Buddhism-Buddhism

When a negative emotion arises

Comment September 29, 2015

When a negative emotion arises, there’s no need to be afraid or nervous, just look at that situation, regard that negative emotion as being like a person who tells lies. There’s no truth behind it.Then the negative emotion will lose its power, though this technique may not completely uproot the negative emotions. It is viewed as the union of the two forms of meditation, shamatha and vipasshyana, because your mind is peaceful but you are aware of the emotions and thoughts arising. Thus you recognise the nature of your mind.

The day we become Dharma practitioners we don’t become a nice person. Working with emotions such as anger or hatred takes a long time, perhaps five or six years of inner dialogue with our negative emotions.

Sometimes we fail to recognise negative emotions. However, by carefully observing our minds, we can familiarise ourselves with them. If we do this, we will not have to force the negative emotions into submission, they will diminish naturally. ~17th Karmapa
You only lose what you cling to

Comment September 27, 2015

Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. ~Ray Bradbury

“You only lose what you cling to.” ~Buddha
If we look according to reality

Comment September 27, 2015

If we look according to reality, without trying to sugar things over, we’ll see that it’s really pitiful and wearisome. Dispassion will arise. This feeling of ‘disinterest’ is not that we feel aversion for the world or anything; it’s simply our mind clearing up, our mind letting go. We see things as not substantial or dependable, but that all things are naturally established just as they are. However we want them to be, they just go their own way regardless. Whether we laugh or cry, they simply are the way they are. Things which are unstable are unstable; things which are not beautiful are not beautiful.

So the Buddha said that when we experience sights, sounds, tastes, smells, bodily feelings or mental states, we should release them. When the ear hears sounds, let them go. When the nose smells an odour, let it go…just leave it at the nose! When bodily feelings arise, let go of the like or dislike that follow, let them go back to their birth-place. The same for mental states. All these things, just let them go their way. This is knowing. Whether it’s happiness or unhappiness, it’s all the same. This is called meditation.

Meditation means to make the mind peaceful in order to let wisdom arise. This requires that we practise with body and mind in order to see and know the sense impressions of form, sound, taste, smell, touch and mental formations. To put it shortly, it’s just a matter of happiness and unhappiness. Happiness is pleasant feeling in the mind, unhappiness is just unpleasant feeling. The Buddha taught to separate this happiness and unhappiness from the mind. The mind is that which knows. Feeling2 is the characteristic of happiness or unhappiness, like or dislike. When the mind indulges in these things we say that it clings to or takes that happiness and unhappiness to be worthy of holding. That clinging is an action of mind, that happiness or unhappiness is feeling.

When we say the Buddha told us to separate the mind from the feeling, he didn’t literally mean to throw them to different places. He meant that the mind must know happiness and know unhappiness. When sitting in samādhi, for example, and peace fills the mind, then happiness comes but it doesn’t reach us, unhappiness comes but doesn’t reach us. This is to separate the feeling from the mind. We can compare it to oil and water in a bottle. They don’t combine. Even if you try to mix them, the oil remains oil and the water remains water, because they are of different density. ~Ajahn Chah
Stay a child while you can be a child

Comment September 27, 2015

All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house. ~Erma Bobeck
“Stay a child while you can be a child.” ~ Stephen Sondheim
Avoiding criticism

Comment September 24, 2015

We should not say bad things about anyone, whether or not they are bodhisattvas. It is not the same thing, however, if we know that pointing out someone’s mistakes will help them to change. Generally speaking, since it is not easy to change another person, we should avoid criticism. Other people do not like to hear it and, further, laying out their faults will create problems and troubles for us. We who are supposed to be practicing the dharma should be trying to do whatever brings happiness to ourselves and others. Since faultfinding does not bring any benefit, we should carefully avoid it.

If we really want to help someone, perhaps we can say something once in a pleasant way so that the person can readily understand, “Oh yes, this is something I need to change.” However, it is better not to repeat our comments, because if we keep mentioning faults, not only will it not truly help, it will disturb others to no good effect. Therefore not mentioning the faults of others is the practice of bodhisattvas. ~17th Karmapa
Expanding our compassion

1 September 24, 2015

If we allow our compassion to remain only inside of ourselves, our compassion will become powerless, without a function. It would become like a vase that despite having the ability to carry water had been placed high upon a shelf and never used.

To expand our compassion we can apply our imagination to everyday’s situations. Sometimes when the wind blows I imagine that my compassion mixes with the wind and is carried in every direction to touch all sentient beings. Sometimes when I see beautiful clouds in the sky I imagine that they carry my compassion and that all beings over whom the clouds hover also experience the feeling of compassion. We can also do contemplation involving our five sense faculties. For example, we continually have objects in our visual field. Having first giving rise to compassion mentally we can then spread that compassion to any sentient being who appears before our eyes and imagine that they experience all of our compassion, love and joy. – Karmapa 17th Karmapa
Lamp in the darkness

Comment September 24, 2015

However much fighting there is in the world, however much darkness there is, we must be able to serve as small lamps in that darkness. ~17th Karmapa
Today is one of it’s kind

Comment September 21, 2015

Today is one of it’s kind; it won’t come again. Bring joy to someone, speak good words and use them to heal, encourage others and learn to care. ~Mufti Ismail Menk
The Middle Way Within

Comment September 12, 2015

A Dhammatalk by Ajahn Chah

The teaching of Buddhism is about giving up evil and practising good. Then, when evil is given up and goodness is established, we must let go of both good and evil. We have already heard enough about wholesome and unwholesome conditions to understand something about them, so I would like to talk about the Middle Way, that is, the path to transcend both of those things.

All the Dhamma talks and teachings of the Buddha have one aim – to show the way out of suffering to those who have not yet escaped. The teachings are for the purpose of giving us the right understanding. If we don’t understand rightly, then we can’t arrive at peace.

When all the Buddhas became enlightened and gave their first teachings, they declared these two extremes – indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain2. These two ways are the ways of infatuation, they are the ways between which those who indulge in sense pleasures must fluctuate, never arriving at peace. They are the paths which spin around in samsāra.

The Enlightened One observed that all beings are stuck in these two extremes, never seeing the Middle Way of Dhamma, so he pointed them out in order to show the penalty involved in both. Because we are still stuck, because we are still wanting, we live repeatedly under their sway. The Buddha declared that these two ways are the ways of intoxication, they are not the ways of a meditator, not the ways to peace. These ways are indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain, or, to put it simply, the way of slackness and the way of tension.

If you investigate within, moment by moment, you will see that the tense way is anger, the way of sorrow. Going this way there is only difficulty and distress. Indulgence in Pleasure – if you’ve transcended this, it means you’ve transcended happiness. These ways, both happiness and unhappiness, are not peaceful states. The Buddha taught to let go of both of them. This is right practice. This is the Middle Way.

These words ‘the Middle Way’ do not refer to our body and speech, they refer to the mind. When a mental impression which we don’t like arises, it affects the mind and there is confusion. When the mind is confused, when it’s ‘shaken up’, this is not the right way. When a mental impression arises which we like, the mind goes to indulgence in pleasure – that’s not the way either.

We people don’t want suffering, we want happiness. But in fact happiness is just a refined form of suffering. Suffering itself is the coarse form. You can compare them to a snake. The head of the snake is unhappiness, the tail of the snake is happiness. The head of the snake is really dangerous, it has the poisonous fangs. If you touch it, the snake will bite straight away. But never mind the head, even if you go and hold onto the tail, it will turn around and bite you just the same, because both the head and the tail belong to the one snake.

In the same way, both happiness and unhappiness, or pleasure and sadness, arise from the same parent – wanting. So when you’re happy the mind isn’t peaceful. It really isn’t! For instance, when we get the things we like, such as wealth, prestige, praise or happiness, we become pleased as a result. But the mind still harbours some uneasiness because we’re afraid of losing it. That very fear isn’t a peaceful state. Later on we may actually lose that thing and then we really suffer. Continue reading →
The Buddha-Dhamma

Comment September 7, 2015

The Buddha-Dhamma is not a fiction to be read and forgotten. It deals with life — with real life, the life that you and I lead every day, the value and worth of which is greatly enhanced when the Dhamma is translated into action and built into our character by constant effort and practice.

The ultimate aim of the Buddha-Dhamma is Nibbana — emancipation from suffering. The immediate objective is to help us to understand and solve the problems that confront us in our daily life, to make us well-rounded, happy, and balanced men and women, able to live in harmony with our environment and our fellow beings. Balance, however, though it is an aim worth striving for, is not easily struck in the contemporary world, with its false ideologies and illusory values.

In contrast to the relative, often false values of our age, the Buddha’s teaching is a revelation of true and absolute values. Its truth can be tested and tried in one’s own experience. Buddhism teaches clear thinking, self-control, and mental culture as means to these ends. One who builds his daily life upon this firm foundation of appropriate knowledge and clear-sighted ideals is assured of progress and success even as a layman. ~Robert Bogoda

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