becoming better

‘Things might not always become better,
but we can always become better,
and that can always make things better.’


Stonepeace


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How Mindfulness Can Make for Better Doctors

From the New York Times:

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Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds is located within the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we are a research Center dedicated to creating a world in which healthy qualities of mind flourish. The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, through hard-nosed basic and translational scientific research, will help to pave the way toward more widespread incorporation of methods and practices to nourish positive qualities of mind throughout society. The work and research of this Center is at the forefront of the scientific and scholarly communities, and has led to the development of a new hybrid discipline – contemplative neuroscience. In a global era where individuals, communities and the world are reconnecting with the pursuit of happiness, well-being and contentment and seeking innovative and mindful solutions to achieve it, the Center offers facts about interventions and methods grounded both in research and the wisdom of contemplative traditions.

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds conducts rigorous interdisciplinary research on naturally occurring and cultivated positive qualities of mind such as kindness, compassion and focused attention. Although our core approach is neuroscientific, we examine every level of analysis from experience to molecular processes. The Center engages in local and global outreach and aims to become an authoritative source for scientific research on the healthy mind.

Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

nibbana

So this holy life, bhikkhus, does not have gain, honour, and renown for its benefit, or the attainment of virtue for its benefit, or the attainment of concentration for its benefit, or knowledge and vision for its benefit. But it is this unshakeable deliverance of mind that is the goal of this holy life, its heartwood, and its end.

Majjhima Nikaya

nibbana

Here, Ananda, having gone to the forest, to the foot of a tree or to an empty hut,
a monk reflects thus: “This is peaceful, this is sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishment
of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, cessation, Nibbana.”

Anguttara Nikaya

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measured by

“Bhikkhu, if one has an underlying tendency towards something, then one is measured in accordance with it; if one is measured in accordance with something, then one will be reckoned in terms of it. If one does not have an underlying tendency towards something, then one is not measured in accordance with it; if one is not measured in accordance with something, then one will not be reckoned in terms of it... If... one has an underlying tendency towards material form, feeling, perception, mental formations or consiousness then one will be measured in accordance with it; if one is measured in accordance with it, then one will be reckoned in terms of it. If one has no underlying tendency towards material form, feeling, perception, mental formations or consiousness then one will not be measured in accordance with it; if one is not measured in accordance with it, then one will not be reckoned in terms of it.”

Samyutta Nikaya

atammayata

Atammayatæ is the utter abandonment of this root delusion: one sees that in ultimate truth there is no time, no self, no here and no there. So rather than “Be here now” as a spiritual exhortation, perhaps instead we should say: “Let go of identity, space and time,” or: “Realize unlocated, timeless selflessness.” Needless to say, the conceptual mind falls flat when trying to conjure up an image for such a reality but that is to be expected. We are consciously leaving the realm of the conceivable, and the purpose of this book is to provide something of a map for those regions where the buses of reason and imagination do not run.

It is also quite possible that, on reading these passages on Atammayatæ, the mind wants to grasp it as “some thing to get so that ‘I’ won’t be so deluded” rather than seeing it as a restraining of the habitual outward movement of the mind that comes as a
result of disenchantment and dispassion. It is always necessary to be aware of the way that ignorance causes even the means of transcendence to become an obstacle, if the mind does not handle it wisely.

This is to say that if, with mindfulness and wisdom, the tendency to ‘go out’ into perceptions, thoughts and emotions is restrained, and one just allows seeing to be seeing, hearing to be hearing etc., the whole papañca-drama does not get launched in the first place. The heart then rests at ease, open and clear; all perceptions conventionally labelled as ‘myself’ or ‘the world’ are seen as transparent, if convenient, fictions. When there is insufficient mindfulness and wisdom, the mind ‘goes out’ and attaches to its perceptions and moods, the result of which is the experience of ‘me being pressured by life.’ Both an apparently solid self and a solid world have been unconsciously created, and the friction between the two is the dukkha that
we find ourselves running from so regularly and ineffectively. Trying to find a ‘me’ without a world that burdens it is like trying to run away from our own shadow; no matter how hard we run, the effort is bound to fail as the one form generates
the other.

The aim of all these teachings on Atammayatæ is to show us that the dualities of subject and object (‘me and the world’), do not have to be brought into being at all. And when the heart is restrained from ‘going out,’ and awakens to its fundamental
nature, a bright and joyful peace is what remains. This is the peace of Nibbæna.



The Island, Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro
Abhayagiri Monastery

Ajahn Chah - no abiding

“The worldly way is to do things for a reason, to get some return, but in Buddhism we do things without any gaining idea. The
world has to understand things in terms of cause and effect, but the Buddha teaches us to go above and beyond cause and effect. His wisdom was to go above cause, beyond effect; to go above birth and beyond death; to go above happiness and beyond suffering.

Think about it: there’s nowhere to stay. We people live in a home. To leave home and go where there is no home – we don’t know
how to do that, because we’ve always lived with becoming, with clinging. If we can’t cling we don’t know what to do.”


Ajahn Chah, ‘No Abiding,’ in ‘Food for the Heart,’

no self or not-self?

One of the first stumbling blocks that Westerners often encounter when they learn about Buddhism is the teaching on anatta, often translated as no-self. This teaching is a stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no self doesn't fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there's no self, what experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life? Many books try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali canon — the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings — you won't find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible. Thus the question should be put aside. To understand what his silence on this question says about the meaning of anatta, we first have to look at his teachings on how questions should be asked and answered, and how to interpret his answers.

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Noble Strategy, Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The Island - Buddha's teachings on Nibbana

Read latest publication: The Island - An Anthology on Buddha's Teachings on Nibbana by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro

The Island by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro


Picture taken from Abhayagiri Monastery

The Practice of Compassion by Bhikkhu Bodhi

meditate on death

If you want to help other people overcome their fear of death, you have to learn how to overcome your own fear of death as well, by abandoning attachment to the body, abandoning attachment to sensual pleasures, avoiding cruel actions, and gaining direct insight into the Deathless. With your fears overcome, you’ll be much more effective in teaching the Dharma to those on their deathbed. You won’t be disturbed by the physical horrors of death, you’ll be able to communicate directly to the needs of the dying person, and your words will carry more weight, for they come from direct experience.

Your compassion will be educated not by books or feelings, but by a clear insight into what dies and what doesn’t. Ultimately, these two lessons boil down to one: Meditate, as an act of compassion both for yourself and for others, even if death seems far away. When the time comes to die, you’ll be less of a burden on those who are caring for you. In the meantime, if you’re called on to comfort those who are sick or dying, your compassion will be more genuinely helpful, and you’ll have a more effective
message to teach.


Purity of Heart, Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Thanissaro Bhikkhu: head & heart together

Thanisarro Bhikkhu's 2009 Saskatchewan Retreat "Head & Heart Together: Bringing Wisdom to the Brahmaviharas"

Introduction: The brahmaviharas - attitudes of limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity - are the Buddha's primary "heart" teachings. Yet he never distinguished between issues of heart and head: The more you can get your head around his explanation of causality, the easier it is to make the heart's attitudes more expansive. This course - using readings, talks, discussion, and meditation - is devoted to exploring how this is so. Topics will include exploring how an understanding of kamma helps in removing limits from one's goodwill and equanimity; understanding the conditions needed for fostering healthy emotions from a Buddhist perspective; and finally, discussing the role of the brahmaviharas in the context of Buddhist practice as a whole.


For audio downloads, pls go to:
Dhamma Talks

Traveling down a more balanced path
By Sapna Pathak, The Boston Globe, August 16, 2009
St. John’s O’Leary finds answers in Buddhism

Boston, MA (USA) -- The son of devout Catholics, Jimmy O’Leary spent his Sundays as a child at his family’s local church, where he was baptized and received his First Communion. But when it came to improving his game on the soccer field, and tuning his mental approach, O’Leary turned to Buddhism.

“I don’t know, it just helped me look at things from different points of view,’’ said O’Leary, entering his junior year at St. John’s Prep, an all-boys Catholic school in Danvers.

“I can collect myself more, I’m more grounded during a game, and I’m taking a different mental approach than I was before. It’s touched on a lot of my life, really, not just soccer.’’

This fall, the North Reading resident plans on taking his interest in Buddhism to the classroom; he has spent the summer working with his teachers to detail an independent study in Buddhism to add to his schedule.

O’Leary discovered Buddhism prior to his sophomore season. The ancient Eastern religion piqued O’Leary’s interest enough to prompt him to head to the library regularly to read books and articles on the subject.

By the start of the season, he was applying Buddhist principles to soccer.

Rene Novoa, his coach with the FC Vikings, noticed a difference.

“He was always a good leader, but he always wanted to make things happen and wanted to be the one who did it,’’ said Novoa, who began coaching O’Leary six years ago. “All of a sudden, he was more calm, he was more collected when things didn’t go his way. He’s developed into my go-to guy, but his mental maturity is now catching up with his physical skills.’’

Novoa named O’Leary captain of the Vikings, a title he will most likely earn for his senior year at the Prep.

O’Leary is currently reading “The Middle Way,’’ written by the Dalai Lama, which teaches one not to live in the extremes, but to remain balanced at all times.

A speedy, agile defender at 5 feet 8 and 150 pounds, O’Leary even imparts this balanced outlook to the children he works with as a camp counselor at St. John’s Camp Christopher.

“I find myself thinking more comparatively, like what would a Buddhist do versus what a Christian do in certain situations,’’ said O’Leary. “That helps me make choices, both on and off the field.

It’s all about balance, there has to be a balance during a soccer game with who is doing things. I’m trying to keep everything balanced.’’


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story of a butterfly

"A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day, a small opening appeared; he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.

Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly."

a tree with no name

There is a tree by the river and we have been watching it day after day for several weeks when the sun is about to rise. As the sun slowly rises over the horizon, over the trees, this particular tree becomes all of a sudden golden. All the leaves are bright with life, and as you watch it as the hours pass by, that tree whose name does not matter - what matters is that beautiful tree - an extraordinary quality seems to spread all over the land, over the river. And as the sun rises a little higher the leaves begin to flutter, to dance. And each hour seems to give to that tree a different quality. Before the sun rises it has a sombre feeling, quiet, far away, full of dignity. And as the day begins, the leaves with the light on them dance and give it that peculiar feeling that one has of great beauty. By midday, its shadow has deepened and you can sit there protected from the sun, never feeling lonely, with the tree as your companion. As you sit there, there is a relationship of deep abiding security and a freedom that only trees can know.


Krishnamurti to himself - His Last Journal

For free e-books on Krishnamurti, click
here

hard to comprehend

Forms, sounds, odours, tastes,
Tactiles and all objects of mind -
Desirable, lovely, agreeable,
So long as it's said: "They are."

There are considered happiness
By the world with its devas;
But where they cease,
That they consider suffering.

The noble ones have seen as happiness
The ceasing of identity.
This [view] of those who clearly see
Runs counter to the entire world.

What others speak of as happiness,
That the noble ones say is suffering;
What others speak of as suffering,
That the noble ones know as bliss.

Behold this Dhamma hard to comprehend:
Here the foolish are bewildered.
For those with blocked minds it is obscure.
Sheer darkness for those who do not see.

But for the good it is disclosed,
It is light here for those who see.
The dullards unskilled in the Dhamma
Don't understand it in its presence.

This Dhamma isn't easily understood
By those afflicted with lust for existence,
Who flow along in the stream of existence,
Deeply mired in Mara's realm.

Who else apart from the noble ones
Are able to understand this state?
When they have rightly known that state,
The taintless ones are fully quenched.


Samyutta Nikaya - Salayatanasamyutta


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Venerable Sheng Yen and Jet Li

Aung San Suu Kyi 64th birthday

64 for Aung San Suu Kyi

Bodhisattvacharyavatara

Bodhisattvacharyavatara

A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life by Shantideva

translated into English by
Stephan Bachelor

for the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives
Dharmshala India