A Buddhist New Year's Resolution

Buddhas and sentient beings grow out of the One Mind and there are no differences between them. It is like space where there are no complexities, and is not subject to destruction. It is like the great sun which illumines the four worlds: when it rises, its light pervades all over the world, but space itself gains thereby no illumination. When the sun sets, darkness reigns everywhere, but space itself does not share this darkness. Light and darkness drive each other out and alternatively prevail, but space itself is vast emptiness and suffers no vicissitudes.
(Zen Master Huangbo Xiyun)

All the thoughts, feelings, and events of the past year are gone; now they are fleeting memories in the present moment. Reflecting on exactly where they arise, in the clear void of the Buddha Mind, they resemble sunlight disappearing into the darkness. Look into this Mind, and see its shining clarity at the heart of one’s being. Remaining as this spacious awareness, know the ephemeral nature of all things, including those memories; let them disappear into the void. Now, turn to face the New Year with this facelessness. What better resolution could there be than to rest in this knowing?

The e- book quoted in this article is available for free download at the following location: ‘Manual of Zen Buddhism’ by D.T. Suzuki

Yoshiro Tamura on the Selfish View of the Self

Yoshiro Tamura (1921-1989): Don't be self-ish!

The selfish view of the self is a matter of seeing the self as fixed and unchanging, as a kind of absolute, and then seeing and judging other things on that basis. In other words, it is false subjectivity; it is deluded and clinging. In reality, nothing like an unchanging, fixed, absolute self exists. In other words, the self is a self-less self or a self-emptying self. A self that sees itself as impermanent sees things as they are. To know the true appearance of the self as a self-less self or a self-emptying self is to see things phenomenologically in accord with the way they are. It is, in brief, to be genuinely objective.

The selfish view of things involves seeing things as fixed and unchanging and then clinging to them. It is, in brief, a false objectivity. It is also deluded and involves clinging. In reality no unchanging fixed things exist. In other words, things are without independent reality; they are empty of independent reality. To know the true appearance of things as being without independent reality is to have a phenomenological mind, one free from clinging to objects, and conversely to be able to participate in the reality of objects from a phenomenological or non-selfish perspective. In this way, emptiness is not a matter of falling into nihilism but of enabling both objects and the self to exist and live as they should.

Yoshiro Tamura was a Japanese professor considered the leading authority on Tiantai, Tendai & the Lotus Sutra. The above quotation is taken from Tamura's excellent book ‘An Introduction to the Lotus Sutra,' published by Wisdom Publications: A very accessible work on the subject of the Lotus Sutra.

Ajahn Viradhammo on Buddhist Training

Ajan Viradhammo (1947-present): Good intentions

Two points that I find very helpful in training are: 1) to see cause and effect, and 2) intention. We can always reflect upon cause and effect, asking, for example, “What is the result of my practice? How long have I been practising and what’s the result? Am I more at ease with life than I was ten years ago? Or a year ago? Or am I more uptight?” If I’m more uptight, then I need to consider my practice! If I’m more at ease, then also I should consider my practice.

So we look at cause and effect, asking quite simply, “What is the result of my life, the way I live my life?” Not as a judgement, saying, “There I go, getting angry again.” That kind of attitude is not reflective.

Instead notice: The way I speak – what’s the result of that? The way I consume the objects of the sense world, whether it’s ideas in books or ham sandwiches: What is the result of that? What is the result of my sitting meditation?

What’s the effect on my mind and body, on the society around me? These are things we can contemplate. It’s simple, but very important – to see what works and what doesn’t work.

It’s because we don’t understand that we make mistakes, so the trick is to make as few mistakes as possible, and not to make the same mistakes again and again. Yet sometimes we have this blindness, and we don’t see why we have suffering in our lives. Ignorance blinds us. So then what can we do? Wherever there is suffering or confusion, we can begin to look at that pattern in our lives. If we look at this whole pattern, we can discover the causes of suffering, and begin to make intentions to not allow those causes to come up all the time.

Let’s say I’m a person who is always making wisecracks. I watch people cringe, I begin to notice that no one likes me, and end up hating myself. So I reflect: This kind of speech brings me remorse and regret. This kind of speech brings other people suffering. And then I see: Ah, that’s the result. So then what can I do?

Now this is when it’s important to know the difference between remorse and guilt. Remorse is a healthy response to inappropriate action or speech or thought. It’s a healthy response, because it’s telling me, “This is painful.” But most of us probably turn that into guilt.

There is remorse, but also an inappropriate amount of self-flagellation. This is the unhealthy nature of guilt.

For me, it seems that guilt is a kind of cover-up of the pain. I numb the pain, covering it over with these thoughts of guilt: “Yes. You are rotten to the core, Viradhammo!” But this is self-view. What does it feel like when we just go to the pain? If I say something which is unkind to someone, and then see them get hurt, I think: “Oh, I did it again!” – and there’s the jab. There’s the pain. There’s the result of my action.

The above is extracted from the book ‘The Stillness of Being,’ freely downloadable from here. Ajahn Viradhammo has been a Buddhist monk since 1971, having studied with Ajahn Chah & Ajahn Sumedho. He is currently abbot of Tisarana Buddhist Monastery in Canada.

Takamaro Shigaraki on Namu Amida Butsu

Takamaro Shigaraki (信楽 峻麿, 1926 - 2014): Namu Amida Bu(tsu)!

When we earnestly call the Buddha’s Name with a fullness of heart while listening to the Dharma, our lives gradually become directed toward the Buddha. However, as our recitation of the nembutsu deepens, there is an eventual reversal in the direction of that nembutsu. When we say the nembutsu, we are directing ourselves toward the Buddha as we call out the Buddha’s Name and think on the Buddha. However, at the same time, we also awaken to a movement in the opposite direction. That is, we hear the voice of the Buddha that is directing itself to us, as it names itself and calls out to us. Here, a transcendent religious experience takes place, which we awaken to at the deepest level of our consciousness.

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Normally, we are always trying to cram ourselves full of things. We are constantly filling ourselves with self-attachment and ego, and so we are unable to see or hear anything truly. However, when our selves gradually become emptied, then the eyes of our mind will open and we will finally be able to hear things for the first time. And we are able to hear other persons’ voices of distress and pain as well.

When we come to know keenly and fully that the current state of our existence is false, then we will become able to hear what we had not been able to hear up until now. We will be able to see what up until now we had not been able to see. Within this structure, finally, we become able to hear the voice of the Buddha within the nembutsu. This is how saying the nembutsu works in Shin Buddhism.

Notes: Nembutsu is the recitation of ‘Namu Amida Butsu (literally, ‘Hail to Amitabha Buddha’), the final syllable of Butsu often being dropped; Shin Buddhism is a branch of Pure Land Buddhism in which Amitabha is called upon for salvation; Takamaro Shigaraki was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and Shin Buddhist priest and former president of Ryukoku University, Tokyo, Japan. The above quotation is taken from Shigaraki's wonderful book 'Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path,' published by Wisdom Publications. A very important work on the subject of Shin Buddhism.

For more on this subject, click here: Shin Buddhism

Dhammapada Reflection #9

Dhammapada, Verses 19 & 20

Even though reciting sacred texts,

But not acting accordingly,

That heedless one is like a cowherd

Who only counts others’ cows –

He does not partake  of the blessings of a holy life.

Though little reciting sacred texts,

But putting the teaching into practice,

Forsaking greed, hatred, and delusion,

With true wisdom and emancipated mind,

Clinging to nothing of this or any other world,

One indeed partakes of the blessings of a holy life.

According to tradition, Buddha’s words were memorised by his cousin & attendant the Venerable Ananda, and then recited by Buddhists through the ages. Eventually, after several hundred years, these words were written down and became “sacred texts.” Historically, there have been many different collections of Buddhist teachings, each promoted by different branches of Buddhism. Today, there are three such collections used by Buddhists across the world – the Pali, Chinese & Tibetan. These collections, known in Sanskrit as the Tripitaka, are complemented by commentaries & other subsequent writings also considered sacred by those that use them. (Interestingly, at the time of Buddha, when the above verses were said to have been originally uttered, Buddhist texts didn’t yet exist. Was Buddha referring to contemporary non-Buddhist texts or predicting the formation of Buddhist sacred texts in the future?)

Whether the term “sacred texts” used in verses 19 & 20 of the Dhammapada originally meant religious texts existing at the time of Buddha or not, modern Buddhists can interpret these words as referring to Buddhist sacred texts. Reciting such texts has a long history in Buddhism, sometimes as an act of merit-making, sometimes with the intent of remembering & reflecting upon them. It’s interesting, therefore, that Buddha states that merely reciting these texts doesn’t bring much benefit. Instead, he teaches that it’s in putting these teachings into practice that someone may “partake of the blessings of a holy life.” (“Holy life” here indicates living a Buddhist life based on the threefold training briefly described below. ‘Holiness’ in this sense means practicing the Buddhist path, not being a kind of Ghandi or Mother Teresa figure.)

In verse 20, Buddha describes several ways that a wise person benefits from Buddhist practice – even if Buddhist texts are little recited. Firstly, he talks of “putting the teaching into practice.” This teaching includes the threefold training of wisdom, morality & concentration (or, meditation). All major schools of Buddhism include these three types of training, although the details & methods of training may differ from school to school.

Secondly, Buddha promotes “forsaking greed, hatred and delusion.” These are called the three unwholesome roots or three poisons, and are considered the cause of suffering. To forsake them is to remove the causes of suffering and therein achieve awakening (or enlightenment). This awakening is the meaning of the phrase “true wisdom and emancipated mind” in the verse. To achieve this emancipation is the result of living the Buddhist life to its fruition, but even if we don’t reach full awakening, we may still witness the reduction of the poisons in our lives to good effect.

The benefits of living the Buddha’s teachings to their conclusion is summed up in the words “clinging to nothing of this or any other world, one indeed partakes of the blessings of a holy life.” This is true freedom without clinging, clinging being an integral part of the arising of suffering. Such absence of clinging must also include not clinging to the Buddhist teachings themselves. For, if clung to, the idea of awakening will prevent the realization of its reality. This fact reveals an important reason why the recitation & remembrance Buddhist texts won’t lead to awakening: awakening is beyond words, even those of Buddha!

This isn’t to say that Buddha’s teachings should be shunned. They still supply us with the blueprints that most of us need to enable us to awaken. Verses 19 & 20 are telling us that if we know, understand & apply the basic teachings of Buddha to our lives consistently, we will awaken. Cramming our minds full of texts but not putting them into practice is useless if our intent is to become awakened. Ultimately, awakening lies beyond the reaches of the intellect; it can be a useful tool, but it does not liberate us.

All of this doesn’t mean that Buddhist texts shouldn’t be studied or recited, of course. It simply means that these activities are no substitute for actually walking the Buddhist path. We can study the teachings – and we need to so to gain a sound idea of what Buddhism is all about – but it’s in their application to our lives that they will truly benefit us. The wisdom contained in Buddhist sacred texts like the Dhammapada is to be valued, but only as far as it inspires in us a realisation of the “blessings of a holy life.”

The Dhammapada ('Verses of Dharma' or 'Path of Dharma') is an ancient Buddhist text that is said to contain some of the Buddha's teachings in poetic form. The first chapter is called Yamakavagga, 'Chapter of Pairs,' and the above two verses are from this part of the book.

Ajahn Jayasaro on Two Kinds of Desire

Ajahn Jayasaro (1958-present): Know your desires.

Buddhism distinguishes two kinds of desire: the first (tanha) to be abandoned and the second (chanda) to be cultivated.

Tanha is the desire that arises from a basic misunderstanding of the way things are: perceiving permanence, happiness and selfhood where they do not exist. Desire for the pleasures to be had through getting, getting rid of and becoming is tanha. Tanha leads to personal suffering and is the basis of almost all social ills.

Chanda is the desire that arises from a correct understanding of the way things are. At its heart lies the aspiration for truth and goodness. Desire to do well, desire to act well, desire to act kindly, desire to act wisely — all desires based on an aspiration for the true and good lead to personal fulfillment and healthy communities.

The distinction between chanda and tanha is not philosophical but psychological. By looking closely at the raw experience of life the distinction between desires that lead to genuine happiness and those that do not becomes increasingly clear.

The above is extracted from the book ‘Without and Within’ which is freely downloadable here. Ajahn Jayasaro was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1980 and studied with the famous Thai forest monk Ajahn Chah. He was abbot of Wat Pa Nanachat in Northeast Thailand for several years and now lives in a hermitage near the Khao Yai mountains.

Keiji Nishitani on Our Dharma-Nature

Keiji Nishitani (西谷 啓治, 1900 – 1990)

Since Buddhism opens up an altogether revolutionary view of the essential nature of man, it is not surprising that it should offer a more fundamental and permanent principle of social transformation than could ever be offered by a mere ideology. From its very beginning, Buddhism was a religion that showed a way to transcend the “world.” According to Buddhism, all that is needed is to become emancipated from the innumerable attachments that arise spontaneously from within ourselves and tie us to things of this world. Hence it speaks of nirvana as the extinguishing of the fire. The Buddhist way of transcending the “world” as well as the “self-in-the-world,” is not a mere “otherworldliness,” but an awakening in which we become aware of our original and authentic nature (our Dharma-nature) and may thus live in accord with it. The possibility of attaining this enlightenment depends upon ourselves alone. That is to say, the ability to attain it lies deeply hidden in the Dharma-nature of each one of us. All that is required from us is that we cut the threads of attachment and so become “homeless” in the world. It was for this reason that the community of Buddhists, the Sangha, was from the beginning based on an absolute negation of all “worldly” differentiations, social as well as psychological, of the differentiation between the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, and so forth, and in particular of distinction between castes…

The above is an extract from the excellent book ‘The Buddha Eye’ edited by Frederick Franck, published by World Wisdom. Keiji Nishitani was an author & professor of philosophy, having studied with both Kitaro Nishida and Martin Heidegger.