renunciation

Renunciation has an automatic action on the heart of man, an action which very few realize because very few arrive at that stage where they can renounce. By this action a spiritual spark is kindled in the soul; and when a person has arrived at that stage he has taken the first step on the path of spirituality. The spark produced by this action in the depths of the heart culminates in a flame, a torch in life; and this changes the whole outlook on life.

Only he whose heart is full of happiness after an act of renunciation should make a renunciation. This shows that renunciation is not something that can be learned or taught. It comes by itself as the soul develops, when the soul begins to see the true value of things. All that is valuable to others a seer begins to see differently. Thus the value of all the things that we consider precious or not precious, is according to the way we look at them. For one person the renunciation of a penny is too much; for another that of everything he possesses is nothing. It depends on how we look at things. One rises above all that one renounces in life. Man remains the slave of anything which he has not renounced; of that which he has renounced he becomes king. This whole world can become a kingdom to a person who has renounced it. Renunciation depends upon the evolution of the soul. One who has not evolved spiritually cannot really renounce. Toys so precious to children mean nothing to the grown-up; it is easy to renounce them; and so it is for those who develop spiritually; for them all things are easy to renounce.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Read More Here


Spiritual awareness and the quest for enlightenment do not arise spontaneously in harmony with our natural modes of world engagement, but require a turn "against the current", a break away from our instinctual urges for expansion and enjoyment, and the embarkation in a different direction. This break is precipitated by the encounter with suffering which tears us our of our BLIND ABSORPTION in the immediacy of temporal being and sets us in search of a way to its transcendence.

Bhikkhu Bodhi


Picture by: John Kazanas@Flickr

paradox of life

A Message by George Carlin:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.



George Carlin



Picture by miguel36@Flickr

mindfulness

Our rush into hasty or habitual reactions after receiving the first few signals from our perceptions. But if we muster the restraining forces of mindfulness and pause for bare attention, the material and mental processes that form the objects of mind at the given moment will reveal themselves to us more fully and more truly.

No longer dragged at once into the whirlpool of self-reference, allowed to unfold themselves before the watchful eye of mindfulness, they will dissolve the diversity of their aspects and the wide net of their correlations and inter-connections.


Nyanaponika Thera


Picture by sp clarke@Flickr

angel

"I have found the paradox
that if I love until it hurts,
then there is no hurt,
but only more - Love."



Mother Teresa


Picture ® aml.2007

volition

Every one will admit that all the evils in the world are produced by selfish desire. But how this desire or 'thirst' can produce re-existence and re-becoming is a problem not so easy to grasp.

There are four nutriments in the sense of 'cause' or 'condition' necessary for the existence and continuity of beings: ordinary material food, contact of our sense organs (including mind) with the external world, consciousness and volition or will.

Of these four, the last mentioned 'mental volition' is the will to live, to exist, to re-exist, to continue, to become more and more. It creates the root of existence and continuity, striving forward by way of good and bad actions. When one understands the nutriment of mental volition, one understands the three forms of 'thirst'. Thus the terms 'thirst', 'volition', 'mental volition', and 'karma' all denote the same thing: the desire, the will to be, to exist, to re-exist, to become more and more, to grow more and more, to accumulate more and more. This is the cause of the arising of 'dukkha' (suffering and unsatisfactoriness in worldy life).


What the Buddha Taught, Venerable Dr Walpola Rahula

highest happiness

The Buddha describes the Dhamma as "subtle, deep and difficult to see," and one of the things that make it difficult to see is its thesis that the highest happiness cannot be won by yielding to the longings of the heart but only by subduing them. This thesis runs utterly counter to the thought, attitudes and actions of people fully immersed in the world. As long as we are infatuated with the seductive lures of sensual enjoyment, as long as we take delight in being this or becoming that, we will regard the sublime Dhamma as a mystery and a puzzle.

The Buddha therefore realized that the first major challenge that he would face in establishing his world-transcending Dhamma was to break the grip that sensual pleasure and worldly attachment have upon the mind. He had to knock the mind out of its accustomed ruts and set it moving in an altogether different direction.

We have to learn to see beneath the glitter of pleasure, position and power that usually enthralls us, and at the same time, to learn to see through the deceptive distortions of perception, thought and views that habitually cloak our vision. Ordinarily, we represent things to ourselves through the refractory prism of our subjective biases.

In the Buddha's Words, Bhikkhu Bodhi


Picture from BuddhistChannel

conceiving

The Pali verb "conceives" (mannati), form the root 'man', "to think", is often used in the Pali suttas to mean distortional thinking - thought that ascribes to its object characteristics and a significance derived not from the object itself, but from one's own subjective imaginings. The cognitive distortion introduced by conceiving consists, in brief, the intrusion of the egocentric perspective into the experience already slightly distorted by spontaneous perception. The activity of conceiving is governed by three defilements, which account for the different ways it comes to manifestation - craving (tanha), conceit (mana) and views (ditthi).

From Notes to Majjhima Nikaya by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi

So it was with reference to this that it was said: 'One should not neglect wisdom, should preserve truth, should cultivate relinquishment, and should train for peace.' The tides of conceiving do not sweep over one who stands upon these foundations, and when the tides of conceiving no longer sweep over him, he is called a sage at peace.'

Majjhima Nikaya Sutta 140


Picture from BuddhistChannel

no delusions

The wise one has given up her old delusions,
and creates no new ones,
isn't trapped by her desires
or stuck in rigid opinion.
She is free of theories,
unsullied by the world.
She is wise.

Picture: Shubh M Singh@ Flickr

Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali

When Patanjali uses the word 'yoga', he means 'yoking'. The practice of yoga is meant to rein in the tendency of consciousness to gravitate towards external things, to identify with them and try to locate happiness in them. Steady practice at "yoking'' teaches consciousness how to turn inward toward itself and realize the true nature of its underlying awareness.

In order to still the movements of consciousness to the point of realization - seeing reality as it is - we must allow each aspect of ourselves to clarify. We are encouraged to bring clarity to our relationships with the beings and objects of the external world, so that those relationships might cease to generate suffering or impede realization. Likewise, we are assured that a disciplined inner life is the most direct path to happiness.

In Patanjali's view, the commotion of our physical and mental life conceals the fact that our thoughts and actions are almost always tinged with wanting, aversion, egoism or fear of extinction. The challenge lies in overcoming the well-established mental and physical habits that already produce suffering in our lives.


The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali

A new translation with commentary by Chip Hartranft

truths of the heart

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..

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.

As the early Buddhist teachings freely admit, the predicament is that the cycle of birth, aging, and death is meaningless. They don't try to deny this fact and so don't ask us to be dishonest with ourselves or to close our eyes to reality. As one teacher has put it, the Buddhist recognition of the reality of suffering — so important that suffering is honored as the first noble truth — is a gift, in that it confirms our most sensitive and direct experience of things, an experience that many other traditions try to deny.

From there, the early teachings ask us to become even more sensitive, to the point where we see that the true cause of suffering is not out there — in society or some outside being — but in here, in the craving present in each individual mind. They then confirm that there is an end to suffering, a release from the cycle. And they show the way to that release, through developing noble qualities already latent in the mind to the point where they cast craving aside and open onto Deathlessness. Thus the predicament has a practical solution, a solution within the powers of every human being.


Thanissaro Bhikkhu


To read full essay "Affirming the truths of the heart", Click Here


Picture from kalsang35@Flickr.com

infinite is emptiness

"If the doors of perception were cleansed,
every thing would appear to man as it is,
- infinite."


William Blake


Pic: All Rights Reserved ® aml2007

Rebirth

A story of a boy who was a fighter pilot whose plane was shot down by the Japanese.

Part 1:


Part 2:



To read article from the What Is Enlightenment magazine on the same subject, click here:
Death, Rebirth, and Everything in Between -
A scientific and philosophical exploration by Carter Phipps


Google Search results on "rebirth"

Burma - Child Soldiers

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says children as young as 10 are beaten or threatened with arrest to make them enlist.

The report, entitled "Sold to be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma" says there are thousands of children in the Burmese military.

It claims that children are approached in public places by military recruiters and civilian brokers who have been promised cash rewards by the military.

The children are often beaten or threatened with arrest to force them to enlist, the report says.


BBC News: Read More Here

For full report from Human Rights Watch, Click Here

purpose in life

My daughter taught me this today:

"I forgot why I was born
or what's my purpose in life.

Then I look at all the suffering around me
- and I remember."






Photo by James Nachtwey

HH Dalai Lama - 4 Noble Truths

Part 1




Part 2



Part 3



Part 4

Gnosis and Kalacakratantra

In the Kalacakratantra, gnosis (jnana), which is considered the ultimate reality, is the most crucial concept.

As in other gnostic traditions, the main focus of the Kalacakratantra is on gnosis as the source of the individual's aspiration for enlightenment, as the means leading to the fulfillment of that aspiration, and as the fulfillment of that aspiration.

When this source of aspiration for spiritual awakening is brought forth, or made fully conscious, it liberates one from cyclic existence. But when it is not brought forth, or remains unconscious, it destroys the individual and keeps him in cyclic existence. Therefore, it is said that gnosis is the source of both cyclic existence and nirvana.

In this regard, the Kalacakratantra fully accords with the writings of other gnostic systems, which also sees gnosis as the source of sublime power, the ground of all being, and the potential for liberation or destruction, existing in a latent state within the psyche of all people.

The Gospel of Thomas expresses it in this way:
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

The Christian gnostic text the Testimony of Truth asserts that the gnostic is a disciple of his own mind, "the father of the truth". Therefore, gnosis is nothing other than self-knowledge, insight into the depths of one's own being. As for all other gnostic traditions, so too for the Kalacakratantra tradition, the individual who lacks this knowledge is driven by impulses that he does not comprehend. One suffers due to ignorance regarding one's own divine nature. Therefore, ignorance of oneself is a form of self-destruction.

In other words, in these gnostic traditions, one becomes the transcendent reality that one perceives at the time of spiritual transformation. Having perceived oneself in this way, one perceives and knows all things in the same way. Likewise, just as in the Kalacakratantra, so too in some Christian gnostic systems, the realization of gnosis entails the transcendence of all differentiations, or dualities, for it is the final integration of the knower and the known. One reads in the Gospel of Thomas:

"When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and when you make the male and the female one and the same... then you will enter [the Kingdom]."


The Kalacakratantra speaks of this non-dual perception of the world in terms of seeing all things as being of the "same taste" - the taste of gnosis.



The Inner Kalacakratantra by Vesna A. Wallace



Photo Credit: Picture @ Flickr

Dalai Lama Receives Congressional Award - 17 October 2007

"I am deeply touched that this great honor has been given to me, a Buddhist monk born of a simple family."


For full story at CNN

Dalai Lama Says His Successor Could be Chosen by Unorthodox Method -
The Dalai Lama says his successor could be chosen among a group of senior monks, rather than through the centuries-old tradition of reincarnation.

In an interview with VOA, the Tibetan spiritual leader said his successor could be chosen like the Pope, or he may decide to declare his own successor while he is still alive.
Read more...

Website of the Tibet Government in Exile

Teachings of HH The Dalai Lama

wake up

There is a term in Tibetan, nge jung, that is often translated as "renunciation", but which literally means "definite emergence". Definite emergence is the capacity to wake up and be willing to face our life and our habitual tendencies. It is the intention, either consciously chosen or instinctually driven, to become conscious. This movement towards consciousness has at its heart the recognition that the resolution of the struggles and suffering of our life is to face them. While we may be tempted to hide our fallibility and problems, and deny or anesthetize our emotional struggles, they are resolved only when we genuinely address them honestly and openly. Anything else simple perpetuates a regressive sleep of ignorance. We may put a bandage over our pain and wounds, hoping they will go away, but at some point we will need to bring fresh air to them. In our lives, it would seem that almost anything may be used as a means to avoid facing ourselves and anesthetizing our awareness. We may take refuge in our material desires, our sensory stimulation and entertainment, our work, relationships, and various intoxicating substances, including food.

The meaning of this renunciation is not giving up life. It is living fully, fearlessly and with openness.

Emerging from this illusion, we take a step across the threshold, facing our fear and insecurity. This requires an inner decision: the willingness to truly wake up and face ourselves, to engage in life knowing that the source of our suffering or our happiness lies in our minds. We are then confronted with the reality that we, on one level, choose the life we create. The heroic quest begins when we take up the challenge.



The Wisdom of Imperfection, Rob Preece



Picture by: ornellab. at Flickr.

the higher destiny of man

To a Tibetan, religion is not so much the adherence to a certain creed or dogma, but a natural expression of faith in the higher destiny of man, that is, in his capacity to free himself from the bondage of delusion and the narrowness of egohood in order to realize the universality of his true nature in the Enlightened Mind.


Lama Govinda,
Insights of a Himalayan Pilgrim


Picture ® aml

A Monk's Reflection

"Monks, there are these five aspects of speech by which others may address you: timely or untimely, true or false, affectionate or harsh, beneficial or unbeneficial, with a mind of good-will or with inner hate. Others may address you in a timely way or an untimely way. They may address you with what is true or what is false. They may address you in an affectionate way or a harsh way. They may address you in a beneficial way or an unbeneficial way. They may address you with a mind of good-will or with inner hate. In any event, you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic to that person's welfare, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading him with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with him, we will keep pervading the entire world with an awareness imbued with good will -- abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves."

Majjhima Nikaya 21


Nothing better than patience is found.
Whoever, when strong,
is forbearing
to one who is weak:
that's the foremost patience.
There's no reproach for one who is strong,
guarding -- guarded by -- Dhamma.
You make things worse
when you flare up at someone who's angry.
Whoever doesn't flare up at someone who's angry
wins a battle hard to win.
You live for the good of both
-- your own, the other's --
when, knowing the other's provoked,
you mindfully grow calm.
When you work the cure of both
-- your own, the other's --
those who think you a fool
know nothing of Dhamma."

Samyutta Nikaya XI.5


"Monks, when liberation of the mind by friendliness (metta) is ardently practiced, developed, unrelentingly resorted to, used as one's vehicle, made the foundation of one's life, fully established, well consolidated and perfected, then these eleven blessings may be expected. What eleven?

One sleeps happily; one wakes happily; one does not suffer bad dreams; one is dear to human beings; one is dear to non-human beings; the gods protect one; no fire or poison or weapon harms one; one's mind gets quickly concentrated; the expression of one's face is serene; one dies unperturbed; and even if one fails to attain higher states, one will at least reach the state of the Brahma world."

Anguttara Nikaya 11.16




A Monk's Reflection - Bhikkhu Gavesako @ Buddhist Channel