an Arahat

(An Arahat's) good actions may appear quite similar to the moral deeds of noble(though unliberated)worldlings, but the Arahat's actions are not motivated by the slightest trace of craving and ignorance. In the Arahat's mind, there is no greed (craving) by way of wishing that his virtue be recognized and appreciated, no delusion (ignorance) by way of a proud satisfaction in "being good", no illusionary expectations as to the result of these good actions; nor is there any other self-reference in any form whatever. An Arahat's good actions are a spontaneous outflow of a fully purified mind and heart, responding without hesitation to situations where help is needed and possible. But though his actions may be inspired by sympathy and compassion, beneath them there is detachment and deep serenity instead of emotional involvement. As long as the momentum of his life-force lasts, the Arahat lives on as an embodiment of wisdom and compassion. But as the Arahat's mind no longer clings to anything, not even to the results of his actions, there is no potentiality left for any future rebirth. The life-nourishing sap conveyed by the roots has ceased to flow, and the roots of continued existence themselves are cut off.

The Roots of Good and Evil by Nyanaponika Thera


Picture: All Rights Reserved aml.2009

great silence

The great silences of the desert are not void of sound,
but void of distractions.
One day, this landscape will take
the language out of me.

Terry Tempest Williams


Picture by: Stefan Mendelsohn @ Flickr

transforming pain

Pain is part of our experience of life in a human body. There is no way to escape from feeling pain sooner or later. We often fear pain and feel victimized by it. Being in pain now we may remember pain of the past and anticipate more pain in the future. And pain can remind us that our life span is finite, our connection to life fragile, and beings everywhere experience pain in one way or another.

Continue reading:
Transforming Pain by Roshi Joan Halifax



Picture: All Rights Reserved aml.2008

mindfulness

Mindfulness has, if we may personify it, a rather unassuming character. Compared with it, mental factors such as devotion, energy, imagination and intelligence are certainly more colourful personalities, making an immediate and strong impacct on people and situations. Their conquests are sometimes rapid and vast, though often insecure.

Mindfulness, on the other hand, is of an unobtrusive nature. Its virtues shine inwardly, and in ordinary life most of its merits are passed on to other mental faculties which generally receive all the credit. One must know mindfulness well and cultivate its acquaintance before one can appreciate its value and its silent penetrative influence. Mindfulness walks slowly and deliberately, and its daily task is of a rather humdrum nature. Yet where it places its feet it cannot easily be dislodged, and it acquires and bestows true mastery of the ground it covers.

Nyanaponika Thera, The Power of Mindfulness

See also: The Vision of Dhamma - Buddhist Writings of Nyanaponika Thera

Picture: All Rights Reserved aml.2009

true freedom

The Sutta Nipata, in its oldest and most characteristic parts, is a deeply stirring Song of Freedom. The verses of this ancient book are a challenging call to us to leave behind the narrow confines of our imprisoned existence with its ever-growing walls of accumulated habits of life and thought. They beckon us to free ourselves from the enslavement to our passions and to our thousand little whims and wishes. A call to freedom is always timely because in our lives we constantly bind ourselves to this and that, or let ourselves be bound in various ways by others and by circumstances. To some extent, normal life cannot entirely escape from such a situation. In fact, "binding" oneself to a worthy task and duty or to an ennobling human relationship is an indispensable antidote to the opposite tendency: the dissipation of our energies.

But, having the comfort of a "secure footing" in life, we too easily forget to walk on. Instead, we prefer to "strengthen our position," to improve and embellish the little cage we build for ourselves out of habits, ideas and beliefs. Once we have settled down in our habitual ways of living and thinking, we feel less and less inclined to give them up for the sake of risky ventures into a freedom of life and thought full of dangers and uncertainties. True freedom places on us the uncomfortable burden of ever-fresh responsible decisions, which have to be guided by mindfulness, wisdom and human sympathy. Few are willing to accept the full weight of such a burden. Instead, they prefer to be led and bound by the rules given by others, and by habits mainly dominated by self-interest and social conventions.

Nyanaponika Thera

Taken from "The Worn Out Skin". Read full article at Access to Insight

For a list of Nyanaponika Thera's writings, goto: Nyanaponika Thera at Access to Insight

words are windows (or they are walls)

I feel so sentenced by your words,
I feel so judged and sent away,
Before I go I've got to know
Is that what you mean to say?
Before I rise to my defence,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?

Words are windows, or they're walls,
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.
There are things I need to say,
Things that mean so much to me,
If my words don't make me clear,
Will you help me to be free?
If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn't care,
Try to listen through my words
To the feelings that we share.


Ruth Bebermeyer


From Nonviolent Communication: a Language of Life
By Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Encinitas, CA: Puddle Dancer Press, 2003

The Buddhism of Benjamin Button

Daisy, Ben's love interest remarks when they are both in their prime that they are finally 'meeting in the middle'. The truth is, we are always 'meeting in the middle', in the flowing river of time. Buddhism sees the present moment as the centre of time's passage, which is but a measurement of change. We are always smack in the centre, between the past and the future. In fact, now is the only moment we have. There is no need to pine for the transpired past or for the unshaped future, while every moment taken care of now creates happy memories and a better future.

Death Doing Apart

One of Ben's main sources of suffering was to see loved ones already conventionally older than him pass away before him. Then again, in real life, the young often witness the passing of elders too, just as elders sometimes witness the passing of the young. However, as Stonepeace put it, 'Though you might lose your lover (to departure or death), you need not lose your love.' Do we only learn to treasure the beloved when we know they will come to pass? Or rather, we should treasure the beloved now because they are already passing by, changing from moment to moment, even if subtly.

Unconditional love


Daisy wondered if Ben would still love her when she becomes old and saggy, while Ben asks if she will still love him when he has acne as a teenager. How conditional or unconditional is our love? There is really no way to be sure until the ravages of time transform the beloved to test our love. Paradoxically, love is to accept the beloved as they are, while also accepting that they will change in time to be who they are not now. An attribute of true love is that it must make peace with change, yet be unchanging in its devotion to be continually caring despite these changes.

Renunciation for Love

Ben leaves Daisy and their daughter before she becomes old enough to know him, to form attachment to him. It was also a bid to avoid giving Daisy suffering when she eventually has to take care of him when he becomes a young child. It was renunciation of family not due to lack of love, but out of love. However, as he was still attached, he returns abruptly for a visit, thereby disrupting Daisy's new family (with a new husband) a little, stirring up mixed emotions. True Love lets go in good time. Perhaps he shouldn't have returned - if Daisy was already happy with their past times together? Love can still be love at a distance.

To read full article:
by Shen Shi'an, The Buddhist Channel, Feb 6, 2009

meditation and pain

I was in the hospital recently for my sudden and unremitting headache. Remembering what I learnt, I practised a simple mindfulness of breathing which helped me to cope better with the pain as well as the various medical procedures i had to undergo at the hospital. My other take-away from the experience: Even though there is physical pain, there is no need to suffer mentally as well.

Here is a timely report that I found:

Zen Meditation Alleviates Pain, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2009) — Zen meditation – a centuries-old practice that can provide mental, physical and emotional balance – may reduce pain according to Université de Montréal researchers. A new study in the January edition of Psychosomatic Medicine reports that Zen meditators have lower pain sensitivity both in and out of a meditative state compared to non-meditators.

While previous studies have shown that teaching chronic pain patients to meditate is beneficial, very few studies have looked at pain processing in healthy, highly trained meditators. This study was a first step in determining how or why meditation might influence pain perception." says Grant.


For full article, click here: Science Daily

money can't buy true happiness

Money can't buy happiness
By SRIWIPA SIRIPUNYAWIT, The Bangkok Post, Feb 1, 2009

This is what Danai Chanchaochai believes and has changed his life to make happiness his number one goal

Bangkok, Thailand -- In the hall there is pin-drop silence. This scenario is almost impossible to find in the heart of Bangkok, at 5:30pm on a weekday. But, people still dressed in office attire, start to gather here to listen to the words of Phra Acharn Mitsuo Gavesako echoing from a stereo.


There is a strange calm and peace that fills Bodhgaya Hall, which welcomes people from all walks of life Tuesday and Wednesday. It usually provides 170 seats for anyone wishing to take "off" after work to seek peace in their hearts through meditation and Buddhist teachings.

"However, there was time when as many 800 people joined the session and our neighbouring office had to keep their door open so the people got more space to sit and meditate," says Danai Chanchaochai, 42, chief executive officer of DC Consultants, a strict follower of Buddhist teachings.

This space on the 22nd floor of Amarin Tower, Chidlom, must be complete misuse of "office space", as there are no monetary gain from it.

Danai thinks otherwise. Besides the spacious meditation hall, his office space is shared by a cosy bookshop that houses mostly books from his publishing house, DMG Books.

While half of all the published books are for sale, the other half are for free distribution. And the income from selling books will also be donated.

To continue reading,
Buddhist Channel

of steady mind

If one is bent on renunciation and solitude,
Intent on harmlessness, on the end of clinging;
If one is bent on an end to craving,
Dedicated to unconfused vision,
When one has seen the arising of the sense bases,
One's mind will be entirely released.
For the monk thus freed, with peaceful mind,
There is no need to add to what he has done,
No further task or duty to perform.

Just as a rocky mountain is not moved by storms,
So sights, sounds, tastes, smells, contacts and ideas,
Whether desirable or undesirable,
Will never stir one of steady nature,
Whose mind is firm and free,
Who sees how all things pass.

Anguttara Nikaya

Picture by: Chiels @ Flickr

good sleep

The brahmin who is quenched within
Always sleeps happily;
He does not cling to sensual desires,
Free from props, one cool in mind.
Having cut all straps of attachment,
Removed care deep within the heart,
The Peaceful One sleeps happily,
Attained to perfect peace of mind.

Anguttara Nikaya


Picture by: novaleng @ Flickr

samvega and pasada

Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. It's a hard word to translate because it covers such a complex range — at least three clusters of feelings at once: the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. This is a cluster of feelings we've all experienced at one time or another in the process of growing up, but I don't know of a single English term that adequately covers all three. It would be useful to have such a term, and maybe that's reason enough for simply adopting the word samvega into our language...

The first step in that solution is symbolized in the Siddhartha story by the prince's reaction to the fourth person he saw on his travels outside of the palace: the wandering forest contemplative. The emotion he felt at this point is termed pasada, another complex set of feelings usually translated as "clarity and serene confidence." It's what keeps samvega from turning into despair. In the prince's case, he gained a clear sense of his predicament and of the way out of it, leading to something beyond aging, illness, and death, at the same time feeling confident that the way would work.

Taken from Affirming the Truths of the Heart by:
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Picture: All Rights Reserved aml.2009

Gaza - the innocent children

By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem

The pictures keep coming. The blood-spattered young faces, the glazed eyes, the limp small bodies.

The latest figures from Palestinian health officials say 205 children are among some 600 people who have died in the Gaza war. In the chaos, there are no statistics for how many are among the at least 2,900 injured.

As medics work flat out to save as many young lives as they can, child psychiatrists in both Gaza and southern Israel fear some children will never recover from the psychological damage done as the bombs, shells and rockets fall.

Dr Iyad Sarraj, director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, says "so many people" are telephoning his workers - although the organisation's headquarters lies abandoned with shattered windows and broken furniture after it was damaged in an Israeli air strike.

"It's really terrible for children here now," he says. "I have been through so many of these kinds of things and this is the worst."

Long-term impact

He talks of a boy he treated five years ago. Grappling in the dark after his house was hit in an air strike on a Hamas militant next door, he felt something wet.

"He realised it was the flesh of his sister who was blown into pieces. He was in such a state. He couldn't eat or smell meat for three years after that. I am sure he will suffer some kind of long-term psychological impact," Dr Sarraj says.
"This sort of thing must be happening right now as we speak."

He can barely leave his home for fear of the fighting, and has been unable to visit the hospitals where he has watched television pictures of traumatised, badly injured children arriving.

"These children need help more than anyone. They look frightened, horrified, bewildered. They need a lot of attention but they can't receive it because their families are so terrified," he says.

Continue reading: Report by BBC

science n buddhism

Major sectors of Christianity and Islam have made it clear that they’re not going to be best friends with science anytime soon. But at least one of the major religions is extending an olive branch. New Scientist reports that:

More than 30 Tibetan monks, plus a handful of nuns, will be collaborating with a team from San Francisco’s Exploratorium (”the museum of art, science and human perception”) to build exotic machines to create patterns from sunlight using cardboard, dowels, reflective sheets of mylar and electronic components. If all goes to plan, the monks will return to their monasteries and start spreading the joys of scientific exploration among other followers of their religion.

The project is the latest reflection of the monks’ spiritual leader’s fascination with science. In the Dalai Lama’s 2005 book The Universe in a Single Atom, the Nobel peace laureate argued that science and spiritual inquiry have much to learn from one other......

Read more: DISCOVER

this holy life

Bhikkhus, this holy life is not lived for the sake of deceiving people, for the sake of cajoling people, for the sake of profiting in gain, honour, and fame, nor with the idea, 'Let people know me thus.' This holy life, bhikkhus, is lived for the sake of restraint and abandoning.

Itivuttaka

Taken from: Udana and the Itivutakka by John D. Ireland at Google Books


Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2007

Inspired sayings of the Buddha

This world is subject to torment;
Afflicted by contact, it calls a disease "self":
For however it is conceived
It is ever otherwise than that.

Becoming something other,
The world is held by being,
Is afflicted by being yet delights in being.

But what it delights in brings fear,
And what it fears is suffering.
Now this holy life is lived
In order to abandon being.

Udana, Inspired Sayings of the Buddha

Taken from: Udana and the Itivutakka by John D. Ireland at Google Books


Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2009

one small act

"One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness,
is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world."

-Ann Radcliffe

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

skillful meditation

Being a skillful meditator is like being a skillful cook, carpenter, or archer. There’s a skillful way to perceive; there’s even a skillful way to feel. Feeling comes not only from raw data, streaming in from the outside, but also from an element of fabrication and mental impulse. A physical impulse comes up your nerves, and your mind processes it before you’re really conscious of it. What we’re trying to do as we meditate is to learn how to bring some of these unconscious processes into the light of day. And a central element in these processes is the way you perceive things. You can consciously train yourself to perceive things in more useful, more skillful ways.

Taken from Meditations by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

mental resilience

In these challenging times, how can we build up mental resilience to counter stress?

On 10 December 2008, three experts from various disciplines shared with the National University of Singapore (NUS) community their perspectives on this question, in the NUS Lunchtime Forum: Mental Resilience in Times of Crisis presented by the NUS Development Office and the Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. The forum was chaired by the department's Head, Prof Kua Ee Heok.

Our guest speaker was Dr Alan Wallace, renowned scholar of Buddhism and Founding President, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, who shared the Buddhist way to building mental resilience. On the panel with him were NUS professors Dr Jonathan Marshall, a psychologist who presented a case study of a patient suffering from stress, and Dr Frank C T Voon, an anatomist and psychotherapist who spoke on the neurological processes that take place when we encounter stress.

To watch the speech given by Alan Wallace, click HERE

To go to the main NUS Lunchtime Forum page, click HERE

meditation

Right concentration forms the heart of the path. The other factors of the path serve two functions. One is to get you into concentration; the other is to make sure you don’t get stuck there. In other words, concentration on its own is a state of becoming that’s useful on the path. Even though you eventually want to go beyond all states of becoming, if you don’t first master this state of becoming you’ll be wandering around in other states of becoming where it would be hard to see what’s going on in the mind. As the Buddha said, when your mind is concentrated you can see the four noble truths as they actually come to be. When it’s not concentrated, you can’t see these things clearly. Non‐concentration, he says, is a miserable path, leading nowhere useful at all.


Taken from Meditations, Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Read latest e-book taken from Thanissaro Bhikkhu's 2008 dhamma talks: Meditations

things as they are

"More wisdom is latent in things-as-they-are than in all the words men use."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Picture by: erlingsi @ Flickr

Mind in the Balance

Forthcoming book by B. Alan Wallace in March 2009.

Columbia Univerity Press:

Our best-selling mind and consciousness scholar boldly corrects
the balance between empirical study and religion.
by bringing the meditative practices of Buddhism and
Christianity into a dialogue with the theories of modern phi-
losophy and science, B. Alan Wallace reveals their unified
approach to discerning the objective world. Wallace begins by
linking Christian and Buddhist meditative practices. He out-
lines a sequence of meditations for the reader to undertake
that show, though Buddhism and Christianity differ in their
belief systems, their methods of cognitive inquiry provide
similar insight into the nature and origins of consciousness.
From this convergence Wallace approaches contemporary
cognitive science, quantum mechanics, and the philosophy
of the mind. He connects Buddhist and Christian views to
the provocative theories of Hilary Putnam, Charles Taylor,
and Bas van Fraassen, and he seamlessly integrates the work
of Anton Zeilinger, John Wheeler, and Stephen Hawking.
Combining a concrete analysis of consciousness with a guide
to cultivating mindfulness and profound contemplative prac-
tice, Wallace takes new strides in the mapping of the mind.

B. alan wallace spent fourteen years as a Buddhist
monk, ordained by H. H. the Dalai Lama. He earned his
undergraduate degree in physics and the philosophy of
science at Amherst College and his doctorate in religious
studies at Stanford University. He is author most recently
of Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and
Consciousness and founder and president of the Santa
Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (http://www.sbinstitute.com).

meaning of 'mindfulness'

Alan Wallace explains the correct understanding of the term 'mindfulness' and its implications for practice.

Excerpt:

While mindfulness (s a t i) is often equated with bare attention, my conversations with—and recent studies of works by—the learned monks Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Analayo, and Rupert Gethin, president of the Pali Text Society, led me to conclude that bare attention corresponds much more closely to the Pali term manasikara, which is commonly translated as “attention” or “mental engagement.” This word refers to the initial split seconds of the bare cognizing of an object, before one begins to recognize, identify, and conceptualize, and in Buddhist accounts it is not regarded as a wholesome mental factor. It is ethically neutral.

The primary meaning of sati, on the other hand, is recollection, nonforgetfulness. This includes retrospective memory of things in the past, prospectively remembering to do something in the future, and present-centered recollection in the sense of maintaining unwavering attention to a present reality.

The opposite of mindfulness is forgetfulness, so mindfulness applied to the breath, for instance, involves continuous, unwavering attention to the respiration. Mindfulness may be used to s u s t a i n bare attention (manasikara), but nowhere do traditional Buddhist sources equate mindfulness with such attention.

Right mindfulness has to occur in the context of the full Noble Eightfold Path: For example, it must be guided by right view, motivated by right intention, grounded in ethics, and be cultivated in conjunction with right effort. Without right view or right intention, one could be practicing bare attention without its ever developing into right mindfulness. So bare attention doesn’t by any means capture the complete significance of vipassana, but represents only the initial phase in the meditative development of right mindfulness.

Tricycle, Spring 2008

Read full interview: A Mindful Balance by Alan Wallace

genuine happiness

Alan Wallace on the pursuit of understanding and genuine happiness.

Alan Wallace website

Alan Wallace podcasts

through the lens of mindfulness

Taken from Bangkok Post:

THE MINDFUL CANDIDATE
Seeing Barack Obama's historic campaign in a Buddhist light

NASH SIAMWALLA

It is my belief that Barack Obama's successful presidential campaign, which was based on the concept of "change we can believe in," and its underlying message are synonymous with Buddhist self-transformation. In Buddhism, people who are transformed become selfless and dedicated to serving others. This is what many people felt when they watched the broadcast of Obama giving his somber, determined victory speech in Chicago on election night.


Something in the back of our minds said that we were witnessing history, and that we seemed to have arrived at the dawn of another chapter in a more principled humanity. In the candidate himself, there is a powerful lesson that we can learn from. It is not just for politicians who dream of running a successful campaign and a landslide victory; the lesson is equally valuable for the rest of us. It would be ideal, though, if the world's politicians could learn the underlying message that Obama delivers, and the values that drove him and shaped his character.

Read more...The Mindful Candidate

towards wholeness

when we live, what dies?
when we die, what lives?



Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

peeling off our layers

Dharma practice is not a matter of learning more and more, studying more and more... It's a matter of emptying out, peeling off layer after layer. We're already so full of junk, so stuffed to the top, that first we need to empty out... We need to start peeling off all our opinions, all our ideas, and all over cleverness and just remain very naked, in the moment, just seeing things as they are, like a small child.

Tenzin Palmo

Picture by: tina_manthorpe @ Flickr

the paradox of becoming

A new book by Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

Preface
The topic of becoming, although it features one major paradox, contains other paradoxes as well. Not the least of these is the fact that, although becoming is one of the most important concepts in the Buddha’s teachings, there is no fullscale treatment of it in the English language. This book is an attempt to fill that lack.

The importance of becoming is evident from the role it plays in the four noble truths, particularly in the second: Suffering and stress are caused by any form of craving that leads to becoming. Thus the end of suffering must involve the end of becoming. The central paradox of becoming is also evident in the second noble truth, where one of the three forms of craving leading to becoming is craving for non‐becoming—the ending of what has come to be. This poses a practical challenge for any attempt to put an end to becoming. Many writers have tried to resolve this paradox by defining non‐becoming in such a way that the desire for Unbinding (nibbana) would not fall into that category. However, the Buddha himself taught a strategic resolution to this paradox, in which the four noble truth—the path to the end of suffering—involves creating a type of becoming where the mind is so steady and alert that it can simply allow what has come into being to pass away of its own accord, thus avoiding the twin dangers of craving for becoming or for non‐becoming.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu



Available in pdf for download:
The Paradox of Becoming

To listen to a talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu on this subject:
Dhamma Talk on The Paradox of Becoming in Oct 2008

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

Interview with Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Being A Monk

As an Oberlin student, Geoff was introduced to meditation during a winter-term seminar in 1969. He graduated in 1971, and then served as a Shansi rep in Thailand for two years. After returning there in 1976, he was ordained a monk and spent the next 15 years immersed in the Forest monastery tradition of Theravada Buddhism (see sidebar). He returned to the United States in 1991 to establish the Metta Forest Monastery, an American equivalent of the Thai Forest retreats.

Known informally as "Than Geoff," Thanissaro Bhikkhu has written several books on Buddhism and Vipassana (Insight) meditation. Fluent in Thai and Pali, the languages of early Buddhist writings, he has translated the writings of two noted Thai abbots and four volumes of the Pali Canon. In short, he knows his Buddhism.

Although I was anxious during our first phone call, Than Geoff was relaxed and friendly. He started me on an exploration into Buddhism that I've both embraced and tried to avoid almost every day since. Over the years, we've had lengthy conversations about almost everything. But I still had countless questions for him–personal questions I suspected other people also would like to ask a monk. When I suggested an interview, Than Geoff replied instantly, "Sounds like fun." A few months later, on a warm September afternoon at his monastery, Than Geoff and I began to talk.

Read more - A Conversation with Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff '71)



More writings by Thanissaro Bhikkhu:
Archive

Wat Metta Forest Monastery

true freedom

Spiritual freedom, as the opposite of this condition of bondage, must therefore mean freedom from lust, hatred, and delusion. When lust, hatred, and delusion are abandoned in a man, cut off at the root so that they no longer remain even in latent form, then a man finds for himself a seat of autonomy from which he can never be dethroned, a position of mastery from which he can never be shaken. He dwells in the world among the things of the world, yet stands in perfect poise above the world's ebb and flow. If pleasant objects come within range of his perception he does not yearn for them, if painful objects come into range he does not recoil from them. He looks upon both with equanimity and notes their rise and fall. Toward the pairs of opposites which keep the world in rotation he is without concern, the cycle of attraction and repulsion he has broken at its base.

Read more: The Taste of Freedom by Bhikkhu Bodhi

Picture by: wufgaeng against censorship @ Flickr

your heart must be large

"If your cup is small,
a little bit of salt will make the water salty.
If your heart is small,
then a little bit of pain can make you suffer.
Your heart must be large."

Thich Nhat Hanh

one yet two

The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest.
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.
The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to wood."
The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the
cage."
Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread
one's wings?"
"Alas," cries the cage bird, "I should not know where to sit
perched in the sky."

The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the
woodlands."
The cage bird says, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of
the learned."
The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught."
The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the
woodlands."

Their love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing
to wing.
Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to
know each other.
They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my
love!"
The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of
the cage."
The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead."


The Gardener, R. Tagore

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2007

your questioning eyes

Your questioning eyes are sad.
They seek to know my meaning
as the moon would fathom the sea.

I would have bared my life before your eyes from end to end,
with nothing hidden or held back.
That is why you know me not.

If it were only a gem, I could break
it into a hundred pieces and string them into a chain
to put on your neck.
If it were only a flower, round and small and sweet,
I could pluck it from its stem to set it in your hair.

But it is a heart, my beloved.
Where are its shores and its bottom?
You know the limits of this kingdom,
still you are its queen.
If it were only a moment of pleasure
it would flower in an easy smile,
and you could see it and read it in a moment.
If it were merely a pain
it would melt in limpid tears,
reflecting its inmost secret without a word.

But it is love, my beloved.
Its pleasure and pain are boundless,
and endless its wants and wealth.
It is as near to you as your life,
but you can never wholly know it.

R. Tagore


Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml

doubt

"Let me ask you. Have you ever held a position in an argument past the point of comfort? Have you ever defended a way of life you were on the verge of exhausting? Have you ever given service to a creed you no longer utterly believed? Have you ever told a girl you loved her and felt the faint nausea of eroding conviction?

What is Doubt? Each of us is like a planet. There's the crust, which seems eternal. We are confident about who we are. If you ask, we can readily describe our current state. What was your father like? Do you believe in God? What do you want? Yours answers are your current topography, seemingly permanent, but deceptively so. Because under that face of easy response, there is another YOU. And this wordless Being moves just as the instant moves; it presses upward without explanation, fluid and wordless, until the resisting consiousness has no choice but to give way.

It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he's on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first a mistake, like you've gone the wrong way and you're lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.

There is an uneasy time when belief has begun to slip, but hypocrisy has yet to take hold, when the consciousness is disturbed but not yet altered. It is the most dangerous, important and ongoing experience of life. The beginning of change is the moment of Doubt. It is that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or become a life.


Preface of "Doubt", a play by John Patrick Shanley

Available at: Amazon

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

wish we were heroes

Somewhere down the line
We found the riddle and the rhyme
Like two notes fade out of time
Now we don't feel as whole... no no

Somehow through the years
We let the laughter turn to tears
And all those feelings weren't so clear
Just aren't here anymore... anymore
And sometimes, I...

Wish we were heroes in the setting sun
Ride off together when the story's done
No sad goodbyes, no alibis... just
Two heroes waving from the back of a train
Two heroes never feeling all of the pain
Heartbreak in rending
Of knowing the ending is here
And it's time for goodbye

But so much for heroes
We could never be heroes
Because heroes don't cry

evanescence

"What is your life? It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

98. I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age, without having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the truth of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the sunshine from the cloud of their life, into the sudden agony of the knowledge that the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such times of melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true perception that this human life shares, in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain."

Sesame and Lilies, John Ruskin

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

it always comes back to you

"If you become a fisherman," said the little bunny, "I will be a bird and fly away from you."

"If you become a bird and fly away from me," said his mother, "I will be a tree that you come home to."


The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2007

Documentary film on contemporary Tibet

The documentary examines and questions the state of the Tibetan people.

To watch video clips of the film, click here: Recollecting Tibet

time

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

T.S. Eliot

Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

being with dying

"Being with Dying" is a phrase that aptly describes the human condition. We may be unique among species in being aware of our mortality. Although the capacity to contemplate death is an essential human trait, most people actively eschew thinking about how their life might end.

While the dominant orientation of Western culture toward death is avoidance, for over 2500 years Buddhists have studied the question of how one can best live in the presence of death. In a sense, a life-threatening injury or disease makes Buddhists of us all, waking us from the illusion of immortality, suddenly and from that time forth...

Life-threatening illness calls us to a place - metaphorically a desert or mountain peak - where, as we sit, the hard wind of reality strips away all the trappings of life. We are left naked, only "me" with my in-breath and out-breath in this moment, here and now. Illness reveals that at every moment of every day we are - and have always been - merely a heartbeat away from death. This incontrovertible fact need not be depressing. Instead, as Roshi Joan Halifax eloquently conveys in this remarkable book, our readiness to die can inform and enliven how we live and how we relate to one another.

Ira Byock, in the Foreword of the book "Being with Dying" by Joan Halifax

Buddhism n homosexuality

Homosexuality is the tendency to be sexually attracted to persons of the same rather than the opposite gender. According to the ancient Indian understanding, homosexuals were thought of simply as being ‘the third nature’ (trtiya prakti), rather than as perverted, deviant or sick. With its emphasis on psychology and cause and effect, Buddhism judges acts, including sexual acts, primarily by the intention (cetana) behind them and the effect they have. A sexual act motivated by love, mutuality and the desire to give and share would be judged positive no matter what the gender of the two persons involved. Therefore, homosexuality as such is not considered immoral in Buddhism or against the third Precept, although this is not always understood in traditional Buddhist countries. If a homosexual avoids the sensuality and licence of the so-called ‘gay scene’ and enters into a loving relationship with another person, there is no reason why he or she cannot be a sincere practising Buddhist and enjoy all the blessings of the Buddhist life.

Venerable Dhammika: Read more at Buddhist Channel

A Gay Tragedy by Ven. Dhammika

quiet minds - contemplative photography

Miksang Contemplative photography.

Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as ‘Good Eye’, and is based on the Shambhala and Dharma Art teachings of the late meditation master, artist, and scholar Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche.

‘Good’ here doesn’t mean good as we usually use the word, as in good or bad. Good here means that our mind is uncluttered by preoccupation, relaxed and open. Its innate nature is clear, brilliant, and extremely precise. When steady mind, clear vision and soft heart come together in one single moment, ‘Good Eye’ manifests. It is vision that is inherently pure, unobstructed, unblocked, free of depression, free of aggression, free of interpretation. Free altogether. When we synchronize eye and mind, we abandon all concepts and predispositions and become completely present in the moment. The world becomes a magical display of vivid perception. We can develop the ability to experience and express these experiences precisely through the practice of contemplative photography

Miksang, at its most basic level, is concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up—nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see—straight shooting. As we allow ourselves to become more available to the things around us without the biases, filters and formulas often associated with photography, our experience and expression of day-to-day moments becomes more rich and endlessly varied—beyond what we think. One moment, one shot. Graceful Appearance.

Taken from: Miksang Photography

sunyata

A Bodhisattva epitomises compassion and self-sacrifice. A Bodhisattva refuses to enter the nirvana of absolute quiescence until he saves everyone in this world. This self-giving spirit is well expressed by one of the six perfections which a Bodhisattva is expected to cultivate, namely, the perfection of giving. Charity does not mean to give to others when one has more than enough. Rather it means to give away whatever one has, even one's own life. Also insofar as one thinks of himself as a giver of charity, one thereby negates the spirit of charity itself. An act attains perfection when it is realised that no practice whatsoever has an intrinsic nature. If charity is seen as having an intrinsic quality, it is not perfect. When it is seen to be empty of any nature, then the act of charity is said to be perfect.

Likewise is the case with enlightenment. If an intrinsic quality is attached to it, it turns out then to be a mere illusion. The attainment of perfect wisdom means to realise that nothing has permanent nature: everything is emptiness.

Sunyata - The Essence of Mahayana Spirituality
by Moti Lal Pandit


Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

only with the heart

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery


Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

Julian Jaynes' theory on consciousness and bicameral mind

Excerpt from Reflections on the dawn of consciousness, edited by Marcel Kuijsten

"According to Jaynes, consciousness, as we know it today, is a relatively new faculty, one that did not exist until as recently as 2000 B.C. He holds that a basic difference between contemporary and ancient man is in the process of decision-making. When faced with a novel situation today, man considers alternatives, thinks about future circumstances, makes a final decision, ruminates over it, and finally acts. He then reconsiders his action, evaluates it, worries about it, feels good or bad about it, makes resolves about future decisions, and so forth. The cerebral activity that precedes and follows an action response is consciousness. Jaynes believes that man of antiquity had no consciousness - that when faced with novel situation, he simply reacted. He reacted without hesitation by following the directions of a personal voice that old him exactly what to do. Ancient man called this voice God; today it is called auditory hallucination. To ancient man, God was not a mental image or a deified thought but an actual voice heard when one was presented with a situation requiring decisive action.

Prior to 2000 B.C., according to Jaynes, man was governed entirely by this authoritative voice, but by 500 B.C. man had, for the most part, lost this faculty and was learning to make his own decisions consciously. - John Hamilton"

"I shut my eyes and even if I try not to think, consciousness streams on, a great river of contents in a succession of different conditions which I have been taught to call thoughts, images, memories, interior dialogue, regrets, wishes, resolves, all interweaving with the constantly changing pageant of exterior sensations of which I am selectively aware. - Julian Jaynes"

"When Jaynes describes early civilizations as being populated by people who have not yet developed conscousness, he is not implying these were civilizations of 'zombies'. A clear understanding of Jaynes' definition of consciousness dispels this notion. When Jaynes compares the bicameral mentality to the state of somnambulism, this is meant only to illustrate the lack of a sense of self, a lack of introspection and internal dialogue, and an inability to think about time in a linear fashion. Bicameral man was intelligent, had language, was highly social, and could think and problem-solve; only these processes took place in the absence of an introspectable internal mind-space. - Marcel Kuijsten"


Find out more:
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes

Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness - Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited Edited by Marcel Kuijsten

Julian Jaynes Society



Picture taken from Amazon.com

Like a dream

The most common use of dreams in the literature of the Mahayana, or “Northern School” of Buddhism in China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam is to see dreams as a simile for sunyata, (emptiness) the hollow core at the heart of all component dharmas (things). For example, in the well-known Vajra (Diamond) Sutra, the Buddha taught that:

“All conditioned dharmas, are like a dream, like an illusion, like a bubble, like a shadow, like a dewdrop, like a lightening flash; you should contemplate them thus.”

Dreams symbolize the changing and impermanent nature of all things known to the senses. Sights, sounds, smells, flavors, sensations of touch and thoughts are all dream-like, fleeting, and ultimately unobtainable. By pursuing and grasping material things or ephemeral states, we create the causes for misery and suffering. Those desire-objects are not real and permanent. When they break up and move on, we will experience grief, if we can’t let go. The hallmark of living beings is that we are “sleeping, “ unawakened to the truth of the emptiness and impermanence at the nature of conditioned things. This covering of sleep and lack of awareness is called “ignorance,” and it makes us in our waking state, from the Buddha’s viewpoint, look as if we are dreaming.

Bubbles burst, shadows run from light, dewdrops vanish by noon without a trace, lightning roars and vanishes, and dreams leave us at dawn. To continually perceive such things as real locks us into the endless cycle of birth and death. The Buddha was not simply giving us an evocative metaphor, a literary device or a philosophical point. He felt related to all beings, and in his compassion he was pointing out to his family a way to escape the prolonged misery of affliction and death. The dream simile occurs over and over in the sutras to teach about emptiness.

In the Ta Chih Tu Lun dreams occur as a didactic teaching device. Sariputra, the foremost Arhat in wisdom, learns the true application of the emptiness theory through the simile of dreams. Dreams are like ordinary waking reality in that both are empty and false. There is nothing gained by seeking out or clinging to any thought or mark that distinguishes the two states.

With the exception of message-dreams and portent dreams, two categories that we will look at below, for the Buddha’s monastic disciples who were intent on cultivating the mind full-time, dreams were considered as illusory and false, no different from the illusions of waking-time reality.

A Buddhist Approach to Dreams by Rev Heng Sure


Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2008

our true face

"Our true faces
Are said to reveal
Their true faces
When we lose clothes, food and houses
At the limits of experience."

Sumako Harada,
Kobe earthquake survivor


Picture by: sgluskoter @ Flickr

quality of attention

In ORDINARY meditation, attention is not a quality of mind that we BRING to experience, but something that occurs, rather haphazardly, as our organism becomes momentarily more interested in some inner or outer sequence of phenomena. Ordinary attention comes and goes without our consent; it is not something we do, but something that happens to us. For most of us most of the time, "attention" is stimulated, conditioned, and led by mobilizations of energy along the habit-pathways within our organism so that when it confronts its object it is always faced, as it were, by a fait accompli.

The attention at which contemplative exercises aim, then, may be distinguished not only from sheer inattention but from ordinary discursive attention as well. It is, instead, sustained, non-discursive, active attention which is, in fact, quite extraordinary. For there are many of us who in all our uncountable billions of mental moments and in all their variety, have never known such a moment of truly active attention. Such a moment curtails the autonomous activities of ordinary psychological activity. If the reader doubts this, he may perform a simple experiment. Take up a "speak-I-am-listening" attitude of acute attention toward the screen of consciousness, standing close guard, as it were, at the place where the contents of consciousness are born. For as long as one is able to hold this posture of intense active attention, the inner dialogue and flow of images will be stopped.


TO BE CONTINUED..

Taken from: The Practice of Attention by Philip Novak in The Inner Journey: Views from the Buddhist Tradition

Picture by: Sara Heinrichs @ Flickr

awakening

Continued from previous post on "Seeing through":

"Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious.

The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded. The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem and really no "mystery". All problems are resolved and everything is clear. The rock, all matter, all life is charged with dharmakaya... everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don't know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination.."

Thomas Merton,
The Asian Journals of Thomas Merton

Picture by: Temple of Dawn by revenui @ Flickr

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff) is an American Buddhist monk of the Thai forest kammathana tradition. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1971 with a degree in European Intellectual History, he traveled to Thailand, where he studied meditation under Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, himself a student of the late Ajaan Lee. He ordained in 1976 and lived at Wat Dhammasathit, where he remained following his teacher's death in 1986. In 1991 he traveled to the hills of San Diego County, USA, where he helped Ajaan Suwat Suvaco establish Wat Mettavanaram ("Metta Forest Monastery"). He was made abbot of the monastery in 1993. His long list of publications includes translations from Thai of Ajaan Lee's meditation manuals; Handful of Leaves, a four-volume anthology of sutta translations; The Buddhist Monastic Code, a two-volume reference handbook for monks; Wings to Awakening; and (as co-author) the college-level textbook Buddhist Religions: A Historical Introduction.

His important works can be found here:
Access to Insight

A directory of his talks available in mp3 format can be found here:
Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Metta Forest Monastery

seeing through

"Polonnaruwa with its vast area under trees.. I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation - without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening."

Thomas Merton,
The Asian Journals of Thomas Merton


Picture by: Heen Ekaa @ Flickr

Cylone Nargis: The Children's Perspective

The drawings in this slideshow were made by children ages 6 through 13 whose lives were devastated when Cyclone Nargis hit the Burmese/Myanmar Irrawaddy Delta on May 2, 2008. While their parents were waiting to receive food and supplies from private teams of volunteers, the children were given crayons and paper and asked to express their fears about the storm by drawing their experiences. The drawings were then collected by Gitameit Music Center, a not-for-profit community center and music school in downtown Yangon devoted to teaching music, nurturing artists, and offering exchange programs for Burmese students to study abroad.

One positive trend to emerge in the wake of the disaster is that volunteers have been establishing relationships with a particular area, group of villages, clinic, or monastery, and continuing to deliver supplies to these people and help them cope with the storm's after-effects. Since so many schools were destroyed, several projects in Burma's Dedaye, Gonkyangun, Labutta, Bogale, Letkoko, and Heingyi Island areas are attempting to heal the children afflicted by Cyclone Nargis, and give them a personal connection to the volunteers, through activities like drawing, reading, singing, and theater games.

Click here to view drawings

mental proliferation

The Buddha identified 'papanca' or 'mental proliferation' as a universal mental tendency common to all unenlightened beings. Briefly, it can be summarized as referring to the propensity for our mental processes to indulge in complex chains of emotionally-charged thought patterns triggered by particular sensory or mental experiences.


Peace in the Buddha's Discourses
by Dennis Candy

Available at: Buddhist Publication Society

Picture by: shadowplay@Flickr

what matters

"What really matters to the world? What matters to me?" Isabel Allende


What Matters was created by New York Times best-selling author/editor David Elliot Cohen to be published in September 2008.

What Matters contains 18 searing, socially-conscious photo-essays by the great photo-journalists of our generation including James Nachtwey. Each photo-essay is accompanied by a passionate, polemical essay written by well-known experts such as Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty), Samantha Power (Pulitzer Prize Winner for A Problem from Hell: American in the Age of Genocide) and Bill McKibben (The End of Nature).

Photography advances public discourse and demands action.

A very powerful book that will move you and inspire you.



Official Website: What Matters

Advance Release of electronic copy: Download

Pre-Order book from: Amazon

God, Buddhism and Tsunami

God, Buddhism and the Tsunami
The recent tsunami, the greatest natural disaster in living memory, has given rise to a great deal of soul-searching, not to say ‘theological’ searching. People are struggling to explain the disaster within the context of their religious beliefs. The English papers in Singapore have published several articles and letters on this issue, so far only from the Christian perspective. I would like to make a contribution to this discussion from the Buddhist point of view. There are two sides of this issue - the first is how religions respond to terrible disasters. In this sense we see that all the world religions have much in common. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Taoists have opened their hearts and their wallets to help the afflicted without regard to their religious affiliations. Buddhists have helped Muslims who have assisted Christians who have helped Hindus.
The second aspect of this issue is how religions explain the tsunami. In this sense there is little agreement between the different religions. In the Straits Times,1st January, Andy Ho wrote an article called ‘Where God was When the Tsunami Struck?’ and on the 9th January it ran an article by Tan Tarn called ‘Evil? No Way, Come Hell and High Water’. Both authors say that disasters like the tsunami cast doubts on the notion that there is a benevolent God. Thus they have raised very legitimate moral and philosophical doubts that have existed ever since people started believing in God. On the 29th January, Edmond Chew wrote to the Straits Times trying to answer the questions raised by Ho and Tarn and also to give his explanation of why God would let the tsunami happen.

Chew’s explanation is a simple one. ‘Actually, the simple reason why God allows evil is that if He did not, then a lot of good would be lost.’ In support of this opinion he quotes Thomas Aquinas; ‘If there is no evil there is no God. For there would be no evil, if the order of goodness were taken away…’ And again; ‘Hence many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of a lion be preserved unless the ass were killed.’

I would like to examine Chew’s argument from the Buddhist perspective. Continue reading...