonders, “why does the mind move at all? Why can we not just rest in a state of inner peace until thought is needed for a task? Why are things the way they are?”
Tonight, he says will be an investigation of intension in the area of thinking or the role of intention. Thoughts that come are not random but instead spring from some deep inner urges/motivations. There are many different types of such urges:
-urge of loving-kindness- when we think of a friend during meditation and wish good things for that person; a natural urge when we connect with those we care about
-urge of generosity – when we think of friend not as fortunate so we feel the need to share
-urge of ill-will- when we think of a person we’ve felt angry towards to be less happy then they are
-urge of desire- when we think of someone we are close to that we want to go on a vacation with
-urge of fear
We have this alternation of pleasant and unpleasant experiences with the net result that the untrained mind travels through their mind completely out of control (mostly with forces of hindrance). This is why our life seems so stirred up with such a random flow of thoughts. The culprits are these urges, which leave us tired, tense, and victimized by these forces of habits of mind. These thoughts carry intentions, which sometimes make us want to go to the next step and act on such urges (bodily, action, or speech), but they also carry an emotional charge, which expresses a deep intention. Guy wonders, “are there thoughts that don’t carry any emotional charge or intention?” However, this is a digression from the talk. What we want to talk about are these thoughts that come with an intention or urge and can cause us to act in disturbing ways. These are a volitional component with thoughts called volitional or mental or karmic formations. Volition is seed of karma. The Poli term, “samkara” is from the fourth aggregate and the third mental aggregate known as formations. But why do these keep arising?
“Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you can not know.”
But it is very hard to do this.
The problem meditation seeks to resolve is this disturbance from our urges. The Buddha’s profound insight calls on the change of dependent origination. This outlines 12 steps that carry us into suffering and explain how suffering comes to be and how to undo suffering. The first two links of this change of twelve say, impulses come from ignorance and that ignorance is the root of anything that leads to suffering. Therefore, when ignorance ends, the whole chain collapses and suffering ends (thus, by uprooting the force of ignorance, one can entire the Buddhist path). The poli term for ignorance literally means “not wisdom,” so Guy reminds his listeners to not be judgmental or embarrassed about being ignorant. Fore, the wise mind arises in practice, but that’s one side of hand, and in the next minute, the hand swivels and “unwisdom” is there with suffering. Wisdom and “unwisdom” go back in forth as a fact of life.
Craving (or greed, aversion, and delusion) are what cause these impulses. But when seen clearly, we want to give them up. “Example: a bank robber goes in bank and hands the teller a note which says to give him all the money or he will shoot you. So, she gives him money. He drives off with money, but when he returns home, the police are there already waiting for him. When he asks how they got there so fast. They tell him the note he’d written the teller was on the back of his deposit slip with his name and address.” Similarly, when we don’t understand that our actions come out of greed and aversion, we can cause harm and the karma police can come track us down. However, when we see clearly, we act impeccably.
This ignorance is rampant throughout the world, and all misery in the world comes from greed, aversion, and delusions (cravings):
-our country’s financial state is an example of greed, which creates worthless debt that can’t be paid off
-daily headlines from Iraq or Afghanistan with suicide bombers who kill many innocent people are another example of aversion and hatred.
Buddha says that ignorance is not knowing the Four Noble Truths:
-“unsatisfactoryness”
-craving
-end of craving
-end of craving through the Eightfold path
And though we may know this, we can still have ignorance in our minds because we haven’t completely embodied it. If we understood “unsatisfactoryness,” we wouldn’t crave any longer or cling to anything cause it is all impermanent. Thus, we haven’t understood the first. Therefore, how can we even begin to see the second, third, and fourth truths? This is why ignorance still exists.
Ignorance is the construction of self and as long as we have the belief in self, we maintain our ignorance.
Exploring Craving- Carol Wilson,
1st 30min
• Buddha talked about awakening; sublime truth was through liberation of non-clinging
• Liberation is a moment to moment activity with mind and heart, an experiential possibility
• Liberation is hard to picture, no feelings really
• Clinging and craving is a source of suffering
• Renunciation is the opening to non-clinging; it’s an experience of joy and happiness
• Definition of craving is in the second noble truth
• Craving is a thrust, got to have it
• Clinging is the now I have it, I will hold on forever
• Four areas of clinging, sensual pleasures, views/opinions, rules/observances, identity/personality views
• Mindfulness is the bare recognition of what is happening
• Wisdom is the attitude of mind that is interested, no judging
• Buddha speaks of clinging in a three unfolding path of insight, gratification, danger, and escape of suffering
Taylor-
Compassion and Emptiness- Carol Wilson
*Everything is arising and passing in one flow, nothing is separate.
*To achieve freedom of heart and mind be unattached to all things.
*when your mind and heart isnt clinging it will be a wholesome act.
*Bodichita?- means noble heart.
*Let the pain of the world come in and touch your heart, the natural response to that is compassion and tenderness for life.
*Buddha said- "I am the world, and the world is myself." When you say this with confidence then you will be free from desire and fear on one hand and on the other you become responsible for the world.
*ignorance= soul concern
*In light of wisdom, greed and bad feelings transform.
*hatred breaks into 2 things:1) ill will- which transforms into friendliness 2)cruelty- transforms into compassion.
*intention is the seed of wholesomeness or unwholesomeness.
*Our minds and hearts are fed by intentions
*good things may come out of intention but is driven by greed and anger
Tara Brach says, “A pervasive but often invisible source of suffering in our culture is self-aversion. We are a busy culture, and we move through our life feeling anxious and dissatisfied, but not fully conscious of how we neglect or judge our inner experience. We suffer from a lack of belonging: to our own bodies, to each other and to the earth. When we practice Buddhist meditation, we learn how to listen deeply and hold our life tenderly.”
In Tara’s recording, she spoke about how fear in one’s life can lead to suffering. In doing so, she defined courage and fear in all aspects of the body.
• Courage is required to live in the present; courage is the willingness/wisdom to endure fear “a little bit longer.”
• Fear isn’t a mistake, yet a natural occurrence to take care and protect oneself from any harm.
• Fear arises from the limbic system and is organized in the category of the four “F’s”: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and reproduction.
• Buddha incarnates the perception of duality/separation between the world and human life, which includes fear.
• All religions start with a basic fear and cry for help there is a sense of apprehension in the world’s “uncertainty”. The uncertainty is that inevitably each and every person’s “mind will go, and body will go” (death). We can take refuge in religion.
• It’s a person’s primal instincts to cling to life, so there’s often suffering in fear because in this fear people will try to anticipate a problem.
• This anticipation leads to a “trance of fear”. In this trance, we lose sight of who we are; our behavior begins to be driven by fear and we convince ourselves of threatening situations. This trance will often eliminate the possibility of love or peace because of our fixation on fear.
• Fear becomes suffering when we fixate and organize our lives around it, and it starts to shape one into a fearful state believing something is always going to go wrong.
• Fearless is when one is aware of awareness. For example in terms of the ocean, in the ocean there are many waves of fear that will sweep past, yet will still can focus on the full ocean( the big picture).
• We fuel the trance of fear when we flee from fear; instead of facing it head on. There are three ways we flee from fear: we tighten our body to avoid fear, if we relax our bodies we become vulnerable; we have spinning minds, our mind can get trapped in repetition of fear; planning and rehearsing, ways to defend against fear; emotions influence us that it’s “not ok” to be fearful, a sign of weakness.
• In order to be enlightened, we must reach an awakening which is to capture one’s fear.
Calling All Bodhisattvas: James Baraz
-We need to program our hearts in the direction of love, to program our hearts to love those who are difficult to us. This is the first step in attaining something more powerful than we have ever experienced in our lives.
-Suffering can lead to faith because you see that you have the capacity to open up to anything. If you can realize this you are on a good path because suffering is all around us and your actions affect everyone else.
-Life is exquisitely beautiful, and the joys in life's beauty cannot go without suffering. Neither can suffering go without joy.
-Two good examples of people who experience this balance are the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu(Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa), both have witnessed innumerable amounts of sorrow, yet both have learned through faith to be inherently compassionate.
-The Dalai Lama spoke on his own development:"[People] think that I can show them how to develop quickly as if I could press a magic button... Compassion comes with patience and practice... The village that I am from is notoriously short tempered... As a child I was short tempered, however through my buddhist training I have learned something about compassion and a pure heart."
-As we open up to suffering we can see suffering directly and thus see an end to suffering. As we end our suffering we affect not only ourselves, but those around us.
Different Kinds of Meditation Techniques and Their Use – Richard Shankman
The benefits of meditation can be categorized in two groups. The first main group of benefits is essentially our ability to settle more and be more calm and peaceful. We can be less distracted and more present. The second group is the benefit of insight. Basically, we are able to see more clearly what’s going on in our lives, and clearly understand our own minds, bodies, and experiences. Our mind is less distracted and this allows us to see more clearly into ourselves.
Us humans tend to search for our wellbeing and happiness, and long for pleasant experiences in our lives. But “life doesn’t always cooperate with us.” Our happiness should not depend on external circumstances – meditation helps our inner peace arise and our happiness becomes less dependent on circumstances. Our happiness now depends on how we are relating to our experience, and not the experience itself. We start to see more clearly how our minds work. Usually, when a difficulty arises, we try to fix it right away and fight it immediately, but we should also learn to find the liberation in detaching ourselves from these difficulties. We learn to be mindful, present and awake in the given moment, instead of impulsively reacting to events and circumstances.
According to Shankman, real freedom is the freedom of letting go and not clinging to other historical methods of meditation that might not work for you. There is no right or wrong practice, but one must find a practice that works the best with him/herself. Each person’s personal best form of meditation should cause him/her to be more clear and awake.
Shankman lists several kinds of meditation techniques:
- breath meditation
- being as mindful as possible to whatever is most present in your awareness
- meditation on sounds
- body scanning (systematically starting with the awareness at the top of your head and slowly moving the awareness through different parts in your body)
- mantra
- visualization practice
- touch points (picking 2 or 3 main parts of the body and moving your attention to and from these different points
- working with chronic pain by bringing your mindfulness straight to pain
-Insight meditation (vapassana) – to see clearly, and is often equated with mindfulness. There is a large range of ways in which it is taught. Being mindful, moment to moment, to what you are experiencing.
-Jhana meditation – the deepest level of concentration. Bliss and profound peace and calm.
One of Richard’s preferred styles of practice:
1. begin by focusing on the breath
2. open your consciousness and awareness to any experience and aspect of the body
3. expand your concentration more, and incorporate the whole range of emotions into our practice. Also incorporate the range of your thoughts, and the images that can come into mind, noticing if your experiences and thoughts are good, bad, or indifferent.
"The Spatular by the Toilet Shines with Light" by Eugene Cash
"To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to awaken with myriad things, to be intimate with all things..." - Zen Master Dogen
>uniqueness and transparency of self : simultaneous
>the self loses preeminence ---> awaken w/ everything each moment
(quote cont.)"... is to drop off body and mind, and the bodies and minds of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no trace continues endlessly."
>dissolution of concept of self and others allows you to awaken w/ all things
- enlightenment can't be nailed down
>the mind wants to make enlightenment a thing, just like it wants to make the self and others and objects things. none of these are things, nor is enlightenment a state of mind
- no need to hold onto anything... even the idea of enlightenment
>mystery: enlightenment, self, no self, everything empty, everything appears in emptiness
"Where the mystery is deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and sublime, all that is wonderful." - Tao Te Ching
>mystery = an understanding of letting go
- a beginner's mind
>awakening: freshness, not knowing
"In the beginner's mind are many possibilities. IN the expert's mind, there are few."
>don't practice Buddhism in order to obtain, but in order to let go
- recent discovery: bullfrogs radiate their calls through their ears; it was always just assumed that they use their vocal chords
- as a child, you assume that adults just plain know, but at some point you realize that they don't
"freedom from knowing" ; "only don't know"
- rabbi anecdote: "you see, you don't know"
>daily life, habits, conceptual knowledge all veil what is not known, inhibit freedom from the known
- accept that awakening could occur in some altogether unheard of way, entirely new and unexpected: tolerate that level of not knowing
- not knowing doesn't mean you don't know
>don't use what you know to limit yourself or make yourself feel secure, when Not Knowing is the ultimate security
>Not Knowing = living in the liveness, the freshness, the immediacy of now (as opposed to living in the idea or memory of the present)
>like meeting a new lover: everything about them is exciting and thrilling and you want to spend time with them and get to know every part of them ---> over time, we forget that we don't know them
>the root of the word "intimacy" means "of the hidden"; always mystery w/ intimacy and true presence
- all that is possible to know about reality is infinite; no end to learning
"As mindful awareness becomes stiller and clearer, experience becomes not only more vivid, but simultaneously more baffling. The more deeply we know something in this way, the more deeply we do not know it." - Stephen Bachelor
- the ordinary mystery of life, of the present
- reach for the mystery and your hand disappears; you become part of the mystery
"This brick house I live in is really the sky, and just as precious."
- a teacher tells his student that if, after 7 days and nights of meditating with right mindfulness, his student does not obtain enlightenment, then the student may cut off the teacher's head and use it as some sort of bathroom implement. Shortly after, the student contracts dysentery and goes to the woods to sit on a bucket. Does so for 7 days, all the while meditating with right mindfulness. On the seventh day, the student awakens: his disease immediately dissipates, he remarks that "the spatula by the toilet shines with light" and concludes that "it was me all along"
.
Pam Weiss says there are many centers of the body, such as the heart center and the belly center. "The Hear Center brings the qualities of openness, receptivity, sensitivity, and kindness to experience." She wants the talk to enhance what we've been experiencing everyday. Awareness can open new doors for us to different emotions. If we experience them, we can bring love not only to ourselves, but to others around us. We should open everything through meditation and breathing, from the legs, to the buttocks, to the belly center. When we listen to others, we should "open to receive" what's being said and accepted. We shouldn't try too hard--just naturally "let whatever touches you, to touch you." We should learn to be open, and let "whatever moves you, move you." The Heart Center is more than emotional center--it includes a whole array of moods, like lots of colors that shape our experience in many ways. I think the crucial part of the lesson is a visual example she uses. She uses dye dripping into water to explain the different spectrum of emotions we can feel. The dye will shape the water, but the water cannot resist. In the same way, we should allow ourselves to feel a spectrum of emotion and let whatever we feel naturally come to us.
The Power of Compassion by Mark Coleman:
- Meta- is the primary quality.
Compassion comes out of love and kindness.
- The heart in Buddhism is called Chita, which means heart mind.
- The mind resides in the heart.
- The mind is like a jewel, with its central quality being love.
It is our nature to want to relieve suffering in the world. Buddha refers to compassion as the “quivering of the heart.” because we feel the suffering. We are able to connect with those who are suffering.
- Compassion is a courageous quality because you are opening up your heart towards the tremendous amount of suffering in the world. Your mind wants to turn away from it, but you’re opening your heart up to it.
- No one wants to be narcissistic; however, when we judge those who are, we are being narcissistic too. Being jealous and judging those who aren’t like you is just as egotistical.
- We are afraid to reveal the piece of ourselves that embodies the egotistical qualities.
- We must learn to deal with both beauty and pain:
- Holding babies in the neonatal intensive care unit when they die is both beautiful, because of their innocence, and painful, because of the death; however, if we are able to find the beauty in their death, for example, the end of their suffering, then we are demonstrating compassion.
- Compassion is a multifaceted quality. The Buddha defines it as the resonance of a being. You can feel it and it allows us to connect.
- It’s a tender quality. When we open our heart, it become tender and soft.
- The nature of the heart is to be kind, you can practice it everyday. It’s simple and sweet. You can turn towards the suffering, open your heart, and control your mind.
Mark Coleman's talk on Joy- The beauty of joy and how dharma teachings and practices supports the awakening of joy. He starts the talk with playing the song Somewhere over the rainbow, and then begins to speak about joy. He says that:
whatever touches us makes us aware about the capacity we have to experience joy
we have this "innate capacity" and all teachings of the Buddha are designed to maximize our capacity for joy.
Although they often talk about suffering, which gets in the way of the "Buddha nature", you cannot experience joy without knowing the truth of who you are.
The Buddha as a prince was the ultimate pleasure seeker but the royal life did not satisty him, so he searched for happiness through asceticism. He finds that the pleasures stemming from his royal life were impermanent and did not make him happy. He finds nirvana through his discovery beginning with asceticism, and he finds nirvana "at eases in the midst of the world" because he knows the truth.
"If I expand the sense of who I am anymore I will break into cherry clossoms"- quote from speaker's favorite author.
Our ego is externally oriented and looks for happiness in experience, this external orientation causes us to miss the jewel, which is that happiness is within us from the beginning.
"If you look for the truth outside of yourself, you get further and further away"
Trust- if you really look at the truth, that's all it takes.
The power of the practice makes you happy.
Being present- peace really does lie within us, and the joy that comes from a trained mind makes us calm and takes us to the deepest states of meditation.
In these deepest states, our mind becomes accesible, and we learn the capacity of our mind to experience joy. "Mind is reflection of how we live"
Fill yourself with rapture and pleasure and bliss.
To start, learn to be present.
"Sad people have all built a shrine to the past, the secret to happiness is to stop being so religious" (to that shrine)
Karma and the end of karma
• “karma” is not well understood in western tradition even though its in our vocab
• karma may become one of your best friend during your path
• this guy is a Theravada Buddhist because he’s speaking of the Buddha (I think)
• Sanskrit= karma, pali= kamma :means action.
• Lots of views of action of karma: it mattered or mattered, its predetermined or freely chosen, there would be consequences or not, Buddha had different perspective
• He believe in action with intention (volition) (chetna)
• “energy from the mind that drives the action of thought or speech or body.”
• what makes the action wholesome or unwholesome is dependant on the wholesome or unwholesome roots from volition.”
• He gives an example: cutting someone with a knife. Is that wholesome or unwholesome? Well if it’s done by a surgeon out of an act of compassion, its wholesome but if its done by a robber in a fit of greed, its unwholesome. If a baby moves in its sleep, knocks over a candle, and the whole house lights on fire and burns down, the baby did nothing wrong because it was in no way from the root of unwholesome volition.
• Action can take place in 3 “spheres”: body, action, and mind.
• The Buddha addressed 10 actions as unwholesome
o Body: killing
o Body: taking whats not given
o Body: sexual misconduct
o Speech: lying
o Speech: harsh speech
o Speech: malicious speech about another person
o Speech: Idle chat
o Mind: covetousness
o Mind: ill will
o Mind: wrong view
• The bliss of blamelessness= when one reviews ones conduct, if its aligned with 10 wholesome actions, that person feels freedom from regret and remorse
• This guy apparently really likes Opera winnfry…
• When we act with wholesome intention, we will receive wholesomeness back into our lives
• Damma pada “mind is the forerunner of all things, mind is chief. speak and act with an impure mind, and sorrow will follow you, like the wheel of the cart follows the oxen. Mind is the forerunner of all things, mind is chief. Speak and act with a pure mind, and happiness will follow you, like your shadow, unshakeable.”
• True with simple true Human happiness, or highest happiness (8fold path)
• This concept is gaining knowledge from various groups of people. When this concept of karma was taught to teenagers in juvenile hall, and he asked if anyone knew about it, a student said, “yeah, like what goes around comes around, right?”
• It doesn’t matter if you are a Buddhist or a Christian or a Muslim, or agnostic or anything…these are universal laws of life.
• Mahagosananda: patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism. Survived kamer rouge. 16 of his immediate family was killed, but he was practicing in Thailand and escaped the mass killings of monks. Around 1980, the rouge were displaced. MS lived in the refugee camps and taught and was well loved and respected. When he would teach on Sunday mornings sometimes thousands of people would come listen.
• “hatred never ceases through hatred, hatred only ceases through love” is the chant he would convince them to say and believe even though they all had family who were killed. Representation of complete faith in Karma.
• All beings are the heirs to their karma. Their happiness depends on their past actions, not upon my wishes for them. I think that’s a Great quote, no matter what you wish for someone, its not in your hands and karma will direct their lives.
• Westerners have a strong resistance to this idea. It conflicts with notion of democracy. Notion of fundamental equality conflicts with idea of karma, so Americans see these teachings as cruel and cold. This isn’t true at all.
• Karma is like gravity
Paradox of Desires.
-Desire is defined in the second noble truth.
-In Buddhism there is a need to cultivate wholesome desire and truth.
-One Zen master said that she's never seen wisdom arise in the absence of ease, but also that it shouldn't be too difficult. This relates to the middle way. Siddharta's story about leaving the ascetics for something better is then used as an example.
-Buddha says that the desire of truth can relate in: the desire to help others and also he says, "use desire to end desire."
-Training in buddhism focuses on becoming more skilled at being happy because joy can come with consistent practice.
-Desire of understanding is applied to becoming happier.
-Most suffering comes from desire that we want things to be different from the way they are. Suffering equals craving.
The discussion on fear.
Fear is primary in all our life—especially humans.
We have many situations that arouse fear
We are open situations to fear
3 themes- nature of fear, how to practice with fear, delve into further dimensions of fear (ways we don’t know or see)
helpful to think of the ways we deal with fear
4 different resources to deal with fear. Very helpful to have a set of “antidotes”
need to be balanced to deal with fear.
Can’t be balanced when fear has taken over our body.
May not be the most obvious way out.
Kindness can battle fear—“soothing of the heart”
Kindness towards ourselves and others can battle fear. We are able to call upon friends and family to talk and battle fear—gives us energy.
Death is a good learning field for fear, we can learn to view it as a balance of nature instead of a fear.
-remember the story of the three refuges…
life is about learning and awakening, not fear.
We often get caught up in stories and situations that tell us we are alone, a way to inject fear into us.
The world presents situations that seem to convince us that fear is always upon us, that we have no way to battle the world.
But we must remember to focus on our spirit and balance in the world to battle the nature of fear.
Guy Armstrong's From Ignorance Come Impulses
*The normal mind is an ongoing rush of thoughts and emotions that is never fully at peace or rest. Meditation brings some peace which allows you to see how your mind is normally.
*Why is the mind always working? Your thoughts aren't random at all. They "spring up from deep and inner urges." >Ex. If you're meditating and think of a friend, you will wish for them to be well and happy which is the urge of love and kindness, metta. If you think of a friend who you think has less then you, suddenly you'll wish to share with them which is the urge of generosity. If you think of someone with whom you have had a conflict, suddenly you will be angry which is the urge of illwill. If you think of someone you want to go on a trip with or spend time with, you'll start thinking about the trip which is the urge of desire. If you think about how things might have changed while you were away and wonder if everything is still ok, that's the urge of fear.
*You're thoughts aren't neutral. They carry an emotional charge.
*In an untrained mind, thoughts crazy and most thoughts aren't good ones. These can make you tense, tired, feel beaten up, and victimized.
*Thought can carry intention which leads to impulses. From the earlier examples, the impulses from thinking of your friend light lead you to call them and tell them you love them. Or call a bike store and send a bike to your friend who has less. Or write an angry letter to the person you had a conflict with.
*The intentions are also called volitional formations, mental formations, karmic formations because intention is the seed of karma whether their wholesome or not. The pali word is samkara.
*”Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you can not know.”
*The Buddha’s “most profound insight” was the chain of dependent origination which outlined 12 links that carry you into suffering. It all starts with ignorance. 1st two links are ignorance and samkara. Ignorance is the root to suffering. When ignorance ends the chain collapses.
*Avija pachia samkara > ignorance causes impulses.
*One side of your hand is wisdom, and the other is ignorance. Its so easy to go back and forth which happens often.
*Ignorance leads to suffering. >Ex. A bank robber goes into a bank and hand the teller a note saying give my all your money which she does, and when the bank robber gets home, there a cops in his driveway. When he asks how they knew where he lived, they told him his note was on the back of his deposit slip. Everyone leaves a karmic deposit slip with their address on the back.
*”When we see clearly, we act impeccably.”
*Ignorance does no mean not knowing facts. The Buddha says ignorance was not knowing the 4 Noble Truths.
*While you may be able to list them, that does not mean you know them. You must embody them.
*As long as you believe in a self you’re caught in ignorance. The belief in a separate “I” is the sign of ignorance.
Joyful generosity
10 spiritual qualities of enlightened one=parami?
generosity
ethical conduct
renounciation
determination
energy
patience
lovingkindness
truthfulness
equinimity
wisdom
=perfections
crossing to other shore=liberation=nirvana?
spiritual strength
generosity=giving, generosity
single act of generosity can have far benefit.
Buddha's ascetic practice was not successful
The disciple's help to Buddha helped his enlightenment
Do what is good, refrain from harm, purify the mind
they are interconnected.
gift of practice, gift of time....
brings happiness
self-absorbed view of the world
giving birds to food=make birds happy
looking happy birds make her happy
everyone is happy
constricted giving is better than not giving
selfishness is inborn in human
more metta and compassion in friendly giving-sharing
kingly giving royal giving
selfless giving
interconnectedness makes giving
universe is in a lunch table
whole universe is giving to us, and we give back
giving is healing alienation
feel connected by giving others
Bitterosity= jealousy, resentment and disappointment
or greed, hatred and delusion.
- when things aren't a certain way that they should
be that way
-"I don't want to die of biterosity. I don't want to die before and essential part of me dies"
-" I can't be sure if wishing with all of my mind (praying) can change things but I'd like to say things worked that way. But it can't be a bad thing."
- The wishing of the situation is not pivotal. The karma of the situation is pivotal-- it will be what it will be.
"thoughts should be like clouds in the sky"-- I did not fully grasp the meaning of this quote. but it could mean something on the lines of thoughts being free.
"The Leaky Boat"
There is no thing other than change.
Therefore we need to have a mind that recognized that all things are liable to suffering.
We cannot create dependence on "the way things are", because anything can happen at any time. We can still appreciate the beauty of things around us, but we cannot try to hold onto them.
A life subject to craving is seen almost as immature, and childlike. We are always going to want at certain times, because it is human nature. But we must "grow up" and recognize the difference between wants and imperative needs. It is unhealthy for us to think that "if we have _____, we will be happy".
We cannot dwell on "what ifs", because we will never know each possible outcome.
We make choices, but we are not in charge of the outcome of those choices.
It is not about being a passive recipient of life occurrences, but being an engaged participant, because we do have SOME power.
We will be happier if we do not dwell on disappointments of life.
There is such a long and complex web of karma that is more of the determining factor. Karma is as old as the universe and stretches as long as the universe itself.
Today is the only day that you get to have today. Enjoy it while you can instead of dwelling on these things that could be, or selfish desires.
“Power of Compassion”
Mark Coleman
A Dutchman - “Stone Love” who sings the chant
A healing chant that evokes the quality of compassion
An old vadic text from ancient India
65 minute song
Previous talk = quality of Meta, quality of the heart
Abodes of the heart, places we can live in our heart, its capacity and potential
Out of loving kindness arises compassion
The heart, in Buddhism, comes from the word “Chita” translated as “mind” or “heart mind”
The mind resides in the heart
When the heart is open and we meet difficult times, the heart naturally responds with a quality of care
Buddha called this the “quivering of the heart” because we can feel the suffering
A quality that is very central in all aspects of life not just spiritual
It is a challenge to maintain the heart, keep the heart open
It’s painful
The more we meditate and practice the more sensitive we become and the more we feel
The less we are interested in running away from suffering
The price is that we are open to the suffering
This requires a lot of courage
Being with the suffering
The pain experienced on the spiritual journey is not easy either
You must face yourself, not just your pain but how you create pain for yourself and others
As we become more awake it is easier to become more critical
Awareness grows faster than our ability to change
We are creatures of habit and so it’s easy to become a critic
All the ways that we are functioning from the level of ego, narcissism
We want to be liked, approved of, etc.
The ego structure is built on sand, trying to prop itself up constantly
It is essential to be kind and compassionate and not to judge
The connection between awakening and the realization of the depth of narcissism
We are afraid to be seen as narcissists and yet we all want to be noticed: IRONY
The story of the nurses in the neo-natal intensive care unit of a hospital
The nurses that decided they should hold the infants in their final moments of life
All their emotions that pass through when holding an infant in death
“quivering of the heart” you can feel another’s suffering
Empathy
It’s a tender quality
Our heart becomes tenderized by remaining open to the suffering in the world
If we remain closed our heart becomes hard and brittle, as if there is a shell around it
The heart’s nature is to have a warmth around it, it naturally wants others to be free of pain
Story of the Tsunami
Baby hippo becomes separated from mother, mother dies
Brought hippo into captivity so it could survive
A massive old tortoise takes the hippo “under it’s wing”
The hippo was very protective of the tortoise
This shows the natural tendency of the heart to be compassionate
The surgeon
Woman’s mouth is deformed because of a cut nerve, and yet her husband’s compassion makes her realize that it is fine with a kiss that “still works”
We are all in the same situation
The fragility of life
The woman who brought her dead son to the Buddha
The woman said she would do anything to bring her son back to life
He says first you must go get a mustard seed from a house where there has been no death
She goes through the whole village and cannot find a house where there has been no death
She goes back to the Buddha and buries her son and becomes a nun
Compassion keeps our heart from getting caught in judgment
With compassion we are less quick to just write people off who we think are doing something wrong, or stupid, or annoying
How to practice compassion in your life
Repeat the phrases over and over again offering a very powerful heart felt wish
We often can’t do much about an experience other than bring a certain mind set or the quality of compassion
Dharma Talks
Thinking Minds By: Myoshin Kelley
• Thoughts should be like clouds in the sky.
• There can still be awareness in meditation.
• We get trapped in the world of thought.
• Thoughts of the past confine us.
• “the mind has no shame, it will think of anything.”
• When we believe are thoughts we suffer.
• Meditation helps us see things in a new way.
• A thought is just a construct of the mind.
• Thoughts are enemies to meditation.
• Our thoughts are reflected on our attitudes.
• Thought can direct us but wisdom is not limited my concept.
• We get lost in thoughts, but we recognize this and start meditation over.
• Teacher from Burma said: when our minds wonder correct yourself.
Thinking mind:
-relationship to though
-thoughts should be like clouds in the sky
-dreamer -thinking mind
-even thought is in the mind it doesn’t mean we are not meditating,
there still can be wearness
-thinking is something mind does so it’s better to be in healthy relationship with it than deny it
-mind has no shame: “it can think about anything”
-freedom of suffering:
*when I believed my thought I suffered
*suffering is optional
-thinking is natural activity of mind
*stir by thought=problem with your attitude
Post a Comment