World Religions

 

Four audio podcasts accompanying this course are available to download at http://cslsrpodcasts.blogspot.com.

 

 The same content is also available as “Buddhist Meditation,”

a CD Audio Set available at Stepping Stones Books & Gifts.

Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

Spiritual Enrichment Course

Written by Rev. Kim Kaiser

 

 

Once there was a layman who came to Ajahn Chah and asked him who Ajahn Chah was. Ajahn Chah, seeing that the spiritual development of the individual was not very advanced, pointed to himself and said, “This, this is Ajahn Chah.”

Once there was a layman who came to Ajahn Chah and asked him who Ajahn Chah was. Ajahn Chah, seeing that the questioners capacity to understand the Dhamma was higher, Ajahn Chah answered by saying, “Ajahn Chah? There is NO Ajahn Chah!”

A visiting Zen student asked Ajahn Chah, “How old are you? Do you live here all year round?” “I live nowhere”, he replied. “There is no place you can find me. I have no age. To have age, you must exist, and to think you exist is already a problem. Don’t make problems, then the world has none either. Don’t make a self. There’s nothing more to say.”

 

Remember you don’t meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you want anything, you won’t find it.

A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose, whose anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldn’t she? But it really isn’t hers to command. Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn’t obey us, that means it’s only a deception. Don’t fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don’t fall for it. It’s all a deception.

Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha.

Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect any praise or reward. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom. Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.

http://www.purifymind.com/ChahQuotesSimiles.htm

Theravada

Mahayana

Vajrayana

anatta/anatman

0 Bhikkhus, when neither self nor anything pertaining to self can truly and really be found, this speculative view: “The universe is that ätman (Soul); I shall be that after death, permanent, abiding, everlasting, unchanging, and I shall exist as such for eternity—is it not wholly and completely foolish.

 

Monks Form is impermanent. That which is impermanent is painful. That which is painful is [the result of a false idea of] self. One who is without self knows, “This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self. Thus should it be rightly regarded and considered. Monks! Feeling is impermanent Perception is impermanent Mental constituents are impermanent Consciousness is impermanent…. Thus should it rightly be regarded and considered.

 

Stated in the more frank language of the Chan/Zen School, the skandhas are “nothing more than a heap of snot and a puff of wind.”

 

—“Buddhist Ideas about No-Self and the Person”
by Martin Verhoeven in Religion East & West, Issue 6, October 2006.

 

…mindfulness, or awareness, does not mean that you should think and be conscious. “I am doing this” or “I am doing that.” No. Just the contrary. The moment you think, “I am doing this,” you become self-conscious, and then you do not live in the action, but you live in the idea of “I am,” and consequently your work too is spoiled. You should forget yourself completely, and lose yourself in what you do. The moment a speaker becomes self-conscious and thinks, “I am addressing an audience,” his speech is disturbed at his trend of thought broke. But when he forgets himself in his speech, in his subject, and he is at his best, he speaks well and explains things clearly. Oh, great work—artistic, poetic, intellectual or spiritual—is produced at those moments when its creators are lost completely in their actions, when they forget themselves altogether, and are free from self-consciousness. (p. 72)

 

You experience an unhappy, sorrowful sensation. In this state your mind is cloudy, hazy, not clear, it is depressed… First of all, you should learn not to be unhappy about your unhappy feeling, not to be worried about your worries… Try to examine how it arises, its cause, how it disappears, it’s cessation. Try to examine it as if you are observing it from outside, without any subjective reaction, the scientists observed some object. Here, too, you should not look at it as “my feeling”, or “my sensation.” Subjectively, but only look at it as “a feeling” or “a sensation.” Objectively. You should forget again the false idea of a “I.” When you see its nature, how it arises in disappears, your mind grows dispassionate towards that sensation, and becomes detached and free. It is the same with regard to all sensations or feelings. (p. 73)

 

—What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula,

 

Skandhas

…the skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāli, aggregates in English) are the five functions or aspects that constitute the human being. The Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really “I” or “mine.”

In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to an aggregate. Suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates.

The Mahayana tradition further puts forth that ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence.

The Five Skandhas

The sutras describe five aggregates:

“form” or “matter (Skt., Pāli rūpa) : external and internal matter. Externally, rupa is the physical world. Internally, rupa includes the material body and the physical sense organs.

“sensation” or “feeling” (Skt., Pāli vedanā : sensing an object as either pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.

“perception”, “conception”, “apperception”, “cognition”, or “discrimination” (Skt. samjñā, Pāli saññā): registers whether an object is recognized or not (for instance, the sound of a bell or the shape of a tree).

“mental formations”, “impulses”, “volition”, or “compositional factors” (Skt. samskāra, Pāli saṅkhāra): all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, prejudices, compulsions, and decisions triggered by an object.

“consciousness” or “discernment” (Skt. vijñāna, Pāli viññāṇa):

In the Nikayas/Āgamas: cognizance, that which discerns

In the Abhidhamma: a series of rapidly changing interconnected discrete acts of cognizance.

The Buddhist literature describes the aggregates as arising in a linear or progressive fashion, from form to feeling to perception to mental formations to consciousness. In the early texts, the scheme of the five aggregates is not meant to be an exhaustive classification of the human being. Rather it describes various aspects of the way an individual manifests.

No Essence

The aggregates don’t constitute any”’essence.” In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha explains this by using the simile of a chariot:

A “chariot” exists on the basis of the aggregation of parts, even so the concept of “being” exists when the five aggregates are available.

Just as the concept of “chariot” is a reification, so too is the concept of “being.” The constituents of being too are unsubstantial in that they are causally produced, just like the chariot as a whole.

The chariot metaphor is not an exercise in ontology, but rather a caution against ontological theorizing and conceptual realism.Part of the Buddha’s general approach to language was to point towards its conventional nature, and to undermine the misleading character of nouns as substance-words.

 

Eighteen DHATUS

Six External Bases	Six Inernal Bases	Six Consciousnesses
1. Visual Objects	2. Eye Faculty	3. Visual Consciosness
4. Auditory Objects	5. Ear Faculty	6. Aural Consciousness
7. Olfactory Objects	8. Nose Faculty	9. Olfactory Consciousness
10. Gustatory Objects	11. Tongue Faculty	12. Gustatory Consciousness
13. Tactile Objects	14. Body Faculty	15. Touch Consciousness
16. Mental Objects	17. Mental Faculty	18. Mental Consciousness

 

The 12 Nidanas or Interdependent Originations

(sk. pratityasamutpada)

The sybolism can be seen in the tangha, shown on pages 10–11, starting at 12 o’clock going clockwise.

1. Ignorance or marigpa. (sk. avidya)	Symbol: A blind old woman. The lack of wisdom. Impulse has moved us away from openness and equanimity into belief in self-existence which is blind to its true nature.
2. Conditioning factors

or karmic formations.
(sk. samskaras)Symbol: A potter making pots.
Pots are a common image in Indian philosophy to depict something coming into being, getting broken and being a useful item in between. Karmic formations (i.e., the deeply imbedded idea of having a self, activities of body, speech and mind as well as more individual tendencies and predispositions) are important factors in forming a person’s identity and are subject to change. The movement from openness relies on and looks for habitual reasons and connections.3. Consciousness.
(sk. vijnana)Symbol: A monkey scampering across a rooftop.
The monkey is a traditional image for human consciousness as both run here and there (sometimes seemingly aimlessly). There is a tendency to wander as the objects of perception change. Also there is the ability to identify, formulate and make things into something.

4. Name and Form. (sk. nama-rupa)	Symbol: Two men in a boat. Two elements contribute to our identity as a self. Form refers to the physical body and name to the non-physical components of the aggregates (feeling, perception, formation, consciousness).
5. The Six Senses. (sk. shadayatana)	Symbol: A house with six windows. These 6 structures are eye/seeing, ear/hearing, nose/smelling, tongue/taste, skin/touch and mind/thought (which perceives and processes mental objects). They assist name and form as the source of our sense data about and interactions with the world.
6. Contact. (sk. sparsa)	Symbol: A couple making love. The activity of the sense organs connecting with the sense objects and sense consciousnesses.
7. Feeling. (sk. vedana)	Symbol: A man with an arrow in his eye. Contact gives rise to feelings of attachment, aversion or indifference, depending on the nature of the contact.
8. Craving. (sk. trshna)	Symbol: A picnic with eating and drinking. To desire further experience of the feeling, especially to obtain the pleasant ones and to avoid the unpleasant ones. One become compelled by the feeling which then becomes reinforced into habitual patterns of attachment and aversion.
9. Grasping. (sk. upadana)	Symbol: A monkey picking fruit. Fixation happens and concrete steps are taken to try to get what is desired.

 

10. Becoming. (sk. bhava)	Symbol: A pregnant woman. Purposefully striving to gain or avoid things. Intentional activity sets up the operation of karma which sets up the causes whose results become manifest in present and future lives.
11. Birth. (sk. jati)	Symbol: A woman giving birth. Bearing the fruit of the previous 10 steps. That which was desired and conditioned comes into being.
12. Old age and death. (sk. jara-marana)	Symbol: A corpse being carried away. Once there is birth, death is inevitable. Old age, illness and death are representative of the problems that afflict human existence for which the Buddha was trying to find an answer.

The Buddha became enlightened when he was able to figure out the causal chain responsible for rebirth. This causal chain called the 12 nidanas points to the way that various elements are linked, with one step becoming the groundwork for others.
From a spiritual perspective, the two most important steps are the first (ignorance) and the seventh (craving). These are the two points at which human beings can consciously act to disrupt this causal chain and thus bring it to an end.

—Basicdharma.org

 

 

Vipassana

The Essence of Vipassana: Observing Your Mind

Begin practice by sitting up straight and paying attention. You can sit on the floor, you can sit in a chair. At first, you need not fix your attention on much. Simply be mindful of in-and-out breathing. If you find it helpful, you can also repeat “Buddha,” “Dharmo,” or “Sangho” as a mantra while you watch the breath going in and out. In this awareness of breathing, you must not force. If you try to control your breathing, that is not yet correct. It may seem that the breathing is too short, too long, too gentle, too heavy. You may feel that you are not passing the breath properly, or you may not feel well. Just let it be, let it settle by itself. Eventually the breath will enter and exit freely. When you are aware of and firmly established in this entry and exit, that is correct breathing.

When you become distracted, stop and refocus your attention. At first, when you are focusing it, your mind wants it to be a certain way. But do not control it or worry about it. Just notice it and let it be. Keep at it. Samadhi will grow by itself. As you go on practicing in this way, sometimes the breath will stop, but here again, do not fear. Only your perception of the breath has stopped; the subtle factors continue. When the time is right, the breath will come back on its own as before.

If you can make your mind tranquil like this, wherever you find yourself-on a chair, in a car, on a boat-you will be able to fix your attention and enter into a calm state immediately. Wherever you are, you will be able to sit for meditation.

Having reached this point, you know something of the Path, but you must also contemplate sense objects. Turn your tranquil mind toward sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, thoughts, mental objects, mental factors. Whatever arises, investigate it. Notice whether you like it or not, whether it pleases or displeases you, but do not get involved with it. This liking and disliking are just reactions to the world of appearances-you must see a deeper level. Then, whether something initially seems good or bad, you will see that it is really only impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty. File everything that arises into those three categories-good, bad, evil, wonderful, whatever it is, put it there. This is the way of vipassana, by which all things are calmed.

Before long, knowledge and insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and emptiness will arise. This is the beginning of true wisdom, the heart of meditation, which leads to liberation. Follow your experience. See it. Strive continuously. Know the truth. Learn to give up, to get rid, to attain peace.

When sitting in meditation, you may have strange experiences or visions such as seeing lights, angels, or buddhas. When you see such things, you should observe yourself first to find out what state the mind is in. Do not forget the basic point. Pay attention. Do not wish for visions to arise or not to arise. If you go running after such experiences, you may end up babbling senselessly because the mind has fled the stable. When such things do come, contemplate them. When, you have contemplated them, do not be deluded by them. You should consider that they are not yourself; they too are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not self. Though they have come about, do not take them seriously. If they do not go away, re-establish your mindfulness, fix your attention on your breathing, and take at least three long inhalations and exhalations-then you can cut them off. Whatever arises, keep re-establishing your attention. Do not take anything as yourself-everything is only a vision or a construction of the mind, a deception that causes you to like, grasp, or fear. When you see such constructions, do not get involved. All unusual experiences and visions are of value to the wise person but harmful to the unwise. Keep practicing until you are not stirred by them.

If you can trust your mind in this way, there is no problem. If it wants to be glad, you just know that this gladness is uncertain, unstable. Do not fear your visions or other experiences in practice, just learn to work with them. In this way, defilement can be used to train the mind, and you come to know the natural state of the mind, free from extremes, clear, unattached.

As I see it, the mind is like a single point, the center of the universe, and mental states are like visitors who come to stay at this point for short or long periods of time. Get to know these visitors well. Become familiar with the vivid pictures they paint, the alluring stories they tell, to entice you to follow them. But do not give up your seat-it is the only chair around. If you continue to occupy it unceasingly, greeting each guest as it comes, firmly establishing yourself in awareness, transforming your mind into the one who knows, the one who is awake, the visitors will eventually stop coming back. If you give them real attention, how many times can these visitors return? Speak with them here, and you will know every one of them well. Then your mind will at last be at peace.

—A Still Forest Pool by Achaan Chah

Self and Other

 

From Thoughts on Shin Buddhism
PART 3 Eastern Buddhist
by D. T. Suzuki

At first glance, Buddhism seems to be most concerned with the concept of change and impermanence, as expressed in such doctrines as the Four Noble Truths (suffering, the cause of suffering, the extinction of suffering, the way leading to deliverance) and the four forms of existence (arising, abiding, transforming, and perishing). Buddhism, however, sees the immovable in that which is ceaselessly moving. It is because we take the ever-moving self, stop it for a moment and try to understand what it is that we run into difficulties. It is best to leave moving things in motion, viewing self too in this way.

Where does this “I am that I am” come from? This “I” is not the self of duality, the self of “self and other”—it is self unseparated from other. In a sense it is the absolute self, and as such is the same as Absolute Other Power, which being absolute lies at the root of all. But even when dealing with Absolute Other Power the self cannot be left out of consideration. It is we ourselves who must recognize the absoluteness of Absolute Other Power, and even though it is through Amida’s Other Power that we are enabled to do this, still the self inevitably appears in the process. The self we are now speaking of is not the self which stands against Other Power, but the self which has become one with Other Power.

 

My Notes

 

 

Taking Refuge

Three Treasures –

When this existence is personified we call it Buddha; when we understand it as the ultimate truth then we call it Dharma; and when we accept the truth and act as a part of the Buddha, or according to the theory, we call ourselves Sangha. But even though there are three Buddha forms, it is one existence which has no form or color, and it is always ready to take form and color.

—Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

What is taking refuge?

 

What is taking refuge in the:

Buddha

Dharma

Sangha

 

 

Heart Sutra

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva

when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita

perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty

and was saved from all suffering and distress.

Oh Shariputra , form does not differ from emptiness;

emptiness does not differ from form.

that which is form is emptiness;

that which is emptiness, form.

The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

Oh Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness;

they do not appear nor disappear,

are not tainted nor pure,

do not increase nor decrease.

Therefore in emptiness, no form,

no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness;

no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;

no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind;

no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness;

no ignorance and also no extinction of it

until no old age and death and also no extinction of it;

no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path;

 

no cognition, also no attainment.

With nothing to attain

the Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita

and his mind is no hindrance.

Without any hindrance no fears exist;

far apart from every perverted view he dwells in Nirvana.

In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita

and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

Therefore know the Prajna Paramita

is the great transcendent mantra

is the great bright mantra

is the utmost mantra

is the supreme mantra

which is able to relieve all suffering,

and is true, not false.

So proclaim the prajna paramita mantra

proclaim the mantra that says:

Gate, Gate, paragate, parasamgate!

Bodhi! Svaha!