Bodhi (Enlightenment) Day 2012

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, David Nguyen, Wisdom Quarterly (Shaka Jodo-e, Dec. 8, 2012)

"The Legend of Buddha," an animated film by Pentamedia Graphics Ltd., qualified for contention at the 2005 Oscar Awards in the Best Animation Film category.

The Buddha, according to the oldest records, reached supreme enlightenment on the full moon day in May (roughly corresponding to the Indian month of Vesakha), which coincidentally was the day he was born and also the day he exited the world into final nirvana.

But these sources are not relied on by all traditions. The much larger and often more devotional Mahayana school, which encompasses Chinese Pureland, Japanese Zen, Nicheren, Tendai, and Shingon, Tibetan Vajrayana, or what used to be referred to generally as "Northern" Buddhism (as the Dharma traveled out of India into China, Japan, Korea, and parts of Vietnam).

This Buddhist school or vehicle -- as distinguished from the older Theravada (Teaching of the Elders or Theras and Theris) and the now defunct "Hinayana" (derogatory "Lesser Vehicle") schools like the Sarvastivada -- commemorates Siddhartha's knowledge-and-vision of nirvana. More than that it is the celebration that Siddhartha did not  merely become an arhat, or "fully enlightened person," but a Supremely Enlightened Teacher (samma sam buddha).

He might have remained silent (pacceka buddha) without having developed the ancillary qualities and abilities needed to effectively establish the Dharma, teaching it directly to others, and leaving a stable monastic and supportive lay-Buddhist legacy that continues long after a buddha's attainment of the goal.

Mahayana Buddhists observe the occasion not as a thrice-blessed day as it is celebrated by Vesak-observing countries (Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and elsewhere). Instead, Bodhi Day allows celebrants to focus on the essence of the Buddha's achievement -- bodhi, "enlightenment," "awakening," transcending ignorance and all of the other causes of suffering.

This is best done by meditating, studying the Teachings on the path to enlightenment, chanting and/or memorizing sutras, and other acts of merit such as countering the Three Poisons of the heart/mind with the antidotes of letting go/unselfishness, friendliness/compassion, and mindfulness/cultivating right view. 

For all that, it is still a celebration, which means special foods, offerings to monastics and intensive practitioners, and readings^.

^{How did he do it, and how might I?}

Austere days of struggle (dhammawheel.com)

What might be important is reflecting on what finally made Siddhartha's spiritual efforts fruitful. He had tried devotion to teachers, the yogis Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputra (not a Jain as Wikipedia currently states but simply a shraman of which there were at least six prominent schools).
 
With them Yogi Siddhartha gained valuable skill in samadhi (intense concentration) but not enlightenment and liberation from samsara. He had tried extreme pleasure as a prince in the palace. He now tried severe asceticism -- starvation (anorexia mirabilis), holding his breath, not lying down, rarely eating, not caring for the body, exposure to the elements, and seclusion. Both were counterproductive.

 

He discovered the Path by setting off alone, taking food and rest sufficient to support his spiritual (metaphysical) endeavors, and utilizing the purity/intensity of heart-mind brought about by samadhi to support mindful insight-practices, which includes contemplation.

Crucially, he recalled that as a child of seven, he had spontaneously entered meditative absorption (jhana, zen, dhyana, seon, ch'an) under a tree during a planting festival. He had been running from that sort of bliss or joy (piti) for six years of practice since leaving the palace. Although his two teachers had taught samadhi as the goal by way of the eight jhanas, they did not encourage or allow him to develop these absorptions deeply.

It was enough to attain each and move quickly to the next absorption until reaching what they in their respective schools or dharmas (doctrine-disciplines) were regarding as the utmost attainment, as liberation (moksha), as freedom from rebirth (samsara), as nirvikalpa samadhi as if rarefied states of consciousness were nirvana.

But Siddhartha, due to so many exertions in past lives as a yogi, a Himalaya-dwelling hermit, realized, intuited, or felt that this attainment was not the ultimate, not real liberation from samsara, not the unexcellable goal of nirvana.

Reclining Buddha entering nirvana with arhats, Nanzoin Temple (Jepster/flickr)

 
Foolishly today many of us, following in the footsteps of ancient Brahminical and "Hindu" (a recent all-encompassing tradition systematized by Adi Shankara from very ancient texts and Vedic/Brahminical traditions existing at least from the time of the Indus River Valley Civilization up to and including lip service to the Buddha and Mahavira, the founders of the two most popular shramanic traditions that rejected the Vedas, Buddhism and Jainism), mistake the goal of the shramanic Buddha and that of Vedic Brahmins.

This is significant because Mahayana Buddhism, so thoroughly influenced by Brahmanism (precursor of modern "Hinduism"), hold up what Brahmins held up as the ultimate attainment as if it were nirvana.

But the Buddha corrected the teachers of his day, rejecting what the Brahmins taught and what his two wandering yogi teachers had taught him, in favor of what he found by his own efforts as a bodhisattva striving to become a samma sam buddha, a Supremely Enlightened Teacher.

Rohatsu, Jōdō-e (Danny Fisher)

Nirvikalpa samadhi is Hinduism's Advaita, "non-duality." It's what we joke about in the punchline "Make me One with everything." That oneness or non-duality is NOT enlightenment, not nirvana, not liberation from samsara.
 
Is it any wonder, therefore, that Mahayana exalts itself successfully opposing a strawman tradition it set up as Hinayana -- teaching, like the Brahmins, that "Nirvana is Samsara" when it is almost by definition the opposite? (Almost since nirvana cannot be known or defined by concepts, but only known by experience).

And rather than focusing on the historical Buddha, the Brahmins created Mahayana Buddhism in India within 200 years of the Buddha's passing -- created a tradition wherein all the many gods of the previous pantheon became Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Then of these Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, who went on to become Kwan Yin, soon assumed the position of greatest prominence, subordinating insight-wisdom in favor of promoting emotional-compassion.
  
That may not have been what the world really needed (to gain freedom), but it is certainly what it wanted. Sexism in the Judeo-Christian world met with a similar backlash, leading to the rise of the Virgin Mary as the supreme figure of day-to-day veneration. The Buddha was not sexist, nor was Jesus, but the worlds they taught certainly were, and the temple priests (Brahmin/Hindu and Philistine/Jewish) they corrected were.
 

Bodhi is enlightenment. Nirvana is supreme and ultimate liberation from samsara and all the suffering/disappointment inherent in conditioned existence

<sup>That is the real Bodhi Day reflection so that we may all one day be free.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Sr. Kathleen Deignan, CND (MonasticDialog.com)</sup> 
I have always thought it an interesting coincidence that the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the feast of the Buddha’s enlightenment, Bodhi Day, both share this date, December 8. Koans: engaging riddles, provocative questions that if lived awaken insight and a fuller understanding of life...
Bodhi Day 2012 (David Victor Vector)
^{Happy Bodhi Day! (Danny Fisher)}

Read More

Mayan Calendar: A Second Coming?

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly (COUNTDOWN CLOCK: -14)

The second coming...of Q

(BCI.org) Quetzalcoatl was described as a pale male with a beard, wearing long robes, spreading a message of love, forbidding blood sacrifices, teaching that the god he represents in space is supreme, giving Toltecs technology that provides for their material well being that advances their culture, such as providing them with an accurate calendar. Q left the Toltecs because of the enmity and persecution of powerful religious leaders. 

 

But he promised to one day return, just as he had left, coming over the ocean from the east. This return, as explained in Warriors of the Rainbow (William Willoya and Vinson Brown, Naturegraph Publishers), is by no means necessarily a return of the same physical being. It may simply mean the return of the same spiritual message being channeled through another prophet. Q has been described by Dr. Herbert Joseph Spinden as "perhaps the most remarkable figure in ancient American history." He not only established a religion from space ["heaven"] but taught the people all manner of arts, sciences, and useful social customs. More

If Q comes back, can Tezcatlipoca be far behind?

The Mayan calendar ends?
Don't all calendars end? Does the world end with them? What happens at the end of our Gregorian calendar? The same thing that happens at the end of all calendars: They repeat. Ad nauseum. Samsara has no end point but instead whirls like a wheel. We ourselves must get off this endless merry-go-round rather than expecting it to stop.
  
A Second Coming?

All of the world religions speak of a second coming. Christendom is Waiting for Godot. And Islam awaits the great Imam (Madhi). This belief is rife with connotations that Buddhism is boarding the bandwagon it actually created when the historical Buddha spoke of buddhas who had lived aeons ago and the next person, already living in a space world called Tusita, who would go on to reach the goal and become a world teacher. That, too, however, is not for aeons. There is little chance of Maitreya arising anytime soon. But other great, universal teachers with a unitarian message may indeed use the Mayan Calendar to herald the new Age of Aquarius. And we will all be as one. What will December 22, 2012 be like? It will be as people wish it to be, in accordance with the timeline they choose, which means that for us it will be like the ending of "40 Year Old Virgin":

• 2012: Return of Quetzalcoatl (Daniel Pinchbeck)
• Los Angeles finally gets a (paid) Poet Laureate
• Pearl Harbor, pretext for US entering WW II
• Climate Conference in Doha Qatar demands action

Read More

The Holyman and Harlot in Heaven

Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

Prostitution in Zurich (now.msn.com)

 

Nudity in China (blog.holachina.net)

A holyman lived happily on a peaceful street. One day the empty house across from him was bought. 

 

He stared out of his window at it and before long, seeing many men coming and going, became convinced that it was being used as a brothel.

 

He soon saw a beautiful woman coming to the window staring out across the street at him. 

He became incensed, "She's mocking me! That woman of ill repute has no right to live across from the holy precincts of this temple!" 

By chance that woman died and the holyman died as well. He was eager to see heaven for the dispensing of some karmic justice; the woman was abashed. 

But he was alarmed when he found himself being pulled back to Earth to be reborn, whereas the woman was drawing up to be reborn in some minor paradise in space. 

"Something's gone wrong!" he shouted. "I'm a holyman; she's a wh*re! Why am I being cast away while she advances?!"

Buddhist heavens (Angelo G.I.O./flickr)

A gentle messenger (gandharva) explained that he had been a corrupt man in life, his heart/mind defiled, always condemning others for the faults he thought he detected. And this in spite of the fact that he lived what could have been a peaceful life of spiritual development with the blessing (benefit) of being taken care of as a holyman with time to cultivate spiritual qualities as others worked for their livelihood.

 

That woman, on the other hand, had led a life of hardship and even desperation that led her to resort to what she could do to get by, and nevertheless did not give up hope of one day gaining something better for herself.

One cutting example was shown to the holyman. The messenger recounted that she would frequently come to her window between visitors to a house she felt trapped in. There she would look out across the street in admiration of the temple and the peaceful old holyman in the window looking back at her. 

She wished more than anything that she could live as peacefully as he lived, cared for and contented, rather than being sunk in the mire of her degrading existence.

 

"What had you done?" the messenger asked. "What had you been thinking?" Abashed, the holyman fell back to Earth more humble, less judgmental, full of appreciation that he could again live on a planet only half sunk in mire. 

Instead, what might have come his way had he not lived and cultivated some beautiful karmic impulses (cittas) that enabled him to enjoy another rare opportunity to live on Earth.

"If you want to make GOD* laugh, tell [it] your plans."

*"GOD" here is not "God," the supreme god of various warring religious factions in the world but rather what they be hinting at and crediting their god with, which was understood by ancient Indian seers as that ineffable, impersonal, unimaginable godhead the Brahmin priests called Brahman, which should never be confused with Brahma. GOD in this sense is the all, the interplay of karma and results, the enduring reality behind the transient illusions in life.

Read More

Cara Mengubah URL Artikel Blogspot

Tulisan Cara Mengubah URL Blogspot ini saya share di sini berhubung hal ini cukup penting dalam mengembangkan blog agar bisa menjadi lebih bersahabat dengan mesin pencari (search engine), sekaligus tidak melanggar ketentuan google adsense bagi yang mengikuti program adsense. Salah satu syarat dari GA adalah tidak menempatkan merek dagang google pada url blog, oleh karena melihat banyak url blog

Read More

Rahasia Memasang Iklan Google Adsense

Kemarin saya baru saja mencairkan uang hasil Google Adsense (GA) sebesar US$ 117 lebih melalui Western Union quick cash, hasil tersebut merupakan akumulasi penghasilan selama dua bulan, mulai dari bulan September dan Oktober. Penghasilan itu sebenarnya yang terbanyak diperoleh dari blog ini, namun ternyata blog Belajar Ilmu Komputer, tidak lagi diperbolehkan untuk memasang iklan Google Adsense,

Read More

It's never too late (to awaken)

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala.com); Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly COUNTDOWN (TO EXTINCTION) CLOCK: -15

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream (onmarkproductions.com tenbu-montage).

Dreams of nightmares (fortytwotimes.com)

When I was about ten, my best friend started having nightmares:
 
She'd be running through a huge dark building pursued by hideous monsters. She'd get to a door, struggle to open it, and no sooner had she closed it behind her than she'd hear it opened by the rapidly approaching monsters. Finally she'd wake up screaming and crying for help.
  
One day we were sitting in her kitchen talking about her nightmares. When I asked her what the demons looked like, she said she didn't know because she was always running away. After I asked her that question, she began to wonder about the monsters. She wondered if any of them looked like witches and if any of them had knives. So on the next occurrence of the nightmare, just as the demons began to pursue her, she stopped running and turned around.

Q: Where The Wild Things Are? A: the library

It took tremendous courage, and her heart was pounding, but she put her back up against the wall and looked at them. They all stopped right in front of her and began jumping up and down, but none of them came closer. There were five in all, each looking something like an animal. One of them was a gray bear, but instead of claws, it had long red fingernails. One had four eyes. Another had a wound on its cheek. Once she looked closely, they appeared less like monsters and more like two-dimensional drawings in comic books. Then slowly they began to fade. After that she woke up, and that was the end of her nightmares.

Awakening

There is a teaching on the three kinds of awakening:

1. awakening from the dream of ordinary sleep,
2. awakening at death from the dream of life, and
3. awakening into full enlightenment from the dream of delusion.

Deva in garden (WeGoTwo/flickr.com)

These teachings say that when we die, we experience it as waking up from a very long dream.

When I heard this teaching, I remembered my friend's nightmares. It struck me right then that if all this is really a dream, I might as well spend it trying to look at what scares me instead of running away.

I haven't always found this all that easy to do, but in the process I've learned a lot about maitri [metta, the Buddha's teaching of loving-kindness, friendliness, and altruism].

American Vajrayana nun Pema Chodron on "Fearless Nontheism"

• HELP WANTED: Jobs waiting in Dharamsala
• The Pema Chodron Foundation
  

Read More