Avoid doubt. Here's how (video)

CC Liu and Xochitl, Wisdom Quarterly; quotes by Lotusing (Myo Edizioni)

(Mind Blow #53) Life is an endless series of interesting nonsense. Choose mindfulness.

 

I used to doubt. I used to dream in place of knowing. I used to fear. I used to worry without experiencing.

Knowing-and-seeing removes all doubt. There was never anything to fear -- but ignorance. And even fearing that makes no sense.

 

"People create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true."

 

The way of the Buddha is the way of transcendent wisdom. But transcending, or "going beyond," is no easy practice.

There's an instant, albeit temporary, way. Mindfulness. Stay here right now. It is safe in this moment. Danger starts when we leave the infinite NOW.

That sounds mystical and mumbo-jumboey. Just be. Becoming takes care of itself. Huh? Practice. Buddhism is a practice.
 

Books are a start but a teacher may become necessary (TusitaInternational.net)

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The Three Poisons of the Heart

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; H. Kopp Delaney (photo)

This questionable quote is based on real aphorisms in the Dhammapada, which run:

"There is no fire like passion (greed); there is no losing throw like hatred; there is no snare like delusion; there is no happiness higher than nirvana" (sacred-texts.com).

  

Variations are due to free translations and the coupling of related passages to synthesize more inclusive quotes. Hatred is a crime, hunger is a sickness; there is no sorrow like separation; there is no joy like the joy of complete freedom -- which is nirvana (Dhp).

Minds/hearts are bound by lust (H-K-D/flickr)

One is burned by lust, by craving, by clinging, by passion. If nothing else, it blinds one from seeing the liberating-truth. Most are not looking, so we delight in the senses and dream of a heavenly rebirth with intensified senses and sensual experiences. For men in general, the Buddha declared, there is nothing more alluring than the form of a woman, and for women in general, the form of a man.

  

Of course, Buddhism admits of individual variation, but this generally holds. From time to time one may crave anything. It is craving itself that is the fire. And though one changes what one craves, if one still craves, the burning will continue. This is an internal problem not the Buddha's comment on some social (external) situation. Meditation -- both for the sake of serenity and insight -- is ruined by craving.

Aversion has many manifestations like racism

Hatred expressing itself as revenge, wrath, thoughts of harming and ill will do little to harm others compared to the harm done to oneself. One is not only harming oneself. One is harming both and everyone else as well. Indeed, hate is a losing throw, like the original meaning of "sin," which simply meant "to miss the mark." A society esteeming archery understood. Do we hate? "I don't hate!" We fail to recognize how pervasive aversion (dosa) is in our lives and how much harm it does. For most of us most of the time, aversion manifests as fear. It leads to bias just as greed does, just as delusion does.

At the root of all harm, all faults, all suffering is delusion, wrong views, ignorance, folly. (Craving is singled out as the cause of suffering because it is a weak link in the causal chain of Dependent Origination, a point at which to undo suffering, but in fact ignorance is a more fundamental root of misery).

 

The Buddha gained/ taught freedom (Evs in nz)

This being the case, the solution, the cure, the antidote to dukkha (unsatisfactoriness, woe, pain) of all kinds is enlightenment, liberating-insight, wisdom. This cure can be administered immediately with mindfulness -- bare awareness of just what is without embellishment or propagating worries about it. Right here, right now everything is fine. When we move out of presence (presence of mind, the present moment), we encounter troubles.

A more permanent solution is developing calm and collectedness (concentration of the heart/mind's innate power) then turning that purified consciousness on the development of systematic insight. The liberated heart is the highest happiness.

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Nazi Space Buddha and quotes are fake

Seven Dharmachari, Ashley Wells, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Fake New Agey "Buddha quotes" very quickly become popular (fakebuddhaquotes.com)

   

A famous fake Buddha quote (H-K-D)

Sad news on the Buddhist front -- more fake Buddha quotes. But "fake" cuts both ways: The "Nazi Space Buddha" or Iron Man statue we reported on earlier this month turns out to be fake. And strangely some fake Buddha quotes are very good, so good they should have been said by someone, maybe Taoists. But they certainly weren't said by the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. The sincere photographer H. Kopp Delaney is doing a great deal to promote 108 authentic and inauthentic "Buddha quotes" thus littering the Web with many great fakes.

Nazis' meteorite Buddha fake

Stephanie Pappas (LiveScience.com, Oct. 24, 2012) with WQ editorial commentary

Iron Man with swastika (Stuttgart U./Elmar Buchner)

A supposed Buddhist statue allegedly carved from a meteorite 1,000 years ago may not be as ancient as suspected, according to a Buddhism expert who argues that the statue may be a 20th-century fake.

  

The criticisms don't target the material the statue is carved from, which is an iron- and nickel-rich meteorite from the Siberia-Mongolia border.

But outside experts are questioning the statue's origins.

  

Achim Bayer, a Buddhism expert at Dongguk University in South Korea, argues in a new report that the Buddha statue [which is not a statue of the Buddha but of a purported Buddhist "deity" from space -- like Sakka, who is King of Kings (deva-maha-rajas) and Lord of Lords (of the Spaceport of the Thirty-Three or Tavatimsa-deva-rajas), or the Sky-King Vessavana, a maha-raja of one quadrant of the sky/space visible from Earth] has obvious "pseudo-Tibetan features," marking it as a European reproduction likely made between 1910 and 1970.

  

[Nazis loved searching for UFO artifacts and time-travel technology, abandoned bases and gold mines, advanced Vril technology. They also sought social remnants of "Aryan" -- a much maligned Buddhist, Hindu, Jain term that rather than racial "purity" refers to spiritual nobility -- cultures around the world, particularly in Antarctica, where Nazis set up a new country called New Swabia, and Tibet, where official Nazi emissaries -- inspired by the spiritual writings of Russian psychic Madame Blavatsky and American Theosophists as well as other-worldly beings -- befriended Vajrayana Buddhists. Tibetans had set up a Vatican-style church-state with a pope-like figure who served as their temporal-spiritual dictator, a post now occupied by the beloved fourteenth man to fill that post, Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama.]

 

Swastikas appear on statues (GT)

Among these features are European-like shoes that come to the ankles rather than boots; trousers instead of robes; tube-shaped sleeves unlike those seen on traditional Tibetan or Mongolian garb; a full beard, which is not seen on Tibetan and Mongolian deity sculptures; an unusual single earring; and a cape that resembles one worn by Romans rather than ancient Tibetan deities.

  

MAPS is a leading journal

In their original paper published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Stuttgart University researcher Elmar Bucher and colleagues reported that the Buddha statue first came to Germany after a 1938-1939 Tibet expedition by zoologist and ethnologist Ernst Schäfer, who was sent to the region by the Nazi party to find the origin of Aryan language and culture. The statue then passed into the hands of a private owner. More

Only the "Mind Only" School of Buddhism might believe this (H-K-D).

Nonsense. Quotes of dubious origin or translation (H-K-D)

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Meditation is making me crazy!

Wisdom Quarterly editors interview a new meditator

 (whiteshutterbox/flickr.com)

AngerDespairTranquilityRainbow: struggle for inner peace (David Stuart/Zazzle.ca)

  

"Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand adversaries in battle, yet one is indeed the nobler victor for conquering oneself. Self-conquest is far better than the conquest of others.
  
"Not even a deva, mara, or brahma [angel, demon, or god] can turn into defeat the victory of a person who is self-subdued and ever restrained in conduct" (Dhammapada, Chp. 8, vv 103-105).
  

Crazy?
Yoga says unite with the breath (spiritus, prana), unite with GOD (godhead, Brahman), unite with wisdom (transcendental knowledge, jnana).

I say meditation is driving me crazy! I feel settled and calm, but when I begin to sit, my mind races and my emotions bubble up until all I want to do is stand up. Can this be normal? I'd rather have peace of mind than a sitting-practice.

  

And do you?

Well, no. That's where it all falls down. I'd like more peace of mind, but sitting cross-legged doesn't seem to be the way to it.

At first it can seem like quite a strain. Relax. Let your mind wander. But look at the wandering rather than participating or getting "caught up" in it.

Let it wander? I thought the whole point was to bring it back?

It is. But you can't very well bring it back if it hasn't wandered. And when it is brought back -- gently, smiling, with tremendous love for it -- it will settle down and become quite useful. The mind is miraculous. We expend it until, spent, it is of little use to us and often becomes quite harmful.

Sit. Watch the exhales as you utterly let go. Let go each time you exhale. Do this and see what happens.

But I thought I had to watch the entire length of the breath. Isn't that the point?

It is. But begin by watching the breath go out and with it let it take your cares, concerns, and angst. Rather than trying to control the process, let go.

It seems hard.

Friendship immediately makes an end of enemies.

Any idea may seem hard, but in practice it just is -- pardon the expression -- what it is. Which is just practice. When you approach Peaceful Mind, you will become annoyed with anyone interfering with your meditation practice. Why? Because meditation will have started becoming a fountain of very pleasurable interest and effervescent joy. It's like when you thumb through those magazines or flip through the musical selections on your phone, you don't want to be disturbed. They are sources of soothing ease. Imagine a more powerful source.

Sitting?

Meditation. Mindful (present moment) awareness of what is. Whatever is. Wherever and whenever it is -- standing, laying down, walking, running... There is always a space for awareness. "Stand in the place that you are," as Guru REM teaches.

It's like a war in there, in  my head.

  

Better to overcome yourself in that war than a thousand adversaries in a thousand wars. Befriend yourself and you will put an end to that "enemy" then and there.

"Spiritual" advice replete with thousands of verses is of no value if it has no useful meaning, no practical purpose. A single line is more valuable if hearing it one is pacified.

"Although a thousand lines one composes,

A tome of meaningless lines, one supposes,

For far better would be a single useful one
If by hearing a person is thereby calmed."

(Wisdom Quarterly translation, Dhp. 8:101)

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Whose responsibility is liberation?

Wisdom Quarterly; H. Kopp Delaney (photo)

"No one saves us but ourselves; no one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Buddhas only point the way!"

(Dhammapada 165)

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Peace: Better than a 1,000 words

H. Kopp Delaney (photo); Wisdom Quarterly

 

"Better than a thousand empty words is a single word that bring peace," the Buddha states in the Dhammapada ("Imprint of the Dharma"), a collection of aphorisms and their origin stories.

When the goal is peace, what might be said? We might say many thousands of words enumerating the pros of peace or arguing about the cons of violence.

But as for inner peace, Would we have any? Would our listeners? It might be enough to say, "Stop" as the Buddha did to Angulimala. Or then there was that time when the monks of Kosambi would not stop arguing and less than a single word was enough to restore peace.

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Pursuing Joy with Gratitude (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

(H.Koppdelaney/H-K-D/Flickr.com)

  
Did the Buddha ever say, "You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy"? Not that we know of, but he could have. It is certainly in line with the Dharma. A grateful heart/mind is aligned with reality, and joy is the radiant result.

How does one reach a state of meditative gratitude and bliss? George Quant, who for many years worked with Transcendental Meditation has now developed an even easier set of techniques he calls IQM ("Integrated Quantum Meditation"). His pedigree is remarkable, assuming he is not exaggerating and making more of how he came to develop it through progressive Western medical institutions not generally known for embracing Eastern spiritual wisdom.

George Quant begins at Minute 29:20

What is even more remarkable is that all Western teachers simply echo the words of Buddhist meditation masters when they suggest that "meditation" is not something one does. It is something one allows, something that happens, something one is experienced by -- if only we will persist on our non-quest to escape to reality. The quest is to find oneself, to find the Truth, to find happiness and freedom for all.

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How to Meet Trouble (Positive Response)

Acharya Buddharakkhita (Buddhist Publ. Society); Hulpy Carmen Haessler (photo)

If one person shouts, the other should be silent. If one person raises his fist, the other should not. If one person sets a fire, should you set a fire too? Then you will only burn together (Hulpy Carmen Haessler)

Imagine a brief collection of short sutras spoken by the Buddha and a passage from The Path of Purification, each preceded by a short introduction by the translator.

  

The unifying theme of these pieces might be called a "positive response" for dealing with provocative people and situations.

   

The sacred texts set forth practical techniques taught by the Buddha for overcoming resentment, anger, hate, and other such pollutants of the heart and mind.

  

In their place, there is room for cultivating such elevating personal qualities as good will, amity (friendliness), and compassion. For anyone intent on spiritual development and liberating insight these practical instructions will help cleanse the heart/mind and to unfold its great hidden potential.

• Positive Response (PDF)
• Positive Response (HTML)

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