MASTERS PER SCHOOL
master template ::: date of birth, date of death, books in collection, books in total, quotes in collection, rank (subjective out of 10)
BUDDHISM_TIBETAN
RINPOCHE
Adeu Rinpoche :::
Akong Rinpoche :::
Bokar Rinpoche ::: 13b
Chamtrul Rinpoche ::: 25q
Chatral Rinpoche :::
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche ::: 3b
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche ::: 9b
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche ::: 5b
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche ::: (1910-1991), 9q, 5b
Dudjom Rinpoche ::: 4b
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche :::
Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche ::: 2b
Dzongsar Jamyamg Khentse Rinpoche ::: 4b
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche ::: 4b
Dzogchen Rinpoche :::
Dzogchen Rinpoche III :::
Gyatrul Rinpoche ::: 9b
Guru Rinpoche ::: 3q
Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche ::: 19b
Kalu Rinpoche ::: 4b
Khandro Rinpoche :::
Khyentse Rinpoche ::: 1q
Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche ::: 1q, 4b
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche ::: 15b
Khenpo Kunpal ::: 5b
Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche ::: 2b
Mingyur Rinpoche ::: 2q
Minling Trichen Rinpoche ::: 1q
Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche ::: 1q
Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche ::: 2q
Patrul Rinpoche ::: 4b, cw
Pora Rinpoche :::
Sogyal Rinpoche ::: 4q, 3b
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche ::: 6q, 3b
Third Dzogchen Rinpoche :::
Togdan Rinpoche :::
Tsoknyi Rinpoche ::: 1q
Tsogdruk Rinpoche ::: 1q
Thinley Norbu Rinpoche ::: 3b
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche ::: 2q, 7b
Ven. Paltul Rinpoche :::
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche :::
Sangye Khandro ::: 9b
GYATSO (OCEAN)
Khedrup Gyatso
Thubten Gyatso
Trinley Gyatso
Tsultrim Gyatso
Tenzin Gyatso
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso :::
Janet Gyatso ::: 8b
GYALPO (KING)
Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra
Druk Gyalpo
Thang Tong Gyalpo
Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo
Padma Gyalpo
PALMO
Tenzin Palmo
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Khenpo Konchog Gyaltshen ::: 2b
Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye ::: 10b
Tarthang Tulku ::: b26
Karma-glin-pa
Yeshe Tsogyal
Lady Tsogyal
Longchenpa(1308-1364)
Longchen Rabjampa
Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo ::: cw
Jetsun Milarepa, Milarepa
Naropa
BUDDHISM_ZEN
Bodhidharma
ZENJI
Dogen Zenji
Hakuin Zenji
SUZUKI
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, D T Suzuki, D. T. Suzuki, D.T. Suzuki
Enomoto Seifu Jo
Gatsurin Shikan
Hakuin Ekaku
Hongzhi Zhengjue
Ikkyu, Ikky, Ikky Sjun
Izumi Shikibu
Jianzhi Sengcan
ROSHI
Kodo Sawaki, Kodo Sawaki Roshi
Genpo Roshi
Bernie Glassman
Kozan Kato
Masao Abe
Matsuo Basho
Motoko Ikebe
Mugai Nyodai
Mumon
Nyogen Senzaki
Rykan Taigu
Sawaki Kd
Sengcan
Seng-ts'an
Shinkichi Takahashi
Shunryu Suzuki
Sodo Yokoyama
Sgi
Soyen Shaku
Taigu Ryokan
Taisen Deshimaru
Takuan Soho
Taneda Santoka
Tend Nyoj
Tend Skaku
Tintng Rjng
Tiantong Zhengjue
Tiantong Zongjue
Ty Eich
Uchiyama
Wumen Huikai
Zen Koan
Zen Proverb
Santoka Taneda
Gud Toshoku
Shid Bunan
Bankei Ytaku
Bodhidharma
BUDDHISM
Buddha
Pema Chodron
Miyamoto Musashi
Milarepa
Thich Nhat Hanh
Pema Chdrn
Dalai Lama XIV
Buddhist Proverb
Yoshida Kenk
Haemin Sunim
Sarvstivda
Padmasambhava ::: 8b
Yin Shun
Uicheon
Ajahn Chah
Jetsun Milarepa
Yoshida Kenko
Eisai, Myan Eisai, Myan Ysai, Myoan Eisai
Shinran
Hnen, Honen
Rangdrol
Tsongkhapa
Dodrupchen Tenpe Nyima ::: cw
Sachen Kunga Nyingpo ::: cw
Tulku Tsullo ::: cw
Dodrupchen Jikme Tenpe Nyima ::: cw
Jamyang Khyentse Chkyi Lodr ::: cw Volume 1-6
Jikme Lingpa ::: cw
Khenpo Ngakchung ::: cw 1 - 9
Tertn Sogyal ::: cw 1 - 17
BUDDHISM_CHAN
Vasubandhu
Hui-neng
Huineng
Dajian Huineng
BUDDHISM_MAHAYANA
Nichiren
BUDDHISM_THERAVADA
Ajahn Brahm
BUDDHISM_VAJRAYANA
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TERMS STARTING WITH
Buddhism ::: A dharmic religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama. The basic teachings of Buddhism have to do with the nature of suffering or dissatisfaction (dukkha) and its avoidance through ethical principles (the Eightfold Path). Buddhism originated in India, and is today largely followed in East Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Thailand. Buddhism is divided into different sects and movements, of which the largest are the Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana.
Buddhism ::: A philosophy and religion that encompasses a variety of traditions and practices but which has at its core the principles taught by the Buddha that lead to clarifying the nature of the self, liberating the idea of self from suffering, and reaching full enlightenment.
Buddhism. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books,
Buddhism. See BUDDHADHARMA; BUDDHAVACANA; DHARMAVINAYA; sASANA.
Buddhism
Buddhism: The multifarious forms, philosophic, religious, ethical and sociological, which the teachings of Gautama Buddha have produced, and which form the religion of hundreds of millions in China, Japan, etc. They center around the main doctrine of the arya satyani, the four noble truths (q.v.), the last of which enables one in eight stages to reach nirvana (q.v.): Right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
Buddhism ::: The teachings of Gautama the Buddha. Buddhism today is divided into two branches, the Northern andthe Southern. The Southern still retains the teachings of the "Buddha's brain," the "eye doctrine," that isto say his outer philosophy for the general world, sometimes inadequately called the doctrine of formsand ceremonies. The Northern still retains his "heart doctrine" -- that which is hid, the inner life, theheart-blood, of the religion: the doctrine of the inner heart of the teaching.The religious philosophy of the Buddha-Sakyamuni is incomparably nearer to the ancient wisdom, theesoteric philosophy of the archaic ages, than is Christianity. Its main fault today is that teachers later thanthe Buddha himself carried its doctrines too far along merely formal or exoteric lines; yet, with all that, tothis day it remains the purest and holiest of the exoteric religions on earth, and its teachings evenexoterically are true -- once they are properly understood. They need but the esoteric key in interpretationof them. As a matter of fact, the same may be said of all the great ancient world religions. Christianity,Brahmanism, Taoism, and others all have the same esoteric wisdom behind the outward veil of theexoteric formal faith.
Buddhism was introduced into Tibet in the latter half of the 8th century, but was colored by a Tantric element and Bon, the pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, both of which were quite foreign to the teachings of Gautama Buddha. The state of the priesthood was then so low, and the religion so degraded, that the reforms instituted by Tsong-kha-pa were generally welcomed. A far stricter code of morals was laid down for the priests who were forbidden to marry or to drink wine; and to distinguish the Kah-dum-pas (those bound by ordinances), the wearing of yellow robes and hoods was inaugurated in contradistinction to the red robes and the black robes of the degenerate sects; hence following Chinese usage, the Gelukpas are commonly called the Yellow Caps, Yellow Hats, or Yellow Hoods.
buddhism ::: n. --> The religion based upon the doctrine originally taught by the Hindoo sage Gautama Siddartha, surnamed Buddha, "the awakened or enlightened," in the sixth century b. c., and adopted as a religion by the greater part of the inhabitants of Central and Eastern Asia and the Indian Islands. Buddha&
TERMS ANYWHERE
10. Esoteric Buddhism (vols. 18-21, nos. 848-1420), e.g.,
Abhayagiri. A Sri Lankan monastery built at the capital of ANURADHAPURA in first century BCE. The monastery was constructed for the elder MahAtissa by the Sinhala king VAttAGAMAnI ABHAYA in gratitude for the monk's assistance during the king's political exile and his struggle for the throne. According to medieval PAli historical chronicles, MahAtissa was said to have been unrestrained and base in his behavior, which eventually prompted the monks of the MAHAVIHARA to pass an act of banishment (PRAVRAJANĪYAKARMAN, P. pabbAjanīyakamma) against him. MahAtissa thereafter conducted ecclesiastical ceremonies (SAMGHAKARMAN, P. sanghakamma) separately, and the Abhayagiri fraternity eventually seceded from the MahAvihAra as a separate order of Sri Lankan Buddhism. The Abhayagiri flourished during the eleventh century, but, with the abandonment of AnurAdhapura in the thirteenth century, ceased to exist as an active center. The site is today known for the massive Abhayagiri Thupa (STuPA), one of the largest in Sri Lanka, which was rediscovered deep in a forest at the end of the nineteenth century.
Abhidhamma (Pali) Abhidhamma [from abhi towards, with intensified meaning + dhamma law, religion, duty from the verbal root dhr to hold fast, preserve, sustain] The supreme dhamma or law as expounded in the third and last portion of the Pali Tipitaka (Sanskrit Tripitaka) or “three baskets” of the canonical books of the Southern School of Buddhism. The Abhidhamma-pitaka, which deals with profound metaphysical themes, is believed to be the source from which the Mahayana and Hinayana got their fundamental doctrines.
abhidharmapitaka. (P. abhidhammapitaka; T. chos mngon pa'i sde snod; C. lunzang; J. ronzo; K. nonjang 論藏). The third of the three "baskets" (PItAKA) of the Buddhist canon (TRIPItAKA). The abhidharmapitaka derives from attempts in the early Buddhist community to elucidate the definitive significance of the teachings of the Buddha, as compiled in the SuTRAs. Since the Buddha was well known to have adapted his message to fit the predilections and needs of his audience (cf. UPAYAKAUsALYA), there inevitably appeared inconsistencies in his teachings that needed to be resolved. The attempts to ferret out the definitive meaning of the BUDDHADHARMA through scholastic interpretation and exegesis eventually led to a new body of texts that ultimately were granted canonical status in their own right. These are the texts of the abhidharmapitaka. The earliest of these texts, such as the PAli VIBHAnGA and PUGGALAPANNATTI and the SARVASTIVADA SAMGĪTIPARYAYA and DHARMASKANDHA, are structured as commentaries to specific sutras or portions of sutras. These materials typically organized the teachings around elaborate doctrinal taxonomies, which were used as mnemonic devices or catechisms. Later texts move beyond individual sutras to systematize a wide range of doctrinal material, offering ever more complex analytical categorizations and discursive elaborations of the DHARMA. Ultimately, abhidharma texts emerge as a new genre of Buddhist literature in their own right, employing sophisticated philosophical speculation and sometimes even involving polemical attacks on the positions of rival factions within the SAMGHA. ¶ At least seven schools of Indian Buddhism transmitted their own recensions of abhidharma texts, but only two of these canons are extant in their entirety. The PAli abhidhammapitaka of the THERAVADA school, the only recension that survives in an Indian language, includes seven texts (the order of which often differs): (1) DHAMMASAnGAnI ("Enumeration of Dharmas") examines factors of mentality and materiality (NAMARuPA), arranged according to ethical quality; (2) VIBHAnGA ("Analysis") analyzes the aggregates (SKANDHA), conditioned origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), and meditative development, each treatment culminating in a catechistic series of inquiries; (3) DHATUKATHA ("Discourse on Elements") categorizes all dharmas in terms of the skandhas and sense-fields (AYATANA); (4) PUGGALAPANNATTI ("Description of Human Types") analyzes different character types in terms of the three afflictions of greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA), and delusion (MOHA) and various related subcategories; (5) KATHAVATTHU ("Points of Controversy") scrutinizes the views of rival schools of mainstream Buddhism and how they differ from the TheravAda; (6) YAMAKA ("Pairs") provides specific denotations of problematic terms through paired comparisons; (7) PAttHANA ("Conditions") treats extensively the full implications of conditioned origination. ¶ The abhidharmapitaka of the SARVASTIVADA school is extant only in Chinese translation, the definitive versions of which were prepared by XUANZANG's translation team in the seventh century. It also includes seven texts: (1) SAMGĪTIPARYAYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Discourse on Pronouncements") attributed to either MAHAKAUstHILA or sARIPUTRA, a commentary on the SaMgītisutra (see SAnGĪTISUTTA), where sAriputra sets out a series of dharma lists (MATṚKA), ordered from ones to elevens, to organize the Buddha's teachings systematically; (2) DHARMASKANDHA[PADAsASTRA] ("Aggregation of Dharmas"), attributed to sAriputra or MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, discusses Buddhist soteriological practices, as well as the afflictions that hinder spiritual progress, drawn primarily from the AGAMAs; (3) PRAJNAPTIBHAsYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Treatise on Designations"), attributed to MaudgalyAyana, treats Buddhist cosmology (lokaprajNapti), causes (kArana), and action (KARMAN); (4) DHATUKAYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Collection on the Elements"), attributed to either PuRnA or VASUMITRA, discusses the mental concomitants (the meaning of DHATU in this treatise) and sets out specific sets of mental factors that are present in all moments of consciousness (viz., the ten MAHABHuMIKA) or all defiled states of mind (viz., the ten KLEsAMAHABHuMIKA); (5) VIJNANAKAYA[PADAsASTRA] ("Collection on Consciousness"), attributed to Devasarman, seeks to prove the veracity of the eponymous SarvAstivAda position that dharmas exist in all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future, and the falsity of notions of the person (PUDGALA); it also provides the first listing of the four types of conditions (PRATYAYA); (6) PRAKARAnA[PADAsASTRA] ("Exposition"), attributed to VASUMITRA, first introduces the categorization of dharmas according to the more developed SarvAstivAda rubric of RuPA, CITTA, CAITTA, CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA, and ASAMSKṚTA dharmas; it also adds a new listing of KUsALAMAHABHuMIKA, or factors always associated with wholesome states of mind; (7) JNANAPRASTHANA ("Foundations of Knowledge"), attributed to KATYAYANĪPUTRA, an exhaustive survey of SarvAstivAda dharma theory and the school's exposition of psychological states, which forms the basis of the massive encyclopedia of SarvAstivAda-VaibhAsika abhidharma, the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA. In the traditional organization of the seven canonical books of the SarvAstivAda abhidharmapitaka, the JNANAPRASTHANA is treated as the "body" (sARĪRA), or central treatise of the canon, with its six "feet" (pAda), or ancillary treatises (pAdasAstra), listed in the following order: (1) PrakaranapAda, (2) VijNAnakAya, (3) Dharmaskandha, (4) PrajNaptibhAsya, (5) DhAtukAya, and (6) SaMgītiparyAya. Abhidharma exegetes later turned their attention to these canonical abhidharma materials and subjected them to the kind of rigorous scholarly analysis previously directed to the sutras. These led to the writing of innovative syntheses and synopses of abhidharma doctrine, in such texts as BUDDHAGHOSA's VISUDDHIMAGGA and ANURUDDHA's ABHIDHAMMATTHASAnGAHA, VASUBANDHU's ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA, and SAMGHABHADRA's *NYAYANUSARA. In East Asia, this third "basket" was eventually expanded to include the burgeoning scholastic literature of the MAHAYANA, transforming it from a strictly abhidharmapitaka into a broader "treatise basket" or *sASTRAPItAKA (C. lunzang).
Abhidharmasamuccaya. (T. Chos mngon pa kun las btus pa; C. Dasheng Apidamo ji lun; J. Daijo Abidatsuma juron; K. Taesŭng Abidalma chip non 大乘阿毘達磨集論). In Sanskrit, "Compendium of Abhidharma"; an influential scholastic treatise attributed to ASAnGA. The Abhidharmasamuccaya provides a systematic and comprehensive explanation of various categories of DHARMAs in ABHIDHARMA fashion, in five major sections. Overall, the treatise continues the work of earlier abhidharma theorists, but it also seems to uphold a MAHAYANA and, more specifically, YOGACARA viewpoint. For example, unlike SARVASTIVADA abhidharma materials, which provide detailed listings of dharmas in order to demonstrate the range of factors that perdure throughout all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future, Asanga's exposition tends to reject any notion that dharmas are absolute realities, thus exposing their inherent emptiness (suNYATA). The first section of the treatise, Laksanasamuccaya ("Compendium of Characteristics"), first explains the five SKANDHA, twelve AYATANA, and eighteen DHATU in terms of their attributes (MATṚKA) and then their includedness (saMgraha), association (saMprayoga), and accompaniment (samanvAgama). The second section of the treatise, Satyaviniscaya ("Ascertainment of the Truths"), is generally concerned with and classified according to the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvAry AryasatyAni). The third section, Dharmaviniscaya ("Ascertainment of the Dharma"), outlines the teachings of Buddhism in terms of the twelve divisions (DVADAsAnGA[PRAVACANA]) of texts in the TRIPItAKA. The fourth section, PrAptiviniscaya ("Ascertainment of Attainments"), outlines the various types of Buddhist practitioners and their specific realizations (ABHISAMAYA). The fifth and last section, SAMkathyaviniscaya ("Ascertainment of Argumentation"), outlines specific modes of debate that will enable one to defeat one's opponents. Fragments of the Sanskrit text of the Abhidharmasamuccaya (discovered in Tibet in 1934) are extant, along with a Tibetan translation and a Chinese translation made by XUANZANG in 652 CE. A commentary on the treatise by STHIRAMATI, known as the AbhidharmasamuccayavyAkhyA(na), was also translated into Chinese by Xuanzang.
Abhidharmika. (P. ABHIDHAMMIKA; T. chos mngon pa ba; C. apidamo dalunshi/duifa zhushi; J. abidatsuma daironshi/taiho shashi; K. abidalma taeronsa/taebop chesa 阿毘達磨大論師/對法諸師). In Sanskrit, "specialist in ABHIDHARMA"; refers to exegetes and commentators specializing in the texts and teachings of the ABHIDHARMAPItAKA. In MAHAYANA sources, Abhidharmika may also refer more generically to "scholars," not necessarily only to specialists in abhidharma. In Chinese Buddhism, for example, the eminent Indian scholiasts AsVAGHOsA, NAGARJUNA, ARYADEVA, and KumAralAta are said to be the four great Abhidharmikas of the MahAyAna tradition. See also ABHIDHAMMIKA.
Abhidina (Sanskrit) Abhiḍīna [from abhi towards + ḍīna flight from the verbal root ḍī to fly] One of the siddhis (occult powers) of a buddha; similar to khechara (skywalker, one who has the power of projecting his mayavi-rupa whither he will in the lower ranges of the cosmos), but on a more sublime scale. It is the power to transcend the limitations of the lower quaternary of the cosmos and to “fly” or ascend self-consciously into the spiritual planes of the universe and function there in full self-possession, with complete control of circumstances and time. One of the most mystical and least known teachings of esoteric Buddhism, it is closely connected with samma-sambodhi and nirvana.
Abhijna (Sanskrit) Abhijñā [from abhi towards + the verbal root jñā to know, have special knowledge of, mastery over; Pali abhiñña] Inner perception; in Buddhism the five or six transcendental powers, faculties, or superknowledges attained on reaching buddhahood. Gautama Buddha is said to have acquired the six abhijnas the night he attained enlightenment. Generally enumerated as: 1) divyachakshus (divine eye) instantaneous perception of whatever one wills to see; 2) divyasrotra (divine ear) instantaneous comprehension of all sounds on every plane; 3) riddhisakshatkriya, power of becoming visibly manifest at will, intuitive perception; 4) purvanivasajnana (power to know former existences) also called purvanivasanu-smritijnana (recollection of former existences); and 5) parachittajnana (knowledge of others’ thoughts) understanding of their minds and hearts.
AbhisamayAlaMkAra. (T. Mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan). In Sanskrit, "Ornament of Realization"; a major scholastic treatise of the MAHAYANA, attributed to MAITREYANATHA (c. 350CE). Its full title is AbhisamayAlaMkAranAmaprajNApAramitopadesasAstra (T. Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag gi bstan bcos mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan) or "Treatise Setting Forth the Perfection of Wisdom called 'Ornament for Realization.'" In the Tibetan tradition, the AbhisamayAlaMkAra is counted among the five treatises of Maitreya (BYAMS CHOS SDE LNGA). The 273 verses of the AbhisamayAlaMkAra provide a schematic outline of the perfection of wisdom, or PRAJNAPARAMITA, approach to enlightenment, specifically as delineated in the PANCAVIMsATISAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA ("Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines"). This detailed delineation of the path is regarded as the "hidden teaching" of the prajNApAramitA sutras. Although hardly known in East Asian Buddhism (until the modern Chinese translation by FAZUN), the work was widely studied in Tibet, where it continues to hold a central place in the monastic curricula of all the major sects. It is especially important for the DGE LUGS sect, which takes it as the definitive description of the stages of realization achieved through the Buddhist path. The AbhisamayAlaMkAra treats the principal topics of the prajNApAramitA sutras by presenting them in terms of the stages of realizations achieved via the five paths (PANCAMARGA). The eight chapters of the text divide these realizations into eight types. The first three are types of knowledge that are essential to any type of practice and are generic to both the mainstream and MahAyAna schools. (1) The wisdom of knowing all modes (SARVAKARAJNATA), for the bodhisattva-adepts who are the putative target audience of the commentary, explains all the characteristics of the myriad dharmas, so that they will have comprehensive knowledge of what the attainment of enlightenment will bring. (2) The wisdom of knowing the paths (MARGAJNATA), viz., the paths perfected by the sRAVAKAs, is a prerequisite to achieving the wisdom of knowing all modes. (3) The wisdom of knowing all phenomena (SARVAJNATA) is, in turn, a prerequisite to achieving the wisdom of knowing the paths. With (4) the topic of the manifestly perfect realization of all aspects (sarvAkArAbhisambodha) starts the text's coverage of the path itself, here focused on gaining insight into all aspects, viz., characteristics of dharmas, paths, and types of beings. By reaching (5) the summit of realization (murdhAbhisamaya; see MuRDHAN), one arrives at the entrance to ultimate realization. All the realizations achieved up to this point are secured and commingled through (6) gradual realization (anupurvAbhisamaya). The perfection of this gradual realization and the consolidation of all previous realizations catalyze the (7) instantaneous realization (ekaksanAbhisamaya). The fruition of this instantaneous realization brings (8) realization of the dharma body, or DHARMAKAYA (dharmakAyAbhisambodha). The first three chapters thus describe the three wisdoms incumbent on the buddhas; the middle four chapters cover the four paths that take these wisdoms as their object; and the last chapter describes the resultant dharma body of the buddhas and their special attainments. The AbhisamayAlaMkAra provides a synopsis of the massive prajNApAramitA scriptures and a systematic outline of the comprehensive path of MahAyAna. The AbhisamayAlaMkAra spurred a long tradition of Indian commentaries and other exegetical works, twenty-one of which are preserved in the Tibetan canon. Notable among this literature are Arya VIMUKTISEnA's Vṛtti and the ABHISAMAYALAMKARALOKA and Vivṛti (called Don gsal in Tibetan) by HARIBHADRA. Later Tibetan commentaries include BU STON RIN CHEN GRUB's Lung gi snye ma and TSONG KHA PA's LEGS BSHAD GSER PHRENG.
Abhiseka: In Hinduism, the ceremonial bathing in sacred waters. In Buddhism, the tenth stage of perfection. The term is used also for the anointment of kings and high officials upon their ascension to power or as a recognition of some signal achievement.
Abhisheka ::: In Tibetan Buddhism, this is a tantric empowerment and form of esoteric transmission that confers the blessings of a lineage to an adherent. A practical example: to work successful magic within the mandala of a specific deity, abhisheka is often very close to a necessity.
AcArya. (P. Acariya; Thai AchAn; T. slob dpon; C. asheli; J. ajari; K. asari 阿闍梨). In Sanskrit, "teacher" or "master"; the term literally means "one who teaches the AcAra (proper conduct)," but it has come into general use as a title for religious teachers. In early Buddhism, it refers specifically to someone who teaches the supra dharma and is used in contrast to the UPADHYAYA (P. upajjhAya) or "preceptor." (See ACARIYA entry supra.) The title AcArya becomes particularly important in VAJRAYANA Buddhism, where the officiant of a tantric ritual is often viewed as the vajra master (VAJRACARYA). The term has recently been adopted by Tibetan monastic universities in India as a degree (similar to a Master of Arts) conferred upon graduation. In Japan, the term refers to a wise teacher, saint, holy person, or a wonder-worker who is most often a Buddhist monk. The term is used by many Japanese Buddhist traditions, including ZEN, TENDAI, and SHINGON. Within the Japanese Zen context, an ajari is a formal title given to those who have been training for five years or more.
Adi-buddha (Sanskrit) Ādi-buddha [from ādi first, original + the verbal root budh to awaken, perceive, know] First or primeval buddha; the supreme being above all other buddhas and bodhisattvas in the later Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, Nepal, Java, and Japan. In theosophical writings, the highest aspect or subentity of the supreme Wondrous Being of our universe, existing in the most exalted dharmakaya state.
Adibuddha. (T. dang po'i sangs rgyas/ye nas sangs rgyas; C. benchu fo; J. honshobutsu; K. ponch'o pul 本初佛). In Sanskrit, "original buddha" or "primordial buddha"; the personification of innate enlightenment. The term seems to appear for the first time in the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, where the existence of such a primordial buddha is refuted on the grounds that the achievement of buddhahood is impossible without the accumulation of merit (PUnYA) and wisdom (JNANA). However, the term reemerges in tantric literature, most prominently in the KALACAKRATANTRA. There, the term has two meanings, based on the reading of the term Adi. According to the first interpretation, Adi means "first" such that the Adibuddha was the first to attain buddhahood. According to the second interpretation, Adi means "primordial," which suggests an eternal and atemporal state of innate buddhahood. However, when the commentators on this tantra use the term in this second sense, they appear to be referring not to a person but to an innate wisdom that is present in the minds of all sentient beings and which is the fundamental basis of SAMSARA and NIRVAnA. In Tibetan Buddhism, the term Adibuddha is often used to describe the buddha SAMANTABHADRA (according to the RNYING MA sect) or VAJRADHARA (for the GSAR MA sects); in East Asia, by contrast, the Adibuddha is typically considered to be VAIROCANA.
advaya. (T. gnyis su med pa; C. bu'er; J. funi; K. puri 不二). In Sanskrit, "nonduality"; one of the common synonyms for the highest teachings of Buddhism and one of the foundational principles of the MAHAYANA presentation of doctrine. Nonduality refers to the definitive awareness achieved through enlightenment, which transcends all of the conventional dichotomies into which compounded existence is divided (right and wrong, good and evil, etc.). Most specifically, nondual knowledge (ADVAYAJNANA) transcends the subject-object bifurcation that governs all conventional states of consciousness and engenders a distinctive type of awareness that no longer requires an object of consciousness. See also WU'AIXING.
“A generic personification of a class of spiritual beings described as the embodiment of essential wisdom (Bodhi) and absolute purity. They dwell in the fourth Arupa Dhatu (formless world) or Buddhakshetra, and are the first or the highest hierarchy of the five orthodox Dhyani Buddhas. There was a Sramana (an Arhat) of this name (see Eitel’s Sansk. Chin. Dict.), a native of Kashmir, ‘who introduced Buddhism into Kustan and laboured in Tibet (in the seventh century of our era). He was the best translator of the semi-esoteric Canon of Northern Buddhism, and a contemporary of the great Samantabhadra . . .” (TG 358-9).
Agonshu. (阿含宗). In Japanese, "AGAMA School"; a Japanese "new religion" structured from elements drawn from esoteric Buddhism (MIKKYo) and indigenous Japanese religions; founded in 1970 by Kiriyama Seiyu (born Tsutsumi Masao in 1921). Kiriyama's teachings are presented first in his Henshin no genri ("Principles of Transformation"; 1975). Kiriyama believed he had been saved by the compassion of Kannon (AVALOKITEsVARA) and was told by that BODHISATTVA to teach others using the HOMA (J. goma) fire rituals drawn from Buddhist esoteric (MIKKYo) traditions. Later, while Kiriyama was reading the Agama (J. agon) scriptures, he realized that Buddhism as it was currently constituted in Japan did not correspond to the original teachings of the Buddha. In 1978, Kiriyama changed the name of his religious movement to Agon, the Japanese pronunciation of the transcription of Agama, positing that his teachings derived from the earliest scriptures of Buddhism and thus legitimizing them. His practices are fundamentally concerned with removing practitioners' karmic hindrances (KARMAVARAnA). Since many of these hindrances, he claims, are the result of neglecting one's ancestors or are inherited from them, much attention is also paid in the school to transforming the spirits of the dead into buddhas themselves, which in turn will also free the current generation from their karmic obstructions. Spiritual power in the school derives from the shinsei busshari (true sARĪRA [relics] of the Buddha), a sacred reliquary holding a bone fragment of the Buddha himself, given to Kiriyama in 1986 by the president of Sri Lanka. Individual adherents keep a miniature replica of the sarīra in their own homes, and the relic is said to have the transformational power to turn ancestors into buddhas. A "Star Festival" (Hoshi Matsuri) is held in Kyoto on each National Foundation Day (February 11), at which time two massive homa fires are lit, one liberating the spirits of the ancestors (and thus freeing the current generation from inherited karmic obstructions), the other helping to make the deepest wishes of its adherents come true. Adherents write millions of prayers on wooden sticks, which are cast into the two fires.
Agvaandandar. (T. Ngag dbang bstan dar a.k.a. Bstan dar lha ram pa) (1759-1830). Mongolian scholar of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born into a nomad family in the Eastern Qoshot banner of Alashan, entering the monastery at the age of seven. He was sent to 'BRAS SPUNGS monastery in LHA SA at the age of nineteen, where he completed the Dge lugs curriculum and received the highest rank of DGE BSHES, that of lha ram pa, around 1800. In Tibetan, he is often referred to as Bstan dar lha ram pa. He returned to his native Mongolia shortly thereafter where he was appointed to a high position at Eastern Monastery, before leaving again, this time for A mdo and the great Dge lugs monasteries of SKU 'BUM and BLA BRANG. He traveled extensively, visiting monasteries in both Inner and Outer Mongolia, and going also to China, where he visited Beijing and WUTAISHAN. He was regarded as one of the leading Dge lugs scholars of his generation. Agvaandandar returned to his native Alashan at the end of his life, where he died in 1830. His tomb at Sharil Chindar is still a place of worship. His collected works fill two volumes, comprising thirty-six titles, all written in Tibetan (two are bilingual Tibetan and Mongolian). He wrote on a wide range of topics in Buddhist philosophy, logic, poetics (based on Dandin's KAvyAdarsa), and grammar (both Tibetan and Mongolian), including a Tibetan-Mongolian dictionary. His philosophical work included commentaries on the Hetucakra and the ALAMBANAPARIKsA of DIGNAGA, the SaMtAnAntarasiddhi of DHARMAKĪRTI, and on the PRAJNAPARAMITAHṚDAYASuTRA ("Heart Sutra").
ahiMsA. (T. 'tshe ba med pa; C. buhai; J. fugai; K. purhae 不害). In Sanskrit and PAli, "absence of harmful intentions," "harmlessness," "noninjury," or "nonviolence." The religious ideal and ethical injunction of "harmlessness" toward all living beings was shared in some fashion by several of the Indian sRAMAnA traditions, including the Buddhists as well as the JAINAs, who made it a central tenet of their religion. Some of the corollaries of this idea included the precept against killing, the injunction to refrain from physically and verbally abusing sentient beings, and vegetarianism. The Jainas were especially stringent in their interpretation of "harmlessness" toward all living creatures, demanding strict vegetarianism from their followers in order to avoid injuring sentient creatures, a requirement that the Buddha rejected when his rival in the order, DEVADATTA, proposed it in his list of austerities (see DHUTAnGA). The Buddha's view was that monks were a "field of merit" (PUnYAKsETRA) for the laity and should accept all offerings made to them, including meat, unless the monk knew that the animal had been killed specifically to feed him, for example. The voluntary vegetarianism that is now prevalent in both MahAyAna Buddhism and wider Indian Hindu culture is almost certainly a result of Jaina influence and constitutes that religion's most enduring contribution to Indian religion. Buddhism treated "absence of harmful intentions" as one of the forty-six mental factors (CAITTA) according to the SARVASTIVADA-VAIBHAsIKA school of ABHIDHARMA, one of the fifty-one according to the YOGACARA school, and one of the fifty-two CETASIKAs in the PAli ABHIDHAMMA. It is the opposite of "harmful intention" or "injury" (VIHIMSA, and is sometimes seen written as avihiMsA) and one of the states of mind comprising right intention (S. samyaksaMkalpa; P. sammAsankappa) in the noble eightfold path (ARYAstAnGIKAMARGA). "Absence of harmful intentions" is also traditionally taken to be a precondition for the cultivation of "compassion" (KARUnA). See VIHIMSA.
Aisvarika (Sanskrit) Aiśvarika [from īśvara lord, prince, master from the verbal root īś to be valid, powerful, master of] Relating to a lord or king; the hierarch or supreme spirit of a hierarchy. One of the four philosophical schools or systems in Nepal (the others being Karmika, Yatnika, and Svabhavika). In this system, adi-buddha is individualized as the cosmic spirit of our hierarchy, attention being centered on this individualization to an extent unusual in Buddhism. While it is true that the highest individualized manifestation of adi-buddhi is adi-buddha, which is the isvara or supreme hierarch of our own cosmic hierarchy, nevertheless both adi-buddhi and adi-buddha are abstract principles of the galactic spaces.
Aizen Myoo. (愛染明王) (S. RAgavidyArAja). In Japanese, lit. "Bright King of the Taint of Lust"; an esoteric deity considered to be the destroyer of vulgar passions. In stark contrast to the traditional Buddhist approach of suppressing the passions through various antidotes or counteractive techniques (PRATIPAKsA), this VIDYARAJA is believed to be able to transform attachment, desire, craving, and defilement directly into pure BODHICITTA. This deity became a principal deity of the heretical Tachikawa branch (TACHIKAWARYu) of the SHINGONSHu and was considered the deity of conception. As an emanation of the buddha MAHAVAIROCANA or the bodhisattva VAJRASATTVA, Aizen Myoo was favored by many followers of Shingon Buddhism in Japan and by various esoteric branches of the TENDAISHu. Aizen Myoo was also sometimes held to be a secret buddha (HIBUTSU) by these traditions. The NICHIRENSHu was the last to adopt him as an important deity, but he played an important role in the dissemination of its cult. Aizen Myoo is well known for his fierce appearance, which belies the love and affection he is presumed to convey. Aizen Myoo usually has three eyes (to see the three realms of existence) and holds a lotus in his hand, which is symbolic of the calming of the senses, among other things. Other attributes of this deity are the bow and arrows, VAJRAs, and weapons that he holds in his hands.
AjantA. A complex of some thirty caves and subsidiary structures in India, renowned for its exemplary Buddhist artwork. Named after a neighboring village, the caves are carved from the granite cliffs at a bend in the Wagurna River valley, northeast of AURANGABAD, in the modern Indian state of Maharashtra. The grottoes were excavated in two phases, the first of which lasted from approximately 100 BCE to 100 CE, the second from c. 462 to 480, and consist primarily of monastic cave residences (VIHARA) and sanctuaries (CAITYA). The sanctuaries include four large, pillared STuPA halls, each enshrining a central monumental buddha image, which renders the hall both a site for worship and a buddha's dwelling (GANDHAKUtĪ), where he presides over the activities of the monks in residence. The murals and sculpture located at AjantA include some of the best-preserved examples of ancient Buddhist art. Paintings throughout the complex are especially noted for their depiction of accounts from the Buddha's previous lives (JATAKA). Despite the presence of some AVALOKITEsVARA images at the site, it is Sanskrit texts of mainstream Buddhism, and especially the MuLASARVASTIVADA school, that are the source and inspiration for the paintings of AjantA. Indeed, almost all of AjantA's narrative paintings are based on accounts appearing in the MuLASARVASTIVADA VINAYA, as well as the poems of Aryasura and AsVAGHOsA. On the other hand, the most common type of sculptural image at AjantA (e.g., Cave 4) is a seated buddha making a variant of the gesture of turning the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRAMUDRA), flanked by the two bodhisattvas AVALOKITEsVARA and VAJRAPAnI. The deployment of this mudrA and the two flanking bodhisattvas indicates that these buddha images are of VAIROCANA and suggests that tantric elements that appear in the MAHAVAIROCANABHISAMBODHISuTRA and the MANJUsRĪMuLAKALPA, both of which postdate the AjantA images, developed over an extended period of time and had precursors that influenced the iconography at AjantA. Inscriptions on the walls of the earliest part of the complex, primarily in Indian Prakrits, attest to an eclectic, even syncretic, pattern of religious observance and patronage. Later epigraphs found at the site associate various patrons with Harisena (r. 460-477), the last known monarch of the VAkAtaka royal family. VarAhadeva, for example, who patronized Cave 16, was one of Harisena's courtiers, while Cave 1 was donated by Harisena himself, and Cave 2 may have been patronized by a close relative, perhaps one of Harisena's wives. Cave 16's central image, a buddha seated on a royal throne with legs pendant (BHADRASANA), is the first stone sculpture in this iconographic form found in western India. Introduced to India through the tradition of KUSHAN royal portraiture, the bhadrAsana has been interpreted as a position associated with royalty and worldly action. This sculpture may thus have functioned as a portrait sculpture; it may even allegorize Harisena as the Buddha. In fact, it is possible that VarAhadeva may have originally intended to enshrine a buddha seated in the cross-legged lotus position (VAJRAPARYAnKA) but changed his plan midway in the wake of a regional war that placed Harisena's control over the AjantA region in jeopardy. Around 480, the constructions at AjantA came to a halt with the destruction of the VAkAtaka family. The caves were subsequently abandoned and became overgrown, only to be discovered in 1819 by a British officer hunting a tiger. They quickly became the object of great archaeological and art historical interest, and were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
ajikan. (阿字観). In Japanese, "contemplation of the letter ‛A'"; a meditative exercise employed primarily within the the Japanese SHINGON school of esoteric Buddhism. The ajikan practice is also known as the "contemplation of the letter 'A' in the moon-wheel" (AJI GATSURINKAN). The letter "A" is the first letter in the Sanskrit SIDDHAM alphabet and is considered to be the "seed" (BĪJA) of MAHAVAIROCANA, the central divinity of the esoteric traditions. The letter "A" is also understood to be the "unborn" buddha-nature (FOXING) of the practitioner; hence, the identification of oneself with this letter serves as a catalyst to enlightenment. In ajikan meditation, the adept draws a picture of the full moon with an eight-petaled lotus flower at its center. The Siddham letter "A" is then superimposed over the lotus flower as a focus of visualization. As the visualization continues, the moon increases in size until it becomes coextensive with the universe itself. Through this visualization, the adept realizes the letter "A" that is originally uncreated (AJI HONPUSHo), which is the essence of all phenomena in the universe and the DHARMAKAYA of MAHAVAIROCANA Buddha.
Alaya (Sanskrit) Alaya [from a not + laya dissolution from the verbal root lī to dissolve] Nondissolution; the indissoluble; used in Buddhism for the universal soul or higher portions of anima mundi, the source of all beings and things. Mystically identical with akasa in the latter’s highest elements and with mahabuddhi; also with mulaprakriti as root-producer or root-nature (OG 5).
AlayavijNAna. (T. kun gzhi rnam par shes pa; C. alaiyeshi/zangshi; J. arayashiki/zoshiki; K. aroeyasik/changsik 阿賴耶識/藏識). In Sanskrit, "storehouse consciousness" or "foundational consciousness"; the eighth of the eight types of consciousness (VIJNANA) posited in the YOGACARA school. All forms of Buddhist thought must be able to uphold (1) the principle of the cause and effect of actions (KARMAN), the structure of SAMSARA, and the process of liberation (VIMOKsA) from it, while also upholding (2) the fundamental doctrines of impermanence (ANITYA) and the lack of a perduring self (ANATMAN). The most famous and comprehensive solution to the range of problems created by these apparently contradictory elements is the AlayavijNAna, often translated as the "storehouse consciousness." This doctrinal concept derives in India from the YOGACARA school, especially from ASAnGA and VASUBANDHU and their commentators. Whereas other schools of Buddhist thought posit six consciousnesses (vijNAna), in the YogAcAra system there are eight, adding the afflicted mind (KLIstAMANAS) and the AlayavijNAna. It appears that once the SarvAstivAda's school's eponymous doctrine of the existence of dharmas in the past, present, and future was rejected by most other schools of Buddhism, some doctrinal solution was required to provide continuity between past and future, including past and future lifetimes. The alAyavijNAna provides that solution as a foundational form of consciousness, itself ethically neutral, where all the seeds (BIJA) of all deeds done in the past reside, and from which they fructify in the form of experience. Thus, the AlayavijNAna is said to pervade the entire body during life, to withdraw from the body at the time of death (with the extremities becoming cold as it slowly exits), and to carry the complete karmic record to the next rebirth destiny. Among the many doctrinal problems that the presence of the AlayavijNAna is meant to solve, it appears that one of its earliest references is in the context not of rebirth but in that of the NIRODHASAMAPATTI, or "trance of cessation," where all conscious activity, that is, all CITTA and CAITTA, cease. Although the meditator may appear as if dead during that trance, consciousness is able to be reactivated because the AlayavijNAna remains present throughout, with the seeds of future experience lying dormant in it, available to bear fruit when the person arises from meditation. The AlayavijNAna thus provides continuity from moment to moment within a given lifetime and from lifetime to lifetime, all providing the link between an action performed in the past and its effect experienced in the present, despite protracted periods of latency between seed and fruition. In YogAcAra, where the existence of an external world is denied, when a seed bears fruit, it bifurcates into an observing subject and an observed object, with that object falsely imagined to exist separately from the consciousness that perceives it. The response by the subject to that object produces more seeds, either positive, negative, or neutral, which are deposited in the AlayavijNAna, remaining there until they in turn bear their fruit. Although said to be neutral and a kind of silent observer of experience, the AlayavijNAna is thus also the recipient of karmic seeds as they are produced, receiving impressions (VASANA) from them. In the context of Buddhist soteriological discussions, the AlayavijNAna explains why contaminants (ASRAVA) remain even when unwholesome states of mind are not actively present, and it provides the basis for the mistaken belief in self (Atman). Indeed, it is said that the klistamanas perceives the AlayavijNAna as a perduring self. The AlayavijNAna also explains how progress on the path can continue over several lifetimes and why some follow the path of the sRAVAKA and others the path of the BODHISATTVA; it is said that one's lineage (GOTRA) is in fact a seed that resides permanently in the AlayavijNAna. In India, the doctrine of the AlayavijNAna was controversial, with some members of the YogAcAra school rejecting its existence, arguing that the functions it is meant to serve can be accommodated within the standard six-consciousness system. The MADHYAMAKA, notably figures such as BHAVAVIVEKA and CANDRAKĪRTI, attacked the YogAcAra proponents of the AlayavijNAna, describing it as a form of self, which all Buddhists must reject. ¶ In East Asia, the AlayavijNAna was conceived as one possible solution to persistent questions in Buddhism about karmic continuity and about the origin of ignorance (MOHA). For the latter, some explanation was required as to how sentient beings, whom many strands of MAHAYANA claimed were inherently enlightened, began to presume themselves to be ignorant. Debates raged within different strands of the Chinese YogAcAra traditions as to whether the AlayavijNAna is intrinsically impure because of the presence of these seeds of past experience (the position of the Northern branch of the Chinese DI LUN ZONG and the Chinese FAXIANG tradition of XUANZANG and KUIJI), or whether the AlayavijNAna included both pure and impure elements because it involved also the functioning of thusness, or TATHATA (the Southern Di lun school's position). Since the sentient being has had a veritable interminable period of time in which to collect an infinity of seeds-which would essentially make it impossible to hope to counteract them one by one-the mainstream strands of YogAcAra viewed the mind as nevertheless tending inveterately toward impurity (dausthulya). This impurity could only be overcome through a "transformation of the basis" (AsRAYAPARAVṚTTI), which would completely eradicate the karmic seeds stored in the storehouse consciousness, liberating the bodhisattva from the effects of all past actions and freeing him to project compassion liberally throughout the world. In some later interpretations, this transformation would then convert the AlayavijNAna into a ninth "immaculate consciousness" (AMALAVIJNANA). See also DASHENG QIXIN LUN.
Although advancing steadily in spirituality and upwards towards a lower nirvana, and therefore evolving on a path which is not only not harmful to humanity and others, but in a sense is even passively beneficial, the Pratyeka Buddha, precisely because his thoughts are involved in spiritual freedom and benefits for himself, is really enwrapped in a spiritual selfishness; and hence in the intuitive, albeit popular, consideration of Northern Buddhism is called by such names as the Solitary or the Rhinoceros — applied in contrast to the Buddhas of Compassion, whose entire effort is to merge the individual into the universal, to expand their sympathies to include all that is, to follow the path of immortality (amrita), which is self-identification without loss of individuality with all that is. When the sacrifice of the lower personal and inferior self, with all its hoard of selfish thought and impulses, for the sake of bringing into full and unfettered activity the ineffable glorious faculties and powers and functions of the higher nature — not for the purpose of selfish personal advancement, but in order to become a helper of all that is — the consequence is that as time passes, the disciple so living and dedicating himself finds himself becoming the very incarnation of his inner divinity. He becomes, as it were, a man-god on earth. This, however, is not the objective, for holding such an objective as the goal to be attained would be in itself a proof that selfishness still abides in the nature.
amalavijNAna. (T. dri ma med pa'i rnam shes; C. amoluo shi/wugou shi; J. amarashiki/mukushiki; K. amara sik/mugu sik 阿摩羅識/無垢識). In Sanskrit, "immaculate consciousness"; a ninth level of consciousness posited in certain strands of the YOGACARA school, especially that taught by the Indian translator and exegete PARAMARTHA. The amalavijNAna represents the intrusion of TATHAGATAGARBHA (womb or embryo of buddhahood) thought into the eight-consciousnesses theory of the YOGACARA school. The amalavijNAna may have antecedents in the notion of immaculate gnosis (amalajNAna) in the RATNAGOTRAVIBHAGA and is claimed to be first mentioned in STHIRAMATI's school of YogAcAra, to which ParamArtha belonged. The term is not attested in Sanskrit materials, however, and may be of Chinese provenance. The most sustained treatment of the concept appears in the SHE LUN ZONG, an exegetical tradition of Chinese Buddhism built around ParamArtha's translation of ASAnGA's MAHAYANASAMGRAHA (She Dasheng lun). ParamArtha compares amalavijNAna to the perfected nature (PARINIsPANNA) of consciousness, thus equating amalavijNAna with the absolute reality of thusness (TATHATA) and therefore rendering it the essence of all dharmas and the primary catalyst to enlightenment. As "immaculate," the amalavijNAna emulates the emphasis in tathAgatagarbha thought on the inherent purity of the mind; but as "consciousness," amalavijNAna could also be sited within the YogAcAra philosophy of mind as a separate ninth level of consciousness, now construed as the basis of all the other consciousnesses, including the eighth ALAYAVIJNANA. See also BUDDHADHATU; FOXING.
AmarAvatī. (T. 'Chi med ldan). In Sanskrit, "Immortal"; is the modern name for DhAnyakataka or Dharanikota, the site of a monastic community associated with the MAHASAMGHIKA school, located in eastern Andhra Pradesh. The site is best known for its large main STuPA, started at the time of AsOKA (third century BCE), which, by the second century CE, was the largest monument in India. It is thought to have been some 140 feet in diameter and upwards of 100 feet tall, and decorated with bas-reliefs. The stupa is mentioned in numerous accounts, including that by the Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG. AmarAvatī (as DhAnyakataka) reached its historical zenith as the southern capital of the later SAtavAhana [alt. sAtavAhana] dynasty that ended in 227 CE. The last inscription found at the site is dated to the eleventh century, and when first excavated at the end of the eighteenth century by the British, the stupa had long been reduced to a large mound of earth. Over the following centuries, it has been the focus of repeated archaeological excavations that yielded many important finds, making it one of the best researched Buddhist sites of ancient India. The site is important in Tibetan Buddhism because the Buddha is said to have taught the KALACAKRATANTRA at DhAnyakataka. See also NAGARJUNAKOndA.
Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji. (1891-1956). Indian reformer and Buddhist convert, who advocated for reform of the caste system and improvements in the social treatment of "untouchables" or the Dalit community during the independence period. The fourteenth child of a Dalit caste family in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Ambedkar was one of the few members of his caste to receive a secondary-school education and went on to study in New York and London, eventually receiving a doctorate from Columbia University. Upon his return to India, he worked both for Indian independence from Britain and for the social and political rights of the untouchables. After independence, he served in Nehru's government, chairing the committee that drafted the constitution. Seeking a religious identity for Dalits that would free them from the caste prejudice of Hinduism, he settled on Buddhism after considering also Islam, Christianity, and Sikhism. Buddhism had been extinct in India for centuries, but Ambedkar's research led him to conclude that the Dalits were descendants of Buddhists who had been persecuted by Hindus for their beliefs. In 1956, six weeks before his death, Ambedkar publicly converted to Buddhism and then led an audience of 380,000 in taking refuge in the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) and in accepting the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA) of lay Buddhists. Eventually, millions of other Indians, mostly from low-caste and outcaste groups, followed his example. In his writings, Ambedkar portrayed the Buddha as a social reformer, whose teachings could provide India with the foundation for a more egalitarian society.
Amitabha (Sanskrit) Amitābha [from a not + the verbal root mā to measure + ābhā (ābha) splendor, light from ā-bhā to shine, irradiate] Unmeasured splendor; mystically, as boundless light or boundless space, one of the five dhyani-buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism, more often referred to as the five tathagathas or jinas (victorious ones). Originally these dhyani-buddhas represented cosmic spiritual attributes and influences emanating from adi-buddhi, but they have become mythologized as gods, ruling over the central realm as well as the four cardinal directions.
AmitAbha. (T. 'Od dpag med/Snang ba mtha' yas; C. Amituo fo/Wuliangguang fo; J. Amida butsu/Muryoko butsu; K. Amit'a pul/Muryanggwang pul 阿彌陀佛/無量光佛). In Sanskrit, "Limitless Light," the buddha of the western PURE LAND of SUKHAVATĪ, one of the most widely worshipped buddhas in the MAHAYANA traditions. As recounted in the longer SUKHAVATĪVYuHASuTRA, numerous eons ago, a monk named DHARMAKARA vowed before the buddha LOKEsVARARAJA to follow the BODHISATTVA path to buddhahood, asking him to set forth the qualities of buddha-fields (BUDDHAKsETRA). DharmAkara then spent five KALPAS in meditation, concentrating all of the qualities of all buddha-fields into a single buddha field that he would create upon his enlightenment. He then reappeared before LokesvararAja and made forty-eight specific vows (PRAnIDHANA). Among the most famous were his vow that those who, for as few as ten times over the course of their life, resolved to be reborn in his buddha-field would be reborn there; and his vow that he would appear at the deathbed of anyone who heard his name and remembered it with trust. DharmakAra then completed the bodhisattva path, thus fulfilling all the vows he had made, and became the buddha AmitAbha in the buddha-field called sukhAvatī. Based on the larger and shorter versions of the SukhAvatīvyuhasutra as well as the apocryphal GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING (*AmitAyurdhyAnasutra), rebirth in AmitAbha's buddha-field became the goal of widespread Buddhist practice in India, East Asia, and Tibet, with the phrase "Homage to AmitAbha Buddha" (C. namo Amituo fo; J. NAMU AMIDABUTSU; K. namu Amit'a pul) being a central element of East Asian Buddhist practice. AmitAbha's Indian origins are obscure, and it has been suggested that his antecedents lie in Persian Zoroastrianism, where symbolism of light and darkness abounds. His worship dates back at least as far as the early centuries of the Common Era, as attested by the fact that the initial Chinese translation of the SukhAvatīvyuhasutra is made in the mid-second century CE, and he is listed in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") as the ninth son of the buddha MahAbhijNA JNAnAbhibhu. The Chinese pilgrims FAXIAN and XUANZANG make no mention of him by name in their accounts of their travels to India in the fifth and seventh centuries CE, respectively, though they do include descriptions of deities who seem certain to have been AmitAbha. Scriptures relating to AmitAbha reached Japan in the seventh century, but he did not become a popular religious figure until some three hundred years later, when his worship played a major role in finally transforming what had been previously seen as an elite and foreign tradition into a populist religion. In East Asia, the cult of AmitAbha eventually became so widespread that it transcended sectarian distinction, and AmitAbha became the most popular buddha in the region. In Tibet, AmitAbha worship dates to the early propagation of Buddhism in that country in the eighth century, although it never became as prevalent as in East Asia. In the sixteenth century, the fifth DALAI LAMA gave the title PAn CHEN LAMA to his teacher, BLO BZANG CHOS KYI RGYAL MTSHAN, and declared him to be an incarnation of AmitAbha (the Dalai Lama himself having been declared the incarnation of Avalokitesvara, AmitAbha's emanation). ¶ The names "AmitAbha" and "AmitAyus" are often interchangeable, both deriving from the Sanskrit word "amita," meaning "limitless," "boundless," or "infinite"; there are some intimations that Amita may actually have been the original name of this buddha, as evidenced, for example, by the fact that the Chinese transcription Amituo [alt. Emituo] transcribes the root word amita, not the two longer forms of the name. The distinction between the two names is preserved in the Chinese translations "Wuliangguang" ("Infinite Light") for AmitAbha and Wuliangshou ("Infinite Life") for AmitAyus, neither of which is used as often as the transcription Amituo. Both AmitAbha and AmitAyus serve as epithets of the same buddha in the longer SukhAvatīvyuhasutra and the Guan Wuliangshou jing, two of the earliest and most important of the sutras relating to his cult. In Tibet, his two alternate names were simply translated: 'Od dpag med ("Infinite Light") and Tshe dpag med ("Infinite Life"). Despite the fact that the two names originally refer to the same deity, they have developed distinctions in ritual function and iconography, and AmitAyus is now considered a separate form of AmitAbha rather than just a synonym for him. ¶ AmitAbha is almost universally shown in DHYANASANA, his hands at his lap in DHYANAMUDRA, though there are many variations, such as standing or displaying the VITARKAMUDRA or VARADAMUDRA. As one of the PANCATATHAGATA, AmitAbha is the buddha of the padma family and is situated in the west. In tantric depictions he is usually red in color and is shown in union with his consort PAndarA, and in East Asia he is commonly accompanied by his attendants AVALOKITEsVARA (Ch. GUANYIN) and MAHASTHAMAPRAPTA. See also JINGTU SANSHENG; WANGSHENG.
Amoghavajra. (C. Bukong; J. Fuku; K. Pulgong 不空) (705-774). Buddhist émigré ACARYA who played a major role in the introduction and translation of seminal Buddhist texts belonging to the esoteric tradition or mijiao (see MIKKYo; TANTRA). His birthplace is uncertain, but many sources allude to his ties to Central Asia. Accompanying his teacher VAJRABODHI, Amoghavajra arrived in the Chinese capital of Chang'an in 720-1 and spent most of his career in that cosmopolitan city. In 741, following the death of his mentor, Amoghavajra made an excursion to India and Sri Lanka with the permission of the Tang-dynasty emperor and returned in 746 with new Buddhist texts, many of them esoteric scriptures. Amoghavajra's influence in the Tang court reached its peak when he was summoned by the emperor to construct an ABHIsEKA, or consecration, altar on his behalf. Amoghavajra's activities in Chang'an were interrupted by the An Lushan rebellion (655-763), but after the rebellion was quelled, he returned to his work at the capital and established an inner chapel for HOMA rituals and abhiseka in the imperial palace. He was later honored by the emperor with the purple robe, the highest honor for a Buddhist monk and the rank of third degree. Along with XUANZANG, Amoghavajra was one of the most prolific translators and writers in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Among the many texts that he translated into Chinese, especially important are the SARVATATHAGATATATTVASAMGRAHA and the BHADRACARĪPRAnIDHANA.
amṛta. (P. amata; T.'chi med/bdud rtsi; C. ganlu; J. kanro; K. kamno 甘露). In Sanskrit, lit. "deathless" or "immortal"; used in mainstream Buddhist materials to refer to the "end" (NIstHA) of practice and thus liberation (VIMOKsA). The term is also used to refer specifically to the "nectar" or "ambrosia" of the TRAYASTRIMsA heaven, the drink of the divinities (DEVA) that confers immortality. It is also in this sense that amṛta is used as an epithet of NIRVAnA, since this elixir confers specific physical benefit, as seen in the descriptions of the serene countenance and clarity of the enlightened person. Moreover, there is a physical dimension to the experience of nirvAna, for the adept is said to "touch the 'deathless' element with his very body." Because amṛta is sweet, the term is also used as a simile for the teachings of the Buddha, as in the phrase the "sweet rain of dharma" (dharmavarsaM amṛtaM). The term is also used in Buddhism to refer generically to medicaments, viz., the five types of nectar (PANCAMṚTA) refer to the five divine foods that are used for medicinal purposes: milk, ghee, butter, honey, and sugar. AmṛtarAja (Nectar King) is the name of one of the five TATHAGATAs in tantric Buddhism and is identified with AMITABHA. In ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, there are five types of amṛta and five types of mAMsa ("flesh") that are transformed in a KAPALA ("skull cup") into a special offering substance called nang mchod, the "inner offering," in Tibetan. Giving it to the deities in the MAndALA is a central feature in anuttarayogatantra practice (SADHANA) and ritual (VIDHI). The inner offering of important religious figures in Tibetan is often distilled into a pill (T. bdud rtsi ril bu) that is then given to followers to use. In tantric practices such as the visualization of VAJRASATTVA, the meditator imagines a stream of amṛta descending from the teacher or deity visualized on the top of the head; it descends into the body and purifies afflictions (KLEsA) and the residual impressions (VASANA) left by earlier negative acts.
Anagamin (Sanskrit) Anāgāmin [from a not + āgāmin from ā-gam to come, proceed toward] One who does not come; in Southern or Theravada Buddhism, a “never returner,” one who will not be reborn on earth again — “unless he so desires in order to help mankind” (VS 88). The third stage of the fourfold path that leads to nirvana, the path of arhatship. See also ARHAT
AnAgatavaMsa. In PAli, "Chronicle of Future Events"; a medieval PAli work in verse detailing the advent of Metteya (MAITREYA) Buddha in the far distant future of this auspicious eon (bhaddakappa; S. BHADRAKALPA). The current eon is deemed auspicious because five buddhas-Maitreya being the fifth-appear during its duration, the maximum number possible. Attributed to Cola Kassapa, author of Vimativinodanī, the AnAgatavaMsa claims to have been preached to sARIPUTRA by the Buddha. The text elaborates upon the prophecy of the coming of Maitreya found in the CAKKAVATTISĪHANADASUTTA of the DĪGHANIKAYA. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Burma, the AnAgatavaMsa became popular as a kind of charter for a host of millenarian movements and uprisings, including one that led in 1752 to the founding of Burma's last royal dynasty, the Konbaung. Its founder, Alaung hpaya (r. 1752-1760), and his sons utilized this text to justify claims that their wars of conquest were prophesied to usher in a Buddhist Golden Age. A synopsis in English of a nineteenth-century Burmese recension of the AnAgatavaMsa appears in HENRY CLARK WARREN's Buddhism in Translations as "The Buddhist Apocalypse."
Ananda Metteyya. (1872-1923). Ordination name of the British Buddhist monk, born Charles Henry Allen Bennett. He was the son of an electrical engineer and studied science in his youth. In 1894, he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a society devoted to esotericism, whence he gained a reputation as a magician and miracle worker, becoming the friend and teacher of Aleister Crowley. He became interested in Buddhism from reading EDWIN ARNOLD's The Light of Asia. In 1900, he traveled to Asia, both because of his interest in Buddhism and his hope of relieving his asthma. Bennett was ordained as a Buddhist novice (sRAMAnERA) in Akyab, Burma, in 1901 and received the higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) as a monk (BHIKsU) in 1902. He was among the first Englishmen to be ordained as a bhikkhu, after Gordon Douglas (Bhikkhu Asoka), who was ordained in 1899 and the Irish monk U Dhammaloka, who was ordained some time prior to 1899. In 1903, he founded the International Buddhist Society (Buddhasasana Samagama) in Rangoon. Ananda Metteya led the first Buddhist mission to Britain with his patroness Hla Oung in 1908. In the previous year, in preparation for their visit, the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland was established, with THOMAS W. RHYS DAVIDS as president. He returned to Rangoon after six months. Plagued throughout his life with asthma, he disrobed in 1914 due to ill health and returned to England, where he continued his work to propagate Buddhism. Partly due to increasing drug dependency prompted by continuing medical treatments, he passed his final years in poverty. His published works include An Outline of Buddhism and The Wisdom of the Aryas.
Ananda Temple. A monumental THERAVADA Buddhist monastery located outside the Tharba Gate in the medieval Burmese capital of Pagan. The Ananda was built around 1105 by King Kyanzittha (r. 1084-1111), third monarch of the Pagan empire, and is dedicated to the four buddhas who have appeared during the present auspicious age: Krakucchanda (P. Kakusandha), Kanakamuni (P. KonAgamana), KAsYAPA, and GAUTAMA. In architectural style, the Ananda represents a fusion of Bengali, Burmese, and Pyu (precursors of the ethnic Burmans) elements. Legend states that eight ARHATs from Mount Gandhamadana in India visited King Kyanzittha, and he was so impressed that he constructed a monastery for them, and next to it founded the Ananda. Like all temples and pagodas of the city of Pagan, the Ananda is built of fired brick and faced with stucco. It is cruciform in plan following a Pyu prototype and crowned with a North Indian style tower, or sikhara. Its interior consists of two circumambulatory halls pierced by windows that allow a limited amount of light into the interior. The hallways are decorated with terracotta plaques depicting episodes from the PAli JATAKAs, the MahAnipAta, and NIDANAKATHA. The inner hall contains niches housing numerous seated images of the Buddha that are rendered in a distinctive Pala style. The temple is entered from four entrances facing the four cardinal directions, which lead directly to four large inner chambers, each containing a colossal standing statue of a buddha. Two of the statues are original; a third was rebuilt in the eighteenth century; and the fourth has been repaired. Three of the statues are flanked by smaller images of their chief disciples. The exception is the statue of Gautama Buddha, located in the western chamber, which is flanked by what is believed to be portrait statues of King Kyanzitha and SHIN ARAHAN, the Mon monk said to have converted Pagan to TheravAda Buddhism, who was also Kyanzittha's preceptor.
Ananda. (T. Kun dga' bo; C. Anan[tuo]; J. Anan[da]; K. Anan[da] 阿難[陀]). In Sanskrit and PAli, literally "Bliss," the name of the Buddha's cousin, longtime attendant, and one of his chief disciples. According to tradition, in his previous life, he was a god in the TUsITA heaven, who was born on the same day and into the same sAKYA clan as the BODHISATTVA and future buddha who was born as prince SIDDHARTHA. Ananda was born as the son of Amṛtodana, the brother of king sUDDHODANA. He was thus the Buddha's cousin and the brother of DEVADATTA. When the Buddha returned to his home town of KAPILAVASTU in the second year after his enlightenment, many of the sAkyan men, such as Ananda and Devadatta, wished to renounce the householder life and become the Buddha's disciples as monks. Not long after his ordination, Ananda became a SROTAAPANNA upon hearing a sermon by PuRnA. The Buddha did not have a personal attendant for the first twenty years after his enlightenment, with various monks occasionally offering various services to him. But after two decades of these ad hoc arrangements, the Buddha finally asked for someone to volunteer to be his personal attendant; all the monks volunteered except Ananda, who said that he did not do so because the Buddha would choose the correct person regardless of who volunteered. The Buddha selected Ananda, who accepted on the following conditions: the Buddha was never to give him any special food or robes that he had received as gifts; the Buddha was not to provide him with a special monk's cell; and the Buddha was not to include him in dining invitations he received from the laity. Ananda made these conditions in order to prevent anyone from claiming that he received special treatment because of serving as the Buddha's attendant. In addition, he asked to be allowed to accept invitations on behalf of the Buddha; he asked to be allowed to bring to the Buddha those who came from great distances to see him; he asked to be able to bring any questions he had to the Buddha; and he asked that the Buddha repeat to him any doctrine that had been taught in his absence. Ananda saw these latter conditions as the true advantages of serving the Buddha. For the next twenty-five years, Ananda served the Buddha with great devotion, bringing him water, sweeping his cell, washing his feet, rubbing his body, sewing his robes, and accompanying him wherever he went. He guarded the Buddha's cell at night, carrying a staff and a torch, in order to make sure that his sleep was not disturbed and to be ready should the Buddha need him. As the Buddha grew older and more infirm, Ananda provided devoted care, despite the fact that the two were exactly the same age. Because Ananda was constantly in the Buddha's presence, he played a key role in many famous events of the early dispensation. For example, it was Ananda who, on behalf of MAHAPRAJAPATI, requested that women be allowed to enter the SAMGHA as nuns, persisting in his request despite the Buddha's initial refusal. He is therefore remembered especially fondly by the order of BHIKsUnĪs, and it is said that he often preached to nuns. In a famous tale reproduced in various sources, the daughter of a woman named MAtangī attempted to seduce Ananda with the help of her mother's magical powers, only to come to realize her wrongdoing with the intervention of the Buddha. Toward the end of his life, the Buddha mentioned to Ananda that a buddha could live for a KALPA or until the end of the kalpa if he were asked to do so. (See CAPALACAITYA.) Ananda, distracted by MARA, failed to request the Buddha to do so, despite the Buddha mentioning this three times. Ananda was chastised for this blunder at the first council (see infra). Ananda figures prominently in the account of the Buddha's last days in the MAHAPARINIBBANASUTTA, weeping at the knowledge that the Buddha was about to die and being consoled by him. Ananda was known for his extraordinary powers of memory; he is said to have heard all 84,000 sermon topics (82,000 taught by the Buddha and 2,000 taught by other disciples) and was able to memorize 15,000 stanzas without omitting a syllable. He therefore played a key role in the recitation of the Buddha's teachings at the first council (SAMGĪTI; see COUNCIL, FIRST) held at RAJAGṚHA shortly after the Buddha's death. However, MAHAKAsYAPA, who convened the council, specified that all five hundred monks in attendance must be ARHATs, and Ananda was not. On the night before the opening of the council, Ananda achieved the enlightenment of an arhat as he was lying down to sleep, as his head fell to the pillow and his feet rose from the ground. He is therefore famous for achieving enlightenment in none of the four traditional postures (ĪRYAPATHA): walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. As an arhat, Ananda was welcomed to the council, where he recounted all the words of the Buddha (except those concerning the VINAYA, or monastic rules, which were recited by UPALI). For this reason, most SuTRAs open with the words, "Thus have I heard" (EVAM MAYA sRUTAM); the "I" is usually Ananda. (For this reason, Ananda is also known in China as Duowen Diyi, "First in Vast Hearing" or "He Who Heard the Most.") After the Buddha's death, the order of monks brought five charges against Ananda: (1) the Buddha had said that after his passing, the monks could disregard the minor precepts, but Ananda failed to ask him which those were; thus, all the precepts had to be followed; (2) Ananda had once stepped on the Buddha's robe when sewing it; (3) Ananda had allowed women to honor the Buddha's naked body after his death and their tears had fallen on his feet; (4) Ananda failed to ask the Buddha to live on for the rest of the kalpa; and (5) Ananda urged the Buddha to admit women to the order. Ananda replied that he saw no fault in any of these deeds but agreed to confess them. According to FAXIAN, when Ananda was 120 years old, he set out from MAGADHA to VAIsALĪ in order to die. Seeking his relics (sARĪRA), AJATAsATRU followed him to the Rohīni River, while a group from VaisAlī awaited him on the other bank. Not wishing to disappoint either group, Ananda levitated to the middle of the river in the meditative posture, preached the dharma, and then meditated on the TEJOKASInA, which prompted his body to burst into flames, with the relics dividing into two parts, one landing on each bank of the river. Ananda has long been one of the most beloved figures in the history of Buddhism, in part because he was not the wisest of the Buddha's disciples but showed unstinting devotion to the Buddha, always seeking to understand him correctly and to bring his teachings to as many people as possible.
AnApAnasmṛti. (P. AnApAnasati; T. dbugs rngub pa dang 'byung ba dran pa; C. shuxi guan/annabannanian; J. susokukan/annahannanen; K. susik kwan/annabannanyom 數息觀/安那般那念). In Sanskrit, lit. "mindfulness (SMṚTI) of inhalation (Ana = prAna) and exhalation (apAna)," or simply, "mindfulness of breathing"; referring to one of the oldest and most basic meditative techniques found in Buddhism. The practice requires focusing on the breath as it moves into and out of the body during inhalation and exhalation, some say through attention to the sensation of the movement of breath at the tip of the nose, others say through attention to the rise and fall of the diaphragm. This passive following of the breath leads to physical and mental calm, which allows the meditator to focus on the generic aspect of breath: viz., the fact that the constant ebb and flow of the breath is emblematic of impermanence (ANITYA). This awareness may then lead to nonattachment and insight. The PAli ANAPANASATISUTTA provides a detailed description of the processes involved in developing this type of meditation. Unlike many of the other forty topics of meditation (KAMMAttHANA) in PAli Buddhism, which are said to suit specific types of personalities or as antidotes to specific negative tendencies, AnApAnasmṛti is claimed to be suitable for all, which may account for its continued popularity. Elsewhere, it is said to be a suitable object of meditation for those given to excessive thought. Some form of this practice is found in nearly every Buddhist tradition. There are various renderings of the term using Chinese Sinographs; although shuxi guan is one of the most common translations, there are others (e.g., chixi guan), as well as different ways of transcribing the Sanskrit into Chinese (e.g., anabona nian).
anAtman. (P. anattA; T. bdag med; C. wuwo; J. muga; K. mua 無我). In Sanskrit, "no self" or "nonself" or more broadly "insubstantiality"; the third of the "three marks" (TRILAKsAnA) of existence, along with impermanence (ANITYA) and suffering (DUḤKHA). The concept is one of the key insights of the Buddha, and it is foundational to the Buddhist analysis of the compounded quality (SAMSKṚTA) of existence: since all compounded things are the fruition (PHALA) of a specific set of causes (HETU) and conditions (PRATYAYA), they are therefore absent of any perduring substratum of being. In the sutra analysis of existence, the "person" (PUDGALA) is said to be a product of five aggregates (SKANDHA)-materiality (RuPA), physical sensations (VEDANA), perception (SAMJNA), impulses (SAMSKARA), and consciousness (VIJNANA)-which together comprise the totality of the individual's physical, mental, and emotional existence. What in common parlance is called the person is a continuum (SAMTANA) imputed to the construction of these aggregates, but when these aggregates are separated at the time of death, the person also simultaneously vanishes. This relationship between the person and the skandhas is clarified in the MILINDAPANHA's famous simile of the chariot: a chariot is composed of various constituent parts, but if that chariot is broken down into its parts, there is no sense of "chariot" remaining. So it is with the person and his constituent parts, the skandhas. The Buddha is rigorously against any analysis of phenomena that imputes the reality of a person: when a questioner asks him, "Who senses?," for example, the Buddha rejects the question as wrongly conceived and reframes it in terms of conditionality, i.e., "With what as condition does sensation occur?" ("Sensory contact" [SPARsA] is the answer.) Buddhism thus rejects any notion of an eternal, perduring soul that survives death, or which transmigrates from lifetime to lifetime; rather, just as we can impute a conventional continuity to the person over one lifetime, so can this same continuity be imputed over several lifetimes. The continuum of karmic action and reaction ensures that the last moment of consciousness in the present life serves as the condition for the first moment of consciousness in the next. The next life is therefore neither the same as nor different from the preceding lifetime; instead, it is causally related to it. For this reason, any specific existence, or series of existences, is governed by the causes and conditions that create it, rendering life fundamentally beyond our attempts to control it (another connotation of "nonself") and thus unworthy as an object of attachment. Seeing this lack of selfhood in compounded things generates a sense of "danger" (ADĪNAVA) that catalyzes the aspiration to seek liberation (VIMOKsA). Thus, understanding this mark of anAtman is the crucial antidote (PRATIPAKsA) to ignorance (AVIDYA) and the key to liberation from suffering (duḥkha) and the continuing cycle of rebirth (SAMSARA). Although the notion of anAtman is applied to the notion of a person in mainstream Buddhism, in the PRAJNAPARAMITA scriptures and the broader MAHAYANA tradition the connotation of the term is extended to take in the "nonself of phenomena" (DHARMANAIRATMYA) as well. This extension may be a response to certain strands of the mainstream tradition, such as SARVASTIVADA (lit. the "Teaching That All [Dharmas] Exist"), which considered dharmas (i.e., the five skandhas and so on) to be factors that existed in reality throughout all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future. In order to clarify that dharmas have only conventional validity, the MahAyAna posited that they also were anAtman, although the nature of this lack of self was differently understood by the YOGACARA and MADHYAMAKA schools.
Anawrahta. (S. Aniruddha; P. Anuruddha) (1015-1078). King of Pagan (r. c. 1044-1077 CE), who is celebrated in Burmese history and legend as the founder of the first Burmese empire and as having established THERAVADA Buddhism as the national religion of the Burmese people. Fifteenth-century Mon inscriptions record that Anawrahta conquered the Mon kingdom of Thaton in 1057 and carried off to his capital relics of the Buddha, PAli texts, and orthodox TheravAda monks. With these acquisitions, he laid the foundation for PAli Buddhism in his kingdom. Later Burmese chronicles recount that, prior to his invasion of the Mon kingdom, Anawrahta had been converted to TheravAda Buddhism by the Mon saint SHIN ARAHAN, who preached to the king the AppamAdasutta. After his conversion, Anawrahta is alleged to have suppressed an already established sect of heretical Buddhist monks dwelling at Pagan known as the Ari, which seem to have been a MAHAYANA strand that practiced some forms of tantra. Although supposedly reprehensible in their behavior, the Ari had enjoyed the patronage of Pagan's kings for generations. In revenge, the Ari monks attempted to harm Shin Arahan, whereupon Anawrahta defrocked them and conscripted them into his army. To firmly establish TheravAda Buddhism as the sole religion of Pagan, Shin Arahan advised Anawrahta to request Buddha relics and PAli scriptures from the king of Thaton, the Mon TheravAda kingdom whence Shin Arahan hailed. When Manuha, the Thaton king in RAmaNNa, refused Anawrahta's request, Anawrahta and his Burmese forces invaded and acquired these objects by force. Manuha was himself seized and transported to Pagan in golden chains where he and his family were dedicated to the Shwezigon Pagoda as temple slaves and allowed to worship the Buddha until the end of their days. Whatever the historical accuracy of the legend, epigraphic and archaeological evidence indicates that Anawrahta was more eclectic in his beliefs than traditional sources suggest. According to the CulAVAMSA, Anawrahta assisted the Sinhalese king VijayabAhu I (r. 1055-1110) in reinstating a valid TheravAda ordination line in Sri Lanka, but Anawrahta also circulated in his own kingdom votive tablets adorned with MahAyAna imagery, and seals bearing his name are inscribed in Sanskrit rather than in PAli. In addition, Anawrahta supported a royal cult of spirits (Burmese NAT) propitiation at the Shwezigon pagoda in the capital, which was dedicated to the same deities said to have been worshipped by the heterodox Ari monks. All of this evidence suggests a religious environment at Pagan during Anawrahta's time that was far more diverse than the exclusivist TheravAda practices described in the chronicles; indeed, it is clear that more than one Buddhist tradition, along with brahmanism and the nat cult, received the patronage of the king and his court.
Anima Mundi (Latin) World-soul, world-mother; the divine-spiritual-astral-physical source of emanations, the cosmic generative and animating principle of all beings, the creative Third Logos in its female aspect. In its highest and intermediate portions, it corresponds to the alaya of Northern Buddhism and hence to akasa. Identified variously with Isis, Sephira, Sophia, the Holy Ghost, mahat, mulaprakriti, etc., but used in a hazy and often materializing sense, so that it cannot be accurately regarded as a synonym for any one of these. “It is in a sense the ‘seven-skinned mother’ of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana, in its lowest Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes. Of igneous, ethereal nature in the objective world of form (and then ether), and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself form the Anima Mundi, it means, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, which is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal Absolute” (TG 22-3).
Annen. (安然) (841-889?). Japanese TENDAI (C. TIANTAI) monk considered to be the founder of Japanese Tendai esoterism and thus also known as Himitsu daishi. Annen studied under ENNIN and initiated a reform of the Japanese Tendai tradition by incorporating new teachings from China called MIKKYo, or esoteric Buddhism. He received the bodhisattva precepts at ENRYAKUJI on Mt. Hiei (HIEIZAN) in 859 and by 884 had become the main dharma lecturer at Gangyoji. He subsequently was the founder of a monastery called Godaiin and is therefore often known to the tradition as "master Godaiin" (Godaiin daitoku or Godaiin ajari). Over one hundred works are attributed to Annen on both the exoteric and esoteric teachings of Tendai as well as on Sanskrit SIDDHAM orthography; dozens are extant, including texts that are considered primary textbooks of the Japanese Tendai tradition, such as his Hakke hiroku, Kyojijo, and Shittanzo. Annen is especially important for having examined comprehensively the relationship between precepts associated with the esoteric tradition and the Buddhist monastic precepts, including the bodhisattva precepts (BODHISATTVAsĪLA); his ultimate conclusion is that all precepts ultimately derive from specific sets of esoteric precepts.
anumodana. (T. rjes su yi rang; C. suixi; J. zuiki; K. suhŭi 隨喜). In Sanskrit and PAli, "admiration" or "gratification," also written anumodanA; the act of taking delight in the virtuous acts of others, which, in contrast to the unwholesome emotion of envy (ĪRsYA), enables one also to accumulate virtue for oneself. It is considered an effective means of gaining merit (PUnYA) and figures as a standard component in MAHAYANA liturgies, including the three-part MahAyAna liturgy (TRISKANDHAKA) and the sevenfold PuJA (SAPTAnGAVIDHI). AnumodanA is also used in mainstream Buddhism to refer to the "benedictions" (C. zhouyuan) that monks recite after receiving a meal or a gift, which express thanks or "gratification" to the donors for their offerings.
AnurAdhapura. Ancient capital of Sri Lanka nearly continuously from the fourth century BCE to the ninth century CE, with interludes of foreign occupation by Cola forces from South India. To the south of the city was the MAHAMEGHAVANA park, which was gifted to the elder MAHINDA by King DEVANAMPIYATISSA when the latter converted to Buddhism in the third century BCE. Soon, the MAHAVIHARA and the shrine of the southern branch of the BODHI TREE were built there. In the second century BCE, King DUttHAGAMAnĪ built the seven-storied LOHAPASADA and the MAHATHuPA. The site also housed the ABHAYAGIRI monastery, built in the first century BCE by King VAttAGAMAnI, and the JETAVANA monastery built in the fourth century CE by King MahAsena. The latter two monasteries were headquarters of the two eponymous secessionist fraternities of Sri Lankan Buddhism. Although AnurAdhapura was abandoned in favor of Pulatthipura as the capital in the ninth century, it remained a center of pilgrimage and religious activity.
Anuttara, Anuttaras (Sanskrit) Anuttara, Anuttarās [from an not + uttara comparative of ud up] Nonsuperior; unrivaled, unexcelled, chief, principal; secondarily inferior, base, low. Often used adjectivally in compounds: anuttara-bodhi (unexcelled intelligence or wisdom), anuttara-dharma (unexcelled law, truth, religion). In Buddhism anuttara-tantra, one of the four classes of tantric treatises, expounds the yogic procedures for the acquisition of the highest truth.
anuyoga. (T. a nu yo ga). In Sanskrit, "subsequent yoga" or "further yoga," the eighth of the nine vehicles (THEG PA DGU) of Buddhism according to the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Here, the system of practice described elsewhere as ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA is divided into three: MAHAYOGA, anuyoga, and ATIYOGA, with anuyoga corresponding to the practices of the "stage of completion" (NIsPANNAKRAMA), mahAyoga to the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA) and atiyoga to the great completion (RDZOGS CHEN) and the spontaneous achievement of buddhahood. Thus, such stage of completion practices as causing the winds (PRAnA) to move through the channels (NAdĪ) to the CAKRAs are set forth in anuyoga. In Rnying ma, anuyoga is also a category of texts in the RNYING MA'I RGYUD 'BUM, divided under the following headings: the four root sutras (rtsa ba'i mdo bzhi), the six tantras clarifying the six limits (mtha' drug gsal bar byed pa'i rgyud drug), the twelve rare tantras (dkon rgyud bcu gnyis), and the seventy written scriptures (lung gi yi ge bdun bcu).
Anxi guo. (J. Ansoku koku; K. Ansik kuk 安息國). Chinese transcription of the Parthian proper name Aršak, referring to the Arsacid kingdom (c. 250 BCE-224 CE) in the region Roman geographers called PARTHIA. Aršak was the name adopted by all Parthian rulers, and the Chinese employed it to refer to the lands that those rulers controlled to the southeast of the Caspian Sea. In the Marv oasis, where the old Parthian city of Margiana was located, Soviet archeologists discovered the vestiges of a Buddhist monastic complex that has been dated to the third quarter of the fourth century CE, as well as birch-bark manuscripts written in the BRAHMĪ script that are associated with the SARVASTIVADA school of mainstream Buddhism. There is therefore archaeological evidence of at least a semblance of Buddhist presence in the area during the fourth through sixth centuries. Parthian Buddhists who were active in China enable us to push this dating back at least two more centuries, for two of the important early figures in the transmission of Buddhist texts into China also hailed from Parthia: AN SHIGAO (fl. c. 148-180 CE), a prolific translator of mainstream Buddhist works, and An Xuan (fl. c. 168-189), who translated the UGRAPARIPṚCCHA with the assistance of the Chinese Yan Fotiao. (The AN in their names is an ethnikon referring to Parthia.) There is, however, no extant Buddhist literature written in the Parthian language and indeed little evidence that written Parthian was ever used in other than government documents and financial records until the third century CE, when Manichaean texts written in Parthian begin to appear.
AparAnta. [alt. AparAntaka]. A territory in western India traversing modern Rajasthan and Gujarat along the Narmada River; according to the PAli tradition, it was one of the nine regions to which Buddhist missions were dispatched during the reign of King AsOKA. After the completion of the third Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, THIRD) in the third century BCE, the elder MOGGALIPUTTATISSA dispatched the elder Yonaka Dhammarakkhita from PAtaliputta (S. PAtALIPUTRA) to AparAnta to promote Buddhism. Burmese and Thai chroniclers, by contrast, variously identify AparAnta with Chiangmai, AYUTHAYA, and the Irrawaddy river basin in Middle Burma. The third Buddhist council at PAtaliputta and the nine Buddhist missions are known only in PAli sources and are first recorded in the fifth-century DĪPAVAMSA.
Apart from the remarkable learning that these earlier works display, two things are noteworthy about them. The first is that they are principally based on a single source language or Buddhist tradition. The second is that they are all at least a half-century old. Many things have changed in the field of Buddhist Studies over the past fifty years, some for the worse, some very much for the better. One looks back in awe at figures like Louis de la Vallée Poussin and his student Msgr. Étienne Lamotte, who were able to use sources in Sanskrit, PAli, Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan with a high level of skill. Today, few scholars have the luxury of time to develop such expertise. Yet this change is not necessarily a sign of the decline of the dharma predicted by the Buddha; from several perspectives, we are now in the golden age of Buddhist Studies. A century ago, scholarship on Buddhism focused on the classical texts of India and, to a much lesser extent, China. Tibetan and Chinese sources were valued largely for the access they provided to Indian texts lost in the original Sanskrit. The Buddhism of Korea was seen as an appendage to the Buddhism of China or as a largely unacknowledged source of the Buddhism of Japan. Beyond the works of "the PAli canon," relatively little was known of the practice of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. All of this has changed for the better over the past half century. There are now many more scholars of Buddhism, there is a much higher level of specialization, and there is a larger body of important scholarship on each of the many Buddhist cultures of Asia. In addition, the number of adherents of Buddhism in the West has grown significantly, with many developing an extensive knowledge of a particular Buddhist tradition, whether or not they hold the academic credentials of a professional Buddhologist. It has been our good fortune to be able to draw upon this expanding body of scholarship in preparing The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism.
apocrypha. (C. yijing/weijing; J. gikyo/gikyo; K. ŭigyong/wigyong 疑經/僞經). Buddhist scholars have appropriated (though not without some controversy) the Judeo-Christian religious term "apocrypha" to refer to indigenous sutras composed outside the Indian cultural sphere, but on the model of translated Indian or Serindian scriptures. Such scriptures were sometimes composed in conjunction with a revelatory experience, but many were intentionally forged using their false ascription to the Buddha or other enlightened figures as a literary device to enhance both their authority and their prospects of being accepted as authentic scriptures. Many of the literary genres that characterize Judeo-Christian apocrypha are found also in Buddhist apocrypha, including the historical, didactic, devotional, and apocalyptic. Both were also often composed in milieus of social upheaval or messianic revivalism. As Buddhism moved outside of its Indian homeland, its scriptures had to be translated into various foreign languages, creating openings for indigenous scriptures to be composed in imitation of these translated texts. Ferreting out such inauthentic indigenous scripture from authentic imported scripture occupied Buddhist bibliographical cataloguers (see JINGLU), who were charged with confirming the authenticity of the Buddhist textual transmission. For the Chinese, the main criterion governing scriptural authenticity was clear evidence that the text had been brought from the "Outer Regions" (C. waiyu), meaning India or Central Asia; this concern with authenticating a text partially accounts for why Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures typically included a colophon immediately following the title, giving the name of the translator (who was also sometimes the importer of the scripture), along with the place where, and often the imperial reign era during which the translation was made. Scriptures for which there was no such proof were in danger of being labeled as texts of "suspect" or "suspicious" authenticity (yijing) or condemned as blatantly "spurious" or "counterfeit" scriptures (weijing). The presence of indigenous cultural elements, such as yin-yang cosmology, local spirits, or rituals and liturgies associated with folk religion could also be enough to condemn a scripture as "spurious." In Tibet, "treasure texts" (GTER MA) were scriptures or esoteric teachings attributed to enlightened beings or lineage holders that purported to have been buried or hidden away until they could be rediscovered by qualified individuals. Because of their association with a revelatory experience, such "treasure texts" carried authority similar to that of translated scripture. Different classifications of apocryphal scriptures have been proposed, based on genre and style, social history, and doctrinal filiations. In one of the ironies of the Buddhist textual transmission, however, many of the scriptures most influential in East Asian Buddhism have been discovered to be indigenous "apocrypha," not translated scriptures. Such indigenous scriptures were able to appeal to a native audience in ways that translated Indian materials could not, and the sustained popularity of many such "suspect" texts eventually led cataloguers to include them in the canon, despite continuing qualms about their authenticity. Such "canonical apocrypha" include such seminal scriptures as the FANWANG JING ("BrahmA's Net Sutra"), RENWANG JING ("Humane Kings Sutra"), and the YUANJUE JING ("Perfect Enlightenment Sutra"), as well as treatises like the DASHENG QIXIN LUN ("Awakening of Faith"). Similar questions of authenticity can be raised regarding scriptures of Indian provenance, since it is virtually impossible to trace with certainty which of the teachings ascribed to the Buddha in mainstream canonical collections (TRIPItAKA) such as the PAli canon can be historically attributed to him. Similarly, the MAHAYANA sutras, which are also attributed to the Buddha even though they were composed centuries after his death, are considered apocryphal by many of the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, including the modern THERAVADA tradition; however, modern scholars do not use the term "Buddhist apocrypha" to describe MahAyAna texts.
Arahatta (Pali) Arahatta [from the verbal root arh to be worthy; or from ari enemy, foe + the verbal root han to slay] State of arhatship; in Buddhism the state or condition of an arahant, free from the asavas (intoxication of mind or sense); by extension of thought, final and complete emancipation, the state of nibbana (Sanskrit nirvana). See also ARHAT
araNNavAsi. In PAli, "forest-dweller"; in the PAli Buddhist tradition, a monk who is principally dedicated to meditative training (VIPASSANADHURA); contrasted with "town-dweller" (GAMAVASI), who lives in a village or town monastery and whose monastic vocation focuses on doctrinal study and teaching, or "book work" (GANTHADHURA). In Sri Lankan Buddhism, the emphases within the Buddhist order on both meditation and study led to the evolution over time of these two major practice vocations. The araNNavAsi remained in solitude in the forest to focus principally on their meditative practice. The gAmavAsi, by contrast, were involved in studying and teaching the dhamma, especially within the lay community of the village, and thus helped to disseminate Buddhism among the people. The araNNavAsi were not necessarily hermits, but they did live a more secluded life than the gAmavAsi, devoting most of their time to meditation (either individually or in smaller groups) and keeping their contact with the laity to a minimum. According to the VINAYA, a monk cannot remain constantly alone in the forest by himself; at a minimum, he must join together with the sangha at least once a fortnight to participate in the uposatha (S. UPOsADHA) rite, when the monks gather to confess any transgressions of the precepts and to listen to a recitation of the rules of discipline (P. pAtimokkha; S. PRATIMOKsA). These two vocations have a long history and have continued within the sangha into modern times. In a sense, the Buddha himself was an araNNavAsi for six years before he attained enlightenment; subsequently, he then passed much of his time as a gAmavAsi, teaching people the dharma and encouraging them to practice to bring an end to their suffering. See also PHRA PA; THUDONG.
arhat. (P. arahant; T. dgra bcom pa; C. aluohan/yinggong; J. arakan/ogu; K. arahan/ŭnggong 阿羅漢/應供). In Sanskrit, "worthy one"; one who has destroyed the afflictions (KLEsA) and all causes for future REBIRTH and who thus will enter NIRVAnA at death; the standard Tibetan translation dgra bcom pa (drachompa) ("foe-destroyer") is based on the paronomastic gloss ari ("enemy") and han ("to destroy"). The arhat is the highest of the four grades of Buddhist saint or "noble person" (ARYAPUDGALA) recognized in the mainstream Buddhist schools; the others are, in ascending order, the SROTAAPANNA or "stream-enterer" (the first and lowest grade), the SAKṚDAGAMIN or "once-returner" (the second grade), and the ANAGAMIN or "nonreturner" (the third and penultimate grade). The arhat is one who has completely put aside all ten fetters (SAMYOJANA) that bind one to the cycle of rebirth: namely, (1) belief in the existence of a perduring self (SATKAYADṚstI); (2) skeptical doubt (about the efficacy of the path) (VICIKITSA); (3) belief in the efficacy of rites and rituals (sĪLAVRATAPARAMARsA); (4) sensual craving (KAMARAGA); (5) malice (VYAPADA); (6) craving for existence as a divinity (DEVA) in the realm of subtle materiality (RuPARAGA); (7) craving for existence as a divinity in the immaterial realm (ARuPYARAGA); (8) pride (MANA); (9) restlessness (AUDDHATYA); and (10) ignorance (AVIDYA). Also described as one who has achieved the extinction of the contaminants (ASRAVAKsAYA), the arhat is one who has attained nirvAna in this life, and at death attains final liberation (PARINIRVAnA) and will never again be subject to rebirth. Although the arhat is regarded as the ideal spiritual type in the mainstream Buddhist traditions, where the Buddha is also described as an arhat, in the MAHAYANA the attainment of an arhat pales before the far-superior achievements of a buddha. Although arhats also achieve enlightenment (BODHI), the MahAyAna tradition presumes that they have overcome only the first of the two kinds of obstructions, the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA), but are still subject to the noetic obstructions (JNEYAVARAnA); only the buddhas have completely overcome both and thus realize complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI). Certain arhats were selected by the Buddha to remain in the world until the coming of MAITREYA. These arhats (called LUOHAN in Chinese, a transcription of arhat), who typically numbered sixteen (see sOdAsASTHAVIRA), were objects of specific devotion in East Asian Buddhism, and East Asian monasteries will often contain a separate shrine to these luohans. Although in the MahAyAna sutras, the bodhisattva is extolled over the arhats, arhats figure prominently in these texts, very often as members of the assembly for the Buddha's discourse and sometimes as key figures. For example, in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), sARIPUTRA is one of the Buddha's chief interlocutors and, with other arhats, receives a prophecy of his future buddhahood; in the VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA, SUBHuTI is the Buddha's chief interlocutor; and in the VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, sAriputra is made to play the fool in a conversation with a goddess.
arhat ::: worthy; exalted; [in Buddhism]: one extremely exalted or one who has risen high above the world; the arya perfected.
Arnold, Edwin. (1832-1904). Sir Edwin Arnold was educated at Oxford and served as principal of a government college in Pune, India, from 1856 to 1861, during which time he studied Indian languages and published translations from the Sanskrit. He eventually returned to England, due primarily to the death of a child and his wife's illness. Upon his return, he became a writer for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, where he was appointed chief editor in 1873. He wrote his most famous work, The Light of Asia, during this period. After leaving his editorial position, he traveled widely in Asia, especially in Japan, and published popular accounts of his travels. Although largely forgotten today, The Light of Asia was in its own time a foundational text for anyone in the English-speaking world interested in Buddhism. First published in 1879, The Light of Asia was a poetic rendering of the life of the Buddha. Arnold used as his chief source a French translation of the LALITAVISTARA, one of the more ornate and belletristic Indian biographies of the Buddha. Arnold, however, added his own embellishments and deployed important scenes from the life of the Buddha differently than had previous authors in order to intensify the narrative. Despite the animosity it aroused in many Christian pulpits, the book was a favorite of Queen Victoria, who subsequently knighted Arnold. Although it has long been rendered obsolete, The Light of Asia played a seminal role in introducing the history and belief systems of Buddhism to the West. Arnold also played an important role in rallying support worldwide for the restoration of the important Buddhist pilgrimage site of BODHGAYA, the place where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. He and Reverend SUMAnGALA sent a petition to the Queen of England requesting permission to buy the land and the temple from the Hindus and restore the neglected site. Although unsuccessful, his efforts eventually came to fruition after Indian independence in 1949, when the Indian government returned control of BodhgayA to the Buddhists.
Arupa (Sanskrit) Arūpa [from a not + rūpa form, body probably from the verbal root rūp to form, figure, represent] Formless, bodiless; in Buddhism, used in a number of compounds, such as arupa-dhatu (the formless element), arupa-loka (world of the formless), and arupa-tanha (desire for rebirth in the formless sphere). Arupa, however, does not mean there is no form of any kind, but that the forms in the spiritual worlds are nonmaterial, highly ethereal and spiritual in type.
Aryadeva. (T. 'Phags pa lha; C. Tipo; J. Daiba; K. Cheba 提婆). While traditional sources are often ambiguous, scholars have identified two Aryadevas. The first Aryadeva (c. 170-270 CE) was an important Indian philosopher, proponent of MADHYAMAKA philosophy, and a direct disciple of the Madhyamaka master NAGARJUNA. According to traditional accounts, he was born to a royal family in Sri Lanka. Renouncing the throne at the time of his maturity, he instead sought monastic ordination and met NAgArjuna at PAtALIPUTRA. After his teacher's death, Aryadeva became active at the monastic university of NALANDA, where he is said to have debated and defeated numerous brahmanic adherents, eventually converting them to Buddhism. He is the author of the influential work CATUḤsATAKA ("The Four Hundred"). He is also said to be the author of the *sATAsASTRA (C. BAI LUN), or "The Hundred Treatise," counted as one of the "three treatises" of the SAN LUN ZONG of Chinese Buddhism, together with the Zhong lun ("Middle Treatise," i.e., MuLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA) and SHI'ERMEN LUN ("Twelve [Chapter] Treatise"), both attributed to NAgArjuna. The *satasAstra is not extant in Sanskrit or Tibetan, but is preserved only in Chinese. ¶ The second Aryadeva [alt. AryadevapAda; d.u.] trained in yogic practices under the tantric master NAgArjuna at NAlandA. In the Tibetan tradition, this Aryadeva is remembered for his great tantric accomplishments, and is counted among the eighty-four MAHASIDDHAs under the name Karnari or Kanheri. His important tantric works include the CaryAmelapakapradīpa ("Lamp that Integrates the Practices") and Cittavisuddhiprakarana [alt. CittAvaranavisuddhiprakarana] ("Explanation of Mental Purity").
Arya. (P. ariya; T. 'phags pa; C. sheng; J. sho; K. song 聖). In Sanskrit, "noble" or "superior." A term appropriated by the Buddhists from earlier Indian culture to refer to its saints and used technically to denote a person who has directly perceived reality and has become a "noble one." In the fourfold path structure of the mainstream schools, an Arya is a person who has achieved at least the first level of sanctity, that of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA), or above. In the fivefold path system, an Arya is one who has achieved at least the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), or above. The SARVASTIVADA (e.g., ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA) and THERAVADA (e.g., VISUDDHIMAGGA) schools of mainstream Buddhism both recognize seven types of noble ones (Arya, P. ariya). In e.g., the VISUDDHIMAGGA, these are listed in order of their intellectual superiority as (1) follower of faith (P. saddhAnusAri; S. sRADDHANUSARIN); (2) follower of the dharma (P. dhammAnusAri; S. DHARMANUSARIN); (3) one who is freed by faith (P. saddhAvimutta; S. sRADDHAVIMUKTA); (4) one who has formed right view (P. ditthippatta; S. DṚstIPRAPTA), by developing both faith and knowledge; (5) one who has bodily testimony (P. kAyasakkhi; S. KAYASAKsIN), viz., through the temporary suspension of mentality in the equipoise of cessation (NIRODHASAMAPATTI); (6) one who is freed by wisdom (P. paNNAvimutta; S. PRAJNAVIMUKTA), by freeing oneself through analysis; and (7) one who is freed both ways (P. ubhatobhAgavimutta; S. UBHAYATOBHAGAVIMUKTA), by freeing oneself through both meditative absorption (P. jhAna; S. DHYANA) and wisdom (P. paNNA; S. PRAJNA). In the AbhidharmakosabhAsya, the seven types of Arya beings are presented in a slightly different manner, together with the list of eight noble persons (ARYAPUDGALA) based on candidates for (pratipannika) and those who have reached the result of (phalastha) stream-enterer (srotaApanna), once-returner (SAKṚDAGAMIN), nonreturner (ANAGAMIN), and ARHAT; these are again further expanded into a list of twenty members of the Arya VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA and in MahAyAna explanations into forty-eight or more ARYABODHISATTVAs. The Chinese character sheng, used to render this term in East Asia, has a long indigenous history and several local meanings; see, for example, the Japanese vernacular equivalent HIJIRI. It is also the name of one of two Indian esoteric GUHYASAMAJATANTRA traditions, receiving its name from Arya NAgArjuna, the author of the PANCAKRAMA.
Aryasangha (Sanskrit) Āryasaṃgha Founder of the first Yogacharya school, a direct disciple of Gautama Buddha; also a sage who lived in about the 5th or 6th century, who mixed Tantric worship with the Yogacharya system. The followers of the latter “claimed that he was the same Aryasangha, that had been a follower of Sakyamuni, and that he was 1,000 years old. Internal evidence alone is sufficient to show that the works written by him and translated about the year 600 of our era, works full of Tantra worship, ritualism, and tenets followed now considerably by the ‘red-cap’ sects in Sikhim, Bhutan, and Little Tibet, cannot be the same as the lofty system of the early Yogacharya school of pure Buddhism, which is neither northern or southern, but absolutely esoteric. Though none of the genuine Yogacharya books (the Narjol chodpa) have ever been made public or marketable, yet one finds in the Yogacharya Bhumi Shastra of the pseudo-Aryasangha a great deal from the older system, into the tenets of which he may have been initiated. It is, however, so mixed up with Sivaism and Tantrika magic and superstitions, that the work defeats its own end, notwithstanding its remarkable dialectical subtilty” (TG 323).
Aryasatya (Sanskrit) Āryasatya [from ārya holy, noble from the verbal root ṛ to move, arise, attain + satya true, real from the verbal root as to be] Noble truth; in the plural, the four great truths of Buddhism — chatvari aryasatyani (Pali, chattari ariyasachchani): 1) duhkha — life is suffering; 2) samudaya — origin, cause, craving, egoistic desire (tanha) is the cause of suffering; 3) nirodha — destruction, extinction of desire brings cessation of suffering; and 4) aryashtangamarga — the eightfold path leads to extinction of suffering. See also ARIYASACHCHA (for Pali equivalents)
Aryashtangamarga (Sanskrit) Āryāṣṭāṅgamārga [from ārya holy, noble + aṣṭa eight + aṅga limb, division + mārga path, way from the verbal root mṛg to seek, strive to attain, investigate] Holy eight-limbed way; in Buddhism the Noble Eightfold Path enunciated by Gautama Buddha as the fourth of the Four Noble Truths (chattari aryasatyani). Consistent practice of aryashtangamarga leads the disciple ultimately to perfect wisdom, love, and liberation from samsara (the round of repetitive births and deaths). The Eightfold Path is enumerated as: 1) samyagdrishti (right insight); 2) samyaksamkalpa (right resolve); 3) samyagvach (right speech); 4) samyakkarmantra (right action); 5) samyagajiva (right living); 6) samyagvyayama (right exertion); 7) samyaksmriti (right recollection); and 8) samyaksamadhi (right concentration). See also ARIYA ATTHANGIKA MAGGA (for Pali equivalents)
Asakrit Samadhi (Sanskrit) Asakṛtsamādhi [from a-sakṛt not once, repeatedly + samādhi meditation] In Buddhism, repeated spiritual and intellectual meditation of the highest kind.
asaMskṛtadharma. (P. asankhatadhamma; T. 'dus ma byas kyi chos; C. wuweifa; J. muiho; K. muwibop 無爲法). In Sanskrit, "uncompounded" or "unconditioned" "factors"; a term used to describe the few DHARMAs that are not conditioned (SAMSKṚTA) and are therefore perduring phenomena (NITYADHARMA) that are not subject to impermanence (ANITYA). The lists differ in the various schools. The PAli tradition's list of eighty-two dharmas (P. dhamma) recognizes only one uncompounded dharma: NIRVAnA (P. nibbAna). The SARVASTIVADA school recognizes three out of seventy-five: space (AKAsA), and two varieties of nirvAna: "analytical" "suppression" or "cessation" (PRATISAMKHYANIRODHA) and "nonanalytical suppression" (APRATISAMKHYANIRODHA). YOGACARA recognizes six of its one hundred dharmas as uncompounded: the preceding three, plus "motionlessness" (AniNjya, [alt. aniNjya]), the "cessation of perception and sensation" (SAMJNAVEDAYITANIRODHA), and "suchness" (TATHATA). NirvAna is the one factor that all Buddhist schools accept as being uncompounded. It is the one dharma that exists without being the result of a cause (ahetuja), though it may be accessed through the three "gates to deliverance" (VIMOKsAMUKHA). Because nirvAna neither produces nor is produced by anything else, it is utterly distinct from the conditioned realm that is subject to production and cessation; its achievement, therefore, means the end to the repeated cycle of rebirth (SAMSARA). In several schools of Buddhism, including the SarvAstivAda, nirvAna is subdivided into two complementary aspects: an "analytical cessation" (pratisaMkhyAnirodha) that corresponds to earlier notions of nirvAna and "nonanalytical suppression" (apratisaMkhyAnirodha), which ensures that the enlightened person will never again be subject to the vagaries of the conditioned world. "Analytical cessation" (pratisaMkhyAnirodha) occurs through the direct meditative insight into the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvAry AryasatyAni) and the cognition of nonproduction (ANUTPADAJNANA), which brings about the disjunction (visaMyoga) from all unwholesome factors (AKUsALADHARMA). "Nonanalytical suppression" (apratisaMkhyAnirodha) prevents the dharmas of the conditioned realm from ever appearing again for the enlightened person. In the VAIBHAsIKA interpretation, this dharma suppresses the conditions that would lead to the production of dharmas, thus ensuring that they remain forever positioned in future mode and unable ever again to arise in the present. Because this dharma is not a result of insight, it is called "nonanalytical." Space (AkAsa) has two discrete denotations. First, space is an absence that delimits forms; like the empty space inside a door frame, AkAsa is a hole that is itself empty but that defines, or is defined by, the material that surrounds it. Second, as the vast emptiness of space, space comes also to be described as the absence of obstruction; in this sense, space also comes to be interpreted as something akin to the Western conception of ether, a virtually immaterial, but glowing fluid that serves as the support for the four material elements (MAHABHuTA). Space is accepted as an uncompounded dharma in six of the mainstream Buddhist schools, including the SARVASTIVADA and the MAHASAMGHIKA, as well as the later YOGACARA; three others reject this interpretation, including the THERAVADA. The YogAcAra additions to this list essentially subsume the upper reaches of the immaterial realm (ArupyAvacara) into the listing of uncompounded dharmas. AniNjya, or motionlessness, is used even in the early Buddhist tradition to refer to actions that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome (see ANINJYAKARMAN), which lead to rebirth in the realm of subtle materiality or the immaterial realm and, by extension, to those realms themselves. The "cessation of perception and sensation" (saMjNAvedayitanirodha) is the last of the eight liberations (VIMOKsA; P. vimokkha) and the ninth and highest of the immaterial attainments (SAMAPATTI). "Suchness" (TATHATA) is the ultimate reality (i.e., suNYATA) shared in common by a TATHAGATA and all other afflicted (SAMKLIstA) and pure (VIsUDDHI) dharmas; the "cessation of perception and sensation" (saMjNAvedayitanirodha) is not only "a meditative trance wherein no perceptual activity remains," but one where no feeling, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, is experienced.
Asanga. (T. Thogs med; C. Wuzhao; J. Mujaku; K. Much'ak 無著) (c. 320-c. 390 CE). a.k.a. Arya Asanga, Indian scholar who is considered to be a founder of the YOGACARA school of MAHAYANA Buddhism. In the Tibetan tradition, he is counted as one of the "six ornaments of JAMBUDVĪPA" ('dzam gling rgyan drug), together with VASUBANDHU, NAGARJUNA and ARYADEVA, and DIGNAGA and DHARMAKĪRTI. Born into a brAhmana family in Purusapura (modern-day Peshawar, Pakistan), Asanga originally studied under SARVASTIVADA (possibly MAHĪsASAKA) teachers but converted to the MahAyAna later in life. His younger brother was the important exegete Vasubandhu; it is said that he was converted to the MahAyAna by Asanga. According to traditional accounts, Asanga spent twelve years in meditation retreat, after which he received a vision of the future buddha MAITREYA. He visited Maitreya's abode in TUsITA heaven, where the bodhisattva instructed him in MahAyAna and especially YogAcAra doctrine. Some of these teachings were collected under the name MaitreyanAtha, and the Buddhist tradition generally regards them as revealed by Asanga through the power of the future buddha. Some modern scholars, however, have posited the existence of a historical figure named MAITREYANATHA or simply Maitreya. Asanga is therefore associated with what are known as the "five treatises of MaitreyanAtha" (the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, the DHARMADHARMATAVIBHAGA, the MADHYANTAVIBHAGA, the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, and the RATNAGOTRAVIBHAGA). Asanga was a prolific author, composing commentaries on the SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA and the VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA. Among his independent treatises, three are particularly important. The ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA sets forth the categories of the ABHIDHARMA from a YogAcAra perspective. The MAHAYANASAMGRAHA is a detailed exposition of YogAcAra doctrine, setting forth such topics as the ALAYAVIJNANA and the TRISVABHAVA as well as the constituents of the path. His largest work is the compendium entitled YOGACARABHuMIsASTRA. Two of its sections, the sRAVAKABHuMI and the BODHISATTVABHuMI, circulated as independent works, with the former important for its exposition of the practice of DHYANA and the latter for its exposition of the bodhisattva's practice of the six PARAMITA; the chapter on sĪLA is particularly influential. These texts have had a lasting and profound impact on the development of Buddhism, especially in India, Tibet, and East Asia. Among the great figures in the history of Indian Buddhism, Asanga is rare for the breadth of his interests and influence, making significant contributions to philosophy (as the founder of YogAcAra), playing a key role in TATHAGATAGARBHA thought (through the RatnagotravibhAga), and providing significant expositions of Buddhist practice (in the YogAcArabhumi).
As a noun, originally one who had fully attained his spiritual ideals. In Buddhism arhat (Pali arahant) is the title generally given to those of Gautama Buddha’s disciples who had progressed the farthest during his lifetime and immediately thereafter; more specifically to those who had attained nirvana, emancipation from earthly fetters and the attainment of full enlightenment. Arhat is broadly equivalent to the Egyptian hierophant, the Chaldean magus, and Hindu rishi, as well as being generally applicable to ascetics. On occasion it is used for the loftiest beings in a hierarchy: “The Arhats of the ‘fire-mist’ of the 7th run are but one remove from the Root-base of their Hierarchy — the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain” (SD 1:207).
Asava (Sanskrit, Pali) Āsava [from the verbal root su to distill, make a decoction] A distilling or a decoction; a Buddhist term, difficult to render in European languages, signifying the distillation or decoction which the mind makes or produces from the impact upon it of outside energies or substances, whether these latter be thoughts or suggestions automatically arising and acting from outside upon us, or such as impinge upon the human consciousness from another consciousness striving to affect the former. Thus it corresponds in some respects to the Christian idea of temptation. Asava signifies attachments rising in the mind from the impact upon it of outside influences, and the ideas born of outside influences which intoxicate the mind, born in the mind or flowing into it and preventing its being held upon higher lines. Freedom from the asavas constitutes the essential of arhatship, which involves self-mastery in all its phases. The four asavas are enumerated in Southern Buddhism as 1) sensuousness and sensuality (kama); 2) hunger for life (bhava); 3) dreamy speculation (dittha); and 4) nescience (avijja).
A scripture of the same name of the Mahayana school of Northern Buddhism, supposed by some to be of later date, is written in Sanskrit: the Maha-paranirvana-sutra (Paradise Sutra).
Asokan pillars. Stone pillars erected or embellished during the reign of King AsOKA, many of which bear royal edicts attesting to the king's support of the "dharma" and putatively of Buddhism. Although later Buddhist records mention more than forty such pillars, less than half of these have been identified. At least some pillars predate Asoka's ascendance, but most were erected by the king to commemorate his pilgrimage to sacred Buddhist sites or as Buddhist memorials. One representative example, located at LauriyA Nandangaṛh, stands nearly forty feet tall and extends over ten feet below the ground. The heaviest may weigh up to 75,000 pounds. The pillar edicts form some of the earliest extant written records in the Indian subcontinent and typically avoid mentioning Buddhist philosophy, offering instead general support of dharma, or righteousness, and in some cases of the Buddhist SAMGHA. At one time, the pillars supported stone capitals in the form of animals such as the bull. One Asokan innovation was the use of lion capitals, the most famous being a lotus vase supporting a drum of four wheels and other animals, topped with four lions and a wheel (now missing). The use of lion symbolism may have been a direct reference to the sAKYA clan of the Buddha, which took the lion (siMha) as its emblem.
Asoka. (P. Asoka; T. Mya ngan med; C. Ayu wang; J. Aiku o; K. Ayuk wang 阿育王) (c. 300-232 BCE; r. c. 268-232 BCE). Indian Mauryan emperor and celebrated patron of Buddhism; also known as DharmAsoka. Son of BindusAra and grandson of Candragupta, Asoka was the third king of the Mauryan dynasty. Asoka left numerous inscriptions recording his edicts and proclamations to the subjects of his realm. In these inscriptions, Asoka is referred to as DEVANAM PRIYAḤ, "beloved of the gods." These inscriptions comprise one of the earliest bodies of writing as yet deciphered from the Indian subcontinent. His edicts have been found inscribed on boulders, on stone pillars, and in caves and are widely distributed from northern Pakistan in the west, across the Gangetic plain to Bengal in the east, to near Chennai in South India. The inscriptions are ethical and religious in content, with some describing how Asoka turned to the DHARMA after subjugating the territory of Kalinga (in the coastal region of modern Andhra Pradesh) in a bloody war. In his own words, Asoka states that the bloodshed of that campaign caused him remorse and taught him that rule by dharma, or righteousness, is superior to rule by mere force of arms. While the Buddha, dharma, and SAMGHA are extolled and Buddhist texts are mentioned in the edicts, the dharma that Asoka promulgated was neither sectarian nor even specifically Buddhist, but a general code of administrative, public, and private ethics suitable for a multireligious and multiethnic polity. It is clear that Asoka saw this code of ethics as a diplomatic tool as well, in that he dispatched embassies to neighboring states in an effort to establish dharma as the basis for international relations. The edicts were not translated until the nineteenth century, however, and therefore played little role in the Buddhist view of Asoka, which derives instead from a variety of legends told about the emperor. The legend of Asoka is recounted in the Sanskrit DIVYAVADANA, in the PAli chronicles of Sri Lanka, DĪPAVAMSA and MAHAVAMSA, and in the PAli commentaries, particularly the SAMANTAPASADIKA. Particularly in PAli materials, Asoka is portrayed as a staunch sectarian and exclusive patron of the PAli tradition. The inscriptional evidence, as noted above, does not support that claim. In the MahAvaMsa, for example, Asoka is said to have been converted to THERAVADA Buddhism by the novice NIGRODHA, after which he purifies the Buddhist SAMGHA by purging it of non-TheravAda heretics. He then sponsors the convention of the third Buddhist council (SAMGĪTĪ; see COUNCIL, THIRD) under the presidency of MOGGALIPUTTATISSA, an entirely TheravAda affair. Recalling perhaps the historical Asoka's diplomatic missions, the legend recounts how, after the council, Moggaliputtatissa dispatched TheravAda missions, comprised of monks, to nine adjacent lands for the purpose of propagating the religion, including Asoka's son (MAHINDA) and daughter (SAnGHAMITTA) to Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, where the legend appears to have originated, and in the TheravAda countries of Southeast Asia, the PAli account of King Asoka was adopted as one of the main paradigms of Buddhist kingship and models of ideal governance and proper saMgha-state relations. A different set of legends, which do not recount the conversion of Sri Lanka, appears in Sanskrit sources, most notably, the AsOKAVADANA.
Asoka (Sanskrit) Aśoka The name of two celebrated kings of the Maurya dynasty of Magadha. According to the chronicles of Northern Buddhism there were two Asokas: King Chandragupta, named by Max Muller the Constantine of India, and his grandson King Asoka. King Chandragupta was called Piyadasi (beloved of us, benignant), Devanam-piya (beloved of the gods), and Kalasoka (the Asoka who has come in time). His grandson received the name of Dharmasoka (the asoka of the Good Law) because of his devotion to Buddhism, his zealous support of it and its spreading. The second Asoka had never followed the Brahmanical faith, but was a Buddhist born. It was his grandfather who had been converted to the new teaching, after which he had a number of edicts inscribed on pillars and rocks, a custom followed also by his grandson; but it was the second Asoka who was the more zealous supporter of Buddhism. He is said to have maintained in his palace from 60,000 to 70,000 monks and priests, and erected 84,000 topes or stupas throughout the world. The inscriptions of various edicts published by him display most noble ethical sentiments, especially the edict found at Allahabad on the so-called Asoka’s column in the Fort.
AsokAvadAna. (T. Ku nA la'i rtogs pa brjod pa; C. Ayu wang zhuan; J. Aiku o den; K. Ayuk wang chon 阿育王傳). In Sanskrit, "The Story of Asoka," a text belonging to the category of "edifying tales" (AVADANA), which narrates the major events in the life of King AsOKA of the Indian Mauryan dynasty. The work focuses primarily on Asoka's conversion to Buddhism, his subsequent support of the DHARMA and monastic community (SAMGHA), his visits to the major sites of the Buddha's life (MAHASTHANA), and his construction of STuPAs. It also records the transmission of the Buddhist teachings by five early teachers: MAHAKAsYAPA, ANANDA, MADHYANTIKA, sAnAKAVASIN, and UPAGUPTA. The AsokAvadAna relates that, in a previous life, Asoka (then a small boy named Jaya) placed a handful of dirt in the Buddha's begging bowl (PATRA). The Buddha predicted that one hundred years after his passage into nirvAna, the child would become a DHARMARAJA and CAKRAVARTIN named Asoka. As emperor, Asoka becomes a devout Buddhist and righteous king, renowned for collecting the relics (sARĪRA) of the Buddha from eight (or in one version, seven of eight) stupas and redistributing them in 84,000 stupas across his realm. Parts of the Sanskrit text have been preserved in the DIVYAVADANA, and the entire work is extant in Chinese. Only the KunAla chapter of the AsokAvadAna was rendered into Tibetan, in the eleventh century, by PadmAkaravarman and RIN CHEN BZANG PO.
Asrava. (P. ASAVA; T. zag pa; C. lou; J. ro; K. nu 漏). In Sanskrit, "contaminants," "outflows," or "fluxes"; mental contaminants that are eradicated upon attaining the status of a "worthy one" (ARHAT); also written as Asrava. They are (1) the contaminant of sensuality (kAmAsrava; KAMA); (2) the contaminant of continuing existence (bhavAsrava; BHAVA); and (3) the contaminant of ignorance (avidyAsrava; AVIDYA); to this list is often added (4) the contaminant of views (dṛstyAsrava; DṚstI). Since the Asravas bind or immerse one in the cycle of existence, they are also sometimes called the "floods" (OGHA) and the "yokes" (yoga). The term Asrava is used in both Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that it is one of the earliest such terms for the mental contaminants used within the tradition. (In the Buddhist interpretation, an Asrava is more of an "outflow," because the contaminants flow out from the mind and affect the ways in which one interacts with the external world; indeed, the Chinese translation of the term means literally to "leak." In the JAINA tradition, an Asrava is more of an "inflow," because the contaminants flow into the body, where they adhere to the ATMAN, thus defiling it.) The term is a synonym of the KLEsAs (afflictions, defilements), since objects (such as the five SKANDHAs) that can serve as objects of defilement are "contaminated" (sAsrava). The contaminants are permanently overcome through insight into such fundamental Buddhist truths as the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, conditioned origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), or the three marks of existence (TRILAKsAnA). Because the ARHAT has permanently uprooted the contaminants from the mind, he or she receives the epithet KsĪnASRAVA ("one whose contaminants are extinguished"). See also ASAVA, ANASRAVA, ASRAVAKsAYA.
astamahopaputra. (T. nye ba'i sras chen brgyad; C. ba da pusa; J. hachidai bosatsu; K. p'al tae posal 八大菩薩). In Sanskrit, the "eight great associated sons"; a group of eight bodhisattvas also known as the AstAMAHABODHISATTVA or "eight great bodhisattvas"; they are KsITIGARBHA, AKAsAGARBHA, AVALOKITEsVARA, VAJRAPAnI, MAITREYA, SARVANĪVARAnAVIsKAMBHIN, SAMANTABHADRA, and MANJUsRĪ. Textual evidence for the grouping is found as early as the third century, the date of ZHI QIAN's Chinese translation of the Astabuddhakasutra (Fo shuo ba jixiangshen zhoujing). In earlier representations, they flank either sAKYAMUNI or AMITABHA. Their roles are laid out in the Astamandalakasutra, where the aims of their worship are essentially mundane-absolution from transgressions, fulfillment of desires, and protection from ills. The grouping is known throughout Asia, from northern India, where they first appeared in ELLORA, Ratnagiri, and NALANDA, and from there as far east as Japan and Indonesia-indeed, virtually anywhere MAHAYANA and tantric Buddhism flourished. They figure as a group in TANTRAs of various classes, where their number of arms corresponds to the main deity of the MAndALA and their colors correspond to the direction in which they are placed. In the mandala of the GUHYASAMAJATANTRA, they flank the central figure AKsOBHYA, who appears in the form of Vajradhṛk and his consort SparsavajrA. When each has a consort, the females are called the astapujAdevī ("eight offering goddesses"). There are four in the GuhyasamAjatantra mandala: RupavajrA, sabdavajrA, GandhavajrA, and RasavajrA. In the vajradhAtu mahAmandala, the group of bodhisattvas is expanded to sixteen.
astamangala. (T. bkra shis rtags brgyad; C. ba jixiang; J. hachikichijo; K. p'al kilsang 八吉祥). In Sanskrit, "eight auspicious symbols"; eight Indian emblems of good fortune, which became especially popular in Nepal and Tibet but are also known in China. The eight include the lotus (PADMA), the endless knot (srīvatsa, T. dpal be'u), the pair of golden fish (suvarnamatsya, T. gser nya), the parasol (chattra, T. gdugs), the victory banner (ketu, T. rgyal mtshan), the treasure vase (dhanakumbha, T. gter gyi bum pa), the white conch shell (sankha, T. dung dkar), and the wheel (CAKRA, T. 'khor lo). VAJRAYANA Buddhism deified the symbols as eight goddesses, the astamangaladevī, who each carry one of these emblems as their attribute. Chinese Buddhism regards the symbols as representing eight organs of the Buddha's body, and in one Tibetan tradition the eight are collectively identified as forming the body of the Buddha. Designs of these symbols are found throughout both sacred and secular artwork and commonly adorn furniture, murals, carpets, and brocade hangings. In Tibetan communities, the eight symbols are traditionally drawn on the ground out of sprinkled flour or powder as a greeting to visiting religious teachers.
AstasAhasrikAprajNApAramitA. (T. Sher phyin brgyad stong pa; C. Xiaopin bore jing; J. Shobon hannyakyo; K. Sop'um panya kyong 小品般若經). In Sanskrit, "Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines." This scripture is now generally accepted to be the earliest of the many PRAJNAPARAMITA sutras and thus probably one of the very earliest of the MAHAYANA scriptures. The Asta, as it is often referred to in the literature, seems to have gradually developed over a period of about two hundred years, from the first century BCE to the first century CE. Some of its earliest recensions translated into Chinese during the Han dynasty do not yet display the full panoply of self-referentially MahAyAna terminology that characterize the more elaborate recensions translated later, suggesting that MahAyAna doctrine was still under development during the early centuries of the Common Era. The provenance of the text is obscure, but the consensus view is that it was probably written in central or southern India. The Asta, together with its verse summary, the RATNAGUnASAMCAYAGATHA, probably represents the earliest stratum of the prajNApAramitA literature; scholars believe that this core scripture was subsequently expanded between the second and fourth centuries CE into other massive PrajNApAramitA scriptures in as many as 100,000 lines (the sATASAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA). By about 500 CE, the Asta's basic ideas had been abbreviated into shorter condensed statements, such as the widely read, 300-verse VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA ("Diamond Sutra"). (Some scholars have suggested instead that the "Diamond Sutra" may in fact represent one of the earliest strata of the prajNApAramitA literature.) The MahAyAna tradition's view of its own history, however, is that the longest of the prajNApAramitA scriptures, the 100,000-line satasAhasrikAprajNApAramitA, is the core text from which all the other perfection of wisdom sutras were subsequently excerpted. The main interlocutor of the Asta, as in most of the prajNApAramitA scriptures, is SUBHuTI, an ARHAT foremost among the Buddha's disciples in dwelling at peace in remote places, rather than sARIPUTRA, who much more commonly appears in this role in the mainstream Buddhist scriptures (see AGAMA; NIKAYA). The prominent role accorded to Subhuti suggests that the prajNApAramitA literature may derive from forest-dwelling (Aranyaka) ascetic traditions distinct from the dominant, urban-based monastic elite. The main goal of the Asta and other prajNApAramitA scriptures is rigorously to apply the foundational Buddhist notion of nonself (ANATMAN) to the investigation of all phenomena-from the usual compounded things (SAMSKARA) and conditioned factors (SAMSKṚTADHARMA), but even to such quintessentially Buddhist summa bona as the fruits of sanctity (ARYAMARGAPHALA) and NIRVAnA. The constant refrain of the Asta is that there is nothing that can be grasped or to which one should cling, not PRAJNA, not PARAMITA, not BODHISATTVA, and not BODHI. Even the six perfections (sAdPARAMITA) of the bodhisattva are subjected to this same refutation: for example, only when the bodhisattva realizes that there is no giver, no recipient, and no gift will he have mastered the perfection of giving (DANAPARAMITA). Such radical nonattachment even to the central concepts of Buddhism itself helps to foster a thoroughgoing awareness of the emptiness (suNYATA) of all things and thus the perfection of wisdom (prajNApAramitA). Even if the Asta's area of origin was in the south of India, the prajNApAramitA scriptures seem initially to have found their best reception in the northwest of India during the KUSHAN dynasty (c. first century CE), whence they would have had relatively easy entrée into Central Asia and then East Asia. This geographic proximity perhaps accounts for the early acceptance the Asta and the rest of the prajNApAramitA literature received on the Chinese mainland, helping to make China the first predominantly MahAyAna tradition.
Asukadera. (飛鳥寺) In Japanese, "Asuka Temple"; also known as Hokoji ("Monastery of the Flourishing Dharma"), the Asukadera was built during the ASUKA period on a site known as the Amakashi no Oka by the Asuka River near Nara, Japan. Shortly after the death of Emperor Yomei in 587, the powerful vassals Mononobe no Moriya (d. 587), who represented the indigenous ritual specialists, and Soga no Umako (551?-626), a supporter of Buddhism who came from the Korean peninsula, found themselves caught in battle over imperial succession. In celebration of the Soga clan's victory over the Mononobe and the death of Moriya, the Soga commenced the construction of the first complete monastic compound in Japan, which they named Hokoji in 588. Hokoji was completed nine years later in 596 and for more than a century served as the central monastic complex of the Yamato court. The large monastic compound contained a central hall or KONDo and a central pagoda flanked by two other halls. A large lecture hall flanked by a belfry and SuTRA repository was located behind the main monastic complex. According to the NIHON SHOKI ("Historical Records of Japan"), Empress Suiko commissioned two sixteen-feet gilt-bronze icons of the Buddha to be made by Tori Busshi for installment in Hokoji. When the capital was moved from Fujiwarakyo to Heijokyo (modern-day Nara) in 710, the major monasteries including Hokoji were moved as well. Hokoji, otherwise known as Asukadera, was subsequently renamed Gangoji.
Asuka. (飛鳥). Japan's first historical epoch, named after a region in the plains south of modern NARA. Until the eighth century (710) when the capital was moved to Nara, a new palace, and virtually a new capital, was built every time a new ruler succeeded to the throne. One of the earliest capitals was located in the region of Asuka. The Asuka period is characterized by the rise of powerful aristocratic clans such as the Soga and Mononobe and attempts such as the Taika reform (646) to counteract the rise of these clans and to strengthen the authority of the emperor. According to the NIHON SHOKI ("Historical Records of Japan"), the inception of Buddhism occurred in the Japanese isles during this period, when Emperor Kimmei (r. 532-571) received an image of the Buddha from the King Songmyong of the Korean kingdom of Paekche in 552 (var. 538). Buddhism became the central religion of the Asuka court with the support of such famous figures as Prince SHoTOKU, Empress Suiko (r. 593-628), and Empress Jito (r. 686-697). After the establishment of the grand monastery ASUKADERA by the descendants of a Korean clan, other temples modeled after early Chinese monastery campuses, such as HoRYuJI, were also constructed during this period. These temples enshrined the magnificent sculptures executed by Tori Busshi.
Asvaghosa. (T. Rta dbyangs; C. Maming; J. Memyo; K. Mamyong 馬鳴) (c. second century CE). An Indian Buddhist poet from sRAVASTĪ, renowned for his epic kAvya poem, the BUDDHACARITA, the first complete biography of the Buddha. According to traditional accounts, Asvaghosa was born into a brAhmana family in AyodhyA during the reign of the KUSHAN king KANIsKA and was converted to Buddhism by the VAIBHAsIKA teacher PARsVA. His poetic works are esteemed for their distinguished artistic merit, considered representative of the high Sanskritic literary tradition. While the Buddhacarita is Asvaghosa's most famous work, he authored numerous other epic poems including the Saundarananda ("The Handsome Nanda," an account of NANDA's conversion) and the sAriputraprakarana ("Story of sARIPUTRA"). East Asian tradition also attributes to Asvaghosa the DASHENG QIXIN LUN (Awakening of Faith), a treatise on TATHAGATAGARBHA thought that is now widely presumed to be an indigenous Chinese treatise (see APOCRYPHA). ¶ A second tantric Asvaghosa, author of the GURUPANCAsIKA (a brief text detailing the proper worship of a tantric guru), lived in about the tenth century.
A. The first vowel and letter in the Sanskrit alphabet. The phoneme "a" is thought to be the source of all other phonemes and its corresponding letter the origin of all other letters. As the basis of both the Sanskrit phonemic system and the written alphabet, the letter "a" thus comes to be invested with mystical significance as the source of truth, nondifferentiation, and emptiness (suNYATA), or even of the universe as a whole. The PRAJNAPARAMITASARVATATHAGATAMATA-EKAKsARA, the shortest of the perfection of wisdom scriptures, also describes how the entirety of the perfection of wisdom is subsumed by this one letter. The letter in the Sanskrit SIDDHAM alphabet gained special significance within the esoteric Buddhist traditions in Japan (MIKKYo), such as Shingon (see SHINGONSHu), which considered it to be the "seed" (BĪJA) of MAHAVAIROCANA, the central divinity of esoteric Buddhism, and used it in a distinctive type of meditation called AJIKAN ("contemplation of the letter 'a'"). The letter "a," which is said to be originally uncreated (AJI HONPUSHo), is interpreted to be the essence of all phenomena in the universe and the DHARMAKAYA of the buddha MahAvairocana. In the East Asian CHAN traditions, the letter "a" is also sometimes understood to represent the buddha-nature (FOXING, S. BUDDHADHATU) of all sentient beings.
Atisa DīpaMkarasrījNAna. (T. A ti sha Mar me mdzad dpal ye shes) (982-1054). Indian Buddhist monk and scholar revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a leading teacher in the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. His name, also written as Atisha, is an ApabhraMsa form of the Sanskrit term atisaya, meaning "surpassing kindness." Born into a royal family in what is today Bangladesh, Atisa studied MAHAYANA Buddhist philosophy and TANTRA as a married layman prior to being ordained at the age of twenty-nine, receiving the ordination name of DīpaMkarasrījNAna. After studying at the great monasteries of northern India, including NALANDA, ODANTAPURĪ, VIKRAMAsĪLA, and SOMAPURA, he is said to have journeyed to the island of Sumatra, where he studied under the CITTAMATRA teacher Dharmakīrtisrī (also known as guru Sauvarnadvīpa) for twelve years; he would later praise Dharmakīrtisrī as a great teacher of BODHICITTA. Returning to India, he taught at the Indian monastic university of VIKRAMAsĪLA. Atisa was invited to Tibet by the king of western Tibet YE SHES 'OD and his grandnephew BYANG CHUB 'OD, who were seeking to remove perceived corruption in the practice of Buddhism in Tibet. Atisa reached Tibet in 1042, where he initially worked together with the renowned translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO at THO LING monastery in the translation of PRAJNAPARAMITA texts. There, he composed his famous work, the BODHIPATHAPRADĪPA, or "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment," an overview of the MahAyAna Buddhist path that served as a basis for the genre of literature known as LAM RIM ("stages of the path"). He spent the remaining twelve years of his life in the central regions of Tibet, where he formed his principal seat in Snye thang (Nyetang) outside of LHA SA where he translated a number of MADHYAMAKA works into Tibetan. He died there and his relics were interred in the SGROL MA LHA KHANG. Atisa and his chief disciples 'BROM STON RGYAL BA'I 'BYUNG GNAS and RNGOG LEGS PA'I SHES RAB are considered the forefathers of the BKA' GDAMS PA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibet, he is commonly known by the honorific title Jo bo rje (Jowoje), "the Superior Lord."
atiyoga. (T. a ti yo ga/shin tu rnal 'byor). In Sanskrit, "surpassing yoga"; the ninth and most advanced of the nine vehicles according to the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Here, the system of practice described elsewhere as ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA is divided into three: MAHAYOGA, ANUYOGA, and atiyoga, with atiyoga referring to the practice of the great completion (RDZOGS CHEN) in which all the phenomena of SAMSARA and NIRVAnA appear as the sport of self-arisen wisdom.
At more than one million words, this is the largest dictionary of Buddhism ever produced in the English language. Yet even at this length, it only begins to represent the full breadth and depth of the Buddhist tradition. Many great dictionaries and glossaries have been produced in Asia over the long history of Buddhism and Buddhist Studies. One thinks immediately of works like the MahAvyutpatti, the ninth-century Tibetan-Sanskrit lexicon said to have been commissioned by the king of Tibet to serve as a guide for translators of the dharma. It contains 9,565 entries in 283 categories. One of the great achievements of twentieth-century Buddhology was the Bukkyo Daijiten ("Encyclopedia of Buddhism"), published in ten massive volumes between 1932 and 1964 by the distinguished Japanese scholar Mochizuki Shinko. Among English-language works, there is William Soothill and Lewis Hodous's A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, published in 1937, and, from the same year, G. P. Malalasekera's invaluable Dictionary of PAli Proper Names. In preparing the present dictionary, we have sought to build upon these classic works in substantial ways.
Attavada (Pali) Attavāda [from attā self (Sanskrit ātman) + vāda theory, disputation from the verbal root vad to speak] Atmavada (Sanskrit) The theory of a persistent soul. A study of Buddhist sutras or suttas shows that Gautama Buddha intended the term to convey the meaning of the heresy of separateness, the belief that one’s self or soul is different and apart from the one universal self, Brahman. Its importance in philosophy and mystical thought, and its genuine Buddhist significance, lies in the fact that Buddhism does not deny the existence of a soul, but strongly emphasizes the fact that no such soul is either a special creation or in its essence different from and other than the cosmic self. Hence the meaning of the heresy of separateness, because those who hold this view are under the constant false impression that in themselves they are different from, and other than, the universe in which they live, move, and have all their being.
Aupapaduka(Sanskrit) ::: A compound term meaning "self-produced," "spontaneously generated." It is a term applied inBuddhism to a class of celestial beings called dhyani-buddhas; and because these dhyani-buddhas areconceived of as issuing forth from the bosom of Adi-buddhi or the kosmic mahat without intermediaryagency, are they mystically said to be, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, "parentless" or "self-existing," i.e., bornwithout any parents or progenitors. They are therefore the originants or root from which the hierarchy ofbuddhas of various grades flows forth in mystical procession or emanation or evolution.There are variants of this word in Sanskrit literature, but they all have the same meaning. The termaupapaduka is actually a key word, opening a doctrine which is extremely difficult to set forth; but thedoctrine itself is inexpressibly sublime. Indeed, not only are there aupapaduka divinities of the solarsystem, but also of every organic entity, because the core of the core of any organic entity is such anaupapaduka divinity. It is, in fact, a very mystical way of stating the doctrine of the "inner god."[NOTE: Later research shows that anupapadaka, as found in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-EnglishDictionary, is a misreading of aupapaduka. Cf. Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammarand Dictionary, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1953, 2:162. -- PUBLISHER]
Aupapaduka (Sanskrit) Aupapāduka Pali opapatika. Self-produced, spontaneously generated (research shows that anupapadaka, as found in Monier-Williams’ Sanskrit-English Dictionary, is a misreading of aupapaduka. Cf. Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1953, 2:162). One who does not go or come (as others do): parentless, having no material parent. One who is self-born by reason of his own intrinsic energy, without parents or predecessors from which his existence or activities are derived, as is the usual case in line descent; applied therefore to certain self-evolving gods. In Buddhism, used with particular reference to the dhyani-buddhas, who issue forth from adi-buddha without intermediary agency.
Ava. [alt. Inwa]. Name of the chief Burmese (Myanmar) kingdom and its capital that flourished in Upper Burma between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries CE. Founded in 1364 at the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Myitnge rivers, the city of Ava, whose official PAli name is Ratanapura, was the successor state of the PAGAN empire (1044-c. 1287), whose cultural, religious, and political traditions Ava's kings consciously sought to preserve. While occupying a much reduced realm compared to imperial Pagan and hemmed in by the hostile Mon kingdom of RAmaNNa (Pegu) in the south, and Shan warlords in the north and east, Ava remained the preeminent military power in the region through its strategic control of the irrigated district of Kyaukse. Ava's kings were lavish in their support of Buddhist institutions as testified by the numerous pagodas and temples constructed within the environs of the city. Especially important were the Sagaing hills on the opposite shore of the Irrawaddy river, where successive kings built scores of monasteries and colleges, making it one of Southeast Asia's major TheravAda scholastic centers. In contrast to the neighboring Mon and Thai kingdoms, which by the fifteenth century had largely adopted the reformed THERAVADA Buddhism of Sri Lankan tradition, Ava continued to patronize its own native "unreformed" sangha, which was descended from Pagan and which Ava regarded as possessing a purer and more ancient pedigree than that of the Sinhalese. The political and religious traditions preserved at Ava came to an abrupt end, however, when in 1527, Shan armies overran the capital and three years later massacred its monks. Ava's glory was resurrected in 1635 when King Thalun (r. 1629-1648) rebuilt the city and made it the capital of the restored Burmese empire of Taungoo. From the throne of Ava, Thalun orchestrated a major Buddhist revival in which he rebuilt the kingdom's ancient national shrine of Shwesettaw near Minbu and erected the gigantic Kaungmudaw pagoda in Sagaing. In addition to the construction of monuments, Thalun held an inquest into monastic lands and instituted the office of ecclesiastical censor (B. mahadan-wun) to oversee religious affairs throughout the country, an office that survived into the British period. Ava was again sacked and its king executed by Mon rebels in 1752, an event that marked the end of the Taungoo dynasty. It was rebuilt and served twice as the capital of the third Burmese empire of Konbaung in 1765-1783 and 1823-1837.
Avaivartyas (Sanskrit) Avaivartya-s [from a not + vi-vṛt to turn around, revolve] Those who will never return; in Mahayana Buddhism those who have passed beyond a certain grade of evolution, freeing them from the need of returning to reimbodiments in lower spheres. The kumaras, strictly speaking, are avaivartya entities because although they inflamed and awoke our latent intellectual faculties on earth during this round, they themselves did not imbody, for they have no need of this, having passed beyond any lessons that they could themselves learn from earth-life. Hence they are those “who will never return” as imbodying egos.
Avalokitesvara(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word: avalokita, "perceived," "seen"; Isvara, "lord"; hence "the Lord who isperceived or cognized," i.e., the spiritual entity, whether in the kosmos or in the human being, whoseinfluence is perceived and felt; the higher self. This is a term commonly employed in Buddhism, andconcerning which a number of intricate and not easily understood teachings exist. The esoteric or occultinterpretation, however, sees in Avalokitesvara what Occidental philosophy calls the Third Logos, bothcelestial and human. In the solar system it is the Third Logos thereof; and in the human being it is thehigher self, a direct and active ray of the divine monad. Technically Avalokitesvara is thedhyani-bodhisattva of Amitabha-Buddha -- Amitabha-Buddha is the kosmic divine monad of which thedhyani-bodhisattva is the individualized spiritual ray, and of this latter again the manushya-buddha orhuman buddha is a ray or offspring.
Avalokitesvara. (T. Spyan ras gzigs; C. Guanshiyin/Guanyin; J. Kanzeon/Kannon; K. Kwanseŭm/Kwanŭm 觀世音/觀音). In Sanskrit, "Lord who Looks Down [in Empathy]"; the BODHISATTVA of compassion, the most widely worshipped of the MAHAYANA bodhisattvas and one of the earliest to appear in Buddhist literature. According to legend, Avalokitesvara was produced from a beam of light that radiated from the forehead of AMITABHA while that buddha was deep in meditation. For this reason, Buddhist iconography often depicts AmitAbha as embedded in Avalokitesvara's crown. His name dates back to the beginning of the Common Era, when he replaced the Vedic god BRAHMA as the attendant to sAKYAMUNI Buddha, inheriting in turn BrahmA's attribute of the lotus (PADMA). Images of Avalokitesvara as PADMAPAnI LOKEsVARA ("Lord with a Lotus in his Hand"), an early name, are numerous. Avalokitesvara is the interlocutor or main figure in numerous important MahAyAna sutras, including the PRAJNAPARAMITAHṚDAYASuTRA ("Heart Sutra"). His cult was introduced to China in the first century CE, where his name was translated as Guanshiyin ("Perceiver of the Sounds of the World") or GUANYIN ("Perceiver of Sounds"); his cult entered Korea and Japan with the advent of Buddhism in those countries. Avalokitesvara was once worshipped widely in Southeast Asia as well, beginning at the end of the first millennium CE. Although the MahAyAna tradition eventually faded from the region, images of Avalokitesvara remain. Avalokitesvara is also the patron deity of Tibet, where he is said to have taken the form of a monkey and mated with TARA in the form of a local demoness to produce the Tibetan race. Tibetan political and religious leaders have been identified as incarnations of him, such as the seventh-century king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO (although that attribution was most likely a later addition to the king's legacy) and, notably, the DALAI LAMAs. The PO TA LA Palace, the residence of the Dalai Lamas, in the Tibetan capital of LHA SA is named for Avalokitesvara's abode on Mount POTALAKA in India. In China, Avalokitesvara as Guanyin underwent a transformation in gender into a popular female bodhisattva, although the male iconographic form also persists throughout East Asia. PUTUOSHAN, located off the east coast of China south of Shanghai, is said to be Potalaka. Avalokitesvara is generally depicted in the full raiments of a bodhisattva, often with an image of AmitAbha in his crown. He appears in numerous forms, among them the two-armed PadmapAni who stands and holds a lotus flower; the four-armed seated Avalokitesvara, known either as Caturbhuja Avalokitesvara [CaturbhujAvalokitesvara] or CintAmani Avalokitesvara [CintAmanyavalokitesvara], who holds the wish-fulfilling jewel (CINTAMAnI) with his central hands in ANJALIMUDRA, and a lotus and crystal rosary in his left and right hands, respectively; the eleven-armed, eleven-faced EKADAsAMUKHA; and the thousand-armed and thousand-headed SAHASRABHUJASAHASRANETRAVALOKITEsVARA (q.v. MAHAKARUnIKA). Tradition holds that his head split into multiple skulls when he beheld the suffering of the world. Numerous other forms also exist in which the god has three or more heads, and any number of arms. In his wrathful form as AstabhayatrAnAvalokitesvara (T. Spyan ras gzigs 'jigs pa brgyad skyob), "Avalokitesvara who Protects against the Eight Fears," the bodhisattva stands in ARDHAPARYAnKA ("half cross-legged posture") and has one face and eight hands, each of which holds a symbol of one of the eight fears. This name is also given to eight separate forms of Avalokitesvara that are each dedicated to protecting from one of the eight fears, namely: AgnibhayatrAnAvalokitesvara ("Avalokitesvara Who Protects from Fear of Fire") and so on, replacing fire with Jala (water), SiMha (lion), Hasti (elephant), Danda (cudgel), NAga (snake), dAkinī (witch) [alt. PisAcī]; and Cora (thief). In addition to his common iconographic characteristic, the lotus flower, Avalokitesvara also frequently holds, among other accoutrements, a jeweled rosary (JAPAMALA) given to him by Aksamati (as related in chapter twenty-five of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA), or a vase. In East Asia, Avalokitesvara often appears in a triad: the buddha AmitAbha in the center, flanked to his left and right by his two bodhisattva attendants, Avalokitesvara and MAHASTHAMAPRAPTA, respectively. In Tibet, Avalokitesvara is part of a popular triad with VAJRAPAnI and MANJUsRĪ. As one of the AstAMAHOPAPUTRA, Avalokitesvara also appears with the other bodhisattvas in group representation. The tantric deity AMOGHAPAsA is also a form of Avalokitesvara. The famous mantra of Avalokitesvara, OM MAnI PADME HuM, is widely recited in the MahAyAna traditions and nearly universally in Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to the twenty-fifth chapter of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra, the KARAndAVYuHA is also devoted to him. See also BAIYI GUANYIN; GUANYIN; MIAOSHAN; MAnI BKA' 'BUM.
Avanti. (T. Srung byed; C. Abanti [guo]; J. Ahandai[koku]; K. Abanje [kuk] 阿般提[國]). In Sanskrit and PAli, an Indian kingdom in the southwest subcontinent, north of present-day Mumbai; its capital was Ujjayinī (P. Ujjenī); the dialect spoken there was related to, and perhaps the ancestor of, the language used in the PAli canon. Avanti was located along the major southern Indian trade route (the DaksinApatha) that passed through sRAVASTĪ in central India, one of the main centers of early Buddhism. Buddhist missionaries following this trade route began to proselytize in the southwest even during the Buddha's lifetime. KAtyAyana, also known as "KAtyAyana the Great" (MAHAKATYAYANA; P. MahAkaccAna), one of the Buddha's ten major disciples, hailed from the Avanti region and later returned to his native land to disseminate Buddhism. He is said to have requested that the Buddha allow for special dispensation to ordain new monks in outlying regions without the requisite number of ten monastic witnesses. PuRnA (P. Punna) was another important disciple from the coastal area of this region (SurpAraka), who returned there to proselytize as well. He is the subject of the PunnovAdasutta (no. 145 in the PAli MAJJHIMANIKAYA) and the PurnAvadAna, which describe his resolve to spread the teachings of Buddhism. Buddhism became firmly established in the Avanti region at least by the time of King AsOKA; Asoka's son, MAHINDA, who later transmitted Buddhism to the island kingdom of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), is said to have been a native of its capital, Ujjayinī. Avanti was a stronghold of the STHAVIRANIKAYA, and its monks led the opposition to ten disputed items in the monastic discipline that resulted in the schism with the MAHASAMGHIKA order.
AvataMsakasutra. (T. Mdo phal po che; C. Huayan jing; J. Kegongyo; K. Hwaom kyong 華嚴經). In Sanskrit, "Garland Scripture"; also known as the BUDDHAVATAMSAKASuTRA ("Scripture of the Garland of Buddhas"), or *BuddhAvataMsakanAmamahAvaipulyasutra, the Sanskrit reconstruction of the title of the Chinese translation Dafangguang fo huayan jing, which is usually abbreviated in Chinese simply as the HUAYAN JING ("Flower Garland Scripture"). The sutra is one of the most influential Buddhist scriptures in East Asia and the foundational text of the indigenous East Asian HUAYAN ZONG. The first major edition of the AvataMsakasutra was said to have been brought from KHOTAN and was translated into Chinese by BUDDHABHADRA in 421; this recension consisted of sixty rolls and thirty-four chapters. A second, longer recension, in eighty rolls and thirty-nine chapters, was translated into Chinese by sIKsANANDA in 699; this is sometimes referred to within the Huayan tradition as the "New [translation of the] AvataMsakasutra" (Xin Huayan jing). A Tibetan translation similar to the eighty-roll recension also exists. The AvataMsakasutra is traditionally classified as a VAIPULYASuTRA; it is an encyclopedic work that brings together a number of heterogeneous texts, such as the GAndAVYuHA and DAsABHuMIKASuTRA, which circulated independently before being compiled together in this scripture. No Sanskrit recension of the AvataMsakasutra has been discovered; even the title is not known from Sanskrit sources, but is a reconstruction of the Chinese. (Recent research in fact suggests that the correct Sanskrit title might actually be BuddhAvataMsakasutra, or "Scripture of the Garland of Buddhas," rather than AvataMsakasutra.) There are, however, extant Sanskrit recensions of two of its major constituents, the Dasabhumikasutra and Gandavyuha. Given the dearth of evidence of a Sanskrit recension of the complete AvataMsakasutra, and since the scripture was first introduced to China from Khotan, some scholars have argued that the scripture may actually be of Central Asian provenance (or at very least was heavily revised in Central Asia). There also exists in Chinese translation a forty-roll recension of the AvataMsakasutra, translated by PRAJNA in 798, which roughly corresponds to the Gandavyuha, otherwise known in Chinese as the Ru fajie pin or "Chapter on the Entry into the DHARMADHATU." Little attempt is made to synthesize these disparate materials into an overarching narrative, but there is a tenuous organizational schema involving a series of different "assemblies" to which the different discourses are addressed. The Chinese tradition presumed that the AvataMsakasutra was the first sermon of the Buddha (see HUAYAN ZHAO), and the sutra's first assembly takes place at the BODHI TREE two weeks after he had attained enlightenment while he was still immersed in the samAdhi of oceanic reflection (SAGARAMUDRASAMADHI). The AvataMsaka is therefore believed to provide a comprehensive and definitive description of the Buddha's enlightenment experience from within this profound state of samAdhi. The older sixty-roll recension includes a total of eight assemblies held at seven different locations: three in the human realm and the rest in the heavens. The later eighty-roll recension, however, includes a total of nine assemblies at seven locations, a discrepancy that led to much ink in Huayan exegesis. In terms of its content, the sutra offers exuberant descriptions of myriads of world systems populated by buddhas and bodhisattvas, along with elaborate imagery focusing especially on radiant light and boundless space. The scripture is also the inspiration for the famous metaphor of INDRAJALA (Indra's Net), a canopy made of transparent jewels in which each jewel is reflected in all the others, suggesting the multivalent levels of interaction between all phenomena in the universe. The text focuses on the unitary and all-pervasive nature of enlightenment, which belongs to the realm of the Buddha of Pervasive Light, VAIROCANA, the central buddha in the AvataMsaka, who embodies the DHARMAKAYA. The sutra emphasizes the knowledge and enlightenment of the buddhas as being something that is present in all sentient beings (see TATHAGATAGARBHA and BUDDHADHATU), just as the entire universe, or trichiliocosm (S. TRISAHASRAMAHASAHASRALOKADHATU) is contained in a minute mote of dust. This notion of interpenetration or interfusion (YUANRONG) is stressed in the thirty-second chapter of Buddhabhadra's translation, whose title bears the influential term "nature origination" (XINGQI). The sutra, especially in FAZANG's authoritative exegesis, is presumed to set forth a distinctive presentation of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) in terms of the dependence of the whole on its parts, stressing the unity of the universe and its emptiness (suNYATA) of inherent nature; dependent origination here emerges as a profound ecological vision in which the existence of any one thing is completely dependent on the existence of all other things and all things on any one thing. Various chapters of the sutra were also interpreted as providing the locus classicus for the exhaustive fifty-two stage MahAyAna path (MARGA) to buddhahood, which included the ten faiths (only implied in the scripture), the ten abodes, ten practices, ten dedications, and ten stages (DAsABHuMI), plus the two stages of awakening itself: virtual enlightenment (dengjue) and sublime enlightenment (miaojue). This soteriological process was then illustrated through the peregrinations of the lad SUDHANA to visit his religious mentors, each of whom is identified with one of these specific stages; Sudhana's lengthy pilgrimage is described in great detail in the massive final chapter (a third of the entire scripture), the Gandavyuha, titled in the AvataMsakasutra the "Entry into the DharmadhAtu" chapter (Ru fajie pin). The evocative and widely quoted statement in the "Brahmacarya" chapter that "at the time of the initial arousal of the aspiration for enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPADA), complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI) is already achieved" was also influential in the development of the East Asian notion of sudden enlightenment (DUNWU), since it implied that awakening could be achieved in an instant of sincere aspiration, without requiring three infinite eons (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) of religious training. Chinese exegetes who promoted this sutra reserved the highest place for it in their scriptural taxonomies (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI) and designated it the "perfect" or "consummate" teaching (YUANJIAO) of Buddhism. Many commentaries on and exegeses of the sutra are extant, among which the most influential are those written by FAZANG, ZHIYAN, CHENGGUAN, LI TONGXUAN, GUIFENG ZONGMI, WoNHYO, ŬISANG, and MYoE KoBEN.
avidyA. (P. avijjA; T. ma rig pa; C. wuming; J. mumyo; K. mumyong 無明). In Sanskrit, "ignorance"; the root cause of suffering (DUḤKHA) and one of the key terms in Buddhism. Ignorance occurs in many contexts in Buddhist doctrine. For example, ignorance is the first link in the twelvefold chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) that sustains the cycle of birth and death (SAMSARA); it is the condition that creates the predispositions (SAMSKARA) that lead to rebirth and thus inevitably to old age and death. Ignorance is also listed as one of the root afflictions (S. MuLAKLEsA) and the ten "fetters" (SAMYOJANA) that keep beings bound to saMsAra. AvidyA is closely synonymous with "delusion" (MOHA), one of the three unwholesome roots (AKUsALAMuLA). When they are distinguished, moha may be more of a generic foolishness and benightedness, whereas avidyA is instead an obstinate misunderstanding about the nature of the person and the world. According to ASAnGA's ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA, for example, moha is the factor of nescience, while avidyA is the active misconstruction of the nature of reality; he uses the analogy of twilight (= moha) falling on a coiled rope (= reality), which someone in the darkness wrongly conceives to be a snake (= avidyA). Due to the pervasive influence of ignorance, the deluded sentient being (PṚTHAGJANA) sees what is not self as self, what is impermanent as permanent, what is impure as pure, and what is painful as pleasurable (see VIPARYASA); and due to this confusion, one is subject to persistent suffering (duḥkha) and continued rebirth. The inveterate propensity toward ignorance is first arrested in the experience of stream-entry (see SROTAAPANNA), which eliminates the three cognitive fetters of belief in a perduring self (SATKAYADṚstI), attachment to rules and rituals (S. sĪLAVRATAPARAMARsA), and skeptical doubt (S. VICIKITSA). AvidyA is gradually alleviated at the stages of once-returners (SAKṚDAGAMIN) and nonreturners (ANAGAMIN), and permanently eliminated at the stage of arhatship (see ARHAT), the fourth and highest degree of sanctity in mainstream Buddhism (see ARYAPUDGALA).
avijNaptirupa. (T. rnam par rig byed ma yin pa'i gzugs; C. wubiaose; J. muhyojiki; K. mup'yosaek 無表色). In Sanskrit, "unmanifest material force," or "hidden imprints"; a special type of materiality (RuPA) recognized in the SARVASTIVADA school of ABHIDHARMA, especially. The SarvAstivAda school notably makes recourse to this unique type of materiality as one way of reconciling the apparent contradiction in Buddhism between advocating the efficacy of moral cause and effect and rejecting any notion of an underlying substratum of being (ANATMAN), as well as issues raised by the teaching of momentariness (KsAnIKAVADA). When a person forms the intention (CETANA) to perform an action (KARMAN), whether wholesome (KUsALA) or unwholesome (AKUsALA), that intention creates an "unmanifest" type of materiality that imprints itself on the person as either bodily or verbal information, until such time as the action is actually performed via body or speech. Unmanifest materiality is thus the "glue" that connects the intention that initiates action with the physical act itself. Unmanifest material force can be a product of both wholesome and unwholesome intentions, but it is most commonly associated in SarvAstivAda literature with three types of restraint (SAMVARA) against the unwholesome specifically: (1) the restraint proffered to a monk or nun when he or she accepts the disciplinary rules of the order (PRATIMOKsASAMVARA); (2) the restraint that is produced through mental absorption (dhyAnajasaMvara); and (3) the restraint that derives from being free from the contaminants (anAsravasaMvara). In all three cases, the unmanifest material force creates an invisible and impalpable force field that helps to protect the monk or nun from unwholesome action. PrAtimoksasaMvara, for example, creates a special kind of force that dissuades people from unwholesome activity, even when they are not consciously aware they are following the precepts or when they are asleep. This specific type of restraint is what makes a man a monk, since just wearing robes or following an ascetic way of life would not itself be enough to instill in him the protective power offered by the PRATIMOKsA. Meditation was also thought to confer on the monk protective power against physical harm while he was absorbed in DHYANA: the literature abounds with stories of monks who saw tiger tracks all around them after withdrawing from dhyAna, thus suggesting that dhyAna itself provided a protective shield against accident or injury. Finally, anAsravasaMvara is the restraint that precludes someone who has achieved the extinction of the outflows (ASRAVA)-that is, enlightenment-from committing any action (KARMAN) that would produce a karmic result (VIPAKA), thus ensuring that their remaining actions in this life do not lead to any additional rebirths. Because avijNaptirupa sounds as much like a force as a type of matter, later authors, such as HARIVARMAN in his TATTVASIDDHI, instead listed it among the "conditioned forces dissociated from thought" (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA).
Ayatana (Sanskrit) Āyatana [from ā towards + the verbal root yat to rest in or on, make effort in or on] A resting place, seat, or abode; an altar, place of the sacred fire; a sanctuary, inner or outer. In Buddhism, the six ayatanas (shadayatanas), enumerated as the five senses plus manas, are regarded as the inner seats or foci of the lower consciousness, functioning through the ordinary five sense organs plus the manasic organ in the body, the brain. They are therefore classed as one of the twelve nidanas (bonds, halters, links) composing the chain of causation or lower causes of existence.
Ayuthaya. [alt. Ayutthaya]. There are two important places called Ayuthaya in the Buddhist tradition. ¶ Ayuthaya was a city in north-central India, prominent in early Buddhist texts, that is identified as the ancient city of SAKETA; it was said to be the birthplace of the Indian divine-king RAma. ¶ Ayuthaya is the name of a major Thai kingdom and its capital that flourished between 1350 and 1767 CE. The city of Ayuthaya was built on an island at the confluence of the Chao Phraya, Pasak, and Lopburi rivers and grew in importance as the power of its neighbor, the Thai kingdom of SUKHOTHAI, waned. Strategically located and easy to defend, Ayuthaya was accessible to seagoing vessels and commanded the northward trade of the entire Menam basin, whence it grew rapidly into a major Asian entrepôt. Merchant ships from China, Java, Malaya, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Persia, Portugal, Holland, France, and England regularly docked at its port. One of the world's wealthiest capitals, Ayuthaya contained hundreds of gilded monasteries, temples, and pagodas within its walls and was traversed by grand canals and waterways that served as avenues. Strong Khmer influence is evident in the architecture of Ayuthaya, which developed a distinctive stepped-pyramidal pagoda form called prang. The city's magnificence was extolled in the travelogues of European and Asian visitors alike. Soon after the city's founding, Ayuthaya's kings became enthusiastic patrons of reformed Sinhalese-style THERAVADA Buddhism, inviting missionaries from their stronghold in Martaban to reform the local sangha. The same form of Buddhism was adopted by neighboring Thai states in the north, the Mon kingdom of Pegu, and later the Burmese, making it the dominant form of Buddhism in Southeast Asia. In 1548, the Burmese king, Tabin Shwehti, invaded the kingdom of Ayuthaya and laid siege to its capital, initiating more than two centuries of internecine warfare between the Burmese and the Thai kingdoms, which culminated in the destruction of Ayuthaya in 1767 and the building of a new Thai capital, Bangkok, in 1782.
Bactria. The name of a region of Central Asia, located between the Hindu Kush range and the Amu Darya River (now lying in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), which was an active center of Buddhism in the centuries immediately preceding and following the onset of the Common Era. A Greco-Bactrian kingdom was established by Diodotus I around 250 BCE. The Greek rulers received Buddhist emissaries from AŜOKA and the MAHAVAMSA describes the monk MahAdharmaraksita as ordaining Greeks as monks. Buddhism would flourish under later Greek kings, most notably Menander, the putative interlocutor of the MILINDAPANHA. Buddhist texts written in cursive Greek have been discovered in Afghanistan. Clement of Alexandria seems to mention Buddhists among the Bactrians during the second century CE, when, in describing the gymnosophists, he writes, "Some of the Indians obey the precepts of Boutta; whom, on account of his extraordinary sanctity, they have raised to divine honors." The SARVASTIVADA school of mainstream Buddhism, especially its VAIBHAsIKA strand, seems to have been active in the region.
Bahusrutīya. (P. Bahussutaka/Bahulika; T. Mang du thos pa; C. Duowenbu; J. Tamonbu; K. Tamunbu 多聞部). In Sanskrit, lit. "Great Learning"; one of the traditional eighteen schools of mainstream Indian Buddhism. The Bahusrutīya was one of the two subschools of the KAUKKUtIKA branch of the MAHASAMGHIKA school, along with the PRAJNAPTIVADA, which may have split off as a separate school around the middle of the third century CE. The school was based in NAGARJUNAKOndA in the Andhra region of India, although there is also evidence it was active in the Indian Northwest. One of the few extant texts of the Bahusrutīya is HARIVARMAN's c. third-century CE *TATTVASIDDHI ([alt. *Satyasiddhi]; C. CHENGSHI LUN, "Treatise on Establishing Reality"), a summary of the school's lost ABHIDHARMA; this text is extant only in its Chinese translation. The positions the Bahusrutīya advocates are closest to those of the STHAVIRANIKAYA and SAUTRANTIKA schools, though, unlike the SthaviranikAya, it accepts the reality of "unmanifest materiality" (AVIJNAPTIRuPA) and, unlike the SautrAntika, rejects the notion of an "intermediate state" (ANTARABHAVA) between existences. The Bahusrutīya also opposed the SARVASTIVADA position that dharmas exist in both past and future, the MahAsAMghika view that thought is inherently pure, and the VATSĪPUTRĪYA premise that the "person" (PUDGALA) exists. The Bahusrutīya thus seems to have adopted a middle way between the extremes of "everything exists" and "everything does not exist," both of which it views as expediencies that do not represent ultimate reality. The Bahusrutīya also claimed that the Buddha offered teachings that were characterized by both supramundane (LOKOTTARA) and mundane (LAUKIKA) realities, a position distinct from the LOKOTTARAVADA, one of the other main branches of the MahAsAMghika, which claimed that the Buddha articulates all of his teachings in a single utterance that is altogether transcendent (lokottara). The Bahusrutīya appears to be one of the later subschools of mainstream Buddhism; its views are not discussed in the PAli KATHAVATTHU. They are also claimed to have attempted a synthesis of mainstream and MAHAYANA doctrine.
Baidurya gser po. (Vaidurya Serpo). In Tibetan, "Golden Beryl." The text is a history of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism, its principal teachers, and its institutions, written in 1698 by the regent of the fifth DALAI LAMA, SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO; also known as the Dga' ldan chos 'byung ("History of the Dga' ldan pa [= Dge lugs pa]"); the full title is Dpal mnyam med ri bo dga' ldan pa'i bstan pa zhwa ser cod pan 'chang ba'i ring lugs chos thams cad kyi rtsa ba gsal bar byed pa baidurya ser po'i me long. Vostrikov's Tibetan Historical Literature gives a summary of the contents of the work.
Bai lun. [alt. Bo lun]. (J. Hyakuron; K. Paek non 百論). In Chinese, "The Hundred Treatise," a philosophical work attributed to the MADHYAMAKA master ARYADEVA, and counted as one of the "three treatises" of the SANLUN ZONG of Chinese Buddhism. See *sATAsASTRA.
Bakkula. [alt. Nakula; Vakula; etc.] (P. Bakkula; T. Ba ku la; C. Bojuluo; J. Hakukura; K. Pakkura 薄拘羅). Sanskrit and PAi name of an ARHAT disciple of the Buddha, who became an arhat only eight days after ordaining at the age of eighty. The Buddha declared him to be foremost among those who enjoyed good health, and also one of the four monks most proficient in superknowledges (ABHIJNA), supernatural powers that are the by-products of meditation. ¶ Bakkula is also traditionally listed as fifth (or, in Tibetan, ninth) of the sixteen arhat elders (sOdAsASTHAVIRA), who are charged by the Buddha with protecting his dispensation until the advent of the next buddha, MAITREYA. He is said to reside in JAMBUDVĪPA with eight hundred disciples. According to the East Asian tradition, Bakkula was a fierce warrior. After he ordained, the Buddha calmed him by making him sit in meditation, whence he became known as the "Quietly Sitting Arhat" (Jingzuo Luohan). Bakkula may be the arhat known by the epithet of Kundovahan (Holder of the Mongoose; C. Juntoupohan) referred to in the sAriputraparipṛcchA ("Sutra of sAriputra's Questions"). In Tibetan iconography he holds a mongoose (nakula) spitting out jewels; East Asian images have him seated in a chair holding a mongoose, sometimes accompanied by a beggar child. In CHANYUE GUANXIU's standard Chinese depiction, Bakkula is shown sitting cross-legged on a rock, with both hands holding a backscratcher over his left shoulder. In Tibetan Buddhism, Bakkula (or Bakula) is the first figure in an important incarnation (SPRUL SKU) lineage of the DGE LUGS sect. The nineteenth Bakula Rinpoche (1917-2003) served in the Indian parliament and as the Indian ambassador to Mongolia. Bakkula is alternatively known in Sanskrit as Bakula, Vakkula, Vakula, Vatkula (cf. P. BAkula; Vakkula).
Bala (Sanskrit) Bala Power, strength, might, vigor (cf Latin valor); one of the six functions of action, similar to the ten karmendriya (karmic energies) of Buddhism. In yoga practice the five powers (panchabalani) to be acquired are: complete trust or faith, energy, memory, meditation, and wisdom.
Baotang zong. (J. Hotoshu; K. Podang chong 保唐宗). An important school of the early Chinese CHAN tradition, known for its radically antinomian doctrines. The school takes its name from the monastery (Baotangsi) where the school's putative founder, BAOTANG WUZHU, resided. The monastery was located in Jiannan (in modern-day Sichuan province), in the vicinity of the city of Chengdu. Until the recent discovery of the LIDAI FABAO JI at DUNHUANG, information on this school was limited to the pejorative comments found in the writings of the ninth-century CHAN historian GUIFENG ZONGMI. Owing perhaps to the antinomian teachings espoused by its members, the school was short-lived. The school rejected all soteriological practices and devotional activities. No images of the Buddha were enshrined in their monasteries, and they questioned the value of chanting scriptures and performing repentance rituals. Instead, they insisted on "simply sitting in emptiness and quietude" (zhikong xianzuo) and transmitting "no thought" (WUNIAN) in lieu of formal precepts. The Baotang lineage is often traced back to Hui'an (582-709; also known as Lao'an, "Old An," because of his long life), a disciple of the fifth patriarch HONGREN, and to Hui'an's lay disciple Chen Chuzhang (d.u.), through whose influence Baotang Wuzhu is said to have attained awakening. Although the author of the Lidai fabao ji, a disciple of Wuzhu, attempts to associate the Baotang lineage with that of CHoNGJONG MUSANG, the founder of the JINGZHONG ZONG, these schools are now considered to have been two distinct traditions. Like the Jingzhong school, the Baotang zong also seems to have exerted considerable influence on the development of Tibetan Buddhism, especially on the early teachings of RDZOGS CHEN (dzogchen).
'bar ba spun bdun. (barwa pündün). A group of seven Tibetan dharma protectors (DHARMAPALA), who are the commanders of the BTSAN (tsen) class of native Tibetan deities. They are chief among the native spirits who attempted to prevent the propagation of Buddhism in Tibet and were subdued by PADMASAMBHAVA, who accomplished this feat through meditating on HAYAGRĪVA, a wrathful tantric deity. Their chief is the dharmapAla TSI'U DMAR PO. An important place of worship of the 'bar ba spun bdun is in Dpal ti (Palti) near Yar 'brog mtsho (Lake Yardrok) and Rgyal rtse (Gyantse) in the Gtsang (Tsang) region of central Tibet. Seven temples, or btsan khang, were erected to house them, and travelers would stop and present offerings, from simple red flowers to elaborate red GTOR MA or a bla rdo (life stone). They are also known as dam can mched bdun, drag btsan mched bdun, btsan rgod 'bar ba, and btsan rgod zangs ri spun bdun.
bar do. In Tibetan, literally "between two"; often translated as "intermediate state"; the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit ANTARABHAVA, the intermediate state between death and rebirth, posited by some, but not all, Buddhist schools (the STHAVIRANIKAYA, for example, rejects the notion). In Tibet, the term received considerable elaboration, especially in the RNYING MA sect, most famously in a cycle of treasure texts (GTER MA) discovered in the fourteenth century by KARMA GLING PA entitled "The Profound Doctrine of Self-Liberation of the Mind [through Encountering] the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities" (Zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol) also known as the "Peaceful and Wrathful Deities According to Karmalingpa" (Kar gling zhi khro). A group of texts from this cycle is entitled BAR DO THOS GROL CHEN MO ("Great Liberation in the Intermediate State through Hearing"). Selections from this group were translated by KAZI DAWA-SAMDUP and published by WALTER Y. EVANS-WENTZ in 1927 as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In Karma gling pa's texts, the universe through which the dead wander is composed of three bar dos. The first, and briefest, is the bar do of the moment of death ('chi kha'i bar do), which occurs with the dawning of the profound state of consciousness called the clear light (PRABHASVARACITTA). If one is able to recognize the clear light as reality, one is immediately liberated from rebirth. If not, the second bar do begins, called the bar do of reality (chos nyid bar do). The disintegration of the personality brought on by death reveals reality, but in this case, not in the form of clear light, but in the form of a MAndALA of fifty-eight wrathful deities and a mandala of forty-two peaceful deities from the GUHYAGARBHATANTRA. These deities appear in sequence to the consciousness of the deceased in the days immediately following death. If reality is not recognized in this second bar do, then the third bar do, the bar do of existence (srid pa'i bar do), dawns, during which one must again take rebirth in one of the six realms (sAdGATI) of divinities, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, or hell denizens. The entire sequence may last as long as seven days and then be repeated seven times, such that the maximum length of the intermediate state between death and rebirth is forty-nine days. This is just one of many uses of the term bar do in Tibetan Buddhism; it was used to describe not only the period between death and rebirth but also that between rebirth and death, and between each moment of existence, which always occurs between two other moments. Cf. also SISHIJIU [RI] ZHAI.
Bar do thos grol chen mo. (Bardo Todrol Chenmo). In Tibetan, "Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State." It is a section of large cycle of mortuary texts entitled "The Profound Doctrine of Self-Liberation of the Mind [through Encountering] the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities" (Zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol) also known as the "Peaceful and Wrathful Deities according to Karmalingpa" (Kar gling zhi khro). The Bar do thos grol chen mo is a treasure text (GTER MA) of the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, discovered in the fourteenth century by KARMA GLING PA. Selections from it were translated by KAZI DAWA SAMDUP and published by WALTER Y. EVANS-WENTZ in 1927 as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. See also ANTARABHAVA, BAR DO.
Bareau, André. (1921-1993). A distinguished French scholar of Sanskrit and PAli who made important contributions to scholarly understanding of the early history of Buddhism in India. While studying philosophy at the Sorbonne, Bareau first became interested in Sanskrit and PAli. Studying with Jean Filliozat and PAUL DEMIÉVILLE, in 1951 he completed his doctoral thesis, which dealt with the evolution of the notion of the unconditioned (ASAMSKṚTA) in Buddhism. Bareau would go on to publish thirteen books and more than one hundred articles. Among these books, his most important monographs include Les Sectes bouddhiques du petit véhicule (1955) and Recherches sur la biographie du Buddha dans les Sutrapitaka et les Vinayapitaka anciens (1963). Among his greatest contributions was his work on the earliest sources for the life of the Buddha, which he traced to the third century BCE, more than a century after the Buddha's death. He held the chair in Buddhist Studies at the Collège de France from 1971 to 1991.
Barlaam and Josaphat. A Christian saint's tale that contains substantial elements drawn from the life of the Buddha. The story tells the tale of the Christian monk Barlaam's conversion of an Indian prince, Josaphat. (Josaphat is a corrupted transcription of the Sanskrit term BODHISATTVA, referring to GAUTAMA Buddha prior to his enlightenment.) The prince then undertakes the second Christian conversion of India, which, following the initial mission of the apostle Thomas, had reverted to paganism. For their efforts, both Barlaam and Josaphat were eventually listed by the Roman Catholic Church among the roster of saints (their festival day is November 27). There are obvious borrowings from Buddhist materials in the story of Josaphat's life. After the infant Josaphat's birth, for example, astrologers predict he either will become a powerful king or will embrace the Christian religion. To keep his son on the path to royalty, his pagan father has him ensconced in a fabulous palace so that he will not be exposed to Christianity. Josaphat grows dissatisfied with his virtual imprisonment, however, and the king eventually accedes to his son's request to leave the palace, where he comes across a sick man, a blind man, and an old man. He eventually meets the monk Barlaam, who instructs him using parables. Doctrines that exhibit possible parallels between Buddhism and Christianity, such as the emphasis on impermanence and the need to avoid worldly temptations, are a particular focus of Barlaam's teachings, and the account of the way of life followed by Barlaam and his colleagues has certain affinities with that of wandering Indian mendicants (sRAMAnA). By the late nineteenth century, the story of Barlaam and Josaphat was recognized to be a Christianized version of the life of the Buddha. The Greek version of the tale is attributed to "John the Monk," whom the Christian scholastic tradition assumed to be St. John of Damascus (c. 676-749). The tale was, however, first rendered into Greek from Georgian in the eleventh century, perhaps by Euthymius (d. 1028). The Georgian version, called the Balavariani, appears to be based on an Arabic version, KitAb Bilawhar wa BudhAsaf. The source of the Arabic version has not been identified, nor has the precise Buddhist text from which the Buddhist elements were drawn. After the Greek text was translated into Latin, the story was translated into many of the vernaculars of Europe, becoming one of the most popular saint's tales of the Middle Ages.
'Ba' rom bka' brgyud. (Barom Kagyü). One of the eight Tibetan subsects of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, originating with 'Ba' rom Dar ma dbang phyug (Barom Darma Wangchuk, 1127-1199), a disciple of SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN.
Bayinnaung. (r. 1551-1581). Burmese king and third monarch of the Taungoo dynasty. Bayinnaung was the brilliant general and brother-in-law of King Tabinshwehti (r. 1531-1550), who first expanded the territory of the city-state Taungoo to create the Taungoo empire (1531-1752). Tabinshwehti sought to reunify the various kingdoms and petty states that had once been vassals to the first Burmese empire of Pagan (1044-1287). To this end, he followed a policy of conciliation toward vanquished peoples, especially the Mon, whose brand of reformed Sinhalese THERAVADA Buddhism he favored. Bayinnaung continued this ecumenical religious policy even while he aggressively extended the borders of his empire eastward through military campaigns launched in the name of the Buddha. In a series of campaigns, he subdued the Shan tribes, the Lao kingdom of Vientiane, and the Thai kingdoms of AYUTHAYA and Chiangmai, creating briefly Southeast Asia's largest polity. Throughout these territories, he built pagodas and distributed copies of PALI scriptures. In the Shan hills, he compelled the local warlords to abandon human sacrifice and convert to Buddhism, requiring them to provide material support to missionary monks dispatched from his capital. While officially promoting the reformed Buddhism of the Mon, Bayinnaung remained tolerant of local Buddhist custom and allowed independent monastic lineages to continue. He maintained close diplomatic relations with the Buddhist kingdom of Sri Lanka and offered munificent gifts to its palladium, the TOOTH RELIC at Kandy. In 1560, when the Portuguese captured the relic, Bayinnaung sought to ransom it for 300,000 ducats, only to have his emissaries witness its destruction in a public ceremony ordered by the archbishop of Goa. Legend says that the tooth miraculously escaped and divided itself into two, one of which was returned to Kandy, while the other was gifted to Bayinnaung, who enshrined it in the Mahazedi pagoda at his capital Pegu. The religious policies of Bayinnaung and his successors greatly influenced the character of Burmese Buddhism and society. Royal patronage of Buddhist scholarship coupled with the proliferation of village monastery schools fostered a common Buddhist identity among the populace that crossed ethnic boundaries and facilitated a degree of peasant literacy that was unusual in premodern societies.
Buddhism ::: A philosophy and religion that encompasses a variety of traditions and practices but which has at its core the principles taught by the Buddha that lead to clarifying the nature of the self, liberating the idea of self from suffering, and reaching full enlightenment.
Buddhism. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books,
Buddhism. See BUDDHADHARMA; BUDDHAVACANA; DHARMAVINAYA; sASANA.
Buddhism: The multifarious forms, philosophic, religious, ethical and sociological, which the teachings of Gautama Buddha have produced, and which form the religion of hundreds of millions in China, Japan, etc. They center around the main doctrine of the arya satyani, the four noble truths (q.v.), the last of which enables one in eight stages to reach nirvana (q.v.): Right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
Buddhism ::: The teachings of Gautama the Buddha. Buddhism today is divided into two branches, the Northern andthe Southern. The Southern still retains the teachings of the "Buddha's brain," the "eye doctrine," that isto say his outer philosophy for the general world, sometimes inadequately called the doctrine of formsand ceremonies. The Northern still retains his "heart doctrine" -- that which is hid, the inner life, theheart-blood, of the religion: the doctrine of the inner heart of the teaching.The religious philosophy of the Buddha-Sakyamuni is incomparably nearer to the ancient wisdom, theesoteric philosophy of the archaic ages, than is Christianity. Its main fault today is that teachers later thanthe Buddha himself carried its doctrines too far along merely formal or exoteric lines; yet, with all that, tothis day it remains the purest and holiest of the exoteric religions on earth, and its teachings evenexoterically are true -- once they are properly understood. They need but the esoteric key in interpretationof them. As a matter of fact, the same may be said of all the great ancient world religions. Christianity,Brahmanism, Taoism, and others all have the same esoteric wisdom behind the outward veil of theexoteric formal faith.
Buddhism was introduced into Tibet in the latter half of the 8th century, but was colored by a Tantric element and Bon, the pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, both of which were quite foreign to the teachings of Gautama Buddha. The state of the priesthood was then so low, and the religion so degraded, that the reforms instituted by Tsong-kha-pa were generally welcomed. A far stricter code of morals was laid down for the priests who were forbidden to marry or to drink wine; and to distinguish the Kah-dum-pas (those bound by ordinances), the wearing of yellow robes and hoods was inaugurated in contradistinction to the red robes and the black robes of the degenerate sects; hence following Chinese usage, the Gelukpas are commonly called the Yellow Caps, Yellow Hats, or Yellow Hoods.
Bdud 'joms Rin po che. (Düdjom Rinpoche) (1904-1987). An influential twentieth-century Tibetan master who served for a time as the head of the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Born in the southern Tibetan region of PADMA BKOD, Bdud 'joms Rin po che was recognized at the age of three as the reincarnation of the treasure revealer (GTER STON) Bdud 'joms gling pa (Düdjom Lingpa). He trained primarily at SMIN GROL GLING monastery in central Tibet, establishing himself as a leading exponent of Rnying ma doctrine, especially the instructions of RDZOGS CHEN or "great completion." Following his flight into exile in 1959, Bdud 'joms Rin po che became the religious leader of the Rnying ma sect, while actively supporting the educational activities of the Tibetan diasporic community in India. He spent much of his later life in the West, establishing centers and garnering a wide following in the United States and France. He died in 1987 at his religious institution in Dordogne, France. Renowned as a treasure revealer, scholar, and poet, Bdud 'joms Rin po che is especially known for his extensive historical writings, including the comprehensive The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History. His full name is 'Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje (Jikdral Yeshe Dorje).
Beat movement: a 1950s loose-knit group of American anti-establishment writers, sometimes known as the Beat Generation. They deliberately shocked middle-class Americans (whom they called 'squares'). The group was influenced by jazz and Zen Buddhism. Notable writers include Kerouac (who is credited with inventing the term 'beat'). The movement as such was short-lived, but influenced others.
Beg tse. In Tibetan, "Hidden Coat of Mail"; an important wrathful deity in Tibetan Buddhism, one of the eight DHARMAPALA (chos skyong) or protectors of the dharma. He is also known as Lcam sring ("Brother and Sister") and as Srog bdag or Srog bdag dmar po ("Lord of the Life Force" or "Red Lord of the Life Force"). According to legend, he was a war god of the Mongols prior to their conversion to Buddhism. In 1575, he tried to prevent the third DALAI LAMA BSOD NAMS RGYA MTSHO from visiting the Mongol khan but was defeated by the Buddhist cleric and converted to Buddhism as a protector of the dharma. According to some descriptions, he is a worldly protector ('jig rten pa'i srung ma); according to others, he is a transcendent protector ('jig rten las 'das pa'i srung ma). In texts devoted to HAYAGRĪVA, Beg tse is sometimes represented as the principal protector deity.
beidou qixing. (J. hokuto shichisho; K. puktu ch'ilsong 北斗七星). In Chinese, "seven stars of the Northern Dipper" (viz., the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major); Daoist divinities that are also prominent in Korean Buddhism, where they are typically known as the ch'ilsong. The cult of the seven stars of the Big Dipper developed within Chinese Buddhist circles through influence from indigenous Daoist schools, who worshipped these seven deities to guard against plague and other misfortunes. The apocryphal Beidou qixing yanming jing ("Book of the Prolongation of Life through Worshipping the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper"), suggests a correlation between the healing buddha BHAIsAJYAGURU and the Big Dipper cult by addressing the seven-star TATHAGATAs (qixing rulai) with names that are very similar to Bhaisajyaguru's seven emanations. This indigenous Chinese scripture (see APOCRYPHA), which derives from an early Daoist text on Big Dipper worship, is certainly dated no later than the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries but may have been composed as early as the middle of the eighth century; it later was translated into Uighur, Mongolian, and Tibetan, as part of the Mongol Yuan dynasty's extension of power throughout the Central Asian region. Thanks to this scripture, the seven-star cult became associated in Buddhism with the prolongation of life. We know that seven-star worship had already been introduced into esoteric Buddhist ritual by at least the eighth century because of two contemporary manuals that discuss HOMA fire offerings to the seven stars: VAJRABODHI's (671-741) Beidou qixing niansong yigui ("Ritual Procedures for Invoking the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper") and his disciple AMOGHAVAJRA's (705-774) Beidou qixing humo miyao yigui ("Esoteric Ritual Procedure for the Homa Offering to the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper"). Renderings of DHARAnĪ sutras dedicated to the tathAgata TEJAPRABHA (Qixingguang Rulai), who is said to be master of the planets and the twenty-eight asterisms, are also attributed to Amoghavajra's translation bureau. Worship of the seven stars within esoteric Buddhist circles was therefore certainly well established in China by the eighth century during the Tang dynasty and probably soon afterward in Korean Buddhism. ¶ The worship of the Big Dipper in Korea may date as far back as the Megalithic period, as evidenced by the engraving of the Big Dipper and other asterisms on dolmens or menhirs. In the fourth-century Ji'an tombs of the Koguryo kingdom (37 BCE-668 CE), one of the traditional Three Kingdoms of early Korea, a mural of the Big Dipper is found on the north wall of tomb no. 1, along with an accompanying asterism of the six stars of Sagittarius (sometimes called the Southern Dipper) on the south wall; this juxtaposition is presumed to reflect the influence of the Shangqing school of contemporary Chinese Daoism. Court rituals to the seven stars and the tathAgata Tejaprabha date from the twelfth century during the Koryo dynasty. By at least the thirteen century, the full range of texts and ritual practices associated with the seven-star deities were circulating in Korea. At the popular level in Korea, the divinities of the Big Dipper were thought to control longevity, especially for children, and the ch'ilsong cult gained widespread popularity during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910). This popularization is in turn reflected in the ubiquity in Korean monasteries of "seven-stars shrines" (ch'ilsonggak), which were typically located in less-conspicuous locations along the outer perimeter of the monasteries and were worshipped primarily by the nonelite. Inside these shrines were hung seven-star paintings (T'AENGHWA), which typically depict the tathAgatas of the seven stars, with the tathAgata Tejaprabha presiding at the center. There are also several comprehensive ritual and liturgical manuals compiled during the Choson dynasty and Japanese colonial period in Korea that include rituals and invocations to the seven stars and Tejaprabha, most dedicated to the prolongation of life. Along with the mountain god (sansin), who also often has his own shrine in the monasteries of Korea, the role of the ch'ilsong in Korean Buddhism is often raised in the scholarship as an example of Buddhism's penchant to adapt beliefs and practices from rival religions. Although ch'ilsong worship has declined markedly in contemporary Korea, the ch'ilsokche, a worship ceremony dedicated to the tathAgata Tejaprabha, is occasionally held at some Buddhist monasteries on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, with lay believers praying for good fortune and the prevention of calamity.
Bei zong. (J. Hokushu; K. Puk chong 北宗). In Chinese, "Northern school"; a designation for an early tradition of the CHAN school that flourished in the seventh and eighth centuries, and referring specifically to the lineage of SHENXIU and his disciples. The doctrines of the "Northern school" are known to have focused on the transcendence of thoughts (linian) and the five expedient means (fangbian; S. UPAYA); these teachings appear in "Northern school" treatises discovered at Dunhuang, such as the DASHENG WUSHENG FANGBIAN MEN, YUANMING LUN, and Guanxin lun. The appellations "Northern school" and "Southern school" (NAN ZONG) began to be used widely throughout the Tang dynasty, largely due to the efforts of HEZE SHENHUI and his followers. As a result of Shenhui's polemical attacks on Shenxiu and his followers, later Chan historians such as GUIFENG ZONGMI came to speak of a "Northern school" whose teachings promoted a "gradual awakening" (JIANWU) approach to enlightenment (see SUDDEN-GRADUAL ISSUE); this school was distinguished from a superior "Southern school," which was founded on the prospect of "sudden awakening" (DUNWU). While such a characterization is now known to be misleading, subsequent genealogical histories of the Chan tradition (see CHUANDENG LU) more or less adopted Shenhui's vision of early Chan wherein the legendary sixth patriarch (LIUZU) HUINENG, rather than Shenxiu, became the bearer of the orthodox transmission from the fifth patriarch HONGREN. The LIUZU TAN JING played an important role in making this characterization of a gradualist Northern school and a subitist Southern school part of the mainstream tradition. Despite Shenhui's virulent attacks, Shenxiu and his disciples YIFU (661-736), PUJI (651-739), and XIANGMO ZANG played a much more important role in the early growth of Chan than the later tradition generally acknowledges. There is strong evidence, in fact, that Shenxiu was considered by his contemporaries to be the legitimate successor to the fifth patriarch Hongren and he and his followers were part of the metropolitan elite and wielded deep influence at the Chinese imperial court. The Northern school also seems to have been a force in Tibetan Buddhism during the eighth century and the Northern-school monk Heshang MOHEYAN was the Chinese protagonist in the famous BSAM YAS DEBATE.
Benkenmitsu nikyoron. (辯顯密二教論). In Japanese, literally "Distinguishing the Two Teachings of the Exoteric and Esoteric"; a relatively short treatise composed by the Japanese SHINGON monk KuKAI in the early ninth century. The text is commonly known more simply as the Nikyoron. As the title suggests, the central theme of the Benkenmitsu nikyoron is the elaboration of the difference between the exoteric and esoteric teachings of Buddhism and the demonstration of the latter's superiority. The text begins with a brief introduction, followed by a series of questions and answers, and a short conclusion. The Benkenmitsu nikyoron describes the relation between the exoteric teachings preached by the NIRMAnAKAYA of the Buddha and the esoteric teachings preached by his DHARMAKAYA as that between provisional words spoken according to the different capacities of sentient beings and ultimate truth. By meticulously citing scriptural references, such as the LAnKAVATARASuTRA, the Benkenmitsu nikyoron shows that the dharmakAya, like the nirmAnakAya and SAMBHOGAKAYA, can indeed preach and that it does so in a special language best articulated in such esoteric scriptures as the MAHAVAIROCANABHISAMBODHISuTRA. Whereas the nirmAnakAya speaks the DHARMA with reference to the six perfections (PARAMITA), the dharmakAya employs the language of the three mysteries: the body, speech, and mind of MAHAVAIROCANA expressed in MUDRA, MANTRA, and MAndALA. Like many of kukai's other writings, the arguments presented in his Benkenmitsu nikyoron helped him legitimize the introduction and installment of the new teachings, now known as MIKKYo or esoteric Buddhism, which he had brought back from China. There are several commentaries on the text, including those composed by Seisen (1025-1115), Raiyu (1226-1304), Yukai (1345-1416), and Kaijo (1750-1805).
BhadracarīpranidhAna. (T. Bzang po spyod pa'i smon lam; C. Puxian pusa xingyuan zan; J. Fugen bosatsu gyogansan; K. Pohyon posal haengwon ch'an 普賢菩薩行願讚). In Sanskrit, "Vows of Good Conduct," the last section of the GAndAVYuHA in the AVATAMSAKASuTRA and one of the most beloved texts in all of MahAyAna Buddhism; also known as the SamantabhadracarīpranidhAnarAja. The BhadracarīpranidhAna focuses on the ten great vows (PRAnIDHANA) taken by SAMANTABHADRA to realize and gain access to the DHARMADHATU, which thereby enable him to benefit sentient beings. The ten vows are: (1) to pay homage to all the buddhas, (2) to praise the tathAgatas, (3) to make unlimited offerings, (4) to repent from one's transgressions in order to remove karmic hindrances (cf. KARMAVARAnA), (5) to take delight in others' merit, (6) to request the buddhas to turn the wheel of dharma (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA), (7) to request the buddhas to continue living in the world, (8) always to follow the teachings of the Buddha, (9) always to comply with the needs of sentient beings, and (10) to transfer all merit to sentient beings for their spiritual edification. The text ends with a stanza wishing that sentient beings still immersed in evil be reborn in the PURE LAND of AMITABHA. The text was translated into Chinese in 754 by AMOGHAVAJRA (705-774). Other Chinese recensions appear in the Wenshushili fayuan jing ("Scripture on the Vows made by MANJUsRĪ"), translated in 420 by BUDDHABHADRA (359-429), which corresponds to the verse section from Ru busiyi jietuo jingjie Puxian xingyuan pin, the last roll of the forty-roll recension of the Huayan jing translated by PRAJNA in 798. (There is no corresponding version in either the sixty- or the eighty-roll translations of the Huajan jing.) The verses are also called the "Précis of the Huayan jing" (Lüe Huayan jing), because they are believed to constitute the core teachings of the AvataMsakasutra. In the main Chinese recension by Amoghavajra, the text consists of sixty-two stanzas, each consisting of quatrains with lines seven Sinographs in length, thus giving a total number of 1,736 Sinographs. In addition to the sixty-two core stanzas, Amoghavajra's version adds ten more stanzas of the Bada pusa zan ("Eulogy to the Eight Great Bodhisattvas") from the Badapusa mantuluo jing ("Scripture of the MAndALAs of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas") (see AstAMAHABODHISATTVA; AstAMAHOPAPUTRA). Buddhabhadra's version consists of forty-four stanzas with 880 Sinographs, each stanza consisting of a quatrain with lines five Sinographs in length. PrajNa's version contains fifty-two stanzas with each quatrain consisting of lines seven sinographs in length. There are five commentaries on the text attributed to eminent Indian exegetes, including NAGARJUNA, DIGNAGA, and VASUBANDHU, which are extant only in Tibetan translation. In the Tibetan tradition, the prayer is called the "king of prayers" (smon lam gyi rgyal po). It is incorporated into many liturgies; the opening verses of the prayer are commonly incorporated into a Tibetan's daily recitation.
bhadrakalpa. (P. bhaddakappa; T. bskal pa bzang po; C. xianjie; J. kengo/gengo; K. hyon'gop 賢劫). In Sanskrit, "auspicious eon"; the current of the numerous "great eons" (MAHAKALPA), or cyclic periods in the existence of a universe, that are recognized in Buddhist cosmology. The "auspicious eon" along with the last and the next "great eons"-that is, the "glorious eon" (vyuhakalpa) and "the eon of the constellations" (naksatrakalpa)-are together termed the "three great eons." Each great eon is presumed to consist of four "intermediate eons" (antarakalpa), viz., an "eon of formation" (VIVARTAKALPA); "stability" or "abiding" (VIVARTASTHAYIKALPA); "decay" (SAMVARTAKALPA); and "dissolution" (SAMVARTASTHAYIKALPA). A bhadrakalpa refers specifically to an eon in which buddhas appear, the present eon being such an era. The bhadrakalpa occurs during an eon (KALPA) of stability, following a period when the lifespan of human beings has been gradually reduced from innumerable years to eighty thousand. The number of buddhas who take rebirth during a bhadrakalpa varies widely in the texts, some stating that five buddhas will appear during this era, others that upward of a thousand buddhas will appear. In many texts, sAKYAMUNI is presumed to have been preceded by six previous buddhas, bridging two different eons, who together are called the "seven buddhas of antiquity" (SAPTATATHAGATA). Elsewhere, it is presumed that a thousand buddhas appear during the "eon of stability" in each of the three preceding great eons. The full list of the thousand buddhas of the present bhadrakalpa is extolled in the BHADRAKALPIKASuTRA, a MAHAYANA scripture that lists the names of the buddhas, their entourages, and their places of residence and enjoins the practice of various concentrations (SAMADHI) and perfections (PARAMITA). In this sutra, the current buddha sAkyamuni is said to be the fourth buddha of the present kalpa, MAITREYA is to follow him, and another 995 buddhas will follow in succession, in order to continually renew Buddhism throughout the eon. A bhadrakalpa is presumed to last some 236 million years, of which over 151 million years have already elapsed in our current eon.
Bhairava. (T. 'Jigs byed; C. Buwei; J. Fui; K. P'ooe 怖畏). In Sanskrit, "Fierce," "Frightening," "Horrible"; the name of a saivite Hindu and Buddhist deity. Bhairava first appears as one of the emanations of the Hindu god siva. Many stories appear in the Hindu tradition explaining how and why siva first took this wrathful form. In Buddhism, Bhairava, or commonly VAJRABHAIRAVA, is closely related to YAMANTAKA, "He who Brings an End (antaka) to Death (yama)." Vajrabhairava and YamAntaka are understood to be emanations of the BODHISATTVA MANJUsRĪ. Bhairava is particularly popular in Nepal and Tibet. In Tibetan Buddhism, Bhairava is both a meditative deity (YI DAM), where his wrathful appearance is said to frighten away the mistaken belief in a self (ATMAN), as well as a protector of the dharma (DHARMAPALA) who frightens away baleful spirits with his terrifying appearance. In Buddhist art, Bhairava is typically depicted with black or dark-blue skin, a single head (often that of a buffalo), and multiple arms brandishing a variety of weapons. He may also have a necklace made of skulls, a mouth stained with blood, and have his feet holding down a prone figure he has vanquished.
Bhallika. (T. Bzang pa; C. Boli; J. Hari; K. P'ari 波利). In Sanskrit and PAli, one of the two merchants (together with his brother TRAPUsA, P. Tapussa) who became the first lay Buddhists (UPASAKA). Following his enlightenment, the Buddha remained in the vicinity of the BODHI TREE. In the seventh week, he went to the RAjAyatana tree to continue his meditation. Two merchants, Bhallika and his older brother Trapusa, who were leading a large trading caravan with five hundred carts, saw him there and, realizing that he had not eaten for weeks (as many as eight weeks, in some accounts), offered the Buddha sweet rice cakes with butter and honey. In response to their act of charity (DANA), the Buddha spoke with them informally and gave them the Buddha and dharma refuges (sARAnA) (the SAMGHA had not yet been created), making them the first lay Buddhists. The Buddha is said to have given the two brothers eight strands of hair from his head, which they took back to their homeland and interred for worship as relics (sARĪRA) in a STuPA. According to Mon-Burmese legend, Tapussa and Bhallika were Mon natives, and their homeland of Ukkala was a place also called Dagon in the Mon homeland of RAmaNNa in lower Burma. The stupa they constructed at Ukkala/Dagon, which was the first shrine in the world to be erected over relics of the present buddha, was to be enlarged and embellished over the centuries to become, eventually, the golden SHWEDAGON PAGODA of Rangoon. Because of the preeminence of this shrine, some Burmese chroniclers date the first introduction of Buddhism among the Mon in RAmaNNa to Tapussa and Bhallika's time. Bhallika eventually ordained and became an ARHAT; Trapusa achieved the stage of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA). The merchants were also the subject of a Chinese apocryphal text, the TIWEI [BOLI] JING, written c. 460-464, which praises the value of the lay practices of giving and of keeping the five precepts (PANCAsĪLA).
bhAsya. (T. bshad pa; C. lun; J. ron; K. non 論). In Sanskrit, "commentary," or "exposition"; especially an exegesis on a set of aphoristic statements (SuTRAS) or kArikAs (the same in verse form): e.g., ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA. In East Asia, the term lun was reserved for the commentaries of the eminent bodhisattva-exegetes of Indian MAHAYANA Buddhism, such as VASUBANDHU, ASAnGA, and MAITREYA/MAITREYANATHA; commentaries by indigenous East Asian exegetes are usually termed shu. One of the very few exceptions is the "Exposition of the *VajrasamAdhisutra (KŬMGANG SAMMAE KYoNG)" (KŬMGANG SAMMAEGYoNG NON), by the Korean exegete WoNHYO, which was so highly regarded that it was given this special designation.
bhAvanA. (T. sgom pa; C. xiuxi; J. shuju; K. susŭp 修習). In Sanskrit and PAli, "cultivation" (lit. "bringing into being"); a Sanskrit term commonly translated into English as "meditation." It is derived from the root √bhu, "to be" or "to become," and has a wide range of meanings including cultivating, producing, manifesting, imagining, suffusing, and reflecting. It is in the first sense, that of cultivation, that the term is used to mean the sustained development of particular states of mind. However, bhAvanA in Buddhism can include studying doctrine, memorizing sutras, and chanting verses to ward off evil spirits. The term thus refers broadly to the full range of Buddhist spiritual culture, embracing the "bringing into being" (viz., cultivating) of such generic aspects of training as the path (MARGA), specific spiritual exercises (e.g., loving-kindness, or MAITRĪ), or even a general mental attitude, such as virtuous (KUsALA) states of mind. The term is also used in the specific sense of a "path of cultivation" (BHAVANAMARGA), which "brings into being" the insights of the preceding path of vision (DARsANAMARGA). Hence, bhAvanA entails all the various sorts of cultivation that an adept must undertake in order to enhance meditation, improve its efficacy, and "bring it into being." More specifically as "meditation," two general types of meditation are sometimes distinguished in the commentarial literature: stabilizing meditation (sAMATHA) in which the mind focuses with one-pointedness on an object in an effort to expand the powers of concentration; and analytical meditation (VIPAsYANA), in which the meditator conceptually investigates a topic in order to develop insight into it.
BhAvaviveka. (T. Legs ldan 'byed; C. Qingbian; J. Shoben; K. Ch'ongbyon 清辯) (c. 500-570). Also known as BhAviveka and Bhavya, an important Indian master of the MADHYAMAKA school, identified in Tibet as a proponent of SVATANTRIKA MADHYAMAKA and, within that, of SAUTRANTIKA-SVATANTRIKA-MADHYAMAKA. He is best known for two works. The first is the PRAJNAPRADĪPA, his commentary on NAGARJUNA's MuLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA; this work has an extensive subcommentary by AVALOKITAVRATA. Although important in its own right as one of the major commentaries on the central text of the Madhyamaka school, the work is most often mentioned for its criticism of the commentary of BUDDHAPALITA on the first chapter of NAgArjuna's text, where BhAvaviveka argues that it is insufficient for the Madhyamaka only to state the absurd consequences (PRASAnGA) that follow from the position of the opponent. According to BhAvaviveka, the Madhyamaka must eventually state his own position in the form of what is called an autonomous inference (svatantrAnumAna) or an autonomous syllogism (SVATANTRAPRAYOGA). In his own commentary on the first chapter of NAgArjuna's text, CANDRAKĪRTI came to the defense of BuddhapAlita and criticized BhAvaviveka, stating that it is inappropriate for the Madhyamaka to use autonomous syllogisms. It is on the basis of this exchange that Tibetan exegetes identified two schools within Madhyamaka: the SvAtantrika, which includes BhAvaviveka, and the PrAsangika, which includes BuddhapAlita and Candrakīrti. ¶ The other major work of BhAvaviveka is his MADHYAMAKAHṚDAYA, written in verse, and its prose autocommentary, the TARKAJVALA. The Madhyamakahṛdaya is preserved in both Sanskrit and Tibetan, the TarkajvAlA only in Tibetan. It is a work of eleven chapters, the first three and the last two of which set forth the main points in BhAvaviveka's view of the nature of reality and the Buddhist path, dealing with such topics as BODHICITTA, the knowledge of reality (tattvajNAna), and omniscience (SARVAJNATA). The intervening chapters set forth the positions (and BhAvaviveka's refutations) of various Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, including the sRAVAKA, YOGACARA, SAMkhya, Vaisesika, VedAnta, and MīmAMsA. These chapters (along with sANTARAKsITA's TATTVASAMGRAHA) are an invaluable source of insight into the relations between Madhyamaka and other contemporary Indian philosophical schools, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. The chapter on the srAvakas, for example, provides a detailed account of the reasons put forth by the sRAVAKAYANA schools of mainstream Buddhism as to why the MahAyAna sutras are not the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA). BhAvaviveka's response to these charges, as well as his refutation of YOGACARA in the subsequent chapter, are particularly spirited, arguing that reality (TATHATA) cannot be substantially existent (dravyasat), as those rival schools claim. However, BhAvaviveka made extensive use of both the logic and epistemology of DIGNĂGA, at least at the level of conventional analysis. BhAvaviveka appears to have been the first Madhyamaka author to declare that the negations set forth by the Madhyamaka school are nonaffirming (or simple) negations (PRASAJYAPRATIsEDHA) rather than affirming (or implicative) negations (PARYUDASAPRATIsEDHA). Also attributed to BhAvaviveka is the Karatalaratna ("Jewel in Hand Treatise"; Zhangzhen lun), a work preserved only in the Chinese translation of XUANZANG. BhAvaviveka's MADHYAMAKARTHASAMGRAHA is a brief text in verse. As the title suggests, it provides an outline of the basic topics of MADHYAMAKA philosophy, such as the middle way (S. MADHYAMAPRATIPAD) between the extremes of existence and nonexistence, Madhyamaka reasoning, and the two truths (SATYADVAYA). The MADHYAMAKARATNAPRADĪPA is likely the work of another author of the same name, since it makes reference to such later figures as Candrakīrti and DHARMAKĪRTI.
Bhikkhu ::: Also Bhikku. An ordained male monastic in Buddhism.
Bhikkhuni ::: Also Bhikkuni. An ordained female monastic in Buddhism.
Bhikkhu (Pali) Bhikkhu [cf Sanskrit bhikṣu] In Buddhism, a mendicant or monk, especially one who has donned the yellow robe and carries the begging bowl.
bhiksu. (P. bhikkhu; T. dge slong; C. biqiu; J. biku; K. pigu 比丘). In Sanskrit, lit. "beggar"; a male "religious mendicant" or, as commonly translated, "monk." The female counterparts of bhiksu are BHIKsUnĪ (nuns). The term is derived from the Sanskrit root √bhiks meaning, among other things, "to beg for alms." The Tibetan translation of the term literally means "virtuous beggar"; the Chinese instead uses a transcription. Buddhism was one of the principal early groups of wandering religious (sRAMAnA), which constituted a new religious movement in the fifth century BCE, and coined the term bhiksu to distinguish its wanderers from those of other sramana sects, such as the JAINA and AJĪVAKA. A bhiksu holds the higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) of his VINAYA lineage and is thus distinguished from a novice, or sRAMAnERA. Novitiate status is attained by undergoing the "going forth" (pravrajyA; see PRAVRAJITA) ceremony and accepting a set of ten (and, in some traditions, expanded to thirty-six) precepts (sĪLA). After a period of service in the order, one may undergo the upasaMpadA ceremony, by which one attains full ordination. At that point, the bhiksu is expected to adhere to all the rules found in the litany of monastic discipline, or PRATIMOKsA, e.g., 227 in the PAli vinaya used in Southeast Asia, 250 in the DHARMAGUPTAKA vinaya used in much of East Asia, 253 in the MuLASARVASTIVADA vinaya followed in Tibet, etc. By rule, although not necessarily in practice, a bhiksu is allowed to possess only a set of four or eight "requisites" (PARIsKARA, P. parikkhAra), which provide him with the minimal necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. The duties of a bhiksu vary widely across the Buddhist tradition. These duties include, but are not limited to, preserving the teaching by memorizing, copying and/or reciting the scriptures; instructing younger monks, novices, and lay adherents; conducting a variety of different kinds of ceremonies; maintaining the monastery grounds, etc. Bhiksus were customarily presumed to be dependent on lay followers for their material requirements and, in return, served as a field of merit (PUnYAKsETRA) for them by accepting their donations (DANA). Within any given monastery, bhiksus maintain hierarchical relationships. Depending on the monk's tradition, seniority may be determined by the number of years since full ordination (see VARsA; C. JIELA), one's performance in examinations, or other factors. Literary evidence suggests that the first Buddhist monks were itinerant ascetics who resided in communities only during the monsoon season. Later, as the tradition grew, these temporary residences evolved into permanent monasteries. In the Hindu tradition, the term bhiksu may sometimes also be used to signify the fourth stage (Asrama) of life, in which one renounces worldly attachments for the sake of study and reflection (although this stage is more commonly referred to as saMnyAsin); in this context, however, no formal renunciation through ordination is necessarily required. Throughout much of the history of Buddhism, there have been regions and historical periods in which Buddhist monks married but continued to maintain the appearance of a fully-ordained bhiksu, including wearing monastic robes and shaving their heads. In English, such religious might better be called "priests" rather than "monks." See also BHIKKHU.
Bhutatathata: (Skr.) "So-ness", the highest state conceivable by the Vijnana-vada (s.v.) in which there is a complete coincidentia oppositorum of beings and elements of knowledge; directly identified with the Adi-Buddha, or eternal Buddha, in Vajrayana Buddhism. -- K.F.L.
biandi. (J. henji; K. pyonji 邊地). In Chinese, "peripheral," or "outlying" "regions"; referring to the regions beyond the civilizing influences of Buddhism and higher spiritual culture. The corresponding Sanskrit term YAVANA was used to designate Greeks (Ionians) and later even Arab Muslims. In Buddhist cosmology, the term refers to regions north and west of India proper, which are inhabited by illiterate, barbaric peoples hostile to Buddhism. The birth into a "peripheral region" is considered to be one of the states that constitute an "inopportune moment or birth" (AKsAnA), i.e., a state that precludes attainment of enlightenment in the present lifetime. In other contexts, as in the SUKHAVATĪVYuHASuTRA, a PURE LAND devotee who practices with doubt, hesitancy, and intermittent faith, or who eventually regrets and regresses from his or her devotion, will not be able to be reborn directly into AMITABHA Buddha's pure land (see SUKHAVATĪ). Instead, he or she would be reborn first in the biandi ("outlying region") of the pure land for five hundred years before being granted access to sukhAvatī proper. The outlaying region of the pure land is depicted as a bejeweled place landscaped with lotus ponds and teeming with palatial buildings; it is almost as blissful and trouble-free as the pure land itself, except that its denizens lack the freedom to roam anywhere beyond its confines.
bianxiang. (變相) In Chinese, "transformation tableaux"; pictorial representations of Buddhist narratives, which seem to have been the antecedent for later vernacular narratives of the same themes known as BIANWEN. As is the case with the compound bianwen, the logograph bian here refers to the "transformations" or "manifestations" of spiritual adepts. Bianxiang deal almost entirely with religious topics and involve especially pictorial representations of AMITABHA's PURE LAND (JINGTU) of SUKHAVATĪ, famous episodes in the lives and activities of the Buddha and BODHISATTVAs (especially AVALOKITEsVARA), and synopses of important sutras (such as the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA). A great number of bianxiang were discovered at DUNHUANG and provide a window on the popular practices in medieval Chinese Buddhism. See also AMITUO JINGTU BIAN; DIYU BIAN[XIANG]; JINGTU BIAN.
Bianzheng lun. (J. Benshoron; K. Pyonjong non 辯正論). In Chinese, "Treatise on Determining Orthodoxy"; a polemical treatise composed in 626 by the Tang dynasty monk Falin (d.u.) in response to such treatises as the Shiyi jiumi lun ("Treatise on the Ten Differences and Nine Obscurities") and Xuanzheng lun ("Treatise on Manifesting Orthodoxy") presented to the court by Daoist priests in defense of their own religion. The Bianzheng lun compares the teachings of Buddhists, Confucians, and Daoists in order to demonstrate the superiority of Buddhism. The Buddhist response to such theories as Laozi's conversion of the barbarians (see LAOZI HUAHU JING) and early Chinese notions of qi (pneuma or energy) and DAO (way or path) can be found in the Bianzheng lun. The treatise is therefore a valuable resource for studying Buddhist perspectives on Chinese thought.
bīja. (T. sa bon; C. zhongzi; J. shuji; K. chongja 種子). In Sanskrit, "seed," a term used metaphorically in two important contexts: (1) in the theory of KARMAN, an action is said to plant a "seed" or "potentiality" in the mind, where it will reside until it fructifies as a future experience or is destroyed by wisdom; (2) in tantric literature, many deities are said to have a "seed syllable" or seed MANTRA that is visualized and recited in liturgy and meditation in order to invoke the deity. In the Chinese FAXIANG (YOGACARA) school, based on similar lists found in Indian Buddhist texts like the MAHAYANASAMGRAHA, a supplement to the YOGACARABHuMI, various lists of two different types of seeds are mentioned. (1) The primordial seeds (BENYOU ZHONGZI) and the continuously (lit. newly) acquired seeds (XINXUN ZHONGZI). The former are present in the eighth "storehouse consciousness" (ALAYAVIJNANA) since time immemorial, and are responsible for giving rise to a sentient being's basic faculties, such as the sensory organs (INDRIYA) and the aggregates (SKANDHA). The latter are acquired through the activities and sense impressions of the other seven consciousnesses (VIJNANA), and are stored within the eighth storehouse consciousness as pure, impure, or indeterminate seeds that may become activated again once the right conditions are in place for it to fructify. (2) Tainted seeds (youlou zhongzi) and untainted seeds (wulou zhongzi). The former are sowed whenever unenlightened activities of body, speech, and mind and the contaminants (ASRAVA) of mental defilements take place. The latter are associated with enlightened activities that do not generate such contaminants. In all cases, "full emergence" (SAMUDACARA, C. xiangxing) refers to the sprouting of those seeds as fully realized action. ¶ In tantric Buddhism the buddha field (BUDDHAKsETRA) is represented as a MAndALA with its inhabitant deities (DEVATA). The sonic source of the mandala and the deities that inhabit it is a "seed syllable" (bīja). In tantric practices (VIDHI; SADHANA) the meditator imagines the seed syllable emerging from the expanse of reality, usually on a lotus flower. The seed syllable is then visualized as transforming into the mandala and its divine inhabitants, each of which often has its own seed syllable. At the end of the ritual, the process is reversed and collapsed back into the seed syllable that then dissolves back into the nondual original expanse. Seed syllables in tantric Buddhism are connected with DHARAnĪ, mnemonic codes widespread in MahAyAna sutras that consist of strings of letters, often the first letter of profound terms or topics. These strings of letters in the dhAranĪ anticipate the MANTRAs found in tantric ritual practices. The tantric "seed syllable" is thought to contain the essence of the mantra, the letters of which are visualized as standing upright in a circle around the seed syllable from which the letters emerge and to which they return.
bka' babs bzhi. (kabap shi). In Tibetan, "four instructional lineages" (bka' means words-of a buddha or enlightened master-and babs means to descend in a stream); a series of tantric instructions that the Indian SIDDHA TILOPA received from various masters, codified, and then passed on to his disciple NAROPA. These later became foundational teachings for the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism and were incorporated into the six doctrines of NAropa (NA RO CHOS DRUG). Tibetan sources vary widely regarding the lineage and content of these four transmissions. According to a biography of Tilopa composed by MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS, they are (1) the transmission of illusory body (T. sgyu lus kyi bka' babs) received from the siddha NAGARJUNA; (2) the transmission of dreams (T. rmi lam gyi bka' babs) received from the siddha CaryApa; (3) the transmission of clear light (T. 'od gsal gyi bka' babs) received from the siddha Lavapa; and (4) the transmission of inner heat (T. gtum mo'i bka' babs) received from JNAnadAkinī. According to other sources, these four may alternatively include the transmissions of MAHAMUDRA, the intermediate state (BAR DO), mother tantra (MATṚTANTRA), father tantra (PITṚTANTRA), and individual tantras such as the tantra of CAKRASAMVARA, HEVAJRA, and GUHYASAMAJA.
Bka' brgyud che bzhi chung brgyad. (Kagyü che shi chung gye). In Tibetan, the "Four Major and Eight Minor Bka' brgyud." A division of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism into various sects and subsects stemming from the disciples of SGAM PO PA BSOD RNAM RIN CHEN. The terms "major" and "minor" indicate a relative proximity to the master Sgam po pa and carry no quantitative or qualitative overtones. The four major subsects follow from the direct disciples of Sgam po pa and his nephew Dwags po Sgom tshul (Dakpo Gomtshul, 1116-1169):
Bka' brgyud. (Kagyü). In Tibetan, "Oral Lineage" or "Lineage of the Buddha's Word"; one of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism. The term bka' brgyud is used by all sects of Tibetan Buddhism in the sense of an oral transmission of teachings from one generation to the next, a transmission that is traced back to India. Serving as the name of a specific sect, the name Bka' brgyud refers to a specific lineage, the MAR PA BKA' BRGYUD, the "Oral Lineage of Mar pa," a lineage of tantric initiations, instructions, and practices brought to Tibet from India by the translator MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS in the eleventh century. Numerous sects and subsects evolved from this lineage, some of which developed a great deal of autonomy and institutional power. In this sense, it is somewhat misleading to describe Bka' brgyud as a single sect; there is, for example, no single head of the sect as in the case of SA SKYA or DGE LUGS. The various sects and subsects, however, do share a common retrospection to the teachings that Mar pa retrieved from India. Thus, rather than refer to Bka' brgyud as one of four sects (chos lugs), in Tibetan the Mar pa Bka' brgyud is counted as one of the eight streams of tantric instruction, the so-called eight great chariot-like lineages of achievement (SGRUB BRGYUD SHING RTA CHEN PO BRGYAD), a group which also includes the RNYING MA, the BKA' GDAMS of ATIsA, and the instructions on "severance" (GCOD) of MA GCIG LAB SGRON. In some Tibetan histories, Mar pa's lineage is called the Dkar brgyud ("White Lineage"), named after the white cotton shawls worn by its yogins in their practice of solitary meditation. The reading Dka' brgyud ("Austerities Lineage") is also found. The lineage from which all the sects and subsects derive look back not only to Mar pa, but to his teacher, and their teachers, traced back to the tantric buddha VAJRADHARA. Vajradhara imparted his instructions to the Indian MAHASIDDHA TILOPA, who in turn transmitted them to the Bengali scholar and yogin NAROPA. It was NAropa (in fact, his disciples) whom Mar pa encountered during his time in India, receiving the famous NA RO CHOS DRUG, or the six doctrines of NAropa. Mar pa returned to Tibet, translated the texts and transmitted these and other teachings (including MAHAMUDRA, the hallmark practice of Bka' brgyud) to a number of disciples, including his most famous student, MI LA RAS PA. These five figures-the buddha Vajradhara, the Indian tantric masters Tilopa and NAropa, and their Tibetan successors Mar pa and Mi la ras pa (both of whom were laymen rather than monks)-form a lineage that is recognized and revered by all forms of Bka' brgyud. One of Mi la ras pa's chief disciples, the physician and monk SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN united the tantric instructions he received from Mi la ras pa and presented them in the monastic and exegetical setting that he knew from his studies in the Bka' gdams sect. Sgam po pa, therefore, appears to have been instrumental in transforming an itinerant movement of lay yogins into a sect with a strong monastic element. He established an important monastery in the southern Tibetan region of Dwags po; in acknowledgment of his importance, the subsequent branches of the Bka' brgyud are sometimes collectively known as the DWAGS PO BKA' BRGYUD. The Bka' brgyud later divided into what is known in Tibetan as the "four major and eight minor Bka' brgyud" (BKA' BRGYUD CHE BZHI CHUNG BRGYAD). A number of these subsects no longer survive as independent institutions, although the works of their major figures continue to be studied. Among those that survive, the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD, 'BRI GUNG BKA' BRGYUD, and 'BRUG PA BKA' BRGYUD continue to play an important role in Tibet, the Himalayan region, and in exile.
Bka' brgyud mgur mtsho. (Kagyü Gurtso). In Tibetan, "An Ocean of Songs of the Bka' brgyud"; a collection of spiritual songs and poetry composed by eminent masters of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It was compiled by the eighth KARMA PA MI BSKYOD RDO RJE in about 1542, originally intended as a liturgical text to be recited as an invocation of the entire Bka' brgyud lineage. The text is also part biographical recollection and doctrinal catalogue and is still much loved and widely read by adherents of the tradition. Its complete title is: Mchog gi dngos grub mngon du byed pa'i myur lam bka' brgyud bla ma rnams kyi rdo rje'i mgur dbyangs ye shes char 'bebs rang grol lhun grub bde chen rab 'bar nges don rgya mtsho'i snying po.
Bka' brgyud pa. (Kagyüpa). A person affiliated with the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
Bka' brgyud sngags mdzod. (Kagyü Ngagdzo). In Tibetan, "Treasury of Bka' brgyud Mantra"; a compilation of tantric teachings belonging to the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, compiled and edited in six volumes by the nineteenth-century Tibetan master 'JAM MGON KONG SPRUL BLO GROS MTHA' YAS. The collection forms one of the five treasuries of Kong sprul (KONG SPRUL MDZOD LNGA), and largely preserves the esoteric instructions transmitted by Bka' brgyud founder MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS to his disciple Rngog Chos sku rdo rje (Ngok Choku Dorje).
Bka' gdams glegs bam pha chos bu chos. (Kadam Lekbam Pacho Bucho). In Tibetan, "The Book of Bka' gdams, Dharma of the Father and Sons" originating with the Indian master ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA a seminal work of the BKA' GDAMS sect of Tibetan Buddhism, being the primary text of the oral-instruction (man ngag) lineage organized into its present version by Mkhan chen Nyi ma rgyal mtshan (Kenchen Nyima Gyaltsen) in 1302. "Dharma of the Father" refers to Atisa's responses to questions posed by his foremost Tibetan student 'BROM STON RGYAL BA'I 'BYUNG GNAS (the two "fathers" of Bka' gdams); "Dharma of the Sons" refers to Atisa's responses to questions posed by RNGOG LEGS PA'I SHES RAB and Khu ston Brtson 'grus g.yung drung (Kuton Tsondrü Yungdrung), the spiritual sons of Atisa and 'Brom ston pa.
Bka' gdams. (Kadam). An early sect of Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibetan, BKA' (ka) is the word of the Buddha or an enlightened master, and gdams (dam) means "to instruct"; traditionally the compound is parsed as "those who take all of the Buddha's words as instruction." Another etymology associates the word bka' with the words of ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA, whose followers began the early sect of Tibetan Buddhism, and in place of gdams "to advise" understands dam "to bind," hence, "those who hold his sacred words as binding." The origins of the sect are traced back to the founding of RWA SGRENG monastery in 1056 by Atisa's foremost disciple and interpreter 'BROM STON RGYAL BA'I 'BYUNG GNAS. The three main students of 'Brom ston pa are Po to ba Rin chen gsal (Potowa), Spyan mnga' ba Tshul khrims 'bar (Chen Ngawa), and Bu chung ba Gzhon nu rgyal mtshan (Bu chungwa), from whom originate the three principal Bka' gdams lineages (bka' babs): (1) the authoritative treatises (gzhung) lineage, (2) the essential instruction (gdams ngag) lineage, and (3) the oral instruction (man ngag) lineage, respectively. Po to ba's authoritative treatise lineage emphasized the close study of six paired fundamental Buddhist treatises: the BODHISATTVABHuMI and MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, the BODHICARYAVATARA and sIKsASAMUCCAYA, and the JATAKAMALA and UDANAVARGA. The teachings of the lineage of oral instructions are collected in the BKA' GDAMS GLEGS BAM PHA CHOS BU CHOS. The sect is probably best known for its strict discipline and austerity of practice, but the Gsang phu ne'u thog Bka' gdams lineage that is traced back to the founding of the monastery of GSANG PHU NE'U THOG in about 1073 by RNGOG LEGS PA'I SHES RAB, an immediate disciple of Atisa, and his nephew, the translator RNGOG BLO LDAN SHES RAB, gave the Bka' gdams a well-deserved reputation as a sect of great learning. Monks from Gsang phu ne'u thog like PHYWA PA CHOS KYI SENG GE wrote important works on PRAMAnA (logic and epistemology) and formalized debate (rtsod rigs). The Bka' gdams was responsible for the distinctive Tibetan BSTAN RIM (tenrim) ("stages of teaching") genre, based on Atisa's seminal work, the BODHIPATHAPRADĪPA. This genre was later adapted and popularized by TSONG KHA PA in his influential LAM RIM CHEN MO. Tsong kha pa idealized Atisa as the perfect teacher and his early DGE LUGS PA followers, first called Dga' ldan pa (Gandenpa) after the DGA' LDAN monastery he founded, were also known as the new Bka' gdams pa. After the rise of the Dge lugs sect, the Bka' gdams disappeared from Tibetan history, for reasons still not fully understood, with only the monasteries of Rwa sgreng and SNAR THANG retaining their original affiliation.
Bka' tshal. (Katsel). In Tibetan, one of the four "edge-taming temples" or "edge-pinning temples" (MTHA' 'DUL GTSUG LAG KHANG) said to have been constructed during the time of the Tibetan king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO to pin down the limbs of the demoness (T. srin mo) who was impeding the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet. The temple is located on the head flank (T. dbu ru) and pins down her right hip.
Bkra shis lhun po. (Tashi Lhunpo). A Tibetan monastery that served as the seat of the PAn CHEN LAMAs, located in the Tibetan city of Gzhi ka rtse (Shigatse), and considered one of the six great institutions of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The others include SE RA, 'BRAS SPUNGS, and DGA' LDAN, all located near LHA SA, together with BLA BRANG BKRA SHIS 'KHYIL and SKU 'BUM, in the northeast region of A mdo. Bkra shis lhun po was founded in 1447 by DGE 'DUN GRUB, a disciple of the Dge lugs luminary TSONG KHA PA. In 1618, the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD monastery Bkra shis zil gnon (Tashi Silnon, "Tashi Lhunpo Suppressor") was established on a nearby hill and, for a short while, superceded Bkra shis lhun po, but it was eventually destroyed amid sectarian strife between the rival institutions. The cleric BLO BZANG CHOS KYI RGYAL MTSHAN enlarged Bkra shis lhun po's original structure, and the fifth Dalai Lama NGAG DBANG BLO BZANG RGYA MTSHO conferred upon him the title of PAn CHEN LAMA, "Great Scholar." Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan was affirmed as the fourth such master, with the first three prelates recognized posthumously, beginning with Tsong kha pa's disciple MKHAS GRUB DGE LEGS DPAL BZANG. The Pan chen Lama was elevated to a position of great religious and political authority, officially ranking second after the Dalai Lama but often acting as his tutor and occasionally rivaling him in political power. His monastery thus became a key institution in the religious and political history of central and western Tibet from the seventeenth century onward. The large monastic complex of assembly halls, temples, and residences, including its famous golden roof, was spared major destruction during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
bkra shis tshe ring mched lnga. (tashi tsering chenga). In Tibetan, "the five long-life sisters," a group of pre-Buddhist Tibetan deities who were subdued and converted to Buddhism by PADMASAMBHAVA; the sisters also make an appearance in the songs of MI LA RAS PA (MI LA'I MGUR 'BUM) collected by GTSANG SMYON HERUKA, where they give the yogin access to the highest states of bliss. According to the DGE LUGS tradition, they are dharma protectors (DHARMAPALA) who have not transcended existence in SAMSARA (although both the RNYING MA and BKA' BRGYUD sects assert that they have done so). They reside at either Mount Everest or LA PHYI, on the border between Tibet and Nepal. Their leader is Bkra shis tshe ring ma/Rdo rje kun grags ma or Tshe yi dbang phyug ma. The other members are Mthing gi zhal bzang ma, Mi g.yo glang bzang ma, Cod pan mgrin bzang ma, and Gtal dkar 'gro bzang ma. They are also known as the bkra shis tshe yi lha mo lnga.
Bla brang bkra shis 'khyil. (Labrang Tashikyil). One of the six great monasteries of Tibet belonging to the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism; located in the northeast region of A mdo near the traditional border with China. The other five include SE RA, 'BRAS SPUNGS, DGA' LDAN, and BKRA SHIS LHUN PO, all located in central Tibet, together with SKU 'BUM in A mdo. The monastery was established in 1709 by the first 'JAM DBYANGS BZHAD PA incarnation, Ngag dbang brtson grus, and became the principal seat of his subsequent incarnations. At its peak, Bla brang bkra shis 'khyil housed four thousand monks and several colleges, making it the largest and most powerful in A mdo.
Black Hats. (C. heimao 黑帽). A popular designation in both European languages and Chinese for the KARMA PA lineage of incarnate lamas in the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD subsect of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Because of his black crown, the Karma pa is sometimes called the "black hat" (zhwa nag) lama. In the nineteenth century, a Western misunderstanding of this term led to the presumption that there was a "Black Hat" sect of Tibetan Buddhism, a mistake that persists in some accounts of Tibetan Buddhism. The Western and Chinese division of major Tibetan sects into YELLOW HATS, RED HATS, and Black Hats has no corollary in Tibetan Buddhism and should be avoided.
bla ma. (lama). A Tibetan term of uncertain derivation, used to translate the Sanskrit word GURU, or "teacher." According to traditional paranomastic glosses, it means "none higher" and "high mother." Outside of Tibet, it is sometimes assumed that any Tibetan monk is a lama, but this is not the case. This misconception is reflected in the Chinese term lama jiao, or "teachings of the lama," the source of the European misnomer for Tibetan Buddhism, "Lamaism." Within Tibetan Buddhism, the term may be applied to any religious teacher, especially one's own teacher, regardless of whether the teacher is a monk or a layperson. In common Tibetan parlance, bla ma usually denotes an incarnate lama (SPRUL SKU).
Bla ma Zhang. [full name, Zhang tshal pa Brtson 'grus grags pa] (Shangtsalpa Tsondrü Drakpa) (1123-1193). The founder of the TSHAL PA BKA' BRGYUD, one of the four major and eight minor subsects of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism (BKA' BRGYUD CHE BZHI CHUNG BRGYAD). He was an important figure in twelfth-century Tibet in both the religious and political realms. Born into an aristocratic family near LHA SA, he is said to have studied black magic in his youth. When both of his parents soon died, he attributed their deaths to his negative deeds and decided to become a Buddhist monk, receiving BHIKsU ordination in 1148. In 1152, he met the nephew of SGAM PO PA, from whom he received instructions in MAHAMUDRA, the subject of his best known work, Phyag chen lam mchog mthar thug ("Supreme Path of MahAmudrA"). In 1175 he established his own community, Tshal gung thang, north of Lha sa, controlling the region with a law code of his own composition and his own militia, dismissing criticisms of his use of force with the claim that such acts were the skillful methods of the tantric master. However, he eventually agreed to renounce violence when he was requested to do so by the first KARMA PA, DUS GSUM MKHYEN PA.
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. (1831-1891). A founding member of the Theosophical Society, Blavatsky was born in Ukraine to an aristocratic family, the daughter of a military officer and a well-known novelist. She was largely self-educated, and traveled throughout the world for more than twenty years. Arriving in New York from Paris in 1873, two years later she and HENRY STEEL OLCOTT founded the Theosophical Society, an organization that played a prominent role in the introduction of Asian religions to Europe and America. The society's purpose focused on promoting the understanding and awareness of the nature of reality through various disciplines. Madame Blavatsky claimed to have spent seven years in Tibet studying with masters whom she called "mahatmas," preservers of an ancient wisdom that provided the foundation for all mystical traditions. She also claimed to have remained in telepathic communication with these masters throughout her life and to have translated their teachings from the Senzar language into English. After attempts at alliances with various Asian teachers in India, Madame Blavatsky concluded that the modern manifestations of Hinduism and Buddhism had drifted far from their original essence, so she devoted much of her writing to expounding the true teachings, which she sometimes referred to as "Esoteric Buddhism." Two of her most important works are The Secret Doctrine (1888) and The Voice of the Silence (1889); these provide an account of, and commentary on, the theory of spiritual evolution that she is said to have discovered in the ancient Book of Dzyan, written in the secret language of Senzar. Although this text has not been found, nor the Senzar language identified, The Voice of the Silence has been considered to be a Buddhist text by some prominent figures within the modern Buddhist tradition.
blo sbyong. (lojong). In Tibetan, "mind training"; a tradition of Tibetan Buddhist practice associated especially with the BKA' GDAMS sect and providing pithy instructions on the cultivation of compassion (KARUnA) and BODHICITTA. The trainings are based primarily on the technique for the equalizing and exchange of self and other, as set forth in the eighth chapter of sANTIDEVA's BODHICARYAVATARA, a poem in ten chapters on the BODHISATTVA path. The practice is to transform the conception of self (ATMAGRAHA), characterized as a self-cherishing attitude (T. rang gces 'dzin) into cherishing others (gzhan gces 'dzin), by contemplating the illusory nature of the self, the faults in self-cherishing, and the benefits that flow from cherishing others. The training seeks to transform difficulties into reasons to reaffirm a commitment to bodhicitta. Dharmaraksita's Blo sbyong mtshon cha'i 'khor lo (sometimes rendered as "Wheel of Sharp Weapons"), translated into Tibetan by ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA and 'BROM STON, founders of the Bka' gdam sect, in the eleventh century; Glang ri thang pa's (Langri Thangpa) (1054-1123) BLO SBYONG TSHIG BRGYAD MA ("Eight Verses on Mind Training"); 'CHAD KA BA YE SHES RDO RJE's BLO SBYONG DON BDUN MA (Lojong dondünma) ("Seven Points of Mind Training"), and Hor ston Nam mkha'i dpal bzang's (1373-1447) Blo sbyong nyi ma'i 'od zer ("Mind Training like the Rays of the Sun") are four among a large number of widely studied and practiced blo sbyong texts. The Blo sbyong mtshon cha'i 'khor lo, for example, compares the bodhisattva to a hero who can withstand spears and arrows, and to a peacock that eats poison and becomes even more beautiful; it says difficulties faced in day-to-day life are reasons to strengthen resolve because they are like the spears and arrow of karmic results launched by earlier unsalutary actions. From this perspective, circumstances that are ordinarily upsetting or depressing are transformed into reasons for happiness, by thinking that negative KARMAN has been extinguished. The influence of tantric Buddhism is discernable in the training in blo sbyong texts like the Mtshon cha'i 'khor lo that exhorts practitioners to imagine themselves as the deity YAMANTAKA and mentally launch an attack on the conception of self, imagining it as a battle. The conception of self is taken as the primary reason for the earlier unsalutary actions that caused negative results, and for engaging in present unsalutary deeds that harm others and do nothing to advance the practitioner's own welfare.
Blyth, Reginald H. (1898-1964). An early English translator of Japanese poetry, with a particular interest in ZEN Buddhism. Blyth was born in Essex; his father was railway clerk. He was imprisoned for three years during the First World War as a conscientious objector. In 1925, he traveled to Korea, then a Japanese colony, where he taught English at Keijo University in Seoul. It was there that he developed his first interest in Zen through the priest Hanayama Taigi. After a brief trip to England, he returned to Seoul and then went to Japan, where he taught English in Kanazawa. With the outbreak of the Pacific War, Blyth was interned as an enemy alien, despite having expressed sympathy for the Japanese cause. Although he remained interned throughout the war, he was allowed to continue his studies, and in 1942 published his most famous work, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, which sought to identify Zen elements in a wide range of literature. After the war, Blyth served as a liaison between the Japanese imperial household and the Allies, later becoming a professor of English at Gakushuin University, where one of his students was the future emperor Akihito (b. 1933). After the war, he published a four-volume collection of his translations of Japanese haiku poetry, which was largely responsible for European and American interest in haiku during the 1950s, among the Beat Poets and others, and the writing of haiku in languages other than Japanese. Subsequent scholarship has questioned the strong connection that Blyth saw between Zen and haiku. Blyth died in Japan and is buried in Kamakura next to his friend D. T. SUZUKI.
Bodhi ::: A Sanskrit and Pali term used in Buddhism to refer to the fundamental understanding about the nature of causality. Etymologically it refers to an "awakening" and can sometimes be synonomously viewed as the understanding inculcated by the spiritual journey toward enlightenment. Can also refer to the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha supposedly attained full enlightenment.
BodhicaryAvatAra. (T. Byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa; C. Putixing jing; J. Bodaigyokyo; K. Porihaeng kyong 菩提行經). In Sanskrit, lit. "Introduction to the Practice of Enlightenment," a.k.a. BodhisattvacaryAvatAra, "Introduction to the Bodhisattva Practice"; a poem about the BODHISATTVA path, in ten chapters, written by the Indian poet sANTIDEVA (fl. c. 685-763). The verse is regarded as one of the masterpieces of late Indian MAHAYANA Buddhism, eliciting substantial commentary in both India and Tibet. The most influential of the Indian commentaries is the BodhicaryAvatArapaNjikA by PRAJNAKARAMATI. The text is especially important in Tibetan Buddhism, where it has long been memorized by monks and where stanzas from the text are often cited in both written and oral religious discourse. The poem is an extended reverie on the implications of the "aspiration for enlightenment" (BODHICITTA) that renders a person a bodhisattva, and on the deeds of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (PARAMITA). In the first chapter, sAntideva distinguishes between two forms of bodhicitta, the intentional (PRAnIDHICITTOTPADA) and the practical (PRASTHANACITTOTPADA), comparing them to the decision to undertake a journey and then actually setting out on that journey. In the fifth chapter he provides a famous argument for patience (KsANTI), stating that in order to walk uninjured across a surface of sharp stones, one can either cover the entire world with leather or one can cover the sole of one's foot with leather; in the same way, in order to survive the anger of enemies, one can either kill them all or practice patience. In the eighth chapter, he sets forth the technique for the equalizing and exhange of self and other, regarded in Tibet as one of the two chief means of cultivating bodhicitta. The lengthiest chapter is the ninth, devoted to wisdom (PRAJNA). Here sAntideva refutes a range of both non-Buddhist and Buddhist positions. On the basis of this chapter, sAntideva is counted as a PRASAnGIKA in the Tibetan doxographical system. According to legend, when sAntideva recited this chapter to the monks of NALANDA monastery, he began to rise into the air, leaving some questions as to precisely how the chapter ends. The final chapter is a prayer, often recited independently.
bodhicitta. (T. byang chub kyi sems; C. putixin; J. bodaishin; K. porisim 菩提心). In Sanskrit, "thought of enlightenment" or "aspiration to enlightenment"; the intention to reach the complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI) of the buddhas, in order to liberate all sentient beings in the universe from suffering. As the generative cause that leads to the eventual achievement of buddhahood and all that it represents, bodhicitta is one of the most crucial terms in MAHAYANA Buddhism. The achievement of bodhicitta marks the beginning of the BODHISATTVA path: bodhicitta refers to the aspiration that inspires the bodhisattva, the being who seeks buddhahood. In some schools of MahAyAna Buddhism, bodhicitta is conceived as being latent in all sentient beings as the "innately pure mind" (prakṛtiparisuddhacitta), as, for example, in the MAHAVAIROCANABHISAMBODHISuTRA: "Knowing one's own mind according to reality is BODHI, and bodhicitta is the innately pure mind that is originally existent." In this sense, bodhicitta was conceived as a universal principle, related to such terms as DHARMAKAYA, TATHAGATA, or TATHATA. However, not all schools of the MahAyAna (e.g., some strands of YOGACARA) hold that all beings are destined for buddhahood and, thus, not all beings are endowed with bodhicitta. Regardless of whether or not bodhicitta is regarded as somehow innate, however, bodhicitta is also a quality of mind that must be developed, hence the important term BODHICITTOTPADA, "generation of the aspiration to enlightenment." Both the BODHISATTVABHuMI and the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA provide a detailed explanation of bodhicitta. In late Indian MahAyAna treatises by such important authors as sANTIDEVA, KAMALAsĪLA, and ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA, techniques are set forth for cultivating bodhicitta. The development of bodhicitta also figures heavily in MahAyAna liturgies, especially in those where one receives the bodhisattva precepts (BODHISATTVASAMVARA). In this literature, two types of bodhicitta are enumerated. First, the "conventional bodhicitta" (SAMVṚTIBODHICITTA) refers to a bodhisattva's mental aspiration to achieve enlightenment, as described above. Second, the "ultimate bodhicitta" (PARAMARTHABODHICITTA) refers to the mind that directly realizes either emptiness (suNYATA) or the enlightenment inherent in the mind. This "conventional bodhicitta" is further subdivided between PRAnIDHICITTOTPADA, literally, "aspirational creation of the attitude" (where "attitude," CITTA, refers to bodhicitta), where one makes public one's vow (PRAnIDHANA) to attain buddhahood; and PRASTHANACITTOTPADA, literally "creation of the attitude of setting out," where one actually sets out to practice the path to buddhahood. In discussing this latter pair, sAntideva in his BODHICARYAVATARA compares the first type to the decision to undertake a journey and the second type to actually setting out on the journey; in the case of the bodhisattva path, then, the first therefore refers to the process of developing the aspiration to buddhahood for the sake of others, while the second refers to undertaking the various practices of the bodhisattva path, such as the six perfections (PARAMITA). The AVATAMSAKASuTRA describes three types of bodhicitta, those like a herder, a ferryman, and a king. In the first case the bodhisattva first delivers all others into enlightenment before entering enlightenment himself, just as a herder takes his flock into the pen before entering the pen himself; in the second case, they all enter enlightenment together, just as a ferryman and his passengers arrive together at the further shore; and in the third, the bodhisattva first reaches enlightenment and then helps others to reach the goal, just as a king first ascends to the throne and then benefits his subjects. A standard definition of bodhicitta is found at the beginning of the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, where it is defined as an intention or wish that has two aims: buddhahood, and the welfare of those beings whom that buddhahood will benefit; the text also gives a list of twenty-two types of bodhicitta, with examples for each. Later writers like Arya VIMUKTISENA and HARIBHADRA locate the AbhisamayAlaMkAra's twenty-two types of bodhicitta at different stages of the bodhisattva path and at enlightenment. At the beginning of his MADHYAMAKAVATARA, CANDRAKĪRTI compares compassion (KARUnA) to a seed, water, and crops and says it is important at the start (where compassion begins the bodhisattva's path), in the middle (where it sustains the bodhisattva and prevents a fall into the limited NIRVAnA of the ARHAT), and at the end when buddhahood is attained (where it explains the unending, spontaneous actions for the sake of others that derive from enlightenment). KarunA is taken to be a cause of bodhicitta because bodhicitta initially arises and ultimately will persist, only if MAHAKARUnA ("great empathy for others' suffering") is strong. In part because of its connotation as a generative force, in ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, bodhicitta comes also to refer to semen, especially in the practice of sexual yoga, where the physical seed (BĪJA) of awakening (representing UPAYA) is placed in the lotus of wisdom (PRAJNA).
bodhicittotpAda. (T. byang chub kyi sems bskyed pa; C. fa puti xin; J. hotsubodaishin; K. pal pori sim 發菩提心). In Sanskrit, "generating the aspiration for enlightenment," "creating (utpAda) the thought (CITTA) of enlightenment (BODHI)"; a term used to describe both the process of developing BODHICITTA, the aspiration to achieve buddhahood, as well as the state achieved through such development. The MAHAYANA tradition treats this aspiration as having great significance in one's spiritual career, since it marks the entry into the MahAyAna and the beginning of the BODHISATTVA path. The process by which this "thought of enlightenment" (bodhicitta) is developed and sustained is bodhicittotpAda. Various types of techniques or conditional environments conducive to bodhicittotpAda are described in numerous MahAyAna texts and treatises. The BODHISATTVABHuMI says that there are four predominant conditions (ADHIPATIPRATYAYA) for generating bodhicitta: (1) witnessing an inconceivable miracle (ṛddhiprAtihArya) performed by a buddha or a bodhisattva, (2) listening to a teaching regarding enlightenment (BODHI) or to the doctrine directed at bodhisattvas (BODHISATTVAPItAKA), (3) recognizing the dharma's potential to be extinguished and seeking therefore to protect the true dharma (SADDHARMA), (4) seeing that sentient beings are troubled by afflictions (KLEsA) and empathizing with them. The Fa putixinjing lun introduces another set of four conditions for generating bodhicitta: (1) reflecting on the buddhas; (2) contemplating the dangers (ADĪNAVA) inherent in the body; (3) developing compassion (KARUnA) toward sentient beings; (4) seeking the supreme result (PHALA). The Chinese apocryphal treatise DASHENG QIXIN LUN ("Awakening of Faith According to the MahAyAna") refers to three types of bodhicittotpAda: that which derives from the accomplishment of faith, from understanding and practice, and from realization. JINGYING HUIYUAN (523-592) in his DASHENG YIZHANG ("Compendium on the Purport of MahAyAna") classifies bodhicittotpAda into three groups: (1) the generation of the mind based on characteristics, in which the bodhisattva, perceiving the characteristics of SAMSARA and NIRVAnA, abhors saMsAra and aspires to seek nirvAna; (2) the generation of the mind separate from characteristics, in which the bodhisattva, recognizing that the nature of saMsAra is not different from nirvAna, leaves behind any perception of their distinctive characteristics and generates an awareness of their equivalency; (3) the generation of the mind based on truth, in which the bodhisattva, recognizing that the original nature of bodhi is identical to his own mind, returns to his own original state of mind. The Korean scholiast WoNHYO (617-686), in his Muryangsugyong chongyo ("Doctrinal Essentials of the 'Sutra of Immeasurable Life'"), considers the four great vows of the bodhisattva (see C. SI HONGSHIYUAN) to be bodhicitta and divides its generation into two categories: viz., the aspiration that accords with phenomena (susa palsim) and the aspiration that conforms with principle (suri palsim). The topic of bodhicittotpAda is the subject of extensive discussion and exegesis in Tibetan Buddhism. For example, in his LAM RIM CHEN MO, TSONG KHA PA sets forth two techniques for developing this aspiration. The first, called the "seven cause and effect precepts" (rgyu 'bras man ngag bdun) is said to derive from ATIsA DIPAMKARAsRĪJNANA. The seven are (1) recognition of all sentient beings as having been one's mother in a past life, (2) recognition of their kindness, (3) the wish to repay their kindness, (4) love, (5) compassion, (6) the wish to liberate them from suffering, and (7) bodhicitta. The second, called the equalizing and exchange of self and other (bdag gzhan mnyam brje) is derived from the eighth chapter of sANTIDEVA's BODHICARYAVATARA. It begins with the recognition that oneself and others equally want happiness and do not want suffering. It goes on to recognize that by cherishing others more than oneself, one ensures the welfare of both oneself (by becoming a buddha) and others (by teaching them the dharma). MahAyAna sutra literature typically assumes that, after generating the bodhicitta, the bodhisattva will require not one, but three "incalculable eons" (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) of time in order to complete all the stages (BHuMI) of the bodhisattva path (MARGA) and achieve buddhahood. The Chinese HUAYAN ZONG noted, however, that the bodhisattva had no compunction about practicing for such an infinity of time, because he realized at the very inception of the path that he was already a fully enlightened buddha. They cite in support of this claim the statement in the "BrahmacaryA" chapter of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA that "at the time of the initial generation of the aspiration for enlightenment (bodhicittotpAda), complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI) is already achieved."
Bodhirak, Phra. (P. Bodhirakkha) (b. 1934). Thai Buddhist leader who is the founder of the SANTI ASOKE movement. Born in 1934 in northeastern Thailand as Mongkhon Rakphong, he became a well-known TV entertainer, songwriter, and movie producer before abruptly walking away from his career at the age of thirty-six to seek the dhamma. He was ordained in 1970 into first the THAMMAYUT and later the MAHANIKAI orders, but eventually left both orders to establish the independent Santi Asoke ("People of Asoke") movement, which grew rapidly. Bodhirak was finally excommunicated from the Thai sangha in 1989 for defying national ecclesiastical law (including publicly proclaiming himself to be a "once-returner," or sakadAgAmi [S. SAKṚDAGAMIN]) and for his controversial views on Buddhism, which mainstream traditions found to be iconoclastic and doctrinaire. He continues to live as a monk and is an influential figure in contemporary Thai Buddhism; he and his movement have also come to play a role in Thai politics through the Phalang Dhamma Party, which has ties to Santi Asoke.
bodhi-sattva (Bodhi-sattwa) ::: in Mahayana Buddhism,"a being who, though having the right to enter Nirvana, deliberately renounces it, electing to work under the conditions and possibly renewed temptations of the world, for the love of one"s fellow man or of the whole sentient world" (The Theosophical Path, March 1915, p. 160).
bodhisattvasaMvara. (T. byang chub sems dpa'i sdom pa; C. pusa jie; J. bosatsukai; K. posal kye 菩薩戒). In Sanskrit, lit. "restraints for the BODHISATTVA"; the "restraints," "precepts," or code of conduct (SAMVARA) for someone who has made the bodhisattva vow (BODHISATTVAPRAnIDHANA; PRAnIDHANA) to achieve buddhahood in order to liberate all beings from suffering. The mainstream moral codes for monastics that are recognized across all forms of Buddhism are listed in the PRATIMOKsA, which refers to rules of discipline that help adepts restrain themselves from all types of unwholesome conduct. With the rise of various groups that came to call themselves the MAHAYANA, different sets of moral codes developed. These are formulated, for example, in the BODHISATTVABHuMI and Candragomin's BodhisattvasaMvaraviMsaka, and in later Chinese apocrypha, such as the FANWANG JING. The mainstream prAtimoksa codes are set forth in the Bodhisattvabhumi as saMvarasīla, or "restraining precepts." These are the first of three types of bodhisattva morality, called the "three sets of restraints" (TRISAMVARA), which are systematized fully in Tibet in works like TSONG KHA PA's Byang chub gzhung lam. It seems that in the early MahAyAna, people publicly took the famous bodhisattva vow, promising to achieve buddhahood in order to liberate all beings. A more formal code of conduct developed later, derived from a number of sources, with categories of root infractions and secondary infractions. The bodhisattva precepts, however, could be taken equally by laypeople and monastics, men and women, and formal ceremonies for conferring the precepts are set forth in a number of MahAyAna treatises. In addition, there appear to have been ceremonies for the confession of infractions, modeled on the UPOsADHA rituals. Some of the precepts have to do with interpersonal relations, prescribing the kind of altruistic behavior that one might expect from a bodhisattva. Others are grander, such as the precept not to destroy cities, and appear to presuppose a code of conduct for kings or other important figures in society. There is also the suggestion that the bodhisattva precepts supersede the prAtimoksa precepts: one of the secondary infractions of the bodhisattva code is not to engage in killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, or senseless speech when in fact it would be beneficial to do so. The great weight given to the precept not to reject the MahAyAna as being the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) suggests that, throughout the history of the MahAyAna in India, there were concerns raised about the questionable origin of the MahAyAna sutras. With the rise of TANTRA, the "three restraints" (trisaMvara) of bodhisattva morality were refigured as the second of a new set of precepts, preceded by the prAtimoksa precepts and followed by the tantric vows. There was much discussion, especially in Tibetan SDOM GSUM (dom sum) literature, of the relationships among the three sets of restraints and of their compatibility with each other. ¶ Although there is much variation in the listings of bodhisattva precepts, according to one common list, the eighteen root infractions are: (1) to praise oneself and slander others out of attachment to profit or fame; (2) not to give one's wealth or the doctrine, out of miserliness, to those who suffer without protection; (3) to become enraged and condemn another, without listening to his or her apology; (4) to abandon the MahAyAna and teach a poor facsimile of its excellent doctrine; (5) to steal the wealth of the three jewels (RATNATRAYA); (6) to abandon the excellent doctrine; (7) to steal the saffron robes of a monk and beat, imprison, and or expel him from his life of renunciation, even if he has broken the moral code; (8) to commit the five deeds of immediate retribution (ANANTARYAKARMAN) i.e., patricide, matricide, killing an arhat, wounding a buddha, or causing dissent in the saMgha; (9) to hold wrong views; (10) to destroy cities and so forth; (11) to discuss emptiness (suNYATA) with sentient beings whose minds have not been trained; (12) to turn someone away from buddhahood and full enlightenment; (13) to cause someone to abandon completely the prAtimoksa precepts in order to practice the MahAyAna; (14) to believe that desire and so forth cannot be abandoned by the vehicle of the sRAVAKAs and to cause others to believe that view; (15) to claim falsely, "I have withstood the profound emptiness (sunyatA)"; (16) to impose fines on renunciates; to take donors and gifts away from the three jewels; (17) to cause meditators to give up the practice of sAMATHA; to take the resources of those on retreat and give them to reciters of texts; (18) to abandon the two types of BODHICITTA (the conventional and the ultimate). See also BODHISATTVAsĪLA.
bodhisattvasīla. (T. byang chub sems dpa'i tshul khrims; C. pusa jie; J. bosatsukai; K. posal kye 菩薩戒). In Sanskrit, "BODHISATTVA morality" or "bodhisattva precepts"; the rules of conduct prescribed by MAHAYANA literature for bodhisattvas, or beings intent on achieving buddhahood. These precepts appear in a variety of texts, including the chapter on morality (sīlapatala) in the BODHISATTVABHuMI and the Chinese FANWANG JING (*BrahmajAlasutra). Although there is not a single universally recognized series of precepts for bodhisattvas across all traditions of Buddhism, all lists include items such as refraining from taking life, refraining from boasting, refraining from slandering the three jewels (RATNATRAYA), etc. In the Bodhisattvabhumi, for example, the MahAyAna precepts are classified into the "three sets of pure precepts" (trividhAni sīlAni; C. sanju jingjie): (1) the saMvarasīla, or "restraining precepts," which refers to the so-called HĪNAYANA rules of discipline (PRATIMOKsA) that help adepts restrain themselves from all types of unsalutary conduct; (2) practicing all virtuous deeds (kusaladharmasaMgrAhakasīla), which accumulates all types of salutary conduct; and (3) sattvArthakriyAsīla, which involve giving aid and comfort to sentient beings. Here, the first group corresponds to the preliminary hīnayAna precepts, while the second and third groups reflect a uniquely MahAyAna position on morality. Thus, the three sets of pure precepts are conceived as a comprehensive description of Buddhist views on precepts (sarvasīla), which incorporates both hīnayAna and MahAyAna perspectives into an overarching system. A similar treatment of the three sets of pure precepts is also found in such Chinese indigenous sutras as Fanwang jing ("Sutra of BrahmA's Net") and PUSA YINGLUO BENYE JING (see APOCRYPHA), thus providing a scriptural foundation in East Asia for an innovation originally appearing in an Indian treatise. The Fanwang jing provides a detailed list of a list of ten major and forty-eight minor MahAyAna precepts that came to be known as the "Fanwang Precepts"; its listing is the definitive roster of bodhisattva precepts in the East Asian traditions. As in other VINAYA ordination ceremonies, the bodhisattva precepts are often taken in a formal ritual along with the bodhisattva vows (BODHISATTVAPRAnIDHANA; PRAnIDHANA). However, unlike the majority of rules found in the mainstream vinaya codes (prAtimoksa), the bodhisattva precepts are directed not only at ordained monks and nuns, but also may be taken by laypeople. Also, in contrast to the mainstream vinaya, there is some dispensation for violating the bodhisattvasīla, provided that such violations are done for the welfare and weal of other beings. See also BODHISATTVASAMVARA.
Bodhisena. (C. Putixianna; J. Bodaisenna; K. Porisonna 菩提僊那) (704-760). Indian monk who traveled first to Southeast Asia and China starting in 723 and subsequently continued on to Japan in 736 at the invitation of the Japanese emperor Shomu (r. 724-749), where he resided at DAIANJI in Nara. Bodhisena was instrumental in helping to introduce the teachings of the HUAYAN (Kegon) school of Buddhism to Japan. Shomu also asked Bodhisena to perform the "opening the eyes" (KAIYAN; NETRAPRATIstHAPANA) ceremony for the 752 dedication of the great buddha image of VAIROCANA (see NARA DAIBUTSU; Birushana Nyorai) at ToDAIJI. At forty-eight feet high, this image remains the largest extant gilt-bronze image in the world and the Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall) where the image is enshrined is the world's largest surviving wooden building.
bodhyangīmudrA. (T. byang chub mchog gi phyag rgya; C. zhiquan yin; J. chiken'in; K. chigwon in 智拳印). In Sanskrit, "gesture of the branches of enlightenment"; a gesture (MUDRA) found primarily with images of VAIROCANA, the DHARMAKAYA buddha, the central figure of the esoteric traditions of Buddhism and the chief buddha of the TATHAGATA family (see PANCAKULA). The gesture is typically formed with the right fist clasping the raised left index finger at the level of the heart, although the hand positions may be reversed. (This gesture is known in Chinese as the zhiquan yin, or "wisdom-fist gesture" a rendering often found in English accounts.) Alternatively, the raised thumb of the left fist may be clasped by the four fingers of the right fist, symbolizing the MAndALA of the five buddhas (PANCATATHAGATA). The gesture is interpreted to indicate the unity in the DHARMAKAYA of the divergent experience of ordinary beings (PṚTHAGJANA) and buddhas, SAMSARA and NIRVAnA, ignorance (AVIDYA) and wisdom (PRAJNA), and delusion (MOHA) and enlightenment (BODHI). See also JNANAMUstI.
Bo Juyi. [alt. Bai Juyi] (J. Haku Kyoi; K. Paek Koi 白居易) (772-846). A celebrated Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty; also known as Yaotian (Enjoying Heaven) and Layman Xiangshan. Bo Juyi was born in Henan to a destitute family with a scholarly background. He passed the civil examinations at the age of twenty-seven and held various government positions throughout his political career. Bo Juyi was exiled in 815 from the capital of Chang'an for his criticisms of governmental policies, after which he turned to Buddhism for solace. Bo Juyi befriended numerous CHAN masters of his time and studied under Foguang Ruman (d.u.), a disciple of the renowned Chan master MAZU DAOYI. He acquired his Buddhist toponym Xiangshan during his residence at the monastery of XIANGSHANSI. In addition to his famous collections of poems, such as the Changhen ge, Bo Juyi also left numerous funerary inscriptions that he composed for deceased monks. His writings were compiled together in his Baishi wenji, in seventy-five rolls.
Bon ::: A specific tradition within Tibetan Buddhism with its own unique beliefs, practices, and teachings.
Bon, Bön (Tibetan) [possible variation of bod Tibet, or an ancient word meaning invoker] Also pon and bhon. The Tibetan religion before the introduction of Buddhism in the latter half of the 8th century. The priest and adherents of Bon are called Bonpos (bon po), the ancient invokers for the pre-Buddhist and non-Buddhist kings and nobles of Tibet. The Bon religion, which survives today, seems based on at least four sources: 1) the ancient folk religions of the Tibetan people; 2) the tradition of the ancient “invokers”; 3) a conscious competition with Buddhism in terms of doctrine, texts, institutions, pantheon, and ritual; and 4) a number of non-Tibetan influences, including Hindu, Iranian, Central Asian, and other elements. Bon has been influenced by Buddhism to the extent that it has its own Kanjur and Tanjur, its own monks and monasteries, and its own “Buddha,” Shen-rab (gshen rab). All existing Bon literature was produced after the introduction of Buddhism, and shows the influence of and competition with Buddhism. Bon has also influenced Tibetan Buddhism, especially the Nyingmapa and Kargyupa sects.
Bon. In Tibetan, "reciter"; originally a term for a category of priest in the royal cult of pre-Buddhist Tibet. Traditional Tibetan histories present these priests as opponents of the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet during the seventh and eighth centuries. In the eleventh century, Bon emerged as fully elaborated sect of Tibetan religion, with its own buddha, its own pantheon, and its own path to liberation from rebirth. Bon should not be regarded as the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, but rather as the leading non-Buddhist religion of Tibet, which has had a long history of mutual influence and interaction with the Buddhist sects.
boodhism ::: n. --> Same as Buddhism.
Borobudur. [alt. Barabudur]. A massive Indonesian Buddhist monument located in a volcanic area west of Yogyakarta, in the south-central region of the island of Java. Although there are no written records concerning the monument's dating, archaeological and art-historical evidence suggests that construction started around 790 CE during the sailendra dynasty and continued for at least another three-quarters of a century. The derivation of its name remains controversial. The anglicized name Borobudur was given to the site by the colonial governor Sir Thomas Raffles, when Java was under British colonial rule. The name "budur" occurs in an old Javanese text referring to a Buddhist site and Raffles may have added the "boro" to refer to the nearby village of Bore. Borobudur is a pyramid-shaped MAndALA with a large central STuPA, which is surrounded by three concentric circular tiers that include a total of seventy-two individual stupas, and four square terraces, giving the monument the appearance of a towering mountain. The mandala may have been associated with the pilgrimage of the lad SUDHANA described in the GAndAVYuHA (and its embedded version in the "Entering the DharmadhAtu" chapter of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA). This structure is without analogue anywhere else in the Buddhist world, but seems to have influenced Khmer (Cambodian) architectural traditions. The central stupa houses a buddha image, and originally may have also enshrined a relic (sARĪRA). Each of the seventy-two smaller stupas also enshrines an image of a BODHISATTVA, of whom MANJUsRĪ and SAMANTABHADRA are most popular. The walls of Borobudur are carved with some 1,350 bas-reliefs that illustrate tales of the Buddha's past and present lives from the JATAKA and AVADANA literature, as well as events from such texts as the LALITAVISTARA, Gandavyuha, and the BHADRACARĪPRAnIDHANA. There are also niches at the upper parts of the walls that are enshrined with buddha images employing different hand gestures (MUDRA). The three circular tiers of Borobudur are presumed to correspond to the three realms of Buddhist cosmology (TRAIDHATUKA); thus, when pilgrims circumambulated the central stupa, they may have also been traveling symbolically through the sensuous realm (KAMADHATU), the subtle-materiality realm (RuPADHATU) and the immaterial realm (ARuPYADHATU). There are also ten series of bas-reliefs, which suggest that pilgrims making their way through the monument were also ritually reenacting a bodhisattva's progression through the ten stages (DAsABHuMI) of the bodhisattva path (MARGA). The monument is constructed on hilly terrain rather than flat land, and there is also some geological evidence that it may have originally been built on a lakeshore, as if it were a lotus flower floating in a lake. Borobudur is aligned with two other Buddhist temples in the area, Pawon and Mendu, an orientation that may well have had intentional ritual significance. By at least the fifteenth century, Borobudur was abandoned. There are two main theories regarding its fate. Since Borobudur was buried under several layers of volcanic ash at the time of its rediscovery, one theory is that a famine resulting from a volcanic eruption prompted the depopulation of the region and the monument's abandonment. A second explanation is that the rise of Islam hastened the downfall of Buddhism in Java and the neglect of the monument.
BrAhmī. In Sanskrit, "Holy Script"; name for one of the two predominant scripts (along with KHAROstHĪ) used in the GANDHARA region of northwest India; Buddhist texts using this script are found in Sanskritized GAndhArī and other Prakrit vernaculars (known as BUDDHIST HYBRID SANSKRIT). Buddhist documents were written in the Kharosthī script at least as early as the first half of the first century CE; these are now generally conceded to be the oldest extant Indian and Buddhist documents, although stone and coin inscriptions and edicts in Asokan BrAhmī date from considerably earlier. Documents using the BrAhmī script date from about one or two centuries later, during the second or third centuries CE; the latest BrAhmī documents date from the eighth century CE, around the time that Buddhism begins to vanish from the GandhAra region. The BrAhmī manuscripts are often written on palm leaves, while many of the Kharosthī manuscripts instead use birch bark. The greatest cache of BrAhmī manuscripts discovered so far are extensive fragments of a Sanskrit recension of the DĪRGHAGAMA ("Long Discourses"; see also DĪGHANIKAYA) attributed to the SARVASTIVADA school or its MuLASARVASTIVADA offshoot. Asokan-period BrAhmī has ten vowels and thirty-eight consonants and is written like all Indian alphabets from left to right; Kharosthī is written from right to left and appears to be based on an AramAic script. In the modern period, the BrAhmī script was deciphered by James Prinsep (1799-1840) of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. BrAhmī is also related to the SIDDHAM script used in East Asian for transcribing Sanskit DHARAnĪs and MANTRAs.
'Bras spungs. (Drepung). In Tibetan, literally "Rice Heap"; one of the three monastic seats (GDAN SA GSUM) of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism; located eight kilometers west of the Tibetan capital of LHA SA. The monastery is named after the Dhanyakataka stupa in AMARAVATĪ in southern India, where the Buddha is said to have first taught the KALACAKRATANTRA. It was founded in 1416 by 'JAM DBYANGS CHOS RJE BKRA SHIS DPAL LDAN, one of TSONG KHA PA's leading disciples, and after only a few years in operation already housed over 2,000 monks. In the early sixteenth century, the second DALAI LAMA Dge 'dun rgya mtsho (Gendün Gyatso, 1475-1542) became the monastery's abbot; in 1530, he established a residence and political institution there called the DGA' LDAN PHO BRANG or "Palace of TUsITA." Following him, Bsod nams grags pa (Sonam Drakpa, 1478-1554) became the abbot. Thereafter, until the ascendancy of the Dalai Lamas, the most powerful religious dignitaries in the monastery were the Dalai Lamas and the reincarnations of Bsod nams grags pa. In the seventeenth century, under the direction of the fifth Dalai Lama NGAG DBANG BLO BZANG RGYA MTSHO, the Dga' ldan pho brang (also known as the gzims khang 'og ma or "lower chambers" to distinguish it from the "upper chambers," gzims khang gong ma, where the incarnations of Bsod nams grags pa resided), was moved to the PO TA LA palace. There it functioned as the seat of the Tibetan government until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959. The monastery is an enormous complex of assembly halls, temples, chapels, living quarters and mountain hermitages. At the time of the fifth Dalai Lama, 'Bras spungs housed over 10,000 monks divided into seven (and later four) colleges (grwa tshang), more than fifty regional dormitories (khams tshan), and occupied an area of some 180,000 square feet, easily forming the largest monastery in Tibet. At the height of its florescence, 'Bras spungs drew applicants from all quarters of the Tibetan cultural world including the far east and northeast in A mdo, as well as Mongolia, Kalmykia, and Buryatia. The monastery was large enough to accommodate individuals of a wide range of capacities and interests. A large percentage of its monks engaged in little formal intellectual study, instead choosing to work for the institution as laborers, cooks, and ritual assistants. Even so, 'Bras spungs's numerous monastic colleges also attracted some of Tibet's most talented and gifted scholars, producing a line of elite academicians and authors. The complex was sacked a number of times, first by the King of Gtsang (Tsang) during a civil war in 1618, then by the Mongol army in 1635, and again by Lha bzang Khan in 1706. It was most recently plundered by the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese Cultural Revolution but opened again in 1980 with five hundred monks.
'Bri gung bka' brgyud. (Drigung Kagyü). A subsect of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, counted among the "four major and eight minor Bka' brgyud subsects" (BKA' BRGYUD CHE BZHI CHUNG BRGYAD). The lineage stems from the twelfth-century meditation master 'JIG RTEN GSUM MGON, who founded the sects seat at 'BRI GUNG MTHIL monastery in 1179, from which the lineage derives its name. Although the 'Bri gung bka' brgyud wielded political power at times during the thirteenth century, members of the tradition are primarily renowned as great meditators. The sect established prominent retreat centers around Mount KAILASA in western Tibet and LA PHYI in the south. It has remained an active Bka' brgyud subsect under the guidance of its principal reincarnate teachers, the Che tshang and Chung tshang lamas. The former has established an exile seat in Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh in northern India, with numerous affiliated centers in India, Nepal, and the West, while the latter remains in Tibet.
'Bri gung mthil. (Drigung Til). An important monastery affiliated with the 'BRI GUNG BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, located northeast of the Tibetan capital of LHA SA. A hermitage was initially established at the site in 1167 by Mi nyag sgom ring (Minyak Gomring), a disciple of the influential Bka' brgyud hierarch PHAG MO GRU PA RDO RJE RGYAL PO. In 1179 Phag mo gru pa's disciple 'JIG RTEN GSUM MGON, founder of the 'Bri gung bka' brgyud sect, constructed a monastery there, deriving its name (literally "back of a female yak") from the contour of the surrounding ridge. The institution was renowned for its excellence in meditative training and gained great political power during the thirteenth century when it rivaled even the SA SKYA establishment. 'Bri gung mthil was sacked by the Mongol-backed Sa skyas in 1290 but was rebuilt and later flourished as an active, though politically insignificant, religious center for the 'Bri gung bka' brgyud teachings. One of central Tibet's most famous sky-burial sites is affiliated with the monastery.
'Brog mi ShAkya Ye shes. (Drogmi ShAkya Yeshe) (c. 992-1072?). Tibetan scholar and founder of the SA SKYA sect of Tibetan Buddhism; one of the foremost translators of the new traditions (GSAR MA) in Tibet. Also known as 'Brog mi Lo tsA ba ("Drokmi the Translator"), 'Brog mi traveled to Nepal and India and studied for thirteen years under numerous masters and at the monastic university of VIKRAMAsĪLA. After returning to Tibet, he translated a variety of Sanskrit works, including important tantric treatises and commentaries. Chief among these were the HEVAJRATANTRA and the RDO RJE TSHIG RKANG ("Vajra Verses") of the adept VIRuPA. He received the latter in Tibet from the Indian master Gyadhara (d. 1103) and it formed a scriptural basis for the seminal Sa skya tradition known as LAM 'BRAS, or "path and result." His chief disciple, DKON MCHOG RGYAL PO, is credited with founding SA SKYA monastery.
'Brom ston Rgyal ba'i 'byung gnas. (Dromton Gyalwe Jungne) (1004-1064). The foremost Tibetan disciple of the Bengali scholar ATIsA, and central figure in the founding of the BKA' GDAMS sect of Tibetan Buddhism during the period known as the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. Born in central Tibet, he began his education at an early age. Toward the middle years of his life, news of Atisa's arrival in western Tibet reached him, and he set out on the arduous journey to meet the master. 'Brom ston pa became an early and close student of Atisa and made arrangements for his Indian guru's tour of central Tibet in 1045. After Atisa's death, 'Brom ston pa established RWA SGRENG monastery in 1056, consolidating his career as translator and teacher at this important religious institution. He is remembered especially for the firm austerity of his religious practice. 'Brom ston pa's instructions, as recorded in Bka' gdams pa works such as the Bka' gdams gtor bu ("Bka' gdams Miscellania"), perhaps wary of the potential abuses of tantric practice, instead emphasize meditation on impermanence and compassion coupled with adherence to strict ethical principles and monastic discipline.
brtan [alt. bstan] ma bcu gnyis. (denma chunyi). A group of twelve pre-Buddhist Tibetan deities converted to Buddhism by PADMASAMBHAVA. The site of their subjugation is said to have been either Kha la brag (Kaladrak) or 'U yug, although individual members have variant legends. They are considered to be subordinate to the BKRA SHIS TSHE RING MCHED LNGA, "five long-life sisters," and, like that group of deities, frequently appear in the retinue of DPAL LDAN LHA MO. Their status in the world is ambiguous, considered by some to be enlightened, by others to be mundane. Rdo rje g.yu sgron ma (Dorje Yudronma) is generally considered to be their leader, though sometimes Rdo rje grags mo rgyal (Dorje Drakmo Gyel) is given that honor. All members are said to take possession of female mediums, some of whom were sponsored by the powerful DGE LUGS monasteries of SE RA and 'BRAS SPUNGS. The brtan ma are divided into three groups of four members each: the bdud mo (dumo) (female BDUD), gnod sbyin (nojin) (female YAKsA), and sman mo (menmo). Their names, without the epithet "Rdo rje" (i.e., "Vajra") are Kun grags ma, G.ya' ma skyong, Kun bzang mo, and Bgegs kyi gtso in the group of bdud mo; Spyan gcig ma, Dpal gyi yum, Drag mo rgyal, and Klu mo dkar in the group of gnod sbyin chen mo; and Bod khams skyong, Sman gcig ma, G.yar mo sil, and G.yu sgron ma in the group of sman mo. There are numerous variations in the names.
'Brug chen incarnations. (Drukchen). An important "incarnate lama" (SPRUL SKU) lineage of Tibetan masters, esteemed as prominent teachers of the 'BRUG PA BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The recognized line began in the fifteenth century, although the first embodiment is held to be GTSANG PA RGYA RAS YE SHES RDO RJE who lived several centuries earlier. Perhaps most famous among the 'Brug chen incarnations was the fourth, PADMA DKAR PO, an exceptional scholar and prolific author and historian. The current 'Brug chen incarnation established a residence in India following the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The lineage includes:
'Brug pa bka' brgyud. (Drukpa Kagyü). A lineage counted among the four major and eight minor BKA' BRGYUD subsects (BKA' BRGYUD CHE BZHI CHUNG BRGYAD) of Tibetan Buddhism, which maintained an active presence throughout central and western Tibet and became a predominant tradition in neighboring Bhutan. Its practitioners were widespread and renowned for their simple lifestyle and intensive meditative practices. For this reason, a Tibetan proverb arose that said, "Half of the people are 'Brug pas. Half of the 'Brug pas are beggars. Half of the beggars are saints." The lineage originated with GLING RAS PA PADMA RDO RJE (1128-1188), student of renowned Bka' brgyud master PHAG MO GRU PA RDO RJE RGYAL PO, and his disciple GTSANG PA RGYA RAS YE SHES RDO RJE. The sect eventually divided into three branches, known as (1) Upper 'Brug (stod 'brug), established by Gtsang pa rgya ras's disciple RGOD TSHANG PA MGON PO RDO RJE; (2) Middle 'Brug (bar 'brug), established by Gtsang pa rgya ras's disciple Lo ras pa Dar ma [alt. Grags pa] dbang phyug (Lorepa Darma Wangchuk) (1187-1250); and (3) Lower 'Brug (smad 'brug) established by Gtsang pa rgya ras himself. It was the Middle 'Brug tradition that was transmitted to Bhutan by ZHAB DRUNG NGAG DBANG RNAM RGYAL.
'Brug pa kun legs. (Drukpa Kunlek) (1455-1529). Also known as 'Brug smyon pa, "the Drukpa madman"; stories about his exploits, similar to the exploits of A khu ston pa (Aku Tonpa), are much beloved in Tibetan society; they draw on Tibetan folk narratives, the Indian SIDDHA tradition, and the Tibetan holy madman (smyon pa) tradition, poking fun at powerful interests and figures of religious authority, particularly monks, and often referring obliquely to esoteric tantric practices; the stories often suggest he engages in profane sexual and scatological activities in order to awaken people from ignorance to an understanding of Buddhist truths. The historical 'Brug pa kun leg (his given name was Kun dga' legs pa; 'Brug pa is short for 'BRUG PA BKA' BRGYUD, a BKA' BRYUD subsect) was born into the noble Rgya (Gya) lineage of RWA LUNG; he was a student of Lha btsun Kun dga' chos kyi rgya mtsho and possibly the Bhutanese saint and RNYING MA treasure revealer (GTER STON) PADMA GLING PA. His lineage was carried on after his death by his son. In his autobiography he describes himself as a difficult and contrary person from an early age; he was an adept at the practice of MAHAMUDRA. Later biographies of Kun dga' legs pa give anachronistic accounts of him making fun of SA SKYA PAndITA and TSONG KHA PA, iconic figures in Tibetan Buddhism, describe his appetite for barley beer and his fantastic love life; some accounts say he was the paramour of over five thousand women whom he enlightened by his teaching and practice. There is a small monastery of 'Brug pa kun legs with a phallic symbol in Bhutan where he is especially revered.
Bruno, Giordano: (1548-1600) A Dominican monk, eventually burned at the stake because of his opinions, he was converted from Christianity to a naturalistic and mystical pantheism by the Renaissance and particularly by the new Copernican astronomy. For him God and the universe were two names for one and the same Reality considered now as the creative essence of all things, now as the manifold of realized possibilities in which that essence manifests itself. As God, natura naturans, the Real is the whole, the one transcendent and ineffable. As the Real is the infinity of worlds and objects and events into which the whole divides itself and in which the one displays the infinite potentialities latent within it. The world-process is an ever-lasting going forth from itself and return into itself of the divine nature. The culmination of the outgoing creative activity is reached in the human mind, whose rational, philosophic search for the one in the many, simplicity in variety, and the changeless and eternal in the changing and temporal, marks also the reverse movement of the divine nature re-entering itself and regaining its primordial unity, homogeneity, and changelessness. The human soul, being as it were a kind of boomerang partaking of the ingrowing as well as the outgrowing process, may hope at death, not to be dissolved with the body, which is borne wholly upon the outgoing stream, but to return to God whence it came and to be reabsorbed in him. Cf. Rand, Modern Classical Philosophers, selection from Bruno's On Cause, The Principle and the One. G. Bruno: De l'infinito, universo e mundo, 1584; Spaccio della bestia trionfante, 1584; La cena delta ceneri, 1584; Deglieroici furori, 1585; De Monade, 1591. Cf. R. Honigswald, Giordano Bruno; G. Gentile, Bruno nella storia della cultura, 1907. -- B.A.G.F. Brunschvicg, Leon: (1869-) Professor of Philosophy at the Ecole Normale in Paris. Dismissed by the Nazis (1941). His philosophy is an idealistic synthesis of Spinoza, Kant and Schelling with special stress on the creative role of thought in cultural history as well as in sciences. Main works: Les etapes de la philosophie mathematique, 1913; L'experience humaine et la causalite physique, 1921; De la connaissance de soi, 1931. Buddhism: The multifarious forms, philosophic, religious, ethical and sociological, which the teachings of Gautama Buddha (q.v.) have produced. They centre around the main doctrine of the catvari arya-satyani(q.v.), the four noble truths, the last of which enables one in eight stages to reach nirvana (q.v.): Right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. In the absence of contemporary records of Buddha and Buddhistic teachings, much value was formerly attached to the palm leaf manuscripts in Pali, a Sanskrit dialect; but recently a good deal of weight has been given also the Buddhist tradition in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. Buddhism split into Mahayanism and Hinayanism (q.v.), each of which, but particularly the former, blossomed into a variety of teachings and practices. The main philosophic schools are the Madhyamaka or Sunyavada, Yogacara, Sautrantika, and Vaibhasika (q.v.). The basic assumptions in philosophy are a causal nexus in nature and man, of which the law of karma (q.v.) is but a specific application; the impermanence of things, and the illusory notion of substance and soul. Man is viewed realistically as a conglomeration of bodily forms (rupa), sensations (vedana), ideas (sanjna), latent karma (sanskaras), and consciousness (vijnana). The basic assumptions in ethics are the universality of suffering and the belief in a remedy. There is no god; each one may become a Buddha, an enlightened one. Also in art and esthetics Buddhism has contributed much throughout the Far East. -- K.F.L.
Bsam gtan mig sgron. (Samten Mikdron). In Tibetan, literally "Lamp of the Eye of Concentration"; the title of a ninth-century treatise by GNUBS CHEN SANGS RGYAS YE SHES that discusses four main philosophical approaches prevalent during the early spread (SNGA DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. These include (1) the gradual path (rim gyis pa); (2) the sudden path (cig car ba); (3) the tradition of MAHAYOGA; and (4) the RDZOGS CHEN teachings. The text is an important source for understanding the range of meditative practice and theory in Tibet in the period after the BSAM YAS DEBATE and before the persecution of Buddhism under King GLANG DAR MA. The work makes clear reference to the teachings of the Chinese CHAN school in its discussion of the sudden teachings (see DUNJIAO).
Bsam yas debate. An important event in the early dissemination (SNGA DAR) of Buddhism in Tibet. During the reign of the king KHRI SRONG LDE BRTSAN at the end of the eighth century, there were two Buddhist factions at court, a Chinese faction led by the Northern Chan (BEI ZONG) monk Heshang MOHEYAN (the Chinese transcription of "MahAyAna") and an Indian faction associated with the recently deceased sANTARAKsITA who, with the king and PADMASAMBHAVA, had founded the first Tibetan monastery at BSAM YAS. According to traditional accounts, sAntaraksita foretold of dangers and left instructions in his will that his student KAMALAsĪLA be called from India. A conflict seems to have developed between the Indian and Chinese partisans (and their allies in the Tibetan court) over the question of the nature of enlightenment, with the Indians holding that enlightenment takes place as the culmination of a gradual process of purification, the result of combining ethical practice (sĪLA), meditation (SAMADHI), and wisdom (PRAJNA). The Chinese spoke against this view, holding that enlightenment was the intrinsic nature of the mind itself rather than the goal of a protracted path of practice. Therefore, to recognize the presence of this innate nature of enlightenment, one need only enter a state of awareness beyond distinctions; all other practices were superfluous. According to both Chinese and Tibetan records, a debate was held between Kamalasīla and Moheyan at Bsam yas, circa 797, with the king himself serving as judge. According to Tibetan records (contradicted by Chinese accounts), Kamalasīla was declared the winner and Moheyan and his party were banished from Tibet, with the king proclaiming that the MADHYAMAKA school of Indian Buddhist philosophy (to which sAntaraksita and Kamalasīla belonged) would thereafter be followed in Tibet. Kamalasīla died shortly after the debate, supposedly assassinated by members of the Chinese faction. Scholars have suggested that although a controversy between the Indian and Chinese Buddhists (and their Tibetan partisans) occurred, it is unlikely that a face-to-face debate took place or that the outcome of the controversy was so unequivocal. The "debate" may instead have been an exchange of statements; indeed, KAmalasīla's third BHAVANAKRAMA seems to derive from this exchange. It is also important to note that, regardless of the merits of the Indian and Chinese philosophical positions, China was Tibet's chief military rival at the time, whereas India posed no such threat. The debate's principal significance derives from the fact that from this point on, Tibet largely sought its Buddhism from India; no school of Chinese Buddhism subsequently exerted any major influence in Tibet. It is said that when he departed, Moheyan left behind one shoe, indicating that traces of his view would remain in Tibet; some scholars have suggested possible connections between Chan positions and the RDZOGS CHEN teachings that developed in the ninth century. In Tibetan polemics of later centuries, it was considered particularly harsh to link one's opponent's views to the antinomian views of Moheyan. Moheyan himself was transformed into something of a trickster figure, popular in Tibetan art and drama. This event is variously referred to in English as the Council of Samye, the Council of Lha sa, and the Samye Debate. See also DUNWU.
Bsam yas. (Samye). Tibet's first Buddhist monastery, constructed on the north bank of the Gtsang po (Tsangpo) River in central Tibet, probably circa 779. The Tibetan king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN invited the renowned Indian Buddhist preceptor sANTARAKsITA to found the institution and ordain Tibet's first monks. According to traditional accounts, local spirits hostile to Buddhism blocked the completion of the project. Unable to continue his work, sAntaraksita convinced the Tibetan ruler to invite the powerful Indian tantric master PADMASAMBHAVA to his kingdom in order to subdue these autochthonous spirits. Padmasambhava reached the site and, from atop the nearby hill called He po ri, he subjugated the demons, binding them by oath to become protectors of the dharma (DHARMAPALA). The Bsam yas complex was subsequently constructed in the form of a MAndALA arranged in the shape of the universe according to Buddhist cosmological accounts, based on the model of ODANTAPURĪ, a PAla-dynasty monastery located in the present-day Indian state of Bihar. At the center stands the main basilica, serving as Mount SUMERU, surrounded by chapels representing the four continents and eight subcontinents in the four cardinal directions, all of which is ringed by a massive wall capped with a thousand STuPAs. According to Tibetan and Chinese sources, in about 797 the monastery served as the venue for a great dispute between proponents of Indian and Chinese Buddhist perspectives on enlightenment and meditation. The outcome of this famous BSAM YAS DEBATE, in which the Indian view is said to have prevailed, greatly influenced the development of Buddhism in Tibet, which subsequently became a tradition that looked more to India than China for inspiration. Bsam yas was a religiously and politically vibrant institution from its inception up to the tenth century, after which its influence waned under BKA' GDAMS, SA SKYA, and eventually DGE LUGS control. Bsam yas's central basilica is renowned for its art and its architectural design, said to be a fusion of styles from India, China, Tibet, and Central Asia. The complex suffered on numerous occasions due to fires and, most recently, at the hands of the Chinese military during the Cultural Revolution. Extensive reconstruction and renovations were begun in the 1980s and Bsam yas remains an important pilgrimage destination and a potent symbol of Tibet's Buddhist heritage.
Bsod nams rtse mo. (Sonam Tsemo) (1142-1182). A renowned scholar of the SA SKYA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, considered one of the five Sa skya forefathers (SA SKYA GONG MA RNAM LNGA). He was born the second son of the great Sa skya founder SA CHEN KUN DGA' SNYING PO. His brother was another of the Sa skya forefathers, Grags pa rgyal mtshan (Drakpa Gyaltsen). He was the uncle of SA SKYA PAndITA. Bsod nams rtse mo was a devoted student of PHYWA PA CHOS KYI SENG GE, studying MADHYAMAKA and PRAMAnA with him over the course of eleven years. Bsod nams rtse mo was famous for his commentarial work on Indian tantra, which he categorized in works such as his Rgyu sde spyi rnam par bzhag pa ("A General Presentation on the Divisions of Tantra").
btsan. (tsen). A class of Tibetan harmful deities that antedate the introduction of Buddhism. The btsan are said to be subservient to the converted 'BAR BA SPUN BDUN, although they continue to be seen as malicious disease-causing demons. As such, they are sometimes the object of the wrath of the dharma-protectors (DHARMAPALA), who carry snares designed to catch them. There are numerous subcategories of btsan, including combinations with other spirits, such as klu btsan and lha btsan; as well as listings according to their abodes: e.g., sa btsan, who live in the soil, brag btsan, who live in rock faces, and so forth.
Bu chu. In Tibetan, one of the four "extra taming temples" or "extra pinning temples" (YANG 'DUL GTSUG LAG KHANG) said to have been constructed during the time of the Tibetan king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO to pin down the limbs of the demoness (T. srin mo) who was impeding the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet. The temple is located in Kong po and pins down her right elbow.
Buddha: An enlightened and wise individual who has attained perfect wisdom. Specifically applied to Gautama Siddhartha, founder of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.
Buddhabhumisutra. (T. Sangs rgyas kyi sa'i mdo; C. Fodi jing; J. Butsujikyo; K. Pulchi kyong 佛地經). In Sanskrit, "Scripture on the Stage of Buddhahood," an important MAHAYANA scripture on the experience of enlightenment. The sutra begins with a description of the PURE LAND in which the scripture is taught and its audience of BODHISATTVAs, mahAsrAvakas, and MAHASATTVAs. The text goes on to describe the five factors that exemplify the stage of buddhahood (buddhabhumi). The first of these is (1) the wisdom of the DHARMADHATU, which is likened to space (AKAsA) itself, in that it is all-pervasive and uncontained. The next two factors are (2) mirror-like wisdom, or great perfect mirror wisdom (ADARsAJNANA), in which the perfect interfusion between all things is seen as if reflected in a great mirror, and (3) the wisdom of equality, or impartial wisdom (SAMATAJNANA), which transcends all dichotomies to see everything impartially without coloring by the ego. The scripture then describes (4) the wisdom of specific knowledge (PRATYAVEKsAnAJNANA) and (5) the wisdom of having accomplished what was to be done (KṚTYANUstHANAJNANA), both of which are attained as a result of the subsequently attained wisdom (TATPṚstHALABDHAJNANA); these two types of knowledge clarify that the dharmadhAtu is a realm characterized by both emptiness (suNYATA) and compassion (KARUnA). Finally, similes are offered to elucidate the nature of these wisdoms. The Chinese translation, in one roll, was made by XUANZANG and his translation team in 645 CE. In tantric Buddhism, these five wisdoms or knowledges (JNANA) are linked with the five "buddha families" (see PANCATATHAGATA).
Buddhacarita. (T. Sangs rgyas kyi spyod pa; C. Fosuoxing zan; J. Butsushogyosan; K. Pulsohaeng ch'an 佛所行讚). In Sanskrit, "Acts [viz., Life] of the Buddha"; the title of two verse compositions written in the first and second centuries CE that were intended to serve as a complete biography of the historical Buddha. The first was by the monk Sangharaksa (c. first century CE), whose work survives today only in its Chinese translation. The second version, which became hugely popular across Asia, was composed by the well-known Indian philosopher-poet AsVAGHOsA (c. second century), who was supposedly an opponent of Buddhism until he converted after losing a debate with the VAIBHAsIKA teacher PARsVA. Because of the early date of Asvaghosa's epic poem, it is of great importance for both the history of Indian Buddhism, as well as the study of classical Indian linguistics and thought. Asvaghosa's version of the Buddha's life begins with a description of his parents-King sUDDHODANA and Queen MAYA-and ends with the events that immediately follow his death, or PARINIRVAnA. His text is written in the style of high court poetry, or kAvya. In keeping with this style, the Buddhacarita is characterized by lengthy digressions and elaborate descriptions. For example, one entire canto is devoted to a detailed description of the sight of the women sleeping in the palace that precedes GAUTAMA's renunciation (pravrajya; see PRAVRAJITA). Canto XII provides an invaluable outline of the ancient Indian SAMkhya philosophical system. The Buddhacarita has served an important role within the Buddhist tradition itself, as the canonical works do not offer a systematic, chronological account of the Buddha's life from his birth through his death. Only the first half of the Buddhacarita is extant in its original Sanskrit; the remainder survives in Tibetan and Chinese translations.
BuddhadAsa. (1906-1993). Prominent Thai monk, Buddhist reformer, teacher of meditation, and ecumenical figure. Born the son of a merchant in the village of Pum Riang in southern Thailand, he was educated at Buddhist temple schools. It was customary for males in Thailand to be ordained as Buddhist monks for three months at the age of twenty and then return to lay life. BuddhadAsa decided, however, to remain a monk and quickly gained a reputation as a brilliant thinker, meditator, and teacher. He dwelled for several years in the Thai capital of Bangkok to further his studies but grew disillusioned with the prevailing practices of the SAMGHA in the city, which he perceived to be lax and corrupt. In 1932, he returned home to an abandoned monastery near his native village to live a simple life, practice meditation, and teach the dharma. He named his monastery Wat Suan MokkhabalArAma (Garden of the Power of Liberation), which is usually abbreviated to Suan Mokkh, the Garden of Liberation. The monastery became one of the first VIPASSANA (S. VIPAsYANA) (insight meditation) centers in southern Thailand. BuddhadAsa spent most of his life at this forest monastery overlooking the sea. Although his formal scholastic training was limited, BuddhadAsa studied PAli scriptures extensively, in particular the SUTTAPItAKA, to uncover their true meaning, which he felt had become obscured by centuries of commentarial overlays, ritual practices, and monastic politics. A gifted orator, his numerous sermons and talks were transcribed and fill an entire room of the National Library in Bangkok. In his writings, many of which are his transcribed sermons, he eschewed the formal style of traditional scholastic commentary in favor of a more informal, and in many ways controversial, approach in which he questioned many of the more popular practices of Thai Buddhism. For example, he spoke out strongly against the practice of merit-making in which lay people offer gifts to monks in the belief that they will receive material reward in their next life. BuddhadAsa argued that this traditionally dominant form of lay practice only keeps the participants in the cycle of rebirth because it is based on attachment, whereas the true form of giving is the giving up of the self. Instead, BuddhadAsa believed that, because of conditioned origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), people are naturally connected through a shared environment and are in fact capable of living harmoniously together. The hindrance to such a harmony comes from attachments to "I" and "mine," which must therefore be severed. Modern and ecumenical in perspective, BuddhadAsa sought to strip traditional Buddhism of what he regarded as obscurantism and superstition, and present the Buddha's teachings in a rational scientific idiom that acknowledged kindred teachings in other religions. BuddhadAsa's interpretations of the dharma have had a great impact on contemporary Buddhist thought in Thailand and are especially influential among the urban intelligentsia, social reformers, and environmentalists. His teachings are often cited as foundational by advocates of engaged Buddhism. The monastery he founded has become a venue for the training of foreign monks and nuns and for interfaith dialogue between Buddhists of different traditions, as well as between Buddhists and adherents of other religions.
buddhadharma. (P. buddhadhamma; T. sangs rgyas pa'i chos; C. fofa; J. buppo; K. pulpop 佛法). In Sanskrit, "the teachings of the Buddha"; one of the closest Indian equivalents to what in English is called "Buddhism," along with DHARMAVINAYA (teaching and discipline), BUDDHANUsASANA (teaching, dispensation, or religion of the Buddha), and sASANA (teaching or dispensation). ¶ This term is also used with reference to the "unshared factors" (AVEnIKA[BUDDHA]DHARMA), a list of eighteen (or sometimes as many as 140) special qualities (dharma) that are unique to the buddhas, such as their perfect mindfulness and their inability to make a physical or verbal mistake, or for all the qualities that together make up a buddha.
buddhadhAtu. (T. sangs rgyas kyi khams; C. foxing; J. bussho; K. pulsong 佛性). In Sanskrit, "buddha-element," or "buddha-nature"; the inherent potential of all sentient beings to achieve buddhahood. The term is also widely used in Buddhist Sanskrit with the sense of "buddha relic," and the term DHATU alone is used to mean "buddha-element" (see also GOTRA, KULA). The term first appears in the MAHAYANA recension of the MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA, now available only in Chinese translation, which states that all sentient beings have the "buddha-element" (FOXING). (The Chinese translation foxing literally means "buddha-nature" and the Chinese has often been mistakenly back-translated as the Sanskrit buddhatA; buddhadhAtu is the accepted Sanskrit form.) The origin of the term may, however, be traced back as far as the AstASAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA, one of the earliest MahAyAna SuTRAs, where the fundamental substance of the mind is said to be luminous (prakṛtis cittasya prabhAsvarA), drawing on a strand of Buddhism that has its antecedents in such statements as the PAli AnGUTTARANIKAYA: "The mind, O monks, is luminous but defiled by adventitious defilements" (pabhassaraM idaM bhikkhave cittaM, taN ca kho Agantukehi upakkilesehi upakkilitthaM). Because the BODHISATTVA realizes that the buddha-element is inherent in him at the moment that he arouses the aspiration for enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPADA) and enters the BODHISATTVAYANA, he achieves the profound endurance (KsANTI) that enables him to undertake the arduous training, over not one, but three, incalculable eons of time (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA), that will lead to buddhahood. The buddhadhAtu is a seminal concept of the MahAyAna and leads to the development of such related doctrines as the "matrix of the tathAgatas" (TATHAGATAGARBHA) and the "immaculate consciousness" (AMALAVIJNANA). The term is also crucial in the development of the teachings of such indigenous East Asian schools of Buddhism as CHAN, which telescope the arduous path of the bodhisattva into a single moment of sudden awakening (DUNWU) to the inherency of the "buddha-nature" (foxing), as in the Chan teaching that merely "seeing the nature" is sufficient to "attain buddhahood" (JIANXING CHENGFO).
buddhaksetra. (T. sangs rgyas zhing; C. focha; J. bussetsu; K. pulch'al 佛刹). In Sanskrit, "buddha field," the realm that constitutes the domain of a specific buddha. A buddhaksetra is said to have two aspects, which parallel the division of a world system into a BHAJANALOKA (lit. "container world," "world of inanimate objects") and a SATTVALOKA ("world of sentient beings"). As a result of his accumulation of merit (PUnYASAMBHARA), his collection of knowledge (JNANASAMBHARA), and his specific vow (PRAnIDHANA), when a buddha achieves enlightenment, a "container" or "inanimate" world is produced in the form of a field where the buddha leads beings to enlightenment. The inhabitant of that world is the buddha endowed with all the BUDDHADHARMAs. Buddha-fields occur in various levels of purification, broadly divided between pure (VIsUDDHABUDDHAKsETRA) and impure. Impure buddha-fields are synonymous with a world system (CAKRAVAdA), the infinite number of "world discs" in Buddhist cosmology that constitutes the universe; here, ordinary sentient beings (including animals, ghosts, and hell beings) dwell, subject to the afflictions (KLEsA) of greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA), and delusion (MOHA). Each cakravAda is the domain of a specific buddha, who achieves enlightenment in that world system and works there toward the liberation of all sentient beings. A pure buddha-field, by contrast, may be created by a buddha upon his enlightenment and is sometimes called a PURE LAND (JINGTU, more literally, "purified soil" in Chinese), a term with no direct equivalent in Sanskrit. In such purified buddha-fields, the unfortunate realms (APAYA, DURGATI) of animals, ghosts, and hell denizens are typically absent. Thus, the birds that sing beautiful songs there are said to be emanations of the buddha rather than sentient beings who have been reborn as birds. These pure lands include such notable buddhaksetras as ABHIRATI, the buddha-field of the buddha AKsOBHYA, and SUKHAVATĪ, the land of the buddha AMITABHA and the object of a major strand of East Asian Buddhism, the so-called pure land school (see JoDOSHu, JoDO SHINSHu). In the VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, after the buddha reveals a pure buddha land, sARIPUTRA asks him why sAKYAMUNI's buddha-field has so many faults. The buddha then touches the earth with his toe, at which point the world is transformed into a pure buddha-field; he explains that he makes the world appear impure in order to inspire his disciples to seek liberation.
buddhakula. (T. sangs rgyas rigs; C. rulai jia; J. nyoraike; K. yorae ka 如來家). In Sanskrit, "buddha family"; synonymous with GOTRA ("lineage"); buddhakula and gotra, like BUDDHADHATU and TATHAGATAGARBHA refer to the potential inherent in all sentient beings to achieve buddhahood. The RATNAGOTRAVIBHAGA describes a confluence of three necessary factors: the altruistic effort that buddhas make out of their great compassion (MAHAKARUnA) to disseminate their doctrines; the ultimate nature of beings that is purified of any essential defilement; and, last, buddhakula or gotra, i.e., belonging to a lineage that does not lead to endless rebirth or to a final end in the limited NIRVAnA of HĪNAYANA adepts, but rather to the royal state of a buddha. The defining mark of the buddhakula is the seed of great compassion (mahAkarunA). Because of the confluence of these three factors, all beings are said to have the TATHAGATAGARBHA, which in this interpretation of the compound means the womb or embryo of a tathAgata. In tantric Buddhism, there are typically five (but sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on the tantra) buddha families (see PANCAJINA, PANCATATHAGATA), the families of VAIROCANA, AKsOBHYA, RATNASAMBHAVA, AMITABHA, and AMOGHASIDDHI. These buddhas (regarded as the final purification and transformation of the five SKANDHAs) are the forms in which adepts with differing personality types, those in whom the five KLEsAs of delusion (MOHA), hatred (DVEsA), pride (MANA), desire (RAGA), and jealousy (ĪRsYA), respectively, predominate, reach the goal. The five buddha families are also connected with the five YOGACARA knowledges or wisdoms (JNANA) (see BUDDHABHuMISuTRA; PANCAJNANA).
buddha ::: n. --> The title of an incarnation of self-abnegation, virtue, and wisdom, or a deified religious teacher of the Buddhists, esp. Gautama Siddartha or Sakya Sinha (or Muni), the founder of Buddhism.
buddhAnusmṛti. (P. buddhAnussati; T. sangs rgyas rjes su dran pa; C. nianfo; J. nenbutsu; K. yombul 念佛). In Sanskrit, "recollection of the Buddha"; one of the common practices designed to develop concentration, in which the meditator reflects on the meritorious qualities of the Buddha, often through contemplating a series of his epithets. The oldest list of epithets of the Buddha used in such recollection, which is found across all traditions, is worthy one (ARHAT), fully enlightened (SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA), perfect in both knowledge and conduct (vidyAcaranasampanna), well gone (SUGATA), knower of all worlds (lokavid), teacher of divinities (or kings) and human beings (sAstṛ devamanusyAnaM), buddha, and BHAGAVAT. BuddhAnusmṛti is listed among the forty meditative exercises (KAMMAttHANA) discussed in the VISUDDHIMAGGA and is said to be conducive to gaining access concentration (UPACARASAMADHI). In East Asia, this recollection practice evolved into the recitation of the name of the buddha AMITABHA (see NIANFO) in the form of the phrase namo Amituo fo ("homage to AmitAbha Buddha"; J. NAMU AMIDABUTSU). This recitation was often performed in a ritual setting accompanied by the performance of prostrations, the burning of incense, and the recitation of scriptures, all directed toward gaining a vision of AmitAbha's PURE LAND (SUKHAVATĪ), which was considered proof that one would be reborn there. Nianfo practice was widely practiced across schools and social strata in China. In Japan, repetition of the phrase in its Japanese pronunciation of namu Amidabutsu (homage to AmitAbha Buddha) became a central practice of the Japanese Pure Land schools of Buddhism (see JoDOSHu, JoDO SHINSHu).
buddhapAda. (T. sangs rgyas kyi zhabs; C. fozu; J. bussoku; K. pulchok 佛足). In Sanskrit and PAli, lit. "the feet of the Buddha"; typically referring to "the Buddha's footprints," which became objects of religious veneration in early Buddhism. There are typically three kinds of footprints of the Buddha, all of which are treated as a type of relic (sARĪRA, DHATU). At the incipiency of the tradition, the Buddha's footprints were a popular aniconic representation of the Buddha; the oldest of these, from the BHARHUT reliquary mound (STuPA), dates to the second century BCE. The second are natural indentations in rock that are said to have been made by the Buddha's feet; an example is the Sri Lankan mountain known as srī PAda, or "Holy Foot," which is named after an impression in the rock of the mountain's summit that the Sinhalese people believe to be a footprint of GAUTAMA Buddha. Both these first and second types are concave images and are presumed to be a sign of the Buddha's former presence in a specific place. Such footprints are also often important as traditional evidence of a visit by the Buddha to a distant land. The third form of footprint are convex images carved in stone, metal, or wood (or in some cases painted), which represent the soles of the Buddha's feet in elaborate detail and are often covered with all manner of auspicious symbols. They may bear the specific physical marks (LAKsAnA) said to be present on the feet of a fully awakened being, such as having toes that are all the same length, or having dharma-wheels (DHARMACAKRA) inscribed on the soles (see MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA). In the PAli tradition, there is a practice of making buddhapAda in which the central wheel is surrounded by a retinue (parivAra) of 108 auspicious signs, called MAnGALA. Symbolically, the footprints point to the reality of the Buddha's erstwhile physical presence in our world. At the same time, the footprints also indicate his current absence and thus may encourage the observer to reflect on nonattachment. Veneration of the Buddha's footprints occurs throughout the Buddhist world but is particularly popular in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. Of his footprints, tradition reports that the Buddha said, "In the future, intelligent beings will see the scriptures and understand. Those of less intelligence will wonder whether the Buddha appeared in the world. In order to remove their doubts, I have set my footprints in stone."
Buddha(s) of Compassion ::: One who, having won all, gained all -- gained the right to kosmic peace and bliss -- renounces it so thathe may return as a Son of Light in order to help humanity, and indeed all that is.The Buddhas of Compassion are the noblest flowers of the human race. They are men who have raisedthemselves from humanity into quasi-divinity; and this is done by letting the light imprisoned within, thelight of the inner god, pour forth and manifest itself through the humanity of the man, through the humansoul of the man. Through sacrifice and abandoning of all that is mean and wrong, ignoble and paltry andselfish; through opening up the inner nature so that the god within may shine forth; in other words,through self-directed evolution, they have raised themselves from mere manhood into becominggod-men, man-gods -- human divinities.They are called Buddhas of Compassion because they feel their unity with all that is, and therefore feelintimate magnetic sympathy with all that is, and this is more and more the case as they evolve, untilfinally their consciousness blends with that of the universe and lives eternally and immortally, because itis at one with the universe. "The dewdrop slips into the shining sea" -- its origin.Feeling the urge of almighty love in their hearts, the Buddhas of Compassion advance forever steadilytowards still greater heights of spiritual achievement; and the reason is that they have become thevehicles of universal love and universal wisdom. As impersonal love is universal, their whole natureexpands consequently with the universal powers that are working through them. The Buddhas ofCompassion, existing in their various degrees of evolution, form a sublime hierarchy extending from theSilent Watcher on our planet downwards through these various degrees unto themselves, and evenbeyond themselves to their chelas or disciples. Spiritually and mystically they contrast strongly withwhat Asiatic occultism, through the medium of Buddhism, has called the Pratyeka Buddhas.
buddha. (T. sangs rgyas; C. fo; J. butsu/hotoke; K. pul 佛). In Sanskrit and PAli, "awakened one" or "enlightened one"; an epithet derived from the Sanskrit root √budh, meaning "to awaken" or "to open up" (as does a flower) and thus traditionally etymologized as one who has awakened from the deep sleep of ignorance and opened his consciousness to encompass all objects of knowledge. The term was used in ancient India by a number of different religious groups, but came to be most strongly associated with followers of the teacher GAUTAMA, the "Sage of the sAKYA Clan" (sAKYAMUNI), who claimed to be only the most recent of a succession of buddhas who had appeared in the world over many eons of time (KALPA). In addition to sAkyamuni, there are many other buddhas named in Buddhist literature, from various lists of buddhas of the past, present, and future, to "buddhas of the ten directions" (dasadigbuddha), viz., everywhere. Although the precise nature of buddhahood is debated by the various schools, a buddha is a person who, in the far distant past, made a previous vow (PuRVAPRAnIDHANA) to become a buddha in order to reestablish the dispensation or teaching (sASANA) at a time when it was lost to the world. The path to buddhahood is much longer than that of the ARHAT-as many as three incalculable eons of time (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) in some computations-because of the long process of training over the BODHISATTVA path (MARGA), involving mastery of the six or ten "perfections" (PARAMITA). Buddhas can remember both their past lives and the past lives of all sentient beings, and relate events from those past lives in the JATAKA and AVADANA literature. Although there is great interest in the West in the "biography" of Gautama or sAkyamuni Buddha, the early tradition seemed intent on demonstrating his similarity to the buddhas of the past rather than his uniqueness. Such a concern was motivated in part by the need to demonstrate that what the Buddha taught was not the innovation of an individual, but rather the rediscovery of a timeless truth (what the Buddha himself called "an ancient path" [S. purAnamArga, P. purAnamagga]) that had been discovered in precisely the same way, since time immemorial, by a person who undertook the same type of extended preparation. In this sense, the doctrine of the existence of past buddhas allowed the early Buddhist community to claim an authority similar to that of the Vedas of their Hindu rivals and of the JAINA tradition of previous tīrthankaras. Thus, in their biographies, all of the buddhas of the past and future are portrayed as doing many of the same things. They all sit cross-legged in their mother's womb; they are all born in the "middle country" (madhyadesa) of the continent of JAMBUDVĪPA; immediately after their birth they all take seven steps to the north; they all renounce the world after seeing the four sights (CATURNIMITTA; an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a mendicant) and after the birth of a son; they all achieve enlightenment seated on a bed of grass; they stride first with their right foot when they walk; they never stoop to pass through a door; they all establish a SAMGHA; they all can live for an eon if requested to do so; they never die before their teaching is complete; they all die after eating meat. Four sites on the earth are identical for all buddhas: the place of enlightenment, the place of the first sermon that "turns the wheel of the dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA), the place of descending from TRAYASTRIMsA (heaven of the thirty-three), and the place of their bed in JETAVANA monastery. Buddhas can differ from each other in only eight ways: life span, height, caste (either brAhmana or KsATRIYA), the conveyance by which they go forth from the world, the period of time spent in the practice of asceticism prior to their enlightenment, the kind of tree they sit under on the night of their enlightenment, the size of their seat there, and the extent of their aura. In addition, there are twelve deeds that all buddhas (dvAdasabuddhakArya) perform. (1) They descend from TUsITA heaven for their final birth; (2) they enter their mother's womb; (3) they take birth in LUMBINĪ Garden; (4) they are proficient in the worldly arts; (5) they enjoy the company of consorts; (6) they renounce the world; (7) they practice asceticism on the banks of the NAIRANJANA River; (8) they go to the BODHIMAndA; (9) they subjugate MARA; (10) they attain enlightenment; (11) they turn the wheel of the dharma; and (12) they pass into PARINIRVAnA. They all have a body adorned with the thirty-two major marks (LAKsAnA; MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA) and the eighty secondary marks (ANUVYANJANA) of a great man (MAHAPURUsA). They all have two bodies: a physical body (RuPAKAYA) and a body of qualities (DHARMAKAYA; see BUDDHAKAYA). These qualities of a buddha are accepted by the major schools of Buddhism. It is not the case, as is sometimes suggested, that the buddha of the mainstream traditions is somehow more "human" and the buddha in the MAHAYANA somehow more "superhuman"; all Buddhist traditions relate stories of buddhas performing miraculous feats, such as the sRAVASTĪ MIRACLES described in mainstream materials. Among the many extraordinary powers of the buddhas are a list of "unshared factors" (AVEnIKA[BUDDHA]DHARMA) that are unique to them, including their perfect mindfulness and their inability ever to make a mistake. The buddhas have ten powers specific to them that derive from their unique range of knowledge (for the list, see BALA). The buddhas also are claimed to have an uncanny ability to apply "skill in means" (UPAYAKAUsALYA), that is, to adapt their teachings to the specific needs of their audience. This teaching role is what distinguishes a "complete and perfect buddha" (SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA) from a "solitary buddha" (PRATYEKABUDDHA) who does not teach: a solitary buddha may be enlightened but he neglects to develop the great compassion (MAHAKARUnA) that ultimately prompts a samyaksaMbuddha to seek to lead others to liberation. The MahAyAna develops an innovative perspective on the person of a buddha, which it conceived as having three bodies (TRIKAYA): the DHARMAKAYA, a transcendent principle that is sometimes translated as "truth body"; an enjoyment body (SAMBHOGAKAYA) that is visible only to advanced bodhisattvas in exalted realms; and an emanation body (NIRMAnAKAYA) that displays the deeds of a buddha to the world. Also in the MahAyAna is the notion of a universe filled with innumerable buddha-fields (BUDDHAKsETRA), the most famous of these being SUKHAVATĪ of AmitAbha. Whereas the mainstream traditions claim that the profundity of a buddha is so great that a single universe can only sustain one buddha at any one time, MahAyAna SuTRAs often include scenes of multiple buddhas appearing together. See also names of specific buddhas, including AKsOBHYA, AMITABHA, AMOGHASIDDHI, RATNASAMBHAVA, VAIROCANA. For indigenous language terms for buddha, see FO (C); HOTOKE (J); PHRA PHUTTHA JAO (Thai); PUCH'o(NIM) (K); SANGS RGYAS (T).
buddhavacana. (T. sangs rgyas kyi bka'; C. foyu; J. butsugo; K. puro 佛語). In Sanskrit and PAli, "word of the Buddha"; those teachings accepted as having been either spoken by the Buddha or spoken with his sanction. Much traditional scholastic literature is devoted to the question of what does and does not qualify as the word of the Buddha. The SuTRAPItAKA and the VINAYAPItAKA of the Buddhist canon (TRIPItAKA), which are claimed to have been initially redacted at the first Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIRST), held in RAJAGṚHA soon after the Buddha's death, is considered by the tradition-along with the ABHIDHARMAPItAKA, which was added later-to be the authentic word of the Buddha; this judgment is made despite the fact that the canon included texts that were spoken, or elaborated upon, by his direct disciples (e.g., separate versions of the BHADDEKARATTASUTTA, which offer exegeses by various disciples of an enigmatic verse the Buddha had taught) or that included material that clearly postdated the Buddha's death (such as the MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA, which tells of the events leading up to, and immediately following, the Buddha's demise, or the NAradasutta, which refers to kings who lived long after the Buddha's time). Such material could still be considered buddhavacana, however, by resort to the four references to authority (MAHAPADEsA; CATURMAHAPADEsA). These four types of authority are found listed in various SuTRAs, including the eponymous PAli MahApadesasutta, and provide an explicit set of criteria through which to evaluate whether a teaching is the authentic buddhavacana. Teachings could be accepted as authentic if they were heard from four authorities: (1) the mouth of the Buddha himself; (2) a SAMGHA of wise elders; (3) a group of monks who were specialists in either the dharma (dharmadhara), vinaya (vinayadhara), or the proto-abhidharma (mAtṛkAdhara); or (4) a single monk who was widely learned in such specializations. The teaching should then be compared side by side with the authentic SuTRA and VINAYA; if found to be compatible with these two strata of the canon and not in contradiction with reality (DHARMATA), it would then be accepted as the buddhavacana and thus marked by the characteristics of the Buddha's words (buddhavacanalaksana). Because of this dispensation, the canons of all schools of Buddhism were never really closed, but could continue to be reinvigorated with new expressions of the Buddha's insights. In addition, completely new texts that purported to be from the mouths of the buddha(s) and/or BODHISATTVAs, such as found in the MAHAYANA or VAJRAYANA traditions, could also begin to circulate and be accepted as the authentic buddhavacana since they too conformed with the reality (dharmatA) that is great enlightenment (MAHABODHI). For example, a MahAyAna sutra, the AdhyAsayasaNcodanasutra, declares, "All which is well-spoken, Maitreya, is spoken by the Buddha." The sutra qualifies the meaning of "well spoken" (subhAsita), explaining that all inspired speech should be known to be the word of the Buddha if it is meaningful and not meaningless, if it is principled and not unprincipled, if it brings about the extinction and not the increase of the afflictions (KLEsA), and if it sets forth the qualities and benefits of NIRVAnA and not the qualities and benefits of SAMSARA. However, the authenticity of the MahAyAna sutras (and later the tantras) was a topic of great contention between the proponents of the MahAyAna and mainstream schools throughout the history of Indian Buddhism and beyond. Defenses of the MahAyAna as buddhavacana appear in the MahAyAna sutras themselves, with predictions of the terrible fates that will befall those who deny their authenticity; and arguments for the authenticity of the MahAyAna sutras were a stock element in writings by MahAyAna authors as early as NAGARJUNA and extending over the next millennium. Related, and probably earlier, terms for buddhavacana are the "teaching of the master" (S. sAstuḥ sAsanam) and the "dispensation of the Buddha" (buddhAnusAsanam). See also APOCRYPHA, DAZANGJING, GTER MA.
buddhavarsa. (P. buddhavassa; T. sangs rgyas kyi lo; C. foji; J. butsuki; K. pulgi 佛紀). In Sanskrit, "Buddhist Era." The term used for the Buddhist calendar calculated from the date of the final demise (S. PARINIRVAnA; P. parinibbAna) of the Buddha. There is general agreement among Buddhist traditions that the Buddha died in his eightieth year, but no consensus as to the date of his death and hence no agreement regarding the commencement of the Buddhist era. Dates for the parinirvAna given in texts and inscriptions from across Buddhist Asia range from 2420 BCE to 290 BCE. One of the more commonly used dates is 544/543 BCE, which is the year asserted for the Buddha's death by the THERAVADA tradition of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Use of the TheravAda calendar most likely originated in Sri Lanka, where it is attested in inscriptions dating from as early as the first century BCE. The same calendar appears in Burmese inscriptions beginning in the eleventh century, which coincides with that country's adoption of TheravAda Buddhism as its dominant faith. The earliest known record of its use in India is likewise relatively late, and dates from the thirteenth century in an inscription erected at BODHGAYA. Since at least the fifth century, the TheravAda traditions have asserted that the religion of the Buddha (P. buddhasAsana; see sASANA) would endure for five thousand years. Accordingly, in 1956 the halfway point in the life span of the religion was presumed to have been reached, an event that was celebrated with considerable millenarian overtones throughout the TheravAda world in the Buddha Jayantī ("Celebration of Buddhism"). A historically significant feature of the TheravAda calendar is that it places the coronation of the Mauryan emperor AsOKA 218 years after the parinirvAna of the Buddha. This contrasts with another ancient Buddhist calendar tradition, preserved primarily in Sanskrit sources, which instead places Asoka's coronation one hundred years after the parinirvAna. The two calendars have come to be designated in modern scholarship as the "long chronology" and "short chronology," respectively. According to the long chronology, the Buddha's dates would be 566-486 BCE. According to the short chronology, they would be 448-368 BCE. The precise dating of the Buddha's parinirvAna has been a contested issue among scholars for well over a century, and both the long and the short chronologies, as well as permutations thereof, have had their supporters. At present, there is widespread consensus, based primarily on Greek accounts and Asoka's own inscriptions, that Asoka ascended to the Mauryan throne in c. 265 BCE, or approximately sixty years later than what is reported in the long chronology. Scholars who accept this dating, but who still adhere to the TheravAda claim that the Buddha died 218 years before this event, therefore place the parinirvAna at c. 480 BCE. This is known as the "corrected long chronology" and is the theory upheld by many contemporary scholars of Indian Buddhism. Recently however, a number of historians have argued, based primarily on a reevaluation of evidence found in the DĪPAVAMSA, that the short chronology is the earlier and more accurate calendar, and that the parinirvAna should be moved forward accordingly to between c. 400 and 350 BCE. Many contemporary traditions of East Asian Buddhism now also follow the modern TheravAda system in which the Buddha's parinirvAna is calculated as 544/543 BCE.
buddhism ::: n. --> The religion based upon the doctrine originally taught by the Hindoo sage Gautama Siddartha, surnamed Buddha, "the awakened or enlightened," in the sixth century b. c., and adopted as a religion by the greater part of the inhabitants of Central and Eastern Asia and the Indian Islands. Buddha&
buddhist ::: n. --> One who accepts the teachings of Buddhism. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Buddha, Buddhism, or the Buddhists.
Buddhochinga (Sanskrit) Buddhociṅga “The name of a great Indian Arhat who went to China in the 4th century to propagate Buddhism and converted masses of people by means of miracles and most wonderful magic feats” (TG 68).
Budhaism or Budhism [from Sanskrit budha wisdom] The anglicized form of the term for the teachings of divine philosophy, called in India budha (esoteric wisdom). It is equivalent to the Greek term theosophia. It must be distinguished from Buddhism, the philosophy of Gautama Buddha, although this is a direct and pure derivative from budhaism.
buli wenzi. (J. furyumonji; K. pullip muncha 不立文字). In Chinese, lit. "not establishing words and letters"; a line summarizing the CHAN school's unique sense of its own pedigree, as a school of Buddhism that does not rely on the scriptural teachings of Buddhism but has a direct connection through the "buddhas and patriarchs" (FOZU) to the mind of the Buddha himself. The saying is later attributed to the school's traditional founder, BODHIDHARMA. According to GUIFENG ZONGMI's CHANYUAN ZHUQUANJI DUXU, the Indian monk Bodhidharma taught that the mind was the DHARMA and he transmitted this teaching from mind to mind (YIXIN CHUANXIN) without establishing words or letters. This phrase also often appears together with three other phrases: JIAOWAI BIECHUAN ("a special transmission outside the teachings"), ZHIZHI RENXIN ("directly pointing to the human mind"), and JIANXING CHENGFO ("seeing one's own nature and becoming a buddha"). They appear together for the first time in the ZUTING SHIYUAN compiled in 1108 and soon became a normative teaching in the subsequent CHAN, SoN, THIỀN, and ZEN traditions. As a radical interpretation of the notion of UPAYA, the phrase buli wenzi remains to this day a controversial and frequently debated topic. Song-dynasty exponents of "lettered Chan" (WENZI CHAN), such as JUEFAN HUIHONG (1071-1128), decried the bibliophobic tendencies epitomized in this line and advocated instead that Chan insights were made manifest in both Buddhist SuTRAs as well as in the uniquely Chan genres of discourse records (YULU), lineage histories (see CHUANDENG LU), and public-case anthologies (GONG'AN).
Burnouf, Eugène. (1801-1852). French orientalist and seminal figure in the development of Buddhist Studies as an academic discipline. He was born in Paris on April 8, 1801, the son of the distinguished classicist Jean-Louis Burnouf (1775-1844). He received instruction in Greek and Latin from his father and studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He entered the École des Chartes in 1822, receiving degrees in both letters and law in 1824. He then turned to the study of Sanskrit, both with his father and with Antoine Léonard de Chézy (1773-1832). In 1826, Burnouf published, in collaboration with the young Norwegian-German scholar Christian Lassen (1800-1876), Essai sur le pali ("Essay on PALI"). After the death of Chézy, Burnouf was appointed to succeed his teacher in the chair of Sanskrit at the Collège de France. His students included some of the greatest scholars of day; those who would contribute to Buddhist studies included Philippe Edouard Foucaux (1811-1894) and FRIEDRICH MAX MÜLLER. Shortly after his appointment to the chair of Sanskrit, the Société Asiatique, of which Burnouf was secretary, received a communication from BRIAN HOUGHTON HODGSON, British resident at the court of Nepal, offering to send Sanskrit manuscripts of Buddhist texts to Paris. The receipt of these texts changed the direction of Burnouf's scholarship for the remainder his life. After perusing the AstASAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA and the LALITAVISTARA, he decided to translate the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA. Having completed the translation, he decided to precede its publication with a series of studies. He completed only the first of these, published in 1844 as Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien. This massive work is regarded as the foundational text for the academic study of Buddhism in the West. It contains Burnouf's highly influential analyses of various aspects of Sanskrit Buddhism as he understood them from the works received from Hodgson. It also contains hundreds of pages of translations of previously unknown works, drawn especially from the DIVYAVADANA and the AVADANAsATAKA. Burnouf died, apparently of kidney failure, on May 28, 1852. His translation of the Saddharmapundarīka, Le Lotus de la bonne loi, appeared that same year.
Bu ston chos 'byung. (Buton Chojung). A history of Buddhism in India and Tibet composed in 1322 by the Tibetan polymath BU STON RIN CHEN GRUB. The full name of the work is Bde bar gshegs pa'i bstan pa'i gsal byed chos kyi 'byung gnas gsung rab rin po che'i mdzod; it is available in English in the 1931-1932 translation of major parts by EUGÈNE OBERMILLER, done in collaboration with Mongolian monks educated in Tibetan monasteries. The text is in two parts: a history and an important general catalogue of Tibetan Buddhist canonical literature, one of the first of its kind. The first chapter of the Chos 'byung draws on the VYAKHYAYUKTI and is a general discussion of the exposition and study of Buddhist doctrine. The second chapter is a traditional history dealing with the spread of the doctrine in the human world, the three turnings of the wheel of DHARMA (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA), the councils (SAMGĪTI), the collection of the Buddhist doctrine into authoritative scriptures, the date of the Buddha, the followers who came after him, and the decline of the doctrine in India. The history of Buddhism in Tibet is divided into a section on the earlier (SNGA DAR) and later spread (PHYI DAR) of the doctrine. The third section is the general catalogue of Buddhist canonical literature in Tibetan translation. It is divided into SuTRAs and TANTRAs, then again into the words of the Buddha (bka') and authoritative treatises (bstan bcos). The words of the Buddha are subdivided based on the three turnings of the wheel of the dharma with a separate section on MAHAYANA sutras; treatises are divided into treatises explaining specific works of the Buddha (again subdivided based on the three turnings of the wheel of the dharma), general expositions, and miscellaneous treatises. Bu ston similarly divides the tantras into words of the Buddha and authoritative treatises and deals with both under the division into four "sets" (sde) of KRIYA, CARYA, and YOGA, and MAHAYOGA tantras. This latter division is again subdivided into method (UPAYA), wisdom (PRAJNA), and both (ubhaya) tantras. In MKHAS GRUB DGE LEGS DPAL BZANG's explanation (Rgyud sde spyi'i rnam bzhag), a work based on Bu ston's model, but incorporating the influential scheme of TSONG KHA PA, the divisions of mahAyoga are subsumed under the general category of ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA (highest yoga tantra). The tantric commentaries are organized following the same schema.
Bu ston rin chen grub. (Buton Rinchen Drup) (1290-1364). A Tibetan scholar, translator, and encyclopedist, renowned for systematizing the Tibetan Buddhist canon into its present form. According to Tibetan hagiographies, Bu ston was born into a lineage of tantric practitioners and considered a reincarnation of the Kashmiri master sAKYAsRĪBHADRA. Having mastered tantric ritual at an early age, he then received ordination at the age of eighteen. He trained under numerous teachers, studying all branches of Buddhist learning and eventually earned a reputation especially for his knowledge of the KALACAKRATANTRA. At age thirty, Bu ston accepted the abbacy of ZHWA LU monastery in central Tibet, where he authored and taught his most influential works; his entire corpus fills twenty-eight volumes in one edition. Bu ston's tenure at Zhwa lu was so influential that it provided the name for a new lineage, the so-called Zhwa lu pa (those of Zhwa lu) or the Bu lugs tshul (the tradition of Bu ston). In about 1332 Bu ston completed his famous history of Buddhism (BU STON CHOS 'BYUNG) and it was during this time that, based on previous canonical lists, he began to reformulate a classification system for organizing the Tibetan canon. Bu ston was not the only editor (among them were Dbu pa blo gsal and Bcom ldan rig pa'i ral gri), but he was the most important figure in the final redaction of the BKA' 'GYUR and BSTAN 'GYUR; he compared manuscripts from the two major manuscript collections at SNAR THANG and 'Tshal, added other works not found there, eliminated indigenous Tibetan works, decided on criteria for inclusion in the canon, standardized terminology, and decided on categories under which to include the many volumes. It is customary in modern works to include Bu ston in the SA SKYA sect and indeed his explanations of the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA and the ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA, among others, are considered authoritative by that sect. But his influence is not limited to that sect; for example, TSONG KHA PA's commentary on the perfection of wisdom (LEGS BSHAD GSER 'PHRENG), and his explanation of the different types of tantra (SNGAGS RIM CHEN MO) (both authoritative texts in the DGE LUGS sect) borrow heavily from Bu ston's work. Bu ston is one of several key figures in the history of Tibetan Buddhism to be referred to as kun mkhyen, or "all knowing."
Byang chub 'od. (Jangchup Ö) (late tenth century). Grandnephew of King YE SHES 'OD who successfully invited the Indian Buddhist monk and scholar ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA to Tibet. During the second half of the tenth century, Ye shes 'od (also known as Song nge) became the king of Mnga' ris (Ngari), now the far western region of Tibet. He sent a number of Tibetans to Kashmir (see KASHMIR-GANDHARA) to study Buddhism, among them the translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO whose return to Tibet in 978 marks the beginning of the later spread of Buddhism (PHYI DAR). (Others date the beginning to the start of the second MuLASARVASTIVADA ordination line, which began at about the same period.) According to a well-known story, Ye shes 'od wanted to invite the foremost Indian Buddhist scholar of the day, Atisa, to Tibet and traveled to the Qarluq (T. gar log) kingdom (probably to KHOTAN in present-day Chinese Xianjiang province), to raise funds. He was captured by the chieftain and held for ransom. Ye shes 'od sent a letter to his nephew Byang chub 'od, saying that rather than use money for a ransom to free him, he should use any money collected for his release to invite Atisa. Ye shes 'od died in captivity, but Byang chub 'od succeeded in convincing Atisa to come to Tibet where he had a great influence, particularly on the earlier followers of the BKA' GDAMS sect. The history of this period becomes more important in later Tibetan history when TSONG KHA PA, the founder of the DGE LUGS sect, described Atisa as the perfect teacher in his seminal work the LAM RIM CHEN MO. In the seventeenth century, when the Dge lugs rose to political power under the fifth DALAI LAMA and his supporters, Byang chub 'od and Atisa were incorporated into a complex founding myth legitimating Dge lugs ascendancy and the DGA' LDAN PHO BRANG government.
Caitya. [alt. Caitika; Caityasaila] (P. CetiyavAda; T. Mchod rten pa; C. Zhiduoshanbu; J. Seitasanbu/Seitasenbu; K. Chedasanbu 制多山部). In Sanskrit, "The Caitya Worshippers"; one of the three main subgroups of the MAHASAMGHIKA school of mainstream Buddhism, along with the KAUKKUtIKA and LOKOTTARAVADA [alt. EkavyavahArika]. Inscriptional evidence places the school in the Andhra region of India in the early second century CE, suggesting their possible association with the groups that PAli materials refer to collectively as the ANDHAKA. The Caitya school seems to have been named after its distinctive practice of worshipping shrines and sanctuaries (CAITYA). The founder of the school is presumed to have been a second MAHADEVA, who led a reconsideration of the five propositions about the qualities of an ARHAT offered by an earlier MAHADEVA, whom Buddhist sources from northern India consider to have fomented the initial schism of the mainstream Buddhist schools between the MahAsAMghika and the STHAVIRANIKAYA.
cakra. (P. cakka; T. 'khor lo; C. lun; J. rin; K. yun 輪). In Sanskrit, "wheel," "disc," or "circle"; a frequent symbol used to represent various aspects of Buddhism, from the Buddha, to the DHARMA, to Buddhist notions of kingship. When the Buddha first taught his new religion, it is said that he "turned the wheel of dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA) and the eight-spoked "wheel of dharma" (DHARMACAKRA) is subsequently used as a symbol for both the teachings as well as the person who rediscovered and enunciated those teachings. The ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA explains that the noble eightfold path (ARYAstAnGAMARGA) is like a wheel because it is similar in terms of the hub that is the support of the wheel, the spokes, and the containment rim. Right speech, action, and livelihood are like the hub, because they are the training in morality that provides support for concentration (DHYANA) and wisdom (PRAJNA). Right view, thought, and effort are like spokes, because they are the training in wisdom. Right mindfulness and concentration are like the rim because the spokes of right view and so forth provide the objective support (ALAMBANA) in a one-pointed manner in dependence on them. The dharmacakra appears in some of the earliest Buddhist art, often as an iconographic symbol standing in for the Buddha himself. The sign of a thousand-spoked wheel on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet is one of the thirty-two major marks of a great man (MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA), which is said to adorn the body of both a Buddha and a "wheel-turning emperor" (CAKRAVARTIN), his secular counterpart. A cakravartin's power is said to derive from his wheel of divine attributes, which rolls across different realms of the earth, bringing them under his dominion. The realm of SAMSARA is sometimes depicted iconographically in the form of a wheel, known as the "wheel of existence" (BHAVACAKRA), with a large circle divided into the six realms of existence (sAdGATI), surrounded by an outer ring representing the twelve links of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA). ¶ The term cakra is also important in Buddhist TANTRA, especially in ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA. According to various systems of tantric physiognomy, a central channel (AVADHuTĪ) runs from either the tip of the genitals or the base of the spine to either the crown of the head or the point between the eyebrows, with a number of "wheels" (cakra) along its course. In one of the systems, these wheels are located at the point between the eyebrows, the crown of the head, the throat, the heart, the navel, the base of the spine, and the opening of the sexual organ. Running parallel to the central channel to the right and left are two channels, both smaller in diameter, the LALANA and the RASANA. It is said that the right and left channels wrap around the central channel, forming knots at the cakras. Much tantric practice is devoted to techniques for loosening these knots in order to allow the winds (PRAnA) or energies that course through the other channels to flow freely and enter into the central channel. The cakras themselves are essential elements in this practice and other tantric meditative practices, with seed syllables (BĪJA), spells (MANTRA), deities, and diagrams (MAndALA) visualized at their center. The cakras themselves are often described as open lotus blossoms, with varying numbers of petals in different colors.
cakravartin. (P. cakkavattin; T. 'khor lo sgyur ba'i rgyal po; C. zhuanlun wang; J. tenrin'o; K. chollyun wang 轉輪王). In Sanskrit, lit. "wheel-turning emperor" or "universal monarch"; a monarch who rules over the entire universe (CAKRAVAdA), commonly considered in Buddhism to be an ideal monarch who rules his subjects in accordance with the DHARMA. Just as with a buddha, only one cakravartin king can appear in a world system at any one time. Also like a buddha, a cakravartin is endowed with all the thirty-two major marks of a great man (MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA). Hence, when the future buddha GAUTAMA was born with these marks, seers predicted that he had two possible destinies: to become a cakravartin if he remained in the world, or a buddha if he renounced it. A cakravartin's power derives from a wheel or disc of divine attributes (CAKRA) that rolls across different realms of the earth, bringing them under his dominion. The ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA lists four classes of cakravartin, depending on the basic element from which his disc is forged: (1) a suvarnacakravartin (referred to in some texts as a caturdvīpakacakravartin, or "cakravartin of four continents"), whose wheel is gold, who reigns over all the four continents of a world system (see CAKRAVAdA), and who conquers the world through the spontaneous surrender of all rival kings whose lands his wheel enters; (2) a rupyacakravartin, whose wheel is silver, who reigns over three continents (all except UTTARAKURU), and who conquers territory by merely threatening to move against his rivals; (3) a tAmracakravartin, whose wheel is copper, who reigns over two continents (JAMBUDVĪPA and VIDEHA), and who conquers territory after initiating battle with his rivals; (4) an ayascakravartin, whose wheel is iron, who reigns over one continent (Jambudvīpa only), and who conquers territory only after extended warfare with his rivals. Some texts refer to a balacakravartin or "armed cakravartin," who corresponds to the fourth category. The cakravartins discussed in the sutras typically refers to a suvarnacakravartin, who conquers the world through the sheer power of his righteousness and charisma. He possesses the ten royal qualities (rAjadharma) of charity, good conduct, nonattachment, straightforwardness, gentleness, austerity, nonanger, noninjury, patience, and tolerance. A cakravartin is also said to possess seven precious things (RATNA): a wheel (cakra), an elephant (HASTINAGA), a horse (asva), a wish-granting gem (MAnI), a woman (strī), a financial steward or treasurer (GṚHAPATI), and a counselor (parinAyaka). Various kings over the course of Asian history have been declared, or have declared themselves to be, cakravartins. The most famous is the Mauryan emperor AsOKA, whose extensive territorial conquests, coupled with his presumed support for the dharma and the SAMGHA, rendered him the ideal paradigm of Buddhist kingship.
CAmadevīvaMsa. In PAli, "History of Queen CAma"; a chronicle in mixed prose and verse written by MahAthera BodhiraMsi at Lamphun (HaripuNjaya) in northern Thailand, sometime between 1460 and 1530 CE. The text recounts the accession of Queen CAma to the throne of Haripunjaya in the seventh century CE and the introduction of THERAVADA Buddhism as the state religion under her patronage. The work begins with an account of the legendary visit by the Buddha to the site of Lamphun, where he prophesied the city's future greatness, and goes on to describe its founding under the direction of various sages. The narrative concludes with accounts of the reigns of kings after Queen CAma, culminating with AdityarAjA who flourished in the eleventh century.
Candragomin. (T. Btsun pa zla ba). Fifth-century CE Indian lay poet and grammarian, who made substantial contributions to Sanskrit grammar, founding what was known as the CAndra school. A junior contemporary of the great KAlidAsa, Candragomin was one of the most accomplished poets in the history of Indian Buddhism. His play LokAnanda, which tells the story of the BODHISATTVA king Manicuda, is the oldest extant Buddhist play and was widely performed in the centuries after its composition. He was a devotee of TARA and composed several works in her praise. Tibetan works describe him as a proponent of VIJNANAVADA who engaged in debate with CANDRAKĪRTI, but there is little philosophical content in his works that can be confidently ascribed to him. Among those works are the "Letter to a Disciple" (sisyalekha), the "Confessional Praise" (DesanAstava), and perhaps the "Twenty Verses on the Bodhisattva Precepts" (BodhisattvasaMvaraviMsaka).
Candrakīrti. (T. Zla ba grags pa) (c. 600-650). An important MADHYAMAKA master and commentator on the works of NAGARJUNA and ARYADEVA, associated especially with what would later be known as the PRASAnGIKA branch of Madhyamaka. Very little is known about his life; according to Tibetan sources, he was from south India and a student of Kamalabuddhi. He may have been a monk of NALANDA. He wrote commentaries on NAgArjuna's YUKTIsAstIKA and suNYATASAPTATI as well as Aryadeva's CATUḤsATAKA. His two most famous and influential works, however, are his PRASANNAPADA ("Clear Words"), which is a commentary on NAgArjuna's MuLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA, and his MADHYAMAKAVATARA ("Entrance to the Middle Way"). In the first chapter of the PrasannapadA, he defends the approach of BUDDHAPALITA against the criticism of BHAVAVIVEKA in their own commentaries on the MulamadhyamakakArikA. Candrakīrti argues that it is inappropriate for the Madhyamaka to use what is called an autonomous syllogism (SVATANTRAPRAYOGA) in debating with an opponent and that the Madhyamaka should instead use a consequence (PRASAnGA). It is largely based on Candrakīrti's discussion that Tibetan scholars retrospectively identified two subschools of Madhyamaka, the SVATANTRIKA (in which they placed BhAvaviveka) and the PrAsangika (in which they placed BuddhapAlita and Candrakīrti). Candrakīrti's other important work is the MadhyamakAvatAra, written in verse with an autocommentary. It is intended as a general introduction to the MulamadhyamakakArikA, and provides what Candrakīrti regards as the soteriological context for NAgArjuna's work. It sets forth the BODHISATTVA path, under the rubric of the ten bodhisattva stages (BHuMI; DAsABHuMI) and the ten perfections (PARAMITA). By far the longest and most influential chapter of the text is the sixth, dealing with the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA), where Candrakīrti discusses the two truths (SATYADVAYA), offers a critique of CITTAMATRA, and sets forth the reasoning for proving the selflessness of phenomena (DHARMANAIRATMYA) and the selflessness of the person (PUDGALANAIRATMYA), using his famous sevenfold analysis of a chariot as an example. Candrakīrti seems to have had little influence in the first centuries after his death, perhaps accounting for the fact that his works were not translated into Chinese (until the 1940s). There appears to have been a revival of interest in his works in India, especially in Kashmir, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, at the time of the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism to Tibet. Over the next few centuries, Candrakīrti's works became increasingly important in Tibet, such that eventually the MadhyamakAvatAra became the locus classicus for the study of Madhyamaka in Tibet, studied and commented upon by scholars of all sects and serving as one of the "five texts" (GZHUNG LNGA) of the DGE LUGS curriculum. ¶ There appear to be later Indian authors who were called, or called themselves, Candrakīrti. These include the authors of the Trisaranasaptati and the MadhyamakAvatAraprajNA, neither of which appears to have been written by the author described above. Of particular importance is yet another Candrakīrti, or CandrakīrtipAda, the author of the Pradīpoddyotana, an influential commentary on the GUHYASAMAJATANTRA. Scholars often refer to this author as Candrakīrti II or "the tantric Candrakīrti."
CariyApitaka. In PAli, "The Basket of Conduct"; fifteenth book of the KHUDDAKANIKAYA of the PAli SUTTAPItAKA. According to traditional accounts, the text was preached by Gotama (S. GAUTAMA) Buddha immediately after the BUDDHAVAMSA at the request of SAriputta (S. sARIPUTRA). Centuries later, the missionary MAHINDA is said to have converted thousands of Sri Lankans to Buddhism when he recited it in ANURADHAPURA. Divided into three chapters (vagga), the book contains thirty-five stories in verse of previous lives of the Buddha. These stories recount and extol the ten perfections (P. pAramī, S. PARAMITA) that Gotama developed while striving for enlightenment through many lives as a bodhisatta (S. BODHISATTVA). The stories in this collection are called cariyA ("conduct," or "act"), whence the name of the text, and in content they parallel corresponding prose narratives found in the JATAKA. The PAli tradition recognizes ten perfections as requisite for attaining buddhahood: generosity (DANA), morality (sīla, S. sĪLA), renunciation (nekkhamma, S. NAIsKRAMYA), wisdom (paNNA, S. PRAJNA), energy (viriya, S. VĪRYA), patience (khanti, S. KsANTI), truthfulness (sacca, S. SATYA), resolution (adhitthAna, S. ADHIstHANA), loving-kindness (mettA, S. MAITRĪ) and equanimity (upekkhA, S. UPEKsA). Of these ten, only seven are enumerated in this text. The first vagga is comprised of ten stories concerning the perfection of generosity. The second vagga has ten stories concerning morality. The third vagga contains fifteen stories, five of which are devoted to renunciation, six to truthfulness, two to loving-kindness, and one each to the perfections of resolution and equanimity. A commentary to the text, attributed to DHARMAPALA, is included in the PARAMATTHADĪPANĪ.
Carus, Paul. (1852-1919). An early supporter of Buddhism in America and the proponent of the "religion of science": a faith that claimed to be purified of all superstition and irrationality and that, in harmony with science, would bring about solutions to the world's problems. Carus was born in Ilsenberg in Harz, Germany. He immigrated to America in 1884, settling in LaSalle, Illinois, where he assumed the editorship of the Open Court Publishing Company. He attended the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and became friends with several of the Buddhist delegates, including DHARMAPALA and SHAKU SoEN, who were among the first to promote his writing. Later, Shaku Soen's student, DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI, would spend eleven years working with and for Carus in LaSalle. In 1894, Carus published The Gospel of Buddha according to Old Records, an anthology of passages from Buddhist texts drawn from contemporary translations in English, French, and German, making particular use of translations from the PAli by THOMAS W. RHYS DAVIDS, as well as translations of the life of the Buddha from Chinese and Tibetan sources. Second only to Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia in intellectual influence at the time, The Gospel was arranged like the Bible, with numbered chapters and verses and a table at the end that listed parallel passages from the New Testament. The Gospel was intended to highlight the many agreements between Buddhism and Christianity, thereby bringing out "that nobler Christianity which aspires to the cosmic religion of universal truth." Carus was free in his manipulation of his sources, writing in the preface that he had rearranged, retranslated, and added emendations and elaborations in order to make them more accessible to a Western audience; for this reason, the translated sources are not always easy to trace back to the original literature. He also makes it clear in the preface that his ultimate goal is to lead his readers to the Religion of Science. He believed that both Buddhism and Christianity, when understood correctly, would point the way to the Religion of Science. Although remembered today for his Gospel, Carus wrote some seventy books and more than a thousand articles. His books include studies of Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Chinese thought.
*Caturasītisiddhapravṛtti. (T. Grub thob brgyad bcu rtsa bzhi'i lo rgyus). In Sanskrit, "The Lives of the Eighty-four Siddhas"; a tantric doxography ascribed to the early twelfth-century Indian author ABHAYADATTAsRĪ. The original Sanskrit version has been lost, but the text is preserved in Tibetan translation. The work records brief vitae for the great SIDDHAs (or mahAsiddhas) of Indian tantric Buddhism, who are commonly enumerated in a list of eighty-four. While the list varies, according to Abhayadattasrī's work, the eighty-four siddhas include Luyipa, Līlapa, VIRuPA, dombipa, savaripa, SARAHA, Kankaripa, Mīnapa, Goraksa, CaurAngi, Vīnapa, sAntipa, Tantipa, Camaripa, Khadgapa, NAGARJUNA, KAnḥapa, Karnaripa, Thaganapa, NAROPA, salipa, TILOPA, Catrapa, Bhadrapa, Dhukhandi, Ajokipa, Kalapa, Dhombipa, Kankana, Kambala, tengipa, Bhandhepa, Tandhepa, Kukkuripa, Kucipa, Dharmapa, Mahipa, Acinta, Babhahi, Nalina, Bhusuku, INDRABHuTI, Mekopa, Kotali, KaMparipa, JAlandhari, RAHULA, Dharmapa, Dhokaripa, Medhina, Pankaja, Ghandhapa, Yogipa, Caluki, Gorura, Lucika, Niguna, JayAnanda, Pacari, Campaka, Bhiksana, Telopa, Kumaripa, Caparipa, ManibhadrA, MekhalA, KanakhalA, Kalakala, Kantali, Dhahuli, Udheli, Kapalapa, Kirava, Sakara, Sarvabhaksa, NAgabodhi, DArika, Putali, Panaha, Kokali, Ananga, LaksmīnkarA, Samudra, and Vyali. See MAHASIDDHA.
Ceylon has become the seat of the Southern Buddhist Church, the Siamese Sect, the representation of the purest exoteric Buddhism outside of Tibet, the latter one home of the Mahayana school.
'Chad ka ba Ye shes rdo rje. (Chekawa Yeshe Dorje) (1102-1176). A scholar of the BKA' GDAMS sect of Tibetan Buddhism, most famous for his influential work on the practice of "mind training" (BLO SBYONG) called BLO SBYONG DON BDUN MA ("The Seven Points of Mind Training"). He is also known as Dge bshes Mchad kha ba (Geshe Chekawa).
'cham. A Tibetan term for precisely choreographed ritual dances usually performed by a group of monks in a monastery courtyard and generally coinciding with a major monastic festival or important religious event. In many cases, the dancers are dressed in elaborate costumes, including painted masks, with the performance involving varied routines during the course of several days. Some dances, such as the zhwa nag (black hat) dance, symbolize the subjugation of forces inimical to Buddhism. Others may represent episodes from the life of Buddhist personalities, including PADMASAMBHAVA and MI LA RAS PA, or aspects of their spiritual attainment. Monks generally begin to train while quite young, although the most experienced performers practice 'cham as a form of active meditation. The dances are most often public events, performed before crowds of lay Buddhists from surrounding villages. Most performances are therefore a combination of religious ritual and social gathering and nearly every large dance festival will include several jester figures to keep the public entertained during slow periods in the program. See also LHA MO.
Chan. (J. Zen; K. Son; V. Thièn 禪). In Chinese, the "Meditation," or Chan school (CHAN ZONG); one of the major indigenous schools of East Asian Buddhism. The Sinograph "chan" is the first syllable in the transcription channa, the Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit term DHYANA (P. JHANA); thus chan, like the cognate term chanding (chan is a transcription and ding a translation, of dhyAna), is often translated in English simply as "meditation." For centuries, the title CHANSHI (meditation master) was used in such sources as the "Biography of Eminent Monks" (GAOSENG ZHUAN) to refer to a small group of elite monks who specialized in the art of meditation. Some of these specialists adopted the term chan as the formal name of their community (Chan zong), perhaps sometime during the sixth or seventh centuries. These early "Chan" communities gathered around a number of charismatic teachers who were later considered to be "patriarchs" (ZUSHI) of their tradition. The legendary Indian monk BODHIDHARMA was honored as the first patriarch; it was retrospectively claimed that he first brought the Chan teachings to China. Later Chan lineage histories (see CHUANDENG LU) reconstructed elaborate genealogies of such patriarchs that extended back to MAHAKAsYAPA, the first Indian patriarch, and ultimately to the Buddha himself; often, these genealogies would even go back to all of the seven buddhas of antiquity (SAPTABUDDHA). Six indigenous patriarchs (Bodhidharma, HUIKE, SENGCAN, DAOXIN, HONGREN, and HUINENG) are credited by the established tradition with the development and growth of Chan in China, but early records of the Chan school, such as the LENGQIE SHIZI JI and LIDAI FABAO JI, reveal the polemical battles fought between the disparate communities to establish their own teachers as the orthodox patriarchs of the tradition. A particularly controversial dispute over the sixth patriarchy broke out between the Chan master SHENXIU, the leading disciple of the fifth patriarch Hongren, and HEZE SHENHUI, the purported disciple of the legendary Chinese monk Huineng. This dispute is often referred to as the "sudden and gradual debate," and the differing factions came to be retrospectively designated as the gradualist Northern school (BEI ZONG; the followers of Shenxiu) and the subitist Southern school (NAN ZONG; the followers of Huineng). The famous LIUZU TANJING ("Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch"), composed by the followers of this putative Southern school, is an important source for the history of this debate. Following the sixth patriarch, the Chan lineage split into a number of collateral lines, which eventually evolved into the so-called "five houses and seven schools" (WU JIA QI ZONG) of the mature Chan tradition: the five "houses" of GUIYANG (alt. Weiyang), LINJI, CAODONG, YUNMEN, and FAYAN, and the subsequent bifurcation of Linji into the two lineages of HUANGLONG and YANGQI, giving a total of seven schools. ¶ The teachings of the Chan school were introduced to Korea perhaps as early as the end of the seventh century CE and the tradition, there known as SoN, flourished with the rise of the Nine Mountains school of Son (KUSAN SoNMUN) in the ninth century. By the twelfth century, the teachings and practices of Korean Buddhism were dominated by Son; and today, the largest Buddhist denomination in Korea, the CHOGYE CHONG, remains firmly rooted in the Son tradition. The Chan teachings were introduced to Japan in the late twelfth century by MYoAN EISAI (1141-1215); the Japanese tradition, known as ZEN, eventually developed three major sects, RINZAISHu, SoToSHu, and oBAKUSHu. The Chan teachings are traditionally assumed to have been transmitted to Vietnam by VINĪTARUCI (d. 594), a South Indian brAhmana who is claimed (rather dubiously) to have studied in China with the third Chan patriarch SENGCAN before heading south to Guangzhou and Vietnam. In 580, he is said to have arrived in Vietnam and settled at Pháp Van monastery, where he subsequently transmitted his teachings to Pháp Hièn (d. 626), who carried on the Chan tradition, which in Vietnamese is known as THIỀN. In addition to the Vinītaruci lineage, there are two other putative lineages of Vietnamese Thièn, both named after their supposed founders: VÔ NGÔN THÔNG (reputedly a student of BAIZHANG HUAIHAI), and THẢO ĐƯỜNG (reputedly connected to the YUNMEN ZONG lineage in China). Chan had a presence in Tibet during the early dissemination (SNGA DAR) of Buddhism, and the Chan monk MOHEYAN was an influential figure at the Tibetan court in the late eighth century, leading to the famous BSAM YAS DEBATE.
Ch’an school of Buddhism: The Chinese equivalent of the Japanese Zen Buddhism (q.v.).
Chanyuan qinggui. (J. Zen'on shingi; K. Sonwon ch'onggyu 禪苑清規). In Chinese, "Pure Rules of the Chan Garden"; compiled by the CHAN master CHANGLU ZONGZE, in ten rolls. According to its preface, which is dated 1103, the Chanyuan qinggui was modeled on BAIZHANG HUAIHAI's legendary "rules of purity" (QINGGUI) and sought to provide a standardized set of monastic rules and an outline of institutional administration that could be used across all Chan monasteries. As the oldest extant example of the qinggui genre, the Chanyuan qinggui is an invaluable source for the study of early Chan monasticism. It was the first truly Chinese set of monastic regulations that came to rival in importance and influence the imported VINAYA materials of Indian Buddhism and it eventually came to be used not only in Chan monasteries but also in "public monasteries" (SHIFANG CHA) across the Chinese mainland. The Chanyuan qinggui provides meticulous descriptions of monastic precepts, life in the SAMGHA hall (SENGTANG), rites and rituals, manners of giving and receiving instruction, and the various institutional offices at a Chan monastery. A great deal of information is also provided on the abbot and his duties, such as the tea ceremony. Semi-independent texts such the ZUOCHAN YI, a primer of meditation, the Guijing wen, a summary of the duties of the monastic elite, and the Baizhang guisheng song, Zongze's commentary on Baizhang's purported monastic code, are also appended at the end of the Chanyuan qinggui. The Japanese pilgrims MYoAN EISAI, DoGEN KIGEN, and ENNI BEN'EN came across the Chanyuan qinggui during their visits to various monastic centers in China and, upon their return to Japan, they used the text as the basis for the establishment of the Zen monastic institution. Copies of a Chinese edition by a certain Yu Xiang, dated 1202, are now housed at the Toyo and Kanazawa Bunko libraries. The Chanyuan qinggui was also imported into Korea, which printed its own edition of the text in 1254; the text was used to reorganize Korean monastic institutions as well.
Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu. (J. Zengen shosenshu tojo; K. Sonwon chejonjip toso 禪源諸詮集都序). In Chinese, lit., "Prolegomenon to the 'Collected Writings on the Source of Chan'"; composed by the CHAN and HUAYAN exegete GUIFENG ZONGMI sometime between 828 and 835; typically known by its abbreviated title of "Chan Prolegomenon" (C. Duxu; J. Tojo; K. Toso) and often referred to in English as the "Chan Preface." The text is a comprehensive overview of the Chan collection (Chanyuan zhuquanji), which is said to have been one hundred rolls (juan) in length, but is now entirely lost. Pei Xiu's (787?-860) own preface to Zongmi's "Prolegomenon" describes this collection as a massive anthology of essential prose and verse selections drawn from all the various Chan schools, which was so extensive that Pei says it deserves to be designated as a separate "Chan basket" (Chanzang; see PItAKA), complementing the other "three baskets" (TRIPItAKA) of the traditional Buddhist canon. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of this massive collection of Chan material, Zongmi seeks to assess in his "Prolegomenon" the teachings of eight representative schools of Tang-dynasty Chan: JINGZHONG ZONG, Northern school (BEI ZONG), BAOTANG ZONG, Nanshan Nianfo men Chan zong, the Shitou school of SHITOU XIQIAN (which would eventually evolve into the CAODONG and YUNMEN schools), NIUTOU ZONG, the Heze school of HEZEI SHENHUI, and the HONGZHOU ZONG (or "Jiangxi" as it is called in the text) of MAZU DAOYI. In an effort to bridge both the ever-growing gap between the contending Chan lineages and also their estranged relations with the doctrinal schools (C. jiao, see K. KYO) that derive from the written scriptures of Buddhism, Zongmi provides in his "Prolegomenon" an overarching hermeneutical framework (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI) through which to evaluate the teachings of both the Chan and doctrinal schools. This framework is built around a series of polarities, such as the three core teachings of the scriptures and the three axiomatic perspectives of Chan, the words of the Chan masters and the mind of the Buddha, sudden awakening and gradual practice, and original enlightenment (BENJUE) and nonenlightenment. In order to demonstrate the continuities between Chan and jiao, Zongmi proceeds to demonstrate how various doctrinal traditions align with the three core teachings of the scriptures and how the eight representative Chan schools correlate with the three axiomatic perspectives of Chan. He then correlates the three doctrinal teachings with the three Chan perspectives, thus demonstrating the fundamental correspondence between the Chan and the scriptures. The last polarity he examines, that between original enlightenment and nonenlightenment, also enables Zongmi to outline an etiology of both delusion and awakening, which provides the justification for a soteriological schema that requires an initial sudden awakening followed by continued gradual cultivation (DUNWU JIANXIU). Zongmi's luster faded in China during the Song dynasty, but his vision of the Chan tradition as outlined in his "Prolegomenon" was extremely influential in YONGMING YANSHOU's ZONGJING LU; indeed, it is now believed that the Zongjing lu subsumes a substantial part of Zongmi's lost "Chan Canon" (viz., his Chanyuan zhuquanji). Zongmi and his "Prolegomenon" found a particularly enthusiastic proponent in Korean Son in the person of POJO CHINUL, who placed Zongmi's preferred soteriological schema of sudden awakening followed by gradual cultivation at the core of Korean Son practice. Zongmi's works continued to be widely read in Korea after Chinul's time and, since the seventeenth century, Korean Buddhist seminaries (kangwon) included the "Prolegomenon" (K. Toso) in the SAJIP ("Fourfold Collection"), the four key texts of the Korean monastic curriculum.
Chanyue Guanxiu. (J. Zengetsu Kankyu; K. Sonwol Kwanhyu 禪月貫休) (832-912). A Chinese CHAN monk famous as a poet and painter. His CHANYUE JI ("Collection of the Moon of Meditation") is one of the two most important collections of Chan poetry, along with the HANSHAN SHI. His rendering of the sixteen ARHAT protectors of Buddhism (sOdAsASTHAVIRA) became the standard Chinese presentation. His vivid portrayal of the arhats offers an extreme, stylized rendition of how the Chinese envisioned "Indians" (fan) or "Westerners" (hu), and gives each of his subjects a distinctive bearing and deportment and unique phrenological features and physical characteristics; these features are subsequently repeated routinely in the Chinese artistic tradition.
Chapada. A Mon disciple of Uttarajīva Thera who introduced reformed Sinhalese Buddhism into the Pagan empire of Burma during the reign of King Narapatisithu (r. 1173-1210 CE). According to the KALYAnĪ INSCRIPTIONS (1479), where his story is first told, Chapada traveled to Sri Lanka as a twenty-year-old novice in the company of his preceptor, Uttarajīva, shortly after the THERAVADA tradition of the island kingdom had been reformed by ParAkramabAhu I in accordance with the orthodox standards of the MAHAVIHARA. Chapada was given the UPASAMPADA higher ordination by both Uttarajīva and other patriarchs of the Sinhalese sangha (S. SAMGHA), thus becoming the first monk from Burma to be ordained into the MahAvihAra tradition. The joint ceremony is described as having symbolized the essential unity of the Burmese-Mon and Sinhalese monastic lineages. Despite this initial ecumenism, when Chapada returned to Burma after ten years of study on the island, he and his cohorts refused to join with the existing sangha of Pagan, and instead organized themselves into a separate monastic fraternity at the capital. The fraternity thus established became known as the Sīhala sangha, while the older "unreformed" congregation of monks of Pagan came to be known as the Ariya Arahanta sangha. The Sīhala sangha founded by Chapada continued to fragment so that by the end of the Pagan empire (late thirteenth century), there were at least ten separate monastic fraternities in Burma. The "KalyAnī Inscriptions" decry this disunity as a factor that ultimately weakened the vitality of the religion.
Ch'eng Ming-tao: (Ch'eng Hou, Ch'eng Po-tun, 1032-1086) Served as government official both in the capital and in various counties with excellent records in social and educational achievements. For decades he studied Taoism and Buddhism but finally repudiated them. Together with his brother, he developed new aspects of Confucianism and became the greatest Confucian since Mencius and a leader of Neo-Confucianism (li hsueh). His works and those of his brother, called Erh Ch'eng Ch'uan-shu (complete works of the Ch'eng brothers), number 107 chuans, in 14 Chinese volumes. -- W.T.C.
Cheng weishi lun shu ji. (J. Joyuishikiron jukki; K. Song yusik non sulgi 成唯識論述). In Chinese, "Explanatory Notes on the CHENG WEISHI LUN" (*VijNaptimAtratAsiddhi); by the Chinese YOGACARA monk KUIJI and probably compiled sometime between 659 and 682. In his preface, Kuiji praises VASUBANDHU and his TRIMsIKA, DHARMAPALA's *VijNaptimAtratAsiddhi (C. Cheng weishi lun) and XUANZANG for translating DHARMAPALA's text. Then, as do most commentaries of that period, Kuiji expounds upon the title of DharmapAla's text. In his subsequent introduction, Kuiji largely divides his commentary into five sections. In the first section, he ascertains the period in the Buddha's life to which the teachings belong (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI; PANJIAO) and discusses its audience, the BODHISATTVAs. In the second section, Kuiji discusses the tenets of the Cheng weishi lun, which he subsumes under the notion of "mind-only" (CITTAMATRA). In third section, Kuiji demonstrates that the Cheng weishi lun belongs to the "one vehicle" (EKAYANA) and the BODHISATTVAPItAKA. In the fourth section, short biographies and dates of the ten masters of the YOGACARA are provided. Kuiji then provides a detailed analysis of the Cheng weishi lun itself in the last section. Several commentaries on Kuiji's text have been written throughout the ages in East Asia. The Cheng weishi lun shu ji also exerted a considerable amount of influence on Silla-period Korean Buddhism and among the Nara schools of early Japanese Buddhism (see NARA BUDDHISM, SIX SCHOOLS OF).
Cheng weishi lun. (S. *VijNaptimAtratAsiddhi; J. Joyui-shikiron; K. Song yusik non 成唯識論). In Chinese, "Demonstration of Consciousness-Only"; a magnum opus of Sino-Indian YOGACARA Buddhism and the foundational text of the Chinese WEISHI, or FAXIANG, school. The text is often cited by its reconstructed Sanskrit title *VIJNAPTIMATRATASIDDHI, and its authorship attributed to DHARMAPALA (530-561), but the text as we have it in Chinese translation has no precise analogue in Sanskrit and was never used within the Indian or Tibetan traditions. Its Chinese translator XUANZANG (600/602-664), one of the most important figures in the history of Chinese Buddhist scholasticism, traveled to India in the seventh century, where he specialized in YogAcAra doctrine at NALANDA monastic university under one of DharmapAla's disciples, sĪLABHADRA (529-645). At NAlandA, Xuanzang studied VASUBANDHU's TRIMsIKA (TriMsikAvijNaptimAtratA[siddhi]kArikA), the famous "Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only," along with ten prose commentaries on the verses by the prominent YogAcAra scholiasts DharmapAla, STHIRAMATI, Nanda, CitrabhAnu, Gunamati, Jinamitra, JNAnamitra, JNAnacandra, Bandhusrī, suddhacandra, and Jinaputra. After his return to China in 645, Xuanzang set to work translating this massive amount of new material into Chinese. Rather than translate in their entirety all ten commentaries, however, on the advice of his translation team Xuanzang chose to focus on DharmapAla's exegesis, which he considered orthodox, rather than muddy the waters in China with the divergent interpretations of the other teachers. As a foil for DharmapAla's interpretation, Xuanzang uses the commentaries by Sthiramati, Nanda, and occasionally CitrabhAnu, but he typically concludes any discussion with DharmapAla's definitive view. This decision to rely heavily on DharmapAla's interpretation probably comes from the fact that Xuanzang's own Indian teacher, sīlabhadra, was himself a pupil of DharmapAla. ¶ The Cheng weishi lun is principally concerned with the origination and removal of ignorance (AVIDYA), by clarifying the processes by which erroneous perception arises and enlightened understanding is produced. Unlike the writings of STHIRAMATI, which understood the bifurcation of consciousness into subject and object to be wholly imaginary, the Cheng weishi lun proposed instead that consciousness in fact always appears in both subjective and objective aspects, viz., a "seeing part" (darsanabhAga) and a "seen part" (nimittabhAga). The apparent dichotomy between inner self and external images is a supposition of mentality (MANAS), which in turn leads to the various afflictions (KLEsA), as the mind clings to those images it likes and rejects those it dislikes; thus, suffering (DUḤKHA) is created and the cycle of rebirth (SAMSARA) sustained. Both the perceiving self and the perceived images are therefore both simply projections of the mind and thus mere-representation (VIJNAPTIMATRA) or, as Xuanzang translated the term, consciousness-only (WEISHI). This clarification of the perceptual process produces an enlightened understanding that catalyzes a transmutation of the basis (AsRAYAPARAVṚTTI), so that the root consciousness (MuLAVIJNANA), or ALAYAVIJNANA, no longer serves as the storehouse of either wholesome or unwholesome seeds (BĪJA), thus bringing an end to the subject-object bifurcation. In the course of its discussion, the Cheng weishi lun offers an extensive treatment of the YogAcAra theory of the eight consciousnesses (VIJNANA) and especially the storehouse consciousness (AlayavijNAna) that stores the seeds, or potentialities, of these representational images. The text also offers an overview of the three-nature (TRISVABHAVA) theory of vijNaptimAtra as imaginary (PARIKALPITA), dependent (PARATANTRA), and perfected (PARINIsPANNA). Finally, the Cheng weishi lun provides such exhaustive detail on the hundred dharmas (BAIFA) taxonomical system of the YogAcAra that it has been used within the tradition as a primer of YogAcAra dharma theory.
Chikchisa. (直指寺). In Korean, "Direct Pointing Monastery"; the eighth district monastery (PONSA) of the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located on Mount Hwangak in North Kyongsang province. The monastery purports to have been founded in 418 CE by the Koguryo monk Ado (fl. c. 418). There are three different stories about how the monastery got its name. The first version states that the name originated when Ado pointed directly at Mount Hwangak and said, "At that place, a large monastery will be established." The second story says that a monk called Nŭngyo (fl. c. 936) laid out the monastery campus using only his hands and without using any other measuring devices; hence, the monastery was given the name "Direct Measuring" (chikchi). A third story connects the name to the famous line concerning the soteriological approach of the SoN or CHAN school: "direct pointing to the human mind" (K. chikchi insim; C. ZHIZHI RENXIN). With the support of the Koryo king Taejo (r. 918-943), Nŭngyo restored the monastery in 936; major renovations followed in the tenth century and again during the Choson dynasty. In 1595, during the Japanese Hideyoshi invasions, all its buildings except the Ch'onbul Chon (Thousand Buddhas Hall), Ch'onwang Mun (Heavenly Kings Gate), and Chaha Mun (Purple-Glow Gate) were burned to the ground. The monastery was rebuilt in a massive construction project that began in 1602 and lasted for seventy years. The monastery enshrines many treasures, including a seated figure of the healing buddha BHAIsAJYAGURU and a hanging picture of a Buddha triad (Samjonbul T'AENGHWA). Two three-story stone pagodas are located in front of the main shrine hall (TAEUNG CHoN) and other three-story pagodas are located in front of the Piro chon (VAIROCANA Hall).
Chiliocosm (Greek) [from chilioi thousand + kosmos world] In Northern Buddhism, a world made up of a thousand regions; spoken of as equivalent to Sahalo-Kadhatu [Saha-lokadhatu] (ML 199), out of the many regions of which only three are named: kama-loka, rupa-loka, and arupa-loka. It is also stated that kama-loka has many subdivisions or subregions, so that the threefold enumeration is a rough summary of a manifold classification.
China. The traditional basic concepts of Chinese metaphysics are ideal. Heaven (T'ien), the spiritual and moral power of cosmic and social order, that distributes to each thing and person its alloted sphere of action, is theistically and personalistically conceived in the Shu Ching (Book of History) and the Shih Ching (Book of Poetry). It was probably also interpreted thus by Confucius and Mencius, assuredly so by Motze. Later it became identified with Fate or impersonal, immaterial cosmic power. Shang Ti (Lord on High) has remained through Chinese history a theistic concept. Tao, as cosmic principle, is an impersonal, immaterial World Ground. Mahayana Buddhism introduced into China an idealistic influence. Pure metaphysical idealism was taught by the Buddhist monk Hsuan Ch'uang. Important Buddhist and Taoist influences appear in Sung Confucianism (Ju Chia). a distinctly idealistic movement. Chou Tun I taught that matter, life and mind emerge from Wu Chi (Pure Being). Shao Yung espoused an essential objective idealism: the world is the content of an Universal Consciousness. The Brothers Ch'eng Hsao and Ch'eng I, together with Chu Hsi, distinguished two primordial principles, an active, moral, aesthetic, and rational Law (Li), and a passive ether stuff (Ch'i). Their emphasis upon Li is idealistic. Lu Chiu Yuan (Lu Hsiang Shan), their opponent, is interpreted both as a subjective idealist and as a realist with a stiong idealistic emphasis. Similarly interpreted is Wang Yang Ming of the Ming Dynasty, who stressed the splritual and moral principle (Li) behind nature and man.
Chinese Philosophy: Confucianism and Taoism have been the dual basis of Chinese thought, with Buddhism presenting a strong challenge in medieval times. The former two, the priority of either of which is still controversial, rivaled each other from the very beginning to the present day. Taoism (tao chia) opposed nature to man, glorifying Tao or the Way, spontaneity (tzu jan), "inaction" (wu wei) in the sense of non-artificiality or following nature, simplicity (p'u), "emptiness," tranquillity and enlightenment, all dedicated to the search for "long life and lasting vision" (in the case of Lao Tzu, 570 B.C.?), for "preserving life and keeping the essence of our being intact" (in the case of Yang Chu, c. 440-360 B.C.), and for "companionship with nature" (in the case of Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.). The notes of the "equality of things and opinions" (ch'i wu) and the "spontaneous and unceasing transformation of things" (tzu hua) were particularly stressed in Chuang Tzu.
Ching-fa-yin-Tsang (Chinese) The mystery of the eye of the good doctrine; in Chinese Buddhism, the esoteric teaching or interpretation of Gautama Buddha. However, “To any student of Buddhist Esotericism the term, ‘the Mystery of the Eye,’ would show the absence of any Esotericism” (BCW 14:444).
Chinhŭng wang. (眞興王) (534/540-576). Twenty-fourth king of the Korean Silla dynasty; his secular name was Kim Kongnŭngjong and his dharma name, Pobun (Dharma Cloud). He succeeded King Pophŭng at the age of seven and reigned for thirty-six years (r. 540-576). Later in his life he became a Buddhist monk and promoted the propagation of Buddhism in Silla. Following his footsteps, his queen, Lady Sado, also entered the SAMGHA and received the dharma name Myoju (Sublime Dwelling); she resided at a monastery called Yonghŭngsa. King Chinhŭng's reign is considered to be a turning point in the development of Buddhism in Silla. King Chinhŭng ordered the construction of the royal monastery Hŭngnyunsa, and after its completion allowed commoners for the first time to enter the saMgha. At his request, the hundred high-seat ceremony (paekkojwa pophoe) for the recitation of the RENWANG JING as well as the eight restrictions festival (P'ALGWANHOE; cf. C. BAGUAN ZHAI) were held for the first time in Silla. HWANGNYONGSA, the grandest monastery in Korea, was also built during his reign.
chinyong. (C. zhenying; J. shin'ei 眞影). In Korean, lit. "true image"; viz., a "monk's portrait." Although the term is known throughout the East Asian Buddhist traditions, it is especially associated with Korea; the related term DINGXIANG (J. chinzo, lit. "head's appearance") is more typically used within the Chinese and Japanese traditions. The employment of the term chinyong in Korea is a late Choson dynasty development; different terms were used in Korea before that era to refer to monk's portraits, including chinhyong ("true form"), sinyong ("divine image"), chinyong ("true appearance") and yongja ("small portrait image"). "Chin" ("true") in the compound refers to the inherent qualities of the subject, while "yong" ("image") alludes to his physical appearance; thus, a chinyong is a portrait that seeks to convey the true inner spirituality of the subject. Images of eminent masters who had been renowned patriarchs of schools, courageous monk soldiers, or successful fund-raisers were enshrined in a monastery's portrait hall. These portraits were painted posthumously-and, unlike Chinese dingxiang portraits, typically without the consent of the subjects-as one means of legitimizing the dharma-transmission lineage of their religious descendants; this usage of portraits is seen in both meditation (SoN) and doctrinal (KYO) monasteries. Korean monk portraits were not given out to individual disciples or lay adherents, as occurred in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, where dozens and even hundreds of portraits were produced by and for a variety of persons. In the context of the Korean Son school, the pictures additionally enhanced the Son Buddhist emphasis on the direct spiritual transmission (see YINKE) between master and disciple. The development of monk portraiture was closely tied to annual commemorative practices in Buddhist monasteries, which sought to maintain the religious bonds between the dharma ancestors and their descendants.
Chion'in. (知恩院). In Japanese, "Knowing Beneficence Cloister"; the headquarters of the JoDOSHu, or PURE LAND school of Japanese Buddhism, which was founded by HoNENs (1133-1212); located in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto. Chion'in was the site where Honen taught and where he died after a long period of fasting. His disciple Genchi (1183-1238) built the complex in his honor in 1234 and, still today, a statue of Honen is enshrined in the founder's hall. Most of the monastery was destroyed by fire in 1633, but the third Tokugawa shogun rebuilt the monastery in the middle of the seventeenth century with the structures present today. These include the main gate, or sanmon, built in 1619 and the largest gate of this type in Japan at seventy-nine feet tall. The oldest building on the monastery campus is the hondo, or main Buddha hall, built in 1633, which can hold three thousand people. Guesthouses from 1641 are roofed in the Irimoya style, and the roof beams on many of the buildings are capped with the Tokugawa three-hollyhock leaf crest. Various hallways in the monastery have also been built with "nightingale floors" (J. uguisubari)-floorboards with metal ends that rub on metal joints when someone walks across them, making them extremely squeaky. This flooring was specifically designed to sound an alarm in case any assassin might try to sneak into the sleeping quarters when the Tokugawa family stayed over at the monastery. The monastery's bell was cast in 1633 and weighs seventy-four tons; it is so massive that it takes seventeen monks to ring it when it is rung annually on New Year's Day.
Chogye chong. (曹溪宗). In Korean, the "Chogye order"; short for Taehan Pulgyo Chogye chong (Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism); the largest Buddhist order in Korea, with and some fifteen thousand monks and nuns and over two thousand monasteries and temples organized around twenty-five district monasteries (PONSA). "Chogye" is the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese Caoxi, the name of the mountain (CAOXISHAN) where the sixth patriarch (LIUZU) of CHAN, HUINENG, resided; the name is therefore meant to evoke the order's pedigree as a predominantly Chan (K. SoN) tradition, though it seeks also to incorporate all other major strands of Korean Buddhist thought and practice. The term Chogye chong was first used by the Koryo monk ŬICHoN to refer to the "Nine Mountains school of Son" (KUSAN SoNMUN), and the name was used at various points during the Koryo and Choson dynasties to designate the indigenous Korean Son tradition. The Chogye order as it is known today is, however, a modern institution. It was formed in 1938 during the Japanese colonial administration of Korea, a year after the monastery of T'aegosa was established in central Seoul and made the new headquarters of Choson Buddhism (Choson Pulgyo ch'ongbonsan). This monastery, later renamed CHOGYESA, still serves today as the headquarters of the order. The constitution of the order traces its origins to Toŭi (d. 825), founder of the Kajisan school in the Nine Mountains school of Son; this tradition is said to have been revived during the Koryo dynasty by POJO CHINUL, who provided its soteriological grounding; finally, the order's lineage derives from T'AEGO POU, who returned to Korea at the very end of the Koryo dynasty with dharma transmission in the contemporary Chinese LINJI ZONG. In 1955, following the end of the Korean War, Korean Buddhism entered into a decade-long "purification movement" (chonghwa undong), through which the celibate monks (pigu sŭng) sought to remove all vestiges of Japanese influence in Korean Buddhism, and especially the institution of married monks (taech'o sŭng). This confrontation ultimately led to the creation of two separate orders: the Chogye chong of the celibate monks, officially reconstituted in 1962, and the much smaller T'AEGO CHONG of married monks.
Chogyesa. (曹溪寺). In Korean, "Chogye Monastery"; the administrative headquarters of the CHOGYE CHONG, the largest Buddhist order in contemporary Korea, and its first district monastery (PONSA). In an attempt to unify Korean Buddhist institutions during the Japanese colonial period, Korean Buddhist leaders prepared a joint constitution of the SoN and KYO orders and established the Central Bureau of Religious Affairs (Chungang Kyomuwon) in 1929. Eight years later, in 1937, the Japanese government-general decided to help bring the Buddhist tradition under centralized control by establishing a new headquarters for Choson Buddhism (Choson Pulgyo Ch'ongbonsan) in the capital of Seoul. With financial and logistical assistance from the Japanese colonial administration, the former headquarters building of a proscribed Korean new religion, the Poch'on'gyo, was purchased, disassembled, and relocated from the southwest of Korea to the site of Kakhwangsa in the Chongno district of central Seoul. That new monastery was given the name T'aegosa, after its namesake T'AEGO POU, the late-Koryo Son teacher who received dharma transmission in the Chinese LINJI ZONG. After the split in 1962 between the celibate monks of the Chogye chong and the married monks (taech'o sŭng), who organized themselves into the T'AEGO CHONG, T'aegosa was renamed Chogyesa, from the name of the mountain where the sixth patriarch (LIUZU) of Chan, HUINENG, resided (see CAOXISHAN). This monastery continues to serve today as the headquarters of the Chogye chong. In addition to the role it plays as the largest traditional monastery in the city center of Seoul, Chogyesa also houses all of the administrative offices of the order.
Ch'onch'aek. (天頙) (1206-?). The fourth patriarch of the Korean White Lotus Society (PAENGNYoN KYoLSA) during the middle of the Koryo dynasty; also known as State Preceptor Chinjong ("True Calmness" or "True Purity," using homophonous Sinographs). Ch'onch'aek was a descendent of a Koryo merit official, who devoted himself to Confucian studies from a young age and passed the civil-service examinations at the age of twenty. At twenty-three, he became a monk under the tutelage of State Preceptor WoNMYO YOSE (1163-1245), the founder of the White Lotus Society (cf. BAILIAN SHE) at Mount Mandok in T'amjin county (present-day Kangjin in South Cholla province), and subsequently assisted his teacher Yose in the Society's campaign. In 1244, Ch'onch'aek traveled to Mimyonsa on Mount Kongdok in Sangju county (present-day Mun'gyong in North Kyongsang province) to open and lead the society there at the request of the renowned magistrate of Sangju, Ch'oe Cha (1188-1260). The Kongdoksan branch of the society was called the East White Lotus; the Mandoksan branch was by contrast called the South White Lotus. In the late 1250s or early 1260s, Ch'onch'aek returned to Mandoksan to become the fourth patriarch of the White Lotus Society. He later retired to Yonghyoram (Dragon Cavity Hermitage) on Mount Tongnyong, south of Mandoksan, where he continued an active correspondence with literati. Indeed, Ch'onch'aek maintained close associations with several of the famous literati of his time and invited them to participate in the activities of the White Lotus Society. Ch'onch'aek's thought reflects the historical realities of Korea during the Mongol invasion. In his letters to civil and military officials, Ch'onch'aek opined that killing the invading Mongol army would be an appropriate act for a BODHISATTVA, because it would stop the invaders from performing evil actions that would lead them to endless suffering in the hells. His Haedongjon hongnok ("Extended Record of the Transmission [of Buddhism] in Korea"), a four-roll collection of miracle tales related to worship of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") , sought to popularize that scripture also in order to help bring peace to the Korean peninsula. Ch'onch'aek's literary talent was so renowned that the famous Choson literatus Chong Yagyong (1762-1836) counted him among the three greatest writers of the Silla and Koryo dynasties. Ch'onch'aek's works, none of which are extant in full, include the Haedongjon hongnok and his literary collection, the Hosan nok ("Record of Lakes and Mountains"). Authorship of the SoNMUN POJANGNOK is attributed to Ch'onch'aek, although this attribution is still in question.
Ch'ongho Hyujong. (清虚休静) (1520-1604). Korean SoN master of the Choson dynasty; best known to Koreans by his sobriquet Sosan taesa (lit. the Great Master "West Mountain," referring to Mt. Myohyang near present-day P'yongyang in North Korea). Hyujong was a native of Anju in present-day South P'yongan province. After losing his parents at an early age, Hyujong was adopted by the local magistrate of Anju, Yi Sajŭng (d.u.), and educated at the Songgyun'gwan Confucian academy. In 1534, Hyujong failed to attain the chinsa degree and decided instead to become a monk. He was ordained by a certain Sungin (d.u.) on CHIRISAN in 1540, and he later received the full monastic precepts from Hyuong Ilson (1488-1568). Hyujong later became the disciple of the Son master Puyong Yonggwan (1485-1571). In 1552, Hyujong passed the clerical exams (SŬNGKWA) revived by HoŮNG POU, who later appointed Hyujong the prelate (p'ansa) of both the SoN and KYO traditions. Hyujong also succeeded Pou as the abbot of the monastery Pongŭnsa in the capital, but he left his post as prelate and spent the next few years teaching and traveling throughout the country. When the Japanese troops of Hideyoshi Toyotomi (1536/7-1598) invaded Korea in 1592, Hyujong's disciple Kiho Yonggyu (d. 1592) succeeded in retaking the city of Ch'ongju, but died shortly afterward in battle. Hyujong himself was then asked by King Sonjo (r. 1567-1608) to lead an army against the invading forces. His monk militias (ŭisŭnggun) eventually played an important role in fending off the Japanese troops. When the king subsequently gave Hyujong permission to retire, the master left his command in the hands of his disciple SAMYoNG YUJoNG; he died shortly thereafter. Hyujong is said to have had more than one thousand students, among whom Yujong, P'yonyang Ŭn'gi (1581-1644), Soyo T'aenŭng (1562-1649), and Chonggwan Ilson (1533-1608) are best known. Hyujong left a number of writings, including the SoN'GA KWIGAM, which is one of the most widely read works of the Korean Buddhist tradition. Other important works include the Samga kwigam, Son'gyo sok, Son'gyo kyol, and Solson ŭi. In these works, Hyujong attempted to reconcile the teachings of the Son and Kyo traditions of Buddhism, as well as the doctrines of Buddhism and Confucianism.
Chonghye Kyolsa. (定慧結社). In Korean, the "SAMADHI and PRAJNA Society"; an important Korean "retreat society" (kyolsa; C. JIESHI) during the Koryo dynasty. The first SamAdhi and PrajNA Society was established by the Korean SoN master POJO CHINUL at the monastery of Kojosa on Mt. Kong in 1188. At the invitation of a monk by the name of Tŭkchae (d.u.), Chinul and a handful of monks gathered at Kojosa in 1188 and formally began their retreat two years later in 1190. Throughout the retreat, Chinul continued to invite willing participants, both clergy and laity, to join the community. Among the most renowned of these recruits was the Korean CHoNT'AE CHONG (TIANTAI ZONG) adept WoNMYO YOSE (1163-1240). Seven years later, in 1197, the community had grown to such a size that Chinul began looking for a larger, more suitable site to relocate the community. A small, dilapidated monastery known as Kilsangsa on Mt. Songgwang was chosen as the new site, and reconstruction of the temple began immediately. King Hŭijong (r. 1204-1211) later renamed Kilsangsa SUSoNSA, or Son Cultivation Community; it is now the major monastery of SONGGWANGSA, the so-called SaMgha-Jewel monastery (Sŭngbo sach'al) of Korean Buddhism. Chinul's first composition, the Kwon su Chonghye kyolsa mun ("Encouragement to Practice: The Compact of the SamAdhi and PrajNA Society"), written in 1290, provides the rationale behind the establishment of the community and critiques PURE LAND adepts who claim that buddhahood cannot be achieved in the present lifetime.
chongjong. (宗正). In Korean, "supreme patriarch" (lit. "primate of the order"); the spiritual head of the CHOGYE CHONG (Chogye order) of Korean Buddhism. The term chongjong first began to be used in Korean Buddhism during Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) and has continued to be employed since 1954 when the celibate monks (pigu sŭng) established an independent Chogye order, which eventually excluded the married monks (taech'o sŭng) who had dominated monastic positions during the colonial period. A Korean Supreme Court ruling in 1962 ultimately gave the celibate monks title to virtually all the major monasteries across the nation and led to the Chogye order's official re-establishment as the principal ecclesiastical institution of Korean Buddhism, with the chongjong serving as its primate. The married monks subsequently split off from the Chogye order to form the independent T'AEGO CHONG. ¶ To be selected as chongjong, a candidate must be a minimum of sixty-five years of age and have been a monk for at least forty-five years; his rank in the Chogye order must be that of Taejongsa (great master of the order), the highest of the Chogye order's six ecclesiastical ranks. To select the chongjong, a committee of seventeen to twenty-five monks is appointed, which includes the Chogye order's top executive (ch'ongmuwonjang), council representative (chonghoe ŭijang), and head vinaya master (hogye wiwonjang); the selection is finalized through a majority vote of the committee members. The chongjong is initially appointed for a five-year term and is eligible for reappointment for one additional term. The contemporary Chogye order counts Wonmyong Hyobong (1888-1966), appointed in 1962, as its first chongjong.
Ch'ont'ae chong. (C. Tiantai zong; J. Tendaishu 天台宗). In Korean, "Altar of Heaven order"; a new order of Korean Buddhism, founded in 1966 by Won'gak Sangwol (1911-1974). Despite the order's name, which evokes that of the Chinese TIANTAI ZONG, the Ch'ont'ae chong is not heavily beholden to traditional Tiantai (K. Ch'ont'ae) doctrine and practice but is a thoroughly modern order, which seeks to respond to contemporary religious and social concerns. The school professes "aeguk Pulgyo" (patriotic Buddhism), which purports to contribute to the development of the nation through personal cultivation and social-welfare activities. Its primary method of spiritual cultivation involves the repetitive recitation of the name of Kwanseŭm posal (AVALOKITEsVARA bodhisattva), based in part on the constant-action SAMADHI (K. sanghaeng sammae; C. changxing sanmei), one of the four kinds of samAdhi attributed to the Chinese TIANTAI monk TIANTAI ZHIYI (538-597). The Ch'ont'ae order introduced a few distinctive elements that distinguish it from other Korean Buddhist orders, e.g., (1) all its followers, whether monks, nuns, or lay people, participate together in a one-month retreat each summer and winter, although monks and nuns have an additional fifty-five day retreat period that immediately follows the winter retreat; (2) monks observe the tradition of shaving their heads, while nuns keep their hair in a small chignon in order to distinguish themselves from laywomen. Since its inception, the order has emphasized lay activities: it encourages lay people to involve themselves in administrative affairs, such as temple finance; it founded the Kŭmgang Buddhist seminary, which offers a two-year program to educate lay people on Tiantai and general Buddhist doctrines and a one-year program to train lay propagators of Buddhism (p'ogyosa); finally, the order has also established Kŭmgang University (Geumgang Daehakkyo), which offers a full range of majors in both Buddhism and secular topics. The order is also active in social activities, such as the promotion of social welfare and environmental preservation. Its major temples are the Kuinsa headquarters founded by Sangwol in 1945 in North Ch'ungch'ong province; and Samgwangsa, founded in 1969 in Pusan. The school also has overseas branches in Canada, the United States, Denmark, and Mongolia.
Chos 'byung mkhas pa'i dga' ston. (Chojung Kepe Gaton). In Tibetan, "A Scholar's Feast of Doctrinal History"; the title of a seminal historical study of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, composed between 1545 and 1564 by the renowned scholar DPA' BO GTSUG LAG PHRENG BA. Due to the author's lineage affiliation as an incarnation (SPRUL SKU) of the BKA' BRGYUD sect, the text emphasizes the history and doctrine of the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD, tracing lines of transmission and doctrinal development, although it also addresses other Tibetan traditions more cursorily. There is an extensive section on Tibet's early imperial period, likely written on the basis of first-hand access to many original documents, ledgers, royal receipts, and historical notes, all long since lost. This religious history is therefore held by both Tibetan and Western scholars to be an authoritative and historically reliable source. It is also known as the Lho brag chos 'byung ("The Lho brag History of the Doctrine") in reference to the author's principal seat in the region of Lho brag in southern Tibet. Its complete title is Dam pa'i chos kyi 'khor los bsgyur ba rnams kyi byung ba gsal bar byed pa mkhas pa'i dga' ston.
Choson Pulgyo t'ongsa. (朝鮮佛教通史). In Korean, "A Comprehensive History of Choson Buddhism"; compiled by the Buddhist historian Yi Nŭnghwa (1868-1943). Yi's Choson Pulgyo t'ongsa is the first modern attempt to write a comprehensive history of Korean (or Choson as it was then known) Buddhism. The text was first published by Sinmun'gwan in 1918. The first volume narrates the history of Korean Buddhism from its inception during the Three Kingdoms period up until the time of the Japanese occupation. Information on the temples and monasteries established by Koreans and a report on the current number of monks and nuns are also appended to end of this volume. The second volume narrates the history of Buddhism in India after the Buddha's death. The compilation of the canon (TRIPItAKA; DAZANGJING) and the formation of the various schools and traditions are provided in this volume. The third and final volume provides a commentary on some of the more important events described in volume one. Yi relied heavily on biographies of eminent monks and stele inscriptions. Yi's text is still considered an important source for studying the history of Korean Buddhism.
Choson Pulgyo yusin non. (朝鮮佛教唯新論). In Korean, "Treatise on the Reformation of Korean Buddhism"; composed by the Korean monk-reformer HAN YONGUN in 1910. While sojourning in Japan, Han personally witnessed what to him seemed quite innovative ways in which Japanese Buddhists were seeking to adapt their religious practices to modern society and hoped to implement similar ideas in Korea. This clarion call for Buddhist reform was one of the first attempts by a Korean author to apply Western liberalism in the context of Korean society. Han attributed many of the contemporary problems Korean Buddhism was facing to its isolation from society at large, a result of the centuries-long persecution Buddhism had suffered in Korea at the hands of Confucian ideologues during the previous Choson dynasty (1392-1910). To help restore Buddhism to a central place in Korean society and culture, Han called for what were at the time quite radical reforms, including social and national egalitarianism, the secularization of the SAMGHA, a married clergy, expanded educational opportunities for monks, the transfer of monasteries from the mountains to the cities, and economic self-reliance within the monastic community. Both the Japanese government-general and the leaders of the Korean Buddhist community rebuffed most of Han's proposals (although several of his suggestions, including a married clergy, were subsequently co-opted by the Japanese colonial administration), but the issues that he raised about how to make Buddhism relevant in an increasingly secularized and capitalist society remain pertinent even to this day.
chuanfa. (J. denbo/denpo; K. chonpop 傳法). In Chinese, lit., "transmit the dharma"; the transmission from master to disciple that constitutes the genealogy or lineage of different schools of Buddhism. See CHUANDENG LU;CHUANFA ZHENGZONG JI; FASI; YINKE.
Chu dbar. (Chubar). A Tibetan name for the region of the Rongshar Valley in southern Tibet close to the Nepalese border, chiefly associated with the eleventh-century Tibetan YOGIN MI LA RAS PA; also spelled Chu 'bar. According to Mi la ras pa's biographies, many of the yogin's favored retreat sites were located in the Chu dbar area, a short distance from the famed enclave of LA PHYI. Foremost among these was 'Bri lce phug (Driche puk), or "Dri's Tongue Cave," which served as the site for his cremation. Many of Mi la ras pa's patrons hailed from Chu dbar and the neighboring village BRIN, both of which later came under the administrative control of 'BRI GUNG BKA' BRGYUD hierarchs. The region is also home to Chu dbar monastery, which was eventually directed by the tenth KARMA PA Chos dbying rdo rje (Choying Dorje, 1604-1674), but was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Nearby is Mt. Tseringma (Nepalese: Gaurishanker) which, together with four surrounding peaks, is believed to be the divine residence of the five long-life sister goddesses (TSHE RING MCHED LNGA) who were converted to Buddhism and became disciples of Mi la ras pa.
Chu sanzang jiji. (J. Shutsusanzoki shu; K. Ch'ul samjang kijip 出三藏集). In Chinese, "Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the TRIPItAKA"; edited by the monk SENGYOU (445-518) and published around 515. The Chu sanzang jiji is the first extant scriptural catalogue (JINGLU) and incorporates in its listings an even earlier catalogue by DAO'AN (312-385), the ZONGLI ZHONGJING MULU, which is now lost. The Chu sanzang jiji consists of five principal sections: (1) a discussion on the provenance of translated scriptures, (2) a record of (new) titles and their listings in earlier catalogues, (3) prefaces to scriptures, (4) miscellaneous treatises on specific doctrines, and (5) biographies of translators. Sengyou's catalogue established the principal categories into which all subsequent cataloguers would classify scriptures, including new or old translations, anonymous or variant translations, APOCRYPHA, anonymous translations, MAHAYANA and HĪNAYANA literature divided according to the three divisions of the TRIPItAKA, and so forth. The roster of texts includes translations of scriptures and commentaries from the Han to the Liang dynasties and compares the listings of these various translations in official scriptural catalogues in order to determine their authenticity. Short biographies of the various translators are also provided. Sengyou also discusses indigenous Buddhist literature, such as biographical and historiographical collections, scriptural prefaces, and the catalogues themselves, in order to provide subsequent generations with guidance on how properly to transmit Buddhist literature. Sengyou's text is as an important source for studying the early history of translation work and indigenous scriptural creation (see APOCRYPHA) in Chinese Buddhism.
Cihang. (慈航) (1895-1954). Chinese monk during the Republican Era and prominent disciple of the influential Buddhist reformer TAIXU; his mummified remains continue to be a major focus of relic worship in Taiwan. Cihang was first educated in the traditional Chinese Buddhist exegetical traditions of the CHAN, TIANTAI, and PURE LAND schools before beginning his studies in 1927 at Taixu's modern Buddhist academy in Minnan. It was there that Cihang was exposed to, and inspired by, Taixu's reformist ideals, and began his own active missionary career. Cihang's achievements as a missionary included establishing various Chinese Buddhist organizations and lecturing on Buddhism throughout Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Singapore, Burma, and Malaysia, where he was credited with promoting a type of "socially engaged Buddhism." Cihang was also the founder and editor of the Buddhist monthly Renjian ("Human Realm"), and served as abbot of various monasteries. Most notably, Cihang founded the renowned Mile Neiyuan (MAITREYA Buddhist Academy) in Taiwan for training young clergy who had recently relocated from the Chinese mainland, so that they would be able to minister to new Taiwanese converts to Buddhism. Cihang's classes on YOGACARA and other MAHAYANA traditions in and outside of the academy were influential on the way Chinese Buddhism spread, developed, and took root in Taiwan after the retreat of the Kuomintang (Guomindang) from the Chinese mainland in 1949. Cihang's mummified remains-in the form of his largely intact body-continue to be a source of great fascination and controversy in Taiwan. In addition to the many debates within both the secular and religious communities concerning his "whole-body relic" (QUANSHEN SHELI), a new cult of relic worship began in earnest as soon as the existence of his mummified body became publicized. Cihang's pious followers undertook extra measures to ensure the lasting preservation of his body. Cihang's mummy, still sitting in a meditative posture, remains on display inside the memorial building (Cihang guan) dedicated to him.
Cimin Huiri. (J. Jimin Enichi; K. Chamin Hyeil 慈愍慧日) (680-748). Founder of the Cimin lineage of Chinese PURE LAND Buddhism. Inspired by his meeting with the pilgrim and translator YIJING (635-713), Huiri also traveled to India between 702 and 719, where he is said to have studied with Indian teachers about SUKHAVATĪ, the pure land of AMITABHA and had a vision in which the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEsVARA personally instructed him in pure land teachings. After Huiri returned to China, he taught an ecumenical approach to pure land practice, which combined the practices of meditation, recitation, and discipline. Because Huiri's approach differs markedly from that offered by LUSHAN HUIYUAN (334-416) and TANLUAN (476-542), his teachings are sometimes considered to constitute a separate Cimin line of the Chinese pure land tradition. Huiri also made a concerted effort to respond to critiques of pure land practice made by adepts within the CHAN ZONG, who disparaged the pure land approach as an expedient intended for spiritually inferior practitioners. The Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756) bestowed on Huiri the posthumous title of Cimin Sanzang (TREPItAKA Compassionate Sympathy) for his service in transmitting the pure land teaching. Cimin's combination of recitation of the Buddha's name (NIANFO) with meditation subsequently influenced the nianfo Chan of YONGMING YANSHOU (904-975).
cintAmani. (T. yid bzhin nor bu; C. ruyi baozhu; J. nyoihoju; K. yoŭi poju 如意寶珠). In Sanskrit, "wish-fulfilling gem"; in Indian mythology a magical jewel possessed by DEVAs and NAGAs that has the power to grant wishes. The term is often as a metaphor for various stages of the path, including the initial aspiration to achieve buddhahood (BODHICITTOTPADA), the rarity of rebirth as a human being with access to the dharma, and the merit arising from the teachings of the Buddha. According to the Ruyi baozhu zhuanlun mimi xianshen chengfo jinlunzhouwang jing (also known simply as the Jinlunzhouwang jing), which describes in great detail the inexhaustible merit of this gem, the cintAmani is rough in shape and is comprised of eleven precious materials, including gold and silver, and has thirty-two pieces of the Buddha's relics (sARĪRA) at its core, which give it its special power. In the DAZHIDU LUN, the gem is said to derive from the brain of the dragon king (nAgarAja), the undersea protector of Buddhism, or, alternatively, to be the main jewel ornamenting the top of his head. The text claims that it has the power to protect its carrier from poison and fire; other texts say that the cintAmani has the capacity to drive away evil, clarify muddy water, etc. This gem is also variously said to come from the head of a great makara fish (as in the RATNAKutASuTRAs) or the heart of a GARUdA bird (as in the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING). Other texts suggest that while the king of the gods, INDRA, was fighting with the demigods (ASURA), part of his weapon dropped to the world and became this gem. The bodhisattvas AVALOKITEsVARA and KsITIGARBHA are also depicted holding a cintAmani so that they may grant the wishes of all sentient beings.
Citta. A lay follower of the Buddha, mentioned in PAli sources as being foremost among laymen who preached the DHARMA; also known as Cittagahapati. Citta was treasurer for the township of MacchikAsanda in the kingdom of KAsī. When he was born, the sky rained flowers of many hues, hence his name which means variegated color. Citta was converted to Buddhism when he encountered the elder MahAnAma (S. MAHANAMAN) while the latter was sojourning in MacchikAsanda. Citta was greatly impressed by the monk's demeanor and built a monastery for him in his park named AmbAtakArAma. There, listening to MahAnAma preach on the subject of the six senses, he attained to state of a nonreturner (ANAGAMIN). On one occasion, Citta visited the Buddha in the company of two thousand laypeople, bringing with him five hundred cartloads of offerings. When he bowed at the Buddha's feet, flowers in a variety of colors rained down from the heavens. Like MahAnAma, the Buddha preached a sermon on the six senses to him. Citta distributed offerings for a fortnight, the gods continuously refilling the carts. Citta was endowed with a great intellect and was a gifted speaker. His conversations with members of the order are recorded in the "Citta SaMyutta" of the PAli SAMYUTTANIKAYA, and he is also described as having refuted the views of non-Buddhist teachers, such as Nigantha NAtaputta (S. NIRGRANTHA-JNATĪPUTRA, viz., MahAvīra), the eminent JAINA teacher, and Acela Kassapa. Although he was not an ARHAT, he possessed the analytical knowledge (P. patisambhidA; S. PRATISAMVID) of a learner (P. sekha). It was for these aptitudes that he earned preeminence. On his deathbed, divinities visited him and encouraged him to seek rebirth as a heavenly king, but he refused, stating that such an impermanent reward was not his goal. He then preached to them, and to all the kinfolk who had gathered around him, before passing away. Together with HATTHAKA AlAVAKA, Citta is upheld as an ideal layman worthy of emulation.
cittamAtra. (T. sems tsam; C. weixin; J. yuishin; K. yusim 唯心). In Sanskrit, lit. "mind-only"; a term used in the LAnKAVATARASuTRA to describe the notion that the external world of the senses does not exist independently of the mind and that all phenomena are mere projections of consciousness. Because this doctrine is espoused by the YOGACARA, that school is sometimes referred to as cittamAtra. The doctrine is closely associated with the eight consciousness (VIJNANA) theory set forth in the "ViniscayasaMgrahanĪ" of the YOGACARABHuMIsASTRA and in the MAHAYANASAMGRAHA and ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA that are supplemental to that work. In East Asia, these texts are associated with the name of the MahAyAna writer ASAnGA and his quasi-mythological teacher MAITREYA or MAITREYANATHA. According to this theory, there are not only six consciousnesses (vijNAna), viz., the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile consciousnesses, and the mental consciousness (manovijNAna) well known to canonical Buddhism; there are two further consciousnesses, called the afflicted mind (KLIstAMANAS) and the storehouse consciousness (ALAYAVIJNANA). The AlayavijNAna is also known as the sarvabīja, or the consciousness that carries all the seeds or potentialities (BĪJA). The CittamAtra school holds that mental states leave a residual impression that is carried by the AlayavijNAna. These impressions (VASANA) literally "perfume" or "suffuse" this underlying consciousness, where they lie dormant as seeds. Among the many categories of seeds, two are principal: the residual impressions giving rise to a new form of life (VIPAKA) in the six realms of existence, and the residual impression that is basic ignorance causing all ordinary mental states to appear in a distorted way, i.e., bifurcated into subject and object. Vasubandhu, who is said to have been converted to the CittamAtra doctrine by his brother Asanga, argues in his TRIMsIKA (TriMsikAvijNaptimAtratA[siddhi]kArikA), the famous "Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only," that there could not possibly be an atomic basis for objects known by mind. In the absence of an atomic basis, only the ripening of the residual impressions left on the AlayavijNAna can account for the variety of mental states and experience, and only this doctrine of mind-only can properly account for the purification of mind and the final attainment of BODHI. The object and subject share the same mental nature because they both arise from the residual impressions left on the AlayavijNAna, hence the doctrine of cittamAtra, mind-only.
cittasaMtAna. [alt. cittasaMtati] (P. cittasantAna; T. sems rgyud/sems rgyun; C. xin xiangxu; J. shinsozoku; K. sim sangsok 心相續). In Sanskrit, "mental continuum." The notion of a continuum is employed in the ABHIDHARMA traditions to clarify that there is continuity between an action (KARMAN) that an individual undertakes and its eventual effect (VIPAKA) as well as continuity between one lifetime and the next, without going so far as to posit a perduring self (ATMAN). In the theory of karman, the fruition of action is experienced by the mental continuum (cittasaMtAna) of the being who initially performed the action, not by another; thus in mainstream Buddhism one can neither receive the fruition of another's karman, nor redeem another's actions. This notion of a mental continuum also serves to counter annihilationist interpretations (see UCCHEDAVADA; UCCHEDANTA) of the quintessential Buddhist doctrine of nonself (ANATMAN): there may be no permanent, underlying substratum of being that we can designate a self or soul, but this does not negate the continuity that pertains in the flow of moral cause and effect or the possibility of rebirth. Hence, there can be rebirth, moral efficacy, and spiritual progress despite the lack of a permanent self. See also BHAVAnGASOTA; SAMTANA.
Conze, Edward. [Eberhard (Edward) Julius Dietrich Conze] (1904-1979). An influential Anglo-German Buddhist scholar and practitioner, Edward Conze was born in London, the son of the then German vice consul, but was raised in Germany. He attended the universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Hamburg, where he studied both Western and Indian philosophy and Buddhist languages, including Sanskrit, PAli, and Tibetan. Conze was raised as a Protestant, but he also explored Communism and had a strong interest in Theosophy. Because of his deep opposition to the Nazi ideology, he became persona non grata in Germany and in 1933 moved to England. Although initially active with English socialists, he eventually became disillusioned with politics and began to study the works of DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI, whom he came to consider his informal spiritual mentor. Conze taught at various universities in the UK between 1933 and 1960, expanding the range of his visiting professorships to the USA and Canada in the 1960s. However, the Communist affiliations of his youth and his outspoken condemnation of the Vietnam War put him at odds with American authorities, prompting him to return to England. Conze was especially enamored of the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA) texts and the related MADHYAMAKA strand of Buddhist philosophy and became one of foremost scholarly exponents of this literature of his day. He saw Buddhism and especially Madhyamaka philosophy as presenting an "intelligible, plausible, and valid system" that rivaled anything produced in the West and was therefore worthy of the close attention of Western philosophers. He translated several of the major texts of the prajNApAramitA, including The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousands Lines and Its Verse Summary (1973), and The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom with the Divisions of the AbhisamayAlaMkAra (1975), as well as the VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA ("Diamond Sutra") and the PRAJNAPARAMITAHṚDAYASuTRA ("Heart Sutra"). His compilation of terminology derived from this translation work, Materials for a Dictionary of the PrajNApAramitA Literature (1967), did much to help establish many of the standard English equivalencies of Sanskrit Buddhist terms. Conze also wrote more general surveys of Buddhist philosophy and history, including Buddhism: Its Essence and Development (1951) and Buddhist Thought in India (1962).
Corresponding to the three Logoi in the Hindu scheme are Brahman, Brahma, and Isvara emanating originally from parabrahman-mulaprakriti. In the highly philosophical visioning of Mahayana Buddhism is adi-buddha, mahabuddhi, and the celestial buddha, occasionally indirectly called dharmakaya. On a scale of less magnitude, Hindu thought has developed the triad Brahma, the emanator or original emanation; Vishnu, the supporter or sustainer, a feminine characteristic nevertheless; and Siva at once the regenerator and producer in the sense of destroying but to regenerate. Still a third Hindu scheme is found in the series of paramatman, mahabuddhi or alaya, and mahat or cosmic creative mind.
Cosmically the four cardinal points represent a certain stage of manifestation where the three become four, in this case the number of matter. The Zohar says that the three primordial elements and the four cardinal points and all the forces of nature form the Voice of the Will, which is the manifested Logos. The Dodonaean Zeus includes in himself the four elements and the four cardinal points. Brahma is likewise four-faced. The pyramid is the triangle repeated on the four cardinal points and symbolizes, among other things, the phenomenal merging into the noumenal. The four cardinal points are presided over, or are manifestations of, four cosmic genii, dragons, maharajas — in Buddhism the chatur-maharajas (four great kings) — hidden dragons of wisdom, or celestial nagas. Hinduism has the four, six, or eight lokapalas. In the Egyptian and Jewish temples these points were represented by the four colors of the curtain hung before the Adytum. See also EAST; NORTH; SOUTH; WEST
Council, 5th. What Burmese Buddhism regards as the fifth council was convened in 1868, when King MINDON MIN summoned 2,400 learned monks from throughout the kingdom to Mandalay to revise and recite the PAli tipitaka. The recitation of the canon lasted over a period of seven months. In 1871, the revised Burmese canon was inscribed in Burmese script on 729 stone slabs that were erected, each in its own shrine, in concentric rings around the massive Kuthodaw Pagoda (Pagoda of Great Merit). The entire complex occupies fourteen acres and is situated to the northeast of the fortified city at the base of Mandalay Hill. Nearby is the Sandamuni Pagoda, constructed along a similar plan; it enshrines 1,171 slabs on which are inscribed the PAli commentaries.
Cradle of Buddhism
Dabei zhou. (J. Daihiju; K. Taebi chu 大悲咒). In Chinese, "Great Compassion Spell," also known as the Qianshou zhou; an esoteric code (DHARAnĪ) associated with the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEsVARA in his guise as MAHAKARUnIKA, which is widely used liturgically in East Asian Buddhism, especially in funeral ceremonies. See the extensive treatment of this dhAranī in QIANSHOU JING, s.v.
Daci'ensi. (J. Daijionji; K. Taejaŭnsa 大慈恩寺). In Chinese, the "Beneficence of Great Compassion Monastery" or "Great Maternal Grace Monastery"; a major scholastic center during the Sui and Tang dynasties, located in the imperial capital of Chang'an (present-day Xi'an). Originally founded in 589 CE during the Sui dynasty as Wulousi (Free of Contaminants Monastery), it was later rebuilt in 648 CE during the Tang by the prince who would later become the Gaozong emperor (r. 649-683). The monastery was rebuilt to honor the prince's deceased mother, Empress Wende (601-636 CE), in whose memory it was given its new name. The monastery became best known as the base for the translation bureau established by the pilgrim and scholar XUANZANG (600/602-664 CE) and his collaborators, including WoNCH'ŬK (C. Yuance) and KUIJI. At the monastery, Xuanzang and his team translated much of the scholastic literature of Indian Buddhism, including the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA, *ABHIDHARMANYAYANUSARA, NYAYAMUKHA, and CHENG WEISHI LUN. In 652 CE, Xuanzang commissioned a pagoda, named the DAYAN TA (Great Wild Goose Pagoda), in order to house the numerous Sanskrit manuscripts and Buddhist images he had brought back with him from his sojourn in India; the originally five-story stone pagoda is still a major tourist attraction in Xi'an.
Daianji. (大安寺). In Japanese, "Great Peace Monastery"; one of the seven great monasteries of the ancient Japanese capital of Nara (NANTO SHICHIDAIJI). Daianji was founded in the Asuka area and, according to internal monastery records, was originally the Kudara no odera (Great Paekche Monastery) that was founded by Emperor Jomei in 639. When this monastery burned down in 642, Empress Kogyoku had it rebuilt and renamed it Daianji. If this identification with Kudara no odera is correct, Daianji has the distinction of being the first monastery in Japan founded by the court. The monastery moved to Nara in 716, following the relocation of the capital there in 710. The Koguryo monk Tohyon (J. Togen, fl. c. seventh century) lived at Daianji during the seventh century, where he wrote the Nihon segi, an early historical chronicle, which is no longer extant. Daianji was also the residence of the Indian monk BODHISENA (704-760), who lived and taught there until the end of his life. Bodhisena performed the "opening the eyes" (C. KAIYAN; J. KAIGEN; NETRAPRATIstHAPANA) ceremony for the 752 dedication of the great buddha image of Vairocana (NARA DAIBUTSU; Birushana Nyorai) at ToDAIJI, another of the great Nara monasteries. Daianji was also home to the Korean monk SIMSANG (J. Shinjo, d. 742) from the Silla kingdom, who was instrumental in introducing the teachings of the Kegon (C. HUAYAN; K. Hwaom) school of Buddhism to Japan. Since the time of another famous resident, KuKAI (774-835), Daianji has been associated with the SHINGONSHu of Japanese Buddhism. Daianji was at times quite grand, with two seven-story pagodas and many other buildings on its campus. After a fire destroyed much of the monastery in the 1200s, rebuilding was slow and the renovated structures were damaged once again by an earthquake in 1449. Daianji's fireproof treasury holds nine wooden images from the eighth century, including three different representations of the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEsVARA, including both his representations as AMOGHAPAsA (J. Fuku Kenjaku) and his thousand-armed manifestation (SAHASRABHUJASAHASRANETRAVALOKITEsVARA), as well as two of the four heavenly kings (S. CATURMAHARAJAKAYIKA; J. shitenno). The monastery also retains two famous images that are brought out for display for one month each year: in March, HAYAGRĪVA, and in October, the eleven-headed Avalokitesvara (Juichimen Kannon).
dai-gohonzon. (大御本尊). In Japanese, lit. "great object of devotion"; the most important object of worship in the NICHIREN SHoSHu school of Japanese Buddhism. The dai-gohonzon is a plank of camphor wood that has at its center an inscription of homage to the title of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra")-NAMU MYoHo RENGEKYo, as well as the name of NICHIREN (1222-1282), surrounded by a cosmological chart (MAndALA) of the Buddhist universe, written in Nichiren's own hand in 1279. By placing namu Myohorengekyo and his name on the same line, the school understands that Nichiren meant that the teachings of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra and the person who proclaimed those teachings (Nichiren) are one and the same (ninpo ikka). The dai-gohonzon has been enshrined at TAISEKIJI, the administrative head temple of Nichiren Shoshu, since the temple's foundation in 1290; for this reason, the temple remains the major pilgrimage center for the school's adherents. The dai-gohonzon itself, the sanctuary (kaidan) where it is enshrined at Kaisekiji, and the teaching of namu Myohorengekyo, are together called the "three great esoteric laws" (SANDAI HIHo), because they were hidden between the lines of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra until Nichiren discovered them and revealed them to the world. Transcriptions of the mandala, called simply GOHONZON, are inscribed on wooden tablets in temples or on paper scrolls when they are enshrined in home altars. See also DAIMOKU.
daimoku. (題目). In Japanese, lit. "title" of a scripture; the term comes to be used most commonly in the NICHIRENSHu and associated schools of Japanese Buddhism to refer specifically to the title of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"). The title is presumed to summarize the gist of the entire scripture, and the recitation of its title in its Japanese pronunciation (see NAMU MYoHoRENGEKYo) is a principal religious practice of the Nichiren and SoKKA GAKKAI schools. Recitation of the title of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra is called specifically the "diamoku of the essential teaching" (honmon no daimoku) in the Nichiren school. The Japanese reformer NICHIREN (1222-1282) advocated recitation of this daimoku as one of the "three great esoteric laws" (SANDAI HIHo), and he claimed it exemplified mastery of wisdom (PRAJNA) in the three trainings (TRIsIKsA).
dAka. (T. mkha' 'gro). In Sanskrit, a donor or sacrifice; in tantric Buddhism, another name for a VĪRA "hero"; the male counterpart of a dAKINĪ, particularly in the GAnACAKRA, a ritual tantric feast that may have originated as an actual assembly of tAntrikas engaged in antinomian behavior, including ingesting ritually impure foods and engaging in sexual relations. In Tibetan, the term dpa' bo (vīra) or "hero" is typically used instead of mkha' 'gro (dAka), although the latter term appears in traditional lists of the beings invited to the ganacakra (T. tshogs). In the title of such tantras as the dAKARnAVAMAHAYOGINĪTANTRA and the VAJRAdAKATANTRA, dAka seems to be used as an abbreviation of dAKINĪ.
dAkinī. (T. mkha' 'gro ma; C. tuzhini; J. dakini; K. tojini 荼枳尼). In Sanskrit, a cannibalistic female demon, a witch; in sANTIDEVA's BODHICARYAVATARA, a female hell guardian (narakapAlA); in tantric Buddhism, dAkinīs, particularly the vajradAkinī, are guardians from whom tAntrikas obtain secret doctrines. For example, the VAJRABHAIRAVA adept LAlitavajra is said to have received the YAMANTAKA tantras from vajradAkinīs, who allowed him to bring back to the human world only as many of the texts as he could memorize in one night. The dAkinī first appears in Indian sources during the fourth century CE, and it has been suggested that they evolved from local female shamans. The term is of uncertain derivation, perhaps having something to do with "drumming" (a common feature of shamanic ritual). The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean give simply a phonetic transcription of the Sanskrit. In Tibetan, dAkinī is translated as "sky goer" (mkha' 'gro ma), probably related to the Sanskrit khecara, a term associated with the CAKRASAMVARATANTRA. Here, the dAkinī is a goddess, often depicted naked, in semi-wrathful pose (see VAJRAYOGINĪ); they retain their fearsome element but are synonymous with the highest female beauty and attractiveness and are enlightened beings. They form the third of what are known as the "inner" three jewels (RATNATRAYA): the guru, the YI DAM, and the dAkinīs and protectors (DHARMAPALA; T. chos skyong). The archetypical Tibetan wisdom or knowledge dAkinī (ye shes mkha' 'gro) is YE SHES MTSHO RGYAL, the consort of PADMASAMBHAVA. dAkinīs are classified in a variety of ways, the most common being mkha' 'gro sde lnga, the female buddhas equivalent to the PANCATATHAGATA or five buddha families (PANCAKULA): BuddhadAkinī [alt. AkAsadhAtvīsvarī; SparsavajrA] in the center of the mandala, with LocanA, MAmakī, PAndaravAsinī, and TARA in the cardinal directions. Another division is into three: outer, inner, and secret dAkinīs. The first is a YOGINĪ or a YOGIN's wife or a regional goddess, the second is a female buddha that practitioners visualize themselves to be in the course of tantric meditation, and the last is nondual wisdom (ADVAYAJNANA). This division is also connected with the three bodies (TRIKAYA) of MahAyAna Buddhism: the NIRMAnAKAYA (here referring to the outer dAkinīs), SAMBHOGAKAYA (meditative deity), and the DHARMAKAYA (the knowledge dAkinī). The word dAkinī is found in the title of the explanation (vAkhyA) tantras of the yoginī class or mother tantras included in the CakrasaMvaratantra group.
Dalai Lama. (T. DA la'i bla ma). An honorific title given to members of a prominent Tibetan incarnation (SPRUL SKU) lineage belonging to the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lamas are traditionally revered as earthly manifestations of AVALOKITEsVARA, the BODHISATTVA of compassion and protector of Tibet. Although the term has become widely known outside the region, Tibetans most frequently refer to the Dalai Lama as Rgyal ba rin po che (Gyalwa Rinpoche) "Precious Conqueror," Sku mdun (Kundun) "The Presence," or Yid bzhin nor bu (Yishin Norbu) "Wish-fulfilling Gem." The name originated during the sixteenth century when ALTAN KHAN, ruler of the Tümed Mongols, bestowed the title on the Dge lugs teacher BSOD NAMS RGYA MTSHO by translating the prelate's name rgya mtsho ("ocean") into Mongolian as dalai. The name thus approximately means "ocean teacher." It is not the case, as is often reported, that the Dalai Lamas are so named because their wisdom is as vast as the ocean. After Bsod nams rgya mtsho, all subsequent incarnations have rgya mtsho as the second component of their name. At the time of his meeting with the Altan Khan, Bsod nams rgya mtsho was already a recognized incarnate lama of the Dge lugs. Bsod nams rgya mtsho became the third Dalai Lama and two of his previous incarnations were posthumously recognized as the first and second holders of the lineage. From that time onward, successive incarnations have all been known as the Dalai Lama. Although writings outside Tibet often describe the Dalai Lama as the head of the Dge lugs sect, that position is held by a figure called the DGA' LDAN KHRI PA, the "Throneholder of Ganden Monastery." The fourteen Dalai Lamas are:
dam can. (damchen). In Tibetan, "bound by oath"; a term for the pre-Buddhist Tibetan deities, also called ordinary or mundane (LAUKIKA) deities, who have been subjugated and made to take a solemn oath (SAMAYA) to protect Buddhism. According to traditional accounts, the Tibetan king KHRI SRONG SDE BTSAN encountered many hindrances during the construction of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at BSAM YAS. The Indian teacher sANTARAKsITA advised the king to invite PADMASAMBHAVA to subdue the malevolent spirits; these spirits, referred to generally as the "eight classes of gods and demons" (lha srin sde brgyad; see AstASENA), include the BRTAN MA BCU GNYIS, various local deities (yul lha) inhabiting mountain passes, plains, and peaks, and the spirits of powerful deceased persons (rgyal po). Illustrative is the account of the subjugation of the powerful rgyal po spirit RDO RJE GRAGS LDAN (in some accounts the emissary of a powerful spirit called PE HAR RGYAL PO), who becomes an important protector, particularly of the RNYING MA sect, and through the GNAS CHUNG oracle a protector of the Tibetan state.
Đàm Lựu. (曇榴) (1933-1999). A prominent Vietnamese nun, born on April 8, 1933, in Hà Đông province (in northern Vietnam). At the age of two, she visited Cự Đà Temple with her parents but refused to leave and so spent her childhood there. In 1948, she took novice precepts and was sent to study Buddhism at various temples in North Vietnam. In 1951, she received full ordination as a nun and, in 1952, followed her teacher to South Vietnam when he was appointed abbot of Dược Sư Temple in Gò Váp. After completing her baccalaureate degree, she moved to Phước Hòa Temple in Saigon. In 1964, she earned a scholarship to study social work in West Germany. While in Freiburg, she divided her time between her studies and assisting Vietnamese orphans in Germany. After returning to South Vietnam in 1969, she was appointed director of Lumbini Orphanage in Saigon. In 1977, she escaped from Vietnam and, in 1979, settled in San José, California. In 1991, she founded Đức Vien Temple, which has subsequently served as a site for Buddhist practice and a center for many Vietnamese cultural activities. Until her death in 1999, Đàm Lựu oversaw the training of many young nuns and encouraged them to enroll in colleges and universities in North America, as well as in India and Taiwan. She also gave financial assistance to various Buddhist colleges in Vietnam.
Dana (Sanskrit) Dāna [from the verbal root dā to give] The act of giving; gift, donation; in Buddhism the first of the paramitas: “the key of charity and love immortal” (VS 47).
dAna. (T. sbyin pa; C. bushi; J. fuse; K. posi 布施). In Sanskrit and PAli, "giving," "generosity," or "charity"; one of the most highly praised of virtues in Buddhism and the foundational practice of the Buddhist laity, presumably because of its value in weaning the layperson from attachment to material possessions while providing essential material support to the SAMGHA. It is the chief cause of prosperity in future lives and rebirth as a divinity (DEVA) in one of the heavens of the sensuous realm (KAMADHATU). There are numerous stories in the AVADANA and JATAKA literatures that illustrate the virtues of giving, the most famous being that of Prince VisvaMtara (P. VESSANTARA), whose generosity was so profound that he gave away not only all his worldly possessions but even his wife and children. In other stories, BODHISATTVAs often give away their body or parts of their body (see DEHADANA; SHESHEN). The immediate karmic result of the practice of giving is said to be wealth in the future, especially as a divinity in one of the heavens. Giving, especially to the SAMGHA, is presumed to generate merit (PUnYA) that will accrue to the benefit of the donor in both this and future lifetimes; indeed, giving is the first in a standard list of meritorious acts, along with morality (sĪLA) and religious development (BHAVANA). In the "graduated discourse" (S. ANUPuRVIKATHA; P. ANUPUBBIKATHA) that the Buddha commonly used in instructing the laity, the discourse on giving (dAnakathA) was even more fundamental than the succeeding discourses on right conduct (sīlakathA) and the joys of rebirth in the heavens (svargakathA). Eight items are typically presumed to make appropriate offerings: food, water, clothing, vehicles, garlands, perfume, beds and dwellings, and lights. In yet another enumeration, there are three kinds of dAna: the "gift of material goods" (AMIsADANA); the gift of fearlessness (ABHAYADANA), and the "gift of the dharma" (DHARMADANA). Of all gifts, however, the greatest was said to be the "gift of the dharma" (dharmadAna), viz., spiritual instruction that will lead not just to better rebirths but to liberation from SAMSARA; it is this gift that the saMgha offers reciprocally to the laity. In MAHAYANA soteriology, giving is listed as the first of the six perfections (PARAMITA) cultivated on the bodhisattva path (see DANAPARAMITA). According to the PAli tradition, dAna is the first of ten perfections (P. pAramī). In some schools, a being who is incapable of even the modicum of detachment that is required to donate one's possessions through charity is thought to have eradicated his wholesome spiritual faculties (SAMUCCHINNAKUsALAMuLA; see also ICCHANTIKA) and to have lost for an indeterminate period any prospect of enlightenment.
Dao'an. (J. Doan; K. Toan 道安) (312-385). In Chinese, "Peace of the Way"; monk-exegete and pioneer of Buddhism during the Eastern Jin dynasty. A native of Fuliu in present-day Hebei province, at the age of eleven he became a student of the famous Kuchean monk and thaumaturge FOTUDENG. Fleeing from the invasions of the so-called northern barbarians, Dao'an and his teacher relocated frequently, with Dao'an finally settling down in the prosperous city of Xiangyang in Hubei province, where he taught for fifteen years. Learning of Dao'an's great reputation, the Former Qin ruler Fu Jian (338-385) amassed an army and captured Xiangyang. After the fall of Xiangyang, Fu Jian invited Dao'an to the capital of Chang'an and honored him as his personal teacher. Dao'an later urged Fu Jian to invite the eminent Central Asian monk KUMARAJĪVA to China. In order to determine the authenticity and provenance of the various scriptural translations then being made in China, Dao'an compiled an influential catalogue of scriptures known as the ZONGLI ZHONGJING MULU, which was partially preserved in the CHU SANZANG JIJI. He also composed various prefaces and commentaries, and his exegetical technique of dividing a scripture into three sections (SANFEN KEJING)-"preface" (xufen), "text proper" (zhengzongfen), and "dissemination section" (liutongfen)-is still widely used even today in East Asian scriptural exegesis. In Dao'an's day, the Indian VINAYA recensions had not yet been translated into Chinese, so Dao'an took it upon himself to codify an early set of indigenous monastic regulations known as the Sengni guifan fofa xianzhang (no longer extant) as a guide for Chinese monastic practice. Also traced to Dao'an is the custom of monks and nuns abandoning their secular surnames for the surname SHI (a transcription of the Buddha's clan name sAKYA; J. Shaku; K. Sok; V. Thích), as a mark of their religious ties to the Buddha's lineage. Among his many disciples, LUSHAN HUIYUAN is most famous.
dao. (J. do; K. to 道). In Chinese, Lit. "way" or "path"; a polysemous term in Chinese, which in Buddhist texts is used variously as the translation for terms related to "path" (MARGA) and "awakening" (BODHI); thus, "cultivating the way" (xiudao) means "practicing Buddhism" and "entering the way" (rudao) comes to be used as the equivalency in Chinese Buddhist texts for the idea of attaining enlightenment. But dao also has numerous other usages, including as a translation for the DHARMA as teachings (dao or daofa), the dharmas as factors (e.g., daopin for the BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA), and the realms of rebirth (e.g., edao as one of the translations of unfortunate destinies, viz., DURGATI or APAYA). In the premodern period, dao is also one of the closer Chinese equivalents for what in the West would simply be called "religion," so that the compound DAOREN ("person of the way") refers more generally to an accomplished adherent of a religion; in DAOSU, the term refers generically to a "religious" (dao) or renunciant, especially in distinction to a layperson (su), etc. The term is still often seen transcribed in English as tao or Tao, using the older Wade-Giles transcription. In East Asian Buddhist texts, dao only rarely refers to the religious tradition of Daoism/Taoism.
Daojiao yishu. (J. Dokyo gisu; K. Togyo ŭich'u 道教義樞). In Chinese, "The Pivotal Meaning of the Teachings of the DAO"; a text attributed to the Daoist priest Meng Anpai (d.u.); an encyclopedic work that provides a detailed explanation of thirty-seven matters of Daoist doctrine, five of which are now lost. Among the thirty-seven concepts explained in the text, there are concepts borrowed directly from Buddhism, such as the dharma body (DHARMAKAYA), three jewels (RATNATRAYA), three vehicles (TRIYANA), three realms of existence (TRILOKA [DHATU]), knowledge of external objects, and the PURE LAND of SUKHAVATĪ. The text also employs Buddhist terms, concepts, and classificatory systems throughout. The greatest Buddhist influence on this text came from the SAN LUN ZONG and especially from the teachings of the Sanlun master JIZANG. The Daojiao yishu was, in fact, written to demonstrate the sophistication of Daoist thought in response to Buddhist criticisms during the Tang dynasty. This text influenced the compilation of many later Daoist works, such as the Yunji qiqian.
Daosheng. (J. Dosho; K. Tosaeng 道生) (355-434). Influential Chinese monk during the Eastern Jin dynasty and renowned scholar of the MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA; also known as ZHU DAOSHENG. Daosheng was a native of Julu in present-day Hebei province. He became a student of the monk Zhu Fatai (320-387), changing his surname to Zhu in his honor. Daosheng received the full monastic precepts in his nineteenth year and took up residence at the monastery of Longguangsi in Jianye. Later, he moved to LUSHAN, where he studied under the eminent monk LUSHAN HUIYUAN. Daosheng also continued his studies under the famed translator and MADHYAMAKA scholar KUMARAJĪVA, and was later praised as one of KumArajīva's four great disciples. In 409, Daosheng returned to Jianye and made the controversial claim that even incorrigibles (ICCHANTIKA) may eventually attain enlightenment and that buddhahood is attained in an instant of awakening (DUNWU). For these claims, Daosheng was harshly criticized by the community of scholars in Jianye, which prompted Daosheng to return to Lushan once more. His interpretations were eventually corroborated in subsequent Chinese translations of the MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA and become emblematic of many important strands of indigenous Chinese Buddhism. Daosheng's teachings are quoted in many of his contemporaries' works and Daosheng himself is known to have composed numerous treatises and commentaries, including the Foxing dangyou lun ("Buddha Nature Perforce Exists"), Fashen wuse lun ("DHARMAKAYA Lacks Form"), Fo wu jingtu lun ("The Buddha has no Pure Land"), and Fahua jing yishu (a commentary on the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA).
Daoxuan. (J. Dosen; K. Toson 道宣) (596-667). Chinese VINAYA master and reputed patriarch of the Nanshan vinaya school (NANSHAN LÜ ZONG); also known as Fabian. Daoxuan was a native of Wuxing in present-day Zhejiang province (or, according to another report, Runzhou in Jiangsu province). Daoxuan became a monk at age fifteen and studied monastic discipline under the vinaya master Zhishou. He later moved to ZHONGNANSHAN and established the monastery of Nanquansi. Daoxuan was also a prolific writer. In 626, he composed the Sifen lü shanfan buque xingshi chao, one of the most influential commentaries on the SIFEN LÜ ("Four-Part Vinaya") of the DHARMAGUPTAKA school. The next year, he composed the Sifen lü shi pini yichao and the XU GAOSENG ZHUAN, Shijia fangzhi, JI GUJIN FODAO LUNHENG, and other texts in the following years. When the monastery XIMINGSI was established in 658 by Emperor Gaozong (r. 649-683) in the Tang capital of Chang'an, Daoxuan was invited to serve as its abbot. In 664, while at Ximingsi, Daoxuan compiled a comprehensive catalogue of scriptures known as the DA TANG NEIDIAN LU and, in continuation of his earlier Ji gujin fodao lunheng, wrote a collection of essays in defense of Buddhism entitled the GUANG HONGMING JI.
Dari jing shu. (J. Dainichikyosho; K. Taeil kyong so 大日經疏). In Chinese, "Commentary on the MAHAVAIROCANASuTRA"; dictated by sUBHAKARASIMHA and committed to writing with additional notes by his disciple YIXING. After Yixing's death, the Dari jing shu was further edited and expanded by the monks Zhiyan (d.u.) and Wengu (d.u.), and this new edition is known as the DARI JING YISHI. Both editions were transmitted to Japan (the Dari jing shu by KuKAI, Dari jing yishi by ENNIN) and they seem to have circulated without a determinate number of volumes or fixed title. SAICHo, for example, cites a fourteen-roll edition of the Dari jing shu, and Kukai cites a twenty-roll edition; Ennin cites a fourteen-roll edition of the Dari jing yishi, and ENCHIN cites a ten-roll edition. Those belonging to the Tomitsu line of Kukai's SHINGON tradition thus began to exclusively paraphrase the twenty-roll edition of the Dari jing shu, while those of the Taimitsu line of the TENDAI tradition relied solely on the version Ennin had brought back from China. The exact relation between the two editions remains a matter for further study. The first two rolls of the Dari jing shu, known more popularly in Japan as the "Kuchi no sho," provide notes and comments on the first chapter of the MAHAVAIROCANABHISAMBODHISuTRA and serve as an important source for the study of the MahAvairocanasutra's central doctrines. Numerous studies and commentaries on the Kuchi no sho exist. The rest of Yixing's commentary, known as the "Oku no sho," is largely concerned with matters of ritual and art (see MAndALA). Further explanations of the Oku no sho were primarily transmitted from master to disciple as an oral tradition in Japan; twelve such oral traditions are known to exist. The Dari jing shu played an important role in the rise of esoteric Buddhism (see TANTRA) in East Asia, and particularly in Japan.
Dar ma mdo sde. (Darma Dode, eleventh century). Chief son of the renowned Tibetan translator MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS. According to Mar pa's traditional biographies, he originally intended to make Dar ma mdo sde the principal heir to his most important teachings, especially the practice of transferring consciousness into-and thereby reanimating-a corpse (GRONG 'JUG). The son, however, died as a youth in an equestrian accident. As he was about to die, Mar pa gave him the instructions, and Dar ma mdo sde transferred his consciousness into the corpse of a nearby pigeon, who then flew to India, where he again transferred his consciousness into the corpse of a young brAhmana child. The revived brAhmana grew up to become a tantric adept named TI PHU PA ("Pigeon Man") and became an important link in the transmission of the nine aural lineage cycles of the formless dAkinīs (LUS MED MKHA' 'GRO SNYAN RGYUD CHOS SKOR DGU) for the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism. According to some traditions, the translator RWA LO TSA BA RDO RJE GRAGS PA used black magic to cause Dar ma mdo sde's fatal accident.
darsana. (P. dassana; T. mthong ba; C. jian; J. ken; K. kyon 見). In Sanskrit, lit. "seeing," viz., "vision," "insight," or "understanding." In a purely physical sense, darsana refers most basically to visual perception that occurs through the ocular sense organ. However, Buddhism also accepts a full range of sensory and extrasensory perceptions, such as those associated with meditative development (see YOGIPRATYAKsA), that also involve "vision," in the sense of directly perceiving a reality hidden from ordinary sight. Darsana may thus refer to the seeing that occurs through any of the five types of "eyes" (CAKsUS) mentioned in Buddhist literature, viz., (1) the physical eye (MAMSACAKsUS), the sense base (AYATANA) associated with visual consciousness; (2) the divine eye (DIVYACAKsUS), the vision associated with the spiritual power (ABHIJNA) of clairvoyance; (3) the wisdom eye (PRAJNACAKsUS), which is the insight that derives from cultivating mainstream Buddhist practices; (4) the dharma eye (DHARMACAKsUS), which is exclusive to the BODHISATTVAs; and (5) the buddha eye (BUDDHACAKsUS), which subsumes all the other four. When used in its denotation of "insight," darsana often appears in the compound "knowledge and vision" (JNANADARsANA), viz., the direct insight that accords with reality (YATHABHuTA) of the three marks of existence (TRILAKsAnA)-impermanence (ANITYA), suffering (DUḤKHA), and nonself/insubstantiality (ANATMAN)-and one of the qualities perfected on the path leading to the state of "worthy one" (ARHAT). Darsana is usually considered to involve awakening (BODHI) to the truth, liberation (VIMUKTI) from bondage, and purification (VIsUDDHI) of all afflictions (KLEsA). The perfection of knowledge and vision (jNAnadarsanapAramitA) is also said to be an alternate name for the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA), one of the six perfections (PARAMITA) of the bodhisattva path. In the fivefold structure of the Buddhist path, the DARsANAMARGA constitutes the third path. The related term "view" (DṚstI), which derives from the same Sanskrit root √dṛs ("to see"), is sometimes employed similarly to darsana, although it also commonly conveys the more pejorative meanings of dogma, heresy, or extreme or wrong views regarding the self and the world, often as propounded by non-Buddhist philosophical schools. Darsana is also sometimes used within the Indian tradition to indicate a philosophical or religious system, a usage still current today.
Dasabhumikasutra. (T. Sa bcu pa'i mdo; C. Shidi jing/Shizhu jing; J. Jujikyo/Jujukyo; K. Sipchi kyong/Sipchu kyong 十地經/十住經). In Sanskrit, "Scripture of the Ten Stages"; the definitive scriptural account of the ten "grounds" or "stages" (DAsABHuMI) at the upper reaches of the BODHISATTVA path (MĀRGA). In the sutra, each of the ten stages is correlated with seminal doctrines of mainstream Buddhism, as well as with mastery of one of a list of ten perfections (PĀRAMITĀ) completed in the course of training as a bodhisattva. The sutra appears as one of the chapters of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA and also circulated as an independent text. For a full treatment, see DAsABHuMI; BHuMI.
Dasa-bhumi: Sanskrit for ten stages. In Buddhist terminology, the ten stages of the spiritual development of a Bodhisattva (q.v.) toward Buddhahood. Each school of Buddhism has its own dasa-bhumi, but the most widely accepted set in Mahayana Buddhism is that set forth in the Dasa-bhumi Sastra, viz.: (1) The Stage of Joy, in which the Bodhisattva develops his holy nature and discards wrong views; (2) the Stage of Purity, in which he attains the Perfection of Morality; (3) the Stage of Illumination, in which he attains the Perfection of Patience or Humility, and also the deepest introspective insight; (4) the Stage of Flaming Wisdom, in which he achieves the Perfection of Meditation and realizes the harmony of the Worldly Truth and the Supreme Truth; (5) the Stage of Presence, in which he achieves the Perfection of Wisdom; (7) the Stage of Far-going, in which he attains the Perfection of Expediency by going afar and to save all beings; (8) the Stage of Immovability, in which he attains the Perfection of Vow and realizes the principle that all specific characters of elements (dharmas) are unreal; (9) the Stage of Good Wisdom, in which he achieves the Perfection of Effort, attains the Ten Holy Powers, and preaches both to the redeemable and the unredeemable; (10) the Stage of the Cloud of the Law, in which he attains mastery of Perfect Knowledge and preaches the Law to save all creatures, “like the cloud drops rain over all.”
dasabhumi. (T. sa bcu; C. shidi; J. juji; K. sipchi 十地). In Sanskrit, lit., "ten grounds," "ten stages"; the ten highest reaches of the bodhisattva path (MARGA) leading to buddhahood. The most systematic and methodical presentation of the ten BHuMIs appears in the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA ("Ten Bhumis Sutra"), where each of the ten stages is correlated with seminal doctrines of mainstream Buddhism-such as the four means of conversion (SAMGRAHAVASTU) on the first four bhumis, the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (CATVARY ARYASATYANI) on the fifth bhumi, and the chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) on the sixth bhumi, etc.-as well as with mastery of one of a list of ten perfections (PARAMITA) completed in the course of training as a bodhisattva. The list of the ten bhumis of the Dasabhumikasutra, which becomes standard in most MahAyAna traditions, is as follows: (1) PRAMUDITA (joyful) corresponds to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA) and the bodhisattva's first direct realization of emptiness (suNYATA). The bodhisattva masters on this bhumi the perfection of giving (DANAPARAMITA), learning to give away those things most precious to him, including his wealth, his wife and family, and even his body (see DEHADANA); (2) VIMALA (immaculate, stainless) marks the inception of the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA), where the bodhisattva develops all the superlative traits of character incumbent on a buddha through mastering the perfection of morality (sĪLAPARAMITA); (3) PRABHAKARĪ (luminous, splendrous), where the bodhisattva masters all the various types of meditative experiences, such as DHYANA, SAMAPATTI, and the BRAHMAVIHARA; despite the emphasis on meditation in this bhumi, it comes to be identified instead with the perfection of patience (KsANTIPARAMITA), ostensibly because the bodhisattva is willing to endure any and all suffering in order to master his practices; (4) ARCIsMATĪ (radiance, effulgence), where the flaming radiance of the thirty-seven factors pertaining to enlightenment (BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA) becomes so intense that it incinerates obstructions (AVARAnA) and afflictions (KLEsA), giving the bodhisattva inexhaustible energy in his quest for enlightenment and thus mastering the perfection of vigor or energy (VĪRYAPARAMITA); (5) SUDURJAYA (invincibility, hard-to-conquer), where the bodhisattva comprehends the various permutations of truth (SATYA), including the four noble truths, the two truths (SATYADVAYA) of provisional (NEYARTHA) and absolute (NĪTARTHA), and masters the perfection of meditative absorption (DHYANAPARAMITA); (6) ABHIMUKHĪ (immediacy, face-to-face), where, as the name implies, the bodhisattva stands at the intersection between SAMSARA and NIRVAnA, turning away from the compounded dharmas of saMsAra and turning to face the profound wisdom of the buddhas, thus placing him "face-to-face" with both the compounded (SAMSKṚTA) and uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA) realms; this bhumi is correlated with mastery of the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA); (7) DuRAnGAMA (far-reaching, transcendent), which marks the bodhisattva's freedom from the four perverted views (VIPARYASA) and his mastery of the perfection of expedients (UPAYAPARAMITA), which he uses to help infinite numbers of sentient beings; (8) ACALA (immovable, steadfast), which is marked by the bodhisattva's acquiescence or receptivity to the nonproduction of dharmas (ANUTPATTIKADHARMAKsANTI); because he is now able to project transformation bodies (NIRMAnAKAYA) anywhere in the universe to help sentient beings, this bhumi is correlated with mastery of the perfection of aspiration or resolve (PRAnIDHANAPARAMITA); (9) SADHUMATĪ (eminence, auspicious intellect), where the bodhisattva acquires the four analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), removing any remaining delusions regarding the use of the supernatural knowledges or powers (ABHIJNA), and giving the bodhisattva complete autonomy in manipulating all dharmas through the perfection of power (BALAPARAMITA); and (10) DHARMAMEGHA (cloud of dharma), the final bhumi, where the bodhisattva becomes autonomous in interacting with all material and mental factors, and gains all-pervasive knowledge that is like a cloud producing a rain of dharma that nurtures the entire world; this stage is also described as being pervaded by meditative absorption (DHYANA) and mastery of the use of codes (DHARAnĪ), just as the sky is filled by clouds; here the bodhisattva achieves the perfection of knowledge (JNANAPARAMITA). As the bodhisattva ascends through the ten bhumis, he acquires extraordinary powers, which CANDRAKĪRTI describes in the eleventh chapter of his MADHYAMAKAVATARA. On the first bhumi, the bodhisattva can, in a single instant (1) see one hundred buddhas, (2) be blessed by one hundred buddhas and understand their blessings, (3) live for one hundred eons, (4) see the past and future in those one hundred eons, (5) enter into and rise from one hundred SAMADHIs, (6) vibrate one hundred worlds, (7) illuminate one hundred worlds, (8) bring one hundred beings to spiritual maturity using emanations, (9) go to one hundred BUDDHAKsETRA, (10), open one hundred doors of the doctrine (DHARMAPARYAYA), (11) display one hundred versions of his body, and (12) surround each of those bodies with one hundred bodhisattvas. The number one hundred increases exponentially as the bodhisattva proceeds; on the second bhumi it becomes one thousand, on the third one hundred thousand, and so on; on the tenth, it is a number equal to the particles of an inexpressible number of buddhaksetra. As the bodhisattva moves from stage to stage, he is reborn as the king of greater and greater realms, ascending through the Buddhist cosmos. Thus, on the first bhumi he is born as king of JAMBUDVĪPA, on the second of the four continents, on the third as the king of TRAYATRIMsA, and so on, such that on the tenth he is born as the lord of AKANIstHA. ¶ According to the rather more elaborate account in chapter eleven of the CHENG WEISHI LUN (*VijNaptimAtratAsiddhi), each of the ten bhumis is correlated with the attainment of one of the ten types of suchness (TATHATA); these are accomplished by discarding one of the ten kinds of obstructions (Avarana) by mastering one of the ten perfections (pAramitA). The suchnesses achieved on each of the ten bhumis are, respectively: (1) universal suchness (sarvatragatathatA; C. bianxing zhenru), (2) supreme suchness (paramatathatA; C. zuisheng zhenru), (3) ubiquitous, or "supreme outflow" suchness (paramanisyandatathatA; C. shengliu zhenru), (4) unappropriated suchness (aparigrahatathatA; C. wusheshou zhenru), (5) undifferentiated suchness (abhinnajAtīyatathatA; C. wubie zhenru), (6) the suchness that is devoid of maculations and contaminants (asaMklistAvyavadAtatathatA; C. wuranjing zhenru), (7) the suchness of the undifferentiated dharma (abhinnatathatA; C. fawubie zhenru), (8) the suchness that neither increases nor decreases (anupacayApacayatathatA; C. buzengjian), (9) the suchness that serves as the support of the mastery of wisdom (jNAnavasitAsaMnisrayatathatA; C. zhizizai suoyi zhenru), and (10) the suchness that serves as the support for mastery over actions (kriyAdivasitAsaMnisrayatathatA; C. yezizai dengsuoyi). These ten suchnessses are obtained by discarding, respectively: (1) the obstruction of the common illusions of the unenlightened (pṛthagjanatvAvarana; C. yishengxing zhang), (2) the obstruction of the deluded (mithyApratipattyAvarana; C. xiexing zhang), (3) the obstruction of dullness (dhandhatvAvarana; C. andun zhang), (4) the obstruction of the manifestation of subtle afflictions (suksmaklesasamudAcArAvarana; C. xihuo xianxing zhang), (5) the obstruction of the lesser HĪNAYANA ideal of parinirvAna (hīnayAnaparinirvAnAvarana; C. xiasheng niepan zhang), (6) the obstruction of the manifestation of coarse characteristics (sthulanimittasamudAcArAvarana; C. cuxiang xianxing zhang), (7) the obstruction of the manifestation of subtle characteristics (suksmanimittasamudAcArAvarana; C. xixiang xianxing zhang), (8) the obstruction of the continuance of activity even in the immaterial realm that is free from characteristics (nirnimittAbhisaMskArAvarana; C. wuxiang jiaxing zhang), (9) the obstruction of not desiring to act on behalf of others' salvation (parahitacaryAkAmanAvarana; C. buyuxing zhang), and (10) the obstruction of not yet acquiring mastery over all things (fa weizizai zhang). These ten obstructions are overcome by practicing, respectively: (1) the perfection of giving (dAnapAramitA), (2) the perfection of morality (sīlapAramitA), (3) the perfection of forbearance (ksAntipAramitA), (4) the perfection of energetic effort (vīryapAramitA), (5) the perfection of meditation (dhyAnapAramitA), (6) the perfection of wisdom (prajNApAramitA), (7) the perfection of expedient means (upAyapAramitA), (8) the perfection of the vow (to attain enlightenment) (pranidhAnapAramitA), (9) the perfection of power (balapAramitA), and (10) the perfection of knowledge (jNAnapAramitA). ¶ The eighth, ninth, and tenth bhumis are sometimes called "pure bhumis," because, according to some commentators, upon reaching the eighth bhumi, the bodhisattva has abandoned all of the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA) and is thus liberated from any further rebirth. It appears that there were originally only seven bhumis, as is found in the BODHISATTVABHuMI, where the seven bhumis overlap with an elaborate system of thirteen abidings or stations (vihAra), some of the names of which (such as pramuditA) appear also in the standard bhumi schema of the Dasabhumikasutra. Similarly, though a listing of ten bhumis appears in the MAHAVASTU, a text associated with the LOKOTTARAVADA subsect of the MAHASAMGHIKA school, only seven are actually discussed there, and the names given to the stages are completely different from those found in the later Dasabhumikasutra; the stages there are also a retrospective account of how past buddhas have achieved enlightenment, rather than a prescription for future practice. ¶ The dasabhumi schema is sometimes correlated with other systems of classifying the bodhisattva path. In the five levels of the YogAcAra school's outline of the bodhisattva path (PANCAMARGA; C. wuwei), the first bhumi (pramuditA) is presumed to be equivalent to the level of proficiency (*prativedhAvasthA; C. tongdawei), the third of the five levels; while the second bhumi onward corresponds to the level of cultivation (C. xiuxiwei), the fourth of the five levels. The first bhumi is also correlated with the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), while the second and higher bhumis correlate with the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA). In terms of the doctrine of the five acquiescences (C. ren; S. ksAnti) listed in the RENWANG JING, the first through the third bhumis are equivalent to the second acquiescence, the acquiescence of belief (C. xinren; J. shinnin; K. sinin); the fourth through the sixth stages to the third, the acquiescence of obedience (C. shunren; J. junnin; K. sunin); the seventh through the ninth stages to the fourth, the acquiescence to the nonproduction of dharmas (anutpattikadharmaksAnti; C. wushengren; J. mushonin; K. musaengin); the tenth stage to the fifth and final acquiescence, to extinction (jimieren; J. jakumetsunin; K. chongmyorin). FAZANG's HUAYANJING TANXUAN JI ("Notes Plumbing the Profundities of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA") classifies the ten bhumis in terms of practice by correlating the first bhumi to the practice of faith (sRADDHA), the second bhumi to the practice of morality (sĪLA), the third bhumi to the practice of concentration (SAMADHI), and the fourth bhumi and higher to the practice of wisdom (PRAJNA). In the same text, Fazang also classifies the bhumis in terms of vehicle (YANA) by correlating the first through third bhumis with the vehicle of humans and gods (rentiansheng), the fourth through the seventh stage to the three vehicles (TRIYANA), and the eighth through tenth bhumis to the one vehicle (EKAYANA). ¶ Besides the list of the dasabhumi outlined in the Dasabhumikasutra, the MAHAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA and the DAZHIDU LUN (*MahAprajNApAramitAsAstra) list a set of ten bhumis, called the "bhumis in common" (gongdi), which are shared between all the three vehicles of sRAVAKAs, PRATYEKABUDDHAs, and bodhisattvas. These are the bhumis of: (1) dry wisdom (suklavidarsanAbhumi; C. ganhuidi), which corresponds to the level of three worthies (sanxianwei, viz., ten abidings, ten practices, ten transferences) in the srAvaka vehicle and the initial arousal of the thought of enlightenment (prathamacittotpAda) in the bodhisattva vehicle; (2) lineage (gotrabhumi; C. xingdi, zhongxingdi), which corresponds to the stage of the "aids to penetration" (NIRVEDHABHAGĪYA) in the srAvaka vehicle, and the final stage of the ten transferences in the fifty-two bodhisattva stages; (3) eight acquiescences (astamakabhumi; C. barendi), the causal incipiency of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA) in the case of the srAvaka vehicle and the acquiescence to the nonproduction of dharmas (anutpattikadharmaksAnti) in the bodhisattva path (usually corresponding to the first or the seventh through ninth bhumis of the bodhisattva path); (4) vision (darsanabhumi; C. jiandi), corresponding to the fruition or fulfillment (PHALA) level of the stream-enterer in the srAvaka vehicle and the stage of nonretrogression (AVAIVARTIKA), in the bodhisattva path (usually corresponding to the completion of the first or the eighth bhumi); (5) diminishment (tanubhumi; C. baodi), corresponding to the fulfillment level (phala) of stream-enterer or the causal incipiency of the once-returner (sakṛdAgAmin) in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage following nonretrogression before the attainment of buddhahood in the bodhisattva path; (6) freedom from desire (vītarAgabhumi; C. liyudi), equivalent to the fulfillment level of the nonreturner in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage where a bodhisattva attains the five supernatural powers (ABHIJNA); (7) complete discrimination (kṛtAvibhumi), equivalent to the fulfillment level of the ARHAT in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage of buddhahood (buddhabhumi) in the bodhisattva path (buddhabhumi) here refers not to the fruition of buddhahood but merely to the state in which a bodhisattva has the ability to exhibit the eighteen qualities distinctive to the buddhas (AVEnIKA[BUDDHA]DHARMA); (8) pratyekabuddha (pratyekabuddhabhumi); (9) bodhisattva (bodhisattvabhumi), the whole bodhisattva career prior to the fruition of buddhahood; (10) buddhahood (buddhabhumi), the stage of the fruition of buddhahood, when the buddha is completely equipped with all the buddhadharmas, such as omniscience (SARVAKARAJNATĀ). As is obvious in this schema, despite being called the bhumis "common" to all three vehicles, the shared stages continue only up to the seventh stage; the eighth through tenth stages are exclusive to the bodhisattva vehicle. This anomaly suggests that the last three bhumis of the bodhisattvayāna were added to an earlier srāvakayāna seven-bhumi scheme. ¶ The presentation of the bhumis in the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ commentarial tradition following the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA uses the names found in the Dasabhumikasutra for the bhumis and understands them all as bodhisattva levels; it introduces the names of the ten bhumis found in the Dazhidu lun as levels that bodhisattvas have to pass beyond (S. atikrama) on the tenth bodhisattva level, which it calls the buddhabhumi. This tenth bodhisattva level is not the level of an actual buddha, but the level on which a bodhisattva has to transcend attachment (abhinivesa) to not only the levels reached by the four sets of noble persons (ĀRYAPUDGALA) but to the bodhisattvabhumis as well. See also BHuMI.
Dasabhumivyākhyāna. (T. Sa bcu pa'i rnam par bshad pa; C. Shidijing lun; J. Jujikyoron; K. Sipchigyong non 十地經論). In Sanskrit, "Explanation of the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA"; a commentary on the Dasabhumikasutra attributed to the Indian exegete VASUBANDHU. The work served as the basis for the Chinese DI LUN ZONG, "School of Di lun Exegetes," a lineage of Buddhist scholiasts who studied this text. (Di lun is an abbreviation of the Shidijing lun, the Chinese translation of the Dasabhumivyākhyāna.) The school is considered to be one of the earliest of the indigenous scholastic traditions of East Asian MAHĀYĀNA Buddhism, and its thought draws on strands of Indic thought that derive from both the YOGĀCĀRA and TATHĀGATAGARBHA traditions.
dasadhātu. (T. [gzugs can gyi] khams bcu; C. shijie; J. jikkai; K. sipkye 十界). In Sanskrit, "ten elements"; an ABHIDHARMA classification referring to the five physical sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body) plus the five sense objects (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile objects). ¶ In MAHĀYĀNA Buddhism, and especially in the East Asian TIANTAI schools, the term was appropriated to refer to ten "realms" or "destinies" of being; in East Asian Buddhism, this denotation is by far the most common. These destinies are, from the bottom up, the six rebirth destinies (GATI) in SAMSĀRA, viz., (1) hells (naraka; see NĀRAKA), (2) hungry ghosts (PRETA), (3) animals (TIRYAK), (4) demigods (ASURA), (5) human beings (MANUsYA), and (6) divinities (DEVA), plus the four destinies of enlightened beings, viz., (7) disciples of the Buddha (sRĀVAKA), (8) solitary buddhas (PRATYEKABUDDHA), (9) BODHISATTVAs, and (10) buddhas. According to Tiantai doctrine, since these ten destinies are mutually pervasive (C. shijie huju), each of these realms pervades, and is pervaded by, all the nine other realms; hence, the potential for buddhahood is inherent even in the most dire destiny in the hells.
Dasa-sila (Pali) Dasasīla The ten moral applications and their accompanying practices comprising the code of morality binding upon Buddhist priests; otherwise the ten items of good character and behavior which are abstinence from: 1) panatipata veramani (taking life); 2) adinnadana (taking what is not given to one); 3) abrahmachariya (adultery) otherwise called kamesu michchha-chara; 4) musavada (telling lies); 5) pisunavachaya (slander); 6) pharusa-vachaya (harsh or impolite speech); 7) samphappalapa (frivolous and senseless talk); 8) abhijjhaya (covetousness); 9) byapada (malevolence); 10) michchhaditthiya (heretical views). The first four, with the addition of abstinence from the use of intoxicants, comprise the Pansil (Pancha-sila in Sanskrit) or obligations undertaken when a new follower enters into and accepts Buddhism.
Dasheng qixin lun. (S. *Mahāyānasraddhotpādasāstra; J. Daijo kishinron; K. Taesŭng kisin non 大乗起信論). In Chinese, "Treatise on the Awakening of Faith According to the MAHĀYĀNA"; attributed to the Indian author AsVAGHOsA, but now widely assumed to be an indigenous Chinese text (see APOCRYPHA) composed in the sixth century; typically known in English as simply the "Awakening of Faith." Since its composition, the text has remained one of the most influential treatises in all of East Asian Buddhism. The earliest and most widely used "translation" (c. 550) is attributed to the famous YOGĀCĀRA scholar PARAMĀRTHA, although some scholars have speculated that Paramārtha may in fact have composed the treatise after his arrival in China, perhaps even in Sanskrit, and then translated it into Chinese. The author of the Dasheng qixin lun sought to reconcile two of the dominant, if seemingly incompatible, strands in Mahāyāna Buddhism: TATHĀGATAGARBHA (embryo or womb of the buddhas) thought and the ĀLAYAVIJNĀNA (storehouse consciousness) theory of consciousness. Tathāgatagarbha thought taught that all sentient beings have the potential to achieve enlightenment because that enlightenment is in fact inherent in the minds of sentient beings. What that doctrine did not seem to explain well to the East Asians, however, was why sentient beings who were inherently enlightened would have become deluded in the first place. ĀlayavijNāna theory, by contrast, posited that the foundational recesses of the mind serve as a storehouse of the essentially infinite numbers of potentialities or seeds (BĪJA) of all past actions, including unsalutary deeds; this interpretation suggested to the East Asians that mental purity was not innate and that enlightenment therefore had to be catalyzed by some external source, such as "hearing the dharma," which would then prompt a "transformation of the basis" (ĀsRAYAPARĀVṚTTI) that could lead to purity of mind. The ālayavijNāna thus explained the intractability of ignorance and delusion, but did not seem to offer ready accessibility to enlightenment. In its search for common ground between these two doctrines, the Dasheng qixin lun instead describes the mind as being comprised of two distinct, but complementary, aspects: true thusness (ZHENRU; S. TATHATĀ) and production-and-cessation (shengmie), which correspond respectively to ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA) and conventional truth (SAMVṚTISATYA) or the unconditioned (ASAMSKṚTA) and conditioned (SAMSKṚTA) realms. Since the mind that is subject to production and cessation (which the treatise identifies with ālayavijNāna) remains always grounded on the mind of true thusness (which the treatise identifies with tathāgatagarbha), the mind is therefore simultaneously deluded and enlightened. This distinction between this enlightened essence of the mind as "true thusness" and its various temporal manifestations as "production and cessation" is also described in terms of "essence" (TI) and "function" (YONG). From the standpoint of the buddhas and sages, the mind of the sentient being is therefore seen as being perpetually in a state of "original enlightenment" or "intrinsic enlightenment" (BENJUE; see also HONGAKU), while from the standpoint of sentient beings that same mind is seen as being deluded and thus in need of purification through a process of "actualizing enlightenment" (SHIJUE). Actualizing enlightenment involves the cultivation of calmness (ji; S. sAMATHA) and insight (guan; S. VIPAsYANĀ), as well as the development of no-thought (WUNIAN), aspects of training that receive extensive discussion in the treatise. Once the process of actualizing enlightenment is completed, however, the student realizes that the enlightenment achieved through cultivation is in fact identical to the enlightenment that is innate. Hence, the difference between these two types of enlightenment is ultimately a matter of perspective: the buddhas and sages see the innate purity of the tathāgatagarbha as something intrinsic; ordinary persons (PṚTHAGJANA) see it as something that must be actualized through practice. Some East Asian Buddhists, such as WoNHYO (617-686), seem to have presumed that the KŬMGANG SAMMAE KYoNG (S. *Vajrasamādhisutra) was the scriptural source of the Dasheng qixin lun's emblematic teaching of the one mind and its two aspects, even though we now know that that scripture was a Korean apocryphon that was not composed until over a century later. The most important commentaries to the Dasheng qixin lun are Wonhyo's TAESŬNG KISIN NON SO and TAESŬNG KISIN NON PYoLGI, FAZANG's DASHENG QIXIN LUN YI JIs, and JINGYING HUIYUAN's Dasheng qixin lun yishu.
Dasheng qixin lun yi ji. (J. Daijo kisihinron giki; K. Taesŭng kisin non ŭi ki 大乗起信論義). In Chinese, "Notes on the Meaning of the 'Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna'"; composed by the Chinese HUAYAN monk FAZANG. In addition to exegeses by WoNHYO (see TAESŬNG KISIN NON SO) and JINGYING HUIYUAN, this commentary has been traditionally regarded as one of the three great commentaries on the DASHENG QIXIN LUN. Fazang's commentary relies heavily upon that by Wonhyo. Throughout the centuries, numerous other commentaries on the Dasheng qixin lun appeared in China, and most of them are based on Fazang's work. According to this commentary, the Dasheng qixin lun speaks of one mind, two gates, three greats, four faiths, and five practices. Fazang also categorizes the entire history of Buddhism into four traditions: (1) the tradition of grasping at the characteristics of dharmas (i.e., the HĪNAYĀNA), (2) the tradition of no characteristics and only true emptiness (i.e., the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ SuTRAs and the MADHYAMAKA), (3) the tradition of YOGĀCĀRA and consciousness-only (i.e., the SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA and YOGĀCĀRABHuMIsĀSTRA), and (4) the tradition of conditioned origination from the TATHĀGATAGARBHA (i.e., the LAnKĀVATĀRASuTRA and Dasheng qixin lun). The notion of "conditioned origination from the tathāgatagarbha" (rulaizang yuanqi) reflects the author's Huayan training deriving from the AVATAMSAKASuTRA and its notion of "nature origination" (XINGQI).
Da Song seng shi lüe. (J. Dai So soshiryaku; K. Tae Song sŭng sa nyak 大宋僧史略). In Chinese, "Abbreviated History of the SAMGHA, [compiled during] the Great Song [Dynasty]"; compiled by the monk ZANNING, in three rolls. Zanning began to write this institutional history of Buddhism in 978 and finished it in 999. In the first roll, Zanning describes the life of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha and the transmission of Buddhism to China. He also provides a brief history of monasteries, translation projects, and scriptural exegeses, as well as an explanation of the ordination procedure and the practice of repentance. The first roll ends with a history of the CHAN school. The second roll delineates the organization of the Buddhist monkhood and its recognition by the court in China. The last roll offers a history of Buddhist retreat societies, precept platforms (SĪMĀ), and émigré monks; in addition, it provides an explanation of the significance of bestowing the purple robe (of a royal master) and receiving the appellation of "great master" (dashi). As one of the earliest attempts to provide a comprehensive account of the history of Buddhism across Asia, the Da Song seng shi lüe serves as an invaluable source for the study of premodern Buddhist historiography.
Da Tang Xiyu ji. (J. Dai To Saiiki ki; K. Tae Tang Soyok ki 大唐西域). In Chinese, "The Great Tang Record of [Travels to] the Western Regions"; a travelogue of a pilgrimage to India by the Chinese translator and exegete XUANZANG (600/602-664) written in 646 at the request of the Tang emperor Taizong and edited by the monk Bianji (d. 652). Xuanzang was already a noted Buddhist scholiast in China when he decided to make the dangerous trek from China, through the Central Asian oases, to the Buddhist homeland of India. Xuanzang was especially interested in gaining access to the full range of texts associated with the YOGĀCĀRA school, only a few of which were then currently available in Chinese translation. He left on his journey in 627 and eventually spent fourteen years in India (629-643), where he traveled among many of the Buddhist sacred sites, collected manuscripts of Buddhist materials as yet untranslated into Chinese, and studied Sanskrit texts with various eminent teachers, most notably DHARMAPĀLA'S disciple sĪLABHADRA, who taught at the Buddhist university of NĀLANDĀ. The Da Tang xiyu ji provides a comprehensive overview of the different countries that Xuanzang visited during his travels in India and Central Asia, offering detailed descriptions of the geography, climate, customs, languages, and religious practices of these various countries. Xuanzang paid special attention to the different ways in which the teachings of Buddhism were cultivated in different areas of the Western Regions. The Da Tang xiyou ji thus serves as an indispensible tool in the study of the geography and Buddhist history of these regions. Xuanzang's travelogue was later fictionalized in the narrative Xiyou ji ("Journey to the West"), written c. 1592 during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. The Xiyou ji is one of the greatest of Chinese vernacular novels and is deservedly famous for its fanciful accounts of the exploits of the monk-pilgrim, here called Sanzang (TREPItAKA), and especially of his protector, Monkey. See also CHENG WEISHI LUN.
David-Néel, Alexandra. (1868-1969). A famous traveler to Tibet. Born Alexandra David to a bourgeois family in Paris, she was educated in a Calvinist convent before studying Indian and Chinese philosophy at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. In 1888, she traveled to London, where she became interested in Theosophy. In 1891, she journeyed to Ceylon and India (where she studied Vedānta) and traveled as far as Sikkim over eighteen months. Upon returning to France, she began a career as a singer and eventually was offered the position of female lead in the Hanoi Opera. Some years later, in Tunis, she met and married a railroad engineer, Philippe Néel, who insisted that she retire from the stage. She agreed to do so if he would finance a one-year trip to India for her. He ended up not seeing his wife again for another fourteen years. David-Néel became friends with THOMAS and CAROLINE RHYS DAVIDS in London, leading scholars of THERAVĀDA Buddhism, and corresponded with the ZEN scholar DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI, before publishing her first book on Buddhism in 1911, entitled, Le modernisme bouddhiste et le bouddhisme du Bouddha. She continued to Sikkim, where she met the thirteenth DALAI LAMA in Darjeeling in 1912, while he was briefly in residence there after fleeing a Chinese invasion of Tibet. David-Néel spent two years in retreat receiving instructions from a RNYING MA hermit-lama. In 1916, the British expelled her from Sikkim, so she traveled to Japan, where she was the guest of D. T. Suzuki. From there she went to China, traveling west in the company of a young Sikkimese monk named Yongden. Disguised as a pilgrim, she arrived in LHA SA in 1924, presumably the first European woman to reach the Tibetan capital. She returned to France as a celebrity the following year. She published the best-selling book My Journey to Lhasa, followed by a succession of books based on her travels in Tibet and her study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism. She built a home in Digne, which she named Samten Dzong, "Fortress of Concentration." David-Néel made one final trip to Asia as World War II began, but spent the rest of her life writing in Digne, where she died at the age of one hundred.
dazangjing. (J. daizokyo; K. taejanggyong 大藏經). In Chinese, "scriptures of the great repository"; the term the Chinese settled upon to describe their Buddhist canon, supplanting the Indian term TRIPItAKA ("three baskets"). The myriad texts of different Indian and Central Asian Buddhist schools were transmitted to China over a millennium, from about the second through the twelfth centuries CE, where they were translated with alacrity into Chinese. Chinese Buddhists texts therefore came to include not only the tripitakas of several independent schools of Indian Buddhism, but also different recensions of various MAHĀYĀNA scriptures and Buddhist TANTRAs, sometimes in multiple translations. As the East Asian tradition developed its own scholarly traditions, indigenous writings by native East Asian authors, composed in literary Chinese, also came to be included in the canon. These materials included scriptural commentaries, doctrinal treatises, biographical and hagiographical collections, edited transcriptions of oral lectures, Chinese-Sanskrit dictionaries, scriptural catalogues (JINGLU), and so on. Because the scope of the Buddhist canon in China was therefore substantially broader than the traditional tripartite structure of an Indian tripitaka, the Chinese coined alternative terms to refer to their collection of Buddhist materials, including "all the books" (yiqie jing), until eventually settling on the term dazangjing. The term dazangjing seems to derive from a Northern Song-dynasty term for an officially commissioned "great library" (dazang) that was intended to serve as a repository for "books" (jing) sanctioned by the court. Buddhist monasteries were the first places outside the imperial palaces that such officially sanctioned libraries were established. These collections of the official canonical books of Chinese Buddhism were arranged not by the VINAYA, SuTRA, ABHIDHARMA, and sĀSTRA categories of India, but in shelf lists that were more beholden to the categorizations used in court libraries. The earliest complete Buddhist canons in China date from the fifth century; by the eighth century, these manuscript collections included over one thousand individual texts in more than five thousand rolls. By the tenth century, woodblock printing techniques had become sophisticated enough that complete printed Buddhist canons began to be published, first during the Song dynasty, and thence throughout East Asia. The second xylographic canon of the Korean Koryo dynasty, the KORYo TAEJANGGYoNG, was especially renowned for its scholarly accuracy; it included some 1,514 texts, in 6,815 rolls, carved on 81,258 individual woodblocks, which are still housed today in the scriptural repository at the monastery of HAEINSA. The second Koryo canon is arranged with pride of place given to texts from the Mahāyāna tradition:
Dazu shike. (大足石刻). In Chinese, "Dazu rock carvings"; a series of Chinese religious sculptures and carvings located on the steep hillsides of Dazu County, in Sichuan province near the city of Chongqing. The Dazu grottoes are considered one of the four greatest troves of rock sculptures in China, along with the LONGMEN grottoes in LUOYANG, the MOGAO Caves in DUNHUANG, and the YUNGANG grottoes in Shanxi province. Listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1999, the Dazu rock carvings consist of seventy-five sites, all under state protection, which contain some fifty thousand statues, along with epigraphs and inscriptions numbering over one hundred thousand inscribed Sinographs. There are five sites that are particularly large and well preserved: Baodingshan (Treasure Peak Mountain), Beishan (North Mountain), Nanshan (South Mountain), Shizhuanshan (Rock-Carving Mountain), and Shimenshan (Stone-Gate Mountain). Among the five major sites, the grottoes on Baodingshan and Nanshan are the largest in scale, the richest in content, and the most refined in artistic skill, although other sites are also noteworthy for their many statues integrating Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. The earliest carvings of the Dazu grottoes were begun in the early seventh century during the Tang dynasty, but the main creative period began in the late ninth century, when Wei Junjing, the prefect of Changzhou, initiated the carvings on Beishan. Even after the collapse of the Tang dynasty, his example continued to be emulated by local gentry, government officials, Buddhist monks and nuns, and ordinary people. From the late Tang dynasty through the reign of the Song Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127-1131), some ten thousand sculptures of Buddhist figures were carved at the site in varied styles. The most famous carving on Beishan is a Song-dynasty statue of GUANYIN (AVALOKITEsVARA). In the twelfth century, during the Song dynasty, a Buddhist monk named Zhao Zhifeng began to work on the sculptures and carvings on Baodingshan, dedicating seventy years of his life to the project. He produced some ten thousand Buddhist statues, as well as many carvings depicting scenes from daily life that bear inscriptions giving religious rules of behavior, teaching people how to engage in correct moral action. Along with EMEISHAN, Baodingshan became one of the most sacred Buddhist sites in Sichuan. Although the Dazu grottoes primarily contain Buddhist statues, they also include Daoist, Confucian, and historical figures, as well as many valuable inscriptions describing people's daily lives, which make the Dazu grottoes unique. The Yungang grottoes, created during the fourth and fifth centuries, represent an early stage of Chinese cave art and were greatly influenced by Indian culture. The Longmen grottoes, begun in the fifth century, represent the middle period of cave art, blending Indian and Chinese characteristics. The Dazu grottoes represent the highest level of grotto art in China and demonstrate breakthroughs in both carving technique and subject matter. They not only provide outstanding evidence of the harmonious synthesis of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism in Chinese local religious practice but also mark the completion of the localization process of China's grotto art, reflecting great changes and developments in China's folk religion and rock carvings. The Dazu grottoes are thus remarkable for their high aesthetic quality, their rich diversity of style and subject matter (including both secular and religious topics), and the light that they shed on everyday life in China.
dbu ma chen po. (uma chenpo) [alt. dbu ma pa chen po]. In Tibetan, "great MADHYAMAKA"; a term central to the "self empty, other empty" (RANG STONG GZHAN STONG) debate in Tibetan Buddhism, on the question of which Indian masters are the true representatives of the Madhyamaka. According to the DGE LUGS view, among the three turnings of the wheel of the dharma as described in the SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA, the second wheel, generally identified with the view of emptiness as set forth in the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ sutras and propounded by the Madhyamaka, is definitive (NĪTĀRTHA), while the third wheel, generally identified with YOGĀCĀRA and TATHĀGATHAGARBHA teachings, is provisional (NEYĀRTHA). Other sects, most notably the JO NANG PA, as well as certain BKA' BRGYUD and RNYING MA thinkers, especially of the so-called RIS MED movement, disagreed, asserting that the third wheel is the definitive teaching while the second wheel is provisional. (Both agree that the first wheel, setting forth the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS to sRĀVAKAs, is provisional.) For the Dge lugs pas, the highest of all Buddhist doctrines is that all phenomena in the universe are empty of an intrinsic nature (SVABHĀVA); emptiness is the lack of any substantial existence. The Dge lugs pas are therefore proponents of "self-emptiness" (rang stong), arguing that that each object of experience is devoid of intrinsic nature; the unenlightened wrongly believe that such a nature is intrinsic to the object itself. In reality, everything, from physical forms to the omniscient mind of a buddha, is equally empty, and this emptiness is a nonaffirming negation (PRASAJYAPRATIsEDHA), an absence with nothing else implied in its place. Furthermore, this emptiness of intrinsic nature is the ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA). The Jo nang pa's look to the third wheel, especially to those statements that describe the nonduality of subject and object to be the consummate nature (PARINIsPANNA) and the understanding of that nonduality as the highest wisdom, described as eternal, self-arisen, and truly established. This wisdom exists autonomously and is thus not empty in the way that emptiness is understood by the Dge lugs. Instead, this wisdom consciousness is empty in the sense that it is devoid of all defilements and conventional factors, which are extraneous to its true nature. Hence, the Jo nang pas speak of "other emptiness" (gzhan stong) the absence of extrinsic and extraneous qualities. For the Dge lugs pas, the supreme interpreter of the doctrine of emptiness (as they understand it) is CANDRAKĪRTI. The Jo nang pas do not dispute the Dge lugs reading of Candrakīrti but they deny Candrakīrti the rank of premier expositor of NĀGĀRJUNA's thought. For them, Candrakīrti teaches an emptiness that is a mere negation of intrinsic existence, which they equate with nihilism. They also do not deny that such an exposition is found in Nāgārjuna's philosophical treatises (YUKTIKĀYA). However, they claim that those works do not represent Nāgārjuna's final view, which is expressed instead in his devotional corpus (STAVAKĀYA), notably the DHARMADHĀTUSTAVA, and, according to some, in the works of VASUBANDHU, the author of two defenses of the prajNāpāramitā sutras. Those who would deny the ultimate existence of wisdom, such as Candrakīrti, are classed as "one-sided Madhyamakas" (phyogs gcig pa'i dbu ma pa) as opposed to the great Madhyamakas among whom they would include the Nāgārjuna of the hymns and ĀRYADEVA as well as thinkers whom the Dge lugs classify as Yogācāra or SVĀTANTRIKA MADHYAMAKA: ASAnGA, Vasubandhu, MAITREYANĀTHA, and sĀNTARAKsITA.
Deb ther sngon po. (Depter Ngonpo). In Tibetan, lit. "The Blue Annals"; a Tibetan historical work written by 'Gos lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal (1392-1481) between 1476 and 1478. It provides a broad history of Buddhism in Tibet, divided into sections covering various periods and transmission lineages. It is especially valued for its detailed history of the transmission of specific texts and practices from India to Tibet. It was one of the first comprehensive Tibetan works to be translated into English, by the Russian scholar GEORGE ROERICH and the Tibetan savant DGE 'DUN CHOS 'PHEL.
Deshan Xuanjian. (J. Tokusan Senkan; K. Toksan Son'gam 德山宣鑑) (780/2-865). Chinese CHAN master of the Tang dynasty; famous for the fearsome "blows" (bang) through which he expressed his understanding of enlightenment, similar to the terrifying shouts (he) of Chan master LINJI YIXUAN (see BANGHE). A native of Jiannan in present-day Sichuan province, Deshan first studied the scriptures and the VINAYA, and became famous as a teacher of the VAJRACCHEDIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA ("Diamond Sutra"). According to his hagiography, he was determined to defeat the Chan masters of the south with his knowledge of the sutra, but on his way in Lizhou (present-day Hunan province), Deshan was rendered speechless by the following question from an old woman: "The 'Diamond Sutra' says that neither the past mind, present mind, nor future mind can be grasped; so which mind does the elder desire to refresh?" He later became a student of the Chan master Longtan Chongxin (d.u.) and inherited his lineage. After his thirty-year residence at Lizhou, Deshan was forced by Emperor Wuzong's (840-846) persecution of Buddhism (see HUICHANG FANAN) to hide on Mt. Dufu. He was later invited by the governor of Wuleng (present-day Hunan province) to reside on Deshan ("Mount Virtue"), whence he acquired his toponym. Deshan's most famous disciple was XUEFENG YICUN, and their joint lineage leads ultimately to the mature Chan schools of the YUNMEN ZONG and FAYAN ZONG.
Desideri, Ippolito. (1684-1733). Jesuit missionary to Tibet. He was born in the town of Pistoia in Tuscany in 1684 and entered the Jesuit order in 1700, studying at the Collegio Romano. Following two years of instruction in theology, he requested permission to become a missionary, departing for India in 1712 and reaching Goa the following year. Assigned to the Tibet mission, Desideri and another priest, the Portuguese Manoel Freyre, traveled by ship, horseback, and on foot to Leh, the capital of Ladakh, the westernmost Tibetan domain. Setting out for LHA SA, they were able to survive the difficult seven-month journey thanks to the protection of a Mongolian princess who allowed the two priests to join her caravan. They reached the Tibetan capital on March 18, 1716. After just a month in Lha sa, Desideri's companion decided to return to India. Desideri received permission from the ruler of Tibet, the Mongol warlord Lha bzang Khan, to remain in Tibet. He arranged for Desideri to live at RA MO CHE, and then at SE RA monastery. His notes from his studies indicate that he worked through textbooks on elementary logic through to the masterworks of the DGE LUGS sect, including the LAM RIM CHEN MO of TSONG KHA PA, which Desideri would eventually translate into Italian (the translation is lost). He would go on also to write a number of works in Tibetan, both expositions of Christianity and refutations of Buddhism. The most substantial of these was his unfinished "Inquiry into the Doctrines of Previous Lives and of Emptiness, Offered to the Scholars of Tibet by the White Lama called Ippolito" (Mgo skar [sic] gyi bla ma i po li do zhes bya ba yis phul ba'i bod kyi mkhas pa rnams la skye ba snga ma dang stong pa nyid kyi lta ba'i sgo nas zhu ba). Desideri remained in Tibet until 1721, when Tibet became a mission field of the Capuchins, requiring that the Jesuit abandon his work. After several years in India, he returned to Italy in 1727. Desideri arrived in Rome in the midst of the Rites Controversy, the question of whether non-Christian rituals (such as Chinese ancestor worship) had a place in the methods of the missionaries. As a Jesuit, Desideri was on the losing side of this debate. The last years of his life were consumed with composing long defenses of his work, as well as the remarkable account of his time in Tibet, the Relazione de' viaggi all' Indie e al Thibet. He died in Rome on April 13, 1733. Because of the suppression of the Jesuit order, Desideri's works remained largely unknown, both in Italian and Tibetan, until the twentieth century.
Despite the best efforts of the king of Tibet more than a thousand years ago, it has always been difficult for scholars of Buddhism to agree on translations. That difficulty persists in the present work for a variety of reasons, including the different ways that Buddhist scholiasts chose to translate technical terms into their various languages over the centuries, the preferences of the many modern scholars whose works we consulted, and the relative stubbornness of the authors. As a result, there will inevitably be some variation in the renderings of specific Buddhist terminology in the pages that follow. In our main entries, however, we have tried to guide users to the range of possible English translations that have been used to render a term. In addition, a significant effort has been made to provide the original language equivalencies in parentheses so that specialists in those languages can draw their own conclusions as to the appropriate rendering.
Devachan (Tibetan) bDe-ba-can (de-wa-chen) [from bde-ba happiness + can possessing] The happy land; exoterically, a translation of the Sanskrit sukhavati, the happy Western Realm or Pure Land of the dhyani-buddha Amitabha of East Asian Buddhism. Certain Tibetan books contain glowing descriptions of devachan, such as the Mani Kambum (or Kumbum) and the Odpagmed kyi shing kod. The term was first employed in theosophical literature by the Mahatmas in their letters to A. P. Sinnett.
DevānaMpiyatissa. (r. 247-207 BCE). Sinhalese king who, according to the Sri Lankan tradition, was the ruler under whom the island kingdom of Sri Lanka first accepted Buddhism. According to these accounts, DevānaMpiyatissa was a contemporary of the Indian emperor Asoka (S. AsOKA), who is said to have encouraged DevānaMpiyatissa to convert to Buddhism. Asoka dispatched his son, the Buddhist monk MAHINDA (S. Mahendra), as head of a delegation to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the third century BCE to minister to DevānaMpiyatissa and the Sinhalese court. Mahinda preached for the king the CulAHATTHIPADOPAMASUTTA ("Shorter Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant's Footprint"), the twenty-seventh sutta of the MAJJHIMANIKĀYA, where the Buddha uses the simile of a woodsman tracking an elephant's footprints to explain to his audience how to reach complete certainty regarding the truth of the path, which he calls the footprints of the Tathāgata. After hearing the discourse, DevānaMpiyatissa converted and was accepted as a Buddhist layman (UPĀSAKA). The king offered Mahinda the Mahāmeghavana, a royal pleasure garden on the outskirts of the Sinhalese capital of ANURĀDHAPURA, where he built the MAHĀVIHĀRA, which thenceforth served as the headquarters of the major Theravāda fraternity on the island. It was also at DevānaMpiyatissa's behest that Asoka sent his daughter, the Buddhist nun SAnGHAMITTĀ (S. SaMghamitrā), to Sri Lanka to establish the order of nuns (P. bhikkhunī; S. BHIKsUnĪ) there. Sanghamittā also brought with her a branch of the BODHI TREE, which DevānaMpiyatissa planted at Mahāmeghavana, initiating an important site of cultic worship that continued for centuries afterward. The evidence of the Asokan edicts and Sanskrit AVADĀNA literature suggest that the Pāli MAHĀVAMSA account of the spread of Buddhism to Sri Lanka through the work of DevānaMpiyatissa, whom Asoka's son Mahinda converted to Buddhism, is probably not meant to be a historical account, but was instead intended to lend prestige to the THERAVĀDA tradition.
devarājan. (T. lha'i rgyal po; C. tianwang; J. tenno; K. ch'onwang 天王). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "king of the divinities (DEVA)"; an epithet of sAKRO DEVĀNĀM INDRAḤ, viz., "sAKRA, the king of the gods," who is also known as INDRA (Lord). sakra resides in his capital city of Sudarsana, which is centered in the heaven of the thirty-three [gods] (TRĀYASTRIMsA), the second of the six heavens of the realm of sensuality (KĀMALOKA). Southeast Asian Buddhism also drew on the Hindu cult of the devarājan (divine king), which identified the reigning monarch as an incarnation of the god siva. See also BAYON.
Deva: Sanskrit for radiant being. In the Vedic mythology and occult terminology, a celestial being, a god, a malignant supernatural entity or an indifferent supernatural being. The general designation for God in Hinduism. In Zoroastrianism, the name of the evil spirits opposed to Ahura Mazda. In Buddhism, a hero or demigod.
devatā. (T. lha; C. tianshen; J. tenjin; K. ch'onsin 天神). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "state of being a divinity," referring to all classifications of heavenly beings or divinities (DEVA) in the abstract. Deriving from the principle that any being who is worshipped or to whom offerings are made may be called a devatā, the connotation of divinities was broadly expanded to include not only the higher gods of the heavenly realms (DEVALOKA) proper but also religious mendicants; domesticated animals; powerful earthly forces such as fire and wind; lesser gods such as NĀGAs, GANDHARVAs, and YAKsAs; and local ghosts and spirits, including devatās of homes, trees, and bodies of water. As Buddhism moved into new regions, various indigenous local deities thus came to be assimilated into the Buddhist pantheon by designating them as devatās.
deva. (T. lha; C. tian; J. ten; K. ch'on 天). In Sanskrit and Pāli, lit., "radiant one" or "shining one"; a "divinity," "heavenly being," or "god," as one of the five [alt. six] rebirth destinies (GATI) of SAMSĀRA. When it is said that Buddhism has "gods" but no "God," the devas are being referred to. The term deva derives from the Sanskrit root √div and is related etymologically to the English word "divinity." Rebirth as a deva is considered to be the beneficial result of virtuous actions (KARMAN) performed in a previous lifetime, and all of the many heavenly realms in Buddhist cosmology are therefore salutary levels of existence. However, they are temporary abodes within saMsāra, rather than eternal heavens. ¶ There are a total of twenty-seven [alt. twenty-six or twenty-eight] different categories of devas, which are subdivided according to where their abode (DEVALOKA) is located within the three realms of existence (TRAIDHĀTUKA, trailokya), viz., the sensuous or desire realm (KĀMADHĀTU), the materiality or form realm (RuPADHĀTU) and the immaterial or formless realm (ĀRuPYADHĀTU). ¶ There are six heavens of the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU). The first two are located on Mount SUMERU; the other four are located in the sky above its summit. One is reborn into these heavens as a result of virtuous deeds done in the past, especially deeds of charity (DĀNA). They include six deva abodes:
dewachen. A phonetic rendering of the Tibetan bde ba can, the Tibetan translation of SUKHĀVATĪ, the pure land of the buddha AMITĀBHA. The term in this form was popularized by HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY and appears in a variety of European and American books on Buddhism from the nineteenth century.
Dga' ldan. (Ganden). The Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit TUsITA, the joyous, or contented, heaven (see DEVA), which is the abode of the future buddha MAITREYA. ¶ The short name for Dga' ldan rnam rgyal gling (Ganden Namgyal Ling), one of the three chief monasteries (known as the GDAN SA GSUM or "three seats") of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the sect's principal monasteries, located twenty-eight miles (forty-five kilometers) east of LHA SA. Named after the tusita heaven, the monastery was established by the Dge lugs founder TSONG KHA PA in 1409 near a hill originally associated with the consecration rituals performed after the birth of the king SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO. A nearby ridge was the favored picnic ground of the king's royal wives. According to legend, the JO BO statue of Lha sa's JO KHANG temple miraculously confirmed the location's significance to Tsong kha pa. The great assembly hall was added in 1417, followed by the two colleges, Byang rtse (Jangtse) and Shar rtse (Shartse). Tsong kha pa died at Dga' ldan in 1419 and was entombed there in a STuPA. Following Tsong kha pa's death, the abbacy passed to two of his foremost disciples, first, RGYAL TSHAB DAR MA RIN CHEN, then twelve years later to MKHAS GRUB DGE LEGS DPAL BZANG. Thus, the tradition of the DGA' LDAN KHRI PA or Throne Holder of Dga' ldan was established. Because Dga' ldan was the seat of Tsong kha pa and his two chief disciples, his followers were initially called Dga' ldan pa'i lugs, "the system of Dga' ldan." This was shortened to Dga' lugs and eventually to Dge lugs. Dga' ldan monastery was traditionally said to have 3,300 monks, although over the course of its history it often housed twice that number, forming a vast monastic complex. It was completely destroyed by the Chinese in the 1960s but has since been partially rebuilt. It has also been reestablished in exile in southern India.
Dga' ldan khri pa. (Ganden Tripa). In Tibetan, lit. "Holder of the Dga' ldan Throne"; title of the head of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who is regarded as the successor of TSONG KHA PA. The first two Dga' ldan khri pas were Tsong kha pa's disciples; the first was RGYAL TSHAB DAR MA RIN CHEN and the second was MKAS GRUB DGE LEGS DPAL BZANG. Together with Tsong kha pa, they are traditionally considered to be the founders of the Dge lugs sect. The fifteenth Dga' ldan khri pa Pan chen Bsod nams grags pa (Panchen Sonam Drakpa) (1478-1554) is known for his role during the terms of the third and fourth DALAI LAMAs. At present, the Dga' ldan khri pa is selected by the Dalai Lama from a group of candidates who have already served in a number of specific positions in the major Dge lugs monasteries and tantric colleges; the term of office is generally seven years. It is not the case, as is often imagined, that the Dalai Lama is the head of the Dge lugs sect, or that the Dga' ldan khri pa is necessarily an incarnate lama (SPRUL SKU). According to the traditional system of selection, the monk who became the Dga' ldan khri pa had to rise through several ranks of the Dge lugs sect. First, he completed the prescribed course of study in one of the three GDAN SA (the major Dge lug monasteries in the LHA SA area) and achieved the highest degree in the Dge lugs academy, that of DGE BSHES lha ram pa. He then entered one of the two Dge lugs tantric colleges in Lha sa (see RGYUD STOD and RGYUD SMAD) and became a dge bshes sngags ram pa (ngakrampa). Only a dge bshes sngags ram pa could become a dge skos (geko) (disciplinarian) of a tantric college. Rgyud stod and Rgyud smad chose three disciplinarians each year, and the bla ma dbu mdzad (lama umdze), literally "leader of the chant," i.e., vice abbot, was chosen from among the former dge skos and served for three years. Following that period, he became the abbot (mkhan po) of his tantric college for three years. The senior-most former abbot (mkhan zur) received the title Byang rtse chos rje, if he attended Rgyud smad, and Shar rtse chos rje if he attended Rgyud stod. (Byang rtse and Shar rtse are two colleges of Dga' ldan monastery.) Since the time of the eighth Dga' ldan khri pa these two alternated in the position of Dga' ldan khri pa. To date there have been 102 Dga' ldan khri pas.
dge bshes. (geshe). A Tibetan abbreviation for dge ba'i bshes gnyen, or "spiritual friend" (S. KALYĀnAMITRA). In early Tibetan Buddhism, the term was used in this sense, especially in the BKA' GDAMS tradition, where saintly figures like GLANG RI THANG PA are often called "geshe"; sometimes, however, it can have a slightly pejorative meaning, as in the biography of MI LA RAS PA, where it suggests a learned monk without real spiritual attainment. In the SA SKYA sect, the term came to take on a more formal meaning to refer to a monk who had completed a specific academic curriculum. The term is most famous in this regard among the DGE LUGS, where it refers to a degree and title received after successfully completing a long course of Buddhist study in the tradition of the three great Dge lugs monasteries in LHA SA: 'BRAS SPUNGS, DGA' LDAN, and SE RA. According to the traditional curriculum, after completing studies in elementary logic and epistemology (BSDUS GRWA), a monk would begin the study of "five texts" (GZHUNG LNGA), five Indian sĀSTRAs, in the following order: the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA of MAITREYANĀTHA, the MADHYAMAKĀVATĀRA of CANDRAKĪRTI, the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA of VASUBANDHU, and the VINAYASuTRA of GUnAPRABHA. Each year, there would also be a period set aside for the study of the PRAMĀnAVĀRTTIKA of DHARMAKĪRTI. The curriculum involved the memorization of these and other texts, the study of them based on monastic textbooks (yig cha), and formal debate on their content. Each year, monks in the scholastic curriculum (a small minority of the monastic population) were required to pass two examinations, one in memorization and the other in debate. Based upon the applicant's final examination, one of four grades of the dge bshes degree was awarded, which, in descending rank, are: (1) lha rams pa, (2) tshogs rams pa, (3) rdo rams pa; (4) gling bsre [alt. gling bseb], a degree awarded by a combination of monasteries; sometimes, the more scholarly or the religiously inclined would choose that degree to remove themselves from consideration for ecclesiastical posts so they could devote themselves to their studies and to meditation practice. The number of years needed to complete the entire curriculum depended on the degree, the status of the person, and the number of candidates for the exam. The coveted lha rams pa degree, the path to important offices within the Dge lugs religious hierarchy, was restricted to sixteen candidates each year. The important incarnations (SPRUL SKU) were first in line, and their studies would be completed within about twelve years; ordinary monks could take up to twenty years to complete their studies and take the examination. Those who went on to complete the course of study at the tantric colleges of RGYUD STOD and RYUD SMAD would be granted the degree of dge bshes sngags ram pa.
Dge 'dun chos 'phel. (Gendun Chopel) (1903-1951). A distinguished essayist, poet, painter, translator, historian, and philosopher; one of the most important Tibetan intellectuals of the first half of the twentieth century. He was born in the Reb kong region of A mdo, the son of a respected SNGAGS PA. At the age of five, he was recognized as the incarnation (SPRUL SKU) of an abbot of the famous RNYING MA monastery, RDO RJE BRAG. Following his father's untimely death, he entered a local DGE LUGS monastery, eventually moving to BLA BRANG BKRA' SHIS 'KHYIL. He gained particular notoriety as a debater but apparently criticized the monastery's textbooks (yig cha). In 1927, he traveled to LHA SA, where he entered Sgo mang College of 'BRAS SPUNGS monastery. In 1934, the Indian scholar and nationalist Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) arrived in Lha sa in search of Sanskrit manuscripts, especially those dealing with Buddhist logic. He enlisted Dge 'dun chos 'phel as his guide, just as he was completing the final examinations at the end of the long curriculum of the DGE BSHES. After visiting many of the monasteries of southern Tibet, Sankrityayan invited Dge 'dun chos 'phel to return with him to India. Over the next decade, he would travel extensively, and often alone, across India and Sri Lanka, learning Sanskrit, Pāli, several Indian vernaculars, and English. He assisted the Russian Tibetologist, GEORGE ROERICH, in the translation of the important fifteenth-century history of Tibetan Buddhism by 'Gos lo tsā ba, DEB THER SNGON PO ("The Blue Annals"). He visited and made studies of many of the important Buddhist archaeological sites in India, writing a guide (lam yig) that is still used by Tibetan pilgrims. He studied Sanskrit erotica and frequented Calcutta brothels, producing his famous sex manual, the 'Dod pa'i bstan bcos ("Treatise on Passion"). During his time abroad, he also spent more than a year in Sri Lanka. In January 1946, after twelve years abroad, Dge 'dun chos 'phel returned to Lha sa. He taught poetry and also gave teachings on MADHYAMAKA philosophy, which would be published posthumously as the controversial Klu sgrub dgongs rgyan ("Adornment for NĀGĀRJUNA's Thought"). Within a few months of his arrival in Lha sa, Dge 'dun chos 'phel was arrested by the government of the regent of the young fourteenth Dalai Lama on the fabricated charge of counterfeiting foreign currency. Sentenced to three years, he served at least two, working on his unfinished history of early Tibet, Deb ther dkar po ("The White Annals"), and composing poetry. He emerged from prison a broken man and died in October 1951 at the age of forty-eight.
Dge 'dun grub. (Gendün Drup) (1391-1475). A revered scholar of the DGE LUGS sect of Tibetan Buddhism, posthumously recognized as the first DALAI LAMA. He was from the clan of Ngar tso in the region of Ru lug and received his early training at SNAR THANG monastery, where he earned fame for his erudition. In 1415, he traveled to central Tibet, where he became a close disciple of the Dge lugs polymath TSONG KHA PA in the years before the master's death in 1419. He went on to serve as the abbot of DGA' LDAN monastery. In 1447, Dge 'dun grub founded BKRA SHIS LHUN PO monastery, later the seat of the PAn CHEN LAMAS in the central Tibetan city of Gzhis ka rtse (Shigatse). After the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan bestowed the title Dalai Lama on BSOD NAMS RGYA MTSHO in 1578, Dge 'dun grub was posthumously identified as the lineage's first incarnation. He was a renowned scholar, writing influential works on both VINAYA and ABHIDHARMA.
Dhammapada (Pali) Dhammpada [from dhamma law, moral conduct (cf Sanskrit dharma) + pada a step, line, stanza] A fundamental text of Southern Buddhism: a collection of 423 verses believed to be the sayings of Gautama Buddha, gathered from older sources and strung together on 26 selected topics. Dealing with a wide range of philosophic and religious thought, with particular emphasis on ethics, they are often couched in beautiful imagery, so that they make a ready and profound appeal to the reader. Self-culture and self-control are forcibly inculcated, and when the precepts are followed they lead to the living of an exalted as well as useful life.
Dharani (Sanskrit) Dhāraṇī [from the verbal root dhṛ to bear, support] In Buddhism, a mystical verse or mantra; in Hinduism, verses from the Rig-Veda. “In days of old these mantras or Dharani were all considered mystical and practically efficacious in their use. At present, however, it is the Yogacharya school alone which proves the claim in practice. When chanted according to given instructions a Dharani produces wonderful effects. Its occult power, however, does not reside in the words but in the inflexion or accent given and the resulting sound originated thereby” (TG 100).
Dharma ::: Also "Dhamma". Refers in Buddhism and Hinduism to a sense of cosmic law and order that one's life should be guided by. In Buddhism it also refers to the teachings of the Buddha.
Dharmachakra, (Sanskrit) Dharmacakra [from dharma law + cakra wheel] The wheel of the law, or the range of the law. “The emblem of Buddhism as a system of cycles and rebirths or reincarnations” (TG 100), it also applies to the Buddha as the holder of the wheel of the law: he who sets a new cycle in motion and in consequence changes the course of destiny through his expounding of the teachings.
Dharmakaya (Sanskrit) Dharmakāya [from dharma law, continuance from the verbal root dhṛ to support, carry, continue + kāya body] Continuance-body, body of the law. One of the trikaya of Buddhism, which consists of 1) nirmanakaya, 2) sambhogakaya, and 3) dharmakaya. “It is that spiritual body or state of a high spiritual being in which the restricted sense of soulship and egoity has vanished into a universal (hierarchical) sense, and remains only in the seed, latent — if even so much. It is pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure intelligence, freed from all personalizing thought” (OG 38). In the dharmakaya vesture the initiate is on the threshold of nirvana or in the nirvanic state. Sometimes the dharmakaya is called the “nirvana without remains,” for once having reached that state the buddha or bodhisattva remains entirely outside of every earthly condition; he will return no more until the commencement of a new manvantara, for he has crossed the cycle of births. Dharmakaya state is that of parasamadhi, where no progress is possible — at least as long as the entity remains in it. Such entities may be said to be for the time being crystallized in purity and homogeneity. This is, likewise, one of the states of adi-buddha, and as such is called the mystic, universally diffused essence, the robe or vesture of luminous spirituality. See also TRIKAYA; TRISARANA
Dharmakaya(Sanskrit) ::: This is a compound of two words meaning the "continuance body," sometimes translatedequally well (or ill) the "body of the Law" -- both very inadequate expressions, for the difficulty intranslating these extremely mystical terms is very great. A mere correct dictionary-translation oftenmisses the esoteric meaning entirely, and just here is where Occidental scholars make such ludicrouserrors at times.The first word comes from the root dhri, meaning "to support," "to sustain," "to carry," "to bear," hence"to continue"; also human laws are the agencies supposed to carry, support, sustain, civilization; thesecond element, kaya, means "body." The noun thus formed may be rendered the "body of the Law," butthis phrase does not give the idea at all. It is that spiritual body or state of a high spiritual being in whichthe restricted sense of soulship and egoity has vanished into a universal (hierarchical) sense, and remainsonly in the seed, latent -- if even so much. It is pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure intelligence, freedfrom all personalizing thought.In the Buddhism of Central Asia, the dharmakaya is the third and highest of the trikaya. The trikayaconsists of (1) nirmanakaya, (2) sambhogakaya, and (3) dharmakaya. We may look upon these threestates, all of them lofty and sublime, as being three vestures in which the consciousness of the entityclothes itself. In the dharmakaya vesture the initiate is already on the threshold of nirvana, if not indeedalready in the nirvanic state. (See also Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya)
Dharma-Smriti-Upasthana (Sanskrit) Dharma-smṛti-upasthāna [from dharma law + smṛti remembrance + upasthāna the act of placing oneself] In Buddhism, the act of placing oneself in remembrance of the Law. Blavatsky paraphrases the term from another angle: “Remember, the constituents (of human nature) originate according to the Nidanas, and are not originally the Self” (TG 100). The nidanas are the chain of causal concatenation, the 12 causes of existence or manifestation which developed each one by itself, usually in serial and periodic order and strictly in accordance with stored-up karmic seeds of various kinds. Equally important is the fact that the atmic core of selfhood clothes itself in the various sheaths of consciousness, which therefore actually are the seeds or, in one sense, the very being of these nidanas; so that the nidanas may be referred back to the self as their originators. The idea is the same as that imbodied in the Christian statement: “As a man thinks so is he.”
Dhyana(Sanskrit) ::: A term signifying profound spiritualintellectual contemplation with utter detachment from allobjects of a sensuous and lower mental character. In Buddhism it is one of the six paramitas ofperfection. One who is adept or expert in the practice of dhyana, which by the way is a wonderfulspiritual exercise if the proper idea of it be grasped, is carried in thought entirely out of all relations withthe material and merely psychological spheres of being and of consciousness, and into lofty spiritualplanes. Instead of dhyana being a subtraction from the elements of consciousness, it is rather a throwingoff or casting aside of the crippling sheaths of ethereal matter which surround the consciousness, thusallowing the dhyanin, or practicer of this form of true yoga, to enter into the highest parts of his ownconstitution and temporarily to become at one with and, therefore, to commune with the gods. It is atemporary becoming at one with the upper triad of man considered as a septenary, in other words, withhis monadic essence. Man's consciousness in this state or condition becomes purely buddhi, or ratherbuddhic, with the highest parts of the manas acting as upadhi or vehicle for the retention of what theconsciousness therein experiences. From this term is drawn the phrase dhyani-chohans ordhyani-buddhas -- words so frequently used in theosophical literature and so frequently misconceived asto their real meaning. (See also Samadhi)
Dhyana (Sanskrit) Dhyāna [from the verbal root dhyai to contemplate, meditate] Profound spiritual-intellectual contemplation, with utter detachment from all objects of sense and of a lower mental character; one of the six paramitas in Buddhism. See also JHANA
Dhyana Yoga (Sanskrit) Dhyāna Yoga Profound spiritual mediation on the divinity within, imbodying six or seven stages of advancement, accompanied by the simultaneous abstraction of thought from external existence; the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita treats of dhyana yoga. Likewise, one of the paramitas of Buddhism.
Diamond, Diamond-heart The diamond is a symbol signifying the imperishable attributes of the cosmic quinta essentia — the fifth essence of medieval mystics. In Northern Buddhism, the unmanifest Logos, being too spiritual to manifest in material realms directly, sends into the world of manifestation its heart, the diamond heart (vajrasattva, dorjesempa) which is the manifest Logos, from which emanate the Third Logos which collectively is the seven cosmic dhyani-buddhas. Manushya-buddhas, when their personality has become merged in atma-buddhi, are also called diamond-souled because of their spiritual approach to their cosmic prototype; otherwise they are mahatmas of the highest class.
Divyachakshus, (Sanskrit) Divyacakṣus [from divya divine + cakṣus eye] The divine eye; in Buddhism the first of the divine faculties attained by a buddha: the power of seeing any object in any loka or plane of consciousness. It is one of the six or seven abhijnas (inner powers or faculties), divyachakshus being real spiritual clairvoyance, enabling one to see any object in the universe at whatever distance.
Divyasrotra (Sanskrit) Divyaśrotra [from divya divine + śrotra ear] The divine ear; in Buddhism the second of the abhijnas (powers attained by a buddha or high initiate), that of understanding all sounds on whatever loka or plane, including the understanding of all languages. It corresponds to real clairaudience.
Dream Yoga ::: Practices, traditionally ascribed to Tibetan Buddhism, for mastering spiritual work through the dream state. Lesser forms of this include topics such as lucid dreaming and astral projection.
Drishti (Sanskrit) Dṛṣṭi [from the verbal root dṛṣ to see, behold with the mind’s eye] Seeing, the faculty of sight; also the mind’s eye, hence wisdom, intelligence. In Buddhism, not only a theory, doctrine, or visioning, but by contrast a wrong philosophical view of things.
Drops ::: A concept in the etheric anatomy of Tibetan Buddhism referring to areas of energy accumulation and dispersement. The idea of winds, channels, and drops is more subtle and nuanced than the generic idea of the etheric body of chakras and channels explored on this site so this is a concept broached only briefly at the moment.
Dugpa (Tibetan) ’drug pa (dug-pa) Adherents of the Buddhist religion of Tibet who, previous to the reform by Tsong-kha-pa in the 14th century, followed sorcery and other more or less tantric practices, which are entirely foreign to the pure teachings of Buddhism. In theosophical literature dugpa has been used as a synonym for Brother of the Shadow — especially in The Mahatma Letters.
Duscharita or Duscharitra (Sanskrit) Duścarita, Duścāritra [from the verbal root duś-car to act wrongly, behave badly] Misbehavior, ill-conduct, wickedness. In Buddhism, the ten chief sins: three performed by the senses acting through the body (murder, theft, and adultery), four of the mouth (lying, calumny, lewd gossip, and evil speech), and three of the mind or lower manas (covetousness, envy, and wrong belief).
Dzogchen ::: Sanskrit for "Great Perfection". A tradition within Tibetan Buddhism and within Bon that seeks a return to the primordial state of rigpa (i.e. non-duality) as the natural stage of awareness.
Dzyan (Senzar) Closely similar to the Tibetan dzin (learning, knowledge). Although Blavatsky states that dzyan is “a corruption of the Sanskrit Dhyan and Jnana . . . Wisdom, divine knowledge” (TG 107), there is also a Chinese equivalent dan or jan-na, which in “modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics ch’an, is the general term for the esoteric schools, and their literature. In the old books, the word Janna is defined as ‘to reform one’s self by meditation and knowledge,’ a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically, the ‘Book of Dzyan’ ” (SD 1:xx). This term then is connected directly with the ancient mystery-language called Senzar, with Tibetan and Chinese mystical Buddhism mostly of the Mahayana schools, and thirdly with the Sanskrit dhyana of which indeed it was probably originally a corruption.
Emma-O: In Japanese Buddhism, the god who is the ruler of the underworld and judges the dead.
Equivalent to Maitreya-Buddha of Northern Buddhism, Sosiosh of the Zoroastrians, and the Faithful and True on the white horse of Revelations.
Esoteric Buddhism: The mystic or occultistic schools of Buddhism. Specifically, Lamaism (q.v.).
Esoteric Buddhism Vedānta Tāraka-Rāja-Yoga
Esoteric Transmission ::: A concept in certain religions and spiritual traditions that emphasizes a relationship between a teacher and a student (or a group and its members) in order to preserve certain systems of magic and specific spiritual practices. Over time and over the course of many minds working the system, power is built up through a lineage and the rituals and practices themselves become vital to being able to work within the current being taught. This is a complex idea but, as an example, is found in Tibetan Buddhism when one wants to work with a Tantric deity, they first must receive abhisheka from a lama. Even in Christianity there are lineages that confer the power to bestow appellations and blessings of the Church to others. The idea is that these are more than symbolic gestures; being a part of the lineage and being empowered within that lineage is necessary in many cases to work magic or utilize the practices taught effectively or at all.
’Eyn Soph (Hebrew) ’Ēin Sōf Also Ain Soph, Ayn Soph, Eyn Suph, Ein Soph, etc. No-thing, the negatively existent one, or the no-thing of space corresponding closely in some respects to the mystical sunyata of Mahayana Buddhism. Used in the Qabbalah for that which is above Kether or Macroprosopus, i.e., no-thing. “It is so named because we do not know, and it is impossible to know, that which there is in this Principle, because it never descends as far as our ignorance and because it is above Wisdom itself” (Zohar iii, 288b).
From another more general standpoint Samsara is the passage through the three worlds as commonly given in Buddhism: physical, astral, and mental; and from a more esoteric viewpoint the word could embrace the entire whirlings or wanderings of the monadic centers of beings through the seven Worlds.
Gautama Buddha: (Skr. Gautama, a patronymic, meaning of the tribe of Gotama; Buddha, the enlightened one) The founder of Buddhism. born about 563 B.C. into a royal house at Kapilavastu. As Prince Siddhartha (Siddhattha) he had all worldly goods and pleasures at his disposal, married, had a son, but was so stirred by sights of disease, old age, and death glimpsed on stolen drives through the city that he renounced all when but 29 years of age, became a mendicant, sought instruction in reaching an existence free from these evils and tortures, fruitlessly however, till at the end of seven years of search while sitting under the Bodhi-tree, he became the Buddha, the Awakened One, and attained the true insight. Much that is legendary and reminds one of the Christian mythos surrounds Buddha's life as retold in an extensive literature which also knows of his former and future existences. Mara, the Evil One, tempted Buddha to enter nirvana (s.v.) directly, withholding thus knowledge of the path of salvation from the world; but the Buddha was firm and taught the rightful path without venturing too far into metaphysics, setting all the while an example of a pure and holy life devoted to the alleviation of suffering. At the age of 80, having been offered and thus compelled to partake of pork, he fell ill and in dying attained nirvana. -- K.F.L.
Gelug: The reformed sect of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism); called the Yellow Sect. Its head and representative, the Dalai Lama, has temporal rule over Tibet.
Generally in The Secret Doctrine it is the fifth kosmic element from below, a link between kosmic mind or mahat and the lower manifested world, the vehicle of the former and the parent of the latter. Looking at aether in a more general kosmic way, it is the field of activity of the kosmic Third Logos, Brahma-prakriti, and therefore the great womb of manifested being, the treasure house of all kosmic types, forth from which they flow at the opening of manifestation and back into which they will again be ingathered at the beginning of kosmic pralaya. It is in consequence the great mother-substance out of which all the hierarchies are built. It interpenetrates everything, lasting from the beginning of the universal manvantara to its end, and indeed, may be said to continue, in its most spiritualized form throughout kosmic pralaya as the seed-house or storehouse from which everything will flow into manifestation again when the new period of kosmic activity arrives. Considered as the cosmic mother of all things, aether in its highest feminine aspect is the same as the Vedic Aditi or the Hera or Juno of Greece and Rome. Thus in one sense it is also mulaprakriti, the generator or producer of the seeds of beginnings and things. The Old Testament refers to aether as the kosmic waters. In its highest parts it is mystically alaya (the kosmic spirit-soul) or what in Northern Buddhism is called svabhavat, more mystically adi-buddhi. See also ACTIO IN DISTANS; AKASA
Ghosha (Sanskrit) Ghoṣa An indistinct noise; tumult; a sound of words or cries heard at a distance. In Buddhism, a great arhat, author of the Abhidharmamrita-Sastra.
hacker humour ::: A distinctive style of shared intellectual humour found among hackers, having the following marked characteristics:1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humour having to do with confusion of metalevels (see meta). One way to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her with GREEN written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that this is funny only the first time).2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs, such as specifications (see write-only memory), standards documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL), and even entire scientific theories (see quantum bogodynamics, computron).3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre, ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.5. A fondness for apparently mindless humour with subversive currents of intelligence in it - for example, old Warner Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle Humour that combines this trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially favoured.6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See has the X nature, Discordianism, zen, ha ha only serious, AI koan.See also filk and retrocomputing. If you have an itchy feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one thing that is incredibly difficult to traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout science-fiction fandom. (1995-12-18)
hacker humour A distinctive style of shared intellectual humour found among hackers, having the following marked characteristics: 1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humour having to do with confusion of metalevels (see {meta}). One way to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that this is funny only the first time). 2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs, such as specifications (see {write-only memory}), standards documents, language descriptions (see {INTERCAL}), and even entire scientific theories (see {quantum bogodynamics}, {computron}). 3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre, ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises. 4. Fascination with puns and wordplay. 5. A fondness for apparently mindless humour with subversive currents of intelligence in it - for example, old Warner Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers, the early B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Humour that combines this trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially favoured. 6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See {has the X nature}, {Discordianism}, {zen}, {ha ha only serious}, {AI koan}. See also {filk} and {retrocomputing}. If you have an itchy feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you are (a) correct and (b) responding like a hacker. These traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout {science-fiction fandom}. (1995-12-18)
Heart Doctrine In Mahayana Buddhism, the hidden or esoteric teachings as opposed to the eye doctrine, the public or exoteric teachings. In theosophy, the heart doctrine is considered to contain the more profound and compassionate teachings which go beyond the literal interpretation of the publicly given doctrines. ( )
Hetu (Sanskrit) Hetu Cause, motive, impulse; in the Nyaya system of philosophy, a logical reason or deduction or argument; the reason for an inference, applied especially to the second member or avayava of the five-membered syllogism. In Buddhism, a primary cause, opposed to pratyaya (concurrent cause).
Hinayana (Sanskrit) Hīnayāna Little vehicle; the Theravada school of Southern Buddhism, with its representative in the Buddhism of the North; usually considered the exoteric school in contrast with the Mahayana (great vehicle), the so-called esoteric school. The Hinayana represents what Buddhist mystics have called the eye doctrine, that portion of the Buddha’s teaching which is exoteric or for the public, and therefore visible to the eye; while the Mahayana is called the heart doctrine, meaning that portion of the Buddha’s teaching which was hid, the secret or heart of the teaching. But there is also a distinctly esoteric side to the Hinayana when it is properly analyzed and understood.
Iddhi (Pali) Iddhi [from the verbal root sidh to succeed, attain an objective, reach accomplishment] Equivalent to the Sanskrit siddhi, used to signify the powers or attributes of perfection: powers of various kinds, spiritual and intellectual as well as astral and physical, acquired through training, discipline, initiation, and individual holiness. In Buddhism it is generally rendered “occult power.” There are two classes of iddhis, the higher of which, according to the Digha-Nikaya and other Buddhist works, are eight in number: 1) the power to project mind-made images of oneself; 2) to become invisible; 3) to pass through solid things, such as a wall; 4) to penetrate solid ground as if it were water; 5) to walk on water; 6) to fly through the air; 7) to touch sun and moon; and 8) to ascend into the highest heavens. The same work represents the Buddha as saying: “It is because I see danger in the practice of these mystic wonders that I loathe and abhor and am ashamed thereof” (1:213) — a true statement although iddhis are powers of the most desirable kind when pertaining to the higher nature, for they are of spiritual, intellectual, and higher psychical character. It is only when iddhis or siddhis are limited to the meaning of the gross astral psychic attributes that the Buddha properly condemns them as being dangerous always, and to the ambitious and selfish person extremely perilous. Further, it was an offense against the regulations of the Brotherhood (Samgha) for any member to display any powers before the laity.
Idol, Idolotry [from Greek eidolon image, idol] The use of images of divinities, which pertains to exotericism, as do visible symbols, ceremonies, and rituals in general. Attitudes vary among religions: Judaism, Islam, and Protestant Christianity absolutely forbid it; Orthodox Christianity permits icons, such as pictures of saints; Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism permit it altogether. Varying degrees of ignorance or enlightenment may regard an idol as in itself a species of imbodied divinity, as transmitting the influence of a divinity or, more spiritually, as a reminder of a divinity. In a real sense, idolatry is the attaching of undue importance to the form rather than to the spirit, and often becomes degraded into worshiping the images made in our imagination and imbodied in work of the hands. “Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship dies out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African Negroes, etc.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do” (SD 2:723).
In addition to its more than five thousand main entries, this volume also contains a number of reference tools. Because the various historical periods and dynasties of India, China, Korea, and Japan appear repeatedly in the entries, historical chronologies of the Buddhist periods of those four countries have been provided. In order to compare what events were occurring across the Buddhist world at any given time, we have provided a timeline of Buddhism. Eight maps are provided, showing regions of the Buddhist world and of the traditional Buddhist cosmology. We have also included a List of Lists. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Buddhism has been struck by the Buddhist propensity for making lists of almost anything. The MahAvyutpatti is in fact organized not alphabetically but by list, including such familiar lists as the four noble truths, the twelve links of dependent origination, and the thirty-two major marks of the Buddha, as well as less familiar lists, such as various kinds of grain (twenty items) and types of ornaments (sixty-four items). Here we have endeavored to include several of the most important lists, beginning with the one vehicle and ending with the one hundred dharmas of the YogAcAra school. After some discussion, we decided to forgo listing the 84,000 afflictions and their 84,000 antidotes.
In Chinese Buddhism the term is used for the genii of the four quarters, called in China the Black Warrior, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird, and the Azure Dragon — the Four Hidden Dragons of Wisdom. In her rendering of the Stanzas of Dzyan, Blavatsky uses Dragon of Wisdom as an equivalent of Oeaohoo the Younger — the germ and overseer of all things to the end of the life cycle.
India. Intimations of advanced theism, both in a deistic and immanentistic form, are to be found in the Rig Veda. The early Upanishads in general teach variously realistic deism, immanent theism, and, more characteristically, mystical, impersonal idealism, according to which the World Ground (brahman) is identified with the universal soul (atman) which is the inner or essential self within each individual person. The Bhagavad Gita, while mixing pantheism, immanent theism, and deism, inclines towards a personahstic idealism and a corresponding ethics of bhakti (selfless devotion). Jainism is atheistic dualism, with a personalistic recognition of the reality of souls. Many of the schools of Buddhism (see Buddhism) teach idealistic doctrines. Thus a monistic immaterialism and subjectivism (the Absolute is pure consciousness) was expounded by Maitreya, Asanga, and Vasubandhu. The Lankavatarasutra combined monistic, immaterialistic idealism with non-absolutistic nihilism. Subjectivistic, phenomenalistic idealism (the view that there is neither absolute Pure Consciousness nor substantial souls) was taught by the Buddhists Santaraksita and Kamalasila. Examples of modern Vedantic idealism are the Yogavasistha (subjective monistic idealism) and the monistic spiritualism of Gaudapada (duality and plurality are illusion). The most influential Vedantic system is the monistic spiritualism of Sankara. The Absolute is pure indeterminate Being, which can only be described as pure consciousness or bliss. For the different Vedantic doctrines see Vedanta and the references there. Vedantic idealism, whether in its monistic and impersonalistic form, or in that of a more personalistic theism, is the dominant type of metaphysics in modern India. Idealism is also pronounced in the reviving doctrines of Shivaism (which see).
In each case, the name of the realm indicates the object of meditation of the beings reborn there. Hence, in the first, for example, the beings perceive only infinite space. Rebirth in these different spheres is based on mastery of the corresponding four immaterial meditative absorptions (ĀRuPYĀVACARADHYĀNA; ārupyasamāpatti) in the previous life. While the devas of the sensuous realm and the realm of subtle materiality come to have larger and ever more splendid bodies at the more advanced levels of their heavens, the devas of the immaterial realm do not have even the subtlest foundation in materiality; their existence is so refined that it is not even possible to posit exactly where they dwell spatially. In some schools, such as the Sarvāstivāda, the immaterial realm does not even exist as a discrete place: rather, when a being who has mastered the immaterial absorptions dies, he is reborn at the very same location where he passed away, except now he is "immaterial" or "formless" and thus invisible to coarser beings. According to the Theravāda, even a mind-made body (MANOMAYAKĀYA) is excluded from this realm, for the devas here possess only the mind base (MANĀYATANA), mental objects (P. dhammāyatana), the elements of mental consciousness (P. manoviNNānadhātu), and the element of mental objects (P. dhammadhātu), needing only three nutriments (ĀHĀRA) to survive-contact (P. phassa), mental cognition (P. manosaNcetana), and consciousness (P. viNNāna). The Buddha claims to have lived among the devas of the immaterial realm in certain of his previous lives, but without offering any detailed description of those existences. ¶ In all realms, devas are born apparitionally. In the sensuous realm, devas are born in their mother's lap, appearing as if they are already five to ten years old at birth; by contrast, devas of the subtle-materiality and immaterial realms appear not to need the aid of parents; those in the subtle-materiality realm appear fully grown, while those in the immaterial realm do not appear at all, because they have no form. It is also said that, when devas are reborn, they are aware of their prior existence and of the specific KARMAN that led to their rebirth in the heavenly realms. The different deva realms are also distinguished by differences in nutriment, sexuality, requisites, and life span. The devas of the lower heavens of the sensuous realm consume ordinary food; those in the upper spheres of the sensuous realm and the lower levels of the realm of subtle materiality feed only on sensory contact; the devas of the upper levels of the realm of subtle materiality feed only on contemplation; those in the immaterial realm feed on cognition alone. Sexual differentiation remains only in the sensuous realm: in the heaven of the four heavenly kings and the heaven of the thirty-three, the devas engage in physical copulation, the devas of the yāma heaven engage in sexual union by embracing one another, the devas of the tusita heaven by holding hands, those of the nirmānarati heaven by smiling at one another, and those of the paranirmitavasavartin heaven by exchanging a single glance. Clothes are said to be used in all deva worlds except in the immaterial realm. The life spans of devas in the sensuous realm range from five hundred years for the gods of the heaven of the four heavenly kings to one thousand years for the trāyastriMsa gods, two thousand years for the yāma gods, four thousand years for the tusita gods, eight thousand years for the nirmānarati gods, and sixteen thousand years for the paranirmitavasavartin gods. However, there is a range of opinion of what constitutes a year in these heavens. For example, it is said that in the tusita heaven, four hundred human years equal one day in the life of a god of that heaven. The life spans of devas in the realm of subtle materiality are measured in eons (KALPA). The life spans of devas in the immaterial realm may appear as essentially infinite, but even those divinities, like all devas, are subject to impermanence (ANITYA) and will eventually die and be subject to further rebirths once the salutary meditative deed that caused them to be reborn there has been exhausted. The sutras say that for a deva of the sensuous realm, there are five portents of his impending death: the garlands of flowers he wears begin to fade, his clothes become soiled and his palace dusty, he begins to perspire, his body becomes opaque and loses its luster, and his throne becomes uncomfortable. At that point, the deva experiences a vision of his next place of rebirth. This vision is said to be one of the most horrible sufferings in saMsāra, because of its marked contrast to the magnificence of his current life. There are also said to be four direct reasons why devas die: exhaustion of their life spans, their previous merit, their food, and the arising of anger. ¶ Rebirth as a deva is presumed to be the reward of virtuous karman performed in previous lives and is thus considered a salutary, if provisional, religious goal. In the "graduated discourse" (P. ANUPUBBIKATHĀ; S. ANUPuRVIKATHĀ) taught by the Buddha, for example, the Buddha uses the prospect of heavenly rebirth (svargakathā), and the pleasures accruing thereto, as a means of attracting laypersons to the religious life. Despite the many appealing attributes of these heavenly beings, such as their physical beauty, comfortable lives, and long life span, even heavenly existence is ultimately unsatisfactory because it does not offer a definitive escape from the continued cycle of birth and death (saMsāra). Since devas are merely enjoying the rewards of their previous good deeds rather than performing new wholesome karman, they are considered to be stagnating spiritually. This spiritual passivity explains why they must be reborn in lower levels of existence, and especially as human beings, in order to further their cultivation. For these reasons, Buddhist soteriological literature sometimes condemns religious practice performed solely for the goal of achieving rebirth as a deva. It is only certain higher level of devas, such as the devas belonging to the five pure abodes (suddhāvāsa), that are not subject to further rebirth, because they have already eliminated all the fetters (saMyojana) associated with that realm and are destined to achieve arhatship. Nevertheless, over the history of Buddhism, rebirth in heaven as a deva has been a more common goal for religious practice, especially among the laity, than the achievement of nirvāna. ¶ The sutras include frequent reference to "gods and men" (S. devamanusya; C. tianren) as the objects of the Buddha's teachings. Despite the fact that this is how most Buddhist traditions have chosen to translate the Sanskrit compound, "gods" here is probably meant to refer to the terrestrial divinities of "princes" or "kings," rather than heavenly beings; thus, the compound should be more properly (if, perhaps, pedantically) rendered "princes and peoples." Similarly, as the "divinities" of this world, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats are also sometimes referred to as devas. See also DEVALOKA; DEVATĀ.
Infinite [from Latin in not + finitus ended] That which is endless or not finite; ancient peoples expressed the frontierless, beginningless, and endless hierarchical immensities, whether of space, time, spirit, or matter in many ways, as in the ’eyn soph (without bounds or frontiers) of the Qabbalah, the Hindu parabrahman (beyond Brahman), the Void, the Sunyata of Buddhism, the Ginnungagap (gaping void) of the Scandinavians, the Deep of the Bible, or the waters of space, etc. Many philosophers of antiquity considered it futile to speculate upon that which is ex hypothesi beyond the understanding of the human mind, confessedly finite in function and range. For whatever the human mind can shape or figurate to itself as a concept must be de facto finite in itself, however great or grand. Infinite was never used as a synonym for deity or any divine being, for however immense in its incomprehensible vastness in both time and space, it could be nevertheless only finite, for the human mind itself had given birth to the human thought, and the human mind is finite.
In Hindu literature this vajra is the scepter of Indra (similar to the thunderbolt of Zeus), with which he as the god of the skies was said to slay evildoers. In mystical Buddhism it is the magic scepter of priest-initiates and adepts, the symbol of the possessions of siddhis (superhuman powers), wielded during certain mystical ceremonies by initiated priests and theurgists. It is also the symbol of the Buddha’s power over evil spirits or elementals. The possessors of this scepter are called vajrapanins.
In Mahayana Buddhism, alaya-vijnana has acquired a somewhat larger and higher significance: alaya (an abode, in the sense of focus of activity), the prepositional prefix a (meaning position or limitation) with the verb li (to dissolve) signifies solution or coalescence in unity. Used much as the term human monad is in theosophy, equivalent to the higher manas or even buddhi-manas, it therefore signifies the focus or interior organ of consciousness into which is collected at the end of each incarnation the aroma of the higher experiences during that lifetime, thus forming a kind of treasury.
Inner God ::: Mystics of all the ages have united in teaching this fact of the existence and ever-present power of anindividual inner god in each human being, as the first principle or primordial energy governing theprogress of man out of material life into the spiritual. Indeed, the doctrine is so perfectly universal, and isso consistent with everything that man knows when he reflects over the matter of his own spiritual andintellectual nature, that it is small wonder that this doctrine should have acquired foremost place inhuman religious and philosophical consciousness. Indeed, it may be called the very foundation-stone onwhich were builded the great systems of religious and philosophical thinking of the past; and rightly so,because this doctrine is founded on nature herself.The inner god in man, man's own inner, essential divinity, is the root of him, whence flow forth ininspiring streams into the psychological apparatus of his constitution all the inspirations of genius, all theurgings to betterment. All powers, all faculties, all characteristics of individuality, which blossomthrough evolution into individual manifestation, are the fruitage of the working in man's constitution ofthose life-giving and inspiring streams of spiritual energy.The radiant light which streams forth from that immortal center or core of our inmost being, which is ourinner god, lightens the pathway of each one of us; and it is from this light that we obtain idealconceptions. It is by this radiant light in our hearts that we can guide our feet towards an ever largerfulfilling in daily life of the beautiful conceptions which we as mere human beings dimly or clearlyperceive, as the case may be.The divine fire which moves through universal Nature is the source of the individualized divine firecoming from man's inner god.The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call the inner god the Christ Immanent, the immanentChristos; in Buddhism it is called the living Buddha within; in Brahmanism it is spoken of as the Brahmain his Brahmapura or Brahma-city, which is the inner constitution.Hence, call it by what name you please, the reflective and mystical mind intuitively realizes that thereworks through him a divine flame, a divine life, a divine light, and that this by whatever name we maycall it, is himself, his essential SELF. (See also God)
In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul — for that does not exist — but of a mental compound or stream of associations or samskaras which we mistake for our self. In illusionist Vedanta it means not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal individual self into the one real Self or Brahman j it is the idea and experience of indivi- duality that so disappears and ceases — we may say a false light that is extinguished {nirvana) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness ; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of the cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcend- ence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual ? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible ; but the individual self is not this ego. The individual soul Is a spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal por- tion of the Divine but can also be described as the Divine him- self supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the Divine Life.
In Southern Buddhism, the word also means residue, relics (that which remains after the body has been cremated), and applied especially to the relics of the Buddha’s body alleged to have been collected after its cremation.
In the 3rd century BC the language used throughout Northern India was practically one, and it was derived directly from the speech of the Vedic Aryans, retaining many Vedic forms lost in the later classical Sanskrit. The basis of the language used in the Buddhist canon was that used in Ujjayini, the capital of the Avanti district. The chief doctrines of Buddhism are recorded in the works known as the Suttas (Sutras in Sanskrit) — there being four Nikayas consisting of 16 volumes; the fifth Nikaya being the Jatakas (birth stories of the Buddha).
“In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Adi-Buddha (Chogi dangpoi sangye), the One unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahm and Ain-Soph, emits a bright ray from its darkness.
In the seventh degree, theopathy (the suffering a god — suffering oneself to be one’s own inner god), the personal self has become permanently at-one with the inner divinity. The successful passing of the seventh trial resulted in the initiant’s becoming a glorified Christ, to be followed by the last or ultimate stage of this degree known in Buddhism as achieving buddhahood or nirvana. Since limits cannot be set to attainment, however, still loftier stages of spiritual and intellectual unfolding or initiation await those who have already attained the degree of buddhahood.
In this connection, the Kalki-avatara — stated to be the final incarnation of Vishnu in Hinduism or the incarnation of Maitreya-Buddha in Northern Buddhism — and the final great hero and savior of mankind of the Zoroastrians called Sosiosh, as well as the Faithful and True one of the Christian book of Revelation, all appear on a white horse. All these heroes or saviors are connected emblematically with horses of power because the horse has been from immemorial time a representation of solar, spiritual, and intellectual energies. See also ASVAMEDHA
ISBN-10: 0-691-15786-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Buddhism-Dictionaries. I. Buswell, Robert E., author, editor of compilation.
jainism ::: n. --> The heterodox Hindoo religion, of which the most striking features are the exaltation of saints or holy mortals, called jins, above the ordinary Hindoo gods, and the denial of the divine origin and infallibility of the Vedas. It is intermediate between Brahmanism and Buddhism, having some things in common with each.
Jains, Jainas [from jina victorious] Followers of the jinas; one of the major Indian religions. Scholars place their origin in the 5th century BC, believing them to be the last direct representatives of the philosophical schools which then flourished. Jainism, however, became overshadowed with the rise of Buddhism, which it closely resembles; but came to the front when the Buddhist fervor waned in India. The first recorded Jain teacher is Vaddhamana (known as Mahavira, “the great hero”), a contemporary of Gautama Buddha; the Jains themselves state that there was a succession of teachers antedating him, and enumerate 24 Jinas or Tirthankaras. Jains deny the authority of the Vedas and do not believe in any personal supreme god. They have a complex religious philosophy which includes belief in the eternity of matter, the periodicity of the universe, and the immortality of human’s and animal’s minds. They are particularly known for avoiding harming any living thing.
Jati (Sanskrit) Jāti [from the verbal root jan to be born, come forth from intrinsic inner vital power] Birth, production, the form of existence fixed by birth; also rank, family, race. In Buddhism, one of the twelve nidanas (causes of existence).
Jordan (Hebrew) Yardēn “The flowing” (a river) — with a collateral idea of descent from a higher place, in which lies its mystical significance. “Many Christian hymns speak of the mystical Jordan and of reaching the ‘shore beyond,’ a conception which appears to be more or less identic with that of Buddhism. ‘This side’ is the life of the world, the usual or common pursuits of men. The ‘other shore’ is simply the life spiritual, involving the expansion in relatively full power and function of the entire range of man’s nature. In other words, to reach the ‘other shore’ means living at one with the divinity within, and hence partaking of the universal life in relatively full self-consciousness” (FSO 43-4). This symbolism applies to other holy rivers, such as the Nile and Ganges.
Kagyud: A semi-reformed sect of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism); called the White Sect.
Kah-dum-pas (Tibetan) bka’ gdams pa (Ka-dam-pa) The first “reformed” school of Tibetan Buddhism, founded by the Indian Buddhist teacher Dipamkara Srijnana or Atisa (982-1048), who came to Tibet in 1042. Tshong-kha-pa is viewed as a successor to Atisa, and the Gelukpa order is sometimes called the “New Kadampa.”
Kanglings ::: In Tibetan Buddhism, this is a trumpet or horn made of a human femur.
Kanishka (Sanskrit) Kaniṣka A celebrated ruler or king in Northern India who reigned around the first century. Next to Asoka, he was among the greatest patrons and supporters of Indian Buddhism, building some of the finest stupas or dagobas in Northern India and Kabulistan.
Kapala ::: In Tibetan Buddhism, this is a human skull used as a ritual bowl.
Lama ::: A guru in Tibetan Buddhism.
Lamaism: A popular term for Tibetan esoteric Buddhism, not used by the Buddhists themselves. It designates the religious beliefs and institutions of Tibet, derived from Mahayana Buddhism (q.v.) which was first introduced in the seventh century by the chieftain Sron-tsan-gampo, superimposed on the native Shamais-tic Bon religion, resuscitated and mixed with Tantric (q.v.) elements by the mythic Hindu Padmasambhava, and reformed by the Bengalese Atisa in the 11th and Tsong-kha-pa at the turn of the 14th century. The strong admixture of elements of the exorcismal, highly magically charged and priest-ridden original Bon, has given Buddhism a turn away from its philosophic orientation and produced in Lamaism a form that places great emphasis on mantras (q.v.)—the most famous one being om mani padme hum —elaborate ritual, and the worship of subsidiary tutelary deities, high dignitaries, and living incarnations of the Buddha. This worship is institutionalized, incorporating a belief in the double incarnation of the Bodhisattva (q.v.) in the Dalai-Lama who resides with political powers at the capital Lhasa, and the more spiritual head Tashi-Lama who rules at Tashi-lhum-po.
lamaism ::: n. --> A modified form of Buddhism which prevails in Thibet, Mongolia, and some adjacent parts of Asia; -- so called from the name of its priests. See 2d Lama.
Lineage ::: In Buddhism this is a line of transmission that makes up a tradition, school of thought, or set of practices. Theoretically the lineage can be traced back to the Buddha himself.
Magadha (Sanskrit) Magadha An ancient country in South Behar, India which after the establishment of Buddhism in India, was ruled by Buddhist kings.
Mahayana Buddhism: "Great Vehicle Buddhism", the Northern, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese form of Buddhism (q.v.), extending as far as Korea and Japan, whose central theme is that Buddhahood means devotion to the salvation of others and thus manifests itself in the worship of Buddha and Bodhisattvas (q.v.). Apart from absorbing beliefs of a more primitive strain, it has also evolved metaphysical and epistemological systems, such as the Sunya-vada (q.v.) and Vijnana-vada (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Mahayana Buddhism: “Great Vehicle Buddhism,” the Northern, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese form of Buddhism (q.v.), extending as far as Korea and Japan, whose central theme is that Buddhahood means devotion to the salvation of others and thus manifests itself in the worship of Buddha and Bodhisattvas (q.v.). Apart from absorbing beliefs of a more primitive strain, it has also evolved metaphysical and epistemological systems, such as the Sunya-vada (q.v.) and Vijnana-vada (q.v.).
Mahayana (Sanskrit) Mahāyāna [from mahā great + yāna vehicle] Great vehicle; a highly mystical system of Northern Buddhist philosophy and learning, in the main founded by Nagarjuna. Of the two schools of Buddhism, usually classed under the Mahayana and Hinayana or Theravada respectively, the Mahayana is usually called the esoteric and the Hinayana the exoteric. But due to human weakness, love of the eye doctrine, and misunderstanding of the rites and ceremonials enjoined, the exoteric teaching of the Mahayana in its popular aspects is stressed today; while its deeper, more mystical teaching has to a large extent been withdrawn into the charge of initiated adepts.
Main works: Le fondemcnt de l'induction, 187; Psychologie et metaphysique, 1885; Etudes sur le syllogisme, 1907; Note sur le pari de Pascal. --L.W. Lamaism: (from Tibetan b La-ma, honorable title of a monk) The religious beliefs and institutions of Tibet, derived from Mahayana Buddhism (q.v.) which was first introduced in the 7th century by the chieftain Sron-tsan-gampo, superimposed on the native Shamaistic Bon religion, resuscitated and mixed with Tantric (q.v.) elements by the mythic Hindu Padmasambhava, and reformed by the Bengalese Atisa in the 11th and Tsong-kha-pa at the turn of the 14th century. The strong admixture of elements of the exorcismal, highly magically charged and priest-ridden original Bon, has given Buddhism a turn away from its philosophic orientation and produced in Lamaism a form that places great emphasis on mantras (q.v.) -- the most famous one being om mani padme hum) -- elaborate ritual, and the worship of subsidiary tutelary deities, high dignitaries, and living incarnations of the Buddha. This worship is institutionalized, with a semblance of the papacy, in the double incarnation of the Bodhisattva (q.v.) in the Dalai-Lama who resides with political powers at the capital Lhasa, and the more spiritual head Tashi-Lama who rules at Tashi-Ihum-po. Contacts with Indian and Chinese traditions have been maintained for centuries and the two canons of Lamaism, the Kan-jur of 108 books and the Tan-jur of 225 books represent many translations as well as original works, some of great philosophical value. -- K.F.L.
Mana (Sanskrit) Māna [from the verbal root man to think] Opinion, conception, idea; also self-conceit, arrogance, pride (especially in the compound aham-mana). In Buddhism, one of the six evil feelings or one of the ten fetters to be discarded. As a neuter noun, consideration, respect, honor. In astrology the name of the tenth mansion or house.
Manichean ::: Manicheans or their doctrines; i.e. adherents of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark, matter being regarded as dark and evil.
manichean ::: manicheans or their doctrines; i.e. adherents of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark, matter being regarded as dark and evil.
Mara ::: [in Buddhism: the Destroyer, the Evil One (who tempts man to indulge his passions and is the great enemy of the Buddha and of his religion)], conscious devil or self-existent principle of evil.
Mean: In general, that which in some way mediates or occupies a middle position among various things or between two extremes. Hence (especially in the plural) that through which an end is attained; in mathematics the word is used for any one of various notions of average; in ethics it represents moderation, temperance, prudence, the middle way. In mathematics: The arithmetic mean of two quantities is half their sum; the arithmetic mean of n quantities is the sum of the n quantities, divided by n. In the case of a function f(x) (say from real numbers to real numbers) the mean value of the function for the values x1, x2, . . . , xn of x is the arithmetic mean of f(x1), f(x2), . . . , f(xn). This notion is extended to the case of infinite sets of values of x by means of integration; thus the mean value of f(x) for values of x between a and b is ∫f(x)dx, with a and b as the limits of integration, divided by the difference between a and b. The geometric mean of or between, or the mean proportional between, two quantities is the (positive) square root of their product. Thus if b is the geometric mean between a and c, c is as many times greater (or less) than b as b is than a. The geometric mean of n quantities is the nth root of their product. The harmonic mean of two quantities is defined as the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of their reciprocals. Hence the harmonic mean of a and b is 2ab/(a + b). The weighted mean or weighted average of a set of n quantities, each of which is associated with a certain number as weight, is obtained by multiplying each quantity by the associated weight, adding these products together, and then dividing by the sum of the weights. As under A, this may be extended to the case of an infinite set of quantities by means of integration. (The weights have the role of estimates of relative importance of the various quantities, and if all the weights are equal the weighted mean reduces to the simple arithmetic mean.) In statistics, given a population (i.e., an aggregate of observed or observable quantities) and a variable x having the population as its range, we have: The mean value of x is the weighted mean of the values of x, with the probability (frequency ratio) of each value taken as its weight. In the case of a finite population this is the same as the simple arithmetic mean of the population, provided that, in calculating the arithmetic mean, each value of x is counted as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population. In like manner, the mean value of a function f(x) of x is the weighted mean of the values of f(x), where the probability of each value of x is taken as the weight of the corresponding value of f(x). The mode of the population is the most probable (most frequent) value of x, provided there is one such. The median of the population is so chosen that the probability that x be less than the median (or the probability that x be greater than the median) is ½ (or as near ½ as possible). In the case of a finite population, if the values of x are arranged in order of magnitude --repeating any one value of x as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population --then the middle term of this series, or the arithmetic mean of the two middle terms, is the median. --A.C. In cosmology, the fundamental means (arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic) were used by the Greeks in describing or actualizing the process of becoming in nature. The Pythagoreans and the Platonists in particular made considerable use of these means (see the Philebus and the Timaeus more especially). These ratios are among the basic elements used by Plato in his doctrine of the mixtures. With the appearance of the qualitative physics of Aristotle, the means lost their cosmological importance and were thereafter used chiefly in mathematics. The modern mathematical theories of the universe make use of the whole range of means analyzed by the calculus of probability, the theory of errors, the calculus of variations, and the statistical methods. In ethics, the 'Doctrine of the Mean' is the moral theory of moderation, the development of the virtues, the determination of the wise course in action, the practice of temperance and prudence, the choice of the middle way between extreme or conflicting decisions. It has been developed principally by the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks; it was used with caution by the Christian moralists on account of their rigorous application of the moral law. In Chinese philosophy, the Doctrine of the Mean or of the Middle Way (the Chung Yung, literally 'Equilibrium and Harmony') involves the absence of immoderate pleasure, anger, sorrow or joy, and a conscious state in which those feelings have been stirred and act in their proper degree. This doctrine has been developed by Tzu Shu (V. C. B.C.), a grandson of Confucius who had already described the virtues of the 'superior man' according to his aphorism "Perfect is the virtue which is according to the mean". In matters of action, the superior man stands erect in the middle and strives to follow a course which does not incline on either side. In Buddhist philosophy, the System of the Middle Way or Madhyamaka is ascribed more particularly to Nagarjuna (II c. A.D.). The Buddha had given his revelation as a mean or middle way, because he repudiated the two extremes of an exaggerated ascetlsm and of an easy secular life. This principle is also applied to knowledge and action in general, with the purpose of striking a happy medium between contradictory judgments and motives. The final objective is the realization of the nirvana or the complete absence of desire by the gradual destruction of feelings and thoughts. But while orthodox Buddhism teaches the unreality of the individual (who is merely a mass of causes and effects following one another in unbroken succession), the Madhyamaka denies also the existence of these causes and effects in themselves. For this system, "Everything is void", with the legitimate conclusion that "Absolute truth is silence". Thus the perfect mean is realized. In Greek Ethics, the doctrine of the Right (Mean has been developed by Plato (Philebus) and Aristotle (Nic. Ethics II. 6-8) principally, on the Pythagorean analogy between the sound mind, the healthy body and the tuned string, which has inspired most of the Greek Moralists. Though it is known as the "Aristotelian Principle of the Mean", it is essentially a Platonic doctrine which is preformed in the Republic and the Statesman and expounded in the Philebus, where we are told that all good things in life belong to the class of the mixed (26 D). This doctrine states that in the application of intelligence to any kind of activity, the supreme wisdom is to know just where to stop, and to stop just there and nowhere else. Hence, the "right-mean" does not concern the quantitative measurement of magnitudes, but simply the qualitative comparison of values with respect to a standard which is the appropriate (prepon), the seasonable (kairos), the morally necessary (deon), or generally the moderate (metrion). The difference between these two kinds of metretics (metretike) is that the former is extrinsic and relative, while the latter is intrinsic and absolute. This explains the Platonic division of the sciences into two classes: those involving reference to relative quantities (mathematical or natural), and those requiring absolute values (ethics and aesthetics). The Aristotelian analysis of the "right mean" considers moral goodness as a fixed and habitual proportion in our appetitions and tempers, which can be reached by training them until they exhibit just the balance required by the right rule. This process of becoming good develops certain habits of virtues consisting in reasonable moderation where both excess and defect are avoided: the virtue of temperance (sophrosyne) is a typical example. In this sense, virtue occupies a middle position between extremes, and is said to be a mean; but it is not a static notion, as it leads to the development of a stable being, when man learns not to over-reach himself. This qualitative conception of the mean involves an adaptation of the agent, his conduct and his environment, similar to the harmony displayed in a work of art. Hence the aesthetic aspect of virtue, which is often overstressed by ancient and neo-pagan writers, at the expense of morality proper. The ethical idea of the mean, stripped of the qualifications added to it by its Christian interpreters, has influenced many positivistic systems of ethics, and especially pragmatism and behaviourism (e.g., A. Huxley's rule of Balanced Excesses). It is maintained that it is also involved in the dialectical systems, such as Hegelianism, where it would have an application in the whole dialectical process as such: thus, it would correspond to the synthetic phase which blends together the thesis and the antithesis by the meeting of the opposites. --T.G. Mean, Doctrine of the: In Aristotle's ethics, the doctrine that each of the moral virtues is an intermediate state between extremes of excess and defect. -- O.R.M.
Medieval Chinese philosophy was essentially a story of the synthesis of indigenous philosophies and the development of Buddhism. In the second century B.C., the Yin Yang movement identified itself with the common and powerful movement under the names of the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu (Huang Lao). This, in turn, became interfused with Confucianism and produced the mixture which was the Eclectic Sinisticism lasting till the tenth century A.D. In both Huai-nan Tzu (d. 122 B.C.), the semi-Taoist, and Tung Chung-shu (177-104- B.C.), the Confucian, Taoist metaphysics and Confucian ethics mingled with each other, with yin and yang as the connecting links. As the cosmic order results from the harmony of yin and yang in nature, namely, Heaven and Earth, so the moral order results from the harmony of yang and yin in man, such as husband and wife, human nature and passions, and love and hate. The Five Agents (wu hsing), through which the yin yang principles operate, have direct correspondence not only with the five directions, the five metals, etc., in nature, but also with the five Constant Virtues, the five senses, etc., in man, thus binding nature and man in a neat macrocosm-microcosm relationship. Ultimately this led to superstition, which Wang Ch'ung (27-c. 100 A.D.) vigorously attacked. He reinstated naturalism on a rational ground by accepting only reason and experience, and thus promoted the critical spirit to such an extent that it gave rise to a strong movement of textual criticism and an equally strong movement of free political thought in the few centuries after him.
Meditation school of Buddhism: See: Zen Buddhism.
Moderate Realism: See Realism. Modus tollens: See Logic, formal, § 2. Moha: (Skr.) Distraction, perplexity, delusion, beclouding of the mind rendering it unfit to perceive the truth, generally explained as attachment to the phenomenal; in Buddhism, ignorance, as a source of vice. -- K.F.L.
Moha: A Sanskrit term, meaning distraction, perplexity, delusion, beclouding of the mind, rendering it unfit to perceive the truth, generally explained as attachment to the phenomenal; in Buddhism, ignorance, as a source of vice.
Mu (Senzar) Destruction of temptation; a portion of the mystic word in Northern Buddhism (TG 217).
Mystical School of Buddhism: That school in Buddhist philosophy which considers the universe itself to be the Great Sun Buddha (Mahavairocana).
mysticism ::: Mysticism The belief that one can rise above reason to achieve direct union with God or the Divine through meditation and intuition. In mystical practices, one attempts to merge with God or the Divine through a disciplined quest to achieve enlightenment. Some forms of mysticism include the Kabbalah, Sufism (Islam), Yoga, and Buddhism.
Nagarajas (Sanskrit) Nāgarāja-s Serpent or dragon kings; the guardian spirits of lakes and rivers, shown in Buddhist chronicles as having been converted to Buddhism, becoming arhats from yogis. Outside of meaning initiates or adepts, nagas were likewise an actual people who inhabited Naga-dvipa, one of the seven divisions of Bharata-varsha or India, according to the Puranas.
Nagarjuna (Sanskrit) Nāgārjuna A Buddhist arhat or sage generally recognized in Northern Buddhism as a bodhisattva-nirmanakaya. After his conversion to Buddhism, he went to China, and according to legend converted the whole country to Buddhism. He was famous for his dialectical subtlety in metaphysical argument, and was the first teacher of the Amitabha doctrine. He was one of the most prominent representatives and a founder of the esoteric Mahayana system. The source of his deeper teachings is undoubtedly the secret school of adepts; and his esoteric doctrine is one with esoteric theosophy. He was called the Dragon-Tree on account of his esoteric wisdom; and was referred to as one of the four suns which illumine the world.
Nembutsu: In Japanese Buddhism, “thinking of Buddha,” the process of repeating the name of Buddha and meditating on him.
Ningma: The ancient, unreformed form of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism); called the Red Sect, rich in esoteric teachings and traditions.
nirvana ::: n. --> In the Buddhist system of religion, the final emancipation of the soul from transmigration, and consequently a beatific enfrachisement from the evils of wordly existence, as by annihilation or absorption into the divine. See Buddhism.
No single language crosses all of the linguistic and cultural boundaries of the Buddhist tradition. However, in order to present Buddhist terms that are used across this diverse expanse, it is convenient to employ a single linguistic vocabulary. For this reason European and North American scholars have, over the last century, come to use Sanskrit as the lingua franca of the academic discipline of Buddhist Studies. Following this scholarly convention we have used Sanskrit, and often Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit forms, in our main entry headings for the majority of Indic-origin terms that appear across the Buddhist traditions. PAli, Tibetan, or Chinese terms are occasionally used where that form is more commonly known in Western writings on Buddhism. We have attempted to avoid unattested Sanskrit equivalents for terms in PAli and other Middle Indic languages, generally marking any hypothetical forms with an asterisk. These main entry headings are accompanied by cognate forms in PAli, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (abbreviated as P., T., C., J., and K., respectively), followed by the Sinographs (viz., Chinese characters) commonly used in the East Asian traditions. For those Indian terms that are known only or principally in the PAli tradition, the main entry heading is listed in PAli (e.g., bhavanga). Terms used across the East Asian traditions are typically listed by their Chinese pronunciation with Japanese and Korean cross-references, with occasional Japanese or Korean headings for terms that are especially important in those traditions. Tibetan terms are in Tibetan, with Sanskrit or Chinese cognates where relevant. In order that the reader may trace a standard term through any of the languages we cover in the dictionary, we also provide cross-references to each of the other languages at the end of the volume in a section called Cross-References by Language. In both the main entries and the Cross-References by Language, words have been alphabetized without consideration of diacritical marks and word breaks.
Our first debt of gratitude is to the several generations of scholars of Buddhism around the world whose research we have mined shamelessly in the course of preparing our entries. We are unable to mention them by name, but those who remain during the present lifetime will recognize the fruits of their research as they read the entries. In addition to our collaborators listed on the title page, we would like to thank the following graduate students and colleagues, each of whom assisted with some of the myriad details of such a massive project: Wesley Borton, Bonnie Brereton, Tyler Cann, Caleb Carter, Mui-fong Choi, Shayne Clarke, Jacob Dalton, Martino Dibeltulo, Alexander Gardner, Heng Yi fashi (Chi Chen Ho), Anna Johnson, Min Ku Kim, Youme Kim, Alison Melnick, Karen Muldoon-Hules, Cuong Tu Nguyen, Aaron Proffitt, Cedar Bough Saeji, and Sherin Wing. In addition, we would like to thank our long-suffering colleagues: William Bodiford, Gregory Schopen, Natasha Heller, Stephanie Jamison, and Jennifer Jung-Kim at UCLA, and Madhav Deshpande, Luis Gómez, Robert Sharf, and James Robson, now or formerly at the University of Michigan. The map of Tibet was designed by Tsering Wangyal Shawa; the map of Japan and Korea was designed by Maya Stiller; all other maps were designed by Trevor Weltman. Christina Lee Buswell also provided invaluable assistance with preparing the lists of language cross-references.
Pali Canon ::: In Theravadan Buddhism, these are recognised as the canonical suttas of the Buddha. In other forms of Buddhism they are the main body of teachings and discourses that comprise the foundation for much of Buddhist philosophy and practice.
Parallel with these developments was the growth of Buddhism in China, a story too long to relate here. Many Buddhist doctrines, latent in India, were developed in China. The nihilism of Madhyamika (Sun-lan, c. 450-c. 1000) to the effect that reality is Void in the sense of being "devoid" of any specific character, was brought to fullness, while the idealism of Vijnaptimatravada (Yogacara, Fahsiang, 563-c. 1000), which claimed that reality in its imaginary, dependent and absolute aspects is "representation-only," was pushed to the extreme. But these philosophies failed because their extreme positions were not consonant with the Chinese Ideal of the golden mean. In the meantime, China developed her own Buddhist philosophy consistent with her general philosophical outlook. We need only mention the Hua-yen school (Avatamisaka, 508) which offered a totalistic philosophy of "all in one" and "one in all," the T'ien-t'ai school (c. 550) which believes in the identity of the Void, Transitoriness, and the Mean, and in the "immanence of 3,000 worlds in one moment of thought," and the Chin-t'u school (Pure Land, c. 500) which bases its doctrine of salvation by faith and salvation for all on the philosophy of the universality of Buddha-nature. These schools have persisted because they accepted both noumenon and phenomenon, both ens and non-ens, and this "both-and" spirit is predominantly characteristic of Chinese philosophy.
Pessimism: (Lat. pessimus, the worst) The attitude gained by reflection on life, man, and the world (psychiatrically explained as due to neurotic or other physiological conditions, economically to over-population, mechanization, rampant utilitarianism; religiously to lack of faith; etc.) which makes a person gloomy, despondent, magnifying evil and sorrow, or holding the world in contempt. Rationalizations of this attitude have been attempted before Schopenhauer (as in Hesiod, Job, among the Hindus, in Byron, Giacomo Leopardi, Heine, Musset, and others), but never with such vigor, consistency, and acumen, so that since his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung we speak of a 19th century philosophic literature of pessimism which considers this world the worst possible, holds man to be born to sorrow, and thinks it best if neither existed. Buddhism (q.v.) blames the universal existence of pain, sorrow, and death; Schopenhauer the blind, impetuous will as the very stuff life and the world are made of; E. v. Hartmann the alogical or irrational side of the ill-powerful subconscious; Oswald Spengler the Occidental tendency toward civilization and hence the impossibility of extricating ourselves from decay as the natural terminus of all organic existence. All pessimists, however, suggest compensations or remedies; thus, Buddhism looks hopefully to nirvana (q.v.), Schopenhauer to the Idea, v. Hartmann to the rational, Spengler to a rebirth through culture. See Optimism. -- K.F.L.
Philosophic speculations, heavily shrouded by "pre-logical" and symbolic language, started with the poetic, ritualistic Vedas (q.v.), luxuriating in polytheism and polyanthropoism, was then fostered by the Brahman caste in treatises called Aranyakas (q.v.) and Brahmanas (q.v.) and strongly promoted by members of the ruling caste who instituted philosophic congresses in which peripatetic teachers and women participated, and of which we know through the Upanishads (q.v.). Later, the main bulk of Indian Philosophy articulated itself organically into systems forming the nucleus for such famous schools as the Mimamsa and Vedanta, Sankhya and Yoga, Nyaya and Vaisesika, and those of Buddhism and Jainism (all of which see). Numerous other philosophic and quasi philosophic systems are found in the epic literature and elsewhere (cf., e.g., Shaktism, Shivaism, Trika, Vishnuism), or remain to be discovered. Much needs to be translated by competent philosophers.
Plenum (Latin) Full, fullness, as opposed to void or so-called empty space; the plenitude of fullness of matter in space which in fact forms space. Space in this sense is a plenum or pleroma, not a vacuum; yet philosophically, because of the nature of mahamaya, all manifested existence is illusory and hence empty in the mystical sense. Therefore those great systems of thought which have remained most faithful to the ancient wisdom, such as Northern Buddhism, speak of space and all the vast variety of existence as sunyata (the void).
Pratisamvid (Sanskrit) Pratisaṃvid [from prati-sam-vid to recognize, attain knowledge by cognition or recognition] In Buddhism, “the four ‘unlimited forms of wisdom’ attained by an Arhat; the last of which is the absolute knowledge of and power over the twelve Nidanas,” the twelve causes of existence on earth (TG 260-1).
Pratyeka Buddha (Sanskrit) Pratyeka Buddha [from prati towards, for + eka one] Each one for himself; exalted and in one sense holy beings who crave spiritual enlightenment for themselves alone. They “are those Bodhisattvas who strive after and often reach the Dharmakaya robe after a series of lives. Caring nothing for the woes of mankind or to help it, but only for this own bliss, they enter Nirvana and — disappear from the sight and the hearts of men. In Northern Buddhism a ‘Pratyeka Buddha’ is a synonym of spiritual Selfishness”; “He, who becomes Pratyeka-Buddha, makes his obeisance but to his Self ” (VS 86, 43).
Pudgala: (Skr. beautiful, lovely) The sou], or personal entity, admitted by some thinkers even though belonging to the schools of Buddhism (s.v.), they hold that at least a temporary individuality must be assumed as vehicle for karma (q.v.) -- K.F.L.
Pure Land ::: Also "Buddha-Field". In Buddhism, these are realms of reality that have been created by highly realized Mahasiddhas for rebirth by those who practice phowa and attune to that particular world at the time of death. For eference, imagine a constructed world of your choosing that exists as an astral abode and imagine it at peak lucidity. Pure lands are like that but a stable home for the mind at much higher levels of bliss, clarity, and form freedom. These are the idealized afterlives of various traditions and religions.
Red Caps, Red Hats, Red Hoods Often applied, especially by Europeans to the adherents of the Unreformed Buddhist sects, called in Tibet the Ning-ma-pas, who wear red robes and hoods. This sect was founded in Tibet in the latter part of the 8th century during the reign of the Tibetan king Ti-song De-tsen, who was so impressed with the precepts of Buddhism that he summoned Padmasambhava from Udyayana in Northwest India to spread the religion of the Buddha in Tibet. But by this time the Buddhism of Northwest India and Nepal had become infected with tantric practices, and these practices predominated in Tibet until the great reformer Tsong-kha-pa (born 1358) founded the order of the Gelukpas or Yellow Caps.
Rhinoceros Used in the mystical schools of Northern Buddhism to signify a pratyeka buddha, a translation of the Sanskrit khadga. The nature of the rhinoceros is to be alone, walk alone, live alone, intent on its own affairs and more or less oblivious of what does not concern these. Transferring the idea of the solitary individual intent upon his own purposes, however spiritually high, to the pratyeka buddhas gives an outline of the entire Mahayana Buddhist doctrine.
Rimpoche ::: An honorific in Tibetan Buddhism for accomplished lamas and respected elders within a tradition.
Sadhana: A Sanskrit term for spiritual effort or quest of enlightenment. In Tantric Buddhism, a ceremony by the performance of which the worshipper can render visible any god he desires and is enabled to obtain control of the deity. In Hinduism, the means through which the Hindu student of esoteric sciences attains to samadhi (q.v.).
Sakya: A semi-reformed sect of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism); called the Multiple-Colored Sect.
Sakya Muni; Sakyamuni: Sanskrit for Great Sage. A name of Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
Sakya (Sanskrit) Śākya A clan in ancient India, with a capital called Kapilavastu. From this clan was descended Siddhartha-Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. Hence the patronymic Sakya, by which he is commonly known.
Samanera (Pali) Sāmaṇera A novice in Buddhism.
Samapatti (Sanskrit) Samāpatti [from sam-ā-pad to progress to perfect fulfillment from the verbal root pad to go, progress] In Buddhism, a subdivision of the fourth stage of abstract meditation (there being eight samapattis); “perfect concentration” in the raja yoga system of occult training, a state of intellectual, spiritual, and psychic unfolding in which meditation becomes vision, and there ensues perfect indifference to things of this world. Said to be the final degree of development, upon reaching which the possibility of entering into samadhi is attained.
Sama, Saman (Sanskrit) Śama, Śāman [from the verbal root śam to be quiet, calm, resigned] Tranquility, calmness, equanimity, absence of passion, emancipation from all the illusions of existence; the fifth of the eight bhava-pushpas (flowers of being) of Buddhism: charity, self-restraint, impersonal affection, patience, resignation, selfless devotion, meditation, and veracity. Through the practice of the eight flowers, sama secures the conquest and final delivery from all kinds of mental and psychological agitation.
Sambhogakaya (Sanskrit) Sambhogakāya [from sambhoga enjoyment together, delightful participation + kāya body] Participation body; the second of the trikaya (three glorious vestures) of Buddhism, the highest being dharmakaya, and the lowest nirmanakaya. A buddha in the sambhogakaya state still retains his individual self-consciousness and sense of egoity, and is able to be conscious to a certain extent of the world of men and its griefs and sorrows, but has little power or impulse to render aid. See also TRIKAYA; TRISARANA; TRAILOKYA
Samyag-Ajiva (Sanskrit) Samyagājīva [from samyak perfect, correct + ājīva livelihood] “Right Livelihood,” in Buddhism one Path of the Holy Eightfold Path, also mendicancy for religious purposes, and the vow of poverty obligatory on every Arhat.
Samyag-Drishti (Sanskrit) Samyagdṛṣṭi [from samyak, perfect, correct + dṛṣṭi vision, insight] “Right Insight,” in Buddhism one Path of the Holy Eightfold Path. The ability to understand and discuss truth.
Samyak-Karmanta (Sanskrit) Samyakkarmānta [from samyak perfect + karmānta accomplishment, conclusion of a sacred action] Literally, “working out perfectly the very end of one’s karmic destiny.” In Buddhism, “Right Action,” one Path of the Holy Eightfold Path.
Samyak-Samadhi (Sanskrit) Samyaksamādhi Perfect or complete meditation. As “Right Concentration,” one Path of the Holy Eightfold Path of Buddhism.
San chiao: The three systems, doctrines, philosophies, or religions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. -- W.T.C.
Sangha ::: In Buddhism this is generally the group of monks, laypeople, and others who form the Buddhist spiritual community.
Sangha, Samgha (Sanskrit) Sangha (Pali) Saṅgha, Saṃgha, Sangha [from sam together + han to strike together, unite] Assemblage, gathering, convocation; in Buddhism, popularly applied to the assemblage of Buddhist priests (sangha-bhikkhu) and often rendered incorrectly as the Buddhist church. The Order or Brotherhood are also translations.
Sankhara (Pali) Samskara (Sanskrit) Saṅkhāra, Saṃskāra Tendencies (both physical and mental), former impressions, former dispositions; the fourth of the skandhas (bundles of attributes) enumerated in Buddhism.
Sanskrit, on the other hand, “was really the sacred language of the Brahmanas and held more or less private or secret by them. The Sanskrit even in those ancient times was the vehicle for the archaic Wisdom-teachings of the Aryan peoples of India, such as the Vedas, and the Puranas, and the Upanishads, and the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. But Pali was one of several other languages of culture in ancient India, all which were of so-called Prakrit character, although very little is known about these other literary languages. Pali has survived to the present time because . . . it became the linguistic vehicle in which were enshrined the teachings of Buddhism, i.e., of Southern Buddhism, much as Latin has survived because enshrining the teachings of early medieval Christianity. Just as there were in ancient Italy many other Italic tongues, each one having its literary or cultured form, and likewise its popular idiom, so was it in ancient India.
Sarvasti-vada: (Skr.) The doctrine (vada) of Hinayana Buddhism according to which "all is" (sarvam asti), or all is real, that which was, currently is, and will be but now is, potentially. -- K.F.L.
Shamthab ::: In Tibetan Buddhism this is a lower garment sometimes worn in ritualistic practices or gatherings.
Shingon: The Japanese sect of Buddhism which claims that its esoteric doctrine was inspired by Vairochana, the greatest of all Buddhas who came to this earth.
Shinto (Japanese) [from shin god + to, tao way, path] The way of the gods; applied to the popular religion in Japan prior to Buddhism. Japan was considered to be the land of the gods — a conception current among nearly all ancient peoples, each one of which looked upon its own land as the land of the original divine incarnations — and the ruler (mikado) as the direct descendant and actual representative of the sun goddess (Tensho Daijin). Spiritual agencies were attributed to all the processes of nature, and a reverential feeling inculcated toward the dead. Hero worship took the direction in the prevalent belief that noble-minded warriors should be exalted nearly to the position of demigods.
Sravaka (Sanskrit) Śrāvaka [from the verbal root śrū to hear] One who listens or attends to the esoteric instructions, a disciple or chela. In Buddhism, a student of the exoteric teaching of Gautama Buddha, and a practicer of the four great truths of Buddhism.
Sunyata (Sanskrit) Śūnyatā A void, vacuum, emptiness; the Boundless or Void. In mystical philosophy, especially Mahayana Buddhism, illusory being or existence, the emptiness of cosmic manifestation when compared with the nonmanifest reality. This recognizes that all manifested existence, high or low, on whatever plane, as compared with essential reality is after all illusory deception and therefore relatively false by comparison. Being false and unreal it is therefore empty of essential significance, although possessing a very positive relative reality, so to speak.
Sutrantaka (Sanskrit) Sūtrāntaka [from sūtra maxim, precept + anta inner meaning, final meaning] One who follows the inner and spiritual meaning of the Buddhist Sutras or teachings. Everywhere Buddhism predominates, there are two distinct classes of Buddhists: those who adhere closely to the spirit of the Buddha’s original teachings, and those who not only make the teaching popular, but who perhaps also are followers of their letter. These are another phase of the two methods said to have been taught by the Buddha, called the heart doctrine and the eye doctrine: the former was the doctrine of occult wisdom and deep mystery; the latter, containing the same teaching but expressed in such a way as to be more easily understood, was the outer teaching, and came to be called the doctrine of the Buddha’s eye. Likewise these two aspects might be called the doctrine of the spirit, and the doctrine of the intellect. To one who understands both, and coalesces the two into a single unity, full illumination comes regarding the complete content of the archaic wisdom-religion which Gautama Buddha taught.
Sutta ::: A discourse or teaching passed down in various religious and spritual traditions originating on the Indian subcontinent. Most commonly seen in reference to Buddhism as the collected aphorisms and discourses of the Buddha and the various spiritual figureheads of Buddhism. Sometimes this is used to refer solely to the canonical records of the Buddha's teachings: the Pali Canon.
Svabhavika (Sanskrit) Svābhāvika [from svabhāva self-becoming] The Svabhavika school, perhaps the oldest existing school of Buddhism, is one of the principal Buddhist philosophical system and is still prevalent in Nepal. Its teachings are highly mystical, and when properly understood may be said to have remained faithful in large degree to the esoteric teachings of Gautama Buddha. The Svabhavika philosophers teach the becoming or unfolding of the self by inner impulse or evolution of the inherent seeds of individuality lying latent in every monad or jiva.
Sympathy: On psychological levels, a participation in and feeling for other living beings in adversity or other emotional phases, not always painful, which may or may not lead to participating or alleviating action, explained naturalistically as a general instinct inherent in all creatures, ethically sometimes as an original altruism, sociologically as acquired in the civilisatory process through needs of co-operation, mutual aid, and fellow-feeling in family and group action. Stressed particularly in Hinduism, fostered along with pity (q.v.) in Christianity, discussed and recommended as a shrewd social expedient by such men as Hobbes, Bentham, and Adam Smith, Schopenhauer raised sympathy Mitleid), as an equivalent to love, into an ethical principle which Nietzsche repudiated because to him it increases suffering and through weakness hinders development. Sympathy, as a cultural force, becomes progressively more evident in the increasing establishment of benevolent institutions, such as hospitals, asylums, etc., a more general altruism and ejection (Clifford), an extension of kindness even to animals (first taught by Buddhism, see Ahimsa), reform and relief movements of all kinds, etc. Still regarded highly as a praiseworthy virtue, it has been gradually rid of its dependence on individual ethical culture by scientific conditioning in social planning on a huge scale. See v. Orelli, Die philosophischen Auffassungen des Mttleids (1912); Scheler, Wesen und Formen der Sympathie (1926). -- K.F.L.
Tanha(Pali) ::: A word familiar in Buddhism and signifying the "thirst" for material life. It is this thirst or yearningto return to familiar scenes that brings the reincarnating ego back to earth-life -- and this yearning is moreeffectual as an individual cause for reincarnation, perhaps, than all else. (See also Trishna)
Tanha (Pali) Taṇhā Thirst; in Buddhism the thirst or longing for material existence, the desire to return to the familiar scenes of earth-life. It is “the lower Ego, or personal Self . . . with its fierce Selfishness and animal desire to live a Senseless life (Tanha), which is ‘the maker of the tabernacle,’ as Buddha calls it in Dhammapada” (SD 2:110). This desire to live and the clinging to life on earth is the effectual cause producing rebirth. Equivalent to the Sanskrit trishna.
Tantra ::: The esoteric traditions and practices of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Tantric Buddhism ::: The esoteric traditions and practices associated with Buddhism.
Taoism: The Chinese religion founded on the esoteric interpretation of the teachings of the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu, which assimilated the yin-yang philosophy (see yin), the practice of alchemy, and the worship of natural objects and immortals, and which became highly elaborated through the incorporation of a great many elements of Buddhism.
Tasichozong (Tibetan) The summer capital of Bhutan; “the residential capital in Bhutan of the ecclesiastical Head of the Bhons — the Dharma Raja. The latter, though professedly a Northern Buddhist, is simply a worshipper of the old demon-gods of the aborigines, the nature-sprites or elementals, worshipped in the land before the introduction of Buddhism” (TG 321).
Teachers succeed one another and thus pass on the teachings from age to age; as in the succession of the buddhas and especially of the bodhisattvas in Buddhism; the guruparampara chain in Brahmanism; and even in exoteric life in ancient times, and in far less degree, there were the hierophants in the various Mystery schools, such as in the Eleusinia.
Tendai: The Japanese “Pure Land” sect of Buddhism, which regards Amitabha the greatest of all Buddhas and centers its doctrine around him.
The Buddha ::: Generally refers to Siddhartha Gautama, whose explorations of mind and teachings helped establish the philosophical and spiritual system of Buddhism which established a path for all beings to untangle the causal nature of suffering and reach enlightenment. Although he is referred to as "The Buddha", all beings can reach full enlightenment and perfect the clarity of self-nature and hence become a buddha and reach a state of Buddhahood.
The dictionary uses the standard Romanization systems for East Asian languages: viz., pinyin for Chinese (rather than the now-superseded Wade-Giles system that most pre-1990s scholarship on Chinese Buddhism used), Revised Hepburn for Japanese, and McCune-Reischauer for Korean, with the transcriptions in some cases modified slightly to conform more closely to the Chinese parsing of compounds. While this dictionary was being compiled, the Korean government unveiled its latest iteration of a Revised Romanization system, but that system is still rarely used in academic writing in the West and its acceptance is uncertain; we therefore chose to employ McCune-Reischauer for this edition of the dictionary.
The first Dalai Lama, DGE 'DUN GRUB, was known as a great scholar and religious practitioner. A direct disciple of TSONG KHA PA, he is remembered for founding BKRA SHIS LHUN PO monastery near the central Tibetan town of Shigatse. The second Dalai Lama, Dge 'dun rgya mtsho, was born the son of a RNYING MA YOGIN and became a renowned tantric master in his own right. ¶ It is with the third Dalai Lama, BSOD NAMS RGYA MTSHO, that the Dalai Lama lineage actually begins. Recognized at a young age as the reincarnation of Dge 'dun rgya mtsho, he was appointed abbot of 'BRAS SPUNGS monastery near LHA SA and soon rose to fame throughout central Asia as a Buddhist teacher. He served as a religious master for the Mongol ruler Altan Khan, who bestowed the title "Dalai Lama," and is credited with converting the Tümed Mongols to Buddhism. Later in life, he traveled extensively across eastern Tibet and western China, teaching and carrying out monastic construction projects. ¶ The fourth Dalai Lama, Yon tan rgya mtsho, was recognized in the person of the grandson of Altan Khan's successor, solidifying Mongol-Tibetan ties. ¶ While the first four Dalai Lamas served primarily as religious scholars and teachers, the fifth Dalai Lama, NGAG DBANG BLO BZANG RGYA MTSHO, combined religious and secular activities to become one of Tibet's preeminent statesmen. He was a dynamic political leader who, with the support of Gushi Khan, defeated his opponents and in 1642 was invested with temporal powers over the Tibetan state, in addition to his religious role, a position that succeeding Dalai Lamas held until 1959. A learned and prolific author, he and his regent, SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO, were largely responsible for the identification of the Dalai Lamas with the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. The construction of the PO TA LA palace began during his reign (and was completed after this death). He is popularly known as the "Great Fifth." ¶ The sixth Dalai Lama, TSHANGS DBYANGS RGYA MTSHO, was a controversial figure who chose to abandon the strict monasticism of his predecessors in favor of a life of society and culture, refusing to take the vows of a fully ordained monk (BHIKsU). He is said to have frequented the drinking halls below the Po ta la palace. He constructed pleasure gardens and the temple of the NAGAs, called the KLU KHANG, on the palace grounds. He is remembered especially for his poetry, which addresses themes such as love and the difficulty of spiritual practice. Tibetans generally interpret his behavior as exhibiting an underlying tantric wisdom, a skillful means for teaching the dharma. His death is shrouded in mystery. Official accounts state that he died while under arrest by Mongol troops. According to a prominent secret biography (GSANG BA'I RNAM THAR), however, he lived many more years, traveling across Tibet in disguise. ¶ The seventh Dalai Lama, SKAL BZANG RGYA MTSHO, was officially recognized only at the age of twelve, and due to political complications, did not participate actively in affairs of state. He was renowned for his writings on tantra and his poetry. ¶ The eighth Dalai Lama, 'Jam dpal rgya mtsho (Jampal Gyatso, 1758-1804), built the famous NOR BU GLING KHA summer palace. ¶ The ninth through twelfth Dalai Lamas each lived relatively short lives, due, according to some accounts, to political intrigue and the machinations of power-hungry regents. According to tradition, from the death of one Dalai Lama to the investiture of the next Dalai Lama as head of state (generally a period of some twenty years), the nation was ruled by a regent, who was responsible for discovering the new Dalai Lama and overseeing his education. If the Dalai Lama died before reaching his majority, the reign of the regent was extended. ¶ The thirteenth Dalai Lama, THUB BSTAN RGYA MTSHO, was an astute and forward-looking political leader who guided Tibet through a period of relative independence during a time of foreign entanglements with Britain, China, and Russia. In his last testament, he is said to have predicted Tibet's fall to Communist China. ¶ The fourteenth and present Dalai Lama, Bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, assumed his position several years prior to reaching the age of majority as his country faced the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950. In 1959, he escaped into exile, establishing a government-in-exile in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala (DHARMAsALA) in northwestern India. Since then, he has traveled and taught widely around the world, while also advocating a nonviolent solution to Tibet's occupation. He was born in the A mdo region of what is now Qinghai province in China to a farming family, although his older brother had already been recognized as an incarnation at a nearby important Dge lugs monastery (SKU 'BUM). On his becoming formally accepted as Dalai Lama, his family became aristocrats and moved to Lha sa. He was educated traditionally by private tutors (yongs 'dzin), under the direction first of the regent Stag brag rin po che (in office 1941-1950), and later Gling rin po che Thub bstan lung rtogs rnam rgyal (1903-1983) and Khri byang rin po che Blo bzang ye shes (1901-1981). His modern education was informal, gained from conversations with travelers, such as the Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer. When the Chinese army entered the Khams region of eastern Tibet in 1951, he formally took over from the regent and was enthroned as the head of the DGA' LDAN PHO BRANG government. In the face of Tibetan unrest as the Chinese government brought Tibet firmly under central control, the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959; the Indian government accorded the Dalai Lama respect as a religious figure but did not accept his claim to be the head of a separate state. In 1989, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an event that increased his prominence around the world. He is the author of many books in English, most of them the written record of lectures and traditional teachings translated from Tibetan.
The four Maharajas correspond to the cherubim, seraphim, the winged globes, fiery or winged wheels, the gandharvas (sweet singers), asuras, kinnaras, and celestial nagas. In Chinese Buddhism the Maharajas are called the four hidden dragons of wisdom: the Regent of the North is called the Black Warrior, of the East the White Tiger, of the South the Vermilion Bird, and of the West the Azure Dragon.
The four surviving schools of Tibetan Buddhism are the Rnying ma pa (Nying-ma-pa), the Bka’ rgyud pa (Kar-gyu-pa), the Sa skya pa (sa-kya-pa), and the Dge lugs pa (Ge-lug-pa). The Kar-gyu-pa, the lineage of Marpa and Milarepa, is more than the others divided into many subschools. One of these is the Dugpa sect, dominant in the Indo-Tibetan border areas of Ladakh in the west and Bhutan in the east. The Bhutanese and Tibetan name of Bhutan is ’brug yul (dug-yul), “country of the thunder-dragon” (’Brug means both thunder and dragon). One explanation for the name of the sect refers to an experience of the sect’s founder, Tsand-pa Gya-re (Gtsang pa rgya ras, 1161-1211). In the course of establishing a monastery he was either startled by intense thunder or witnessed a flight of dragons, and named the monastery thunder-dragon (’brug). The sect and its adherents were named after the monastery, and the country where they prevailed was named after the sect. The dugpa subschool is further subdivided into three branches, known as Middle Dugpa (’bar ’brug), Lower Dugpa (smad ’brug), and Upper Dugpa (stod ’brug). See also DAD-DUGPA
The Great Brotherhood of the mahatmas on earth, through their chief, the Mahachohan, is the representative on our globe of adi-buddha. Because of this, Tibetan Buddhism recognizes the continuous “reincarnations of Buddha” — not that Gautama Buddha is thus reimbodied but that adi-buddha through its human ray perpetuates itself by reflection in fit and chosen human beings. As adi-buddha is the individualized divine ideation of our universe, all-permeant and omnipresent, those individuals who raise themselves to become self-consciously at one with a ray from adi-buddha are de facto “reincarnations,” greater or minor imbodiments of the cosmic buddha. Adi-buddha manifests through the hierarchy of the celestial buddhas or dhyani-buddhas, these again manifest through the manushya-buddhas and in lesser degree through human individuals who, though great, are inferior to the manushya-buddhas.
The Princeton dictionary of Buddhism / Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr. ;
The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
“The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone’s History of India — ‘they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig-Veda . . . The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils.’ The ‘Kshatriya Kings’ were in the olden times, like the King-Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors — the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras. There was a time, aeons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one ‘lip,’ one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments” (TG 354).
This book represents more than twelve years of effort. Donald Lopez initiated the project with the assistance of several of his graduate students at the University of Michigan, many of whom have now gone on to receive their degrees and be appointed to university positions. Around that time, Robert Buswell asked Lopez to serve as one of the editors of his two-volume Encyclopedia of Buddhism (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2004). When that project was completed, Lopez invited Buswell to join him as coauthor of the dictionary project, an offer he enthusiastically accepted, bringing with him his own team of graduate students from UCLA. In dividing up responsibilities for the dictionary, Buswell took principal charge of entries on mainstream Buddhist concepts, Indian abhidharma, and East Asian Buddhism; Lopez took principal charge of entries on MahAyAna Buddhism in India, Buddhist tantra, and Tibetan Buddhism. Once drafts of the respective sections were complete, we exchanged files to review each other's sections. Over the last seven years, we were in touch almost daily on one or another aspect of the project as we expanded upon and edited each other's drafts, making this a collaborative project in the best sense of the term. Graduate students at both the University of Michigan and UCLA assisted in gathering materials for the dictionary, preparing initial drafts, and tracing the multiple cross-references to Asian language terms. This project would have been impossible without their unstinting assistance and extraordinary commitment; we are grateful to each of them. Those graduate students and colleagues who made particularly extensive contributions to the dictionary are listed on the title page.
This new dictionary seeks to address the needs of this present age. For the great majority of scholars of Buddhism, who do not command all of the major Buddhist languages, this reference book provides a repository of many of the most important terms used across the traditions, and their rendering in several Buddhist languages. For the college professor who teaches "Introduction to Buddhism" every year, requiring one to venture beyond one's particular area of geographical and doctrinal expertise, it provides descriptions of many of the important figures and texts in the major traditions. For the student of Buddhism, whether inside or outside the classroom, it offers information on many fundamental doctrines and practices of the various traditions of the religion. This dictionary is based primarily on six Buddhist languages and their traditions: Sanskrit, PAli, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Also included, although appearing much less frequently, are terms and proper names in vernacular Burmese, Lao, Mongolian, Sinhalese, Thai, and Vietnamese. The majority of entries fall into three categories: the terminology of Buddhist doctrine and practice, the texts in which those teachings are set forth, and the persons (both human and divine) who wrote those texts or appear in their pages. In addition, there are entries on important places-including monasteries and sacred mountains-as well as on the major schools and sects of the various Buddhist traditions. The vast majority of the main entries are in their original language, although cross-references are sometimes provided to a common English rendering. Unlike many terminological dictionaries, which merely provide a brief listing of meanings with perhaps some of the equivalencies in various Buddhist languages, this work seeks to function as an encyclopedic dictionary. The main entries offer a short essay on the extended meaning and significance of the terms covered, typically in the range of two hundred to six hundred words, but sometimes substantially longer. To offer further assistance in understanding a term or tracing related concepts, an extensive set of internal cross-references (marked in small capital letters) guides the reader to related entries throughout the dictionary. But even with over a million words and five thousand entries, we constantly had to make difficult choices about what to include and how much to say. Given the long history and vast geographical scope of the Buddhist traditions, it is difficult to imagine any dictionary ever being truly comprehensive. Authors also write about what they know (or would like to know); so inevitably the dictionary reflects our own areas of scholarly expertise, academic interests, and judgments about what readers need to learn about the various Buddhist traditions.
Thothori Nyan Tsan (Tibetan) Tho-tho-ri-gnan-btsan. An early Tibetan king of the 4th century, during which Buddhism was first introduced into Tibet.
Tibetan Buddhism ::: A form of Vajrayana Buddhism practiced within Tibet. Much of Tantric practice finds its links to this style of Buddhism.
Timeline of Buddhism
Tsang (Tibetan) bTsan. Strength, might; used particularly as an equivalent for nyingpo or alaya, the world-soul. Alaya is used mainly in the Mahayana contemplative schools of Northern Buddhism, being equivalent of mulaprakriti in its essence as the root or substance of all things; hence alaya is likewise equivalent frequently to akasa, especially in the mystical sense.
Tsong-kha-pa founded the large lamaseries at Ganden and Sera, which with the Drepung lamasery were the three most powerful religious bodies in Tibet — called the Three Pillars of the State (den-sa sum). His successor Geden-tub-pa founded the monastery of Tashi-lhunpo — which in the 17th century became the residence of the Panchan Lama. In 1641 the Red Caps were completely subdued by the Oelot Mongols, by request of the fifth Dalai Lama (Lob-sang Gyatso); and ever since the Dalai Lamas have held the temporal sovereignty of Tibet, adhering to the Reformed Buddhism of the Gelukpas.
Tsong-kha-pa (Tibetan) “The man from Tsong-kha,” a district in Amdo — his personal name was Blo bzang grags pa (Lo-zang Dag-pa); a great teacher and reformer of Tibetan Buddhism (1357-1419), founder of the Gelukpa school.
Tummo ::: Inner heat practices as taught in Tibetan Buddhism.
Tushitas (Sanskrit) Tuṣita-s [from the verbal root tuṣ to become calm, be satisfied or pleased] One name of the Hindu adityas, planetary regents because of their intimate connection with the sun, the son of Aditi, called Martanda. Hence in esoteric Northern Buddhism, the tushitas are a class of divinities of great purity said to have a deva-loka (celestial region) of their own, but in the highest parts of the material plane where all the bodhisattvas are reborn before they descend on this earth as future buddhas. See also JAYA
Twelve Perhaps the most esoteric of all numerals; so profound was the reverence with which the ancients regarded it that the records concerning it are almost innumerable, found in virtually all branches of human thought and activity. Thus we find it in the twelve hours of the day and of the night; the twelve months of the year; the twelve great gods of ancient pantheons; the twelve apostles in the New Testament and the twelve tribes in the Old Testament; the twelve nidanas in Buddhism; and pointing directly to cosmogonical matters, the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Upasaka (Sanskrit) Upāsaka [from upa-ās to serve, worship, engage in reverential and devoted study as a disciple from upa by the side of, with the implication of reverential following + the verbal root ās to sit] Serving, worshiping; worshiper, follower, disciple, pupil; also in Buddhism a lay worshiper as distinguished from a bhikshu.
Ursa Major and Minor The northern constellations of the Big and Little Bear, or the Big and Little Dipper. These two septenates form part of the astronomical key to the ancient wisdom, Ursa Major corresponding to the seven creative rishis, builders, mind-born sons of the first lord called Avalokitesvara in Buddhism. The founders of root-races were connected mystically with the pole star; and as the Aryan Hindus claim that their pole star was in Ursa Major, and at a later date in Ursa Minor, the antiquity is shown. The Little Bear represents a secondary septenate of creative powers. According to Clement of Alexandria the two cherubs placed in the Tabernacle on opposite ends of the Mercy Seat were the Big and Little Bear, representing the two hemispheres of the universe. Clement likewise points out that as each cherub has six wings, both together have twelve wings, thus signifying the twelve houses or mansions of the zodiac, and ever-moving time progressing through them (Miscellanies 5:6).
Vajrayana Buddhism ::: Esoteric traditions of Buddhism are grouped under the more general category of Vajrayana Buddhism. What they practice is often referred to as Tantra.
Vedanta(Sanskrit) ::: From the Upanishads and from other parts of the wonderful cycle of Vedic literature, theancient sages of India produced what is called today the Vedanta -- a compound word meaning "the end(or completion) of the Veda" -- that is to say, instruction in the final and most perfect exposition of themeaning of the Vedic tenets.The Vedanta is the highest form that the Brahmanical teachings have taken, and under the name of theUttara-Mimamsa attributed to Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas, the Vedanta is perhaps the noblest ofthe six Indian schools of philosophy. The Avatara Sankaracharya has been the main popularizer of theVedantic system of philosophical thought, and the type of Vedantic doctrine taught by him is what istechnically called the Advaita-Vedanta or nondualistic.The Vedanta may briefly be described as a system of mystical philosophy derived from the efforts ofsages through many generations to interpret the sacred or esoteric meaning of the Upanishads. In itsAdvaita form the Vedanta is in many, if not all, respects exceedingly close to, if not identical with, someof the mystical forms of Buddhism in central Asia. The Hindus call the Vedanta Brahma-jnana.
Vedanta (Sanskrit) Vedānta The end or completion of the Veda; the final, most perfect exposition of the Vedic tenets. As Uttara-mimansa, one of the six Darsanas or Hindu schools of philosophy, it is said to have been founded by the compiler of the Vedas, Vyasa. Sankaracharya is the main popularizer of the Advaita or nondualistic Vedantic philosophy, which is virtually identical with Central Asian Buddhism.
vijnanavada. ::: "Doctrine of Consciousness"; one of two major schools of Mahayana buddhism which holds that Reality is consciousness only and all that exists are minds and their experiences
Vinaya (Sanskrit) Vinaya [from vi-nī to lead towards, instruct, educate] Education, discipline, control; in Buddhism, the rules of discipline, with special application to monks.
Winds ::: A concept in the etheric anatomy of Tibetan Buddhism referring to areas of energy flow. The idea of winds, channels, and drops is more subtle and nuanced than the generic idea of the etheric body of chakras and channels explored on this site so this is a concept broached only briefly at the moment.
Yamabushi (Japanese) A sect in Japan of ancient origin, but now inclining to Buddhism. Often regarded as the fighting monks, inasmuch as they have not hesitated to take up arms in case of necessity somewhat like certain yogis in Rajputana or the lamas in Tibet. They are perhaps most numerous near Kyoto, where they are famed for their healing powers. Yamabushi hold a “Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics,” calling their seven mystery-teachings the seven precious things or jewels (SD 1:67).
Zen ::: A school of Buddhism which emphasizes direct experiential insight into the nature of reality: the non-dual state of awareness, and living one's life in accordance with this realization. On this site we will also refer to Zen techniques as a way of shifting awareness to the non-dual through polar elimination of archetypes and forceful deconstruction of the momentary self.
Zen Buddhism: The Japanese “mediation school” of Buddhism, based on the theories of the “universality of Buddha-nature” and the possibility of “becoming a Buddha in this very body.” It teaches the way of attaining Buddhahood fundamentally by meditation.
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4 Ken Wilber
2 Shunryu Suzuki
2 Sri Aurobindo
1 Wikipedia
1 Thich Nhat Hanh
1 Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
1 Samyutta nikaya
1 M Alan Kazlev
1 Judith Simmer-Brown
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Huang Po
1 Frank Visser
1 Formula of devotion of Mahayanist Buddhism
1 Dalai Lama
1 Chamtrul Rinpoche
1 Buddhism
1 Alan Watts
1 Nichiren
1 Dogen Zenji
1 Aleister Crowley
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74 Frederick Lenz
33 Dalai Lama
31 Thich Nhat Hanh
31 Dalai Lama XIV
26 Stephen Batchelor
16 Quentin S Crisp
15 Nhat Hanh
12 Tenzin Palmo
10 Anonymous
9 Swami Vivekananda
9 Mark Epstein
9 Alan W Watts
8 Brad Warner
7 Sam Harris
7 Robert Wright
7 Pema Ch dr n
7 Pankaj Mishra
7 Friedrich Nietzsche
7 Dan Harris
6 Walter Isaacson
1:Through the abandonment of desire the Deathless is realized. ~ Buddhism, #KEYS
2:Buddhism may be summed up in two phrases: 'Let go!' and 'Walk on!' " ~ Alan Watts, #KEYS
3:To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves." ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
4:Sorrow if indulged becomes a habit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Jainism and Buddhism, #KEYS
5:Honour to the high and sublime excellence of wisdom! ~ Formula of devotion of Mahayanist Buddhism, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
6:To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
7:The psychic sorrow which does not disturb or depress but rather liberates the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Jainism and Buddhism, #KEYS
8:A person of wisdom is not one who practices Buddhism apart from worldly affairs but, rather, one who thoroughly understands the principles by which the world is governed. ~ Nichiren, #KEYS
9:If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." ~ Dalai Lama, (14th , b. 1935). Dalai Lamas are important monks of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, Wikipedia., #KEYS
10:The stopping of becoming is Nirvana." ~ Samyutta nikaya, Buddhist scripture, the third of the five collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism, Wikipedia., #KEYS
11:Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you've been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #KEYS
12:If you would spend all your time - walking, standing, sitting or lying down - learning to halt the concept-forming activities of your own mind, you could be sure of ultimately attaining your goal." ~ Huang Po, (d. 850), an influential Chinese master of Zen Buddhism, Wikipedia., #KEYS
13:In researching this problem, I did an extensive data search of several hundred hierarchies, taken from systems theory, ecological science, Kabalah, developmental psychology, Yo-gachara Buddhism, moral development, biological evolution, Vedanta Hinduism, Neo-Confucianism, cosmic and stellar evolution, Hwa Yen, the Neoplatonic corpus-an entire spectrum of premodern, modern, and postmodern nests.
~ Ken Wilber, Marriage of Sense and Soul, 1998,#KEYS
14:Throughout the past 2500 years, whichever country Buddhism has been taught in, there have always been great yogis. Likewise, sooner or later there will be the great yogis of the West. This is because Buddhism has nothing to do with culture, gender, language, or colour. Buddhism is for all beings throughout time and space. And whoever dedicates their life to putting the teachings into practice will become a great yogi. It is as simple as that. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
15:In Mahayana Buddhism the universe is therefore likened to a vast net of jewels, wherein the reflection from one jewel is contained in all jewels, and the reflections of all are contained in each. As the Buddhists put it, "All in one and one in all." This sounds very mystical and far-out, until you hear a modern physicist explain the present-day view of elementary particles: "This states, in ordinary language, that each particle consists of all the other particles, each of which is in the same way and at the same time all other particles together." ~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary, #KEYS
16:To take the last issue, the difficult issue, first. The first great Dharma systems, East and West, all arose, without exception, in the so-called "axial period" (Karl Jaspers), that rather extraordinary period beginning around the 6th century B.C. (plus or minus several centuries), a period that saw the birth of Gautama Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Moses, Plato, Patanjali—a period that would soon give way, over the next few centuries, to include Ashvaghosa, Nagarjuna, Plotinus, Jesus, Philo, Valentinus…. Virtually all of the major tenets of the perennial philosophy were first laid down during this amazing era (in Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity….) ~ Ken Wilber, Integral Life, right-bucks, #KEYS
17:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#KEYS
18:Integral Psychology presents a very complex picture of the individual. As he did previously in The Atman Project, at the back of the book Wilber has included numerous charts showing how his model relates to the work of a hundred or so different authors from East and West.57
57. Wilber compares the models of Huston Smith, Plotinus, Buddhism, Stan Grof, John Battista, kundalini yoga, the Great Chain of Being, James Mark Baldwin, Aurobindo, the Kabbalah, Vedanta, William Tiller, Leadbeater, Adi Da, Piaget, Commons and Richards, Kurt Fisher, Alexander, Pascual-Leone, Herb Koplowitz, Patricia Arlin, Gisela Labouvie-Vief, Jan Sinnot, Michael Basseches, Jane Loevinger, John Broughton, Sullivan, Grant and Grant, Jenny Wade, Michael Washburn, Erik Erikson, Neumann, Scheler, Karl Jaspers, Rudolf Steiner, Don Beck, Suzanne Cook-Greuter, Clare Graves, Robert Kegan, Kohlberg, Torbert, Blanchard-Fields, Kitchener and King, Deirdre Kramer, William Perry, Turner and Powell, Cheryl Armon, Peck, Howe, Rawls, Piaget, Selman, Gilligan, Hazrat Inayat Khan, mahamudra meditation, Fowler, Underhill, Helminiak, Funk, Daniel Brown, Muhyddin Ibn 'Arabi, St. Palamas, classical yoga, highest tantra yoga, St Teresa, Chirban, St Dionysius, Patanjali, St Gregory of Nyssa, transcendental meditation, Fortune, Maslow, Chinen, Benack, Gardner, Melvin Miller, Habermas, Jean Houston, G. Heard, Lenski, Jean Gebser, A. Taylor, Jay Early, Robert Bellah, and Duane Elgin. ~ Frank Visser, Ken Wilber Thought as Passion,#KEYS
19:subtle ::: In Vedanta (Mandukya Upanishad and later teachings - e.g. Advaita - based on it) "subtle" is used to designate the "dream state" of consciousness, and in Advaita this also includes the Prana, Manas, and Vijnana koshas (= the vehicles of vital force, mind, and higher consciousness) re-interpreted from of the Taittiriya Upanishad.
In Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism it refers to an intermediate grade between the "gross" and "very subtle" "minds" and "winds" (vayu = prana).
The Sukshma Sthula or Subtle Body is one of the seven principles of man in Blavatskian Theosophy; it is also called the "astral body" (this has little similarity with the astral body of Out of Body experience, because it cannot move far from the gross physical vehicle, it seems to correspond to what Robert Monroe calls the "second body", and identified with the Double or Ka
In Sant Mat / Radhasoami cosmology - the Anda (Cosmic Egg) / Sahans-dal Kanwal (Crown Chakra) is sometimes called the Subtle; hence Subtle = Astral
The term Subtle Physical is used somewhat generically by Sri Aurobindo (in Letters on Yoga) to refer to a wider reality behind the external physical.
Ken Wilber uses the term Subtle to indicate the yogic and mystic holonic-evolutionary level intermediate between "Psychic" (in his series = Nature Mysticism) and "Causal" (=Realisation"); it includes many psychic and occult experiences and can be considered as pertaining to the Subtle as defined here (although it also includes other realities and experiences that might also be interpreted as "Inner Gross" - e.g. Kundalini as a classic example). ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, planes/subtle,#KEYS
20:In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called 'the resurrection body ' and 'the glorified body.' The prophet Isaiah said, 'The dead shall live, their bodies shall rise' (Isa. 26:19). St. Paul called it 'the celestial body' or 'spiritual body ' (soma pneumatikon) (I Corinthians 15:40). In Sufism it is called 'the most sacred body ' (wujud al-aqdas) and 'supracelestial body ' (jism asli haqiqi). In Taoism, it is called 'the diamond body,' and those who have attained it are called 'the immortals' and 'the cloudwalkers.' In Tibetan Buddhism it is called 'the light body.' In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called 'the vajra body,' 'the adamantine body,' and 'the divine body.' In Kriya yoga it is called 'the body of bliss.' In Vedanta it is called 'the superconductive body.' In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is called 'the radiant body.' In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it 'the Glory of the Whole Universe' and 'the golden body.' The alchemist Paracelsus called it 'the astral body.' In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called 'the immortal body ' (soma athanaton). In some mystery schools, it is called 'the solar body.' In Rosicrucianism, it is called 'the diamond body of the temple of God.' In ancient Egypt it was called 'the luminous body or being' (akh). In Old Persia it was called 'the indwelling divine potential' (fravashi or fravarti). In the Mithraic liturgy it was called 'the perfect body ' (soma teilion). In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called 'the divine body,' composed of supramental substance. In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called 'the ultrahuman'.
~ ?, http://herebedragons.weebly.com/homo-lumen.html,#KEYS
21:WHEN THE GREAT YOGIN Padmasambhava, called by Tibetans Guru Rinpoche, "the precious teacher," embarks on his spiritual journey, he travels from place to place requesting teachings from yogins and yoginls. Guided by visions and dreams, his journey takes him to desolate forests populated with ferocious wild animals, to poison lakes with fortified islands, and to cremation grounds. Wherever he goes he performs miracles, receives empowerments, and ripens his own abilities to benefit others.
When he hears of the supreme queen of all dakinls, the greatly accomplished yogini called Secret Wisdom, he travels to the Sandal Grove cremation ground to the gates of her abode, the Palace of Skulls. He attempts to send a request to the queen with her maidservant Kumari. But the girl ignores him and continues to carry huge brass jugs of water suspended from a heavy yoke across her shoulders. When he presses his request, Kumari continues her labors, remaining silent. The great yogin becomes impatient and, through his yogic powers, magically nails the heavy jugs to the floor. No matter how hard Kumari struggles, she cannot lift them.
Removing the yoke and ropes from her shoulders, she steps before Padmasambhava, exclaiming, "You have developed great yogic powers. What of my powers, great one?" And so saying, she draws a sparkling crystal knife from the girdle at her waist and slices open her heart center, revealing the vivid and vast interior space of her body. Inside she displays to Guru Rinpoche the mandala of deities from the inner tantras: forty-two peaceful deities manifested in her upper torso and head and fifty-eight wrathful deities resting in her lower torso. Abashed that he did not realize with whom he was dealing, Guru Rinpoche bows before her and humbly renews his request for teachings. In response, she offers him her respect as well, adding, "I am only a maidservant," and ushers him in to meet the queen Secret Wisdom. ~ Judith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism, Introduction: Encountering the Dakini,#KEYS
22:The majority of Buddhists and Buddhist teachers in the West are green postmodern pluralists, and thus Buddhism is largely interpreted in terms of the green altitude and the pluralistic value set, whereas the greatest Buddhist texts are all 2nd tier, teal (Holistic) or higher (for example, Lankavatara Sutra, Kalachakra Tantra, Longchenpa's Kindly Bent to Ease Us, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka treatises, and so forth).
This makes teal (Holistic), or Integral 2nd tier in general, the lowest deeply adequate level with which to interpret Buddhism, ultimate Reality, and Suchness itself. Thus, interpreting Suchness in pluralistic terms (or lower) would have to be viewed ultimately as a dysfunction, certainly a case of arrested development, and one requiring urgent attention in any Fourth Turning.
These are some of the problems with interpreting states (in this case, Suchness states) with a too-low structure (in short, a severe misinterpretation and thus misunderstanding of the Ultimate). As for interpreting them with dysfunctional structures (of any altitude), the problem more or less speaks for itself. Whether the structure in itself is high enough or not, any malformation of the structure will be included in the interpretation of any state (or any other experience), and hence will deform the interpretation itself, usually in the same basic ways as the structure itself is deformed. Thus, for example, if there is a major Fulcrum-3 (red altitude) repression of various bodily states (sex, aggression, power, feelings), those repressions will be interpreted as part of the higher state itself, and so the state will thus be viewed as devoid of (whereas this is actually a repression of) any sex, aggression, power, feelings, or whatever it is that is dis-owned and pushed into the repressed submergent unconscious. If there is an orange altitude problem with self-esteem (Fulcrum-5), that problem will be magnified by the state experience, and the more intense the state experience, the greater the magnification. Too little self-esteem, and even profound spiritual experiences can be interpreted as "I'm not worthy, so this state-which seems to love me unconditionally-must be confused." If too much self-esteem, higher experiences are misinterpreted, not as a transcendence of the self, but as a reward for being the amazing self I am-"the wonder of being me." ~ Ken Wilber, The Religion Of Tomorrow,#KEYS
23: Ekajaṭī or Ekajaṭā, (Sanskrit: "One Plait Woman"; Wylie: ral gcig ma: one who has one knot of hair),[1] also known as Māhacīnatārā,[2] is one of the 21 Taras. Ekajati is, along with Palden Lhamo deity, one of the most powerful and fierce goddesses of Vajrayana Buddhist mythology.[1][3] According to Tibetan legends, her right eye was pierced by the tantric master Padmasambhava so that she could much more effectively help him subjugate Tibetan demons.
Ekajati is also known as "Blue Tara", Vajra Tara or "Ugra Tara".[1][3] She is generally considered one of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school along with Rāhula and Vajrasādhu (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa).
Often Ekajati appears as liberator in the mandala of the Green Tara. Along with that, her ascribed powers are removing the fear of enemies, spreading joy, and removing personal hindrances on the path to enlightenment.
Ekajati is the protector of secret mantras and "as the mother of the mothers of all the Buddhas" represents the ultimate unity. As such, her own mantra is also secret. She is the most important protector of the Vajrayana teachings, especially the Inner Tantras and termas. As the protector of mantra, she supports the practitioner in deciphering symbolic dakini codes and properly determines appropriate times and circumstances for revealing tantric teachings. Because she completely realizes the texts and mantras under her care, she reminds the practitioner of their preciousness and secrecy.[4] Düsum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama meditated upon her in early childhood.
According to Namkhai Norbu, Ekajati is the principal guardian of the Dzogchen teachings and is "a personification of the essentially non-dual nature of primordial energy."[5]
Dzogchen is the most closely guarded teaching in Tibetan Buddhism, of which Ekajati is a main guardian as mentioned above. It is said that Sri Singha (Sanskrit: Śrī Siṃha) himself entrusted the "Heart Essence" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings to her care. To the great master Longchenpa, who initiated the dissemination of certain Dzogchen teachings, Ekajati offered uncharacteristically personal guidance. In his thirty-second year, Ekajati appeared to Longchenpa, supervising every ritual detail of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis empowerment, insisting on the use of a peacock feather and removing unnecessary basin. When Longchenpa performed the ritual, she nodded her head in approval but corrected his pronunciation. When he recited the mantra, Ekajati admonished him, saying, "Imitate me," and sang it in a strange, harmonious melody in the dakini's language. Later she appeared at the gathering and joyously danced, proclaiming the approval of Padmasambhava and the dakinis.[6] ~ Wikipedia,#KEYS
24:Apotheosis ::: One of the most powerful and beloved of the Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, China, and Japan is the Lotus Bearer, Avalokiteshvara, "The Lord Looking Down in Pity," so called because he regards with compassion all sentient creatures suffering the evils of existence. To him goes the millionfold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet: Om mani padme hum, "The jewel is in the lotus." To him go perhaps more prayers per minute than to any single divinity known to man; for when, during his final life on earth as a human being, he shattered for himself the bounds of the last threshold (which moment opened to him the timelessness of the void beyond the frustrating mirage-enigmas of the named and bounded cosmos), he paused: he made a vow that before entering the void he would bring all creatures without exception to enlightenment; and since then he has permeated the whole texture of existence with the divine grace of his assisting presence, so that the least prayer addressed to him, throughout the vast spiritual empire of the Buddha, is graciously heard. Under differing forms he traverses the ten thousand worlds, and appears in the hour of need and prayer. He reveals himself in human form with two arms, in superhuman forms with four arms, or with six, or twelve, or a thousand, and he holds in one of his left hands the lotus of the world.
Like the Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance. "When the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change." This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain-through herohood; for, as we read: "All things are Buddha-things"; or again (and this is the other way of making the same statement) : "All beings are without self."
The world is filled and illumined by, but does not hold, the Bodhisattva ("he whose being is enlightenment"); rather, it is he who holds the world, the lotus. Pain and pleasure do not enclose him, he encloses them-and with profound repose. And since he is what all of us may be, his presence, his image, the mere naming of him, helps. "He wears a garland of eight thousand rays, in which is seen fully reflected a state of perfect beauty.
The color of his body is purple gold. His palms have the mixed color of five hundred lotuses, while each finger tip has eighty-four thousand signet-marks, and each mark eighty-four thousand colors; each color has eighty-four thousand rays which are soft and mild and shine over all things that exist. With these jewel hands he draws and embraces all beings. The halo surrounding his head is studded with five hundred Buddhas, miraculously transformed, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, who are attended, in turn, by numberless gods. And when he puts his feet down to the ground, the flowers of diamonds and jewels that are scattered cover everything in all directions. The color of his face is gold. While in his towering crown of gems stands a Buddha, two hundred and fifty miles high." - Amitayur-Dhyana Sutra, 19; ibid., pp. 182-183. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Apotheosis,#KEYS
25:GURU YOGA
Guru yoga is an essential practice in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. This is true in sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen. It develops the heart connection with the masteR By continually strengthening our devotion, we come to the place of pure devotion in ourselves, which is the unshakeable, powerful base of the practice. The essence of guru yoga is to merge the practitioner's mind with the mind of the master.
What is the true master? It is the formless, fundamental nature of mind, the primordial awareness of the base of everything, but because we exist in dualism, it is helpful for us to visualize this in a form. Doing so makes skillful use of the dualisms of the conceptual mind, to further strengthen devotion and help us stay directed toward practice and the generation of positive qualities.
In the Bon tradition, we often visualize either Tapihritsa* as the master, or the Buddha ShenlaOdker*, who represents the union of all the masters. If you are already a practitioner, you may have another deity to visualize, like Guru Rinpoche or a yidam or dakini. While it is important to work with a lineage with which you have a connection, you should understand that the master you visualize is the embodiment of all the masters with whom you are connected, all the teachers with whom you have studied, all the deities to whom you have commitments. The master in guru yoga is not just one individual, but the essence of enlightenment, the primordial awareness that is your true nature.
The master is also the teacher from whom you receive the teachings. In the Tibetan tradition, we say the master is more important than the Buddha. Why? Because the master is the immediate messenger of the teachings, the one who brings the Buddha's wisdom to the student. Without the master we could not find our way to the Buddha. So we should feel as much devotion to the master as we would to the Buddha if the Buddha suddenly appeared in front of us.
Guru yoga is not just about generating some feeling toward a visualized image. It is done to find the fundamental mind in yourself that is the same as the fundamental mind of all your teachers, and of all the Buddhas and realized beings that have ever lived. When you merge with the guru, you merge with your pristine true nature, which is the real guide and masteR But this should not be an abstract practice. When you do guru yoga, try to feel such intense devotion that the hair stands upon your neck, tears start down your face, and your heart opens and fills with great love. Let yourself merge in union with the guru's mind, which is your enlightened Buddha-nature. This is the way to practice guru yoga.
The Practice
After the nine breaths, still seated in meditation posture, visualize the master above and in front of you. This should not be a flat, two dimensional picture-let a real being exist there, in three dimensions, made of light, pure, and with a strong presence that affects the feeling in your body,your energy, and your mind. Generate strong devotion and reflect on the great gift of the teachings and the tremendous good fortune you enjoy in having made a connection to them. Offer a sincere prayer, asking that your negativities and obscurations be removed, that your positive qualities develop, and that you accomplish dream yoga.
Then imagine receiving blessings from the master in the form of three colored lights that stream from his or her three wisdom doors- of body, speech, and mind-into yours. The lights should be transmitted in the following sequence: White light streams from the master's brow chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your entire body and physical dimension. Then red light streams from the master's throat chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your energetic dimension. Finally, blue light streams from the master's heart chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your mind.
When the lights enter your body, feel them. Let your body, energy, and mind relax, suffused inwisdom light. Use your imagination to make the blessing real in your full experience, in your body and energy as well as in the images in your mind.
After receiving the blessing, imagine the master dissolving into light that enters your heart and resides there as your innermost essence. Imagine that you dissolve into that light, and remain inpure awareness, rigpa.
There are more elaborate instructions for guru yoga that can involve prostrations, offerings, gestures, mantras, and more complicated visualizations, but the essence of the practice is mingling your mind with the mind of the master, which is pure, non-dual awareness. Guru yoga can be done any time during the day; the more often the better. Many masters say that of all the practices it is guru yoga that is the most important. It confers the blessings of the lineage and can open and soften the heart and quiet the unruly mind. To completely accomplish guru yoga is to accomplish the path.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep, [T3],#KEYS
26:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Buddhism, Live By, Letting Things Happen ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 2:Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 3:I haven't got any Buddhism. I live by letting things happen. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 4:Just study Buddhism. Don't follow the sentiments of the world. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 5:Buddhism is the study of how to be immeasurably happy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 6:Self-honesty is absolutely necessary in the practice of Buddhism. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 7:In Buddhism balance is the most difficult thing, because it is overlooked. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 8:To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 9:Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 10:In Buddhism what we seek to do is change ourselves into someone who's beautiful to be. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 11:There’s a phrase in Buddhism, ‘Beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to have a beginner’s mind. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 12:Hindus believe in God positively. Buddhism does not try to know whether He is or not. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 13:If you're studying Buddhism you never really have enough time because you're going to die. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 14:Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 15:I believe Buddhism to be a simplification of Hinduism and Islam to be a simplification of Xianity. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 16:A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 17:Buddhism is simply a methodology, a way of becoming one with the part of ourselves that is happy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 18:For the person who wants to get to the mystical experience directly, Tantric Buddhism is the path. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 19:The light is already there. In Zen Buddhism there's a little speck of dust on the mirror, and that's us. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 20:I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 21:Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 22:tags: buddhism, clear, disease, mind, open-minded, open-mindedness, opinion, tolerance, tribalism, truth41 likesLike ~ jianzhi-sengcan, @wisdomtrove 23:The goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 24:Present-day Hinduism and Buddhism were growths from the same branch. Buddhism degenerated, and Shankara lopped it off! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 25:I have seen people who practice yoga and Buddhism who are scared to death of the sorcery powers of others. This is absurd. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 26:Intentional suffering and the postponement of happiness is not yoga or Buddhism. It will not lead to a better incarnation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 27:We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 28:Buddhism is in your heart. Even if you don't have any temple or any monks, you can still be a Buddhist in your heart and life. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 29:A critical part of Tantric Buddhism is a process of turning of the activities and experiences in your daily life into meditation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 30:If I ever write an autobiography about teaching meditation in the West, I'll call it "Pissing In the Wind - Teaching Buddhism in America". ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 31:Zen is Tantric Buddhism, Vajrayana is tantric Buddhism - these are various forms of it. Tantric Buddhism simply means cutting to the chase. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 32:In Tantric Buddhism our feeling is that there is no problem with the sensual world unless you have a tremendous attraction or aversion to it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 33:The outer form of Buddhism, of practice, is etiquette - a series of ways to live intelligently that keep you alive, awake and happy, wakeful. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 34:Buddhism has existed forever, just like we have, and occasionally it's codified; it's put together into a system by someone who likes to codify. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 35:The sensual experiences in life are not to be avoided. This is the philosophy of Tantric Buddhism - nor are they particularly to be sought after. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 36:Buddhism ... is not a culture but a critique of culture, an enduring nonviolent revolution or "loyal opposition" to the culture in which it is involved. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 37:Buddhism is not just going to temple, being at a ceremony and dressing up. That is the church of Buddhism. Esoteric Buddhism is to move beyond this world. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 38:I've tried Buddhism, Scientology, Numerology, Transcendental Meditation, Qabbala, t'ai chi, feng shui and Deepak Chopra but I find straight gin works best. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 39:There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can compete successfully with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should it try to. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 40:We seek absolute neutrality in Buddhism. We don't want to be drawn into anything in particular. We don't want to be pushed away from anything in particular. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 41:Tantric Buddhism is just a collection of things that work by doing them. And sometimes we add new things. We have electronic music; we did not have it in Tibet. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 42:The first principle of monotheist religions is ‘God exists. What does He want from me?’ The first principle of Buddhism is ‘Suffering exists. How do I escape it? ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 43:In Buddhism we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 44:The essential premise of Buddhism is that there is enlightenment, there is nirvana. Beyond this world, beyond all worlds, there's something radiant, perfect and eternal. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 45:Zen was a reaction. Just as Buddha came into the world and spoke against the fall of Vedanta, so Buddhism lost its essence and became ritual. Zen was a reaction to that. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 46:Be neither attracted nor repulsed is the message of Tantric Buddhism. Don't be drawn to something, don't run away from it. Just naturally accept whatever comes into life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 47:In Tantric Buddhism, we believe that Samsara is Nirvana. That is to say that everything in the universe is part of us. And we also are part of everything in the universe. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 48:I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 49:Now, tantra is a little bit different than other forms of Buddhism because in tantra what we do is we use the sensorial worlds as access points or pathways to ineffability. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 50:I used to live in Buddhist monasteries and I finally had to leave them because they were just too cluttered for me. They were cluttered up with many thoughts about Buddhism. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 51:Past life knowledge is not the wedding album of existence. Past life remembrance in Buddhism is the ability to bring a greater awareness we had in another life into this life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 52:Modern Hinduism, modern Jainism, and Buddhism branched off at the same time. For some period, each seemed to have wanted to outdo the others in grotesqueness and humbuggism. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 53:Eventually light prevails, you just have to be patient. So practice Buddhism, learn to be enlightened, put a smile on your face, go find a great teacher, meditate, and stay funny. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 54:The power that enables us to transform our awareness is the release of kundalini. All yoga, either directly or indirectly, all Buddhism, relates to the release of the kundalini energy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 55:As a dialectical teacher, I have had many lives where I have taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. I teach in many different modalites. But the theme that unites them - is love. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 56:Celibacy doesn't make you enlightened, otherwise every nun or priest in Buddhism or Christianity would be enlightened. People who don't date and can't get any action would be enlightened. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 57:What we seek to do in Tantric Buddhism is to liquefy ourselves. Life will automatically bring us to the next stage. You don't really have to know where you're going - It's like breathing. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 58:Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 59:Buddhism isn't about temples, and incense, and shaved heads, and robes. It's not about church. There are aspects of Buddhism that involve that. People enjoy that, it helps them, it strengthens their practice. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 60:Mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 61:Zen professes to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies. When Zen is thoroughly understood, absolute peace of mind is attained, and a man lives as he should live. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 62:The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 63:Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it's simply meaningless. We don't live in order to die, we live in order to live. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 64:The perfect view of existence comes from an unclouded, uncluttered life and mind whereby the radiance of perfect attention of the mind of the universe floods us at every moment. This is Buddhism. This is being on the path. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 65:Part of what we seek in Buddhism is the sense of quiet observation. We don't get so involved in a state of mind that we forget that it's just another transient state of mind, no matter how much ecstasy or agony is involved. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 66:In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 67:The Buddhist tenet, "Non-killing is supreme virtue", is very good, but in trying to enforce it upon all by legislation without paying any heed to the capacities of the people at large, Buddhism has brought ruin upon India. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 68:To go to the very center of the mind of God, to be that, to become aware of our infiniteness, is the goal of Buddhism and along the way, to be as kind to others as possible without thinking that we are particularly wonderful. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 69:In Buddhism you study how to release the kundalini to the levels that would certainly afford career success. If we move it further, into the planes of knowledge and wisdom, it enables the practitioner to do just about anything. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 70:Buddhism is a practice in which we learn to avoid injuring others, and ourselves. It's a practice in which we learn to respond to beauty, and to respond to difficult circumstances with patience, with a sense of calm, with clarity. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 71:For the first time in the history of the world, Buddhism proclaimed a salvation which each individual could gain from him or herself, in this world, during this life, without any least reference to God, or to gods either great or small. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 72:In Buddhism, mindfulness is the key. Mindfulness is the energy that sheds light on all things and all activities, producing the power of concentration, bringing forth deep insight and awakening. Mindfulness is the base of Buddhist practice. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 73:Students of the Way must not study Buddhism for the sake of themselves. They must study Buddhism only for the sake of Buddhism. The key to this is to renounce both body and mind without holding anything back and to offer them to the great sea of Buddhism. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 74:Buddha taught kindness towards lower beings; and since then there has not been a sect in India that has not taught charity to all beings, even to animals. This kindness, this mercy, this charity - greater than any doctrine - are what Buddhism left to us. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 75:Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism... We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 76:Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 77:It is good to remember that the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. In the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus to awakened life and living. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 78:As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages - undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment - find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice? ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 79:All that you seek is already within you. In Hinduism it is called the Atman, in Buddhism the pure Buddha-Mind. Christ said, & 80:It would be an error to wish to spread Christianity from a center in Asia, where other peoples are still settled, and Buddhism would be equally false for the European population. No religious view is right if it is not suited to the innermost needs of the time, and such a view will never be able to give a cultural impulse. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 81:Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently - thinking incessantly - is considered perfectly normal. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 82:Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists". ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 83:The Tibetan religion has a past. And furthermore it has such an appeal. There again young people today are drawn to Buddhism and to Tibet. It's not only because of the Dalai Lama. It's because of what Tibet represents. There is a vast reservoir of knowledge, of mystical knowledge, which can be found in Tibet.The Chinese shouldn't be afraid of that really. They have other means of survival. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 84:Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 85:The five points of yama, together with the five points of niyama, remind us of the Ten Commandments of the Christtian and Jewish faiths, as well as of the ten virtues of Buddhism. In fact, there is no religion without these moral or ethical codes. All spiritual life should be based on these things. They are the foundation stones without which we can never build anything lasting. ~ swami-satchidananda-saraswati, @wisdomtrove 86:Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer, Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 87:[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 88:Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 89:First, identify your core aims. What are your purposes and principles in relationships? For example, one fundamental moral value is not to harm people,including yourself. If your needs are not being met in a relationship, that’s harmful to you. If you are mean or punishing, that harms others. Another potential aim might be to keep discovering the truth about yourself and the other person. Second, stay in bounds. The Wise Speech section of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path offers good guidelines for communication that stays within the lines: Say only what is well-intended, true, beneficial, timely, expressed without harshness or malice, and—ideally—what is wanted. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 90:The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 91:The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 92:According to Buddhism, most people identify happiness with pleasant feelings, while identifying suffering with unpleasant feelings. People consequently ascribe immense importance to what they feel, craving to experience more and more pleasures, while avoiding pain. Whatever we do throughout our lives, whether scratching our leg, fidgeting slightly in the chair, or fighting world wars, we are just trying to get pleasant feelings. The problem, according to Buddhism, is that our feelings are no more than fleeting vibrations, changing every moment, like the ocean waves. If five minutes ago I felt joyful and purposeful, now these feelings are gone, and I might well feel sad and dejected. So if I want to experience pleasant feelings, I have to constantly chase them, while driving away the unpleasant feelings. Even if I succeed, I immediately have to start all over again, without ever getting any lasting reward for my troubles. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 93:According to Buddhism, the root of suffering is neither the feeling of pain nor of sadness nor even of meaninglessness. Rather, the real root of suffering is this never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings, which causes us to be in a constant state of tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction. Due to this pursuit, the mind is never satisfied. Even when experiencing pleasure, it is not content, because it fears this feeling might soon disappear, and craves that this feeling should stay and intensify. People are liberated from suffering not when they experience this or that fleeting pleasure, but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and stop craving them. This is the aim of Buddhist meditation practices. In meditation, you are supposed to closely observe your mind and body, witness the ceaseless arising and passing of all your feelings, and realise how pointless it is to pursue them. When the pursuit stops, the mind becomes very relaxed, clear and satisfied. All kinds of feelings go on arising and passing – joy, anger, boredom, lust – but once you stop craving particular feelings, you can just accept them for what they are. You live in the present moment instead of fantasising about what might have been. The resulting serenity is so profound that those who spend their lives in the frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can hardly imagine it. It is like a man standing for decades on the seashore, embracing certain ‘good’ waves and trying to prevent them from disintegrating, while simultaneously pushing back ‘bad’ waves to prevent them from getting near him. Day in, day out, the man stands on the beach, driving himself crazy with this fruitless exercise. Eventually, he sits down on the sand and just allows the waves to come and go as they please. How peaceful! ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Buddhism for Assholes ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
2:Essays in Zen Buddhism ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
3:Buddhism in one long prayer. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
4:Buddhism is all about secrets. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
5:Real Buddhism is about meditation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
6:-- Buddhism needs its fucking Nietzsche -- ~ Evan Dara, #NFDB
7:All self-help is Buddhism with a service mark ~ Merlin Mann, #NFDB
8:Connection to Buddhism is strand in my life. ~ Anne Waldman, #NFDB
9:Tibetan Buddhism had an enormous impact on me. ~ Richard Gere, #NFDB
10:Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
11:Buddhism is reason. Reason will win over your lord. ~ Nichiren, #NFDB
12:When did feminism become confused with Buddhism? ~ Caitlin Moran, #NFDB
13:I haven't got any Buddhism. I live by letting things happen. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
14:Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
15:I am not promoting Buddhism. I am promoting human values. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
16:Just study Buddhism. Don't follow the sentiments of the world. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
17:Buddhism is the study of how to be immeasurably happy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
18:"Buddhism is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
19:Buddhism doesn't come from anybody. It exists by itself. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
20:Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary. ~ David Sylvian, #NFDB
21:Christianity and Buddhism are a lot alike, especially Buddhism. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
22:Buddhism’s cardinal ethical principle is to avoid causing harm. ~ Gil Fronsdal, #NFDB
23:As Buddhism moved from one culture to another, it always adapted. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
24:In Buddhism, there are three gems: Buddha, the awakened one; Dharma, ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
25:Self-honesty is absolutely necessary in the practice of Buddhism. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
26:Buddhism resonated very powerfully with a lot of my preoccupations. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
27:Prajñāpāramitā Buddhism is not a religion suitable for the brainless ~ Edward Conze, #NFDB
28:Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
29:One of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
30:Tibetan Buddhism, has inspired me and accelerated my understanding of life. ~ Jet Li, #NFDB
31:Buddhism wasn’t responsible for the insane atrocities of human history ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
32:Generosity in Buddhism is to be relieved of the “stain of stinginess. ~ Gregory Boyle, #NFDB
33:Karl Marx famously called religion ‘the opiate of the masses.’ Buddhism, ~ John Green, #NFDB
34:Every morning, . . . rededicate yourself to your path. . . . ~ Thich Nhat Hanh #Buddhism, #NFDB
35:There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
36:[...] Buddhism has been so much admired mainly for what it is not. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
37:Buddhism helps me to have a healthy relationship with my body and spirit. ~ Anthony Kiedis, #NFDB
38:In Buddhism balance is the most difficult thing, because it is overlooked. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
39:To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
40:Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
41:I do feel Im being respectful to Buddhism and martial arts with Mortal Kombat. ~ Mark Dacascos, #NFDB
42:When you think of Buddhism, you're likely to think of peace and tranquility. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, #NFDB
43:If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
44:Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go. ~ Ajahn Sumedho, #NFDB
45:It is during our darkest moments.That we must focus to see the light. ~ Buddha.#Buddha #Buddhism, #NFDB
46:Sorrow if indulged becomes a habit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Jainism and Buddhism, #NFDB
47:The principles of Buddhism have become more commonplace, which is a good thing. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
48:Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
49:Honour to the high and sublime excellence of wisdom! ~ Formula of devotion of Mahayanist Buddhism, #NFDB
50:"Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go." ~ Ajahn Sumedho, #NFDB
51:I was studying Tibetan Buddhism when I was quite young, again influenced by Kerouac. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
52:The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
53:There's a strong aspect of Buddhism which is geared towards ending all fertility. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
54:My own view is that Buddhism must abandon many aspects of the Abhidharma cosmology. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
55:I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat. ~ Jet Li, #NFDB
56:Buddhism is the process of getting to that part of us that is always eternally happy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
57:Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
58:In Buddhism what we seek to do is change ourselves into someone who's beautiful to be. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
59:There’s a phrase in Buddhism, ‘Beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to have a beginner’s mind. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
60:Hindus believe in God positively. Buddhism does not try to know whether He is or not. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
61:The fundamental goal of Buddhism is the realization of the peace and happiness of humankind. ~ Josei Toda, #NFDB
62:One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
63:Perhaps Islam is analogous to a carnivorous gene complex, Buddhism to a herbivorous one. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
64:If you're studying Buddhism you never really have enough time because you're going to die. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
65:Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
66:I spend more time learning about Buddhism than English, which is why my English today is still bad. ~ Jet Li, #NFDB
67:I believe Buddhism to be a simplification of Hinduism and Islam to be a simplification of Xianity. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
68:Tantric Buddhism means that we become mature adults and we learn the reality of chaos theory. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
69:The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
70:According to Buddhism, it is our fear at experiencing ourselves directly that creates suffering. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
71:Buddhism has long had a theory of what in neuroscience is called the “plasticity of the brain. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
72:I like to read about different religions - Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. ~ Wesley Snipes, #NFDB
73:Buddhism is a clever way to enjoy life. Happiness is available. Please help yourselves to it. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
74:A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
75:Zen and Buddhism have produced martial arts, because of the Buddhist injunction against weapons. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
76:Buddhism is simply a methodology, a way of becoming one with the part of ourselves that is happy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
77:A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
78:For the person who wants to get to the mystical experience directly, Tantric Buddhism is the path. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
79:If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
80:The essence of Buddhism is if you can, help others. If not, then at least refrain from hurting others. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
81:Music is not the only reason that I practice Buddhism anymore because it has affected my whole life. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
82:I could justify violence only in this extreme case, to save the last living knowledge of Buddhism itself. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
83:I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
84:I have found a much greater appreciation of Buddhism because I couldn't take it for granted here in exile. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
85:The decline of Buddhism in the Ganges heartland and the peninsula occurred before the Turkish conquest. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
86:Through the practice of meditation and Buddhism, as you experience light, it immediately delights you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
87:Buddhism, it seemed, was a rational religion, whose truth-claims could withstand the test of reason. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
88:Compassion is the key in Islam and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity. They are profoundly similar. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
89:"In Buddhism the point is not simply to be accomplished mediators but to change our whole approach to life." ~ Judy Lief, #NFDB
90:The only "definitive truth" for Buddhism is the absolute negation of any one truth as the Definitive Truth. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
91:The peculiar thing is that, in focusing only on the here and now, Buddhism seems to despise the world. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
92:Buddhism has to do with your daily life, with your suffering and with the suffering of the people around you. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
93:Buddhism teaches us to be tolerant and accepting, but tolerance does NOT mean accepting what is harmful. ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
94:The light is already there. In Zen Buddhism there's a little speck of dust on the mirror, and that's us. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
95:As far as ignorance is concerned, not just Buddhism, every religion recognizes it as the source of suffering. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
96:Buddhism doesn't tell you what is false and what is true but it encourages you to find out for yourself. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
97:For me, Buddhism is a psychology and a philosophy that provides a means, upayas, for working with the mind. ~ Joan Halifax, #NFDB
98:I do regard Islam to be a religion of peace in the same sense as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
99:Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
100:I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
101:I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
102:Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-al ready-are. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
103:I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one, it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men. ~ Bj rk, #NFDB
104:In some cultures, like Buddhism, you want things in your life to disappear, to reduce your needs and desires ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
105:It's very difficult to stay angry when a room full of bald guys in orange robes start giggling. Buddhism. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
106:People may wish to say that the thing that is in conflict with my creativity is not Buddhism - that's fine. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
107:Reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
108:"The essence of Buddhism is, if you can, to help others. If not, then at least refrain from hurting others." ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
109:"The object of Buddhism is to perfect the person, the body-mind. There is no Buddha outside of the human being." ~ Kozan Kato, #NFDB
110:There are many, many Christians who practice Buddhism, and they become better and better Christians all the time. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
111:Buddhism is all about finding your own way, not imitating the ways of others or even the ways of Buddha himself. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
112:Enlightenment is cumulative. You become a little more enlightened each day as you practice yoga and Buddhism. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
113:I have a bit of a struggle with some aspects of or forms of Buddhism, but Zen I find to be mainly congenial. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
114:In the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, it’s believed that reality can exist only where our mind creates a focus. ~ Gregg Braden, #NFDB
115:Your Buddhism has made you mean Ray and makes you even afraid to take your clothes off for a simple healthy orgy ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
116:Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
117:I don't think about what I do. I do it. That's Buddhism. I jump off the cliff and build my wings on the way down. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
118:In Buddhism, the term hungry ghost refers to the person whose appetite exceeds their capacity for satisfaction. ~ Chloe Caldwell, #NFDB
119:"'No self. No problem' said the Buddhist Master when asked to explain the deeper meaning of Buddhism." ~ Eckhart Tolle#teachings, #NFDB
120:all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
121:Do not try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
122:The teaching of the Buddha is called the Dhamma. He did not teach Buddhism, any more than Jesus taught Christianity. ~ Ayya Khema, #NFDB
123:Buddhism is the study of changing who we are, modifying or perhaps totally restructuring ourselves as perceivers. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
124:When someone has a strong intuitive connection, Buddhism suggests that it's because of karma, some past connection. ~ Richard Gere, #NFDB
125:Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
126:The principles of Buddhism and Shambhala can be effective in helping the course of what is happening in the world. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
127:What is science but the pursuit of the truth? What is Buddhism but 2500 years of observation as to the nature of mind? ~ Wade Davis, #NFDB
128:Actions for the good accumulate what is called “merit”—one of the most commonly misunderstood concepts in Buddhism. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
129:Don’t try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a better Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
130:We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
131:Change is one of the only constants in Buddhism; as meditation became the way I breathed in the days, this became apparent. ~ Nick Flynn, #NFDB
132:Don't use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
133:The goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
134:"All the traditions in Buddhism have their own unique aspects. But in essence, we are all students of the same teacher." ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
135:Buddhism begins in personal experience. Observation of one’s surroundings and one’s reactions, and one’s thoughts. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
136:The feeling is all in all, as Faust declares; all our theorization fails to touch reality. ~ D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, #NFDB
137:Buddhism is in your heart. Even if you don't have any temple or any monks, you can still be a Buddhist in your heart and life. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
138:I don't want to convert people to Buddhism - all major religions, when understood properly, have the same potential for good. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
139:Present-day Hinduism and Buddhism were growths from the same branch. Buddhism degenerated, and Shankara lopped it off! ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
140:Smith, I distrust any kind of Buddhism or any kinda philosophy or social system that puts down sex said Japhy (Gary Snyder) ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
141:That's what Buddhism has been trying to unravel - the mechanism of happiness and suffering. It is a science of the mind. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
142:I have seen people who practice yoga and Buddhism who are scared to death of the sorcery powers of others. This is absurd. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
143:Intentional suffering and the postponement of happiness is not yoga or Buddhism. It will not lead to a better incarnation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
144:One of Buddhism’s main practices is understanding and experiencing compassion, and how that ultimately is a road to happiness. ~ Goldie Hawn, #NFDB
145:What is evil? There is no such thing. In Buddhism we don't recognize evil and therefore we don't give it any power over us. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
146:It took me forty years of dealing with buddhism to finally realize that actually Buddha's discovery was happiness and bliss. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
147:What I had learned from Buddhism was that I did not have to know myself analytically as much as I had to tolerate not knowing. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
148:Buddhism leads you to the awareness that all things are holy. Everything is holy. The dark has its own light, in other words. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
149:Buddhism - Tibetan Buddhism - teaches us many things, peace comes from within, we must be free ourselves from earthly desires... ~ Peter Sagal, #NFDB
150:In Buddhism, since the definition of “living” refers to sentient beings, consciousness is the primary characteristic of “life. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
151:Buddhism has a very beautiful teaching that says the worst thing you can do to your soul is to tell someone their faith is wrong. ~ Ricky Martin, #NFDB
152:If there's good, strong evidence from science that such and such is the case and this is contrary to Buddhism, then we will change. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
153:The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
154:triangle offense, that aligned perfectly with the values of selflessness and mindful awareness I’d been studying in Zen Buddhism. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
155:"Buddhism is all about science. If science is the pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism." ~ Robert A. F. Thurman, #NFDB
156:The psychic sorrow which does not disturb or depress but rather liberates the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Jainism and Buddhism, #NFDB
157:Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that's important. Self-discipline with awareness of consequences. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
158:Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing. ~ Eugen Herrigel, #NFDB
159:A critical part of Tantric Buddhism is a process of turning of the activities and experiences in your daily life into meditation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
160:Buddhism helps us to overcome our endless ego grasping mind to open up to something so much more spacious and genuinely meaningful. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
161:the Visuddhimagga. This fifth-century text, which means Path to Purification in Pali (the language of Buddhism’s earliest canon), ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
162:When words cease to correspond with facts it is time for us to part with words and return to facts. ~ D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, #NFDB
163:Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion. ~ Thurston Moore, #NFDB
164:I can assure you, as a practitioner of Buddhism, that there are ten thousand states of mind, at least, give or take a few billion. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
165:In Tantric Buddhism we call the inherent knowledge that all animate and inanimate objects possess of themselves - their emptiness. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
166:You must go to Mahometanism, to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism. ~ Florence Nightingale, #NFDB
167:Buddhism is filled with many wonderful ideas, but it is the recognition of awareness that takes us from samara to nirvana. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, #NFDB
168:If there's good, strong evidence from science that such and such is the case and this is contrary to Buddhism, then we will change. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
169:Tibetans practiced Mahayana Buddhism, which is a different form from the one that had once been popular in India in the medieval era. ~ Scott Carney, #NFDB
170:To practice Zen Buddhism is to train oneself to eliminate hatred, anger and selfishness and to develop loving-kindness towards all. ~ Thich Thien An, #NFDB
171:It’s very simple: If Buddhism is about awakening, people should be waking up. If it’s not about awakening, they should change the name. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
172:"There is nothing mysterious in Buddhism. Time passes as it is natural, the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting into the west." ~ Dogen Zenji, #NFDB
173:The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
174:But for me if I'm gonna read about something I'd rather read a pamphlet or the instructions to a synthesizer than a book on Buddhism. ~ John Frusciante, #NFDB
175:I think what's important and extraordinarily practical about Buddhism, is that it offers very concrete methods for people to work with. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
176:note the similarities with buddhism a buddhist who has achieved nirvana is not sad primarily because it does not know the concept of sad [...] ~ Tao Lin, #NFDB
177:Patriarchy is connected to greed, a symptom of a larger force that can only be dispelled through kindness and love. It's basic Buddhism. ~ Peter Buffett, #NFDB
178:As the Dalai Lama says, “Don’t try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are. ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
179:Before going to sleep at night, . . . take a few minutes to review the day. “Did I live in the direction of my ideals today?” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh #Buddhism, #NFDB
180:Gut level is a good level to deal with life, and for me, I have to say that Buddhism makes sense for me because it's how I'm an artist. ~ Laurie Anderson, #NFDB
181:I know that Buddhism is to Hinduism what Protestantism is to Roman Catholicism, only in a much stronger light, to a much greater degree. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
182:Nearly everywhere Buddhism went, there had been a higher level of literacy, even in miserable Burma, not to mention Thailand and Sri Lanka. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
183:Although it is nonreligious and nontheistic, it’s difficult to present Buddhism without sounding theoretical and religious. As ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
184:In Buddhism, ignorance as the root cause of suffering refers to a fundamental misperception of the true nature of the self and all phenomena. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
185:If I ever write an autobiography about teaching meditation in the West, I'll call it "Pissing In the Wind - Teaching Buddhism in America". ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
186:In Buddhism, we talk of meditation as an act of awakening, to be awake to the fact that the earth is in danger and living species are in danger. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
187:The study of Buddhism is essentially the study of modification, how we modify the state of mind we're in, how we modify the realm we're in. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
188:Zen is Tantric Buddhism, Vajrayana is tantric Buddhism - these are various forms of it. Tantric Buddhism simply means cutting to the chase. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
189:The idea that Buddhism denies what is called in the West individual immortality is a mistake, so far as the Buddhist scriptures are concerned. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
190:they are still satisfied with the old clichés about “life-denying Buddhism,” “selfish navel-gazing,” and Nirvana as a sort of drugged trance. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
191:When I first was exposed to Buddhism in the mid-1960s, I said it was so practical and utterly pragmatic. That's what attracted me to Buddhism. ~ Joan Halifax, #NFDB
192:According to Buddhism, suffering will always exist as a universal phenomenon, but every individual has the potential for liberation from it. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
193:In Tantric Buddhism our feeling is that there is no problem with the sensual world unless you have a tremendous attraction or aversion to it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
194:The outer form of Buddhism, of practice, is etiquette - a series of ways to live intelligently that keep you alive, awake and happy, wakeful. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
195:That was my real education in the world - I learned politics, the social and cultural life of India, Hindu tradition and religion, and Buddhism. ~ Satish Kumar, #NFDB
196:"Once I asked a Sri Lankan meditation master to teach me the essence of Buddhism. He just laughed and said three times, 'No self, no problem.'" ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
197:The Dalai Lama has said, “Don’t try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a better Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
198:To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
199:Buddhism has existed forever, just like we have, and occasionally it's codified; it's put together into a system by someone who likes to codify. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
200:note the similarities with buddhism
a buddhist who has achieved nirvana is not sad
primarily because it does not know the concept
of sad [...] ~ Tao Lin,#NFDB
201:Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
202:The sensual experiences in life are not to be avoided. This is the philosophy of Tantric Buddhism - nor are they particularly to be sought after. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
203:Zen is attained only when “self-intoxication” is abandoned and the “drunkard” is really awakened to his deeper self. ~ D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, #NFDB
204:Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them. ~ Uma Thurman, #NFDB
205:A lot of people dabbling means Buddhism has come into the mainstream, where people begin to use these terms and ideas, and they become less foreign. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
206:Buddhism ... is not a culture but a critique of culture, an enduring nonviolent revolution or "loyal opposition" to the culture in which it is involved. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
207:Buddhism spreads by people converting out of their own wish for peace and right action. But power condenses around those willing to use force. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
208:Buddhism, we say that life is like housekeeping in a dream. We may get a lot done, but in the end we wake up and what does it come to, all that effort? ~ Jamie Zeppa, #NFDB
209:In Buddhism, consciousness is central because all phenomena are realized to be mere appearances to consciousness that have no independent existence. ~ B Alan Wallace, #NFDB
210:And yet when you take Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, whatever, their combined killings in the name of religion -- well, that would be zero. ~ Eric Bolling, #NFDB
211:I'm not even sure that Buddhism is a religion really. It seems like more of just a spiritual practice, I'd compare it more to Taoism than religion. ~ Sienna McQuillen, #NFDB
212:In fact, one big lesson from Buddhism is to be suspicious of the intuition that your ordinary way of perceiving the world brings you the truth about it. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
213:Buddhism is all about science. If science is the systematic pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism, Buddhism is science. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
214:The cover story of the magazine [TIME magazine] depicting a few individuals who are acting contrary to most Myanmar, is creating misconceptions of Buddhism. ~ Thein Sein, #NFDB
215:Personal experience, therefore, is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience. ~ D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, #NFDB
216:uncompromising commitment to truth, and a total dedication to discovering the nature of reality are things that both Buddhism and science have in common. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
217:Buddhism is not just going to temple, being at a ceremony and dressing up. That is the church of Buddhism. Esoteric Buddhism is to move beyond this world. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
218:In Hinduism and Buddhism, dharma has various connotations, but generally it means cheerfully fulfilling your moral and ethical duty. Doing the right thing. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
219:The root of suffering is attachment. ~ Buddha#gautamabuddha #buddha #buda #buddhabless#buddhism #religion #buddhaquote #quote #namobuddhay #BuddhaBlessings #namaste #peace, #NFDB
220:If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly. We should always adopt a view that accords with the facts. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
221:I've tried Buddhism, Scientology, Numerology, Transcendental Meditation, Qabbala, t'ai chi, feng shui and Deepak Chopra but I find straight gin works best. ~ Phyllis Diller, #NFDB
222:There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can compete successfully with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should it try to. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
223:You see, that's the fun of Buddhism. We do have a wild card in the deck that can't be explained, that changes value continuously, and that's enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
224:Buddhism is all about science. If science is the systematic pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism, Buddhism is science. ~ Robert A F Thurman, #NFDB
225:Do no harm, act for the good, purify the mind.” The flowering of all the great traditions of Buddhism derives from the teachings in this one simple verse. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
226:I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
227:Oysters are more beautiful than any religion... There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. ~ Hector Hugh Munro, #NFDB
228:We seek absolute neutrality in Buddhism. We don't want to be drawn into anything in particular. We don't want to be pushed away from anything in particular. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
229:Buddhism has a term for the happiness we feel at someone else’s success or good fortune. Sympathetic joy, as it is known, invites us to celebrate for others. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
230:gave it the illusion of being there … the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
231:To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, 'Don't cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.' ~ Ajahn Chah, #NFDB
232:Buddhism teaches us that we are not so much isolated individuals as we are overlapping environments, and that we have the capacity to know ourselves in this way. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
233:In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
234:the concentrations on emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. They are known as the Three Doors of Liberation and are available in every school of Buddhism. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
235:Buddhism helps people to overcome pain. The deepest pain that Chinese people feel now is the pain of separation from loved ones, one of the eight pains in Buddhism. ~ Ye Xiaowen, #NFDB
236:Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
237:Happiness will come through the practice of yoga and Buddhism, that happiness is not something you will lose at the end of this lifetime. It will stay with you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
238:If you can get out of the mind you will get out of Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and all kinds of rubbish will be just finished. You can come to a full stop. ~ Osho, #NFDB
239:I make my argument that Buddhism’s diagnosis of the human predicament is fundamentally correct, and that its prescription is deeply valid and urgently important. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
240:In Buddhism, compassion always goes with wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is not understood to be true compassion, and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom. ~ Masao Abe, #NFDB
241:Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
242:Tantric Buddhism is just a collection of things that work by doing them. And sometimes we add new things. We have electronic music; we did not have it in Tibet. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
243:The idea of interdependence is central to Buddhism, which holds that all things come into being through the mutual interactions of various causes and conditions. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
244:An esoteric or enlightened teacher of Buddhism is someone who has the ability to transfer power to another individual. A real empowerment is not just a ceremony. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
245:If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
246:If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason. There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion. ~ B R Ambedkar, #NFDB
247:It is bad to carry even a good thing too far. Even concerning things such as Buddhism, Buddhist sermons, and moral lessons, talking too much will bring harm. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
248:Just like in Christianity or Buddhism, obviously there are certain practices that dictate one's life, but I don't think you can say all Muslim women are a certain way. ~ Nia Long, #NFDB
249:To me, as a visual artist, I don't want to get into the theory of Buddhism. There are many Buddhism theories and they fight each other, like Christians as well. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto, #NFDB
250:[Buddhism] takes us beyond a kind of self-centered narcissism because instead of identifying with the content of our experience, we identify with awareness itself. ~ Charlotte Kasl, #NFDB
251:It is bad to carry even the good thing too far. Even concerning things such as Buddhism, Buddhist sermons, and moral lessons, talking too much will bring harm. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
252:It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking. ~ Sulak Sivaraksa, #NFDB
253:A person of wisdom is not one who practices Buddhism apart from worldly affairs but, rather, one who thoroughly understands the principles by which the world is governed. ~ Nichiren, #NFDB
254:As the famous Zen master Dogen has said: To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be one with others. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
255:Attachment has to do with suffering, so it's really close to Buddhism, because Buddhism wants to relieve you from suffering; you're supposed to escape from suffering. ~ Gerald Stern, #NFDB
256:I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
257:The wind has settled, the blossoms have fallen;
Birds sing, the mountains grow dark --
This is the wondrous power of Buddhism.
~ Taigu Ryokan, The Wind Has Settled
,#NFDB
258:A person of wisdom is not one who practices Buddhism apart from worldly affairs but, rather, one who thoroughly understands the principles by which the world is governed. ~ Nichiren, #NFDB
259:If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims. ~ Chade Meng Tan, #NFDB
260:If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
261:Buddhism is a heresy on Hinduism. It was Hinduism that did the dirty work for Buddhism, by the time Buddha came along priest-craft was an ancient tradition in India. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
262:Buddhism is the study of power initially. It takes a certain amount of power to even know your potential - to have the sense that you can change the way you perceive. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
263:If you're a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
264:In Buddhism we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
265:I think the attractiveness of Buddhism is that it doesn't involve a belief in God. That appeals to a lot of people - intellectuals and well-educated people in particular. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
266:Soccer isn't the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community's fabric, a repository of traditions. ~ Franklin Foer, #NFDB
267:As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the countries of origin. It's just a sign of our culture. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
268:In Buddhism we don't really believe in sin and salvation as Westerners would define them. We believe in the limitless possibilities of the present and of future moments. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
269:In Zen Buddhism an action is considered good when it brings happiness and well-being to oneself and others, evil when it brings suffering and harm to oneself and others. ~ Thich Thien An, #NFDB
270:The essential premise of Buddhism is that there is enlightenment, there is nirvana. Beyond this world, beyond all worlds, there's something radiant, perfect and eternal. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
271:Zen was a reaction. Just as Buddha came into the world and spoke against the fall of Vedanta, so Buddhism lost its essence and became ritual. Zen was a reaction to that. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
272:Be neither attracted nor repulsed is the message of Tantric Buddhism. Don't be drawn to something, don't run away from it. Just naturally accept whatever comes into life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
273:In Tantric Buddhism, we believe that Samsara is Nirvana. That is to say that everything in the universe is part of us. And we also are part of everything in the universe. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
274:Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
275:You don't have to meditate. You don't have to practice self-discovery and Buddhism. You should only practice self-discovery if you really have had it with the human world. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
276:Now, tantra is a little bit different than other forms of Buddhism because in tantra what we do is we use the sensorial worlds as access points or pathways to ineffability. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
277:I'm interested in Buddhism. Of all the organized religions, that to me is the only one that makes even vague sense. I just don't have the discipline for that kind of practice. ~ Debbie Harry, #NFDB
278:I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism - whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion. ~ Erwin McManus, #NFDB
279:I used to live in Buddhist monasteries and I finally had to leave them because they were just too cluttered for me. They were cluttered up with many thoughts about Buddhism. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
280:If we do overcome linear time, I would hope this means dwelling more directly in the fertility of the imagination rather than denying it, as some aspects of Buddhism seem to. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
281:Past life knowledge is not the wedding album of existence. Past life remembrance in Buddhism is the ability to bring a greater awareness we had in another life into this life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
282:The preservation of Buddhism is preserving your own internal heart. If Tibetans became terrorists they might win back Tibet, but Buddhism would be destroyed by that attitude. ~ Rodger Kamenetz, #NFDB
283:Every one of the “great” belief systems of the world, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Confucianism, insists on women’s inferiority as an article of faith. Individual ~ Rosalind Miles, #NFDB
284:In Buddhism we would say that you are lazy... Despising yourself, thinking you are no good, saying 'I can't do this.' This is the mind of weakness. You must work to overcome it . ~ David Michie, #NFDB
285:Modern Hinduism, modern Jainism, and Buddhism branched off at the same time. For some period, each seemed to have wanted to outdo the others in grotesqueness and humbuggism. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
286:Now, for example, as a Buddhist monk, I find Buddhism to be most suitable. So, for myself, I've found that Buddhism is best. But that does not mean Buddhism is best for everyone. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
287:Buddhism suggests that you have that choice; you are in the driver's seat. Hertz or somebody has put you there. You have an absolute choice about what you experience in your mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
288:Eventually light prevails, you just have to be patient. So practice Buddhism, learn to be enlightened, put a smile on your face, go find a great teacher, meditate, and stay funny. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
289:From the first, in people and in things, there is no such thing as trash. These words point to the fundamental truth of Buddhism, a truth I could not as yet conceive in those days. ~ Soko Morinaga, #NFDB
290:Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us that Buddhism, with all its early austerity, was founded by a man who, as a member of the ruling class, could presumably indulge his appetites fully. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
291:The word "emptiness" for example, is a very important word both in Christianity and in Buddhism. It has shades of meaning however, that are different in the respective traditions. ~ Thomas Keating, #NFDB
292:As an individual, I think you have to find your own path. I like the simplicity and purity of Hinduism and many elements of Buddhism. These are all means of accessing spiritual energy. ~ Dave Davies, #NFDB
293:The purpose of Buddhism is not to convert people. It is to give them tools so they can create greater happiness. So they can be happier Catholics, happier atheists, happier Buddhists. ~ David Michie, #NFDB
294:Two of Epicurus’s early influences, Democritus and Pyrrho, had actually journeyed all the way to what is now India, where they had encountered Buddhism in the schools of the gymnosophists ~ Epicurus, #NFDB
295:When we realize that our lives are one with the great and eternal life of the universe, we are the Buddha. The purpose of Buddhism is to enable all people to come to this realization. ~ Clark Strand, #NFDB
296:My work has been in the field of engaged Buddhism. That is my own practice, which began in 1965 that formed the base for the work I was doing in the civil rights and anti-war movement. ~ Joan Halifax, #NFDB
297:“Let one not neglect one’s own welfare for the sake of another, however great. Clearly understanding one’s own welfare, let one be intent upon the good.” ~ Buddha#buddha #buda #dharma #quote #buddhism, #NFDB
298:Breathing properly, meditating, and focusing on the impermanence of all things are healing activities. In fact, some of our most successful psychotherapy incorporates aspects of Buddhism. ~ Mary Pipher, #NFDB
299:I prefer Buddhism because it gives three principles in combination, which no other religion does. This is what man wants for a good and happy life. Neither god nor soul can save society. ~ B R Ambedkar, #NFDB
300:The power that enables us to transform our awareness is the release of kundalini. All yoga, either directly or indirectly, all Buddhism, relates to the release of the kundalini energy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
301:Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
302:WHILE “BUDDHISM” SUGGESTS another belief system, “dharma practice” suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
303:While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
304:You have people who are good at English but don't have the training in Buddhism or Shambhala, or they have the training but are not good in English. Getting that mixture is really rare. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
305:As a dialectical teacher, I have had many lives where I have taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. I teach in many different modalites. But the theme that unites them - is love. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
306:In fact it didn’t make a goddamn much of a difference to him. “I’m neutral,” said he, laughing happily with a kind of an eager slaking leer, and Japhy yelled: “Neutral is what Buddhism is! ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
307:Ultimately, I hope Jesus will save Buddhism, Islam and every other religion, including the Christian religion, which often seems to need saving about as much as any other religion does. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
308:Celibacy doesn't make you enlightened, otherwise every nun or priest in Buddhism or Christianity would be enlightened. People who don't date and can't get any action would be enlightened. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
309:What we seek to do in Tantric Buddhism is to liquefy ourselves. Life will automatically bring us to the next stage. You don't really have to know where you're going - It's like breathing. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
310:Buddhism suggests there are no elect. Everything rests upon your own self-effort, which is the good news because that means you don't have to wait around for some nebulous God to help you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
311:If you meditate and continue to have fun with yoga and Buddhism, you will amass knowledge and will move to a higher incarnation. In your next lifetime you will be much wiser, much happier. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
312:In Buddhism we meditate. We make our minds quiet by learning to focus on the chakras, release internal energy that we call kundalini, and bring ourselves into high states of consciousness. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
313:Fundamentally, Buddhism is for the awakenment and benefit of beings. So, you can't say, "Oh, you can't have it because you're not ready for it." That goes against the fundamental principle. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
314:I believe that everybody has the right to believe what they want to believe and to knock somebody's faith and religion is foolish, whatever it may be - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism. ~ Nicolas Cage, #NFDB
315:Precepts in Buddhism and commandments in Judiasm and Christianity are important jewels that we need to study and practice. They provide guidelines that can help us transform our suffering. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
316:The Dalai Lama once said that ‘If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change!’ This is a great thought! And great thoughts belong to great men only! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
317:"In Buddhism we cultivate aimlessness, and in fact in Buddhist tradition the ideal person, an arhat or a bodhisattva, is a businessless person—someone with nowhere to go and nothing to do." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
318:In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. ~ Buddha#buddha #quote #buddhablessings #buddhism #lotusflower #buda, #NFDB
319:“What makes human life--which is inseparable from this moment--so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.” ~ Steve Hagen, Buddhism Is Not What You Think, #NFDB
320:A lot of people talk about the spirituality of Buddhism, and it is a spiritual discipline. But in Shambhala there also is a notion that you have to be synchronized with both heaven and earth. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
321:A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation. ~ Stanislav Grof, #NFDB
322:Buddhism is yoga. Yoga started, who knows when? A long time ago, when the first person found that they could still their thoughts and experience eternity and access the higher planes of mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
323:Chinese Buddhism was the natural study of reality, and led to feelings of devotion just from noting the daily leaves, the colors of the sky, the animals seen from the corner of the eye. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
324:How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America by Rick Fields (Boston: Shambhala, 1981), and my The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
325:Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there…the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
326:I do not think about converting others to Buddhism or merely furthering the Buddhist cause. Instead, I try to think of how I as a Buddhist can contribute to the happiness of all living beings. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
327:If you are not happier every day, if you don't see a progression of development, then you are certainly not practicing yoga or Buddhism and therefore you cannot be amassing any positive karma. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
328:The essence of Buddhism is simply that the mind is forever. We are always experiencing different states of mind in one form or another, in one body or another, in one life or another, forever. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
329:Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there … the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
330:Thinking that
we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in
Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round
and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly ~ Pema Ch dr n,#NFDB
331:I didn't really understand that Vipassana is a relatively new form of Buddhism that was based on the storage of pain. So the idea is that every time you don't scream, that's your Buddhist side. ~ Laurie Anderson, #NFDB
332:Buddhism does not consider the root cause of our problems to be an external agent of this life, but rather an internal agent developed over many lifetimes—the habitual tendencies of our own minds. ~ Tashi Tsering, #NFDB
333:I seemed to recall some words from an old Zen master, something like, "My Zen cuts down mountains." My rejection of Buddhism was a cutting down of mountains; that is precisely how it felt to me. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
334:There are certainly beliefs in traditional Buddhism that conflict with basic principles of scientific understanding, .. We can't make sense of those beliefs in any kind of scientific framework. ~ Richard Davidson, #NFDB
335:Buddhism, he thought, is a clean religion. You never heard about how eight people—two of them children—just got blown the fuck up as part of the long-standing conflict between Buddhists and whoever. ~ Scott Hawkins, #NFDB
336:Buddhism teaches us not to want things, not to avoid things, not to be upset by the loss. In the I Ching, there's a hexagram that says, "Be like the sun at midday". View all things as being equal. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
337:I had read some books on the Baha'i Faith. I had read - I was looking into Buddhism and trying to understand sort of the agnostic approach, so there was just a bunch of stuff I was just looking at. ~ Mahershala Ali, #NFDB
338:Everyone is groping and grasping,” he says. “People are turning to Buddhism, Christianity, self-help, and Taoism. CEOs and billionaires run around with their spiritual masters and visit meditation rooms. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
339:The thing about Buddhism is that it stresses attainment of something ineffable, that is where it differs from other religions in that it's more correct. We live in a world with promises of paradise. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
340:Buddhism regards all living creatures as being endowed with the Buddha nature and the potential to become Buddhas. That's why Buddhism teaches us to refrain from killing and to liberate creatures instead. ~ Hsuan Hua, #NFDB
341:Buddhism is perception, gaining control of the mind and directing one's attention, to raise the kundalini energy so that it flows with such volatility and force that we simply perceive life correctly. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
342:Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
343:The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
344:The main thing that attracts me to Buddhism is probably what attracts every artist to being an artist - that it's a godlike thing. You are the ultimate authority. There is no other ultimate authority. ~ Laurie Anderson, #NFDB
345:Buddhism is more a philosophy for living rather than a religion or dogma - it's about being awake, free from illusions and fear, so that compassion and loving kindness permeates all of our relationships. ~ Charlotte Kasl, #NFDB
346:In Buddhism, what is known as beginner's mind is a way to look at the world as if for the first time: with interest, enthusiasm, and engagement. This may be the optimal state of mind for a healthy brain. ~ Louis Cozolino, #NFDB
347:A recently deceased American Zen master and navy veteran, John Daido Loori, used to say that those who think Buddhism is just about stillness end up sitting very silently up to their necks in their own shit. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
348:Just as a flower is made only of non-flower elements, Buddhism is made only of non-Buddhist elements, including Christian ones, and Christianity is made of non-Christian elements, including Buddhist ones. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
349:Life isn't complicated. The reason it appears complicated to you is because you are in a very distorted state of mind. That's the basic premise of Buddhism - that you're in a very distorted state of mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
350:I think there's beauty in repetition. And that's part of my culture and African culture as well: repeated things, mantra. It's spiritual, it's meditation, it's Buddhism, it's praying, it's all these things. ~ Robert Glasper, #NFDB
351:Buddhism isn't about temples, and incense, and shaved heads, and robes. It's not about church. There are aspects of Buddhism that involve that. People enjoy that, it helps them, it strengthens their practice. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
352:Every single one of the major traditions—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as the monotheisms—teaches a spirituality of empathy, by means of which you relate your own suffering to that of others. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
353:The nature of Buddhism, as I understand it, is to believe that we are all pure and radiant at our core. And yet we see around us so much evidence that people are not acting from a place of purity and radiance. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
354:There isn’t really a case for Buddhism. It’s a path you can choose to follow. I follow it because of the meditation, but I wouldn’t tell anyone else that they should follow it or that it’s true in some sense. ~ Nabeel Qureshi, #NFDB
355:Buddhism suits me 'cuz nobody's in charge. Nobody's decidin' for me if I'm good or bad, goin' to heaven or hell. It's just me workin' on my head, you workin' your head, the friggin' Dalai Lama workin' on his head. ~ Ramez Naam, #NFDB
356:I sometimes think that Buddhism is the toughest religion in the world. It not only eschews all talk of god but does not allow any instant remedies. Responsibility for one’s own acts is its only metaphysics. So ~ Kiran Nagarkar, #NFDB
357:Buddhism has always been a religion for people who've worked their way through a cycle of materialism and still feel discontented and want more, or have questions that their state of prosperity is not answering. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
358:Ethics arises in the recognition of our obligation to care for others as beings, like us, exposed to mortality - that is, beings who need our help. Buddhism, not wrongly, extends this to 'all sentient beings'. ~ George Pattison, #NFDB
359:A secular approach is not a dumbing down, it's not reductively identifying Buddhism with one or two particular techniques of meditation, but it is actually a complete world view and way of life in this world. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
360:I don't feel any great need to subscribe to a certain notion of Buddhism that says "You have to do this" or "You have to do that." Buddhism does not prescribe rituals or prohibitions in the way many religions do. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
361:The next morning . . . resolve to take . . . steps in the direction of your ideals. Don’t compare yourself with others. Just look to yourself to see whether you are going in the direction you cherish. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh #Buddhism, #NFDB
362:There is much appeal for me in Eastern religion, the little I know of it. And something thorny in me finds American adaptations of Buddhism terribly self-indulgent, silly, gooey in the way the English call "wet." ~ Robert Pinsky, #NFDB
363:What I like about Tibetan Buddhism is it was taken to Tibet in the 7th century and then again in the 11th. It has everything that had been collected in India up until that time. And so on all levels, it's so vast. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
364:Buddhism is a path of supreme optimism, for one of its basic tenets is that no human life or experience is to be wasted or forgotten, but all should be transformed into a source of wisdom and compassionate living. ~ Taitetsu Unno, #NFDB
365:The purpose of Buddhism is not to convert people. It is to give them tools so they can create greater happiness. So they can be happier Catholics, happier atheists, happier Buddhists. There are many practices . . . ~ David Michie, #NFDB
366:According to Tibetan Buddhism, otherness and self are identical, and when man wars against this otherness he wars against his own body, his own oneness with the self. ~ Rix Weaver, The Wise Old Woman: A Study of Active Imagination, #NFDB
367:I am against conversion (to Buddhism). In my speech at UN, the first thing I said was that I am for conversion, but not from one organised religion to another, but from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation. ~ S N Goenka, #NFDB
368:There’s a reason why they call Buddhism “advanced common sense”; it’s all about methodically confronting obvious-but-often-overlooked truths (everything changes, nothing fully satisfies) until something in you shifts. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
369:The tantras can be very confusing for a person who is new to Buddhism, and for several thousand years the rule was not to expose a person or a new monk to the tantras until they had practiced for many, many years. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
370:I believe that dialogue is the key to breaking through our tendency to separate and isolate. Dialogue changes isolation and loneliness into connection and interdependence. This, I believe, is the essence of Buddhism. ~ Vinessa Shaw, #NFDB
371:Another part of the rejection I mention was the realisation that Buddhism quite simply ignores or dismisses a whole hemisphere of human experience that finds expression in and is enshrined by the mystery religions. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
372:I think when religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism - as well as Christianity and Judaism - were founded, at that time societies were generally male-dominated. So, therefore this social notion also influenced religion. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
373:On meditation Real Happiness, Sharon Salzberg Insight Meditation, Joseph Goldstein On Buddhism and mindfulness in general Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, Dr. Mark Epstein Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
374:The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
375:Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
376:Vegetarianism and Zen Buddhism, meditation and spirituality, acid and rock—Jobs rolled together, in an amped-up way, the multiple impulses that were hallmarks of the enlightenment-seeking campus subculture of the era. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
377:Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies. When Zen is thoroughly understood, absolute peace of mind is attained, and a man lives as he ought to live. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
378:Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it's simply meaningless. We don't live in order to die, we live in order to live. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
379:The followers of Derrida are pathetic, snuffling in French pockets for bits of pieces of a deconstructive method already massively and coherently presented and with a mature sense of the sacred in Buddhism and Hinduism. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
380:What sets Tibetan Buddhism apart from other Buddhist traditions—such as the Zen Buddhism of Japan or the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka—is that while Tibetans aim to become enlightened, they don’t want to enter Nirvana. ~ Scott Carney, #NFDB
381:While most streams of Buddhism take a contemplative stance on passion, pleasure, and pain, Sufism encourages us to be open to our passions - to dive into the sea, to become at one with the beauty and power of the waves. ~ Charlotte Kasl, #NFDB
382:Every country that meets Buddhism molds it into their own indigenous religion, as America will. A very clear example of this is Japan, which threw out almost all the dharma, and just kept that essence, which spoke to them. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
383:Is enlightenment gradual or is it sudden? Whole schools of Buddhism have grown up around this issue. But it has always seemed to me that liberation is both sudden and gradual, that there is no polarity between the two. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
384:the only real time as far as Buddhism is concerned is right now. Right now there is no old age or death because old age and death are descriptions of things as they are now when we compare them to things as they used to be. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
385:We can also explore four additional concentrations on impermanence, non-craving, letting go, and nirvana. These four practices are found in Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, a wonderful text from early Buddhism. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
386:For this remains as I have already pointed out the essential difference between the two religions of decadence : Buddhism promises nothing, but actually fulfils; Christianity promises everything, but fulfils nothing. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
387:I draw a lot from Buddhism, which focuses on compassion and kindness, loving kindness, as they call it, but rejects empathy because it's a poor moral guide. And I think there's a lot of evidence suggesting that they're right. ~ Paul Bloom, #NFDB
388:Buddhism does not accept a theory of God, or a creator. According to Buddhism, one's own actions are the creator, ultimately. Some people say that, from a certain angle, Buddhism is not a religion but rather a science of mind. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
389:Islam, in contrast to Christianity and Buddhism, does not have monasticism; spiritual life, social life, they are all integrated and related together in one way or another. And the Prophet represents that in his life. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
390:Siddhartha’s priority was to get down to the root of the problem. Buddhism is not culturally bound. Its benefits are not limited to any particular society and have no place in government and politics. Siddhartha ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
391:The perfect view of existence comes from an unclouded, uncluttered life and mind whereby the radiance of perfect attention of the mind of the universe floods us at every moment. This is Buddhism. This is being on the path. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
392:In Buddhism there is one word for mind & heart: chitta. Chitta refers not just to thoughts and emotions in the narrow sense of arising from the brain, but also to the whole range of consciousness, vast & unimpeded. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
393:I've worked in the prison system, on death row and maximum security. I did that work for six years. I've worked with some of the most difficult people in our society. Buddhism was accessible and helpful for these individuals. ~ Joan Halifax, #NFDB
394:Part of what we seek in Buddhism is the sense of quiet observation. We don't get so involved in a state of mind that we forget that it's just another transient state of mind, no matter how much ecstasy or agony is involved. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
395:All of us have to ensure that our future generations lead a life of peace, dignity and mutual respect. We need to sow the seeds of a conflict-free world, and in this endeavour, Buddhism and Hinduism have a great contribution. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
396:If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, #NFDB
397:Be present, from moment to moment, right in the middle of the real stream of time. That gives you spiritual security. That is why in Buddhism we don't try to escape from impermanence; we face time itself in our daily living. ~ Dainin Katagiri, #NFDB
398:In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
399:The Buddhist tenet, "Non-killing is supreme virtue", is very good, but in trying to enforce it upon all by legislation without paying any heed to the capacities of the people at large, Buddhism has brought ruin upon India. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
400:To go to the very center of the mind of God, to be that, to become aware of our infiniteness, is the goal of Buddhism and along the way, to be as kind to others as possible without thinking that we are particularly wonderful. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
401:Today we can see many different forms of Buddhism, such as Zen and Theravada Buddhism. All these different aspects are practices of Buddha's teachings, and all are equally precious; they are just different presentations. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #NFDB
402:To develop genuine devotion, you must know the meaning of teachings. The main emphasis in Buddhism is to transform the mind, and this transformation depends upon meditation. in order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
403:In Buddhism you study how to release the kundalini to the levels that would certainly afford career success. If we move it further, into the planes of knowledge and wisdom, it enables the practitioner to do just about anything. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
404:I’ve been reading about Buddhism. And Taoism. I haven’t decided between them.” “But…” Hazel looked mystified. “Aren’t you a Greek goddess?” Iris crossed her arms. “Don’t try to put me in a box, demigod! I’m not defined by my past. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
405:There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
406:Buddhism is a practice in which we learn to avoid injuring others, and ourselves. It's a practice in which we learn to respond to beauty, and to respond to difficult circumstances with patience, with a sense of calm, with clarity. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
407:Students of popular science... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
408:The teachings of Osho, in fact, encompass many religions, but he is not defined by any of them. He is an illuminating speaker on Zen, Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy... and also a prolific author. ~ Nevill Drury, #NFDB
409:In Zen Buddhism, the greater your doubt, the greater will be your enlightenment. That is why doubt can be a good thing. If you are too sure, if you always have conviction, then you may be caught in your wrong perception for a long time. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
410:There are four kinds of food that every person consumes every day. In Buddhism, we call these kinds of food the Four Nutriments. They are edible food; sense impressions; volition; and consciousness, both individual and collective. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
411:In my mind, there is no reason why Stoicism shouldn't become as popular as Buddhism, especially in the Western world, where the dominant culture, Christianity, itself absorbed a large number of elements from Greco-Roman Stoicism. ~ Massimo Pigliucci, #NFDB
412:My faith foundation works to bring about a greater respect and understanding between different faiths. We basically work with six popular religions in the world which are the three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism and Buddhism and Sikhism. ~ Tony Blair, #NFDB
413:This one decision had striking implications. It has kept Buddhism relatively free of any centralized hierarchical structure and allowed a profusion of traditions to flourish under the umbrella of the great Bodhi Tree of awakening. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
414:In Catholicism, we would say you're going to be judged, so therefore you should do better now. For me, Buddhism is somewhat more workable because instead of saying I have to do good, it says I have to notice what I'm actually doing. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
415:The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
416:In Buddhism, mindfulness is the key. Mindfulness is the energy that sheds light on all things and all activities, producing the power of concentration, bringing forth deep insight and awakening. Mindfulness is the base of Buddhist practice ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
417:Jung's work is not only a psychology of the person, but a philosophy of the world, having much in common with Chinese Taoism and Buddhism, which refuse to make a definitive "cut" between internal and external worlds. ~ David Tacy, The Darkening Spirit, #NFDB
418:Practice entails experiencing being broken - the experience of suffering and dissatisfaction in the many forms in our life-Zen Buddhism"Practice is this life, and realization is this life, and this life is revealed right here and now." ~ Maezumi Roshi, #NFDB
419:There are four kinds of food that every person consumes every day. In
Buddhism, we call these kinds of food the Four Nutriments. They are edible food; sense impressions; volition; and consciousness, both individual and collective. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
420:A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality. ~ William Winwood Reade, #NFDB
421:Buddhism cannot be true to itself until Buddhists resolve their ambivalence toward nonhuman animals and extend the full protection of their compassion to the most harmless and helpless of those who live at our mercy in the visible realms. ~ Norm Phelps, #NFDB
422:For the first time in the history of the world, Buddhism proclaimed a salvation which each individual could gain from him or herself, in this world, during this life, without any least reference to God, or to gods either great or small. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
423:The four basic truths of Buddhism; Dukkha (the truth of suffering), Samudaya (the truth of the cause of suffering), Nirhodha (the truth of the end of suffering), Marga (the truth of the path that frees human beings from suffering). ~ Christopher C Doyle, #NFDB
424:I feel a little as if the Buddhism is creeping back, but I mention all this simply in order to illustrate that there is, in my life, a fundamental sense of conflict between something that I am calling 'Buddhism' and my creative impulse. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
425:I learned that Wicca claims an estimated 400,000-plus practitioners, making it the tenth largest religion in the United States, behind Christianity, nonreligious/secular, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, agnostic, atheist, Hinduism, and Unitarian ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
426:In Buddhism, when you have a problem, YOU have a problem. It's yours. When you get over the tantrum you inevitably throw about the injustice of this, it's actually quite nice. If YOU have the problem, you also have the ability to solve it. ~ Michelle Tea, #NFDB
427:Like modern science, Buddhism holds the basic premise that, at the most fundamental level, there is no qualitative difference between the material basis of the body of a sentient being, such as a human, and that of, say, a piece of rock. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
428:The Dalai Lama, these days, encourages Westerners not to take up Buddhism, partly because he feels that our roots are deep in other traditions, and we should go deeper into our own traditions rather than just acquiring the surfaces of others. ~ Pico Iyer, #NFDB
429:It makes Buddhism seem supremely dour. Turns out, though, it’s all the result of a translation error. The Pali word dukkha doesn’t actually mean “suffering.” There’s no perfect word in English, but it’s closer to “unsatisfying” or “stressful. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
430:So one fundamental attitude shared by Buddhism and science is the commitment to keep searching for reality by empirical means and to be willing to discard accepted or long-held positions if our search finds that the truth is different. By ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
431:The dialectical change of mind that occurs in Buddhism is not simply the assimilation of a new philosophical basis or religious basis for viewing and interpreting experience. Rather it is the complete structural revision of that which is. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
432:Love requires learning to love ourselves in the mirror, and learning to look other people in the eye. Buddhism, in turn, asks us to pause and look at even the subtlest causal connections and take our appreciation of them to greater depths. ~ Ethan Nichtern, #NFDB
433:Unlike the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the teachings of Buddhism are not considered by their adherents to be the product of infallible revelation. They are, rather, empirical instructions: If you do X, you will experience Y. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
434:Buddhism is the study of the way the mind works. One has to be able to hold a large number of relational concepts simultaneously in the mind. It is necessary to grid, to literally unlock realities and dimensions with the power of your mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
435:Separating the God question from Buddhism does not make Buddhists atheists—within silence lies mystery. That doesn’t mean, however, we should infer from this acknowledgement of the mystery a nod one way or another on the matter of the divine. ~ Andrew Furst, #NFDB
436:That is why, in order to arrive at a suitable message for the coming millennium, Buddhism has reached clear back to its beginnings to reclaim a belief in the fundamental equality and dignity of all life and bring that teaching back to the fore. ~ Clark Strand, #NFDB
437:To get the clearest and most efficient understanding of a thing, therefore, it must be experienced personally. Especially when the thing is concerned with life itself, personal experience is an absolute necessity. ~ D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, #NFDB
438:Buddhism also generated two divergent currents; the one impersonal, preaching the abnegation of self through discipline, and the other personal, preaching the cultivation of sympathy for all creatures, and devotion to the infinite truth of love; the ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
439:The research reading I did for Fascination and Liberation included some Jung, and I noticed that he had a similar impression of Buddhism to myself, that, if it weren't for certain qualifying clauses, the philosophy would be downright suicidal. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
440:what makes religious folks religious today is not so much that they believe in Jesus’ divinity or Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths but that they hold certain moral positions on bedroom issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion. ~ Stephen R Prothero, #NFDB
441:That huge majority of black folks who identify as Christian or as believers in other religious faiths (Islam, Buddhism, Yoruba, and so on) need to return to sacred writings about love and embrace these as guides showing us the way to lead our lives. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
442:What I find difficult about Buddhism, though it is also one of its significant fascinations, is the focus on what is immediately and physically present. To me, this seems a denial of the imagination, and the imagination is very important to me. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
443:Students of the Way must not study Buddhism for the sake of themselves. They must study Buddhism only for the sake of Buddhism. The key to this is to renounce both body and mind without holding anything back and to offer them to the great sea of Buddhism. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
444:Theosophy tries to bridge the gulf between Buddhism and Christianity by pointing to the fundamental spiritual truths on which both religions are built, and by winning people to regard the Buddha and the Christ as fellow-laborers, and not as rivals. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
445:When ever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
446:Is the basic teaching of Buddhism—on ignorance, deliverance and enlightenment—really life-denying, or is it rather the same kind of life-affirming liberation that we find in the Good News of Redemption, the Gift of the Spirit, and the New Creation? ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
447:Buddhism offers an explicit diagnosis of the problem and a cure. And the cure, when it works, brings not just happiness but clarity of vision: the actual truth about things, or at least something way, way closer to that than our everyday view of them. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
448:I don't know if there is really an objective truth about either. I liken this to what Buddhism says about the individual, that change starts with the individual. I think it is really about purifying your own actions, and I have seen that in my own life. ~ Karan Bajaj, #NFDB
449:When I was 18 I read a book about Buddhism and, before I was halfway through it I said to my mother, "I'm a Buddhist!" She said, "That's great. Finish reading the book and then you can tell me all about it." From that moment on I knew I was a Buddhist. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
450:Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
451:Buddhism teaches us that happiness does not come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. In Buddhism, the impenetrable, separate, and individuated self is more of the problem than the solution. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
452:The Way of the warrior does not include other ways, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, certain traditions, artistic accomplishments, and dancing. But even though these are not part of the Way, if you know the Way broadly, you will see it in everything. ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
453:Precepts in Buddhism are not imposed by some outside authority. They arise from our own insight based on the practice of mindfulness. To be attached to the form without understanding the essence is to fall into what Buddhism calls attachment to rules. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
454:The male effort to separate Wisdom from the realm of the Feminine is not only brutal and unattractive but it will always fail, though this may take, as with Buddhism, thousands of years. This is simply because the Feminine is Wisdom; it is also the Soul. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
455:In Buddhism, the eight emblems would refer to the eight marks of good fortune on the sole of Buddha’s foot—wheel, conch shell, umbrella, canopy, lots flower, jar, pair of fishes, and mystic signs—which, in turn, were symbols of the organs in Buddha’s body. ~ Anthony C Yu, #NFDB
456:Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism, nor Buddhism without Hinduism. Then realise what the separation has shown to us, that the Buddhists cannot stand without the brain and philosophy of the Brahmins, nor the Brahmin without the heart of the Buddhist. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
457:I grew up in the north of Chile, and this is why there are a lot of religious symbols in my pictures, because the Catholic Church in Latin America is very strong. If I was born in Japan, I would speak about Buddhism, but I was born in South America. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky, #NFDB
458:To be precise: there is no spiritual path outside the following traditions or religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism; but Hinduism is closed for those who have not been born into a Hindu caste, and Taoism is inaccessible. ~ Titus Burckhardt, #NFDB
459:The internet can be enormously helpful, just like books can, but I don't think it's the be all and end all for really practicing Buddhism. At a certain point, as with learning any skill, we need personal instruction from someone who is more advanced than us. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
460:Buddha taught kindness towards lower beings; and since then there has not been a sect in India that has not taught charity to all beings, even to animals. This kindness, this mercy, this charity - greater than any doctrine - are what Buddhism left to us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
461:Moderate Islam? That's a contradiction. It's going to be a long time before we see a new Koran, an equivalent to the New Testament. Attacks don't happen in the name of Buddhism or Christianity; nor do homosexuals get beaten up, as happens daily in Amsterdam. ~ Geert Wilders, #NFDB
462:I think you can't really escape any kind of spiritual education as a child, whether it's New Age or Judaism or Buddhism or whatever it is. You can't escape it, even if you completely disagree with it, you still have it as a foundation that you base things off of. ~ Jack White, #NFDB
463:Well Buddhism, 'shmoodism', I didn't go to India looking for Buddhism. I was looking for truth, or God, or a better way of life or happiness, fulfillment, meaning, purpose. And a way to become peace in the world and not just fight for peace, as we had in the 60's. ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
464:Human knowledge, by its nature, has limits, so some questions must remain mysteries. Some religions treat such mysteries as secrets that the gods choose to hide from humans; others, such as Buddhism, treat them as ultimate riddles that are not worth pursuing. ~ David Christian, #NFDB
465:Murray was still on the floor, praying to any god he could come up with, covering all his bases. In short order, I heard him run through the religions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, and a few I’d never even heard of before. ~ Stuart Gibbs, #NFDB
466:As an enlightened teacher of Buddhism, I'd like to welcome you to the pathway to enlightenment. I'd like to encourage you to be more positive, to engage in the practice meditation, to learn how to do this wonderful thing - make your mind still in a crazy world. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
467:I mean somebody could write another book and say Brad's idea about Buddhism and sex is wrong, and here's mine, and that would be great. Just the fact that it would exist would be good because nobody is saying it, it's like they're trying to pretend it's not there. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
468:...it was Buddhism that inspired the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and, through him, attracted Richard Wagner. This Orientalism reflected the struggle of the German Romantics, in the words of Léon Poliakov, to free themselves from Judeo-Christian fetters. ~ Joscelyn Godwin, #NFDB
469:This is part of the fundamental character of Buddhism that I find problematic - that it is not interested in anything. Hence the 'Fascination' in the title of the essay, the fascination of art and creativity, stands in opposition to what is called 'Liberation'. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
470:Buddhism asks big questions about birth and death, cause and effect, emptiness and form, delusion and enlightenment. I just hope you’re not actually thinking about any of that stuff, because Buddhism is fundamentally about something that requires no thought. ~ Karen Maezen Miller, #NFDB
471:I understand that words can mean different things to different people, and, further, that people can have different relationships with complex abstract entities such as Buddhism. To me, anyway, the entity in my life that conflicts with my creativity is Buddhism. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
472:Christianity and Islam are concerned with the idea of justice, which can turn into political justice, social justice, economical justice, and so on. Buddhism is not so concerned with the idea of rights. There is more talk of responsibility than of demanding rights. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
473:Buddhism has some mystical methods that we Christians might take a good look at and make good use of in repairing or remodeling our own. For me Buddhism has been a rich, indeed an indispensable, aid in renewing and expanding the repertoire of my Christian practice. ~ Paul F Knitter, #NFDB
474:For modern science, at least from a philosophical point of view, the critical divide seems to be between inanimate matter and the origin of living organisms, while for Buddhism the critical divide is between non-sentient matter and the emergence of sentient beings. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
475:Prostration: placing the body in reverence, to submit, to surrender. In many faiths it is used to relinquish the ego. In Tibetan tantric Buddhism they do one hundred thousand prostrations to overcome pride. In Islam, prostration has been known to overcome many diseases. ~ Eve Ensler, #NFDB
476:Buddhism and Christianity are incompatible because there is no God in Buddhism - particularly in Theravada Buddhism. But they are also allies because their values and practices are compatible and they can work together - indeed, they would benefit greatly from doing so. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
477:We have been teaching together [with Kaz] now for more than twenty years in sesshins, in international travel programs in Japan and China, as well as intensives on Buddhism that focus on the work of Zen Master Dogen and Ryokan, as well as on many of the Mahayana sutras. ~ Joan Halifax, #NFDB
478:Subtract miracles from Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, or Toaism, and you have essentially the same religion left. Subtract miracles from Christianity, and you have nothing but the cliches and platitudes most American Christians get weekly (and weakly) from their pulpits. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
479:I think, in the initial process of discovering a character and the analytical process - and this is what I did take from Buddhism - initially I think there has to be an analytical, intellectual approach. And that has to be abandoned by the time you're playing the game. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal, #NFDB
480:At least in popular parlance, what makes religious folks religious today is not so much that they believe in Jesus' divinity or Buddhism's Four Noble Truths but that they hold certain moral positions on bedroom issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion. ~ Stephen Prothero, #NFDB
481:If Buddhists choose to model their lives on the liberated arahant—or the idealized Mahayana bodhisattva, for that matter—rather than follow the example of Gotama, then I wonder how Buddhism will find a compelling voice to address the pressing issues of our world today. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
482:if you know anything about Buddhism, you will know that the most important point is to be yourself and not try to become anything that you are not already. Buddhism is fundamentally about being in touch with your own deepest nature and letting it flow out of you unimpeded. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
483:Man, I'm just into Buddhism, and I'm at peace with the fact that me, as this person, probably gonna not be around. Think about a hermit crab, okay? And it's a shell. It's like, they go from one shell to the next. And that's what I am. I'm just a hermit crab changin' shells. ~ Danny McBride, #NFDB
484:Buddha himself taught different teachings to different people under different circumstances. For some people, there are beliefs based on a Creator. For others, no Creator. The only "definitive truth" for Buddhism is the absolute negation of any one truth as the Definitive Truth. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
485:To my surprise, Epstein seemed to be arguing that Buddhism was better than seeing a shrink. Therapy, he said, often leads to “understanding without relief.” Even Freud himself had conceded that the best therapy could do was bring us from “hysteric misery” to “common unhappiness. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
486:What most people call power Buddhists call cravings. The five cravings are for wealth, fame, sex, fancy food, and lots of sleep. In Buddhism, we speak of the five true powers, five kinds of energy. The five powers are faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
487:Yes. The focus of Christianity is Man. Even though all the species were placed into Noah’s Ark, other species were never given the same status as humans. But Buddhism is focused on saving all life. That was why I came to the East. But … it’s obvious now that everywhere is the same. ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
488:For me, Buddhism is like a living organism. If it is to flourish outside self-enclosed ghettos of believers, it will have to meet the challenge of understanding, interacting with, and adapting to an environment that is strikingly different from those in which it has evolved. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
489:I practice Buddhism, so I meditate daily, which helps keep me centered and reminds me not to get my knickers in a twist over the things that are not within my control. There is a saying: "If it can be changed, then no need to worry; if it can't be changed, then no need to worry!" ~ Rosie Fellner, #NFDB
490:First she got Jesus, probably fifteen years ago, and that didn’t work out, so she tried Scientology, and that didn’t help, but it cost a lot of money, so she tried Buddhism and yoga, and those didn’t work, so she started drinking. I think that helped, because she’s still drinking. ~ John Sandford, #NFDB
491:I think [imagination] very austere element of Buddhism is also linked with a strong antinatalist strain in the philosophy. The Buddha was enlightened when he destroyed the house of body and soul into which he would otherwise have been forever reborn. This is clearly antinatalism. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
492:I urge you to sin. But not against these itty-bitty religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism-or their secular derivatives, Marxism, Maoism, Freudianism and Jungianism-whic h are all derivatives of the big religion of patriarchy. Sin against the infrastructure itself! ~ Mary Daly, #NFDB
493:We learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested. ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
494:All of Chinese thinking - Confucianism, Taoism, as well as Buddhism - contains the idea that in the course of life, man will shape harmoniously those psychic and physical predispositions that he received as capital assets by unifying them and giving them form from within a center. ~ Richard Wilhelm, #NFDB
495:I think the reason Buddhism and Western psychology are so compatible is that Western psychology helps to identify the stories and the patterns in our personal lives, but what Buddhist awareness training does is it actually allows the person to develop skills to stay in what's going on. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
496:According to Buddhism, individuals are masters of their own destiny. And all living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them. So our future is in our own hands. What greater free will do we need? ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
497:be done if we are to make the shift from a belief-based Buddhism (version 1.0) to a praxis-based Buddhism (version 2.0). We have to train ourselves to the point where on hearing or reading a text from the canon our initial response is no longer “Is that true?” but “Does this work? ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
498:Much of the hatred and fear of sexuality found in religions stems from the idea that sex is a thing of the body and that the body must be denied so that the spirit may be elevated. In Buddhism there is no notion that the body is made of inferior matter while the spirit flies free within. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
499:The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
500:Apart from the underlying mystery of all things, there is also another possible specific mystery in this situation: Why did I become so interested in Buddhism, Zen and so on? I seem to have a Buddhist voice in my head, and someone asked me about this recently, saying he was intrigued. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
501:In the early '60s there was very little reliable information on Tibetan Buddhism. I was living in London and I had joined the Buddhist Society. For the most part, people there were either interested in Theravada or Zen Buddhism. There was almost no one into Tibetan Buddhism at that time. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
502:One of the effects of religions getting together is that they borrow from one another. An example is the growing number of Catholics who are practicing Yoga and meditation techniques borrowed from Buddhism and Hinduism. So there are these borrowings which I think fertilize the religions. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
503:This concept that you refer to in Buddhism is something I've been nurtured with through the history of my country for 700, 800 years - Persian poets and philosophers haven't said anything different with regard to experiencing life in the moment, as opposed to the belief of permanence. ~ Abbas Kiarostami, #NFDB
504:It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time. ~ Eiji Yoshikawa, #NFDB
505:The doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself. ~ Robert M Pirsig, #NFDB
506:Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism... We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
507:…the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself. ~ Robert M Pirsig, #NFDB
508:The fact of the matter is that Buddhism has changed a lot. When St. Francis of Xavier arrived in Japan, he wrote back to the Vatican and made a joke. "It is unfortunate," he said, "that the Lutherans were here before me." By this he meant that Pure Land Buddhism was so much like Lutheranism. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
509:Whilst on the subject of the spread of Buddhism in the West, I want to say that I have noticed some tendency towards sectarianism amongst new practitioners. This is absolutely wrong. Religion should never become a source of conflict, a further factor of division within the human community. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
510:Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” Gautama Buddha (circa 563 BC–483 BC)
FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM ~ Rhonda Byrne,#NFDB
511:There are clearly people for whom Stoicism immediately "clicks," it comes natural, and others for whom it doesn't. Then again, Stoicism isn't the only positive philosophy of life. Buddhism is an excellent alternative, if it speaks more clearly to one's personality or cultural background. ~ Massimo Pigliucci, #NFDB
512:We spend our lives lost in thought. The question is, what should we make of this fact? In the West, the answer has been “Not much.” In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
513:It's interesting to see what's going on with physics these days because they're starting to come out with stuff that sounds remarkably like Buddhism and even more specifically like the ancient Hindu Vedas. Physics isn't necessarily saying the exact same thing but I think eventually it will merge. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
514:One of the most important philosophical insights in Buddhism comes from what is known as the theory of emptiness. At its heart is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
515:When we direct our attention toward our suffering, we see our potential for happiness. We see the nature of suffering and the way out. That is why the Buddha called suffering a holy truth. When we use the word “suffering” in Buddhism, we mean the kind of suffering that can show us the way out. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
516:Buddhism, was not just some passing fancy or youthful dabbling. He embraced it with his typical intensity, and it became deeply ingrained in his personality. “Steve is very much Zen,” said Kottke. “It was a deep influence. You see it in his whole approach of stark, minimalist aesthetics, intense ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
517:Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
518:In most parts of the world, a new idea suppresses and wipes out the old idea, but in India, thanks to the abstract nature of Vedic ideas, new worldviews—be they native ones like Buddhism or Bhakti or foreign ones like Islam and Christianity—simply helped reaffirm the Vedic way in different ways. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
519:I do a lot of reading on Buddhist philosophy, and a Buddhist nun named Pema Chödrön talks a lot about acceptance. It's one of the main tenets of Buddhism - accepting that what is, is. The root of our suffering is when we just don't want to accept a truth. We want something to be different than it is. ~ Sara Bareilles, #NFDB
520:Buddhism doesn't really have much time for political mass-movements. We are so trained to think of politics in terms of acting collectively, acting as part of mass-movements, that it's become hard for us to imagine a form of politics that is based on a high degree of introspection and self-examination. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
521:[T]here is nothing to say about life. It has no meaning. You make meaning. If you want a meaning in your life, find a meaning and bring it into your life, but life won't give you a meaning. Meaning is a concept. It is a notion of an end toward which you are going. The point of Buddhism is This Is It. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
522:Americans are interested because they are open-minded. They have an education system that teaches them to find out for themselves why things are the way they are. Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
523:It is good to remember that the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. In the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus to awakened life and living. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
524:As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages - undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment - find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice? ~ Dogen, #NFDB
525:I come from an alcoholic Irish background - I know where I was going! But I met my wife and started to practise Buddhism, which is a levelling experience for me, and there hasn't been a day I've missed in 40 years. I apply it to everything - to my work and relationships. I try to be a compassionate person. ~ Patrick Duffy, #NFDB
526:The fundamental precept of Buddhism is Interdependence or the Law of Cause and Effect. This simply states that everything an individual experiences is derived from action through motivation. Motivation is thus the root of both action and experience.
FREEDOM IN EXILE: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE DALAI LAMA ~ Dalai Lama XIV,#NFDB
527:All methods of Buddhism can be explained with the four seals—all compounded phenomena are impermanent, all emotions are pain, all things have no inherent existence, and enlightenment is beyond concepts. Every act and deed encouraged by Buddhist scriptures is based on these four truths, or seals. ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
528:All that you seek is already within you. In Hinduism it is called the Atman, in Buddhism the pure Buddha-Mind. Christ said, 'the kingdom of heaven is within you.' Quakers call it the ‘still small voice within.’ This is the space of full awareness that is in harmony with all the universe, and thus is wisdom itself. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
529:The concept (of happiness) is universal. In Buddhism, it is called causeless joy, in Christianity, the kingdom of heaven within, and in Judaism it is called ashrei, an inner sense of holiness and health. Is Islam it is called falah, happiness and well-being, and in Hinduism it is called ananda, or pure bliss. ~ Marci Shimoff, #NFDB
530:The point with Buddhism is that it doesn't just tell you to be good, it tells you how. It doesn't just say, "Don't be angry," it shows us the methods to help us not to be angry. It gives techniques for everything that it advises us to cultivate, and all the negative qualities we need to overcome and transform. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
531:Through music I've discovered other philosophies. Buddhism in particular is one that has always - whenever I've studied it and read about it, it's just been so true to me. And I do try to take some practices of that into my daily life. Whether that's meditating or trying to see the world from that perspective. ~ Joan Osborne, #NFDB
532:...[A]ccording to Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, a being that achieves Buddhahood, although freed from Samsara,the 'wheel of suffering', as the phenomenon of existence is known, will continue to return to work for the benefit of all other sentient beings until such time as each one is similarly liberated. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
533:Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether its Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power. ~ Albert Mohler, #NFDB
534:Maintaining, in this matter, the attitude of a strict operationalist, the Buddha would speak only of the spiritual experience, not of the metaphysical entity presumed by the theologians of other religions, as also of later Buddhism, to be the object ... of that experience. ~ Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (1944), p.45, #NFDB
535:Some people get the impression that Buddhism talks too much about suffering. In order to become prosperous, a person must initially work very hard, so he or she has to sacrifice a lot of leisure time. Similarly, the Buddhist is willing to sacrifice immediate comfort so that he or she can achieve lasting happiness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
536:The Dalai Lama had explained that in Buddhism there is the recognition of our interdependence on every level—socially, personally, subatomically. The Dalai Lama had often emphasized that we are born and die totally dependent on others, and that the independence that we think we experience in between is a myth. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
537:All the other religions I had ever read about dealt with the idea of God, and your relationship with God. Buddhism is the only religion that deals with man himself and the nature of the mind - how to deal with yourself and your condition, here and now, as opposed to having to deal with something outside yourself. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
538:Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
539:with whom we share genes or who we expect will reciprocate. A key concept in Buddhism is the devout wish—when possible, converted into action as well—that all beings should be maximally freed from suffering and the causes of their suffering. One cannot escape the conclusion that, when it comes to human beings, purely ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
540:This means that when facing unavoidable and irreducible suffering, secular people must smuggle in resources from other views of life, having recourse to ideas of karma, or Buddhism, or Greek Stoicism, or Christianity, even though their beliefs about the nature of the universe do not line up with those resources. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
541:I have a friend who calls himself a Jewish-Buddhist, or a JewBu—he attends a synagogue where they meditate and chant Shalommmmmmmm—and when I asked how he reconciles the God of the Old Testament with the absence of a supreme god in Buddhism, he said, “Maybe I don’t believe in God. Maybe I only believe in culture. ~ Suzanne Morrison, #NFDB
542:I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can't believe I won't exist. It's the ego isn't it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don't know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it's just not going to happen, is it? ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
543:Buddhism seeks after God with the largest conception it can find, the all-producing and all-absorbing One; Christianity seeks after God with the most elementary passion it can find—the craving for a father, the hunger that is as old as the hills. It turns the whole cry of a lost universe into the cry of a lost child. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
544:Christianity, historically, has rejected cremation as a false picture of the body. Burial signifies a Christian hope, that the deceased is “sleeping” and thus will be “waked” at the coming of the Lord. Cremation signifies a perspective found in Buddhism and other religions, that the body is consumed into nothingness. ~ Russell D Moore, #NFDB
545:After all, what Buddhism offers as a solution is universalised indifference - a learning of how to withdraw from too much empathy. This is why Buddhism can so easily turn into the very opposite of universal compassion: the advocacy of a ruthless military attitude, which is what the fate of Zen Buddhism aptly demonstrates. ~ Slavoj i ek, #NFDB
546:Breathing mindfully, you are already finding a refuge in your breath, and you become aware of what’s going on in your body, your feelings, your perceptions, your mental formations, and your consciousness. In Buddhism, these are known as the five skandhas (“aggregates”), or elements, that make up what we call a person. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
547:If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
548:That’s it?” Joshua asked, as he hopped off his post and winced upon landing. “Why did we set up twenty posts if we were only going to use three?” “Why were you thinking of twenty when you can only stand on one?” answered Three. “I have to pee,” I said. “Exactly,” said the monk. So there you have it: Buddhism. Each ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
549:The notion that Western religions are more rigid than those of Asia is overdrawn. Ours is the most permissive society history has ever known - almost the only thing that is forbidden now is to forbid - and Asian teachers and their progeny play up to this propensity by soft-pedaling Hinduism's, Buddhism's, Sufism's rules. ~ Huston Smith, #NFDB
550:I'm culturally Jewish but, like most scientists, an atheist: I don't believe there's a God or supernatural world. Buddhism offers guidance on what to do in a world without God: It opines that truly being present in the world‚ experiencing and hanging out with your loved ones, provides all the significance you could want. ~ Alison Gopnik, #NFDB
551:I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is. ~ Daniel Dennett, #NFDB
552:Most of the spiritual traditions were very theistic and the idea of an external god pulling the strings didn't resonate with me. I then discovered Buddhism and found the perfect path. I felt so grateful to the Buddha for having given the path, and not just explaining the end result, but showing so clearly how to get there. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
553:According to Buddhism, each person is a Buddha who has forgotten their original nature. If we in the pampered West, having grown up with so many advantages, could not claim our own health and our agency, preferring to see ourselves as helpless victims, then who would do it? Who would take responsibility for the world? ~ Daniel Pinchbeck, #NFDB
554:A great deal of our suffering arises because we are conflicted about reputation. Instead of being concerned about the reality of what we are, we’re concerned about what other people think of us. We’re too outward looking. That’s incredible. As far as Buddhism is concerned, that’s a sick mind; totally, clinically sick. ~ Lama Thubten Yeshe, #NFDB
555:Every single one of the major world faiths, whether we're talking about Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Darwinism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have all come to the conclusion that what holds us back from our better self is ego, selfishness, greed, unkindness, hatred. And it all springs from a sense of thwarted ego. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
556:However, the path itself must eventually be abandoned, just as you abandon a boat when you reach the other shore. You must disembark once you have arrived. At the point of total realization, you must abandon Buddhism. The spiritual path is a temporary solution, a placebo to be used until emptiness is understood. ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
557:It would be an error to wish to spread Christianity from a center in Asia, where other peoples are still settled, and Buddhism would be equally false for the European population. No religious view is right if it is not suited to the innermost needs of the time, and such a view will never be able to give a cultural impulse. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #NFDB
558:Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently - thinking incessantly - is considered perfectly normal. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
559:Above all, secular Buddhism is something to do, not something to believe iṇ This pragmatism is evident in many of the classic parables: the poisoned arrow, the city, the raft—as well as in the Buddha’s presentation of the four noble truths as a range of tasks to be performed rather than a set of propositions to be affirmed. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
560:On the basis of Buddhism, understood as a science of the mind, he has emphasized the convergences between his own contemplative tradition and the contemporary neurosciences. As a result of this dialogue, a definition of ethical principles applicable to the scientific realm has emerged, along with innovative research prospects. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
561:And as I stumbled onto Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, it was the first time I had ever read any sort of philosophy that really made a tremendous amount of sense. What I liked that was missing from my experience of Christianity growing up was a sort of acceptance, a sort of being OK with being imperfect and not focusing on the sin. ~ Alan Ball, #NFDB
562:Bodhidharma brought Zen Buddhism from India to China. He was well known for being fierce and uncompromising. There is a story about how he kept nodding off during meditation, so he cut off his eyelids. When he threw them on the ground, they turned into a tea plant, and then he realized he could simply drink the tea to stay awake! ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
563:The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
564:A second person that's come to my life very recently, and I'm thankful for it, is Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of the Nonviolent Communication Organization. He has all these books about how we can use our language nonviolently to help create peace. He's using a lot of Buddhism too, but he's helping me to think about language. ~ Sandra Cisneros, #NFDB
565:the four sacred and wonderful truths of Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths are: first, there is suffering; second, there is a path or a series of conditions that has produced the suffering; third, suffering can be ended—happiness is always possible; and fourth, there is a path that leads to the cessation of suffering, to happiness. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
566:In Europe one generally has the tendency to exaggerate the importance of Buddhism, which is certainly the least interesting of all the Eastern doctrines, but which precisely because it constitutes a deviation and anomaly for the East can seem more accessible to the Western mentality and less foreign to its customary forms of thinking. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
567:There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it difficult enough to live - this very difficulty being necessary. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
568:The sacred books of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and the Veda are the best repositories of the ideas that mattered most to our ancestors, and to ignore them is an act of childish conceit. But it is equally naive to believe that whatever was written down in the past contains an absolute truth that lasts forever. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
569:Buddhism has enabled me to identify and affirm what I have been sensing throughout the last few decades of my struggling spiritual life: that God is not an almighty, loving Somebody, a divine Personal Being with whom I have essentially the same kind of interpersonal relationship that I have with the other personal beings in my life. ~ Paul F Knitter, #NFDB
570:Buddhism teaches us that if we get attached to impermanent things (and feelings are a perfect example of things that are impermanent), then our lives will be full of anguish. But if we live each moment without getting attached to it, then we can eliminate the very cause of suffering right there and then, and joyfully live our lives. ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
571:My mother was a spiritualist. We had weekly séances at our house with a neighbor who was a medium and various friends, and so I was brought up with the idea that there are many realms of being all around us. So that prepared me for Buddhism, and especially Tibetan Buddhism with all its talk of different realms and dimensions of being. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
572:To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind. ~ Ajahn Chah, #NFDB
573:Buddhism, he thought, is a clean religion. You never heard about how eight people—two of them children—just got blown the fuck up as part of the long-standing conflict between Buddhists and whoever. Buddhists never knocked on your door just when the game was getting good to hand you a tract about what a great guy Prince Siddhartha was. ~ Scott Hawkins, #NFDB
574:It’s the oldest
lesson. The first lesson. It's like the first
noble truth of Buddhism - there's going to
be suffering, and that's okay. It’s
mandatory. It's included. It doesn't mean
you're broken. It doesn't mean that you're a
victim necessarily - it's just part of it. You're
going to hurt, and you can survive that. ~ Melissa Febos,#NFDB
575:When you are totally absorbed in the subject of your meditation, when you merge with or become one with the subject, you are completely unaware. That too is not jhana, at least not what Buddhism considers “right jhana.” In right jhana, you may be unaware of the outside world, but you are completely aware of what is going on within. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
576:If for a time Buddhism became to all intents and purposes a separate religion, denying the [Page 266] Vedas, the ordinary layman might not see it in that light. For him Buddhism was one of many cults and faiths, by no means mutually exclusive, all of which led to salvation, and all of which were respectable and worthy of honour. ~ Arthur Llewellyn Basham, #NFDB
577:finally I went over to an old cook in the doorway of the kitchen and asked him “Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?” (Bodhidharma was the Indian who brought Buddhism eastward to China.) “I don’t care,” said the old cook, with lidded eyes, and I told Japhy and he said, “Perfect answer, absolutely perfect. Now you know what I mean by Zen. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
578:I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they began to bring the very best of each tradition into one tradition. He hoped that Christianity would be the one religion that finally incorporated the values of Hinduism and Buddhism, and enriched itself with them. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
579:The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: we are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims. ~ Flemming Rose, #NFDB
580:Hence a Buddhist meditator, while benefiting from the refinement of consciousness he has achieved, will be able to see these meditative experiences for what they are; and he will further know that they are without any abiding substance that could be attributed to a deity manifesting itself to his mind. ~ Nyanaponika Thera, "Buddhism and the God-Idea" (1962), #NFDB
581:Suzuki had just finished giving a talk to a group of Zen students when someone in the audience said, “You’ve been talking about Buddhism for nearly an hour, and I haven’t been able to understand a thing you said. Could you say one thing about Buddhism I can understand?” After the laughter died down, Suzuki replied calmly, “Everything changes. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
582:In some cultures, like Buddhism, you want things in your life to disappear, to reduce your needs and desires. To achieve some form of enlightenment. I believe in this brand of spirituality as well. I don’t think it and abundance are mutually exclusive at all. If you lower your expectations, for instance, your expectations are easy to exceed. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
583:Really, whatever I was seeking and looking into in those days like creative arts, chant, the muse being in touch with the muse for poetry and writing and music. It's all part of the spirit and if we look particularly at Hinduism and Buddhism, the tantric stream of those traditions totally embraces all aspects of human life and life on this world. ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
584:This is the nonduality principle of Buddhism: there is nothing to throw away. If a person has never suffered, he or she will never be able to know happiness. If a person does not know what hunger is, he or she will never know the joy of eating every day. Thus pain and suffering are a necessary condition of our understanding, of our happiness. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
585:My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
586:Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience. ~ Edward Abbey, #NFDB
587:You need to work yourself up into some kind of a state every morning and believe that you are doing something terribly important upon which the future of literature, if not the world, depends. Buddhism tells you that this is just a foolish fantasy. So, I try not to think too much about Buddhism early in the morning. From noon on, I think about it. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
588:A physicist who is able to see the interpenetration
and interbeing of elementary particles without
going beyond his or her intellect has, from the
viewpoint of Buddhist liberation, attained just a
decorative facade.
-Someone who studies Buddhism
without practicing meditation has also accumulated
knowledge only as decoration. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
589:To believe straight away is foolishness, to believe after having seen clearly is good sense. That is the Buddhist policy in belief; not to believe stupidly, or to rely only on people, textbooks, conjecture, reasoning, or whatever the majority believes, but rather to believe what we see clearly for ourselves to be the case. This is how it is in Buddhism. ~ Buddhadasa, #NFDB
590:Buddhism does not advocate faith in the sense of believing something because it is written in a book, attributed to a prophet, or taught to you by some authority figure. The meaning of faith here is closer to confidence. It is knowing that something is true because you have seen it work, because you have observed that very thing within yourself. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
591:Every one knows that change is inevitable. From the second law of thermodynamics to Darwinian evolution, from Buddhism’s insistence that nothing is permanent and all suffering results from our delusions of permanence to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes (“To everything there is a season”), change is part of life, of existence, of the common wisdom. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
592:The Divine Wisdom, the true Theosophy... is not, as some think, a diluted version of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or of any special religion. It is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric Buddhism, and belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none. Foreword ~ Annie Besant, [Esoteric Christianity: Or, The Lesser Mysteries by Annie Besant], (1914), #NFDB
593:My ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out of the practice of poetry, as does my Buddhist practice. Poetry is a very important element in the history of Buddhism in general and in Zen in particular. It was really Zen that motivated me to change the way I perceive the world. ~ Sam Hamill, #NFDB
594:We cast aside our three core ideas—Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism—and that was a mistake. We were taught Marxist revolutionary ideas from 1949 to 1978.” He paused and watched his wife and daughter snapping photographs at the boat’s railing, an orange sun sinking behind the buildings. “We spent thirty years on what we now know was a disaster,” he said. ~ Evan Osnos, #NFDB
595:The great ideal of Mahayana Buddhism is to remain in this world, so tempting and full of snares, but at the same time attain this awareness of the Absolute which underlies it, thus remaining free while helping others to free themselves. Nagarjuna captures the essence of this state when he proclaims, There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana; ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
596:A secular approach to Buddhism is thus concerned with how the dharma can enable humans and other living beings to flourish in this biosphere, not in a hypothetical afterlife. Rather than emphasizing personal enlightenment and liberation, it is grounded in a deeply felt concern and compassion for the suffering of all those with whom we share this earth. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
597:What distinguishes Buddhism from any other faith I’ve studied—from most human beings, really—is that the people who face the wall and the people who face away from it have never fought a war over it. They’re never going to agree…but they feel no need to. Buddha himself is supposed to have said, “People with opinions just go around bothering each other. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
598:It is true that in Taoism and Tantric Buddhism there are what appear to be techniques or 'practices' of sexual relationship[.] Their use is the consequence rather than the cause of a certain inner attitude, since they suggest themselves almost naturally to partners who take their love as it comes, contemplatively, and are in no hurry to grasp anything from it. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
599:Buddha was speaking about reality. Reality may be one, in its deepest essence, but Buddha also stated that all propositions about reality are only contingent. Reality is devoid of any intrinsic identity that can be captured by any one single proposition - that is what Buddha meant by "voidness." Therefore, Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
600:Though there are exceptions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism tend to stress desirable states of consciousness, escaping the fretful, self-aware state of mind that so often makes everyday living a burden. For mystics from the Abrahamic faiths, however, the inward odyssey is also an upward odyssey, a quest for personal and vital communion with an infinite Being. ~ David C Downing, #NFDB
601:Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
602:Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
603:I like to think of dharma practice today as venturing into a world of imagination, one in which each individual seeks to articulate a vision in terms of the particular needs of his or her own situatioṇ Buddhism would then become less and less the preserve of an institution, and more and more an experience that is owned by ordinary people in ordinary communities. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
604:What most people call power Buddhists call cravings. The five cravings are for wealth, fame, sex, fancy food, and lots of sleep. In Buddhism, we speak of the five true powers, five kinds of energy. The five powers are faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. The five powers are the foundation of real happiness; they are based on concrete practices ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
605:I remember a Buddhist teachers reflections on the Holocaust...What terrible karma those Jews mustve had... This kind of fundamentalism, which blames the victims and rationalizes their horrific fate, is something no longer to be tolerated quietly. It is time for... modern Buddhism to outgrow it by accepting social responsibility and finding ways to address such injustices. ~ David Loy, #NFDB
606:Last month, Dean Sheeter (whose name usually transports Franny when I mention it) approached me with his gracious smile and bull whip, and I am now lecturing to the faculty, their wives, and a few oppressively-deep type undergraduates every Friday on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. A feat, I haven’t a doubt, that will eventually earn me the Eastern Philosophy Chair in Hell. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
607:On the whole, I think the Darwinian theory of evolution, at least with the additional insights of modern genetics, gives us a fairly coherent account of the evolution of human life on earth. At the same time, I believe that karma can have a central role in understanding the origination of what Buddhism calls “sentience,” through the media of energy and consciousness. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
608:I approached Buddhism the way I approach almost everything. I read books about it. Even though, at first, I didn't understand much of what I was reading, I found the writing soothing. Reading made me feel lighter and more positive. It somehow gentled me toward myself. I intuitively responded to Buddhist ideas. They helped me see the world and my place in it more clearly. ~ Mary Pipher, #NFDB
609:Now however, we have contraception and it's mostly reliable so you can have sex without that happening. So then you start vilifying the act of sex itself. I don't think Buddhism has ever done that necessarily, or at least I'm not aware of Buddhism taking the stance that Christianity often has which says that sex itself is a kind of evil act, which is a really weird idea. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
610:I am infinitely saddened to find myself suddenly surrounded in the west by a sense of terrible loss of nerve, a retreat from knowledge into–into what? Into Zen Buddhism; into falsely profound questions … into extrasensory perception and mystery. They do not lie along the line of what we are now able to know if we devote ourselves to it: an understanding of man himself. ~ Jacob Bronowski, #NFDB
611:Kushan coins bore Greek or Kharoshthi script along with images of their kings, Greek, Persian, and Hindu gods, and of the Buddha. Reliable coinage helped Kushan broker commercial exchanges between China, India, Persia, and, ultimately, Rome. Kushan became a great patron of Buddhism and promoted the dissemination of the faith through Central Asia, en route to East Asia. ~ James A Millward, #NFDB
612:Discussing God is not the best use of our energy. If we touch the Holy Spirit, we touch God not as a concept but as a living reality. In Buddhism, we never talk about nirvana, because nirvana means the extinction of all notions, concepts, and speech. We practice by touching mindfulness in ourselves through sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindful eating, and so on. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
613:Sometimes you have a flash of insight, but it's not strong enough to survive. Therefore in the practice of Buddhism, samadhi is the power to maintain insight alive in every moment, so that every speech, every word, every act will bear the nature of that insight. It is a question of cleaning. And you clean better if you are surrounded by those who are practicing exactly the same. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
614:Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists". ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
615:Like the origin stories of Confucianism or early Buddhism, the modern story is about a universe that just is. Any sense of meaning comes not from the universe, but from us humans. “What’s the meaning of the universe?” asked Joseph Campbell, a scholar of myth and religion. “What’s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there, that’s it, and your own meaning is that you’re there.”3 ~ David Christian, #NFDB
616:Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world, when a prince's son deserted his wife and child, turning from the pleasures of existence to the problems of existence. Burnt by the fires of the world, and already weary with it, Buddha turned to ethics. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
617:Buddhism doesn't promise to fulfill our desires. Instead it says, 'You feel unfulfilled? That's okay. That's normal. Everybody feels unfulfilled. You will always feel unfulfilled. There is no problem with feeling unfulfilled. In fact, if you learn to see it the right way, that very lack of fulfillment is the greatest thing you can ever experience.' This is the realistic outlook. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
618:Lao Tzu wrote: “Know the personal, yet keep to the impersonal: Accept the world as it is. Then the Tao will be luminous inside you, and you will return to the Uncarved Block.” There is so much philosophy packed into this verse that it summarizes central teachings about happiness from three great ancient traditions: those not only from Taoism, but also from Buddhism and Stoicism ~ Lou Marinoff, #NFDB
619:Just as there are four nucleobases (cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine) that make up DNA, the nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions for all living organisms, one might say that suffering, arising, ceasing, and path are the four nucleobases that make up the dharma, the body of instructive ideas, values, and practices that give rise to all forms of Buddhism. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
620:When asked if I consider myself Buddhist, the answer is, Not really. But it's more my religion than any other because I was brought up with it in an intellectual and spiritual environment. I don't practice or preach it, however. But Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them. ~ Uma Thurman, #NFDB
621:But we don’t have to close down when we feel groundlessness in any form. Instead, we can turn toward it and say, “This is what freedom from fixed mind feels like. This is what freedom from closed-heartedness feels like. This is what unbiased, unfettered goodness feels like. Maybe I’ll get curious and see if I can go beyond my resistance and experience the goodness.” Buddhism holds ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
622:The coolness of Buddhism isn't indifference but the distance one gains on emotions, the quiet place from which to regard the turbulence. From far away you see the pattern, the connections, and the thing as whole, see all the islands and the routes between them. Up close it all dissolves into texture and incoherence and immersion, like a face going out of focus just before a kiss. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
623:Moses was not permitted to go into the promised land for the reason that Moses represents the personification of the intellectual principle. He is the teacher. But although the mind shall reach the extremities of learning and perceive truth afar off, yet intellect shall never enter truth. This is a truly Oriental teaching. It is Buddhism in the Bible. The promised land represents peach, or Nirvana, #NFDB
624:It is very possible (and perfectly okay) for someone who is Catholic, Muslim, Atheist or Jewish, for example, to still find the Buddha’s teachings inspirational. You can love Jesus, repeat a Hindu mantra, and still go to temple after morning meditation. Buddhism is not a threat to any religion, it actually strengthens your existing faith by expanding your love to include all beings. ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
625:Traditionally, women didn't have much a role in Buddhism. The books were all written by monks, for other monks. So the general view of the feminine was rather misogynistic, with women playing the role of the forbidden other, waiting to pounce on innocent little monks! In that society, it was hard for women to become educated and get the deeper teachings and really become accomplished. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
626:The Tibetan religion has a past. And furthermore it has such an appeal. There again young people today are drawn to Buddhism and to Tibet. It's not only because of the Dalai Lama. It's because of what Tibet represents. There is a vast reservoir of knowledge, of mystical knowledge, which can be found in Tibet.The Chinese shouldn't be afraid of that really. They have other means of survival. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
627:When people ask the Dalai Lama, "Is Buddhism a religion?" he answers, "Yes, it is." Then they ask, "What kind of religion is it?" He responds, "My religion is kindness." You might think, "Everyone's is." Everyone's is. That's true. It's not complicated to describe the goal of a spiritual life. It's easier than you think to explain it. It's more difficult than you can imagine to do it. ~ Sylvia Boorstein, #NFDB
628:I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed presently. 'They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. ~ Saki, #NFDB
629:I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed presently. 'They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. ~ Saki, #NFDB
630:Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness. ~ Jean Leloup, #NFDB
631:The five points of yama, together with the five points of niyama, remind us of the Ten Commandments of the Christtian and Jewish faiths, as well as of the ten virtues of Buddhism. In fact, there is no religion without these moral or ethical codes. All spiritual life should be based on these things. They are the foundation stones without which we can never build anything lasting. (127) ~ Swami Satchidananda, #NFDB
632:Within Tibetan Buddhism, shamatha practice maps on to the nine stages of attentional development wherein thoughts gradually subside as concentrative power is increased to the point at which one can effortlessly maintain single-pointed focus on a chosen object for at least four hours. The accomplishment of shamatha is accompanied by a powerful experience of bliss, luminosity, and stillness. ~ B Alan Wallace, #NFDB
633:How do we work with our minds when we meet our match? Rather than indulge or reject our experience, we can somehow let the energy of the emotion, the quality of what we’re feeling, pierce us to the heart. This is easier said than done, but it’s a noble way to live. It’s definitely the path of compassion—the path of cultivating human bravery and kindheartedness. In the teachings of Buddhism, we ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
634:I think a lot of people trying to follow Buddhism these days are getting confused about sex and they don't understand what's going on. They've been exposed to a contemporary Christian idea that sex itself is evil and bad, which I'm not so sure was Jesus' idea. For me, the Buddhist approach isn't that sex itself is evil or bad but that sex is neutral. It's the way you do it that can problematic. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
635:Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
636:A very enjoyable meditation on the curious thing called 'Zen' -not the Japanese religious tradition but rather the Western clich of Zen that is embraced in advertising, self-help books, and much more. . . . Yamada, who is both a scholar of Buddhism and a student of archery, offers refreshing insight into Western stereotypes of Japan and Japanese culture, and how these are received in Japan. ~ Alexander Gardner, #NFDB
637:What binds Buddhism, Sufism, and Quaker practices together is a belief in our interconnectedness; profound respect for others; being guided by a greater good beyond material possessions, status, and image; valuing silence and stillness of the mind; acceptance of differences; developing inner awareness of one’s perceptions and motivation; commitment to service; and seeking guidance from within. ~ Charlotte Kasl, #NFDB
638:What most people call power Buddhists call cravings. The five cravings are for wealth, fame, sex, fancy food, and lots of sleep. In Buddhism, we speak of the five true powers, five kinds of energy. The five powers are faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. The five powers are the foundation of real happiness; they are based on concrete practices we will learn in this book. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
639:If you were going to be attracted to a mystical faith which involved the contemplative life, Buddhism would be quite reasonable. But then, not everybody is a budding mystic. In fact, it's pretty certain that very few people are. So another kind of religion, one that was perhaps more pragmatic and service-oriented, might appeal to those others. So I think you have to take your values into account. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
640:I think that we all at some point are in search of something - a higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life. I know I was, especially at even my son's age in my 20s, and dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or if nothing else, figure myself out. ~ Denzel Washington, #NFDB
641:Before his death the Buddha asked his disciples to follow the Dharma, not any teacher or tradition. He put no one over the community of monks and nuns. The Dharma was to guide them. So for us, there is no blind belief or blind faith in Buddhism. We simply believe enough in the possibility of liberation and we are wise enough to see the suffering in our existence to have the faith to begin practice. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
642:A handful of men working within the Zen sect of Buddhism created gardens in fifteenth-century Japan which were, and still are, far more than merely an aesthetic expression. And what is left of the earlier Mogul gardens in India suggests that their makers were acquainted with what lay behind the flowering of the Sufi movement in High Asia and so sought to add further dimensions to their garden scenes. ~ Russell Page, #NFDB
643:Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness. (14) ~ Jean Yves Leloup, #NFDB
644:[Thich Nhat Hanh] the one that revolutionized Buddhism. Instead of being monks just engaged in meditation, it was active Buddhism. You went out and felt the ills of the community around you. Instead of retreating to a monastery, you were out in the streets working. And he's been a great help to me, just reading his book, so I don't feel helpless about what I can do about all the violence around me. ~ Sandra Cisneros, #NFDB
645:When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves-from other people, relationships, or material goods-or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
646:I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed presently. 'They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. ~ Hector Hugh Munro, #NFDB
647:That the divinities can do little for men, that man is fundamentally the artificer of his own destiny, even of his development beyond this world—this characteristic view held by original Buddhism demonstrates its difference from some later forms, especially the Mahayana schools, into which infiltrated the idea of a power on high busying itself with mankind in order to lead each individual to salvation. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
648:We see things as existing permanently and cling to anything that reinforces our concept of permanence, pushing away anything that threatens it. Attachment and aversion are the roots of all other problems, and they themselves are caused by ignorance. Thus ignorance, attachment, and aversion—what Buddhism calls the three poisons—are the origin (the second noble truth) of suffering (the first noble truth). ~ Tashi Tsering, #NFDB
649:Buddhist nirvana ... is based on egolessness and is not anthropocentric but rather cosmological. In Buddhism, humans and the things of the universe are equally subject to change, equally subject to transitoriness or transmigration. A person cannot achieve emancipation from the cycle of birth and death until he or she can eliminate a more universal problem: the transience common to all things in the universe. ~ Masao Abe, #NFDB
650:I always think that things have to happen the way they do happen, that there are so many inner and outer forces joining at every event that it becomes a kind of fate. I learned from studying Buddhism that there’s beauty, and certainly a lot of peace, in accepting that.” I sniffed. A smile twinkled sheepishly across his face. “Okay, okay,” he said, “how about this? If you worry about it, you draw it to you. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
651:In Buddhism, we speak of touching Nirvana with our own body, In Christianity, you can also touch the Kingdom of God with your body, right here and now. it is much safer than placing our hope in the future. If we cling to the idea of hope in the future, we might not notice the peace and joy that are available in the present moment. The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
652:The five points of yama, together with the five points of niyama, remind us of the Ten Commandments of the Christtian and Jewish faiths, as well as of the ten virtues of Buddhism. In fact, there is no religion without these moral or ethical codes. All spiritual life should be based on these things. They are the foundation stones without which we can never build anything lasting. (127) ~ Swami Satchidananda, #NFDB
653:Buddhism is not concerned just with private destiny, but with the lives and consciousness of all beingsAny attempt to understand Buddhism apart from its social dimension is fundamentally a mistake. Until Western Buddhists understand this, their embrace of Buddhism will not help very much in the efforts to bring about meaningful and positive social change, or even in their struggle to transform their ego. ~ Sulak Sivaraksa, #NFDB
654:A world full of people hating themselves is not a happy world. Buddhism does not seem to be about self-punishment. A key buddhist symbol is that of the lotus flower. The lotus flower grows in mud at the bottom of a pool, but rises above the murky water and blooms in the clear air, pure and beautiful, before eventually dying. This metaphor for spiritual enlightenment also works as a metaphor for hope and change. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
655:Transience, emptiness and enlightenment -- These are the ultimate truths of Buddhism; Keeping and teaching them is true Sangha devotion. If you don't agree, please ask me about it. Cut out directly the root of it all, -- This is the very point of the Buddha-seal. I can't respond to any concern about leaves and branches.
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, 8 - Transience, emptiness and enlightenment (from The Shodoka)
,#NFDB
656:Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
657:Afghanistan, believed by anthropologists to be one of the original historical meeting places between the East and the West, has in fact seen and often tolerated most known religions as well as an influx of believers in such faiths as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity. Even with the advent and dominance of Islam, other religions were still practiced freely by minorities in Kabul up until the 1980s. ~ Jenny Nordberg, #NFDB
658:Patriarchy is itself the prevailing religion of the entire planet, and its essential message is necrophilia. All of the so-called religions legitimating patriarchy are mere sects subsumed under its vast umbrella/canopy. All— from buddhism and hinduism to islam, judaism, christianity, to secular derivatives such as freudianism, jungianism, marxism, and maoism— are infrastructures of the edifice of patriarchy. ~ Sheila Jeffreys, #NFDB
659:People normally cut reality into compartments, and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena. To see one in all and all in one is to break through the great barrier which narrows one's perception of reality, a barrier which Buddhism calls the attachment to the false view of self.
Attachment to the false view of self means belief in the presence of unchanging entities which exist on their own. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
660:Buddhism is the most active one! The whole time, we're dealing with the mind and how to tame it, and how to transcend our ordinary conventional mind. This takes an enormous amount of determination and perseverance. It also requires an attitude of being relaxed and spacious, rather than tense and stressed. It's certainly not a matter of lying back and expecting it all to happen. If we don't make it happen, it won't! ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
661:For a while I hoped that Buddhism Without Beliefs might stimulate more public debate and inquiry among Buddhists about these issues, but this did not happen. Instead, it revealed a fault line in the nascent Western Buddhist community between traditionalists, for whom such doctrines are non-negotiable truths, and liberals, like myself, who tend to see them more as contingent products of historical circumstance. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
662:Fortunately the Puranic genealogies from the time of the founder of Buddhism onward can be tested by the evidence supplied by the Buddhist and Jain literature, dramas and inscriptions. (…) the mistakes regarding the names, the order of succession and the regnal years of kings are certainly not many. ~ (Bhargava 1998:2-3) , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins., #NFDB
663:The way of presentation is different according to each religion. In theistic religions like Buddhism, Buddhist values are incorporated. In nontheistic religions, like some types of ancient Indian thought, the law of karma applies. If you do something good, you get a good result. Now, what we need is a way to educate nonbelievers. These nonbelievers may be critical of all religions, but they should be decent at heart. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
664:Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly. The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last—that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
665:Westereners often think that the East is one vast Buddhist temple, which is rather like thinking the West is one vast Carthusian monastery. If the [Western people who like Buddhism] were to visit the East, he'd certainly experience many new things, but he'd find first, that the food is under lock and key and second, that humans are considered to be a miserable, destructive, greedy lot, just as they are in the West. ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
666:In the mid-1990s, while serving as senior editor for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, I proposed a thought experiment to test whether Buddhism could spread around the globe. That test consisted of a single question: Did Buddhism have a teaching that was so universal it could pass quickly from person to person without getting stopped in its tracks, leaping across national, ethnic, economic, and even religious boundaries? ~ Clark Strand, #NFDB
667:The dissonant irony here is that the affluence that gives the Western Buddhist their privilege, and gave them the opportunity to engage Buddhism in the first place, is part of what the Buddha meant by samsara, the world of attachment and consequent suffering. In a sense, Buddhist practice in the West is dependant upon continued delusion, especially those delusion that cause us to identify with class-appropriate roles. ~ Curtis White, #NFDB
668:So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you. ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
669:In Buddhism, this resilience is encapsulated as “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” Whether we’re talking about pain in the form of old age, sickness, death, or any type of loss or trauma, the pain itself is inevitable, but our prolonged suffering from that pain is completely optional (it’s the one and only part of the equation that we can actually control by learning to keep our minds at peace). Exposure ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
670:Vegetarianism and Zen Buddhism, meditation and spirituality, acid and rock—Jobs rolled together, in an amped-up way, the multiple impulses that were hallmarks of the enlightenment-seeking campus subculture of the era. And even though he barely indulged it at Reed, there was still an undercurrent of electronic geekiness in his soul that would someday combine surprisingly well with the rest of the mix. Robert Friedland ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
671:Here, the certain temple rule, this seems to me to have a certain responsibility to look after the well-being of society and look after Buddhism and culture. I consider these part of the practice of spirituality. There is no competition between spiritual practice and party politics. That is outdated. We already, since 2001, have elected political position. My position is semi-retired. I am looking forward to complete retirement. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
672:On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
673:In researching this problem, I did an extensive data search of several hundred hierarchies, taken from systems theory, ecological science, Kabalah, developmental psychology, Yo-gachara Buddhism, moral development, biological evolution, Vedanta Hinduism, Neo-Confucianism, cosmic and stellar evolution, Hwa Yen, the Neoplatonic corpus-an entire spectrum of premodern, modern, and postmodern nests.
~ Ken Wilber, Marriage of Sense and Soul, 1998,#NFDB
674:On the philosophic side the disciples of the Great Master dashed themselves against the eternal rocks of the Vedas and could not crush them, and on the other side they took away from the nation that eternal God to which every one, man or woman, clings so fondly. And the result was that Buddhism had to die a natural death in India. At the present day there is not one who calls oneself a Buddhist in India, the land of its birth. But ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
675:Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism in China, how much merit he had earned by building temples all over the country. Bodhidharma said, “None whatsoever.” But if you wash one dish in mindfulness, if you build one small temple while dwelling deeply in the present moment — not wanting to be anywhere else, not caring about fame or recognition — the merit from that act will be boundless, and you will feel very happy. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
676:I think East Asian countries, I think they're very fortunate to have Buddhism survive as a strong influence because right from the time when Buddha himself, 2,500 years ago, made the point about the importance of education, and the word "Buddha" also means enlighten[ed] or educated. So all the Buddhist countries, not only Japan and Korea and China and Hong Kong and Thailand but also even Burma and Sri Lanka, had a higher level of education. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
677:The teachings of Buddha are eternal, but even then Buddha did not proclaim them to be infallible.
The religion of Buddha has the capacity to change according to times, a quality which no other religion can claim to have...
Now what is the basis of Buddhism?
If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason.
There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion. ~ B R Ambedkar,#NFDB
678:This view was prevalent in Japan in the sixth century A.D., when Buddhism first reached that country. The Government, being in doubt as to the truth of the new religion, ordered one of the courtiers to adopt it experimentally; if he prospered more than the others, the religion was to be adopted universally. This is the method (with modifications to suit modern times) which the pragmatists advocate in regard to all religious controversies. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
679:Western progress (from one damned thing to another) seems to be essentially the MO of nowhere fast. But, on the other hand, the don't-set-foot-outside-your-own-village/cave ideal or injunction that you find in Buddhism and even in the Daoism of which I'm fonder, seems . . . defeatist. And more than that, it is in contradiction to what nature actually does. Somewhere, somehow, I feel as if these two opposing principles have to be reconciled. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
680:Whether we like it or not, change comes, and the greater the resistance, the greater the pain. Buddhism perceives the beauty of change, for life is like music in this: if any note or phrase is held for longer than its appointed time, the melody is lost. Thus Buddhism may be summed up in two phrases: “Let go!” and “Walk on!” Drop the craving for self, for permanence, for particular circumstances, and go straight ahead with the movement of life. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
681:Simple. Judaism had its day, and if the Jews had been smart, when Christianity came along they’d have joined up. Christianity has had its day, and if you were intelligent you’d both join the newest religion. Islam!” He bowed low and said, “Soon all Africa will be Islamic. And all Black America. I see India giving up Hinduism while Burma and Thailand surrender Buddhism. Gentlemen, I represent the religion of the future. I offer you salvation. ~ James A Michener, #NFDB
682:Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer, Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
683:Throughout the past 2500 years, whichever country Buddhism has been taught in, there have always been great yogis. Likewise, sooner or later there will be the great yogis of the West. This is because Buddhism has nothing to do with culture, gender, language, or colour. Buddhism is for all beings throughout time and space. And whoever dedicates their life to putting the teachings into practice will become a great yogi. It is as simple as that. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #NFDB
684:The basic premise of Buddhism is that there is no savior to worship: nobody is going to save you from your own mind. Nobody can get into the heart of your experience and fix anything for you. If you want to make your own internal experience more hospitable, only you can do that work. Others can always support and guide you and spark insights, but ultimately you are your own boss and the agent of understanding your mind and opening your heart. Nothing ~ Ethan Nichtern, #NFDB
685:Who, pray tell, is for leaving the naked unclothed and the hungry without food? Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism advocated caring for the helpless millennia before Marx was born. So, when the Jewish, Christian, or secular Left tell us repeatedly that they are for clothing the naked, they really mean two other things: (1) Their opponents are not for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and (2) Only those who affirm Left-wing policies are. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
686:In Buddhism, both learning and practice are extremely important, and they must go hand in hand. Without knowledge, just to rely on faith, faith, and more faith is good but not sufficient. So the intellectual part must definitely be present. At the same time, strictly intellectual development without faith and practice, is also of no use. It is necessary to combine knowledge born from study with sincere practice in our daily lives. These two must go together. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
687:In Buddhism, we say reincarnation is the conscious taking of rebirth by a Bodhisattva, or by a high being, whereas rebirth, is what most people do. Rebirth is an involuntary process where they seek traction by finding a new body after their subtle mind loses the old one. There are two things commonly said about this. One- there is no evidence for it and two- if there is evidence, what's the mechanism which carries the consciousness from one life to another. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
688:Making distinctions of this kind, however, is deeply unfashionable in intellectual circles. In my experience, people do not want to hear that Islam supports violence in a way that Jainism doesn’t, or that Buddhism offers a truly sophisticated, empirical approach to understanding the human mind, whereas Christianity presents an almost perfect impediment to such understanding. In many circles, to make invidious comparisons of this kind is to stand convicted of bigotry. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
689:One of the oldest recitations of faith in Buddhism is taking refuge in what is called the Triple Gem: the Buddha himself, that person who awakened under the Bodhi Tree twenty-five hundred years ago; the Dharma, the truth, the law, and the body of teachings; and the Sangha, which means, in particular, the order of monks and nuns and, more generally, the community of wise beings. “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
690:In Tibetan Buddhism, taking a root lama creates a sort of indelible connection to a teacher that can’t be erased by any sort of worldly action. The vows of obedience work on the spiritual plane and form a connection that persists in all future rebirths. It entails total submission to the will of another person, and complete trust that they will give you the tools you need to progress spiritually. From the moment she took the vows, McNally gave away control of her own life. ~ Scott Carney, #NFDB
691:The most important things in life can't be seen with the eyes. Ideas can't be seen. Love can't be seen. Honor can't be seen. This isn't a new concept. Judaism and Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and Taoism have all taught for thousands of years that the highest forms of reality are invisible. God is invisible, and he created the universe. Our souls are invisible, and they give life to our bodies. Angels are invisible, and they're the most powerful of God's creatures. ~ Anthony DeStefano, #NFDB
692:As my personal explorations continued, I experienced this quality of inner reality more and more and could no longer doubt that the meaning of God lay in this direction. At the same time, these undeniable experiences lit up and were in turn illuminated by all the philosophical and historical knowledge I had by then amassed and I began to understand in an entirely new way the teachings of both Judaism and Christianity as well as the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. ~ Jacob Needleman, #NFDB
693:It really was something, to see Ram Bahadur Bomjon, apparently living without food or water. Before I went on that trip I'd asked advice on it from a very wise person who I love and revere - basically trying to see if I was somehow disrespecting Buddhism by trying to write about it, and also looking for some grounding on what stance to take ... and my friend said, "Well, why don't you just go and see?" And I hear that in my head all the time now: "Why don't you go and see?" ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
694:The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. ~ Franz Bardon, #NFDB
695:I’d read up on this issue a little bit since the retreat. According to the school of Buddhism to which Joseph belonged (there were many, I’d learned), there were four stages of enlightenment. The schema sounded like something out of Dungeons & Dragons. Someone who’d achieved the first stage of enlightenment was a “stream-enterer.” This was followed by a “once-returner,” a “non-returner,” and then a fully enlightened being, known as an “arhant.” Each stage had sixteen sublevels. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
696:I began researching and writing what I intended as a book-length essay entitled Fascination and Liberation, exploring the question of whether there is a conflict between creativity and the Eastern form of enlightenment. I don't know if I'll ever finish that essay, because I had an experience, after I'd written two or three chapters, in which it seemed to me that my psychic antibodies decisively rejected Buddhism. Interestingly, the rejection felt as if it happened in Zen terms. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
697:I maintain that Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism all hold up love as an ideal, seek to benefit humanity through spiritual practice, and strive to make their followers better people. All religions teach moral precepts for the advancement of mind, body, speech, and action: do not lie or steal or take others’ lives, and so on. Unselfishness is the common foundation laid down by all great spiritual teachers. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
698:No one religion is right for everyone, and no religion—whether it be Wicca, Buddhism, Judaism, Catholicism—is more valid than any other. Religious diversity is something that needs not only to be tolerated, but also celebrated. The good that religion was designed to teach and maintain inevitably turns to harm when one religious group claims superiority over another or tries to deny others of their constitutional right to believe in and worship the god or goddess of their choice. ~ Gerina Dunwich, #NFDB
699:Despite fiery disagreements about who or what God is and how to make contact, all these religions agree that patience is the essence of spirituality and thus grants great strength. Judaism says, “A patient man is better than a warrior.” In Buddhism, bodhisattvas train in this practice to become enlightened. Christianity and Islam deem it a sacred virtue. Patience endows you with faith in yourself and your destiny, an illuminated capacity to deal with frustration and disappointments. ~ Judith Orloff, #NFDB
700:Lelia gave a dharma talk about letting go of self-definition: I can't do this because of what happened to me in my childhood; I can't do that because I am very shy; I could never go there because I'm afraid of clowns or mushrooms or polar bears. The group gave a gentle, collective laugh of self-recognition. Teresa found the talk helpful, as she had been having an extended interior dialogue during meditation about how septuagenarians from Torrance were fundamentally unsuited for Buddhism. ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
701:As Buddhism has been integrated into the West, the meaning of sangha has come to include all our contemporaries who in various ways are consciously pursuing a path of awakening. We are held by sangha when we work individually with a therapist or healer, or when a close friend lets us be vulnerable and real. Taking refuge in the sangha reminds us that we are in good company: We belong with all those who long to awaken, with all those who seek the teachings and practices that lead to genuine peace. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
702:There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, 'I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.' ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
703:The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
704:The teaching of the Buddha is called the Dhamma. He did not teach Buddhism, any more than Jesus taught Christianity. The one wanted to reform Judaism, the other to reform Brahmanism. Neither succeeded, but each unwittingly started a new religion. The movements they started were reforms of ancient religions which, because the spirit had left them and only the letter still was observed, had deteriorated into rites and rituals, and social norms. Today we come across this very same problem everywhere. ~ Ayya Khema, #NFDB
705:[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
706:First of all, Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and the world. It looks at things objectively (yath?bh?tam). It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness. ~ Walpola Rahula, #NFDB
707:From experience in the past we create memories, which are the basis of imagination and desire. Desire is the basis of action, once again. And so the cycle perpetuates itself. In Vedic tradition and in Buddhism this cycle is known as the Wheel of Samsara, the basis of earthly existence.That’s why, if you really want to break out of the mundane, you must learn to think and dream the impossible. Only with repeated thoughts can the impossible be made possible through the intention of the nonlocal mind. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
708:Here’s the thing about nihilism. It’s all about letting go. It’s about believing that nothing matters so much you want to hurt over it. It’s like Buddhism without the peace. Just let that shit go. I believe in it because I've had to let everybody go. My dad. My mom. Our dogs. My little brother. Jobs. Money. Life is one long series of losses. The one constant in life isn’t death or taxes. It’s loss. And if you believe nothing matters, loss doesn’t hurt nearly so bad. Attachment is nothing but pain. ~ Nicola Rendell, #NFDB
709:The Reluctant Buddhist (Woollard, William) - Your Highlight on Location 2484-2486 | Added on Friday, April 3, 2015 2:02:45 PM We might well have to take tough decisions that will disturb other peoples lives, in challenging aspects of a relationship for example. Buddhism does not teach that we should not take that action because it disturbs or challenges other people, only that we should take it with compassion for the other person’s needs, and accepting full responsibility for the causes we are making. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
710:[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
711:Hence a Buddhist meditator, while benefiting from the refinement of consciousness he has achieved, will be able to see these meditative experiences for what they are; and he will further know that they are without any abiding substance that could be attributed to a deity manifesting itself to his mind. Therefore, the Buddhist’s conclusion must be that the highest mystical states do not provide evidence for the existence of a personal God or an impersonal godhead. ~ Nyanaponika Thera, “Buddhism and the God-Idea” (1962), #NFDB
712:Buddhism and Western psychotherapy have much in common. They each recognize that the key to overcoming suffering is the conscious acknowledgment of the ego’s nefarious ways. Without such consciousness, we remain pushed around by impulses and held in check by unrecognized defenses. But when we are able to see the extent of our own fears and desires, there is something in us, recognized by both Buddha and Freud, which is able to break free. Taking responsibility for what is going on inside of us gives hope. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
713:For the Stoics, however, the near impossibility of becoming a sage is not a problem. They talk about sages primarily so they will have a model to guide them in their practice of Stoicism. The sage is a target for them to aim at, even though they will probably fail to hit it. The sage, in other words, is to Stoicism as Buddha is to Buddhism. Most Buddhists can never hope to become as enlightened as Buddha, but nevertheless, reflecting on Buddha's perfection can help them gain a degree of enlightenment. ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
714:A person without an Apple watch is perfectly content with his present watch but when he sees his friends buying the watch, he will hanker for an Apple watch. The endless cycle of wanting, getting, and wanting again is part of the plot of Capitalism. It is the way Capitalism creates jobs. The only antidote is Buddhism that holds that people might be happier by renouncing desire rather than by striving to satisfy desire. But then how can the economy create enough jobs in a Buddhist society of "less is more." ~ Philip Kotler, #NFDB
715:We can only suppose that Buddhism has been so much admired mainly for what it is not. A well known modern writer on the subject has remarked that “Buddhism in its purity ignored the existence of a God; it denied the existence of a soul; it was not so much a religion as a code of ethics”. We can understand the appeal of this on the one hand to the rationalist and on the other to the sentimentalist. Unfortunately for these, all three statements are untrue, at least in the sense in which they are meant. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
716:No one saves us but ourselves, no one can and no one may.’ In Buddhism, salvation is something that is not external. To be happy, and at peace, Buddhism says, we have to be vigilant, aware of ourselves. Mindful. ‘As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion in the sense of suffering will break through an unreflecting mind.’ In a world with far more shiny distractions than the world of Himalayan India way over two thousand years ago, our metaphorical mental houses may be harder to thatch than ever before. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
717:Our ancient sources of wisdom call on human beings to rise to their highest capacity and behave in extraordinarily open and generous ways to one another, under difficult circumstances to transcend differences and create understanding across all barriers of convention and fear. This wisdom is fragile as our environment is fragile, threatened by an overwhelming material culture. I believe in a spiritual ecology. In today’s world, Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism and other wisdom traditions are endangered species. ~ Rodger Kamenetz, #NFDB
718:Among the educated young there is therefore a startling and unprecedented interest in the transformation of human consciousness. All over the Western world publishers are selling millions of books dealing with Yoga, Vedanta, Zen Buddhism, and the chemical mysticism of psychedelic drugs, and I have come to believe that the whole “hip” subculture, however misguided in some of its manifestations, is the earnest and responsible effort of young people to correct the self–destroying course of industrial civilization. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
719:Often, everywhere we look, we seem to find obstacles and facades and smokescreens, so it was really nice to find things in the world that actually spoke to me. And I felt like Eastern thought really spoke to me. Because it isn't trying to cover up the pain in life; it's trying to deal with it and overcome it in an intelligent way. I think the reason I love Eastern thought so much, and mysticism in general - but especially Buddhism - is because it seems to me an attempt to look life squarely in the face, as it is. ~ Jeff Mangum, #NFDB
720:The more truthful I am with myself and others, the more my conscience is clear and tranquil. Thus, I can more thoroughly and unequivocally inhabit the present moment and accept everything that happens without fear, knowing that what goes around comes around (the law of karma). Ethical morality and self-discipline represent the good ground, or stable basis. Mindful awareness is the skillful and efficacious grow-path, or way. Wisdom and compassion constitute the fruit, or result. This is the essence of Buddhism [...] ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
721:Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity–it has heritage of a cool and objective posing of problems in its composition, it arrives after a philosophical movement lasting hundreds of years; the concept ‘God’ is already abolished by the time it arrives. Buddhism is the only positivistic religion history has to show, even in its Epistemology (a strict phenomenalism), it no longer speaks of 'the struggle against sin', but, quite in accordance with actuality, 'the struggle against suffering'. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
722:When did feminism become confused with Buddhism? Why on earth have I, because I’m a woman, got to be nice to everyone? And why have women—on top of everything else—got to be particularly careful to be “lovely” and “supportive” to each other at all times? This idea of the “sisterhood” I find, frankly, illogical, I don’t build in a 20 percent “Genital Similarity Regard Bonus” if I meet someone else wearing a bra. If someone’s an arsehole, someone’s an arsehole—regardless of whether we’re both standing in the longer ~ Caitlin Moran, #NFDB
723:I’m saying that if you want to be happy, eradicate your attachment; cut your concrete concepts. The way to cut them is not troublesome—just change your attitude; switch your attitude, that’s all. It’s not really a big deal! It’s really skillful, reasonable. The way Buddhism explains this is reasonable. It’s not something in which you have to super-believe. I’m not saying you have to try to be a superwoman or superman. It’s reasonable and logical. Simply changing your attitude eliminates your concrete concepts. ~ Lama Thubten Yeshe, #NFDB
724:The more truthful I am with myself and others, the more my conscience is clear and tranquil. Thus, I can more thoroughly and unequivocally inhabit the present moment and accept everything that happens without fear, knowing that what goes around comes around (the law of karma). Ethical morality and self-discipline represent the good ground, or stable basis. Mindful awareness is the skillful and efficacious grow-path, or way. Wisdom and compassion constitute the fruit, or result. This is the essence of Buddhism [...] ~ Lama Surya Das, #NFDB
725:As far as I know, all major religions that subscribe to a belief in God—including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—believe that the universe was created by God at a finite time in the past. The one major contemporary religious tradition that does not incorporate God, Buddhism, holds that the universe has existed for all of eternity. Looked at another way, a universe with a beginning must have had a creation, either by a divine being or by quantum physics. But a universe that has existed forever needs neither. ~ Alan Lightman, #NFDB
726:The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. That is why we have teaching. But the teaching is not ourselves. It is some explanation of ourselves. To study the teaching is to know yourselves. That is why we do not ever attach to the teaching, or to the teacher. The moment you meet a teacher you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent. You want a teacher so that you can be independent. So you study yourselves. You have the teacher for yourselves, not for the teacher. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
727:Do you know the bodhisattva vow?” Ananda asked. Kade shook his head. “It’s from the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism,” Ananda said, “different than my own, but still beautiful. The most basic expression of it is ‘May I attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.’ It’s a pledge to keep being reborn into the material world of suffering, to put nirvana off indefinitely, until all beings in the universe have attained enlightenment and can also enter nirvana. It’s perhaps the ultimate vow of placing others before oneself. ~ Ramez Naam, #NFDB
728:Western engagement with Eastern spirituality dates back at least as far as Alexander’s campaign in India, where the young conqueror and his pet philosophers encountered naked ascetics whom they called “gymnosophists.” It is often said that the thinking of these yogis greatly influenced the philosopher Pyrrho, the father of Greek skepticism. This seems a credible claim, because Pyrrho’s teachings had much in common with Buddhism. But his contemplative insights and methods never became part of any system of thought in the West. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
729:If you want the shortest version of my answer to the question of why Buddhism is true, it's this: Because we are animals created by natural selection. Natural selection built into our brains the tendencies that early Buddhist thinkers did a pretty amazing job of sizing up, given the meager scientific resources at their disposal. Now, in light of the modern understanding of natural selection and the modern understanding of the human brain that natural selection produced, we can provide a new kind of defense of this sizing up. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
730:A koan is like a riddle that’s supposed to help you toward enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. For my answer, I wrote about this guy Banzan. He was walking through the market on day when he overheard someone ask a butcher for his best piece of meat. The butcher answered, “Everything in my shop is the best. You cannot find a piece of meat that is not the best.” Upon hearing this, Banzan realized that there is no best and no worst, that those judgments have no real meaning because there is only was is, and poof, he reached enlightenment. ~ John Green, #NFDB
731:On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be. ~ Dalai Lama XIV 14th Dalai Lama in his talk to the Society for Neuroscience in 2005 in Washington. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
732:I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions... For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem. ~ Erwin McManus, #NFDB
733:violence only makes a situation worse. It cannot help but provoke a violent response. Strictly speaking, satyagraha is not “nonviolence.” It is a means, a method. The word we translate as “nonviolence” is a Sanskrit word central in Buddhism as well: ahimsa, the complete absence of violence in word and even thought as well as action. This sounds negative, just as “nonviolence” sounds passive. But like the English word “flawless,” ahimsa denotes perfection. Ahimsa is unconditional love; satyagraha is love in action. Gandhi’s message ~ Eknath Easwaran, #NFDB
734:Not so very long ago, however, such self-governing peoples were the majority of humankind. Today, they are seen from the valley kingdoms as “our living ancestors,” “what we were like before we discovered wet-rice cultivation, Buddhism and civilization.” on the contrary, I argue that hill peoples are best understood as runaway, fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the valleys — slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. ~ James C Scott, #NFDB
735:I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. The thing that's always been interesting to me about religion is that compared to the more modern spirituality, the West Coast pseudo-Buddhist thing that people go for these days, actual Buddhism and Islam have been looking at these philosophical questions, at really hard questions, for a long time. There's a lot of stuff that philosophy doesn't talk about, and in the secular world, a lot of times, people don't talk about these ideas, and that was always really interesting for me. ~ Win Butler, #NFDB
736:interview 14 leaders from religions including Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Islam in an attempt to figure out the ten characteristics their faiths had in common. In order of importance, I found that they were: A sense of belonging; storytelling; rituals; symbols; a clear vision; sensory appeal; power from enemies; evangelism; mystery; and grandeur. When you think about the world’s most powerful brands—among them Apple, Nike, Harley-Davidson, Coca-Cola, LEGO—you realize they all make use of some if not all of these pillars. ~ Martin Lindstrom, #NFDB
737:Maitri can be translated as "love" or "loving kindness". Some Buddhist teachers prefer "loving kindness" as they find the word "love" too dangerous. But I prefer the word "love". Words sometimes get sick and we have to heal them. We have been using the word "love" to mean appetite or desire, as in "I love hamburgers". We have to use language more carefully. "Love" is a beautiful word; we have to restore its meaning. The word "maitri" has roots in the word mitra which means friend. In Buddhism, the primary meaning of love is friendship. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
738:Bud·dhism n. a widespread Asian religion or philosophy, founded by Siddartha Gautama in northeastern India in the 5th century BC. Buddhism has no creator god and gives a central role to the doctrine of karma. The ‘four noble truths’ of Buddhism state that all existence is suffering, that the cause of suffering is desire, that freedom from suffering is nirvana, and that this is attained through the ‘eightfold’ path of ethical conduct, wisdom, and mental discipline (including meditation). There are two major traditions, Theravada and Mahayana. ~ Erin McKean, #NFDB
739:I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions...
For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem. ~ Erwin Raphael McManus,#NFDB
740:The essence of Buddhist practice is not so much an effort at changing your thoughts or your behavior so that you can become a better person, but in realizing that no matter what you might think about the circumstances that define your life, you’re already good, whole, and complete. It’s about recognizing the inherent potential of your mind. In other words, Buddhism is not so much concerned with getting well as with recognizing that you are, right here, right now, as whole, as good, as essentially well as you could ever hope to be. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, #NFDB
741:Allen Ginsberg—sitting amid a huddle of Yippies off to the right—began chanting again, as he had all evening: “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare….” Ginsberg believed; he believed in everything—in democracy, in socialism, in communism, in anarchism, in Ezra Pound’s idealistic variety of fascist economics, in Buckminster Fuller’s technological Utopia, in D. H. Lawrence’s return to preindustrial pastoralism, and in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Voodoo, astrology magic; but, above all, in the natural goodness of man. ~ Robert Shea, #NFDB
742:One of the key paradoxes in Buddhism is that we need goals to be inspired, to grow, and to develop, even to become enlightened, but at the same time we must not get overly fixated or attached to these aspirations. If the goal is noble, your commitment to the goal should not be contingent on your ability to attain it, and in pursuit of our goal, we must release our rigid assumptions about how we must achieve it. Peace and equanimity come from letting go of our attachment to the goal and the method. That is the essence of acceptance. Reflecting ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
743:Christ remains the most influential figure in history. Any list of world-transforming individuals would no doubt include Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad. Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad, however occupy totally different places in Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam than Christ occupies in Christianity. Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad never professed to perform miracles; indeed they never claimed to be anything more than men. They viewed themselves simply as God's messengers. Christ is the only person in history who has defined a whole religion around his person. ~ Dinesh D Souza, #NFDB
744:Western Buddhism’s association with the sixties counterculture is being replaced not only by science but by corporations that deploy it in order to enhance their brand, promote “wellness,” reduce sick days and other inefficiencies among their employees, and, of course, create profitable, Buddhist-themed products. This corporate adoption of Buddhism was made safe by science. The business world’s understanding of meditation - and especially the practice of “mindfulness” - is driven not by traditional Buddhist ideas and ethics, but by neuroscience. ~ Curtis White, #NFDB
745:Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science. ~ Hannes Alfven, #NFDB
746:To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it. ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
747:you know when i was a little kid in oregon i didn't feel that i was and american at all, with all that suburban ideal and sex repression and general dreary newspaper gray censorship of all our real human values but and when i discovered buddhism and all i suddenly felt that i had lived in a previous lifetime innumerable ages ago and now because of the faults and sins in that lifetime i was being degraded to a more grievous domain of existence and my karma was to be born in america where nobody has any fun or believes in anything, especially freedom. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
748:Buddhism is a practice, not a creed. It is something to do rather than something to believe. The key to its effectiveness is controlling the restless craving mind through meditation. By sitting still and watching how they breathe, by meditating on a word or a flower, practitioners move through different levels of consciousness to the calm that diminishes desire. Buddha would have agreed with an insight of the seventeenth-century French contemplative Blaise Pascal: ‘all human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room’. ~ Richard Holloway, #NFDB
749:150 The Arhat IN OUR SOCIETY, we’re inclined to see doing nothing as something negative, even evil. But when we lose ourselves in activities, we diminish our quality of being. We do ourselves a disservice. It’s important to preserve ourselves, to maintain our freshness and good humor, our joy and compassion. In Buddhism we cultivate aimlessness, and in fact in Buddhist tradition the ideal person, an arhat or a bodhisattva, is a businessless person—someone with nowhere to go and nothing to do. People should learn how to just be there, doing nothing. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
750:Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species. ~ James G Frazer, #NFDB
751:Many people entertain the idea that Christianity,like almost any other religion,is basically a system of beliefs-you know, a set of doctrines or a code of behavior, a philosophy, an ideology. But that's a myth. Christianity is not at all like Buddhism or Islam or Confucianism. The founders of those religions said (in effect), 'Here is what I teach. Believe my teachings. Follow my philosophy.' Jesus said, 'Follow me'(Matthew 9:9). Leaders of the world's religions said, 'What do you think about what I teach?' Jesus said, 'Who do you say I am?'(Luke 9:20) ~ Josh McDowell, #NFDB
752:There are wars all over the world because people are insulted that someone else doesn’t agree with their belief system. Everybody is guilty of it. It’s what is called fundamental theism. You want something to hold on to, you want to say, “Finally I have found it. This is it, and now I feel confirmed and secure and righteous.” Buddhism is not free of it either. This is a human thing. But in Buddhism there is a teaching that would seemingly undercut all this, if people would only listen to it. It says, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
753:Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life which does not belong to any of the formal categories of modern Western thought. It is not religion or philosophy; it is not a psychology or a type of science. It is an example of what is known in India and China as a “way of liberation,” and is similar in this respect to Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. As will soon be obvious, a way of liberation can have no positive definition. It has to be suggested by saying what it is not, somewhat as a sculptor reveals an image by the act of removing pieces of stone from a block. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
754:In Mahayana Buddhism the universe is therefore likened to a vast net of jewels, wherein the reflection from one jewel is contained in all jewels, and the reflections of all are contained in each. As the Buddhists put it, “All in one and one in all.” This sounds very mystical and far-out, until you hear a modern physicist explain the present-day view of elementary particles: “This states, in ordinary language, that each particle consists of all the other particles, each of which is in the same way and at the same time all other particles together.” Similarities ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
755:This willing and even exuberant interfacing with one's own mortality has ancient roots. The Stoics of ancient Greece and Rome implored people to keep death in mind at all times, in order to appreciate life more and remain humble in the face of adversities. In various forms of Buddhism, the practice of meditation is often taught as a means of preparing oneself for death while still remaining alive. Dissolving one's ego into an expansive nothingness - achieving the enlightened state of nirvana - is seen as a trial run of letting oneself cross to the other side. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
756:In Mahayana Buddhism the universe is therefore likened to a vast net of jewels, wherein the reflection from one jewel is contained in all jewels, and the reflections of all are contained in each. As the Buddhists put it, "All in one and one in all." This sounds very mystical and far-out, until you hear a modern physicist explain the present-day view of elementary particles: "This states, in ordinary language, that each particle consists of all the other particles, each of which is in the same way and at the same time all other particles together." ~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary, #NFDB
757:I walked for hours, marveling at the extent of the destruction. Cars drove through Daitokuji Temple. Mount Hiei, the birthplace of Japanese Buddhism, had been turned into a parking lot, with an entertainment emporium on its summit. Streets that had once been lined with ancient wooden houses accented with bamboo trellises were now tawdry with plastic and aluminum and neon, the wooden houses dismantled and gone. Everywhere were metastasizing telephone lines, riots of electric wires, laundry hanging from prefabricated apartment windows like tears from idiot eyes. ~ Barry Eisler, #NFDB
758:The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
759:Dharma has several connotations in South Asian religions, but in Buddhism it has two basic, interrelated meanings: dharma as 'teaching' as found in the expression Buddha Dharma, and dharma as 'reality-as-is' (abhigama-dharma). The teaching is a verbal expression of reality-as-is that consists of two aspects-the subject that realizes and the object that is realized. Together they constitute 'reality-as-is;' if either aspect is lacking, it is not reality-as-is. This sense of dharma or reality-as-is is also called suchness (tathata) or thatness (tattva) in Buddhism. ~ Taitetsu Unno, #NFDB
760:Shambhala vision applies to people of any faith, not just people who believe in Buddhism. Anyone can benefit from the Shambhala training and Shambhala vision, without its undermining their faith or their relationship with their minister, their priest, their bishop, their pope, whatever religious leaders they may follow. The Shambhala vision does not distinguish a Buddhist from a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu. That’s why we call it the Shambhala Kingdom. A kingdom should have lots of different spiritual disciplines in it. That’s why we are here. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
761:The tensions between Gotama and the Buddha and between the dharma and Buddhism may have started during Gotama’s lifetime. The discourses themselves provide ample examples of how Gotama was transformed from a human being into a quasi-deity, and the dharma was transformed from a practical ethics into a metaphysical doctrine. The texts that make up the early canon cannot, therefore, be regarded as sharing an equivalent antiquity, but need to be understood as products of the doctrinal and literary evolution of a tradition that took place over at least three centuries. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
762:A book can only end one of two ways: truthfully or artfully. If it ends artfully, then it never feels quite right. It feels forced, manipulated. If it ends truthfully, then the story ends badly, in death. It's the reason most theories and religions and economic systems break down before you get too far into them--and the reason Buddhism and the Beach Boys make sense to teenagers, because they're too young to know what life really is: a frantic struggle that always ends the same way. The only thing that varies is the beginning and the middle. Life itself always ends badly. ~ Jess Walter, #NFDB
763:Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
764:Francis Jennings, and his book the invasion of America, called christianity a conquest religion. I suspect this description is true of most religions. I can’t think of one that could be termed a seduction religion, where converts are lured in by the beauty of the doctrine and the generosity of the practice.
Maybe Buddhism. Certainly not Christianity.
Missionary work in the New World was war. Christianity, and all its varieties, has always been a stakeholder in the business of assimilation, and in the 16th century, it was the initial wound in the side of native culture. ~ Thomas King,#NFDB
765:I make a distinction between Buddhism with a Capital 'B' and buddhism with a small 'b'. Sri Lanka has the former, in which the state uses Buddhism as an instrument of power, so there are even Buddhists monks who say the Tamils should be eliminated. Thai Buddhists are not perfect either. Some Thai Buddhist monks have compromised with the kind and possess cars and other luxuries. In many Buddhist countries, the emphasis is on being goody-goody, which is not good enough. I am for buddhism with a small 'b' which is non-violent, practical and aims to eliminate the cause of suffering. ~ Sulak Sivaraksa, #NFDB
766:The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds. ~ Walpola Rahula, #NFDB
767:Why was Buddhism unable to survive the Muslim invasion of India during the twelfth century, whereas Hinduism, which suffered equal persecution, was? One major factor was that Buddhism relied for its continuity and identity upon isolated monastic groups. To destroy Buddhism it was only necessary for the Muslim armies to destroy the monasteries. With the monasteries gone, the lay community swiftly disintegrated because of the lack of a cohesive center. Hinduism, on the other hand, was far more integrated into the fabric of Indian society—and therefore much more difficult to destroy. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
768:Around 2,500 years ago, we see qualitatively new forms of social organization—the larger and more durable Axial mega-empires that employed new forms of legitimation of political power. The new sources of this legitimacy were the Axial religions, or more broadly ideologies, such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (and later Christianity and Islam). During this time, gods evolved from capricious projections of human desire (who as often as not squabbled among themselves) into transcendental moralizers concerned above all with prosocial behavior by all, including the rulers. The ~ Peter Turchin, #NFDB
769:Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
770:Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you don’t really have or avoid feelings that you do have. If you are miserable you are miserable; that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching. When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
771:Buddhism has become for me a philosophy of action and responsibility. It provides a framework of values, ideas, and practices that nurture my ability to create a path in life, to define myself as a person, to act, to take risks, to image things differently, to make art. The more I prize Gotama's teachings free from the matrix of Indian religious thought in which they are entrenched and the more I come to understand how his own life unfolded in the context of his times, the more I discern a template for living that I can apply at this time in this increasingly secular and globalized world. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
772:The text presented here, the Vajra Essence by Düdjom Lingpa, a nineteenth-century master of the Nyingma order of Tibetan Buddhism, is known as the Nelug Rangjung in Tibetan, meaning “the natural emergence of the nature of existence.”1 This is an ideal teaching in which to unravel some of the common misunderstandings of Tibetan Buddhism, since it is a sweeping practice that can take one from the basics all the way to enlightenment in a single lifetime. The present volume explains the initial section on shamatha, or meditative quiescence, about nine percent of the entire Vajra Essence root text. ~ B Alan Wallace, #NFDB
773:Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical.
When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same. ~ Alan W Watts,#NFDB
774:Zen teacher Lewis Richmond tells the story of hearing Shunryu Suzuki sum up Buddhism in two words. Suzuki had just finished giving a talk to a group of Zen students when someone in the audience said, “You’ve been talking about Buddhism for nearly an hour, and I haven’t been able to understand a thing you said. Could you say one thing about Buddhism I can understand?” After the laughter died down, Suzuki replied calmly, “Everything changes.” Those words, Suzuki said, contain the basic truth of existence: Everything is always in flux. Until you accept this, you won’t be able to find true equanimity. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
775:vast and pivotal expanse of Central Asia and its Mongol-Turkic hordes. These four marginal regions, as he informs us, correspond not coincidentally to the four great numerical religions: for faith, too, in Mackinder’s judgment, is a function of geography. There are the “monsoon lands,” one in the east facing the Pacific Ocean, the home of Buddhism; the other in the south facing the Indian Ocean, the home of Hinduism. The third marginal region is Europe itself, watered by the Atlantic to the west, the hub of Christianity. But the most fragile of the four outliers is the Middle East, home of Islam, ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
776:Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, once said, This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the move-ments of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, Rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheart-edness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
777:And the Buddha was not interested in them. But if we look at Buddhism historically, we’ll see that it has continuously tended to lose this agnostic dimension through becoming institutionalized as a religion, with all of the usual dogmatic belief systems that religions tend to have. So, ironically, if you were to go to many Asian countries today, you would find that the monks and priests who control the institutional bodies of Buddhism would have quite clear views on whether the world is eternal or not, what happens to the Buddha after death, the status of the mind in relation to the body, and so oṇ This ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
778:Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism each have founder figures— Muhammad, Jesus, and the Buddha, respectively. And in thinking about these founder figures, I believe we must finally conclude that each brought a message of radical hope. To seventh-century Arabia, Muhammad brought the promise that anyone could find fulfillment and everlasting life through allegiance to the one true God. The Buddha held out hope that suffering could be transcended. Jesus brought the message that the last shall be first, that even the tax collectors and lepers— the outcasts— had cause for hope. And so that is the question I leave you ~ John Green, #NFDB
779:Buddhism is a religion for late human beings, for races grown kindly, gentle, over-intellectual who feel pain too easily ( — Europe is not nearly ripe for it — ): it leads them back to peace and cheerfulness, to an ordered diet in intellectual things, to a certain physical hardening. Christianity desires to dominate beasts of prey; its means for doing so is to make them sick — weakening in the Christian recipe for taming, for 'civilization'. Buddhism is a religion for the end and fatigue of a civilization, Christianity does not even find civilization in existence — it establishes civilization if need be. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
780:I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many religious people in the United States. As far as I could tell, there's nothing preachy about Buddhism. I was in a lot of temples, and I still don't know what Buddhists believe, except that at one point Kunio said 'If you do bad things, you will be reborn as an ox.'
This makes as much sense to me as anything I ever heard from, for example, the Reverend Pat Robertson. ~ Dave Barry,#NFDB
781:The Five Wonderful Precepts of Buddhism—reverence for life, generosity, responsible sexual behavior, speaking and listening deeply, and ingesting only wholesome substances—can contribute greatly to the happiness of the family and society. I have recently rephrased them to address the problems of our times: 1. Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking and in my way of life. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
782:THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA 1. Question. Of what religion[1] are you? Answer. The Buddhist. 2. Q. What is Buddhism? A. It is a body of teachings given out by the great personage known as the Buddha. 3. Q. Is "Buddhism" the best name for this teaching? A. No; that is only a western term: the best name for it is Bauddha Dharma. 4. Q. Would you call a person a Buddhist who had merely been born of Buddha parents? A. Certainly not. A Buddhist is one who not only professes belief in the Buddha as the noblest of Teachers, in the Doctrine preached by Him, and in the Brotherhood of Arhats, but practises His precepts in daily life. ~ Henry Steel Olcott, #NFDB
783:No disrespect to the Buddha is intended. If there was a Buddha and he was enlightened, then it’s Buddhism that insults his memory, not healthy skepticism. Blame the naked emperor’s retinue of lackeys and lickspittles, not the unbeguiled lad who merely states the obvious. Buddhism is arguably the most elevated of man’s great belief systems. If you want to enjoy the many valuable benefits it has to offer, then I wouldn’t presume to utter a syllable against it. But, if you want to escape from the clutches of Maya, then I suggest you take a closer look at the serene face on all those golden statues, and see if it isn’t really hers. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
784:method (“dharma practice”) rather than another “-ism.” The dharma is not something to believe in but something to do. The Buddha did not reveal an esoteric set of facts about reality, which we can choose to believe in or not. He challenged people to understand the nature of anguish, let go of its origins, realize its cessation, and bring into being a way of life. The Buddha followed his reason as far as it would take him and did not pretend that any conclusion was certain unless it was demonstrable. Dharma practice has become a creed (“Buddhism”) much in the same way scientific method has degraded into the creed of “Scientism. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
785:What emerges, though, is the idea that perceptions, memories, associations and thoughts may need a resting mind in order to make their way through our brain and form new connections. Eastern traditions have been aware of this through meditative practices for thousands of years. In Buddhism, monks train to calm their minds. Western society has instilled in us a belief that every moment of every day must be filled with activity. Indeed, it is almost a moral obligation in the US to be as busy as possible. I will try to show that for certain things the brain likes to do (for example, coming up with creative “outside of the box” solutions) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
786:Profounder things had also passed. It was a completely secular age. Of the faiths that existed before the coming of the overlords, only a form of purified Buddhism, perhaps the most peculiar of all religions, still survived. The creeds that had been based upon miracles and revelations had collapsed utterly. With the rise of education, they had already been slowly dissolving, but for a while the Overlords had taken no sides in the matter. Though Karellen was often asked to express his views on religion, all that he would say was that a man's beliefs were his own affair, so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of others. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
787:That Buddhism may indeed have arrived at such a watershed is further suggested by a recent book by the Dalai Lama entitled Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. “What we need today,” he argues, “is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.” Without for a moment rejecting his own Buddhist faith, he acknowledges how “the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religioṇ”2 Without ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
788:Pagoda are the centre of Burmese spiritual life, and every town and village has one. People visit the pagoda daily or weekly to pay respect to the Buddha relics which are often enshrined there, to meditate, to give alms, or to attend the festivals held on religious holidays. The pagoda is considered a place of spirituality and learning. The stairways leading up to the platform are decorated with educational paintings from Buddhist legend, often depicting the moral lessons in the Jataka tales about the Buddha’s previous incarnations. The peaceful principles of Buddhism, which encourage wisdom and compassion, are instilled through these teachings. The ~ Emma Larkin, #NFDB
789:The Buddha’s signature pronouncement—“Life is suffering”—is the source of a major misunderstanding, and by extension, a major PR problem. It makes Buddhism seem supremely dour. Turns out, though, it’s all the result of a translation error. The Pali word dukkha doesn’t actually mean “suffering.” There’s no perfect word in English, but it’s closer to “unsatisfying” or “stressful.” When the Buddha coined his famous phrase, he wasn’t saying that all of life is like being chained to a rock and having crows peck out your innards. What he really meant was something like, “Everything in the world is ultimately unsatisfying and unreliable because it won’t last. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
790:Since Buddhism’s only objective is attaining enlightenment, that high road to nirvana (see below), it is at one with other religions in pitching a brighter future for believers in deliverance from the woes of this world. One problem: Human beings are rarely so sensitive to the woes of this world that they feel a pressing need to reject all cravings for the pleasures of this world, as Buddhism would have them do. And it seems that any amount of pleasure is pleasure enough to get us to keep the faith that being alive is all right for everyone, or almost everyone, and will certainly be all right for any children we cause to be delivered into this world. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
791:Is any of this real? Dangerous question. Sometimes I don’t know the answer. I doubt myself. I doubt what I think I know. I try to forget about it. After all, if it’s real, why doesn’t anyone else know about it. Every one knows that change is inevitable. From the second law of thermodynamics to Darwinian evolution, from Buddhism’s insistence that nothing is permanent and all suffering results from our delusions of permanence to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes (“To everything there is a season”), change is part of life, of existence, of the common wisdom. But I don’t believe we’re dealing with all that that means. We haven’t even begun to deal with it. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
792:As we have taken the circle as a symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as a symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its head a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because is has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
793:the United Church of Christ, has gone from more than two million members in 1957 (the year two denominations merged to form the current one) to less than one million today. And each of the other mainline denominations can tell a similar story. At the same time, more conservative traditions are seeing growth, or at least declining at a much slower rate. Evangelical Christians saw only a 0.9 percent decline in the same seven-year period mentioned above. For Orthodox Christians and Mormons that rate was only 0.1 percent. But what is most interesting is what traditions (and nontraditions) are growing. Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism all saw modest gains in the United States. ~ Emily C Heath, #NFDB
794:What emerges, though, is the idea that perceptions, memories, associations and thoughts may need a resting mind in order to make their way through our brain and form new connections. Eastern traditions have been aware of this through meditative practices for thousands of years. In Buddhism, monks train to calm their minds. Western society has instilled in us a belief that every moment of every day must be filled with activity. Indeed, it is almost a moral obligation in the US to be as busy as possible. I will try to show that for certain things the brain likes to do (for example, coming up with creative “outside of the box” solutions) you may need to be doing very little. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
795:So when we think about the future, how to build a healthy humanity, we really have to think about how we create a new generation of citizens with a different kind of mind-set. Here education is really the key. Christianity has wonderful teachings, so does Buddhism, but these teachings and approaches are not sufficient. Now secular education is universal. So now we must include in formal education of our youth some teaching of compassion and basic ethics, not on the basis of religious belief but on the basis of scientific findings and our common sense and our universal experience. ... to educate children about the value of compassion and the value of applying our mind. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
796:the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission. I hesitate to discuss the idea with my fellow Muslims, who might consider it sacrilegious, but for me there’s a connection between woman’s submission to man, as it’s described in Story of O, and the Islamic idea of man’s submission to God. You see,” he went on, “Islam accepts the world, and accepts it whole. It accepts the world as such, Nietzsche might say. For Buddhism, the world is dukkha—unsatisfactoriness, suffering. Christianity has serious reservations of its own. Isn’t Satan called ‘the prince of the world’? For Islam, though, the divine creation is perfect, it’s an absolute masterpiece. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
797:When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
~ Hakuin, The Form of the Formless (from Hakuins Song of Zazen)
,#NFDB
798:Buddhism also throws new, and I believe fuller, light on an oft-quoted passage from John’s Gospel: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). In this passage, Jesus, in looking ahead to his own death, speaks about death for all of us. Death means that as “single grains” we really die. The “singleness” of our identities is no longer to be found. The “fruit” that comes forth is very, very different from the single, little seed. Again, we’re dealing here with symbols, with pointing fingers. But they seem to point to a life after death that is no longer life lived as individuals. ~ Paul F Knitter, #NFDB
799:In Buddhism, we express our willingness to be realistic through the practice of meditation. Meditation is not a matter of trying to achieve ecstasy, spiritual bliss, or tranquillity, nor is it attempting to become a better person. It is simply the creation of a space in which we are able to expose and undo our neurotic games, our self-deceptions, our hidden fears and hopes. We provide space through the simple discipline of doing nothing. Actually, doing nothing is very difficult. At first, we must begin by approximating doing nothing, and gradually our practice will develop. So meditation is a way of churning out the neuroses of mind and using them as part of our practice. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
800:Buddhist philosophy is an interpretation of ordinary human experience, but an interpretation which is not revealed by God nor discovered in the access of inspiration nor seen in a mystical light. Basically, Buddhist metaphysics is a very simple and natural elaboration of the implications of Buddha’s own experience of enlightenment. Buddhism does not seek primarily to understand or to “believe in” the enlightenment of Buddha as the solution to all human problems, but seeks an existential and empirical participation in that enlightenment experience. It is conceivable that one might have the “enlightenment” without being aware of any discursive philosophical implications at all. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
801:[T]his impulse toward spiritual intimacy is found not only in the Abrahamic faiths, but in Buddhism, Hinduism, and native religions. Far too many people who understand God in these ways probably do not know how rich the tradition is that speaks of God with us, God in the stars and sunrise, God as the face of their neighbor, God in the act of justice, or God as the wonder of love. The language of divine nearness is the very heart of vibrant faith. Yet it has often been obscured by vertical theologies and elevator institutions, which, I suspect, are far easier to both explain and control. Drawing God within the circle of the world is a messy and sometimes dangerous business. ~ Diana Butler Bass, #NFDB
802:I've learned much from the land of many gods and many ways to worship. From Buddhism the power to begin to manage my mind, from Jainism the desire to make peace in all aspects of life, while Islam has taught me to desire goodness and to let go of that which cannot be controlled. I thank Judaism for teaching me the power of transcendence in rituals and the Sufis for affirming my ability to find answers within and reconnecting me with the power of music. Here's to the Parsis for teaching me that nature must be touched lightly, and the Sikhs for the importance of spiritual strength....And most of all, I thank Hinduism for showing me that there are millions of paths to the divine. ~ Sarah Macdonald, #NFDB
803:In Buddhism the term self has two meanings that must be differentiated in order to avoid confusion. One meaning of self is “person,” or “living being.” This is the being who loves and hates, who performs actions and accumulates good and bad karma, who experiences the fruits of those actions, who is reborn in cyclic existence, who cultivates spiritual paths, and so on. The other meaning of self occurs in the term selflessness, where it refers to a falsely imagined, overconcretized status of existence called “inherent existence.” The ignorance that adheres to such an exaggeration is indeed the source of ruination, the mother of all wrong attitudes—perhaps we could even say devilish. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
804:LIVING WITH COMPASSION One aspect of Buddhism that I found to be especially compelling was the teachings on compassion. The Buddha was known as the “compassionate one,” and according to religion scholars, his moral teachings bear a close resemblance to those of Jesus, who told his followers at the Last Supper: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In a similar vein, the Buddha said, “Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
805:To take the last issue, the difficult issue, first. The first great Dharma systems, East and West, all arose, without exception, in the so-called “axial period” (Karl Jaspers), that rather extraordinary period beginning around the 6th century B.C. (plus or minus several centuries), a period that saw the birth of Gautama Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Moses, Plato, Patanjali—a period that would soon give way, over the next few centuries, to include Ashvaghosa, Nagarjuna, Plotinus, Jesus, Philo, Valentinus…. Virtually all of the major tenets of the perennial philosophy were first laid down during this amazing era (in Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity….) ~ Ken Wilber, Integral Life, right-bucks, #NFDB
806:The Arising New Consciousness. Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight – that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect. However, out of this insight into the nature of the human condition – we may call it the bad news – arises a second insight: the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation. ~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005), #NFDB
807:As of the second decade in the twenty-first century, nearly all acts of terror around the world (as opposed to acts of terror confined to one country, as in the case of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka) have been committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. Of course the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But this frequently noted fact is meaningless. The vast majority of Germans were not members of the Gestapo, nor were the vast majority of Russians members of the Communist Party, let alone the KGB. Not only is international terror overwhelmingly Muslim, but there are virtually no terrorists committing terror in the name of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other religion. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
808:To me, the view that Buddhist teachings are somehow religious, requiring some form of blind belief, and that you would have to relinquish other spiritual practices in order to pursue them fully, is neither accurate nor helpful. It’s not accurate because the Buddha’s central thesis was humanistic; he focused clearly on human suffering and the causes of that suffering. At the same time, viewing Buddhism as a religion is not helpful. People from all walks of life become interested in the vast array of Buddhist ethical, philosophical, and psychological teachings, and to declare that they cannot fully participate because they are also exploring another spirituality is severely confining and unnecessary. ~ Ethan Nichtern, #NFDB
809:Weber’s thesis is now more than a century old and nearly all of the introductory sociology textbooks (but not mine) take it to be a settled fact that the rise of industrial capitalism took place initially in predominantly Protestant countries and that within nations having both Protestants and Catholics, the Protestants dominated the capitalist economy. Moreover, a number of sociologists have attempted to account for the modernization of various non-Western societies by ‘finding’ an equivalent of the Protestant Ethic in their local religions12 – Robert Bellah claimed that such an ethic existed in Japan’s forms of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto during the Tokugawa era.13 Nevertheless, it’s all a myth! ~ Rodney Stark, #NFDB
810:Existentialism
“every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind,” we have entered the familiar Wordsworthian Romantic territory in which nature is phenomena and spirit is noumena and the task of the human person is to draw his being from whatever inscrutable force produces, organizes, and infuses the phenomenal universe —an “ineffable essence which we call Spirit. Being as not being stable but forever in flux and transition. Even history, Which seems obviously about the past, has its true use as the servant of the present.' Emerson and Buddhism stand for spirituality purged of creed detritus.' the essence of Existentialism is that you find meaning in nature, wisdom, mind and body. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,#NFDB
811:The Musalman General, who had already made his name a terror by repeated plundering expeditions in Bihar, seized the capital by a daring stroke... Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the 'shaven headed Brahmans', that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. ~ Minhaj-i-Siraj, Tabakat-i-Nasiri, cited by Vincent Smith and quoted from B. R. Ambedkar, "The decline and fall of Buddhism," Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. III, Government of Maharashtra. 1987, p. 232-233, quoting Vincent Smith, #NFDB
812:The Musalman General, who had already made his name a terror by repeated plundering expeditions in Bihar, seized the capital by a daring stroke... Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the 'shaven headed Brahmans', that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. ~ Minhaj-i-Siraj, Tabakat-i-Nasiri, cited by Vincent Smith and quoted from B. R. Ambedkar, "The decline and fall of Buddhism," Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. III, Government of Maharashtra. 1987, p. 232-233, quoting Vincent Smith., #NFDB
813:This Vedanta philosophy has certain peculiarities. In the first place, it is perfectly impersonal; it does not owe its origin to any person or prophet: it does not build itself around one man as a centre. Yet it has nothing to say against philosophies which do build themselves around certain persons. In later days in India, other philosophies and systems arose, built around certain persons — such as Buddhism, or many of our present sects. They each have a certain leader to whom they owe allegiance, just as the Christians and Mohammedans have. But the Vedanta philosophy stands at the background of all these various sects, and there is no fight and no antagonism between the Vedanta and any other system in the world. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
814:Did I live? The human world is like a vast musical instrument on which we play our individual part while simultaneously listening to the compositions of others in an effort to contribute to the whole. We don't chose whether to engage, only how to; we either harmonize or create dissonance. Our words, our deeds, our very presence create and leave impressions in the minds of others just as a writer makes impressions with their words. Who you are is an unfolding narrative. You came from nothing and will return there eventually. Instead of taking ourselves so seriously all the time, we can discover the playful irony of a story that has never been told in quite this way before. -- Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
815:Shamatha is presented in the Vajra Essence as a foundational practice on the Dzogchen path. Dzogchen, often translated as “the Great Perfection,” is the highest of the nine vehicles (yanas) in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Classically speaking, after achieving shamatha, the yogi will use his or her newly acquired powers of concentration to practice insight into the nature of emptiness (vipashyana), followed by the Dzogchen practices of tregchö (breakthrough) and tögal (direct crossing-over). These four practices comprise the essential path to enlightenment from the Nyingma point of view. The practice of Dzogchen brings one into direct contact with reality, unmediated by the individual personality or society. ~ B Alan Wallace, #NFDB
816:In bidding for popular support and competing with other cults as a parallel religion, the sangha had been losing ground throughout India since the time of the Guptas. Populist devotional cults emanating from south India (the so-called bhakti movement) were pre-empting Buddhism’s traditional appeal as a refuge from brahman authority and caste prejudice. At the same time a reform movement started by Sankara (788–820), a brahman from Kerala, was reclaiming for a distilled essence of Vedic philosophy (vedanta) the high moral and doctrinal ground previously enjoyed by the Noble Eightfold Path. As a result Buddhism was already largely confined to the peripheral regions of Sind, Kashmir, Nepal, and of course the Pala heartland in eastern India. ~ John Keay, #NFDB
817:He came to put a harlot above a Pharisee, a penitent robber above a High Priest, and a prodigal son above his exemplary brother. To all the phonies and fakers who would say that they could not join the Church because His Church was not holy enough, He would ask, 'How holy must the Church be before you will enter into it?' If the Church were as holy as they wanted it to be, they would never be allowed into it! In every other religion under the sun, in every Eastern religion from Buddhism to Confucianism, there must always be some purification before one can commune with God. But Our Blessed Lord brought a religion where the admission of sin is the condition of coming to Him. 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
818:If man is created by an external source, then he must belong to that source and not to himself. According to Buddhism, man is responsible for everything he does. Thus Buddhists have no reason to believe that man came into existence in the human form through any external sources. They believe that man is here today because of his own action. He is neither punished nor rewarded by anyone but himself according to his own good and bad action. In the process of evolution, the human being came into existence. However, there are no Buddha-words to support the belief that the world was created by anybody. The scientific discovery of gradual development of the world-system conforms with the Buddha's Teachings. ~ K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera, What Buddhists Believe (1993), #NFDB
819:In the secular view, this material world is all there is. And so the meaning of life is to have the freedom to choose the life that makes you most happy. However, in that view of things, suffering can have no meaningful part. It is a complete interruption of your life story- it cannot be a meaningful part of the story. In this approach to life, suffering should be avoided at almost any cost, or minimized to the greatest degree possible. This means that when facing unavoidable and irreducible suffering, secular people must smuggle in resources from other views of life, having recourse to ideas of karma, or Buddhism, or Greek Stoicism, or Christianity, even though their beliefs about the nature of the universe do not line up with those resources. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
820:I’d rather have drugs and liquor and divine visions than this empty barren fatalism on a mountaintop,” he wrote toward the end of his stint. These words are especially poignant when you consider that two years earlier he’d written to Allen Ginsberg: “I have crossed the ocean of suffering and found the path at last.” For Kerouac, the path of Buddhism proved too difficult, too alien to his temperament, and he eventually retreated into the mystical French Catholicism he’d known as a boy. Its fascination with the martyrdom of the Crucifixion jibed with his sense of himself as a doomed prophet destined for self-annihilation. The essential Buddhist ethic—do no violence to any living being—was a principle that tragically eluded him in his treatment of himself. ~ Philip Connors, #NFDB
821:It is the cultures of the great world religions which have shaped the course of civilization, and these possess a kind of supercultural position. (...) The three great religions of the East - Confucianism, Brahmanism and Buddhism - and the three world religions in the West - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have been the great unifying factors in the civilization of the world. They are, as it were, the spiritual highways, which have led mankind through history from remote antiquity down to modern times. (...) In the past all these world religions with the exception of Judaism have been what I have termed supercultures - common forms of faith and moral order which embraced and united large numbers of previously existing cultures with their own languages and histories. ~ Christopher Henry Dawson, #NFDB
822:Jobs’s engagement with Eastern spirituality, and especially Zen Buddhism, was not just some passing fancy or youthful dabbling. He embraced it with his typical intensity, and it became deeply ingrained in his personality. “Steve is very much Zen,” said Kottke. “It was a deep influence. You see it in his whole approach of stark, minimalist aesthetics, intense focus.” Jobs also became deeply influenced by the emphasis that Buddhism places on intuition. “I began to realize that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis,” he later said. His intensity, however, made it difficult for him to achieve inner peace; his Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of mind, or interpersonal mellowness. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
823:[A]s glaring and staring do not clarify the eyesight, and as straining to hear does not sharpen the ears, mental 'trying' does not enhance understanding. [...] On being told that this is wrong, the mind will even make efforts not to make efforts.
This can come to an end only when it is clearly seen that all these efforts are as futile as trying to leap into the air and fly, as struggling to sleep, or as forcing an erection of the sexual member. Everyone is familiar with the contradiction of trying to recollect a forgotten name, and though it happens again and again, we never seem to trust the memory to supply the information spontaneously. Yet this is one of the most common forms of what is known in Zen Buddhism as satori - the effortless, spontaneous and sudden dawning of a realization. ~ Alan W Watts,#NFDB
824:When John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, published Honest to God in 1963, stating that he could no longer subscribe to the old personal God “out there,” there was uproar in Britain. A similar furor has greeted various remarks by David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham, even though these ideas are commonplace in academic circles. Don Cupitt, Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, has also been dubbed “the atheist priest”: he finds the traditional realistic God of theism unacceptable and proposes a form of Christian Buddhism, which puts religious experience before theology. Like Robinson, Cupitt has arrived intellectually at an insight that mystics in all three faiths have reached by a more intuitive route. Yet the idea that God does not really exist and that there is Nothing out there is far from new. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
825:We are travelers on a cosmic journey — stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. But the expressions of life are ephemeral, momentary, transient. Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, once said, This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, Rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
826:It’s possible for us to have several spiritual roots. To me, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and all religions belong to the spiritual heritage of humankind. We can profit from all of these traditions. We should not confine ourselves to just one tradition. If you love mangoes, you are free to continue to eat mangoes, but no one forbids you to eat pineapples and oranges. You don’t betray your mango when you eat a pineapple. It would be narrow-minded to enjoy only mango, when there are so many different fruits in the world. Spiritual traditions are like spiritual fruits, and you have the right to enjoy them. It’s possible to enjoy two traditions, to take the best of two traditions and live with them. That’s what I envision for the future, that we remove the barriers between different spiritual traditions. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
827:Nevertheless, critiques of karma often center on this notion of individual responsibility and suggest it produces an unsympathetic attitude toward others and leads to a dubious tendency to blame. The poor are blamed for being poor, and so on. Buddhism is said, falsely, to assign fault to individuals for all their circumstances and to deny agency. If we are poor, for instance, it might be thought, more or less automatically, that we will stay that way until our karmic debt runs out, and then, after we die, we may then be reborn in fortunate circumstances, becoming a wealthy entrepreneur perhaps. This type of thinking cannot be reconciled with Buddhism’s emphasis on the interconnectedness of all things though, which fully acknowledges the fertile complexity of influences on persons, including their environment. ~ Traleg Kyabgon, #NFDB
828:The Afghanis converted from Buddhism and some of the greatest Muslims came out of that Buddhist tradition. In fact Balkh was a center for Buddhist logic and those logicians became Muslim and introduced interestingly enough into Islamic theology some Buddhist logical formations that dont exist in Greek logic.
Greek logic does not have a "neither A nor B" type scenario whereas Nagarjunian logic which is Buddhist logic does. In traditional Islamic theology you have situations where they do have that "neither A nor B". [...] I can't say "definitely" but I really believe that it does come out of the influence that the Buddhist logicians had on Islam. I actually wrote a paper “how the Buddhists saved Islam” which was about that but somebody said [...] [do not submit it] as you will get too much flak.
(audio) ~ Hamza Yusuf,#NFDB
829:When we extinguish our ideas of more and less, is and is not, we attain the extinction of ideas and notions, which in Buddhism is called nirvana. The ultimate dimension of reality has nothing to do with concepts. It is not just absolute reality that cannot be talked about. Nothing can be conceived or talked about. Take, for instance, a glass of apple juice. You cannot talk about apple juice to someone who has never tasted it. No matter what you say, the other person will not have the true experience of apple juice. The only way is to drink it. It is like a turtle telling a fish about life on dry land. You cannot describe dry land to a fish. He could never understand how one might be able to breathe without water. Things cannot be described by concepts and words. They can only be encountered by direct experience. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
830:Institutionalized Buddhism throughout Asia not only has a doctrinal commitment to rebirth but also has an economic and political one. In contrast to most Tibetan lamas, for whom the belief in the doctrine of rebirth is essential to the continuing authority of their institutions in exile, other Asian Buddhists in the West have felt freer to adapt their teachings to suit the needs of a secular and skeptical audience whose interest in the dharma is as a way of finding meaning here and now rather than after death. One will search in vain for any discussion of rebirth in the numerous writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, for example. Although he comes from a country (Vietnam) in which the belief is deeply rooted, he now seems to be moving toward a view that equates karma with some form of genetic inheritance and transmissioṇ ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
831:Well,' I answered, 'when a Westerner discusses, say, Hindu-ism or Buddhism, he is always conscious of the fundamental differences between these ideologies and his own. He may admire this or that of their ideas, but would naturally never consider the possibility of substituting them for his own. Because he a priori admits this impossibility, he is able to contemplate such really alien cultures with equanimity and often “with sympathetic appreciation. But when it comes to Islam - which is by no means as alien to Western values as Hindu or Buddhist philosophy this Western equanimity is almost invariably disturbed by an emotional bias. Is it perhaps, I sometimes wonder, because the values of Islam are close enough to those of the West to constitute a potential challenge to many Western concepts of spiritual and social life? ~ Muhammad Asad, #NFDB
832:In what I have come to name a Goddess-oriented spirituality, the attitude toward the body is opposite to that in the mainstream Judeo-Christian tradition. Dirt, blood, sex, soul, earth, death, animal are not destined to be transcended; as direct embodiments of the immanent sacred, they by extension are sacred. The traditions of Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions may tell us mystically that God is present in everything (“I draw water, I carry wood; that is my prayer,” says the monk in one of my earliest favorite stories,) but the notion of the Goddess actually constitutes a physical presence. Not only is the Goddess of the world; the world is her manifestation. Though the transcendent god and the immanent goddess are complementary sides of the same human spiritual coin, their resonances are fundamentally different. ~ Annie Finch, #NFDB
833:For thousands of years, scarcely anyone left. Korea was the hermit kingdom, with its spiritual basis in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shamanism, until 1910, when it was annexed by Japan and colonized for thirty-five years thereafter, followed by the Korean War in 1950. Having been born and raised under these brutal colonizers, my paternal grandfather spoke fluent Japanese. Shortly before his death, in the mid-1980s, he came to stay with my family in Queens, where he befriended a young Japanese woman, a missionary from the Unification Church. When my father confronted him about his sudden interest in the cult, my grandfather answered that he didn’t care about the Moonies, he only enjoyed the chance to speak Japanese with his new friend. Like others from his generation, he suffered from a sort of Stockholm syndrome and missed the language of his oppressors. ~ Suki Kim, #NFDB
834:acknowledged that the Jewish penchant for anxiety probably played a role in their collective attraction to Buddhism. Over the ensuing decades, the Jew-Bus had been a major force in figuring out how to translate the wisdom of the East for a Western audience—mostly by making it less hierarchical and devotional. Mark mentioned that he and some of his peers taught Buddhist-themed seminars around town, where they gave talks and answered questions. “Go to some events,” he advised, “until you get bored.” I laughed. I liked this guy. This man whose picture I had reflexively rejected turned out to be somebody with whom I could see myself being friends. We were a bit of an odd pair, to be sure, but there was a certain compatibility, too. He was a professional listener; I was a professional talker. We both had the whole Boston–New York–Jewish cultural affinity thing. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
835:Karl Marx famously called religion 'the opiate of the masses'. Buddhism, particularly as it is popularly practiced, promises improvement through karma. Islam and Christianity promise eternal life to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God. ~ John Green, #NFDB
836:if my memory serves me right, here is my genealogical line: Boccaccio, Petronius, Rabelais, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoievsky (and other Russian writers of the Nineteenth Century), the ancient Greek dramatists, theElizabethan dramatists (excluding Shakespeare), Theodore Dreiser, Knut Hamsun, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Elie Faure, Oswald Spengler, Marcel Proust, Van Gogh, the Dadaists and Surrealists, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Nijinsky, Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono, Celine, everything I read on Zen Buddhism, everything I read about China, India, Tibet, Arabia, Africa, and of course the Bible, the men who wrote it and especially the men who made the King James version, for it was the language of the Bible rather than its “message” which I got first and which I will never shake off. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
837:Listening A young woman from another country moved with her family to live for one year in a town near the monastery. When, in the course of the year she discovered the monastery, she would periodically visit to have discussions with the Abbess. The Abbess introduced her to meditation, which became very meaningful for the young woman. When the family's year-long stay was drawing to an end, the young woman asked the Abbess, "In my country there is no Buddhism and no one has even heard about meditation. How can I continue to learn and deepen the practice you have started me on?" The Abbess said, "When you return home ask far and wide for who, among the wise people, is recognized as having the greatest ability to listen. Ask that person to instruct you in the art of listening. What you learn about listening from such a person will teach you how to further your meditation practice. ~ Gil Fronsdal, #NFDB
838:A general summing up, such as this, is highly characteristic of the old Oriental mode of approach to a religious and philosophical teaching, and it naturally recalls the Eight-fold Path of Buddhism, the Ten Commandments of Moses, and other such compact groupings of ideas. Jesus concerned himself exclusively with the teaching of general principles, and these general principles always had to do with mental states, for he knew that if one’s mental states are right, everything else must be right too, whereas, if these are wrong, nothing else can be right. Unlike the other great religious teachers, he gives us no detailed instructions about what we are to do or are not to do; he does not tell us either to eat or to drink, or to refrain from eating or drinking certain things; or to carry out various ritual observances at certain times and seasons. Indeed, the whole current of his teaching is anti-ritualistic anti-formalist. ~ Emmet Fox, #NFDB
839:One of history's greatest lessons is that once the state embraces a religion, the nature of that religion changes radically. It loses its nonviolent component and becomes a force for war rather than peace. The state must make war, because without war it would have to drop its power politics and renege on its mission to seek advantage over other nations, enhancing itself at the expense of others. And so a religion that is in the service of a state is a religion that not only accepts war but prays for victory. From Constantine to the Crusaders to the contemporary American Christian right, people who call themselves Christians have betrayed the teachings of Jesus while using His name in the pursuit of political power. But this is not an exclusively Christian phenomenon. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism—all the great religions have been betrayed in the hands of people seeking political power and have been defiled and disgraced in the hands of nation-states. ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
840:In many cases we find ourselves drawn to doctrines such as rebirth not out of a genuine existential insight or concern, but rather out of a need for consolatioṇ At the level of popular religion, Buddhism, as much as any other tradition, has provided such consolatioṇ Yet if we take an agnostic position, we will find ourselves facing death as a moment of our existential encounter with life. Any examined human life involves the realization that we have been thrown into this world, without any choice, only to look forward to the prospect of being expelled at death. The sheer sense of bafflement and perplexity at this situation is crucial to spiritual awareness. To opt for a comforting, even a discomforting, explanation of what brought us here or what awaits us after death severely limits that very rare sense of mystery with which religion is essentially concerned. We thereby obscure with consoling man-made concepts that which most deeply terrifies and fascinates us. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
841:The analysis of the last age, the 'dark age' or Kali Yuga, brings to light two essential features. The first is that mankind living in this age is strictly connected to the body and cannot prescind from it; therefore, the only way open is not that of pure detachment (as in early Buddhism and in the many varieties of yoga) but rather that of knowledge, awakening, and mastery over secret energies trapped in the body. The second characteristic is that of the dissolution typical of this age. During the Kali Yuga, the bull of dharma stands on only one foot (it lost the other three during the previous three ages). This means that the traditional law (dharma) is wavering, is reduced to a shadow of its former self, and seems to be almost succumbing. During Kali Yuga, however, the goddess Kali, who was asleep in the previous ages, is now fully awake. . . . let us say that this symbolism implies that during the last age elementary, infernal, and even abyssal forces are untrammeled. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
842:The book in your hands is a small window on a large subject. Set at a private liberal arts college in the foothills of the Appalachians, it is the story of a Christian minister who lost her way in the church and found a new home in the classroom, where the course she taught most often was not Introduction to the New Testament, Church History, or Christian Theology, but Religions of the World. As soon as she recovered from the shock of meeting God in so many new hats, she fell for every religion she taught. When she taught Judaism, she wanted to be a rabbi. When she taught Buddhism, she wanted to be a monk. It was only when she taught Christianity that the fire sputtered, because her religion looked so different once she saw it lined up with the others. She always promised her students that studying other faiths would not make them lose their own. Then she lost hers, or at least the one she started out with. This is the story of how that happened and what happened next. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, #NFDB
843:Just then a Buddhist monk came walking across the battlefield. The monk did not say a word, but his being was radiant with peace and happiness. Seeing that monk, Ashoka thought, “Why is it that I, having everything in the world, feel so miserable? Whereas this monk has nothing in the world apart from the robes he wears and the bowl he carries, yet he looks so serene and happy in this terrible place.” Ashoka made a momentous decision on that battlefield. He pursued the monk and asked him, “Are you happy? If so, how did this come to be?” In response, the monk who had nothing introduced the emperor who had everything to the Buddha’s teachings. As a consequence of this chance encounter, Ashoka devoted himself to the practice and study of Buddhism and changed the entire nature of his reign. He stopped waging imperialistic wars. He no longer allowed people to go hungry. He transformed himself from a tyrant into one of history’s most respected rulers, acclaimed for thousands of years after as just and benevolent. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
844:But if God and immortality be repudiated, what is left? That is the question usually thrown at the atheist's head. The orthodox believer likes to think that nothing is left. That, however, is because he has only been accustomed to think in terms of his orthodoxy. In point of fact, a great deal is left.
That is immediately obvious from the fact that many men and women have led active, or self-sacrificing, or noble, or devoted lives without any belief in God or immortality. Buddhism in its uncorrupted form has no such belief; nor did the great nineteenth-century agnostics; nor do the orthodox Russian Communists; nor did the Stoics. Of course, the unbelievers have often been guilty of selfish or wicked actions; but so have the believers. And in any case that is not the fundamental point. The point: is that without these beliefs men and women may yet possess the mainspring of full and purposive living, and just as strong a sense that existence can be worth while as is possible to the most devout believers. ~ Julian Huxley,#NFDB
845:It is in fact surprising that such a body of doctrine as the Buddhist, with its profoundly other-wordly and even anti-social emphasis, in the Buddha's own words "hard to be understood by you who are of different views, another tolerance, other tastes, other allegiance and other training", can have become even as "popular" as it is in the modern Western environment.
[...]
We can only suppose that Buddhism has been so much admired mainly for what it is not. A well known modem writer on the subject has remarked that “Buddhism in its purity ignored the existence of a God; it denied the existence of a soul; it was not so much a religion as a code of ethics”. We can understand the appeal of this on the one hand to the rationalist and on the other to the sentimentalist. Unfortunately for these, all three statements arc untrue, at least in the sense in which they are meant. It is with another Buddhism than this that we are in sympathy and are able to agree; and that is the Buddhism of the texts as they stand. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy,#NFDB
846:The reason why Catholic tradition is a tradition,” writes Thomas Merton, “is because there is only one living doctrine in Christianity: there is nothing new to be discovered.” A little bit of death from a thinker who brought the world so much life. Nothing new to be discovered? The minute any human or human institution arrogates to itself a singular knowledge of God, there comes into that knowledge a kind of strychnine pride, and it is as if the most animated and vital creature were instantaneously transformed into a corpse. Any belief that does not recognize and adapt to its own erosions rots from within. Only when doctrine itself is understood to be provisional does doctrine begin to take on a more than provisional significance. Truth inheres not in doctrine itself, but in the spirit with which it is engaged, for the spirit of God is always seeking and creating new forms. (To be fair, Merton himself certainly realized this later in his life, when he became interested in merging ideas from Christianity with Buddhism.) ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
847:Like Christianity, Buddhism explained suffering. In forms that established themselves in China, Buddhism offered the same sort of comfort to bereaved survivors and victims of violence or of disease as Christian faith did in the Roman world. Buddhism of course originated in India, where disease incidence was probably always very high as compared with civilizations based in cooler climates; Christianity, too, took shape in the urban environments of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria where the incidence of infectious disease was certainly very high as compared to conditions in cooler and less crowded places. From their inception, therefore, both faiths had to deal with sudden death by disease as one of the conspicuous facts of human life. Consequently, it is not altogether surprising that both religions taught that death was a release from pain, and a blessed avenue of entry upon a delightful afterlife where loved ones would be reunited, and earthly injustices and pains amply compensated for. ~ William Hardy McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (1976), #NFDB
848:One sunny afternoon, when he wasn’t feeling well, Jobs sat in the garden behind his house and reflected on death. He talked about his experiences in India almost four decades earlier, his study of Buddhism, and his views on reincarnation and spiritual transcendence. “I’m about fifty-fifty on believing in God,” he said. “For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye.” He admitted that, as he faced death, he might be overestimating the odds out of a desire to believe in an afterlife. “I like to think that something survives after you die,” he said. “It’s strange to think that you accumulate all this experience, and maybe a little wisdom, and it just goes away. So I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your consciousness endures.” He fell silent for a very long time. “But on the other hand, perhaps it’s like an on-off switch,” he said. “Click! And you’re gone.” Then he paused again and smiled slightly. “Maybe that’s why I never liked to put on-off switches on Apple devices. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
849:It seems that scientific research reaches deeper and deeper. But it also seems that more and more people, at least scientists, are beginning to realize that the spiritual factor is important. I say 'spiritual' without meaning any particular religion or faith, just simple warmhearted compassion, human affection, and gentleness. It is as if such warmhearted people are a bit more humble, a little bit more content. I consider spiritual values primary, and religion secondary. As I see it, the various religions strengthen these basic human qualities. As a practitioner of Buddhism, my practice of compassion and my practice of Buddhism are actually one and the same. But the practice of compassion does not require religious devotion or religious faith; it can be independent from the practice of religion. Therefore, the ultimate source of happiness for human society very much depends on the human spirit, on spiritual values. If we do not combine science and these basic human values, then scientific knowledge may sometimes create troubles, even disaster.... ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
850:I am completely against ecumenism as it is envisaged today--with its ineffective "dialogues" and gratuitous and sentimental gestures amounting to nothing. Certainly an understanding between religions is possible and even necessary, though not on the dogmatic plane, but solely on the basis of common ideas and common interests. The common ideas are a transcendent, perfect, all-powerful, merciful Absolute, then a hereafter that is either good or bad depending on our merits or demerits; all the religions, including Buddhism--Buddhist "atheism" is simply a misunderstanding--are in agreement on these points. The common interests are a defense against materialism, atheism, perversion, subversion, and modernism in all its guises. I believe Pius XII once said that the wars between Christians and Muslims were but domestic quarrels compared to the present opposition between the world of the religions and that of militant materialism-atheism; he also said it was a consolation to know that there are millions of men who prostrate themselves five times a day before God. ~ Frithjof Schuon, #NFDB
851:But sharing does not mean wanting others to abandon their own spiritual roots and embrace your faith. That would be cruel. People are stable and happy only when they are firmly rooted in their own tradition and culture. To uproot them would make them suffer. There are already enough people uprooted from their tradition today, and they suffer greatly, wandering around like hungry ghosts, looking for something to fill their spiritual needs. We must help them return to their tradition. Each tradition must establish dialogue with its own people first, especially with those young people who are lost and alienated. During the last fifteen years while sharing the Buddha’s Dharma in the West, I always urged my Western friends to go back to their own traditions and rediscover the values that are there, those values they have not been able to touch before. The practice of Buddhist meditation can help them do so, and many have succeeded. Buddhism is made of non-Buddhist elements. Buddhism has no separate self. When you are a truly happy Christian, you are also a Buddhist. And vice versa. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
852:All schools of Buddhism place great emphasis on the importance of practice. Yet most of them have come to rely on a dogmatic rather than a skeptical foundation for that practice. At the risk of making too broad a generalization, let me suggest that religious Buddhists tend to base their practice on beliefs, whereas secular Buddhists tend to base their practice on questions. If one believes—pace the second noble truth of Buddhism, that craving is the origin of suffering—then your practice will be motivated by the intention to overcome craving in order to eliminate suffering. The practice will be the logical consequence of your belief. But if your experience of birth, sickness, aging, and death raises fundamental questions about your existence, then your practice will be driven by the urgent need to come to terms with those questions, irrespective of any theory about where birth, sickness, aging, and death originate. Such a practice is concerned with finding an authentic and autonomous response to the questions that life poses rather than confirming any doctrinal article of faith. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
853:And take that which, after all, whether we confess or deny it, we care for more in this life than for any thing else—nay, which is often far more cared for by those who deny than by those who confess—take that which supports, pervades, and directs all our acts and thoughts and hopes— without which there can be neither village community nor empire, neither custom
nor law, neither right nor wrong—take that which, next to language, has most firmly fixed the specific and permanent barrier between man and beast— which alone has made life possible and bearable, and which, as it is the deepest, though often hidden spring of individual life, is also the foundation of all national life,—the history of all histories, and yet the mystery of all mysteries—take religion, and where can you study its true origin, its natural growth, and its inevitable decay better than in -India, the home of Brahmanism, the birthplace of Buddhism, and the refuge of Zoroastrianism, even now the mother of new superstitions—and why not, in the future, the regenerate child of the purest faith, if only purified from the dust of nineteen centuries? ~ F Max M ller,#NFDB
854:7 “Chitta vritti nirodha” (Yoga Sutras I:2), which may also be translated as “cessation of the modifications of the mind-stuff.” Chitta is a comprehensive term for the thinking principle, which includes the pranic life forces, manas (mind or sense consciousness), ahamkara (egoity), and buddhi (intuitive intelligence). Vritti (literally “whirlpool”) refers to the waves of thought and emotion that ceaselessly arise and subside in man’s consciousness. Nirodha means neutralization, cessation, control. 8 The six orthodox (Vedas-based) systems are Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta, Mimamsa, Nyaya, and Vaisesika. Readers of a scholarly bent will delight in the subtleties and broad scope of these ancient formulations as summarized in English in A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, by Prof. Surendranath Dasgupta (Cambridge Univ. Press). 9 Not to be confused with the “Noble Eightfold Path” of Buddhism, a guide to man’s conduct, as follows: (1) right ideals, (2) right motive, (3) right speech, (4) right action, (5) right means of livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right remembrance (of the Self), and (8) right realization (samadhi). ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
855:These words on the screen represented her latest project, an attempt at a series of commercial, discreetly feminist crime novels. She had read all of Agatha Christie at eleven years old, and later lots of Chandler and James M.Cain. There seemed no reason why she shouldn't try writing something in between, but she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same-you couldn't just soak it up then squeeze it out again. She found herself unable to think of a name for her detective, let alone a cohesive original plot, and even her pseudonym was poor: Emma T. Wilde? She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things. She had tried being in a band, writing plays and children's books, she had tried acting and getting a job in publishing. Perhaps crime fiction was just another failed project to place alongside trapeze, Buddhism and Spanish. She used the computer's word counter feature. Thirty-five words, including the title page and her rotten pseudonym. Emma groaned, released the hydraulic lever on the side of her office chair and sank a little closer to the carpet. ~ David Nicholls, #NFDB
856:As we go through life, the experiences we encounter depend largely upon our own minds. Tibetan Buddhism teaches that the mind does not passively receive images of the world but actually creates and projects them onto the sense impressions of bare reality, using its store of memories and habitual traits. For this reason, few of us ever experience reality as it is in actuality, but instead overlay it with a host of our own projections. These projections are usually negative in nature.
According to our level of inner growth, we may be able to modify these self-created visions into forms and images that are more conducive to our spiritual health and growth. Their hallucinatory nature becomes more apparent at the time of death as well as when we become more accomplished in meditation.
In only we can let go of our needs and fears, then we can come to terms with such projections. If we can let go, we will come to rest in the natural state of the mind. For this profound experience to occur, our confused minds must be soothed and all our fears pacified by the compassion and skill of our spiritual friends and guides. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz,#NFDB
857:There seems to be an inborn drive in all human beings not to live in a steady emotional state, which would suggest that such a state is not tolerable to most people. Why else would someone succumb to the attractions of romantic love more than once? Didn’t they learn their lesson the first time or the tenth time or the twentieth time? And it’s the same old lesson: everything in this life—I repeat, everything—is more trouble than it’s worth. And simply being alive is the basic trouble. This is something that is more recognized in Eastern societies than in the West. There’s a minor tradition in Greek philosophy that instructs us to seek a state of equanimity rather than one of ecstasy, but it never really caught on for obvious reasons. Buddhism advises its practitioners not to seek highs or lows but to follow a middle path to personal salvation from the painful cravings of the average sensual life, which is why it was pretty much reviled by the masses and mutated into forms more suited to human drives and desires. It seems evident that very few people can simply sit still. Children spin in circles until they collapse with dizziness. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
858:Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
859:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#NFDB
860:I refer to the Gospel account in which Christ weeps at the grave of his friend Lazarus. We need to pause and consider the meaning of these tears, for in this very moment there occurs a unique transformation within religion in relation to the long-standing religious approach to death.
Up to this moment the purpose of religion, as well as the purpose of philosophy, consisted in enabling man to come to terms with death, and if possible even to make death desirable: death as the liberation from suffering; death as freedom from this changing, busy, evil world; death as the beginning of eternity. Here, in fact, is the sum total of religious and philosophical teaching before Christ and outside of Christianity - in primitive religions, in Greek philosophy, in Buddhism, and so forth. But Christ *weeps* at the grave of his friend, and in so doing his own struggle with death, his refusal to acknowledge it and to come to terms with it. Suddenly, death ceases to be a normal and natural fact, it appears as something foreign, as unnatural, as fearsome and perverted, and it is acknowledged as an enemy: 'The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ~ Alexander Schmemann,#NFDB
861:The 'Naga' is an Aryan symbol (e.g., in Hinduism: Manasa, in Buddhism: Mucalinda) that is used for protection and etymologically means 'Savior' and yet also 'Filth, Impurity' in the pure Semitic tongue. It is the very same symbol used by the Jews in their Menorah while replacing the serpent symbolism (to protect themselves from the Semites) with fire after being influenced by and intermixed with Zoroastrians. To the Semites, the seven-headed snake was -contrary to the Aryans (i.e., Indians, Jews, Persians ..etc)- slain by Ninurta, patron god of Lagash who was for hunting and war. This reverse symbolism marks the difference in culture between Semitic and Aryan identities, and gives us an indication for the foreign Jewish culture to the Semitic lands. It is yet even more astounding to observe that Perseus slaughtered Medusa (whose hair was of serpents) using a sickle, which is a tool whose name were derived in the Semitic tongue from the same root of 'Naga'. We can even see traces of animosity towards this Aryan culture in the New Testament in the book of Revelation 12:3-4 where a seven headed serpent/dragon is trying to devour a new born baby. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
862:This process can be conveniently summarized under the acronym ELSA: Embrace, Let go, Stop, Act. One embraces dukkha, that is, whatever situation life presents, lets go of the grasping that arises in reaction to it, and stops reacting so that one can act unconditioned by reactivity. This procedure is a template that can be applied across the entire spectrum of human experience, from one’s ethical vision of what constitutes a “good life” to one’s day-to-day interactions with colleagues at work. Buddhism 2.0 has no interest in whether or not such a way of life leads to a final goal called nirvana. What matters is an ever-deepening, ever-broadening engagement with a process of practice in which each element of ELSA is a necessary and intrinsic part. “Ceasing” is no longer seen as the goal of the path but as those moments when reactivity stops (or is suspended) in order that the possibility of a path can reveal itself and be “brought into being.” Just as dukkha gives rise to craving (rather than the other way round), so the ceasing of craving gives rise to the eightfold path (rather than the other way round). Thus Buddhism 2.0 turns Buddhism 1.0 on its head. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
863:You are a Jew?' the Dalai Lama asked him. When Kevin said yes, His Holiness said, 'Judaism and Buddhism are very much alike. You should learn more about both and become a better Jew.'
I envy that. My tradition has a hard time blessing strong bonds to other traditions, especially those whose truths run counter to our own. We like people to make a conscious choice for Christ and then stay on the road they have chosen, inviting other people to join them as persuasively as they can. It is difficult to imagine a Christian minister talking to a Buddhist who has spent years studying a Christian concept and then telling him to go become a better Buddhist. In some circles, that would constitute a failure on the minister's part, a missed opportunity to save a soul. This is another way in which Buddhism and Christianity differ. Both are evangelistic - what else is a Buddhist mission doing in a suburb of Atlanta? - but the Buddhists seem to understand what Gandhi meant by the 'evangelism of the rose.' Distressed by the missionary tactics of Christians in his country, he reminded them that a rose does not have to preach. It simply spreads its fragrance, allowing people to respond as they will. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,#NFDB
864:Buddhism offers a basic challenge to this cultural worldview. The Buddha taught that this human birth is a precious gift because it gives us the opportunity to realize the love and awareness that are our true nature. As the Dalai Lama pointed out so poignantly, we all have Buddha nature. Spiritual awakening is the process of recognizing our essential goodness, our natural wisdom and compassion. In stark contrast to this trust in our inherent worth, our culture’s guiding myth is the story of Adam and Eve’s exile from the Garden of Eden. We may forget its power because it seems so worn and familiar, but this story shapes and reflects the deep psyche of the West. The message of “original sin” is unequivocal: Because of our basically flawed nature, we do not deserve to be happy, loved by others, at ease with life. We are outcasts, and if we are to reenter the garden, we must redeem our sinful selves. We must overcome our flaws by controlling our bodies, controlling our emotions, controlling our natural surroundings, controlling other people. And we must strive tirelessly—working, acquiring, consuming, achieving, e-mailing, overcommitting and rushing—in a never-ending quest to prove ourselves once and for all. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
865:Bait & Switch Buddhism is a classic bait-and-switch operation. We’re attracted by the enlightenment in the window, but as soon as we’re in the door they start steering us over to the compassion aisle. Buddhists could be honest and change their name to Compassionism, but who wants that? There’s the rub. They can’t get us in the door with compassion, and they can’t deliver on the promise of enlightenment. It’s not limited to compassion, of course. Their shelves are stocked with all sorts of goodies and enticements, practically anything anyone could ever want, with just the one rather notable exception. If they had just stopped when they had Anicca, impermanence, and Anatta, no-self, then they would have had a true and effective teaching they could be proud of, except there would be no they because Buddhism would have died with the Buddha. They’d have a good product, but no customers. This untruth-in-advertising is the kind of game you have to play if you want to stay successful in a business where the customer is always wrong. You can either go out of business honestly, or thrive by giving the people what they want. What they say they want and what they really want, though, are two very different things. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
866:Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
867:The course of training of the yogī was divided into eight stages, reminding us of the eightfold path of Buddhism, but far less practical: (1) Self-control (yama), the practice of the five moral rules: non-violence, truthfulness, not stealing, chastity, and the avoidance of greed. (2) Observance (niyama), the regular and complete observance of the above five rules. (3) Posture (āsana), sitting in certain postures, difficult without practice, which are thought to be essential to meditation. The most famous of these is padmāsna, the “Lotus Posture”, in which the feet are placed on the opposite thighs, and in which gods and sages are commonly depicted. (4) Control of the Breath (prānāyāma), whereby the breath is held and controlled and the respiration forced into unusual rhythms, which are believed to be of great physical and spiritual value. (5) Restraint (pratyāhāra), whereby the sense organs are trained to take no note of their perceptions. (6) Steadying the Mind (dhāranā), by concentration on a single object, such as the tip of the nose, the navel, an icon, or a sacred symbol. (7) Meditation (dhyāna), when the object of concentration fills the whole mind. (8) Deep Meditation (samādhi), when the whole personality is temporarily dissolved. ~ Arthur Llewellyn Basham, #NFDB
868:But again we must be
careful to bear in mind that for Ibn Arabi fana is never absolute annihilation ( the failure to do so has been a source of
countless misunderstandings in regard both to Sufismm and to
Buddhism ). Fana and baqa are always relative terms. Accord-
ing to Ibn Arabi, one must always state toward what there is
annihilation, and wherein there is survival, persistence. In
the state of fana, of concentration, of "Koran," in which the
essential unity of Creator and Creature is experienced, the
Divine Attributes become predicables of the mystic ( discrimi-
nation is suspended ). Then we may say not only that the mystic
"creates" in the same sense as God Himself creates ( that is to
say, causes something which already existed in the world of
Mystery to be manifested in the sensible world ), but in addi-
tion that God creates this effect through him. It is one and the
same divine operation, but through the intermediary of the
gnostic, when he is "withdrawn" (fana) from his human at-
tributes and when he persists, survives ( baqa' ) in his divine
attributes. The mystic is then the medium, the intermediary,
through whom the divine creative power is expressed and
manifested. ~ Henry Corbin,#NFDB
869:The story of the Fall tells us in mythical language that "original sin" is not simply a stigma arbitrarily making good pleasures seem guilty, but a basic inauthenticity, a kind of predisposition to bad faith in our understanding of ourselves and of the world. It implies a determined willfulness in trying to make things be other than they are in order that we may be able to make them subserve, at any moment, to our individual desire for pleasure or for power. But since things do not obey our arbitrary impulsions, and since we cannot make the world correspond to and confirm the image of it dictated by our needs and illusions, our willfulness is inseparable from error and from suffering. Hence, Buddhism says, deluded life itself is in a state of Dukkha, and every movement of desire tends to bear ultimate fruit in pain rather than lasting joy, in hate rather than love, in destruction rather than creation. (Let us note in passing that when technological skill seems in fact to give man almost absolute power in manipulating the world, this fact is no way reverses his original condition of brokenness and error but only makes it all the more obvious. We who live in the age of the H-bomb and the extermination camp have reason to reflect on this, though such reflection is a bit unpopular.) ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
870:In the Discourse, a few verses further along: “Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:29-30). It’s almost like a mythological description of depression. Have you ever had a day when it all doesn’t make any sense? Emptiness has to precede fullness. Usually our old securities have to be wrested from us before we will move into the new. We seldom do it deliberately. Spirituality is always about letting go—not just in Christianity, but in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. All the great world religions at their higher levels teach the mystery and the art of letting go. You let go, and hopefully collapse back into your true self, into who you really are. The work of religion is to guide us on the path of the fall and onto the path of the return. What Jesus is painting here with his words is a cosmic liturgy, a cosmic image of everything falling apart. Out of that emptiness comes the possibility of a new kind of fullness. “Take ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
871:Even when Meister Eckhart writes as a Christian about suffering—the topic where we should least expect common ground with Buddhism—he finds this common ground with sleepwalking sureness, as long as it is the mystic in him who speaks. Take this, for instance: “Our Lord says in the Psalms of a good man that he is with him in his suffering.” With him! This is not the God above the clouds, enthroned in immovable detachment. This is a lover who suffers when we suffer. I ponder this mystery, and a word of the Dalai Lama comes to my mind; it shall stand at the end of this foreword, since his name stands at its beginning. “Your Holiness,” someone asked, “your Buddhist tradition has so wonderful a way of overcoming suffering. What do you have to say to the Christian tradition that seems to be preoccupied with pain?” With his compassionate smile the Dalai Lama gave an answer that went straight to the common ground of the two traditions. “Suffering,” he said, “is not overcome by leaving pain behind. Suffering is overcome by bearing pain for the sake of others.” (Christ and Bodhisattva embraced at that moment. Across seven hundred years of history I could hear Meister Eckhart laughing with joy. Or was it God’s eternal laughter?) BROTHER DAVID STEINDL-RAST, O.S.B. Big Sur, California Summer Solstice 1995 ~ Meister Eckhart, #NFDB
872:Nihilism, a normal condition.
It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself.
It reaches its maximum of relative strength, as a powerful destructive force, in the form of active Nihilism.
Its opposite would be weary Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its most renowned form being Buddhism: as passive Nihilism, a sign of weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, exhausted, so that the goals and values which have prevailed hitherto are no longer suited to it and are no longer believed in—so that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) [Pg 22]decomposes, and the different values contend with one another: Disintegration, then everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies, steps into the foreground under the cover of various disguises, either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
873:Even though they were not fervent about their faith, Jobs’s parents wanted him to have a religious upbringing, so they took him to the Lutheran church most Sundays. That came to an end when he was thirteen. In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church’s pastor. “If I raise my finger, will God know which one I’m going to raise even before I do it?” The pastor answered, “Yes, God knows everything.” Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, “Well, does God know about this and what’s going to happen to those children?” “Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.” Jobs announced that he didn’t want to have anything to do with worshipping such a God, and he never went back to church. He did, however, spend years studying and trying to practice the tenets of Zen Buddhism. Reflecting years later on his spiritual feelings, he said that religion was at its best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma. “The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it,” he told me. “I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
874:SUMMARY OF THE BUDDHIST DEFINITION OF MIND In summary, mind in Buddhism refers to experience, namely the mere arising and cognitive engaging with the contents of experience. The continuity of experience is known as the mind-stream, or “mental continuum.” It is always individual, with each moment of experience following from previous moments of experience according to the karmic laws of behavioral cause and effect. There is order in the universe, and “my” experience is never “your” experience. If I experience eating a meal, I and not you will next experience the physical sensation of being full. Buddhism does not posit a universal or collective mind. The never-ceasing, moment-to-moment event of arising and engaging that constitutes experience, then, refers to the arising of a sight and merely seeing it, the arising of a sound and merely hearing it, the arising of a thought and merely thinking it, the arising of an emotion and merely feeling it, and so on. This is the conventional nature of mind — it gives rise to things and apprehends them. Its deepest nature is its voidness, namely that it is devoid of existing in any impossible manner, from being a physical entity itself up to involving a solid, concrete subject, content or experience. Such a mind, then, with these two levels of true nature — or “two levels of truth” — is the topic of mahamudra meditation. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
875:there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those who do not experience it, since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea of God; the individual feels the vanity of human desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous order which are revealed in nature and in the world of thought. He feels the individual destiny as an imprisonment and seeks to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance. Indications of this cosmic religious sense can be found even on earlier levels of development—for example, in the Psalms of David and in the Prophets. The cosmic element is much stronger in Buddhism, as, in particular, Schopenhauer's magnificent essays have shown us. The religious geniuses of all times have been distinguished by this cosmic religious sense, which recognizes neither dogmas nor God made in man's image. Consequently there cannot be a church whose chief doctrines are based on the cosmic religious experience. It comes about, therefore, that we find precisely among the heretics of all ages men who were inspired by this highest religious experience; often they appeared to their contemporaries as atheists, but sometimes also as saints. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
876:When we come to Christ, God not only forgives us, he also adopts us. Through a dramatic series of events, we go from condemned orphans with no hope to adopted children with no fear. Here is how it happens. You come before the judgment seat of God full of rebellion and mistakes. Because of his justice he cannot dismiss your sin, but because of his love he cannot dismiss you. So, in an act which stunned the heavens, he punished himself on the cross for your sins. God’s justice and love are equally honored. And you, God’s creation, are forgiven. But the story doesn’t end with God’s forgiveness. . . . It would be enough if God just cleansed your name, but he does more. He gives you his name. The Great House of God DAY 8 To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. ROMANS 4:5 NKJV God wants you to believe in him. “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). The phrase “believes in him” doesn’t digest well in our day of self-sufficient spiritual food. “Believe in yourself ” is the common menu selection of our day. Try harder. Work longer. Dig deeper. Self-reliance is our goal. And tolerance is our virtue. “In him” smacks of exclusion. Don’t all paths lead to heaven? Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and humanism? Christ walks upriver on this topic. Salvation is found, not in self or in them, but in him. Paul assures salvation to the most unlikely folks: ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
877:Integral Psychology presents a very complex picture of the individual. As he did previously in The Atman Project, at the back of the book Wilber has included numerous charts showing how his model relates to the work of a hundred or so different authors from East and West.57
57. Wilber compares the models of Huston Smith, Plotinus, Buddhism, Stan Grof, John Battista, kundalini yoga, the Great Chain of Being, James Mark Baldwin, Aurobindo, the Kabbalah, Vedanta, William Tiller, Leadbeater, Adi Da, Piaget, Commons and Richards, Kurt Fisher, Alexander, Pascual-Leone, Herb Koplowitz, Patricia Arlin, Gisela Labouvie-Vief, Jan Sinnot, Michael Basseches, Jane Loevinger, John Broughton, Sullivan, Grant and Grant, Jenny Wade, Michael Washburn, Erik Erikson, Neumann, Scheler, Karl Jaspers, Rudolf Steiner, Don Beck, Suzanne Cook-Greuter, Clare Graves, Robert Kegan, Kohlberg, Torbert, Blanchard-Fields, Kitchener and King, Deirdre Kramer, William Perry, Turner and Powell, Cheryl Armon, Peck, Howe, Rawls, Piaget, Selman, Gilligan, Hazrat Inayat Khan, mahamudra meditation, Fowler, Underhill, Helminiak, Funk, Daniel Brown, Muhyddin Ibn 'Arabi, St. Palamas, classical yoga, highest tantra yoga, St Teresa, Chirban, St Dionysius, Patanjali, St Gregory of Nyssa, transcendental meditation, Fortune, Maslow, Chinen, Benack, Gardner, Melvin Miller, Habermas, Jean Houston, G. Heard, Lenski, Jean Gebser, A. Taylor, Jay Early, Robert Bellah, and Duane Elgin. ~ Frank Visser, Ken Wilber Thought as Passion,#NFDB
878:After this examination there are still gaps of doubt and apparent contradiction. And it is natural that it be so, because the Eternal Return is an experience. There lies its importance: in the fact of being.
The Eternal Return is not the reincarnation as it has been spread in our days. Original Buddhism, on the other hand, could be pointing to something similar. Buddha was a shastriya, that is, a prince of the warrior caste, not a brahman, or priest, and his Doctrine was also for heroes and warriors. Then, it has been transformed by the monks. Buddha, like Nietzsche, talks about a reincarnation without mentioning the soul. What is it that reincarnates, then? As in Nietzsche it could be that 'atom-seed', or 'all those conditions that determine its existence and that they come back to give themselves', in the turn of the Energy, or of the Light that finds the old image. The Buddhist would want to be liberated, to leave the Circle; that's why it kills desire, that makes return.
The Will to Power, as we have seen, returns to its 'archive', wishes to possess again its 'non-existence'. The difference: Nietzsche wants to return eternally, incorporates the Will and considers Nirvana a dream of decadents, of warriors who have become priests, monks. However, we do not know what Buddha really thought, because he did not talk about these things, nor did he explain Nirvana. Maybe, he just wanted to get out of this Circle to enter to fight in another wider Circle, that is more immense. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
879:December 9:
The Mexican literary mafia has nothing on the Mexican bookseller mafia. Bookstores visited: the Librería del Sótano, in a basement on Avenida Juárez where the clerks (numerous and neatly uniformed) kept me under strict surveillance and from which I managed to leave with volumes by Roque Dalton, Lezama Lima, and Enrique Lihn. The Librería Mexicana, staffed by three samurais, on Calle Aranda, near the Plaza de San Juan, where I stole a book by Othón, a book by Amado Nervo (wonderful!), and a chapbook by Efraín Huerta. The Librería Pacífico, at Bolívar and 16 de Septiembre, where I stole an anthology of American poets translated by Alberto Girri and a book by Ernesto Cardenal. And in the evening, after reading, writing, and a little fucking: the Viejo Horacio, on Correo Mayor, staffed by twins, from which I left with Gamboa's Santa, a novel to give to Rosario; an anthology of poems by Kenneth Fearing, translated and with a prologue by someone called Doctor Julio Antonio Vila, in which Doctor Vila talks in a vague, question mark-filled way about a trip that Fearing took to Mexico in the 1950s, "an ominous and fruitful trip," writes Doctor Vila; and a book on Buddhism written by the Televisa adventurer Alberto Montes. Instead of the book by Montes I would have preferred the autobiography of the ex-featherweight world champion Adalberto Redondo, but one of the inconveniences of stealing books - especially for a novice like myself - is that sometimes you have to take what you can get. ~ Roberto Bola o,#NFDB
880:Most of us didn’t feel too enthusiastic about making a collapsar jump, either. We’d been assured that we wouldn’t even feel it happen, just free fall all the way. I wasn’t convinced. As a physics student, I’d had the usual courses in general relativity and theories of gravitation. We only had a little direct data at that time — Stargate was discovered when I was in grade school — but the mathematical model seemed clear enough. The collapsar Stargate was a perfect sphere about three kilometers in radius. It was suspended forever in a state of gravitational collapse that should have meant its surface was dropping toward its center at nearly the speed of light. Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there … the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. At any rate, there would be a theoretical point in space-time when one end of our ship was just above the surface of the collapsar, and the other end was a kilometer away (in our frame of reference). In any sane universe, this would set up tidal stresses and tear the ship apart, and we would be just another million kilograms of degenerate matter on the theoretical surface, rushing headlong to nowhere for the rest of eternity or dropping to the center in the next trillionth of a second. You pays your money and you takes your frame of reference. But they were right. We blasted away from Stargate 1, made a few course corrections and then just dropped, for about an hour. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
881:Location 29-30
[One who buys butcher's meat or poultry violates this gâthâ. For by paying the butcher for meat be has killed, the buyer shares his sin by "sanctioning" his act.]
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Location 31-31
A "creature" is something created (by God), but Buddhists regard all living organisms as evolved by due process of natural law.
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Location 65-65
Hatred is never quenched by hatred; hatred ceases by [showing] love; this is an old rule.
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Location 66-66
Let a man overcome anger by love, evil by good, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.
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Location 131-132
The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.
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Location 132-134
Surely an evil deed does not turn on a sudden like milk [curdling]; it is like fire smouldering in the ashes, which burns the fool. . . . An evil deed [Page 10] kills not instantly, as does a sword, but it follows the evil doer [even] into the next world.
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Location 186-187
"He abused me, he reviled me, he beat me, he subdued me"; he who keeps this in his mind, and who feels resentment, will find no peace.
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Location 208-208
Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.
~~Golden Rules of Buddhism by Henry Steel Olcott ~ Henry Steel Olcott,#NFDB
882:The first time I heard the phrase 'holy envy' I knew it was an improvement over the plain old envy I felt while studying other faiths. When the Jewish Sabbath came up in class, I wanted it. Why did Christians ever let it go? When we watched a film of the God-intoxicated Sufis spinning, I wanted that too. The best my tradition could offer me during worship was kneeling to pray and standing to sing. My spiritual covetousness extended to the inclusiveness of Hinduism, the nonviolence of Buddhism, the prayer life of Islam, and the sacred debate of Judaism. Of course this list displays all the symptoms of my condition. It is simplistic, idealistic, overgeneralized, and full of my own projections. It tells you as much about what I find wanting in my own tradition as it does about what I find desirable in another. This gets to the heart of the problem: with plain old envy, my own tradition always comes up wanting. The grass is always greener in the tradition next door.
I know my Christian pasture so well. I know where the briars are along with the piles of manure. I also know where the springs of living water are, but when I look over the fence at the neighbor's spread, it looks so flawless, so unblemished and perfectly tended, at least from where I stand. From a distance it is easy to forget that every pasture has its turds and stickers along with its deep wells and beds of clover. So when I look longingly at my neighbor's faith, am I really looking for greener pastures, or am I simply trying to make peace with the realities of my own? ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,#NFDB
883:I'm profoundly attracted to classical Zen literature, I have the gall to lecture on it and the literature of Mahayana Buddhism one night a week at college, but my life itself couldn't very conceivably be less Zenful than it is, and what little I've been able to apprehend - I pick that verb with care - of the Zen experience has been a by-result of following my own rather natural path of extreme Zenlessness. Largely because Seymour himself literally begged me to do so, and I never knew him to be wrong in these matters.) Happily for me, and probably for everybody, I don't believe it's really necessary to bring Zen into this. The method of marble-shooting that Seymour, by sheer intuition, was recommending to me can be related, I'd say, legitimately and un-Easternly, to the fine art of snapping a cigarette end into a small wastebasket from across a room. An art, I believe, of which most male smokers are true masters only when either they don't care a hoot whether or not the butt goes into the basket or the room has been cleared of eyewitnesses, including, quite so to speak, the cigarette snapper himself. I'm going to try hard not to chew on that illustration, delectable as I find it, but I do think it proper to append - to revert momentarily to curb marbles - that after Seymour himself shot a marble, he would be all smiles when he heard a responsive click of glass striking glass, but it never appeared to be clear to him whose winning click it was. And it's also a fact that someone almost invariably had to pick up the marble he'd won and hand it to him. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
884:I think New Mexico was the greatest experience from the outside world that I have ever had. It certainly changed me for ever. Curious as it may sound, it was New Mexico that liberated me from the present era of civilization, the great era of material and mechanical development. Months spent in holy Kandy, in Ceylon, the holy of holies of southern Buddhism, had not touched the great psyche of materialism and idealism which dominated me. And years, even in the exquisite beauty of Sicily, right among the old Greek paganism that still lives there, had not shattered the essential Christianity on which my character was established. Australia was a sort of dream or trance, like being under a spell, the self remaining unchanged, so long as the trance did not last too long. Tahiti, in a mere glimpse, repelled me: and so did California, after a stay of a few weeks. There seemed a strange brutality in the spirit of the western coast, and I felt: O, let me get away!
But the moment I saw the brilliant, proud morning shine up over the deserts of Santa Fe, something stood still in my soul, and I started to attend. There was a certain magnificence in the high-up day, a certain eagle-like royalty, so different from the equally pure, equally pristine and lovely morning of Australia, which is so soft, so utterly pure in its softness, and betrayed by green parrot flying. But in the lovely morning of Australia one went into a dream. In the magnificent fierce morning of New Mexico one sprang awake, a new part of the soul woke up suddenly, and the old world gave way to a new. ~ D H Lawrence,#NFDB
885:Location 29-30
[One who buys butcher's meat or poultry violates this gâthâ. For by paying the butcher for meat be has killed, the buyer shares his sin by "sanctioning" his act.]
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Location 31-31
A "creature" is something created (by God), but Buddhists regard all living organisms as evolved by due process of natural law.
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Location 65-65
Hatred is never quenched by hatred; hatred ceases by [showing] love; this is an old rule.
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Location 66-66
Let a man overcome anger by love, evil by good, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.
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Location 131-132
The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.
==========
Location 132-134
Surely an evil deed does not turn on a sudden like milk [curdling]; it is like fire smouldering in the ashes, which burns the fool. . . . An evil deed [Page 10] kills not instantly, as does a sword, but it follows the evil doer [even] into the next world.
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Location 186-187
"He abused me, he reviled me, he beat me, he subdued me"; he who keeps this in his mind, and who feels resentment, will find no peace.
==========
Location 208-208
Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.
~ Henry Steel Olcott~ Henry Steel OlcottGolden Rules of Buddhism by Henry Steel Olcott ~ Henry Steel Olcott,#NFDB
886:The earlier Aryan invaders of the Gangetic Plain presided over feasts of cattle, horses, goats, buffalo, and sheep. By later Vedic and early Hindu times, during the first millenium B.C., the feasts came to be managed by the priestly caste of Brahmans, who erected rituals of sacrifice around the killing of animals and distributed the meat in the name of the Aryan chiefs and war lords. After 600 B.C., when populations grew denser and domestic animals became proportionately scarcer, the eating of meat was progressively restricted until it became a monopoly of the Brahmans and their sponsors. Ordinary people struggled to conserve enough livestock to meet their own desperate requirements for milk, dung used as fuel, and transport. During this period of crisis, reformist religions arose, most prominently Buddhism and Jainism, that attempted to abolish castes and hereditary priesthoods and to outlaw the killing of animals. The masses embraced the new sects, and in the end their powerful support reclassified the cow into a sacred animal. So it appears that some of the most baffling of religious practices in history might have an ancestry passing in a straight line back to the ancient carnivorous habits of humankind. Cultural anthropologists like to stress that the evolution of religion proceeds down multiple, branching pathways. But these pathways are not infinite in number; they may not even be very numerous. It is even possible that with a more secure knowledge of human nature and ecology, the pathways can be enumerated and the directions of religious evolution in individual cultures explained with a high level of confidence. ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
887:subtle ::: In Vedanta (Mandukya Upanishad and later teachings - e.g. Advaita - based on it) "subtle" is used to designate the "dream state" of consciousness, and in Advaita this also includes the Prana, Manas, and Vijnana koshas (= the vehicles of vital force, mind, and higher consciousness) re-interpreted from of the Taittiriya Upanishad.
In Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism it refers to an intermediate grade between the "gross" and "very subtle" "minds" and "winds" (vayu = prana).
The Sukshma Sthula or Subtle Body is one of the seven principles of man in Blavatskian Theosophy; it is also called the "astral body" (this has little similarity with the astral body of Out of Body experience, because it cannot move far from the gross physical vehicle, it seems to correspond to what Robert Monroe calls the "second body", and identified with the Double or Ka
In Sant Mat / Radhasoami cosmology - the Anda (Cosmic Egg) / Sahans-dal Kanwal (Crown Chakra) is sometimes called the Subtle; hence Subtle = Astral
The term Subtle Physical is used somewhat generically by Sri Aurobindo (in Letters on Yoga) to refer to a wider reality behind the external physical.
Ken Wilber uses the term Subtle to indicate the yogic and mystic holonic-evolutionary level intermediate between "Psychic" (in his series = Nature Mysticism) and "Causal" (=Realisation"); it includes many psychic and occult experiences and can be considered as pertaining to the Subtle as defined here (although it also includes other realities and experiences that might also be interpreted as "Inner Gross" - e.g. Kundalini as a classic example). ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, planes/subtle,#NFDB
888:In Asia, we say that there are three sources of energy--sexual, breath, and spirit...You need to know how to reestablish the balance, or you may act irresponsibly. According to Taoism and buddhism, there are practices to help reestablish that balance, such as meditation or martial arts. You can learn the ways to channel your sexual energy into deep realizations in the domains of art and meditation. The second source of energy is khi, breath energy. Life can be described as a process of burning. In order to burn, every cell in our body needs nutrition and oxygen...Some people cultivate their khi by refraining from smoking and talking, or by practicing conscious breathing after talking a lot...The third soruce of energy is than, spirit energy. When you don't sleep at night, you lose some of this kind of energy. Your nervous system becomes exhausted and you cannot sutdy or practice meditation well, or make good decisions. You don't have a clear mind because of lack of sleep or from worrying too much. Worry and anxiety drain this source of energy. So don't worry. Don't stay up too late. Keep your nervous system healthy. Prevent anxiety. These kinds of practices cultivate the third source of energy. You need this source of energy to practice meditation well. A spritual breakthrough requires the power of your spirit energy, which comes about through concentration and knowing how to preserve this source of energy. When you have strong spirit energy, you only have to focus it on an object, and you will have a breakthrough. If you don't have than, the light of your concentration will not shine brightly, because the light emitted is very weak," (35-36). ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
889:In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called 'the resurrection body ' and 'the glorified body.' The prophet Isaiah said, 'The dead shall live, their bodies shall rise' (Isa. 26:19). St. Paul called it 'the celestial body' or 'spiritual body ' (soma pneumatikon) (I Corinthians 15:40). In Sufism it is called 'the most sacred body ' (wujud al-aqdas) and 'supracelestial body ' (jism asli haqiqi). In Taoism, it is called 'the diamond body,' and those who have attained it are called 'the immortals' and 'the cloudwalkers.' In Tibetan Buddhism it is called 'the light body.' In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called 'the vajra body,' 'the adamantine body,' and 'the divine body.' In Kriya yoga it is called 'the body of bliss.' In Vedanta it is called 'the superconductive body.' In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is called 'the radiant body.' In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it 'the Glory of the Whole Universe' and 'the golden body.' The alchemist Paracelsus called it 'the astral body.' In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called 'the immortal body ' (soma athanaton). In some mystery schools, it is called 'the solar body.' In Rosicrucianism, it is called 'the diamond body of the temple of God.' In ancient Egypt it was called 'the luminous body or being' (akh). In Old Persia it was called 'the indwelling divine potential' (fravashi or fravarti). In the Mithraic liturgy it was called 'the perfect body ' (soma teilion). In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called 'the divine body,' composed of supramental substance. In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called 'the ultrahuman'.
~ ?, http://herebedragons.weebly.com/homo-lumen.html,#NFDB
890:Yet this unlearning is precisely what needs to be done if we are to make the shift from a belief-based Buddhism (version 1.0) to a praxis-based Buddhism (version 2.0). We have to train ourselves to the point where on hearing or reading a text from the canon our initial response is no longer “Is that true?” but “Does this work?” At the same time, we also need to undertake a critical analysis of the texts themselves in order to uncover, as best we can at this distance in time, the core terms and narrative strategies that inform a particular passage or discourse. If we subtract the words “noble truth” from the phrase “four noble truths,” we are simply left with “four.” And the most economic formulation of the Four, to be found throughout Buddhist traditions, is this: Suffering (dukkha) Arising (samudaya) Ceasing (nirodha) Path (magga) Once deprived of the epithet “noble truth” and no longer phrased in propositional language, we arrive at the four keystones on which both Buddhism 1.0 and Buddhism 2.0 are erected. Just as there are four nucleobases (cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine) that make up DNA, the nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions for all living organisms, one might say that suffering, arising, ceasing, and path are the four nucleobases that make up the dharma, the body of instructive ideas, values, and practices that give rise to all forms of Buddhism. ( 9 ) Craving is repetitive, it wallows in attachment and greed, obsessively indulging in this and that: the craving of sensory desire, craving for being, craving for non-being. —THE FIRST DISCOURSE Following Carol S. Anderson (1999), I translate samudaya as “arising” rather than the more familiar “origiṇ” I also ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
891:Of course, for all their counterculture pretensions, corporations like Google, Amazon, and Apple are still corporations. They seek profits, they try to maximize their monopoly power, they externalize costs, and, of course, they exploit labor. The American technology sector has externalized the cost of industrial pollution to Chinas cities, where people live in a pall of smog but no one - certainly not Apple - has to bear the cost of cleanup. Apple/Foxconn’s dreadful labor practices in China are common knowledge, and those Amazon packages with the sunny smile issue forth from warehouses that are more like Blake’s “dark satanic mills” than they are the new employment model for the internet age.
The technology industry has manufactured images of the rebel hacker and hipster nerd, of products that empower individual and social change, of new ways of doing business, and now of mindful capitalism. Whatever truth might attach to any of these, the fact is that these are impressions carefully managed to get us to keep buying products and, just as importantly, to remain confident in the goodness and usefulness of the high-tech industry. We are being told these stories in the hope that we will believe them, buy into them, and feel both ip and spiritually renewed by the association. Unhappily, in this view of things, mindfulness can be extracted from a context of Buddhist meanings, values, and purposes. Meditation and mindfulness are not part of a whole way of life but only a spiritual technology, a mental app that is the same regardless of how it is used an what it is used for. Corporate mindfulness takes something that has the capacity to be oppositional - Buddhism - and redefines it. Eventually, we forget that it ever had its own meaning. ~ Curtis White,#NFDB
892:Plenty of tolerant people out there say, “Okay, you’re into this cross thing, and Jesus being crucified, and that’s your truth. Good for you—we are an inclusive people. You’re welcome to your foolish view of religion, your foolish perspective, your simple, silly story of a crucified Jew, and that’s fine if that’s your truth. But that’s not our truth.” Well, here’s the rub: It is your truth. It’s everybody’s truth. It’s the only truth. The power of the crucified Christ is the only power of God by which He saves. Salvation comes only through a belief in that gospel, the gospel of Jesus. No gospel, no salvation. The absolute exclusivity of it has always been a shameful, embarrassing, inconvenient message to worldly-wise sinners, but the truth is nonnegotiable. Other religions are not truth and lead only to eternal damnation. Islam is a damning system. Buddhism is a damning system. Hinduism is a damning system. Simply not believing the gospel is itself enough to damn a person. People in false religions do not worship the true God by another name, as some suggest. They unwittingly worship Satan’s demons. Here is what the Bible says: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). Even so, a book called The Christ of Hinduism actually exists, and it argues that Hinduism’s symbols and doctrines contain the Christian message. But there is no Christ of Hinduism, nor has the true God any part in Hinduism. Christ is the only way to the one true God, and biblical Christianity is the only way to the one true Christ. Misguided people who recognize any other god and engage in any other religion are not worshipping and sacrificing to God, but to demons. I didn’t make this up. This isn’t my theology. This is Christianity 101. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
893:You need to realize that when you practice from the state of the beginner all the way to the stage of immutable wisdom, then you must go back to the status of the beginner again. Let me explain in terms of your martial arts. As a beginner you know nothing of stance or sword position, so you have nothing in yourself to dwell on mentally. If someone strikes at you, you just fight, without thinking of anything. Then when you learn various things like stance, how to wield a sword, where to place the attention, and so on, your mind lingers on various points, so you find yourself all tangled up when you try to strike. But if you practice day after day and month after month, eventually stance and swordplay don’t hang on your mind anymore, and you are like a beginner who knows nothing. This is the sense in which it is said that the beginning and the end are the same, just as one and ten become neighbors when you have counted from one to ten. It is also like the highest and lowest notes of a musical scale becoming neighbors below and above a cycle of the scale. Just as the highest and lowest notes resemble each other, since buddhas are the highest human development they appear to be like people who know nothing of Buddha or Buddhism, having none of the external trappings that people envision of buddhas. Therefore the afflictions of unaware lingering in the beginning and the immutable wisdom in the end become one. The cogitating side of your brain will vanish, and you will come to rest in a state where there is no concern. Completely ignorant people don’t show their wits, it seems, because they haven’t got any. Highly developed intelligence doesn’t show because it has already gone into hiding. It is because of pseudo-erudition that intelligence goes to one’s head, a ludicrous sight. ~ Shambhala Publications, #NFDB
894:According to Buddhism, the root of suffering is neither the feeling of pain nor of sadness nor even of meaninglessness. Rather, the real root of suffering is this never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings, which causes us to be in a constant state of tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction. Due to this pursuit, the mind is never satisfied. Even when experiencing pleasure, it is not content, because it fears this feeling might soon disappear, and craves that this feeling should stay and intensify. People are liberated from suffering not when they experience this or that fleeting pleasure, but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and stop craving them. This is the aim of Buddhist meditation practices. In meditation, you are supposed to closely observe your mind and body, witness the ceaseless arising and passing of all your feelings, and realise how pointless it is to pursue them. When the pursuit stops, the mind becomes very relaxed, clear and satisfied. All kinds of feelings go on arising and passing – joy, anger, boredom, lust – but once you stop craving particular feelings, you can just accept them for what they are. You live in the present moment instead of fantasising about what might have been. The resulting serenity is so profound that those who spend their lives in the frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can hardly imagine it. It is like a man standing for decades on the seashore, embracing certain ‘good’ waves and trying to prevent them from disintegrating, while simultaneously pushing back ‘bad’ waves to prevent them from getting near him. Day in, day out, the man stands on the beach, driving himself crazy with this fruitless exercise. Eventually, he sits down on the sand and just allows the waves to come and go as they please. How peaceful! ~ Yuval Noah Harari, #NFDB
895:Also by Alan Watts The Spirit of Zen (1936) The Legacy of Asia and Western Man (1937) The Meaning of Happiness (1940) The Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius (1944) (translation) Behold the Spirit (1948) Easter: Its Story and Meaning (1950) The Supreme Identity (1950) The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951) Myth and Ritual in Christianity (1953) The Way of Zen (1957) Nature, Man, and Woman (1958) “This Is It” and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience (1960) Psychotherapy East and West (1961) The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness (1962) The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity (1963) Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship (1964) The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966) Nonsense (1967) Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality (1970) Erotic Spirituality: The Vision of Konarak (1971) The Art of Contemplation (1972) In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1915–1965 (1972) Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal (1973) Posthumous Publications Tao: The Watercourse Way (unfinished at the time of his death in 1973, published in 1975) The Essence of Alan Watts (1974) Essential Alan Watts (1976) Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life (1978) Om: Creative Meditations (1979) Play to Live (1982) Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self (1983) Out of the Trap (1985) Diamond Web (1986) The Early Writings of Alan Watts (1987) The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings (1990) Talking Zen (1994) Become Who You Are (1995) Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion (1995) The Philosophies of Asia (1995) The Tao of Philosophy (1995) Myth and Religion (1996) Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking (1997) Zen and the Beat Way (1997) Culture of Counterculture (1998) Eastern Wisdom: What Is Zen?, What Is Tao?, An Introduction to Meditation (2000) Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960–1969 (2006) ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
896:To summarize, the human mind is capable of making an essential distinction between the material or visible and the Immaterial or Invisible; or between the formal—matter, soul, spirits—and the angelic Non-formal, rooted in the Divine; or between the peripheral—extending from the physical cosmos to the angelic cosmos—and the Central, the manifested Spirit of God with its archangelic functions and metacosmic root; or between existence and Being, the created and the Creator, together with its Essence, which is Beyond-Being; or finally between Relativity—metacosmic as well as cosmic—and the Absolute as such. But there are also two non-distinctions, one from below and the other from above. For the first, everything is God, and we are therefore parts of God; this amounts to pantheism unless one compensates for this perspective by emphasizing its transcendent complement, as does shamanism but not philosophical pantheism. According to the second non-distinction, nothing is except Ātmā; this is the Vedantic thesis, which never excludes distinctions wherever these can and should apply; it is also the Sufic thesis, according to which the world is Allah as al-Zāhir, the Outward. The same teaching is likewise found in Mahāyāna Buddhism: Samsāra is Nirvāna, and Nirvāna is Samsāra; Existence is an aspect of Beyond-Existence, the supreme "Void”, and it is for this reason that every consciousness contains in its substance a point of access to the “Void” or the Infinite, which is pure Beatitude. The interpenetration of the two Realities is depicted by the movement of the sand in the hourglass; but Reality is one just as the grains of sand are identical, and it is only differences of situation, if one may express it this way, that give rise to a disparity whose terms are incomparable, a disparity that is unilateral since one of the terms, even though it appears as “inward” in relation to the outwardness of the related term, is simply What is. ~ Frithjof Schuon, #NFDB
897:The psychiatrist R. D. Laing, at one of the first conferences on Buddhism and psychotherapy that I attended, declared that we are all afraid of three things: other people, our own minds, and death. His statement was all the more powerful because it came shortly before his own death. If bare attention is to be of any real use, it must be applied in exactly these spheres. Physical illness usually provides us with such an opportunity. When my father-in-law, an observant Jew with little overt interest in Eastern philosophy, was facing radical surgery not so long ago, he sought my counsel because he knew of some work I was engaged in about stress reduction. He wanted to know how he could manage his thoughts while going into the surgery, and what he could do while lying awake at night? I taught him bare attention to a simple Jewish prayer; he was gradually able to expand the mental state that developed around the prayer to encompass his thoughts, anxieties, and fears. Even in the intensive care unit after surgery, when he could not tell day from night, move, swallow, or talk, he was able to use bare attention to rest in the moment, dissolving his fears in the meditative space of his own mind. Several years later, after attending Yom Kippur services, he showed me a particular passage in the prayer book that reminded him of what he had learned through his ordeal. A more Buddhist verse he could not have uncovered: A man’s origin is from dust and his destiny is back to dust, at risk of his life he earns his bread; he is likened to a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a blowing wind, flying dust, and a fleeting dream. The fearlessness of bare attention is necessary in the psychological venue as well, where the practice of psychotherapy has revealed just how ingenious and intransigent the ego’s defenses can be. Even when they are in therapy, people are afraid of discovering things about themselves that they do not wish to know. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
898:Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently where will is lacking; for will, as the affect of command, is the decisive sign of sovereignty and strength. In other words, the less one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets someone who commands, who commands severely—a god, prince, class, physician, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience. From this one might perhaps gather that the two world religions, Buddhism and Christianity, may have owed their origin and above all their sudden spread to a tremendous collapse and disease of the will. And that is what actually happened: both religions encountered a situation in which the will had become diseased, giving rise to a demand that had become utterly desperate for some "thou shalt." Both religions taught fanaticism in ages in which the will had become exhausted, and thus they offered innumerable people some support, a new possibility of willing, some delight in willing. For fanaticism is the only "strength of the will" that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain, being a sort of hypnotism of the whole system of the senses and the intellect for the benefit of an excessive nourishment (hypertrophy) of a single point of view and feeling that henceforth becomes dominant— which the Christian calls his faith. Once a human being reaches the fundamental conviction that he must be commanded, he becomes "a believer."
Conversely, one could conceive of such a pleasure and power of self-determination, such a freedom of the will [ This conception of "freedom of the will" ( alias, autonomy) does not involve any belief in what Nietzsche called "the superstition of free will" in section 345 ( alias, the exemption of human actions from an otherwise universal determinism).] that the spirit would take leave of all faith and every wish for certainty, being practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities and dancing even near abysses. Such a spirit would be the free spirit par excellence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
899:WHEN THE GREAT YOGIN Padmasambhava, called by Tibetans Guru Rinpoche, "the precious teacher," embarks on his spiritual journey, he travels from place to place requesting teachings from yogins and yoginls. Guided by visions and dreams, his journey takes him to desolate forests populated with ferocious wild animals, to poison lakes with fortified islands, and to cremation grounds. Wherever he goes he performs miracles, receives empowerments, and ripens his own abilities to benefit others.
When he hears of the supreme queen of all dakinls, the greatly accomplished yogini called Secret Wisdom, he travels to the Sandal Grove cremation ground to the gates of her abode, the Palace of Skulls. He attempts to send a request to the queen with her maidservant Kumari. But the girl ignores him and continues to carry huge brass jugs of water suspended from a heavy yoke across her shoulders. When he presses his request, Kumari continues her labors, remaining silent. The great yogin becomes impatient and, through his yogic powers, magically nails the heavy jugs to the floor. No matter how hard Kumari struggles, she cannot lift them.
Removing the yoke and ropes from her shoulders, she steps before Padmasambhava, exclaiming, "You have developed great yogic powers. What of my powers, great one?" And so saying, she draws a sparkling crystal knife from the girdle at her waist and slices open her heart center, revealing the vivid and vast interior space of her body. Inside she displays to Guru Rinpoche the mandala of deities from the inner tantras: forty-two peaceful deities manifested in her upper torso and head and fifty-eight wrathful deities resting in her lower torso. Abashed that he did not realize with whom he was dealing, Guru Rinpoche bows before her and humbly renews his request for teachings. In response, she offers him her respect as well, adding, "I am only a maidservant," and ushers him in to meet the queen Secret Wisdom. ~ Judith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism, Introduction: Encountering the Dakini,#NFDB
900:This immense, still impending total human sacrifice cannot be appraised in the rational or scientific terms that those who have created this system favor: it is, I stress again, an essentially religious phenomenon. As such it offers a close parallel with the original doctrines of Buddhism, even down to the fact that it shares Prince Gautama's atheism. What, indeed, is the elimination of man himself from the process he in fact has discovered and perfected, with its promised end of all striving and seeking, but the Buddha's final escape from the Wheel of Life? Once complete and universal, total automation means total renunciation of life and eventually total extinction: that very retreat into Nirvana that Prince Gautama pictured as man's only way to free himself from sorrow and pain and misfortune. When the life-impulse is depressed, this doctrine, we know, exerts an immense attraction upon masses of disappointed and disheartened souls: for a few centuries Buddhism became dominant in India and swept over China. For similar reasons it is reviving again today.
But note: those who originally accepted this view of man's ultimate destiny, and sought to meet death halfway, did not go to the trouble of creating an elaborate technology to accomplish this end: in that direction they went no farther, significantly enough, than the invention of a water-driven prayer wheel. Instead they practiced concentrated meditation and inner detachment, acts as free from technological intervention as the air they breathed. And they earned an unexpected reward for this mode of withdrawal, a reward that the worshippers of the machine will never know. Instead of extinguishing forever their capacity to feel pleasure or pain, they intensified it, creating poems, philosophies, paintings, sculptures, monuments, ceremonies that restored their hope, their organic animation, their creative zeal: revealing once more in the erotic exuberance an impassioned and exalted sense of man's own potential destiny. Our latter-day technocratic Buddhism can make no such promises ~ Lewis Mumford,#NFDB
901:You may have read or heard about the so-called positive thinkers of the West. They say
just the opposite -- they don't know what they are saying. They say, "When you breathe
out, throw out all your misery and negativity; and when you breathe in, breathe in joy,
positivity, happiness, cheerfulness."
Atisha's method is just the opposite: when you breathe in, breathe in all the misery and
suffering of all the beings of the world -- past, present and future. And when you breathe
out, breathe out all the joy that you have, all the blissfulness that you have, all the
benediction that you have. Breathe out, pour yourself into existence. This is the method
of compassion: drink in all the suffering and pour out all the blessings.
And you will be surprised if you do it. The moment you take all the sufferings of the
world inside you, they are no longer sufferings. The heart immediately transforms the
energy. The heart is a transforming force: drink in misery, and it is transformed into
blissfulness... then pour it out.
Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you would like to
do it again and again. Try it. It is one of the most practical methods -- simple, and it
brings immediate results. Do it today, and see.
That is one of the approaches of Buddha and all his disciples. Atisha is one of his
disciples, in the same tradition, in the same line. Buddha says again and again to his
disciples, "IHI PASSIKO: come and see!" They are very scientific people. Buddhism is
the most scientific religion on the earth; hence, Buddhism is gaining more and more
ground in the world every day. As the world becomes more intelligent, Buddha will
become more and more important. It is bound to be so. As more and more people come to
know about science, Buddha will have great appeal, because he will convince the
scientific mind -- because he says, "Whatsoever I am saying can be practiced." And I
don't say to you, "Believe it," I say, "Experiment with it, experience it, and only then if
you feel it yourself, trust it. Otherwise there is no need to believe. ~ Osho,#NFDB
902:All beings are primarily Buddhas. It is like water and ice: There is no ice apart from water; There are no Buddhas apart from beings. Not knowing how close the truth is to them, Beings seek for it afar -- what a pity! They are like those who, being in the midst of water, Cry out for water, feeling thirst. They are like the son of the rich man, Who, wandering away from his father, Goes astray amongst the poor. It is all due to their ignorance That beings transmigrate in the darkness Of the Six Paths of existence. When they wander from darkness to darkness, How can they ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Dhyana practice as taught in the Mahayana, No amount of praise can exhaust its merits. The Six Paramitas--beginning with the Giving, Observing the Precepts, And other good deeds, variously enumerated, Such as Nembutsu, Repentance, Moral Training, and so on -- All are finally reducible to the practice of Dhyana. The merit of Dhyana practice, even during a single sitting, Erases the countless sins accumulated in the past. Where then are the Evil Paths to misguide us? The Pure Land cannot be far away. Those who, for once, listening to the Dharma In all humility, Praise it and faithfully follow it, Will be endowed with innumerable merits. But how much more so when you turn your eyes within yourselves And have a glimpse into your self-nature! You find that the self-nature is no-nature - The truth permitting no idle sophistry. For you, then, open the gate leading to the oneness of cause and effect; Before you, then, lies a straight road of non-duality and non-trinity. When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
~ Hakuin, Hakuins Song of Zazen
,#NFDB
903:Slavery became a huge, international business, and of course would remain one down to the present moment. It’s estimated that at the midpoint of the fifth century every third or fourth person in Athens was a slave. When Carthage fell to Rome in 146 B.C.E., fifty thousand of the survivors were sold as slaves. In 132 B.C.E. some seventy thousand Roman slaves rebelled; when the revolt was put down, twenty thousand were crucified, but this was far from the end of Rome’s problems with its slaves. But new signs of distress appeared in this period that were far more relevant to our purpose here tonight. For the first time in history, people were beginning to suspect that something fundamentally wrong was going on here. For the first time in history, people were beginning to feel empty, were beginning to feel that their lives were not amounting to enough, were beginning to wonder if this is all there is to life, were beginning to hanker after something vaguely more. For the first time in history, people began listening to religious teachers who promised them salvation. It's impossible to overstate the novelty of this idea of salvation. Religion had been around in our culture for thousands of years, of course, but it had never been about salvation as we understand it or as the people of this period began to understand it. Earlier gods had been talismanic gods of kitchen and crop, mining and mist, house-painting and herding, stroked at need like lucky charms, and earlier religions had been state religions, part of the apparatus of sovereignty and governance (as is apparent from their temples, built for royal ceremonies, not for popular public devotions). Judaism, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Buddhism all came into being during this period and had no existence before it. Quite suddenly, after six thousand years of totalitarian agriculture and civilization building, the people of our culture—East and West, twins of a single birth—were beginning to wonder if their lives made sense, were beginning to perceive a void in themselves that economic success and civil esteem could not fill, were beginning to imagine that something was profoundly, even innately, wrong with them. ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
904:Experiments published in 1983 clearly showed that subjects could choose not to perform a movement that was on the cusp of occurring (that is, that their brain was preparing to make) and that was preceded by a large readiness potential. In this view, although the physical sensation of an urge to move is initiated unconsciously, will can still control the outcome by vetoing the action. Later researchers, in fact, reported readiness potentials that precede a planned foot movement not by mere milliseconds but by almost two full seconds, leaving free won’t an even larger window of opportunity. “Conscious will could thus affect the outcome of the volitional process even though the latter was initiated by unconscious cerebral processes,” Libet says. “Conscious will might block or veto the process, so that no act occurs.” Everyone, Libet continues, has had the experience of “vetoing a spontaneous urge to perform some act. This often occurs when the urge to act involves some socially unacceptable consequence, like an urge to shout some obscenity at the professor.” Volunteers report something quite consistent with this view of the will as wielding veto power. Sometimes, they told Libet, a conscious urge to move seemed to bubble up from somewhere, but they suppressed it. Although the possibility of moving gets under way some 350 milliseconds before the subject experiences the will to move, that sense of will nevertheless kicks in 150 to 200 milliseconds before the muscle moves—and with it the power to call a halt to the proceedings. Libet’s findings suggest that free will operates not to initiate a voluntary act but to allow or suppress it. “We may view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as ‘bubbling up’ in the brain,” he explains. “The conscious will then selects which of these initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and abort…. This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious and ethical strictures. These commonly advocate that you ‘control yourself.’ Most of the Ten Commandments are ‘do not’ orders.” And all five of the basic moral precepts of Buddhism are restraints: refraining from killing, from lying, from stealing, from sexual misconduct, from intoxicants. In the Buddha’s famous dictum, “Restraint everywhere is excellent. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
905:The majority of Buddhists and Buddhist teachers in the West are green postmodern pluralists, and thus Buddhism is largely interpreted in terms of the green altitude and the pluralistic value set, whereas the greatest Buddhist texts are all 2nd tier, teal (Holistic) or higher (for example, Lankavatara Sutra, Kalachakra Tantra, Longchenpa's Kindly Bent to Ease Us, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka treatises, and so forth).
This makes teal (Holistic), or Integral 2nd tier in general, the lowest deeply adequate level with which to interpret Buddhism, ultimate Reality, and Suchness itself. Thus, interpreting Suchness in pluralistic terms (or lower) would have to be viewed ultimately as a dysfunction, certainly a case of arrested development, and one requiring urgent attention in any Fourth Turning.
These are some of the problems with interpreting states (in this case, Suchness states) with a too-low structure (in short, a severe misinterpretation and thus misunderstanding of the Ultimate). As for interpreting them with dysfunctional structures (of any altitude), the problem more or less speaks for itself. Whether the structure in itself is high enough or not, any malformation of the structure will be included in the interpretation of any state (or any other experience), and hence will deform the interpretation itself, usually in the same basic ways as the structure itself is deformed. Thus, for example, if there is a major Fulcrum-3 (red altitude) repression of various bodily states (sex, aggression, power, feelings), those repressions will be interpreted as part of the higher state itself, and so the state will thus be viewed as devoid of (whereas this is actually a repression of) any sex, aggression, power, feelings, or whatever it is that is dis-owned and pushed into the repressed submergent unconscious. If there is an orange altitude problem with self-esteem (Fulcrum-5), that problem will be magnified by the state experience, and the more intense the state experience, the greater the magnification. Too little self-esteem, and even profound spiritual experiences can be interpreted as "I'm not worthy, so this state-which seems to love me unconditionally-must be confused." If too much self-esteem, higher experiences are misinterpreted, not as a transcendence of the self, but as a reward for being the amazing self I am-"the wonder of being me." ~ Ken Wilber, The Religion Of Tomorrow,#NFDB
906:I have given a brief explanation of the various meanings of dharma according to the Abhidharma, but what I want to say next is much more important. In Mahayana Buddhism, and especially in Dōgen Zenji's teachings, the meaning of dharma has more depth. According to the concepts we accept, we think that everything exists as objects outside the self. For example, we usually think that all phenomenal things that appear before our eyes, or this twentieth-century human society, have existence outside our individual self. We believe that when we are born we appear on this world's stage, and when we die we leave that stage. All of us think this way. But the truth is that this common-sense concept is questionable. Mahayana Buddhism began from a reexamination of this common-sense attitude. I'll give you one of my favorite examples. I am looking at this cup now. You are also looking at the same cup. We think that we are looking at the very same cup, but this is not true. I am looking at it from my angle, with my eyesight, in the lighting that occurs where I am sitting, and with my own feelings or emotions. Furthermore, the angle, my feeling, and everything else is changing from moment to moment. This cup I am looking at now is not the same one that I will be looking at in the next moment. Each of you is also looking at it from your own angle, with your eyesight, with your own feelings, and these also are constantly changing. This is the way actual life experience is. However, if we use our common-sense way of thinking, we think we are looking at the very same cup. This is an abstraction and not the reality of life. Abstract concepts and living reality are entirely different. The Buddhist view is completely different from our ordinary thinking. Western philosophy's way of thinking is also based on abstractions. It assumes that all of us are seeing the same cup. Greek philosophers went further and further in their abstractions until they came up with the concept of the idea that cannot be seen or felt. One example is Venus, the goddess of beauty. In the real world, no woman is as well-proportioned as Venus, or embodies perfect beauty as she does. Yet the Greeks idealized beauty and created a statue of Venus, just as they had thought of the "idea" of a circle that is abstracted from something round. In other words, the Greek way of thinking is abstraction to the highest degree. Buddhism is different. Buddhism puts emphasis on life, the actual life experience of the reality of the self. ~ D gen, #NFDB
907:If I talk about the Loud family now, will all of you know who I mean? I mean a family of prosperous human beings in California, whose last name is Loud. I suggest to you that the Louds were healthy Earthlings who had everything but a religion in which they could believe. There was nothing to tell them what they should want, what they should shun, what they should do next. Socrates told us that the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. The Louds demonstrated that the morally unstructured life is a clunker, too.
Christianity could not nourish the Louds. Neither could Buddhism or the profit motive of participation in the arts, or any other nostrum on America’s spiritual smorgasbord. So the Louds were dying before our eyes.
Now is as good a time as any to mention White House Prayer Breakfasts, I guess. I think we all know now that religion of that sort is about as nourishing to the human spirit as potassium cyanide. We have been experimenting with it. Every guinea pig died. We are up to our necks in dead guinea pigs.
The lethal ingredient in those breakfasts wasn’t prayer. And it wasn’t the eggs or the orange juice or the hominy grits. It was a virulent new strain of hypocrisy which did everyone in.
If I have offended anyone here by talking of the need of a new religion, I apologize. I am willing to drop the word religion, and substitute three other words for it. Three other words are heartfelt moral code. We sure need such a thing, and it should be simple enough and reasonable enough for anyone to understand. The trouble with so many of the moral codes we have inherited is that they are subject to so many interpretations. We require specialists, historians and archaeologists and linguists and so on, to tell us where this or that idea may have come from, to suggest what this or that statement might actually mean. This is good news for hypocrites, who enjoy feeling pious, no matter what they do.
It may be that moral simplicity is not possible in modern times. It may be that simplicity and clarity can come only from a new Messiah, who may never come. We can talk about portents, if you like. I like a good portent as much as anyone. What might be the meaning of the Comet Kahoutek, which was to make us look upward, to impress us with the paltriness of our troubles, to cleanse our souls with cosmic awe. Kahoutek was a fizzle, and what might this fizzle mean?
I take it to mean that we can expect no spectacular miracles from the heavens, that the problems of ordinary human beings will have to be solved by ordinary human beings. The message of Kahoutek is: “Help is not on the way. Repeat: help is not on the way. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,#NFDB
908: Ekajaṭī or Ekajaṭā, (Sanskrit: "One Plait Woman"; Wylie: ral gcig ma: one who has one knot of hair),[1] also known as Māhacīnatārā,[2] is one of the 21 Taras. Ekajati is, along with Palden Lhamo deity, one of the most powerful and fierce goddesses of Vajrayana Buddhist mythology.[1][3] According to Tibetan legends, her right eye was pierced by the tantric master Padmasambhava so that she could much more effectively help him subjugate Tibetan demons.
Ekajati is also known as "Blue Tara", Vajra Tara or "Ugra Tara".[1][3] She is generally considered one of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school along with Rāhula and Vajrasādhu (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa).
Often Ekajati appears as liberator in the mandala of the Green Tara. Along with that, her ascribed powers are removing the fear of enemies, spreading joy, and removing personal hindrances on the path to enlightenment.
Ekajati is the protector of secret mantras and "as the mother of the mothers of all the Buddhas" represents the ultimate unity. As such, her own mantra is also secret. She is the most important protector of the Vajrayana teachings, especially the Inner Tantras and termas. As the protector of mantra, she supports the practitioner in deciphering symbolic dakini codes and properly determines appropriate times and circumstances for revealing tantric teachings. Because she completely realizes the texts and mantras under her care, she reminds the practitioner of their preciousness and secrecy.[4] Düsum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama meditated upon her in early childhood.
According to Namkhai Norbu, Ekajati is the principal guardian of the Dzogchen teachings and is "a personification of the essentially non-dual nature of primordial energy."[5]
Dzogchen is the most closely guarded teaching in Tibetan Buddhism, of which Ekajati is a main guardian as mentioned above. It is said that Sri Singha (Sanskrit: Śrī Siṃha) himself entrusted the "Heart Essence" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings to her care. To the great master Longchenpa, who initiated the dissemination of certain Dzogchen teachings, Ekajati offered uncharacteristically personal guidance. In his thirty-second year, Ekajati appeared to Longchenpa, supervising every ritual detail of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis empowerment, insisting on the use of a peacock feather and removing unnecessary basin. When Longchenpa performed the ritual, she nodded her head in approval but corrected his pronunciation. When he recited the mantra, Ekajati admonished him, saying, "Imitate me," and sang it in a strange, harmonious melody in the dakini's language. Later she appeared at the gathering and joyously danced, proclaiming the approval of Padmasambhava and the dakinis.[6] ~ Wikipedia,#NFDB
909:Let me tell you a joke, Rora said.
Mujo wakes up one day, after a long night of drinking, and asks himself what the meaning of life is. He goes to work, but realizes that is not what life is or should be. He decides to read some philosophy and for years studies everything from the old Greeks onward, but can't find the meaning of life. Maybe it's the family, he thinks, so he spends time with his wife, Fata, and the kids, but finds no meaning in that and so he leaves them. He thinks, Maybe helping others is the meaning of life, so he goes to medical school, graduates with flying colors, goes to Africa to cure malaria and transplants hearts, but cannot discover the meaning of life. He thinks, maybe it's the wealth, so he becomes a businessman, starts making money hand over fist, millions of dollars, buys everything there is to buy, but that is not what life is about. Then he turns to poverty and humility and such, so he gives everything away and begs on the streets, but still he cannot see what life is. He thinks maybe it is literature: he writes novel upon novel, but the more he writes the more obscure the meaning of life becomes. He turns to God, lives the life of a dervish, reads and contemplates the Holy Book of Islam - still, nothing. He studies Christianity, then Judaism, then Buddhism, then everything else - no meaning of life there. Finally, he hears about a guru living high up in the mountains somewhere in the East. The guru, they say, knows what the meaning of life is. So Mujo goes east, travels for years, walks roads, climbs the mountain, finds the stairs that lead up to the guru. He ascends the stairs, tens of thousands of them, nearly dies getting up there. At the top, there are millions of pilgrims, he has to wait for months to get to the guru. Eventually it is his turn, he goes to a place under a big tree, and there sits the naked guru, his legs crossed, his eyes closed, meditating, perfectly peaceful - he surely knows the meaning of life, Mujo says: I have dedicated my life to discovering the meaning of life and I have failed, so I have come to ask you humbly, O Master, to divulge the secret to me. The guru opens his eyes, looks at Mujo, and calmly says, My friend, life is a river. Mujo stares at him for a long time, cannot believe what he heard. What's life again? Mujo asks. Life is a river, the guru says. Mujo nods and says, You turd of turds, you goddamn stupid piece of shit, you motherfucking cocksucking asshole. I have wasted my life and come all this way for you to tell me that life is a fucking river. A river? Are you kidding me? That is the stupidest, emptiest fucking thing I have ever heard. Is that what you spent your life figuring out? And the guru says, What? It is not a river? Are you saying it is not a river? ~ Aleksandar Hemon,#NFDB
910:Your job then, should you choose to accept it, is to keep searching for the metaphors, rituals and teachers that will help you move ever closer to divinity. The Yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship—just so long as those prayers are sincere.
I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. I think you are free to search for any metaphor whatsoever which will take you across the worldly divide whenever you need to be transported or comforted. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's the history of mankind's search for holiness. If humanity never evolved in its exploration of the divine, a lot of us would still be worshipping golden Egyptian statues of cats. And this evolution of religious thinking does involve a fair bit of cherry-picking. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.
The Hopi Indians thought that the world's religions each contained one spiritual thread, and that these threads are always seeking each other, wanting to join. When all the threads are finally woven together they will form a rope that will pull us out of this dark cycle of history and into the next realm. More contemporarily, the Dalai Lama has repeated the same idea, assuring his Western students repeatedly that they needn't become Tibetan Buddhists in order to be his pupils. He welcomes them to take whatever ideas they like out of Tibetan Buddhism and integrate these ideas into their own religious practices. Even in the most unlikely and conservative of places, you can find sometimes this glimmering idea that God might be bigger than our limited religious doctrines have taught us. In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite."
But doesn't that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed ... infinite? That even the most holy amongst us would only be able to see scattered pieces of the eternal picture at any given time? And that maybe if we could collect those pieces and compare them, a story about God would begin to emerge that resembles and includes everyone? And isn't our individual longing for transcendence all just part of this larger human search for divinity? Don't we each have the right to not stop seeking until we get as close to the source of wonder as possible? Even if it means coming to India and kissing trees in the moonlight for a while?
That's me in the corner, in other words. That's me in the spotlight. Choosing my religion. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,#NFDB
911:William Butler Yeats’s “Second Coming” seems perfectly to render our present predicament: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” This is an excellent description of the current split between anaemic liberals and impassioned fundamentalists. “The best” are no longer able to fully engage, while “the worst” engage in racist, religious, sexist fanaticism.
However, are the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the U.S.: the absence of resentment and envy, the deep indifference towards the non-believers’ way of life. If today’s so-called fundamentalists really believe they have their way to truth, why should they feel threatened by non-believers, why should they envy them? When a Buddhist encounters a Western hedonist, he hardly condemns him. He just benevolently notes that the hedonist’s search for happiness is self-defeating. In contrast to true fundamentalists, the terrorist pseudo-fundamentalists are deeply bothered, intrigued, fascinated by the sinful life of the non-believers. One can feel that, in fighting the sinful Other, they are fighting their own temptation. These so-called Christian or Muslim fundamentalists are a disgrace to true fundamentalists.
It is here that Yeats’s diagnosis falls short of the present predicament: the passionate intensity of a mob bears witness to a lack of true conviction. Deep in themselves, terrorist fundamentalists also lack true conviction-their violent outbursts are proof of it. How fragile the belief of a Muslim must be, if he feels threatened by a stupid caricature in a low-circulation Danish newspaper. The fundamentalist Islamic terror is not grounded in the terrorists’ conviction of their superiority and in their desire to safeguard their cultural-religious identity from the onslaught of global consumerist civilization. The problem with fundamentalists is not that we consider them inferior to us, but rather that they themselves secretly consider themselves inferior. This is why our condescending, politically correct assurances that we feel no superiority towards them only make them more furious and feeds their resentment. The problem is not cultural difference (their effort to preserve their identity), but the opposite fact that the fundamentalists are already like us, that secretly they have already internalized our standards and measure themselves by them. (This clearly goes for the Dalai Lama, who justifies Tibetan Buddhism in Western terms of the pursuit of happiness and avoidance of pain.) Paradoxically, what the fundamentalists really lack is precisely a dose of that true “racist” conviction of one’s own superiority. ~ Slavoj i ek,#NFDB
912:Green will typically look at history, for example, and whenever it finds a society in which there is a widespread lack of green values, it assumes that these green values would normally and naturally be present were it not for the fact that they have been maliciously oppressed by the dominator hierarchies found in that society. All individuals would possess worldcentric green values of pluralism, radical egalitarianism, and total equality, except for the oppressive controlling powers that crushed those values wherever they appeared. […] The existence of strong and widespread oppressive forces cannot be doubted. The problem comes in the claim to know what their source and cause is. For green postmodernism, the cause of the lack of worldcentric green values in any culture is due to an aggressive and intensively active repressive and oppressive force (usually the male sex; or a particular race— white in most parts of the world, coupled with a rampant colonialism— and/or due to a particular creed—usually religious fundamentalism of one sort or another; or various prejudices—against gays, against women, against whatever minority that is oppressed). In short, lack of green values (egalitarian, group freedom, gender equality, human care and sensitivity) is due to a presence of oppression. […] The major problem with that view taken by itself is that it completely overlooks the central role of growth, development, and evolution. We’ve already seen that human moral identity grows and develops from egocentric (red) to ethnocentric (amber) to worldcentric (orange then green) to integral (turquoise; and this is true individually as well as collectively/historically). Thus, the main reason that slavery was present, say, 2000 years ago, is not because there was an oppressive force preventing worldcentric freedom, but that a worldcentric notion of freedom had not even emerged yet anywhere on the planet. It wasn’t present and then oppressed, as green imagines, it simply had not yet emerged in the first place—there was nothing to oppress. This is why, as only one example, all of the world’s great religions, who otherwise teach love and compassion and treating all beings kindly, nonetheless—precisely because they were created during the great ethnocentric Mythic Age of traditional civilization —had no extensive and widespread conception of the fundamental worldcentric freedom of human beings—or the belief that all humans, regardless of race, sex, color, or creed, were born equal—and thus not one of them strenuously objected to the fact that a very large portion of their own population were slaves. Athens and Greek society, vaunted home of democracy, had 1 out of 3 of their people who were slaves—and no major complaint on a culture-wide scale. Nor was there a widespread culturally effective complaint from Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism et al. It wasn’t until the emergence of the worldcentric Age of Reason that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” actually came into existence—emerged evolutionarily—and thus started to be believed by the average and typical member of that culture. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
913:Dharma Master Cheng Yen is a Buddhist nun living in Hualien County, a mountainous region on the east coast of Taiwan. Because the mountains formed barriers to travel, the area has a high proportion of indigenous people, and in the 1960s many people in the area, especially indigenous people, were living in poverty. Although Buddhism is sometimes regarded as promoting a retreat from the world to focus on the inner life, Cheng Yen took the opposite path. In 1966, when Cheng Yen was twenty-nine, she saw an indigenous woman with labor complications whose family had carried her for eight hours from their mountain village to Hualien City. On arriving they were told they would have to pay for the medical treatment she needed. Unable to afford the cost of treatment they had no alternative but to carry her back again. In response, Cheng Yen organized a group of thirty housewives, each of whom put aside a few cents each day to establish a charity fund for needy families. It was called Tzu Chi, which means “Compassionate Relief.” Gradually word spread, and more people joined.6 Cheng Yen began to raise funds for a hospital in Hualien City. The hospital opened in 1986. Since then, Tzu Chi has established six more hospitals. To train some of the local people to work in the hospital, Tzu Chi founded medical and nursing schools. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of its medical schools is the attitude shown to corpses that are used for medical purposes, such as teaching anatomy or simulation surgery, or for research. Obtaining corpses for this purpose is normally a problem in Chinese cultures because of a Confucian tradition that the body of a deceased person should be cremated with the body intact. Cheng Yen asked her volunteers to help by willing their bodies to the medical school after their death. In contrast to most medical schools, here the bodies are treated with the utmost respect for the person whose body it was. The students visit the family of the deceased and learn about his or her life. They refer to the deceased as “silent mentors,” place photographs of the living person on the walls of the medical school, and have a shrine to each donor. After the course has concluded and the body has served its purpose, all parts are replaced and the body is sewn up. The medical school then arranges a cremation ceremony in which students and the family take part. Tzu Chi is now a huge organization, with seven million members in Taiwan alone—almost 30 percent of the population—and another three million members associated with chapters in 51 countries. This gives it a vast capacity to help. After a major earthquake hit Taiwan in 1999, Tzu Chi rebuilt 51 schools. Since then it has done the same after disasters in other countries, rebuilding 182 schools in 16 countries. Tzu Chi promotes sustainability in everything it does. It has become a major recycler, using its volunteers to gather plastic bottles and other recyclables that are turned into carpets and clothing. In order to promote sustainable living as well as compassion for sentient beings all meals served in Tzu Chi hospitals, schools, universities, and other institutions are vegetarian. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
914:The contemporary Christian Church, precisely, has understood them in this' 'wrong way, to the letter, 'like the Jews,' exoterically, not esoterically. Nevertheless to say 'like the Jews' is an error. One would have to say 'as the Jews want.' Because they also possess an exotericism, for their masses, represented by the Torah and Talmud, and an esotericism, in the Cabala (which means: 'Received Tradition'), in the Zohar ('brightness'), the Merkaba or Chariot being the most secret part of the Cabala which only initiated rabbis know and use as the powerful tool of their magic. We have already said that the Cabala reached them from elsewhere, like everything else, in the Middle Ages, even though they tell us otherwise, using and transforming it in concordance with their Archetype. The Hasidim, from Poland, represent an exclusively esoteric sect of Judaism.
Islam also has its esoteric magic, represented by Sufism and the sect of the Assassins, Hassanists, oflran. They interpret the Koran symbolically. And it was because of contact with this sect of the 'Old Man of the Mountain' that the Templars felt compelled to secede more and more from the direction of Rome, centering themselves in their Esoteric Kristianity and Mystery of the Gral. This was also why Rome destroyed them, like the esoteric Cathars (katharos = pure in Greek), the Bogomils, the Manichees and the gnostics.
In the Church of Rome, called Catholic, there only remains a soulless ritual of the Mass, as a liturgical shell that no longer reaches the Symbol, which no longer touches it, no longer puts it into action. The Nordic contribution has been lost, destroyed by prejudice and the ethnological persecution of Nordicism, Germanism and the complete surrender to Judaism.
Zen Buddhism preserves the esotericism of Buddha. In Japan Shinto and Zen are practiced by a racially superior warrior caste, the Samurai. The most esoteric side of Hinduism is found in Tantrism, especially in the Kaula or Kula Order.
So understood, esotericism is what goes beyond the exterior form and the masses, the physical, and puts an elite in contact with invisible superior forces. In my case, the condition that paralysed me in the midst of dreaming and left me without means to influence the phenomena. The visible is symbol of invisible forces (Archetypes, Gods). By means of an esoteric knowledge, of an initiation in this knowledge, a hierarchic minority can make contact with these invisible forces, being able to act on the Symbol, dynamizing and controlling the physical phenomena that incarnate them. In my case: to come to control the involuntary process which, without knowing how, was controlling me, to be able to guide it, to check or avoid it. Jung referred to this when he said 'if someone wisely faces the Archetype, in whatever place in the world, he acquires universal validity because the Archetype is one and indivisible'.
And the means to reach this spiritual world, 'on the other side of the mirror,' is Magic, Rite, Ritual, Ceremony. All religions have possessed them, even the Christian, as we have said. And the Rite is not something invented by humans but inspired by 'those from beyond,' Jung would say by the Collective Unconscious. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
915:Apotheosis ::: One of the most powerful and beloved of the Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, China, and Japan is the Lotus Bearer, Avalokiteshvara, "The Lord Looking Down in Pity," so called because he regards with compassion all sentient creatures suffering the evils of existence. To him goes the millionfold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet: Om mani padme hum, "The jewel is in the lotus." To him go perhaps more prayers per minute than to any single divinity known to man; for when, during his final life on earth as a human being, he shattered for himself the bounds of the last threshold (which moment opened to him the timelessness of the void beyond the frustrating mirage-enigmas of the named and bounded cosmos), he paused: he made a vow that before entering the void he would bring all creatures without exception to enlightenment; and since then he has permeated the whole texture of existence with the divine grace of his assisting presence, so that the least prayer addressed to him, throughout the vast spiritual empire of the Buddha, is graciously heard. Under differing forms he traverses the ten thousand worlds, and appears in the hour of need and prayer. He reveals himself in human form with two arms, in superhuman forms with four arms, or with six, or twelve, or a thousand, and he holds in one of his left hands the lotus of the world.
Like the Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance. "When the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change." This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain-through herohood; for, as we read: "All things are Buddha-things"; or again (and this is the other way of making the same statement) : "All beings are without self."
The world is filled and illumined by, but does not hold, the Bodhisattva ("he whose being is enlightenment"); rather, it is he who holds the world, the lotus. Pain and pleasure do not enclose him, he encloses them-and with profound repose. And since he is what all of us may be, his presence, his image, the mere naming of him, helps. "He wears a garland of eight thousand rays, in which is seen fully reflected a state of perfect beauty.
The color of his body is purple gold. His palms have the mixed color of five hundred lotuses, while each finger tip has eighty-four thousand signet-marks, and each mark eighty-four thousand colors; each color has eighty-four thousand rays which are soft and mild and shine over all things that exist. With these jewel hands he draws and embraces all beings. The halo surrounding his head is studded with five hundred Buddhas, miraculously transformed, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, who are attended, in turn, by numberless gods. And when he puts his feet down to the ground, the flowers of diamonds and jewels that are scattered cover everything in all directions. The color of his face is gold. While in his towering crown of gems stands a Buddha, two hundred and fifty miles high." - Amitayur-Dhyana Sutra, 19; ibid., pp. 182-183. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Apotheosis,#NFDB
916:The refusal to examine Islamic culture and traditions, the sordid dehumanization of Muslims, and the utter disregard for the intellectual traditions and culture of one of the world’s great civilizations are characteristic of those who disdain self-reflection and intellectual inquiry. Confronting this complexity requires work and study rather than a retreat into slogans and cliches. And enlightened, tolerant civilizations have flourished outside the orbit of the United Sates and Europe.
The ruins of the ancient Mughal capital, Fatehpur Sikri, lie about 100 miles south of Delhi. The capital was constructed by the emperor Akbar the Great at the end of the sixteenth century. The emperor’s court was filled with philosophers, mystics and religious scholars, including Sunni, Sufi, and Shiite Muslims, Hindu followers of Shiva and Vishnu, as well as atheists, Christians, Jains, Jews , Buddhists and Zoroastrians. They debated ethics and beliefs. He forbade any person to be discriminated against on the basis of belief and declared that everyone was free to follow any religion. This took place as the Inquisition was at its height in Spain and Portugal, and as Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake in Rome’s Campo de Fiori.
Tolerance, as well as religious and political plurality, is not exclusive to Western culture. The Judeo-Christian tradition was born and came to life in the Middle East. Its intellectual and religious beliefs were cultivated and formed in cities such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. Many of the greatest tenets of Western civilization, as is true with Islam and Buddhism, are Eastern in origin. Our respect for the rule of law and freedom of expression, as well as printing, paper, the book, the translation and dissemination of the classical Greek philosophers, algebra, geometry and universities were given to us by the Islamic world. One of the first law codes was invented by the ancient Babylonian ruler Hammurabi, in what is now Iraq. One of the first known legal protections of basic freedoms and equality was promulgated in the third century B.C. by the Buddhist Indian emperor Ashoka. And, unlike, Aristotle, he insisted on equal rights for women and slaves.
The division set up by the new atheists between superior Western, rational values and the irrational beliefs of those outside our tradition is not only unhistorical but untrue. The East and the West do not have separate, competing value systems. We do not treat life with greater sanctity than those we belittle and dismiss. Eastern and Western traditions have within them varied ethical systems, some of which are repugnant and some of which are worth emulating. To hold up the highest ideals of our own culture and to deny that these great ideals exist in other cultures, especially Eastern cultures, is made possible only by a staggering historical and cultural illiteracy. The civilization we champion and promote as superior is, in fact, a product of the fusion of traditions and beliefs of the Orient and the Occident. We advance morally and intellectually only when we cross these cultural lines, when we use the lens of other cultures to examine our own. It is then that we see our limitations, that we uncover the folly of or own assumptions and our prejudices. It is then that we achieve empathy, we learn and make wisdom possible. ~ Chris Hedges,#NFDB
917:One of the positive side-effects of maintaining a very high degree of awareness of death is that it will prepare the individual to such an extent that, when the individual actually faces death, he or she will be in a better position to maintain his or her presence of mind. Especially in Tantric Buddhism, it is considered that the state of mind which one experiences at the point of death is extremely subtle and, because of the subtlety of the level of that consciousness, it also has a great power and impact upon one’s mental continuum. In Tantric practices we find a lot of emphasis placed on reflections upon the process of death, so that the individual at the time of death not only retains his or her presence of mind, but also is in a position to utilize that subtle state of consciousness effectively towards the realization of the path. From the Tantric perspective, the entire process of existence is explained in terms of the three stages known as ‘death’, the ‘intermediate state’ and ‘rebirth’. All of these three stages of existence are seen as states or manifestations of the consciousness and the energies that accompany or propel the consciousness, so that the intermediate state and rebirth are nothing other than various levels of the subtle consciousness and energy. An example of such fluctuating states can be found in our daily existence, when during the 24-hour day we go through a cycle of deep sleep, the waking period and the dream state. Our daily existence is in fact characterized by these three stages. As death becomes something familiar to you, as you have some knowledge of its processes and can recognize its external and internal indications, you are prepared for it. According to my own experience, I still have no confidence that at the moment of death I will really implement all these practices for which I have prepared. I have no guarantee! Sometimes when I think about death I get some kind of excitement. Instead of fear, I have a feeling of curiosity and this makes it much easier for me to accept death. Of course, my only burden if I die today is, ‘Oh, what will happen to Tibet? What about Tibetan culture? What about the six million Tibetan people’s rights?’ This is my main concern. Otherwise, I feel almost no fear of death. In my daily practice of prayer I visualize eight different deity yogas and eight different deaths. Perhaps when death comes all my preparation may fail. I hope not! I think these practices are mentally very helpful in dealing with death. Even if there is no next life, there is some benefit if they relieve fear. And because there is less fear, one can be more fully prepared. If you are fully prepared then, at the moment of death, you can retain your peace of mind. I think at the time of death a peaceful mind is essential no matter what you believe in, whether it is Buddhism or some other religion. At the moment of death, the individual should not seek to develop anger, hatred and so on. I think even non-believers see that it is better to pass away in a peaceful manner, it is much happier. Also, for those who believe in heaven or some other concept, it is also best to pass away peacefully with the thought of one’s own God or belief in higher forces. For Buddhists and also other ancient Indian traditions, which accept the rebirth or karma theory, naturally at the time of death a virtuous state of mind is beneficial. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
918:Arts of energy management and of combat are, of course, not confined to the Chinese only. Peoples of different cultures have practised and spread these arts since ancient times. Those who follow the Chinese tradition call these arts chi kung and kungfu (or qigong and gongfu in Romanized Chinese), and those following other traditions call them by other names.
Muslims in various parts of the world have developed arts of energy management and of combat to very high levels. Many practices in Sufism, which is spiritual cultivation in Islamic tradition, are similar to chi kung practices. As in chi kung, Sufi practitioners pay much importance to the training of energy and spirit, called “qi” and “shen” in Chinese, but “nafas” and “roh” in Muslim terms.
When one can free himself from cultural and religious connotations, he will find that the philosophy of Sufism and of chi kung are similar. A Sufi practitioner believes that his own breath, or nafas, is a gift of God, and his ultimate goal in life is to be united with God. Hence, he practises appropriate breathing exercises so that the breath of God flows harmoniously through him, cleansing him of his weakness and sin, which are manifested as illness and pain.
And he practises meditation so that ultimately his personal spirit will return to the universal Spirit of God. In chi kung terms, this returning to God is expressed as “cultivating spirit to return to the Great Void”, which is “lian shen huan shi” in Chinese. Interestingly the breathing and meditation methods in Sufism and in chi kung are quite similar.
Some people, including some Muslims, may think that meditation is unIslamic, and therefore taboo. This is a serious mis-conception. Indeed, Prophet Mohammed himself clearly states that a day of meditation is better than sixty years of worship. As in any religion, there is often a huge conceptual gap between the highest teaching and the common followers. In Buddhism, for example, although the Buddha clearly states that meditation is the essential path to the highest spiritual attainment, most common Buddhists do not have any idea of meditation.
The martial arts of the Muslims were effective and sophisticated. At many points in world history, the Muslims, such as the Arabs, the Persians and the Turks, were formidable warriors. Modern Muslim martial arts are very advanced and are complete by themselves, i.e. they do not need to borrow from outside arts for their force training or combat application — for example, they do not need to borrow from chi kung for internal force training, Western aerobics for stretching, judo and kickboxing for throws and kicks.
[...]
It is reasonable if sceptics ask, “If they are really so advanced, why don't they take part in international full contact fighting competitions and win titles?” The answer is that they hold different values. They are not interested in fighting or titles. At their level, their main concern is spiritual cultivation. Not only they will not be bothered whether you believe in such abilities, generally they are reluctant to let others know of their abilities.
Muslims form a substantial portion of the population in China, and they have contributed an important part in the development of chi kung and kungfu. But because the Chinese generally do not relate one's achievements to one's religion, the contributions of these Chinese Muslim masters did not carry the label “Muslim” with them.
In fact, in China the Muslim places of worship are not called mosques, as in many other countries, but are called temples. Most people cannot tell the difference be ~ Wong Kiew Kit,#NFDB
919:George Mumford, a Newton-based mindfulness teacher, one such moment took place in 1993, at the Omega Institute, a holistic learning center in Rhinebeck, New York. The center was hosting a retreat devoted to mindfulness meditation, the clear-your-head habit in which participants sit quietly and focus on their breathing. Leading the session: meditation megastar Jon Kabat-Zinn. Originally trained as a molecular biologist at MIT, Kabat-Zinn had gone on to revolutionize the meditation world in the 1970s by creating a more secularized version of the practice, one focused less on Buddhism and more on stress reduction and other health benefits. After dinner one night, Kabat-Zinn was giving a talk about his work, clicking through a slide show to give the audience something to look at. At one point he displayed a slide of Mumford. Mumford had been a star high school basketball player who’d subsequently hit hard times as a heroin addict, Kabat-Zinn explained. By the early 1980s, however, he’d embraced meditation and gotten sober. Now Mumford taught meditation to prison inmates and other unlikely students. Kabat-Zinn explained how they were able to relate to Mumford because of his tough upbringing, his openness about his addiction — and because, like many inmates, he’s African-American. Kabat-Zinn’s description of Mumford didn’t seem to affect most Omega visitors, but one participant immediately took notice: June Jackson, whose husband had just coached the Chicago Bulls to their third consecutive NBA championship. Phil Jackson had spent years studying Buddhism and Native American spirituality and was a devoted meditator. Yet his efforts to get Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and their teammates to embrace mindfulness was meeting with only limited success. “June took one look at George and said, ‘He could totally connect with Phil’s players,’ ’’ Kabat-Zinn recalls. So he provided an introduction. Soon Mumford was in Chicago, gathering some of the world’s most famous athletes in a darkened room and telling them to focus on their breathing. Mumford spent the next five years working with the Bulls, frequently sitting behind the bench, as they won three more championships. In 1999 Mumford followed Phil Jackson to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he helped turn Kobe Bryant into an outspoken adherent of meditation. Last year, as Jackson began rebuilding the moribund New York Knicks as president, Mumford signed on for a third tour of duty. He won’t speak about the specific work he’s doing in New York, but it surely involves helping a new team adjust to Jackson’s sensibilities, his controversial triangle offense, and the particular stress that comes with compiling the worst record in the NBA. Late one April afternoon just as the NBA playoffs are beginning, Mumford is sitting at a table in O’Hara’s, a Newton pub. Sober for more than 30 years, he sips Perrier. It’s Marathon Monday, and as police begin allowing traffic back onto Commonwealth Avenue, early finishers surround us, un-showered and drinking beer. No one recognizes Mumford, but that’s hardly unusual. While most NBA fans are aware that Jackson is serious about meditation — his nickname is the Zen Master — few outside his locker rooms can name the consultant he employs. And Mumford hasn’t done much to change that. He has no office and does no marketing, and his recently launched website, mindfulathlete.org, is mired deep in search-engine results. Mumford has worked with teams that have won six championships, but, one friend jokes, he remains the world’s most famous completely unknown meditation teacher. That may soon change. This month, Mumford published his first book, The Mindful Athlete, which is part memoir and part instruction guide, and he has agreed to give a series of talks and book signings ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
920:With over 5,000 years of continuous history, the subcontinent known as India has flourished. Its culture, people, and history have added a crucial, colorful chapter to the history of humankind as a whole. India has participated in many events that shaped the progress and future of mankind, and its art, philosophy, literature, and culture have influenced billions. From the culture's inception in the Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization, the people of the Indian subcontinent have acted as the fulcrum between the east and west. Their civilization once flourished as a trading titan and provided the ancient world with a rich and varied society, unlike its contemporaries it did so without succumbing to the horrors of war. This tradition of economic and philosophic focus would be transmitted throughout the ages through each of the different eras in Indian history. In the ancient world, the Indus Valley civilization provided the backbone of what would become Indian culture. As the society eventually collapsed, it left behind traces of its existence to be found and adopted by the Vedic peoples that sprung from their demise. In the Vedic period, Indian culture and history were shaped and transformed into literary masterpieces that survive today as a lynchpin of Hindu philosophy. It also saw the birth of Buddhism, the ascension of the Buddha and the spread of a counter culture that has expanded far across the globe, influencing the lives of millions. This very formative era in Indian history gives modern-day society an idea of what the structure of Indian history and society would become. This feudal period in India was one of ideological development in both the Vedic or Hindu ways and the ways of the Sramana traditions that arose as a countercultural movement. These two ideologies would go on to influence the various empires that would begin to form after the Vedic Age. In the Age of Empires, the Indian subcontinent would witness the birth of empires like that of Cyrus the Great in Persia and Alexander the Great of Macedonia. The disunity of the Indian kingdoms would allow foreign invaders to influence this era, but although the smaller Indian kingdoms were defeated in many ways, India remained unconquered as a whole. From this disunity and vulnerability, the first Indian empires would begin taking shape. From the Mauryan to the Gupta and beyond, the first Indian empires would shape the history of India in ways that are hard to fathom. Science, mathematics, art, architecture, and literature would flourish in this age. This period would provide India with a national identity that hangs on to this day. In the Age of Muslim Expansion, India was introduced to yet another vital part of its history and culture. Though many wars were fought between the Indian kingdoms and the Muslim sultanates, the people of the Indian subcontinent adopted an attitude of religious tolerance that persists to this day. In modern-day India, you can see the influence of the Muslim cultures that put down roots in India during this time, most notably in the Taj Mahal. In the Age of Exploration, the expansion of European power across the globe would shape the history of India under the Portuguese, Dutch, and eventually the British. This period, although known for exploitation, can also be attributed with the birth of Indian democracy and republican values that we would see born in the modern age. Though the modern age is but a minuscule fraction of the gravitas of Indian history, it maintains itself as a colorful portrait of the Indian soul. If one truly wants to understand Indian history, one but has to look at the astounding culture of modern-day India. The 50 events chosen to be illustrated in this book are but a few of the thousands if not millions of crucial events that shaped and built the extravagance of the country we now call India. ~ Hourly History, #NFDB
921:We see three men standing around a vat of vinegar. Each has dipped his finger into the vinegar and has tasted it. The expression on each man's face shows his individual reaction. Since the painting is allegorical, we are to understand that these are no ordinary vinegar tasters, but are instead representatives of the "Three Teachings" of China, and that the vinegar they are sampling represents the Essence of Life. The three masters are K'ung Fu-tse (Confucius), Buddha, and Lao-tse, author of the oldest existing book of Taoism. The first has a sour look on his face, the second wears a bitter expression, but the third man is smiling.
To Kung Fu-tse (kung FOOdsuh), life seemed rather sour. He believed that the present was out step with the past, and that the government of man on earth was out of harmony with the Way of Heaven, the government of, the universe. Therefore, he emphasized reverence for the Ancestors, as well as for the ancient rituals and ceremonies in which the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, acted as intermediary between limitless heaven and limited earth. Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time. A saying was recorded about K'ung Fu-tse: "If the mat was not straight, the Master would not sit." This ought to give an indication of the extent to which things were carried out under Confucianism.
To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering. The world was seen as a setter of traps, a generator of illusions, a revolving wheel of pain for all creatures. In order to find peace, the Buddhist considered it necessary to transcend "the world of dust" and reach Nirvana, literally a state of "no wind." Although the essentially optimistic attitude of the Chinese altered Buddhism considerably after it was brought in from its native India, the devout Buddhist often saw the way to Nirvana interrupted all the same by the bitter wind of everyday existence.
To Lao-tse (LAOdsuh), the harmony that naturally existed between heaven and earth from the very beginning could be found by anyone at any time, but not by following the rules of the Confucianists. As he stated in his Tao To Ching (DAO DEH JEENG), the "Tao Virtue Book," earth was in essence a reflection of heaven, run by the same laws - not by the laws of men. These laws affected not only the spinning of distant planets, but the activities of the birds in the forest and the fish in the sea. According to Lao-tse, the more man interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by the universal laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance. The more forcing, the more trouble. Whether heavy or fight, wet or dry, fast or slow, everything had its own nature already within it, which could not be violated without causing difficulties. When abstract and arbitrary rules were imposed from the outside, struggle was inevitable. Only then did life become sour.
To Lao-tse, the world was not a setter of traps but a teacher of valuable lessons. Its lessons needed to be learned, just as its laws needed to be followed; then all would go well. Rather than turn away from "the world of dust," Lao-tse advised others to "join the dust of the world." What he saw operating behind everything in heaven and earth he called Tao (DAO), "the Way."
A basic principle of Lao-tse's teaching was that this Way of the Universe could not be adequately described in words, and that it would be insulting both to its unlimited power and to the intelligent human mind to attempt to do so. Still, its nature could be understood, and those who cared the most about it, and the life from which it was inseparable, understood it best. ~ Benjamin Hoff,#NFDB
922:GURU YOGA
Guru yoga is an essential practice in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. This is true in sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen. It develops the heart connection with the masteR By continually strengthening our devotion, we come to the place of pure devotion in ourselves, which is the unshakeable, powerful base of the practice. The essence of guru yoga is to merge the practitioner's mind with the mind of the master.
What is the true master? It is the formless, fundamental nature of mind, the primordial awareness of the base of everything, but because we exist in dualism, it is helpful for us to visualize this in a form. Doing so makes skillful use of the dualisms of the conceptual mind, to further strengthen devotion and help us stay directed toward practice and the generation of positive qualities.
In the Bon tradition, we often visualize either Tapihritsa* as the master, or the Buddha ShenlaOdker*, who represents the union of all the masters. If you are already a practitioner, you may have another deity to visualize, like Guru Rinpoche or a yidam or dakini. While it is important to work with a lineage with which you have a connection, you should understand that the master you visualize is the embodiment of all the masters with whom you are connected, all the teachers with whom you have studied, all the deities to whom you have commitments. The master in guru yoga is not just one individual, but the essence of enlightenment, the primordial awareness that is your true nature.
The master is also the teacher from whom you receive the teachings. In the Tibetan tradition, we say the master is more important than the Buddha. Why? Because the master is the immediate messenger of the teachings, the one who brings the Buddha's wisdom to the student. Without the master we could not find our way to the Buddha. So we should feel as much devotion to the master as we would to the Buddha if the Buddha suddenly appeared in front of us.
Guru yoga is not just about generating some feeling toward a visualized image. It is done to find the fundamental mind in yourself that is the same as the fundamental mind of all your teachers, and of all the Buddhas and realized beings that have ever lived. When you merge with the guru, you merge with your pristine true nature, which is the real guide and masteR But this should not be an abstract practice. When you do guru yoga, try to feel such intense devotion that the hair stands upon your neck, tears start down your face, and your heart opens and fills with great love. Let yourself merge in union with the guru's mind, which is your enlightened Buddha-nature. This is the way to practice guru yoga.
The Practice
After the nine breaths, still seated in meditation posture, visualize the master above and in front of you. This should not be a flat, two dimensional picture-let a real being exist there, in three dimensions, made of light, pure, and with a strong presence that affects the feeling in your body,your energy, and your mind. Generate strong devotion and reflect on the great gift of the teachings and the tremendous good fortune you enjoy in having made a connection to them. Offer a sincere prayer, asking that your negativities and obscurations be removed, that your positive qualities develop, and that you accomplish dream yoga.
Then imagine receiving blessings from the master in the form of three colored lights that stream from his or her three wisdom doors- of body, speech, and mind-into yours. The lights should be transmitted in the following sequence: White light streams from the master's brow chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your entire body and physical dimension. Then red light streams from the master's throat chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your energetic dimension. Finally, blue light streams from the master's heart chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your mind.
When the lights enter your body, feel them. Let your body, energy, and mind relax, suffused inwisdom light. Use your imagination to make the blessing real in your full experience, in your body and energy as well as in the images in your mind.
After receiving the blessing, imagine the master dissolving into light that enters your heart and resides there as your innermost essence. Imagine that you dissolve into that light, and remain inpure awareness, rigpa.
There are more elaborate instructions for guru yoga that can involve prostrations, offerings, gestures, mantras, and more complicated visualizations, but the essence of the practice is mingling your mind with the mind of the master, which is pure, non-dual awareness. Guru yoga can be done any time during the day; the more often the better. Many masters say that of all the practices it is guru yoga that is the most important. It confers the blessings of the lineage and can open and soften the heart and quiet the unruly mind. To completely accomplish guru yoga is to accomplish the path.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep, [T3],#NFDB
923:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants #reading list,#NFDB
63 Integral Yoga
21 Philosophy
14 Occultism
6 Yoga
6 Psychology
4 Poetry
3 Buddhism
1 Zen
1 Mythology
1 Education
42 Sri Aurobindo
25 The Mother
17 Aldous Huxley
15 Satprem
13 Nolini Kanta Gupta
10 A B Purani
6 Aleister Crowley
5 Carl Jung
4 Thubten Chodron
3 Sri Ramakrishna
3 Bokar Rinpoche
2 Plato
2 Ken Wilber
2 James George Frazer
2 Hakuin
17 The Perennial Philosophy
11 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
10 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Life Divine
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
4 Magick Without Tears
4 Letters On Yoga II
4 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
4 Agenda Vol 10
3 The Synthesis Of Yoga
3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
3 Tara - The Feminine Divine
3 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
3 Liber ABA
3 Isha Upanishad
3 Essays On The Gita
2 The Golden Bough
2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
2 Talks
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Questions And Answers 1956
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
2 Agenda Vol 09
2 Agenda Vol 06
2 Agenda Vol 02
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta, familiary known to the readers of the Gospel by his pen name M., and to the devotees as Master Mahashay, was born on the 14th of July, 1854 as the son of Madhusudan Gupta, an officer of the Calcutta High Court, and his wife, Swarnamayi Devi. He had a brilliant scholastic career at Hare School and the Presidency College at Calcutta. The range of his studies included the best that both occidental and oriental learning had to offer. English literature, history, economics, western philosophy and law on the one hand, and Sanskrit literature and grammar, Darsanas, Puranas, Smritis, Jainism, Buddhism, astrology and Ayurveda on the other were the subjects in which he attained considerable proficiency.
He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were that he could not get on with some of the managements on grounds of principles and that often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so that his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
However, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elementsSakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic materialenter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so,a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materialsnot in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erectwas the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India's synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras: the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:
They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To begin with, theres what could be called a negative way, the way expounded by Buddhism and similar religions: the refusal to see. To be in a state of such purity and beauty that there is no perception of evil and ugliness. Its like something that doesnt touch you because it doesnt exist in you. This is the perfection of the negative method.
It is quite elementary: never take notice of evil, never speak of the evil present in others, never perpetuate the vibrations of evil by observation, criticism or giving undue attention to the evil deed. This is what Buddha taught: each time you mention an evil you help spread it.
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Seen from the European angle, Sri Aurobindo represents an immense spiritual revolution, redeeming Matter and the creation, which to the Christian religion is fundamentally a fallits really unclear how what has come from God could become so bad, but anyway, better not be too logical! its a fall. The creation is a fall. And thats why they are far more easily convinced by Buddhism. I saw this particularly with Richard, whose education was entirely in European philosophy, with Christian and positivist influences; under these two influences, when he came into contact with Theons cosmic philosophy and later Sri Aurobindos revelation, he immediately explained, in his Wherefore of the Worlds, that the world is the fruit of DesireGods desire. Yet Sri Aurobindo says (in simple terms), God created the world for the Joy of the creation, or rather, He brought forth the world from Himself for the Joy of living an objective life. This was Theons thesis too, that the world is the Divine in an objective form, but for him the origin of this objective form was the desire to be. All this is playing with words, you understand, but it turns out that in one case the world is reprehensible and in the other it is adorable! And that makes all the difference. To the whole European mind, the whole Christian spirit, the world is reprehensible. And when THAT is pointed out to them, they cant stand it.
So the very normal, natural reaction against this attitude is to negate the spiritual life: lets take the world as it is, brutally, materially, short and sweet (since it all comes to an end with this short life), lets do all we can to enjoy ourselves now, suffer as little as possible and not think of anything else. Having said that life is a condemned, reprehensible, anti-divine thing, this is the logical conclusion. Then what to do? We dont want to do away with life, so we do away with the Divine.
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Buddhism and all similar lines of thought took the shortest path: The desire to exist is what has caused all the trouble. If the Lord had refrained from having this desire, there would have been no world! Its childish, very childish, really a much too human way of looking at the problem.
To see it from the angle of delight of being is qualitatively far superior, but then theres still the problem of why it all became the way it is. The usual reply is: because all things were possible, and this is ONE possibility. But its not a very satisfying feeling: Yes, all right, thats just the way it is, its a fact. People used to ask Theon too, Why did it happen like this? Why? Wait till you get to the other side, then you will know. And meanwhile do whats necessary to get there thats the most urgent thing.
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Every time a new truth has attempted to manifest upon earth, it has been immediately attacked, corrupted and diverted by pseudo-spiritual forceswhich did represent a certain spirituality at a given time, but precisely the one that the new truth wants to go beyond. To give but one example of those sad spiritual diversions which clutter History, Buddhism was largely corrupted in a sizable part of Asia by a whole Tantric and magic Buddhism. The falsity lies not in the old spirituality which the new truth seeks to go beyond, but in the eternal fact that the Past clings to its powers, its means and its rule. As Mother said in her simple language, Whats wrong is to remain stuck there. And Sri Aurobindo with his ever-present humor: The traditions of the past are very great in their own place, in the past. We could expect the phenomenon to recur today. In India, Tantrism represents a powerful discipline from the Past and it was inevitable that Mother should experience the better and the worse of that system in her attempt to transform all the means and elements of the old earththis Agenda has made abundant mention of a certain X, symbol of Tantrism. Now, as it happens, we are witnessing the same phenomenon of diversion, and today this same Tantrism is seeking to divert the new truth by convincing as many adepts as possible not to say Mothers Mantra, which is too advanced for ordinary mortals, and to say Tantric mantras in its stead. This is purely and simply an attempt to take Mothers place. One has to be quite ignorant of the mechanism of forces not to understand that saying a mantra of the old gods puts you under the influence and into the orbit of precisely that which resists the new truth. Mother had foreseen the phenomenon and forewarned me in the following conversation. Unfortunately, until recently, I always wanted to believe that Tantrism would be converted. Nothing of the sort. It is attempting to take Mothers place and lead astray those who are not sincere enough to want ONE SINGLE THING: the new world.
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0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but it seems we should be more cautious about him. According to Alexandra David-Neel, its not a truly au thentic text, it came afterwards, after Buddhas descendants: it isnt what Buddha himself is said to have preached. There is a controversy here. Of course, Alexandra belonged to the Buddhism of the South, which is very rigid and absolutely rejects all the fancies of the Buddhism of the North with its innumerable bodhisattvas and all the stories (theyve got so many stories! pulp novels). And she rejected all that, saying it wasnt part of Buddhas au thentic teaching.
Buddha said that the world, this terrestrial world (maybe the universe, I dont know, the point isnt very clear), in any case the terrestrial world is the result of Desire (but I know someone who used to say [laughing], Yes, its Gods desire to manifest!), and that when Desire disappears, the world will disappear and there will be Nirvana. In other words, once the desire to manifest has disappeared, there is no Manifestation anymore.
0 1965-06-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Generally, fish in the sea mean Multitude.1 But there must be many meanings; I have told you that Buddhism often uses the image of fish as a symbol.
Symbolisms, mon petit, there are hundreds and hundreds of them. And people always oppose them, but ultimately they are just different ways of seeing one and the same thing. According to my experience, everyone has his own symbolism.
0 1966-11-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, there is an insistence (the same insistence as this Gentlemans, at any rate) on the impossibility of the thing, and it gives such obvious proof. Naturally, the inside doesnt budge, it smilesit doesnt budge but the body that gives it terrible tension. Because its very conscious of its infirmity (it cant boast of being transformed), very conscious that its millions of miles away from transformation. So so it doesnt take much to convince it. Whats more difficult is to give it the certitude that things will be different. It doesnt even understand very well how they can be different. Then there come all other beliefs, all other so-called revelations, the heavens and so on. The whole of Christianity and Islam have very easily solved the problem: Oh, no, things here will never be fine, but over there they can be perfect. That goes without saying. Then there is the whole of Nirvanism and Buddhism: The world is an error that must disappear. So it all comes in waves, and the body feels very you understand, it would like to have a certitude of its possibility. That doesnt often happen to it. But the attack was too strong; it was from everything and everywhere at the same time, so strong: This Matter CANNOT be transformed. So it fought and fought and fought, and suddenly it was obliged to lie down. But as soon as it lies down and abandons itself completely, there is Peace, and such a strong Peaceso strong, so powerful. Then its fine.
It came with hosts of suggestions (they arent suggestions: they are formations), adverse formations of disorganization; like, for instance the one C. [one of Mothers attendants, who has just fallen ill] received. I was warned two days beforeh and and tried my best: I couldnt I couldnt, he gave way. So now its dragging on and on (the doctor himself says theres no reason for it to last so long), its dragging on because he gave way. So all that must be slowly won back. And it comes to everyone, to every circumstancenot to me, never to me because it has no effect on me: if the suggestion comes, I say, So what! I dont care. So it doesnt try, its useless. But it comes to everyone, to disorganize everything and everyone, one after another. This morning, it was everybody at the same time, a complete disorganization of everything. I resisted and resisted and resisted, then suddenly something (Mother makes a gesture). So the body said, All right.
0 1967-04-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. Buddhism, Jainism, Illusionism were sufficient to sap all energy out of the country.
True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something else than matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere. That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in the muddle.
0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Bharatidi was a specialist of Pali (used by the southern schools of Buddhism) and Sanskrit.
The painter who did a portrait of Sri Aurobindo in profile, standing.
0 1968-11-09, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At first, because I hadnt seen her [after her death], I thought it was her old Buddhism and she had gone into some Nirvana. But then, her thought constantly coming like this: And what happens when one leaves ones body? Thats the strange thing. And its SHE whos putting the question. Its that thought.
Yes, that very thought came to me very strongly too.
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The last few years (maybe the last two years, I dont know), she felt she was going to be converted. When she saw me, when she was sitting in front of me, she would feel she was going to be converted. And she didnt want that. She wanted to keep her Buddhism, her nihilistic Buddhism, materially expressed as Communism.
When I said goodbye to her, she had magnificent eyes. She looked at me luminous eyes, with such force, such beauty.
0 1969-04-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On the mental heights, Buddhism had already said something like that: your thought, your will goes around the world and comes back to you. Do not think you can do something with impunity, it says, because it goes around the world and comes back to you. But here, it was He showed me bad vibrations with their will to harm, he showed how they came, like that, and how, with this Consciousness there around someone, the vibrations hit and went back, they bounced back as if against a wallthey hit and went back. And on their way, they modified themselves so as to take the very form needed to strike the person [who sent them].
Thats what I SAW.
0 1969-05-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres the whole side of Buddhism, nihilism and so on, according to which (we can give a translation for children) the Supreme Lord made a mistake! (Mother laughs) He blundered, so And then well help Him get out of his blunder!
Theres the other extreme: its YOUR own stupidity that makes you feel it this way but then, why do I have stupidity in me, where does it come from?
0 1969-10-11, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, but the aim was to withdraw from Matter. The aim was to withdraw here (gesture of drawing all energies upward) and reject Matter, like all illusionists, you understand. Its the continuation of Buddhism, too.
(silence)
0 1969-11-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The book, what you read me. Its very interesting, I was very interested, I felt very comfortable, but then there was a sort of its something that puts you (I dont know why) in contact with the whole part of the atmosphere that pulls you out of life Buddhism and all those things, the whole nihilism. It puts you in contact with that: the flight out of life. And its not intellectual, its not the ideas, not the words, not the facts, its What is it? I wondered a few times what made the book catch on to the nihilist atmosphere of Buddhism? Thats what would explain Its not that people dont like it, but its a non-creative force that acts. Why? I dont know.
But what this book tried to say, to show, is in fact the transition beyond that.
02.01 - Metaphysical Thought and the Supreme Truth, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This, you will see, answers your point about the Western thinkers, Bradley and others, who have arrived through intellectual thinking at the idea of an "Other beyond Thought" or have even, like Bradley, tried to express their conclusions about it in terms that recall some of the expressions in the Arya. The idea in itself is not new; it is as old as the Vedas. It was repeated in other forms in Buddhism, Christian Gnosticism, Sufism. Originally, it was not discovered by intellectual speculation, but by the mystics following an inner spiritual discipline. When, somewhere between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C., men began both in the East and West to intellectualise knowledge, this Truth survived in the East; in the West, where the intellect began to be accepted as the sole or highest instrument for the discovery of
Truth, it began to fade. But still it has there too tried constantly to return; the Neo-Platonists brought it back, and now, it appears, the Neo-Hegelians and others (e.g., the Russian Ouspensky and one or two German thinkers, I believe) seem to be reaching after it. But still there is a difference.
02.12 - The Ideals of Human Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The third is the religious principle. Religion, that is to say, institutional religion has also sought to unify mankind on a larger basis, as large indeed as the world itself. The aim of Christendom, of Islam was frankly a conquest of the whole human race for the one jealous Lord. Buddhism and Hinduism did not overtly or with a set purpose attempt any such worldwide proselytism, but their influence and actual working had almost a similar effect:at least in the case of the former, it was like a flood throwing down many local boundaries, overflooding distant countries, and peoples, giving them all one unified religious life and culture. But here too we meet the same objectionable feature as there is in the attempt at unity through the racial principle. For religious imperialism cannot succeed in unifying humanity, as amply demonstrated by the Roman Catholic Church; and like political imperialism it was more or less an experiment in the line, effecting nothing beyond a moral atmosphere. Even a federation of religions, contemplated by some idealists, seems hardly a practicable proposition; for it is only a mental conception and has no compelling vital force in it. At best it is only a sign-post, a pointer to the goal Nature and humanity have been endeavouring to evolve and realise.
A new type of imperialism for imperialism it is in essence has been developing in recent times; and it seems it shall have its day and contri bute its share of experimentation towards the goal we are speaking of. I am of course referring to what has been frankly and aptly termed as the Dictatorship of the Proletariate. It is an attempt to cut across all other boundaries and unities of human groupingsracial, national, religious, even familial. It seeks to unify and consolidate one whole stratum of humanity in a single stream-lined steel-frame organisation. At least that was the ideal till yesterday; there seems to be growing here too a movement towards decentralisation. Naturally, even as an organisation that is top-heavy is bound to topple down in the end, likewise an organisation that is bottom-heavy, that is to say, restricts to that portion only of its body all sap and dynamism, is also bound to deteriorate and disintegrate. A tree does not live by its branches and leaves and flowers alone, no doubt, nor does it live by its roots alone.
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet there can be a status even beyond. For beyond the cosmic reality, lies the transcendent reality. It is the Absolute, neti, neti, into which individual and cosmos, all disappear and vanish. In compassion, the cosmic communion, there is a trace and an echo of humanismit is perhaps one of the reasons why Europeans generally are attracted to Buddhism and find it more congenial than Hinduism with its dizzy Vedantic heights; but in the status of the transcendent Selfhood humanism is totally transcended and transmuted, one dwells then in the Bliss that passeth all feeling.
The Upanishadic summit is not suffused with humanism or touched by it, because it is supra-human, not because there is a lack or want or deficiency in the human feeling, but because there is a heightening and a transcendence in the consciousness and being. To man, to human valuation, the Boddhisattwa may appear to be greater than the Buddha; even so to the sick a physician or a nurse may seem to be a diviner angel than any saint or sage or perhaps God Himself but that is an inferior viewpoint, that of particular or local interest.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet there can be a status even beyond. For, beyond the cosmic reality lies the transcendent reality. It is the Absolute, neti, neti, into which individual and cosmos, all disappear and vanish. In compassion, the cosmic communion, there is a trace and an echo of humanismit is perhaps one of the reasons why Europeans generally are attracted to Buddhism and find it more congenial than Hinduism with its dizzy Vedantic heights. But in the status of the transcendent Self-hood, humanism is totally transcended and transmuted; one dwells there in the Bliss that passeth all feeling.
The Upanishadic summit is not suffused with humanism or touched by it, because it is supra-human, not because there is a lack or deficiency in the human feeling, but because there is a heightening and a transcendence in the consciousness and being. To man, to human valuation, the Bodhisattva may appear to be greater than the Buddha; even so to the sick a physician or a nurse may seem to be a diviner angel than any saint or sage or perhaps God himself but that is an inferior view-point, that of particular or local interest.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Brahmacharya Buddhism and Hinduism
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Man, Human and Divine The Democracy of Tomorrow
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Brahmacharya Buddhism and Hinduism
03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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The Democracy of Tomorrow The Mission of Buddhism
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Man, Human and Divine Buddhism and Hinduism
Buddhism and Hinduism
Buddhism, or for that matter, Christianity or Mohammadenism or any credal and personal religion, is easy to understand. For they are each of them a single and simple entity, whereas Hinduism is a multiple and complex organism. The difference is that between a tree, a huge mighty tree, may be, and a vast and tangled forest. Buddhism, for example, "may be likened to the great Bo tree under which, one may say, it was born; but Hinduism is a veritable Dandakaranya.
For Hinduism means all things to all men, while a personal religion is meant truly for a certain type of persons. Hinduism recognises differences and distinction even while admitting the fundamental unity of mankind; it does not impose uniformity as the other type does. Hinduism embraces all varieties of religious experience; it is not based on a single experience however overwhelming that may be.
Varying the metaphor we may say again that Buddhism rises sheer in its monolithic structure, an Asokan pillar towering in its linear movement; Hinduism has its towers, but they are part of a vast architecture, spread out on ample and chequered grounds-even like a temple city.
II
Hinduism, one may even say, Indianism, has cast Buddhism out of India, the mother country, to the wonder of many. Buddhism came to rub out the dead deposits and accretions on the parent body and in doing so it often rubbed on the raw and against the grain. Hinduism had to accept the corrections; in the process it had to absorb, however, many elements contrary to its nature, even antipathic to its soul. Buddha was accepted as an Avatar; he was given a divine status in the Hindu Pantheon. Divested, apparently, of all heterodoxical and controversial appendages, he was anointed with the sole sufficing aspect of supreme kindness, universal compassion. Even so, in and through this Assumption, not a little of the peculiarly Buddhist inspiration entered the original organism. The most drastic and of far-reaching consequence was the inauguration and idolisation of monastic life, which has become since then in Indian conception, the summum bonum, the supreme goal of human existence. It was not without reason that India's older and truer tradition cried out against Shankara being a crypto-Buddhist (pracchanna bauddha), who was yet one of the most consistent and violent critics of Buddhism.
Life is an expression of the Divine Presence, earth is the field of labour for the godssuch was the original old-world Vedic view. It was the Buddhist dispensation that made life an inferior truth, a complex of unreality and decreed that the highest aim of man is to disappear from life after life's fitful fever to sleep well that seems to have been the motto given.
Buddhism saw and accepted a world of misery; therefore it knew how to touch the human heart, open up the doors in human consciousness to sympathy and compassion and love. Life it envisaged as an unreal persistence and therefore awakened and installed there the fiery urge towards withdrawal, ascension and transcendence. It was Buddhism that canonised the way of asceticism, laid out the path of the Everlasting Nayalthough called (somewhat euphemistically perhaps) the Middle Path being tempered by an attitude of sweet reasonableness in the inner heart.
The original and primeval Indianism was built upon the Vedic realisation of the Everlasting Yes. That luminous body of an integral realisation, which means the Veda, came to be covered over by a more strenuous demand of immediate necessity, by an over-emphasis on one side or aspect or line of growth of the human consciousness; a negative approach was needed for man to rise out of its too earthly a tenement to glimpse his divine possibility beyond, before he could hope to build it here below. The long reign of Siva was a necessary preparation for the advent of Vishnu.
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(I) Hinduism is based upon the Veda. Buddhism rejects the Veda.
Veda means revealed knowledge; a body of ascertained truths already in existence which one has to accept in order to grow and progress in knowledge. Buddhism enjoins to take nothing on trust, but to test everything by one's own reason and experience.
(II) The first principle that Vedic Knowledge posits is Sat, Being, Pure Existence, Reality. The first principle according to Buddhism is Asat, Non-Being, Non-Reality.
This creation has a fundamental basic reality. Behind the fleeting appearances there is a solid truth of Being. Everything else may pass away but That abides for ever. This is Hindu or Vedic tradition.
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The Democracy of Tomorrow The Mission of Buddhism
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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Buddhism and Hinduism The Language Problem and India
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Man, Human and Divine The Mission of Buddhism
The Mission of Buddhism
Buddhism came as a blaze of lightning across the sky of India's tradition; it was almost a fiery writing on the wall, bearing the doom of a world. Buddhism opposed and denied some of the very fundamental principles upon which the old world rested. It was perhaps the greatest iconoclastic movement ever thrown up by the human consciousness. First of all, it denied the tradition itself; it did not recognise the authority and sanctity of the prve pitara, the ancient fathers, nor their revealed knowledge, the Veda. Buddhism enjoined the priority and supremacy of the individual's own consciousness, own effort and own realisation. Be thou thy own light. Work out thy own salvation. That was the injunction given. Not to take anything for grantednot even God or Brahman but to judge and see for yourself where and what is the truth. It was the first protestant reaction recorded in human history.
Buddhism has sometimes been called the rebel child of Hinduism. The word need not be a term of abuse. A rebel is not always a mere destroyer, a pure negator. A negation can be only a form of stating something positive, an affirmation of a truth and reality. Not unoften a rebel means a call back to a truth that has been neglected, inadequately treated or completely omitted and by-passed; it is an urgent demand that that which has been forgotten and left behind, uncared for and undeveloped, must now be taken up again and brought forward, made a full-grown and mature element in a greater and more perfect organisation of human consciousness.
Buddhism cried halt because of two omissions: it turned man's mind to two new directions. In our eagerness to reach the spiritual and the supra-sensual, we gave scant recognition to the mental and the rational; and yet mind and reason should be the very basis of the life spiritual. And in the pursuit of God and the gods and the things divine, we became blind to human problems, things concerning man in the human way. The earlier vision gives us a happy picture of humanity. The world moves, it was said, from delight to delight, it was born in delight and it consummates in delight. One sang of immortality, of the solar light, of men being children of Heaven and Beatitude. That this material structure on which man leads his precarious existence is a texture of age and disease and death, that misery and undelight is of the very substance of human life was a hard fact that did not get due recognition. Perhaps it was an earlier, that is to say, a younger humanity
A simple Child,
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To abrogate the matter of fact, rational view of life in order to view it spiritually, to regard it wholly as an expression or embodiment or vibration of consciousness-delight was possible to the Vedic discipline which saw and adored the Immanent Godhead. It was not possible to Buddha and Buddhistic consciousness; for the Immanent Divine was ignored in the Buddhistic scheme. Philosophically, in regard to ultimate principles, Buddhism was another name for nihilism, creation being merely an assemblage of particles of consciousness that is desire; the particles scattered and dissolved, remains only the supreme incomparable Nirvana. But pragmatically Buddhism was supremely humanistic.
As it took man as a rational animal, at least as a starting-point, even so it gave a sober human value to things human. A rationalist's eye made him see and recognise the normal misery of mankind; and the great compassion goaded him to find the way out of the misery. It was not a dispassionate quest into the ultimate truth and reality nor an all-consuming zeal to meet the Divine that set Buddha on the Path; it was the everyday problem of the ordinary man which troubled his mind, and for which he sought a solution, a permanent radical solution. The Vedanist saw only delight and ecstasy and beatitude; forhim the dark shadow did not exist at all or did not matter; it was the product of illusion or wrong view of things; one was asked to ignore or turn away from this and look towards That. Such was not the Buddha's procedure.
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They speak of the coming of a new Buddha (Maitreya) with the close of the cycle now, ushering another cycle of new growth and achievement. It is said also that humanity has reached its apex, a great change-over is inevitable: seers and savants have declared that man will have to surpass himself and become superman in order to fulfil what was expected of him since his advent upon earth. If we say that the preparation for such a consummation was taken up at the last stage by the Buddha and Buddhism, and the Buddhistic inspiration, we will not be wrong. It was a cycle of ascending tapasya for the human vehicle: it was a seeking for the pure spirit which meant a clearance of the many ignorances that shrouded it. It was also an urge of the spirit to encompass in its fold a larger and larger circle of humanity: it meant that the spiritual consciousness is no more an aristocratic or hermetic virtue, but a need in which the people, the large mass, have also their share, maybe in varying degrees.
A new humanity broad-based to encompass the whole earth, expressing and embodying the light and power and joy of spiritual heights, forming a happy world state, may very well announce in the new age the descent of a supreme truth and principle of existence here below.
--
Buddhism and Hinduism The Language Problem and India
03.11 - The Language Problem and India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Mission of Buddhism Communism: What does it Mean?
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Man, Human and Divine The Language Problem and India
--
The Mission of Buddhism Communism: What does it Mean?
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A great mystery of existence, its central rub is the presence of Evil. All spiritual, generally all human endeavour has to face and answer this Sphinx. As he answers, so will be his fate. He cannot rise up even if he wishes, earth cannot progress even when there is the occasion, because of this besetting obstacle. It has many names and many forms. It is Sin or Satan in Christianity; Buddhism calls it Mara. In India it is generally known as Maya. Grief and sorrow, weakness and want, disease and death are its external and ubiquitous forms. It is a force of gravitation, as graphically named by a modern Christian mystic, that pulls man down, fixes him upon earth with its iron law of mortality, never allowing him to mount high and soar in the spiritual heavens. It has also been called the Wheel of Karma or the cycle of Ignorance. And the aim of all spiritual seekers has been to rise out of itsome-how, by force of tapasy, energy of concentrated will or divine Gracego through or by-pass and escape into the Beyond. This is the path of ascent I referred to at the outset. In this view it is taken for granted that this creation is transient and empty of happinessanityam asukham (Gita)it is anatta, empty of self or consciousness (Buddha) and it will be always so. The only way to deal with it, the way of the wise, is to discard it and pass over.
Sri Aurobindo's view is different. He says Evil can be and has to be conquered here itself, here upon this earth and in this body-the ancients also said, ihaiva tairjitah, they have conquered even here, prkariravimokat, before leaving the body. You have to face Evil full-square and conquer it, conquer it not in the sense that you simply rise above it so that it no longer touches you, but that you remain where you are in the very field of Evil and drive it out from there completely, erase and annihilate it where it was reigning supreme. Hence God has to come down from his heaven and dwell here upon earth and among men and in the conditions of mortality, show thus by his living and labour that this earthly earth can be transformed into a heavenly earth and this human body into a "body divine".
10.10 - A Poem, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is the religion of Buddhism
Non-violence lazy, compassionate,
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We of the coming day stand at the head of a new age of development which must lead to such a new and larger synthesis. We are not called upon to be orthodox Vedantins of any of the three schools or Tantrics or to adhere to one of the theistic religions of the past or to entrench ourselves within the four corners of the teaching of the Gita. That would be to limit ourselves and to attempt to create our spiritual life out of the being, knowledge and nature of others, of the men of the past, instead of building it out of our own being and potentialities. We do not belong to the past dawns, but to the noons of the future. A mass of new material is flowing into us; we have not only to assimilate the influences of the great theistic religions of India and of the world and a recovered sense of the meaning of Buddhism, but to take full account of the potent though limited revelations of modern knowledge and seeking; and, beyond that, the remote and dateless past which seemed to be dead is returning upon us with an effulgence of many luminous secrets long lost to the consciousness of mankind but now breaking out again from behind the veil. All this points to a new, a very rich, a very vast synthesis; a fresh and widely embracing harmonisation of our gains is both an intellectual and a spiritual necessity of the future.
But just as the past syntheses have taken those which preceded them for their starting-point, so also must that of the future,
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
meet one of the great orders of Tibetan Buddhism in
particular. The same predispositions make us situate
--
Tibetans themselves into the practice of Tibetan Buddhism,
especially in regard to deities. They may believe, for
--
the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism as well as Hindu
doctrines. The Dalai Lama himself received many
--
by a Westerner who also practiced Buddhism. At this
time, that was a very rare occurrence. Both were
--
had entered Tibetan Buddhism.
It happened that no one had seen the sahib for
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
From Taoism we pass to that Mahayana Buddhism which, in the Far East, came to be so closely associated with Taoism, borrowing and bestowing until the two came at last to be fused in what is known as Zen. The Lankavatara Sutra, from which the following extract is taken, was the scripture which the founder of Zen Buddhism expressly recommended to his first disciples.
Those who vainly reason without understanding the truth are lost in the jungle of the Vijnanas (the various forms of relative knowledge), running about here and there and trying to justify their view of ego-substance.
--
I am not competent, nor is this the place to discuss the doctrinal differences between Buddhism and Hinduism. Let it suffice to point out that, when he insisted that human beings are by nature non-Atman, the Buddha was evidently speaking about the personal self and not the universal Self. The Brahman controversialists, who appear in certain of the Pali scriptures, never so much as mention the Vedanta doctrine of the identity of Atman and Godhead and the non-identity of ego and Atman. What they maintain and Gautama denies is the substantial nature and eternal persistence of the individual psyche. As an unintelligent man seeks for the abode of music in the body of the lute, so does he look for a soul within the skandhas (the material and psychic aggregates, of which the individual mind-body is composed). About the existence of the Atman that is Brahman, as about most other metaphysical matters, the Buddha declines to speak, on the ground that such discussions do not tend to edification or spiritual progress among the members of a monastic order, such as he had founded. But though it has its dangers, though it may become the most absorbing, because the most serious and noblest, of distractions, metaphysical thinking is unavoidable and finally necessary. Even the Hinayanists found this, and the later Mahayanists were to develop, in connection with the practice of their religion, a splendid and imposing system of cosmological, ethical and psychological thought. This system was based upon the postulates of a strict idealism and professed to dispense with the idea of God. But moral and spiritual experience was too strong for philosophical theory, and under the inspiration of direct experience, the writers of the Mahayana sutras found themselves using all their ingenuity to explain why the Tathagata and the Bodhisattvas display an infinite charity towards beings that do not really exist. At the same time they stretched the framework of subjective idealism so as to make room for Universal Mind; qualified the idea of soullessness with the doctrine that, if purified, the individual mind can identify itself with the Universal Mind or Buddha-womb; and, while maintaining godlessness, asserted that this realizable Universal Mind is the inner consciousness of the eternal Buddha and that the Buddha-mind is associated with a great compassionate heart which desires the liberation of every sentient being and bestows divine grace on all who make a serious effort to achieve mans final end. In a word, despite their inauspicious vocabulary, the best of the Mahayana sutras contain an au thentic formulation of the Perennial Philosophya formulation which in some respects (as we shall see when we come to the section, God in the World) is more complete than any other.
In India, as in Persia, Mohammedan thought came to be enriched by the doctrine that God is immanent as well as transcendent, while to Mohammedan practice were added the moral disciplines and spiritual exercises, by means of which the soul is prepared for contemplation or the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. It is a significant historical fact that the poet-saint Kabir is claimed as a co-religionist both by Moslems and Hindus. The politics of those whose goal is beyond time are always pacific; it is the idolaters of past and future, of reactionary memory and Utopian dream, who do the persecuting and make the wars.
1.01 - The Ideal of the Karmayogin, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Theism, Christianity, Mahomedanism and Buddhism and yet is none of these, is that to which the World-Spirit moves. In our own, which is the most sceptical and the most believing of all, the most sceptical because it has questioned and experimented the most, the most believing because it has the deepest experience and the most varied and positive spiritual knowledge, - that wider Hinduism which is not a dogma or combination of dogmas but a law of life, which is not a social framework but the spirit of a past and future social evolution, which rejects nothing but insists on testing and experiencing everything and when tested and experienced turning it to the soul's uses, in this
Hinduism we find the basis of the future world-religion. This sanatana dharma has many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita,
1.01 - Who is Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
ers of Tibetan Buddhism meditate upon such a being? How can a spiritual
relationship with her enrich our lives?
1.02.3.3 - Birth and Non-Birth, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
itself. This would be from the synthetic standpoint the justification of the great effort of Buddhism to exceed the conception of
all positive being even in its widest or purest essentiality.
1.02 - Karmayoga, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There have been others in the past which have powerfully influenced the national mind and there is no reason why there should not be a yet more perfect synthesis in the future. It is such a synthesis, embracing all life and action in its scope, that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have been preparing. What is dimly beginning now is a repetition on a wider stage of what happened once before in India, more rapidly but to smaller issues, when the Buddha lived and taught his philosophy and ethics to the Aryan nations. Then as now a mighty spirit, it matters not whether Avatar or Vibhuti, the full expression of God in man or a great outpouring of the divine energy, came down among men and brought into their daily life and practice the force and impulse of utter spirituality. And this time it is the full light and not a noble part, unlike Buddhism which, expressing Vedantic morality, yet ignored a fundamental reality of Vedanta and was therefore expelled from its prime seat and cradle. The material result was then what it will be now, a great political, moral and social revolution which made India
Karmayoga
1.02 - Meditating on Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. The following description alone is not to be
used for meditation.
--
about Tibetan Buddhism. I have heard people speak of Theravada, Mahayana,
how to free your mind
and Vajrayana as if they were three distinct types of Buddhism, implying that
those who practice Vajrayana do not do Theravada or Mahayana practices.
Others think that if someone practices Mahayana, she doesnt practice Theravada teachings. Some Westerners believe that Tibetan Buddhism is only
Vajrayana, that it doesnt include the Theravada or general Mahayana teachings. Such ideas are incorrect.
Tibetan teachers make it clear that someone following Tibetan Buddhism
doesnt practice only Vajrayana. Visualizations and the chanting of mantras
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Mother in a talk about Buddhism. He refuses to let go of anything from his past, and so he stoops more and more beneath the weight of a useless accumulation. Have a guide for part of the way, but once you have travelled that part, leave it and the guide behind, and move on. This is something men do very reluctantly; once they get hold of something that helps them, they cling to it; they won't let go of it.
Those who have made some progress with Christianity do not want to give it up, and carry it on their backs; those who have made some progress with Buddhism do not want to leave it, and carry it on their backs. This weighs you down and slows you terribly. Once you have passed through a stage, drop it; let it go! And move on! Yes, there is an eternal law, but it is eternally young and eternally progressive.
Although India was also able to appreciate that God is the Eternal Iconoclast in his cosmic march, she did not always have the strength to withstand her own wisdom. The vast invisible that pervades this country was to extract from it a double ransom, both human and spiritual; human, because these people, saturated with the Beyond,
--
Shankara (788-820 A.D.), mystic and poet, theorist of Mayavada or the doctrine of illusionism, which supplanted Buddhism in India.
play of the three gunas, which rock us endlessly from light to dark,
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Mahayana Buddhism teaches these same metaphysical doctrines in terms of the Three Bodies of Buddha the absolute Dharmakaya, known also as the Primordial Buddha, or Mind, or the Clear Light of the Void; the Sambhogakaya, corresponding to Isvara or the personal God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; and finally the Nirmanakaya, the material body, in which the Logos is incarnated upon earth as a living, historical Buddha.
Among the Sufis, Al Haqq, the Real, seems to be thought of as the abyss of Godhead underlying the personal Allah, while the Prophet is taken out of history and regarded as the incarnation of the Logos.
--
Like St. Augustine, Eckhart was to some extent the victim of his own literary talents. Le style cest Ihomme. No doubt. But the converse is also partly true. Lhomme cest le style. Because we have a gift for writing in a certain way, we find ourselves, in some sort, becoming our way of writing. We mould ourselves in the likeness of our particular brand of eloquence. Eckhart was one of the inventors of German prose, and he was tempted by his new-found mastery of forceful expression to commit himself to extreme positionsto be doctrinally the image of his powerful and over-emphatic sentences. A statement like the foregoing would lead one to believe that he despised what the Vedantists call the lower knowledge of Brahman, not as the Absolute Ground of all things, but as the personal God. In reality he, like the Vedantists, accepts the lower knowledge as genuine knowledge and regards devotion to the personal God as the best preparation for the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. Another point to remember is that the attri buteless Godhead of Vedanta, of Mahayana Buddhism, of Christian and Sufi mysticism is the Ground of all the qualities possessed by the personal God and the Incarnation. God is not good, I am good, says Eckhart in his violent and excessive way. What he really meant was, I am just humanly good; God is supereminently good; the Godhead is, and his isness (istigkeit, in Eckharts German) contains goodness, love, wisdom and all the rest in their essence and principle. In consequence, the Godhead is never, for the exponent of the Perennial Philosophy, the mere Absolute of academic metaphysics, but something more purely perfect, more reverently to be adored than even the personal God or his human incarnationa Being towards whom it is possible to feel the most intense devotion and in relation to whom it is necessary (if one is to come to that unitive knowledge which is mans final end) to practise a discipline more arduous and unremitting than any imposed by ecclesiastical authority.
There is a distinction and differentiation, according to our reason, between God and the Godhead, between action and rest. The fruitful nature of the Persons ever worketh in a living differentiation. But the simple Being of God, according to the nature thereof, is an eternal Rest of God and of all created things.
--
What Eckhart describes as the pure One, the absolute not-God in whom we must sink from nothingness to nothingness is called in Mahayana Buddhism the Clear Light of the Void. What follows is part of a formula addressed by the Tibetan priest to a person in the act of death.
O nobly born, the time has now come for thee to seek the Path. Thy breathing is about to cease. In the past thy teacher hath set thee face to face with the Clear Light; and now thou art about to experience it in its Reality in the Bardo state (the intermediate state immediately following death, in which the soul is judgedor rather judges itself by choosing, in accord with the character formed during its life on earth, what sort of an after-life it shall have). In this Bardo state all things are like the cloudless sky, and the naked, immaculate Intellect is like unto a translucent void without circumference or centre. At this moment know thou thyself and abide in that state. I too, at this time, am setting thee face to face.
1.03 - Invocation of Tara, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
In Buddhism, there are many types of rituals
corresponding to various levels of practice.
--
traditions of Tibetan Buddhism use according to their
preference. The one most often used in the Kagyu
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Here we may remark in passing that it is only the one-pointed, who are truly capable of worshipping one God. Monotheism as a theory can be entertained even by a person whose name is Legion. But when it comes to passing from theory to practice, from discursive knowledge about to immediate acquaintance with the one God, there cannot be monotheism except where there is singleness of heart. Knowledge is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. Where the knower is poly-psychic the universe he knows by immediate experience is polytheistic. The Buddha declined to make any statement in regard to the ultimate divine Reality. All he would talk about was Nirvana, which is the name of the experience that comes to the totally selfless and one-pointed. To this same experience others have given the name of union with Brahman, with Al Haqq, with the immanent and transcendent Godhead. Maintaining, in this matter, the attitude of a strict operationalist, the Buddha would speak only of the spiritual experience, not of the metaphysical entity presumed by the theologians of other religions, as also of later Buddhism, to be the object and (since in contemplation the knower, the known and the knowledge are all one) at the same time the subject and substance of that experience.
When a man lacks discrimination, his will wanders in all directions, after innumerable aims. Those who lack discrimination may quote the letter of the scripture; but they are really denying its inner truth. They are full of worldly desires and hungry for the rewards of heaven. They use beautiful figures of speech; they teach elaborate rituals, which are supposed to obtain pleasure and power for those who practice them. But, actually, they understand nothing except the law of Karma that chains men to rebirth.
--
The doctrine that God can be incarnated in human form is found in most of the principal historic expositions of the Perennial Philosophyin Hinduism, in Mahayana Buddhism, in Christianity and in the Mohammedanism of the Sufis, by whom the Prophet was equated with the eternal Logos.
When goodness grows weak,
--
What we do depends in large measure upon what we think, and if what we do is evil, there is good empirical reason for supposing that our thought patterns are inadequate to material. mental or spiritual reality. Because Christians believed that there had been only one Avatar, Christian history has been disgraced by more and bloother crusades, interdenominational wars, persecutions and proselytizing imperialism than has the history of Hinduism and Buddhism. Absurd and idolatrous doctrines, affirming the quasi-divine nature of sovereign states and their rulers, have led oriental, no less than Western, peoples into innumerable political wars; but because they have not believed in an exclusive revelation at one sole instant of time, or in the quasi-divinity of an ecclesiastical organization, oriental peoples have kept remarkably clear of the mass murder for religions sake, which has been so dreadfully frequent in Christendom. And while, in this important respect, the level of public morality has been lower in the West than in the East, the levels of exceptional sanctity and of ordinary individual morality have not, so far as one can judge from the available evidence, been any higher. If the tree is indeed known by its fruits, Christianitys departure from the norm of the Perennial Philosophy would seem to be philosophically unjustifiable.
The Logos passes out of eternity into time for no other purpose than to assist the beings, whose bodily form he takes, to pass out of time into eternity. If the Avatars appearance upon the stage of history is enormously important, this is due to the fact that by his teaching he points out, and by his being a channel of grace and divine power he actually is, the means by which human beings may transcend the limitations of history. The author of the Fourth Gospel affirms that the Word became flesh; but in another passage he adds that the flesh profiteth nothingnothing, that is to say, in itself, but a great deal, of course, as a means to the union with immanent and transcendent Spirit. In this context it is very interesting to consider the development of Buddhism. Under the forms of religious or mystical imagery, writes R. E. Johnston in his Buddhist China, the Mahayana expresses the universal, whereas Hinayana cannot set itself free from the domination of historical fact. In the words of an eminent orientalist, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Mahayanist believer is warnedprecisely as the worshipper of Krishna is warned in the Vaishnavite scriptures that the Krishna Lila is not a history, but a process for ever unfolded in the heart of man that matters of historical fact are without religious significance (except, we should add, insofar as they point to or themselves constitute the meanswhe ther remote or proximate, whether political, ethical or spiritualby which men may come to deliverance from selfness and the temporal order.)
In the West, the mystics went some way towards liberating Christianity from its unfortunate servitude to historic fact. (or, to be more accurate, to those various mixtures of contemporary record with subsequent inference and phantasy, which have, at different epochs, been accepted as historic fact). From the writings of Eckhart, Tauler and Ruysbroeck, of Boehme, William Law and the Quakers, it would be possible to extract a spiritualized and universalized Christianity, whose narratives should refer, not to history as it was, or as someone afterwards thought it ought to be, but to processes forever unfolded in the heart of man. But unfortunately the influence of the mystics was never powerful enough to bring about a radical Mahayanist revolution in the West. In spite of them, Christianity has remained a religion in which the pure Perennial Philosophy has been overlaid, now more, now less, by an idolatrous preoccupation with events and things in timeevents and things regarded not merely as useful means, but as ends, intrinsically sacred and indeed divine. Moreover such improvements on history as were made in the course of centuries were, most imprudently, treated as though they themselves were a part of historya procedure which put a powerful weapon into the hands of Protestant and, later, of Rationalist controversialists. How much wiser it would have been to admit the perfectly avowable fact that, when the sternness of Christ the Judge had been unduly emphasized, men and women felt the need of personifying the divine compassion in a new form, with the result that the figure of the Virgin, mediatrix to the mediator, came into increased prominence. And when, in course of time, the Queen of Heaven was felt to be too awe-inspiring, compassion was re-personified in the homely figure of St. Joseph, who thus became me thator to the me thatrix to the me thator. In exactly the same way Buddhist worshippers felt that the historic Sakyamuni, with his insistence on recollectedness, discrimination and a total dying to self as the principal means of liberation, was too stern and too intellectual. The result was that the love and compassion which Sakyamuni had also inculcated came to be personified in Buddhas such as Amida and Maitreyadivine characters completely removed from history, inasmuch as their temporal career was situated somewhere in the distant past or distant future. Here it may be remarked that the vast numbers of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, of whom the Mahayanist theologians speak, are commensurate with the vastness of their cosmology. Time, for them, is beginningless, and the innumerable universes, every one of them supporting sentient beings of every possible variety, are born, evolve, decay and the, only to repeat the same cycleagain and again, until the final inconceivably remote consummation, when every sentient being in all the worlds shall have won to deliverance out of time into eternal Suchness or Buddhahood This cosmological background to Buddhism has affinities with the world picture of modern astronomyespecially with that version of it offered in the recently published theory of Dr. Weiszcker regarding the formation of planets. If the Weiszcker hypothesis is correct, the production of a planetary system would be a normal episode in the life of every star. There are forty thousand million stars in our own galactic system alone, and beyond our galaxy other galaxies, indefinitely. If, as we have no choice but to believe, spiritual laws governing consciousness are uniform throughout the whole planet-bearing and presumably life-supporting universe, then certainly there is plenty of room, and at the same time, no doubt, the most agonizing and desperate need, for those innumerable redemptive incarnations of Suchness, upon whose shining multitudes the Mahayanists love to dwell.
For my part, I think the chief reason which prompted the invisible God to become visible in the flesh and to hold converse with men was to lead carnal men, who are only able to love carnally, to the healthful love of his flesh, and afterwards, little by little, to spiritual love.
--
In other words there must be imitation of Christ before there can be identification with the Father; and there must be essential identity or likeness between the human spirit and the God who is Spirit in order that the idea of imitating the earthly behaviour of the incarnate Godhead should ever cross anybodys mind. Christian theologians speak of the possibility of deification, but deny that there is identity of substance between spiritual Reality and the human spirit. In Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, as also among the Sufis, spirit and Spirit are held to be the same substance; Atman is Brahman; That art thou.
When not enlightened, Buddhas are no other than ordinary beings; when there is enlightenment, ordinary beings at once turn into Buddhas.
1.03 - Tara, Liberator from the Eight Dangers, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
we say fear, worry, panic, and terror come to mind. However, Buddhism
discriminates two types of fear, one that is deled, the other that is a form of
--
crossed and eyes closed? What kind of weird thing is Buddhism? Everybody at work thinks Im nuts and tells me I should get a life. Actually, cyclic
existence isnt all that bad. Why should I want to get out of it? Whats all
1.03 - The Two Negations 2 - The Refusal of the Ascetic, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
17:It is this revolt of Spirit against Matter that for two thousand years, since Buddhism disturbed the balance of the old Aryan world, has dominated increasingly the Indian mind. Not that the sense of the cosmic illusion is the whole of Indian thought; there are other philosophical statements, other religious aspirations. Nor has some attempt at an adjustment between the two terms been wanting even from the most extreme philosophies. But all have lived in the shadow of the great Refusal and the final end of life for all is the garb of the ascetic. The general conception of existence has been permeated with the Buddhistic theory of the chain of Karma and with the consequent antinomy of bondage and liberation, bondage by birth, liberation by cessation from birth. Therefore all voices are joined in one great consensus that not in this world of the dualities can there be our kingdom of heaven, but beyond, whether in the joys of the eternal Vrindavan4 or the high beatitude of Brahmaloka,5 beyond all manifestations in some ineffable Nirvana6 or where all separate experience is lost in the featureless unity of the indefinable Existence. And through many centuries a great army of shining witnesses, saints and teachers, names sacred to Indian memory and dominant in Indian imagination, have borne always the same witness and swelled always the same lofty and distant appeal, - renunciation the sole path of knowledge, acceptation of physical life the act of the ignorant, cessation from birth the right use of human birth, the call of the Spirit, the recoil from Matter.
18:For an age out of sympathy with the ascetic spirit - and throughout all the rest of the world the hour of the Anchorite may seem to have passed or to be passing - it is easy to attribute this great trend to the failing of vital energy in an ancient race tired out by its burden, its once vast share in the common advance, exhausted by its many-sided contri bution to the sum of human effort and human knowledge. But we have seen that it corresponds to a truth of existence, a state of conscious realisation which stands at the very summit of our possibility. In practice also the ascetic spirit is an indispensable element in human perfection and even its separate affirmation cannot be avoided so long as the race has not at the other end liberated its intellect and its vital habits from subjection to an always insistent animalism.
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
It is in the literature of Mahayana and especially of Zen Buddhism that we find the best account of the psychology of the man for whom Samsara and Nirvana, time and eternity, are one and the same. More systematically perhaps than any other religion, the Buddhism of the Far East teaches the way to spiritual Knowledge in its fulness as well as in its heights, in and through the world as well as in and through the soul. In this context we may point to a highly significant fact, which is that the incomparable landscape painting of China and Japan was essentially a religious art, inspired by Taoism and Zen Buddhism; in Europe, on the contrary, landscape painting and the poetry of nature worship were secular arts which arose when Christianity was in decline, and derived little or no inspiration from Christian ideals.
Blind, deaf, dumb!
--
These phrases about the unmoving first mover remind one of Aristotle. But between Aristotle and the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy within the great religious traditions there is this vast difference: Aristotle is primarily concerned with cosmology, the Perennial Philosophers are primarily concerned with liberation and enlightenment: Aristotle is content to know about the unmoving mover, from the outside and theoretically; the aim of the Perennial Philosophers is to become directly aware of it, to know it unitively, so that they and others may actually become the unmoving One. This unitive knowledge can be knowledge in the heights, or knowledge in the fulness, or knowledge simultaneously in the heights and the fulness. Spiritual knowledge exclusively in the heights of the soul was rejected by Mahayana Buddhism as inadequate. The similar rejection of quietism within the Christian tradition will be touched upon in the section, Contemplation and Action. Meanwhile it is interesting to find that the problem which aroused such acrimonious debate throughout seventeenth-century Europe had arisen for the Buddhists at a considerably earlier epoch. But whereas in Catholic Europe the outcome of the battle over Molinos, Mme. Guyon and Fnelon was to all intents and purposes the extinction of mysticism for the best part of two centuries, in Asia the two parties were tolerant enough to agree to differ. Hinayana spirituality continued to explore the heights within, while the Mahayanist masters held up the ideal not of the Arhat, but of the Bodhisattva, and pointed the way to spiritual knowledge in its fulness as well as in its heights. What follows is a poetical account, by a Zen saint of the eighteenth century, of the state of those who have realized the Zen ideal.
Abiding with the non-particular which is in particulars,
--
That Nirvana and Samsara are one is a fact about the nature of the universe; but it is a fact which cannot be fully realized or directly experienced, except by souls far advanced in spirituality. For ordinary, nice, unregenerate people to accept this truth by hearsay, and to act upon it in practice, is merely to court disaster. All the dismal story of antinomianism is there to warn us of what happens when men and women make practical applications of a merely intellectual and unrealized theory that all is God and God is all. And hardly less depressing than the spectacle of antinomianism is that of the earnestly respectable well-rounded life of good citizens who do their best to live sacramentally, but dont in fact have any direct acquaintance with that for which the sacramental activity really stands. Dr. Oman, in his The Natural and the Supernatural, writes at length on the theme that reconciliation to the evanescent is revelation of the eternal; and in a recent volume, Science, Religion and the Future, Canon Raven applauds Dr. Oman for having stated the principles of a theology, in which there could be no ultimate antithesis between nature and grace, science and religion, in which, indeed, the worlds of the scientist and the theologian are seen to be one and the same. All this is in full accord with Taoism and Zen Buddhism and with such Christian teachings as St. Augustines Ama et fac quod vis and Father Lallemants advice to theocentric contemplatives to go out and act in the world, since their actions are the only ones capable of doing any real good to the world. But what neither Dr. Oman nor Canon Raven makes sufficiently clear is that nature and grace, Samsara and Nirvana, perpetual perishing and eternity, are really and experientially one only to persons who have fulfilled certain conditions. Fac quod vis in the temporal world but only when you have learnt the infinitely difficult art of loving God with all your mind and heart and your neighbor as yourself. If you havent learnt this lesson, you will either be an antinomian eccentric or criminal or else a respectable well-rounded-lifer, who has left himself no time to understand either nature or grace. The Gospels are perfectly clear about the process by which, and by which alone, a man may gain the right to live in the world as though he were at home in it: he must make a total denial of selfhood, submit to a complete and absolute mortification. At one period of his career, Jesus himself seems to have undertaken austerities, not merely of the mind, but of the body. There is the record of his forty days fast and his statement, evidently drawn from personal experience, that some demons cannot be cast out except by those who have fasted much as well as prayed. (The Cur dArs, whose knowledge of miracles and corporal penance was based on personal experience, insists on the close correlation between severe bodily austerities and the power to get petitionary prayer answered in ways that are sometimes supernormal.) The Pharisees reproached Jesus because he came eating and drinking, and associated with publicans and sinners; they ignored, or were unaware of, the fact that this apparently worldly prophet had at one time rivalled the physical austerities of John the Baptist and was practising the spiritual mortifications which he consistently preached. The pattern of Jesus life is essentially similar to that of the ideal sage, whose career is traced in the Oxherding Pictures, so popular among Zen Buddhists. The wild ox, symbolizing the unregenerate self, is caught, made to change its direction, then tamed and gradually transformed from black to white. Regeneration goes so far that for a time the ox is completely lost, so that nothing remains to be pictured but the full-orbed moon, symbolizing Mind, Suchness, the Ground. But this is not the final stage. In the end, the herdsman comes back to the world of men, riding on the back of his ox. Because he now loves, loves to the extent of being identified with the divine object of his love, he can do what he likes; for what he likes is what the Nature of Things likes. He is found in company with wine-bibbers and butchers; he and they are all converted into Buddhas. For him, there is complete reconciliation to the evanescent and, through that reconciliation, revelation of the eternal. But for nice ordinary unregenerate people the only reconciliation to the evanescent is that of indulged passions, of distractions submitted to and enjoyed. To tell such persons that evanescence and eternity are the same, and not immediately to qualify the statement, is positively fatalfor, in practice, they are not the same except to the saint; and there is no record that anybody ever came to sanctity, who did not, at the outset of his or her career, behave as if evanescence and eternity, nature and grace, were profoundly different and in many respects incompatible. As always, the path of spirituality is a knife-edge between abysses. On one side is the danger of mere rejection and escape, on the other the danger of mere acceptance and the enjoyment of things which should only be used as instruments or symbols. The versified caption which accompanies the last of the Oxherding Pictures runs as follows.
Even beyond the ultimate limits there extends a passageway,
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
from God is the truth to the fanatical faith All is false; an active Buddhism.
211
1.05 - Buddhism and Women, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
object:1.05 - Buddhism and Women
subject class: Buddhism
--
The status of women in Buddhism often appears to
have been inferior to that of men. For example, in the
--
than ever, Buddhism does not distinguish men from
women, crediting them both with the same spiritual
--
occupies a fundamental place in Buddhism. In fact, it
is considered that without the presence of a potential
--
REMARKABLE -W OMEN IN INDIAN Buddhism
All through its history, Buddhism in India, and in
Tibet as well, has seen a great number of remarkable
--
Tantric Buddhism was introduced to
Tibet by the great Indian teacher Padmasambhava in
--
REMARKABLE WOMEN OF TmETAN Buddhism
The structure of Tibetan society probably did not
--
very beginning of the introduction of Buddhism in
Tibet, women have played an important role. King
Songtsen Gampo, who reigned at the time Buddhism
was implanted in the Land of Snow, had two spouses.
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supported the development of Buddhism.
YESHE TSOGYAL - Yeshe Tsogyal, looked upon as an
--
reponsible for the introduction of tantric Buddhism to
Tibet, the King offered Yeshe . Tsogyal to
--
In all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Nyingma,
Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug, numerous women have
--
this effect, there is a teacher of Buddhism in all the
schools. A buddhist university was founded in
1.05 - Some Results of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
further news which does not tally with the previous information. I am thereby obliged to reverse my previous judgment. The result is an unfavorable influence upon my sixteen-petalled lotus. Quite the contrary would have been the case had I, in the first place, suspended judgment, and remained silent both inwardly in thought and outwardly in word concerning the whole affair, until I had acquired reliable grounds for forming my judgment. Caution in the formation and pronouncement of judgments becomes, by degrees, the special characteristic of the student. On the other hand his receptivity for impressions and experiences increases; he lets them pass over him silently, so as to collect and have the largest possible number of facts at his disposal when the time comes to form his opinions. Bluish-red and reddish-pink shades color the lotus flower as the result of such circumspection, whereas in the opposite case dark red and orange shades appear. (Students will recognize in the conditions attached to the development of the sixteen-petalled lotus the instructions given by the Buddha to his disciples for the Path. Yet there is no question here of teaching Buddhism,
p. 146
1.05 - The Destiny of the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4:So strongly was this truth perceived in the ancient times that the Vedantic Seers, even after they had arrived at the crowning idea, the convincing experience of Sachchidananda as the highest positive expression of the Reality to our consciousness, erected in their speculations or went on in their perceptions to an Asat, a Non-Being beyond, which is not the ultimate existence, the pure consciousness, the infinite bliss of which all our experiences are the expression or the deformation. If at all an existence, a consciousness, a bliss, it is beyond the highest and purest positive form of these things that here we can possess and other therefore than what here we know by these names. Buddhism, somewhat arbitrarily declared by the theologians to be an un-Vedic doctrine because it rejected the authority of the Scriptures, yet goes back to this essentially Vedantic conception. Only, the positive and synthetic teaching of the Upanishads beheld Sat and Asat not as opposites destructive of each other, but as the last antinomy through which we look up to the Unknowable. And in the transactions of our positive consciousness, even Unity has to make its account with Multiplicity; for the Many also are Brahman. It is by Vidya, the Knowledge of the Oneness, that we know God; without it Avidya, the relative and multiple consciousness, is a night of darkness and a disorder of Ignorance. Yet if we exclude the field of that Ignorance, if we get rid of Avidya as if it were a thing non-existent and unreal, then Knowledge itself becomes a sort of obscurity and a source of imperfection. We become as men blinded by a light so that we can no longer see the field which that light illumines.
5:Such is the teaching, calm, wise and clear, of our most ancient sages. They had the patience and the strength to find and to know; they had also the clarity and humility to admit the limitation of our knowledge. They perceived the borders where it has to pass into something beyond itself. It was a later impatience of heart and mind, vehement attraction to an ultimate bliss or high masterfulness of pure experience and trenchant intelligence which sought the One to deny the Many and because it had received the breath of the heights scorned or recoiled from the secret of the depths. But the steady eye of the ancient wisdom perceived that to know God really, it must know Him everywhere equally and without distinction, considering and valuing but not mastered by the oppositions through which He shines.
1.05 - THE MASTER AND KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Narendra, who lived in that quarter of the city, was sent for. In the mean time Sri Ramakrishna and the devotees were invited to the drawing-room upstairs. The floor of the room was covered with a carpet and a white sheet. A few cushions were lying about. On the wall hung an oil painting especially painted for Surendra, in which Sri Ramakrishna was pointing out to Keshab the harmony of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions. On seeing the picture Keshab had once said, "Blessed is the man who conceived the idea."
Sri Ramakrishna was talking joyously with the devotees, when Narendra arrived. This made the Master doubly happy. He said to his young disciple, "We had a boat trip with Keshab today. Vijay and many other Brahmo devotees were there. (Pointing to M.) Ask him what I said to Keshab and Vijay about the mother and daughter observing their religious fast on Tuesdays, each on her own account, though the welfare of the one meant the welfare of the other. I also said to Keshab that trouble-makers like jatila and Kutila were necessary to lend zest to the play. (To M.) Isn't that so?"
1.06 - Dhyana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
35:To turn to another point. One of our tests of truth is the vividness of the impression. An isolated event in the past of no great importance may be forgotten; and if it be in some way recalled, one may find one's self asking: "Did I dream it? or did it really happen?" What can never be forgotten is the "catastrophic". The first death among the people that one loves (for example) would never be forgotten; for the first time one would "realize" what one had previously merely "known". Such an experience sometimes drives people insane. Men of science have been known to commit suicide when their pet theory has been shattered. This problem has been discussed freely in "Science and Buddhism," "Time," "The Camel," and other papers. This much only need we say in this place that Dhyana has to be classed as the most vivid and catastrophic of all experiences. This will be confirmed by any one who has been there.
36:It is, then, difficult to overrate the value that such an experience has for the individual, especially as it is his entire conception of things, including his most deep-seated conception, the standard to which he has always referred everything, his own self, that is overthrown; and when we try to explain it away as hallucination, temporary suspension of the faculties or something similar, we find ourselves unable to do so. You cannot argue with a flash of lightning that has knocked you down.
1.06 - Man in the Universe, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
18:We have seen that the Non-Being beyond may well be an inconceivable existence and perhaps an ineffable Bliss. At least the Nirvana of Buddhism which formulated one most luminous effort of man to reach and to rest in this highest Non-Existence, represents itself in the psychology of the liberated yet upon earth as an unspeakable peace and gladness; its practical effect is the extinction of all suffering through the disappearance of all egoistic idea or sensation and the nearest we can get to a positive conception of it is that it is some inexpressible Beatitude (if the name or any name can be applied to a peace so void of contents) into which even the notion of self-existence seems to be swallowed up and disappear. It is a Sachchidananda to which we dare no longer apply even the supreme terms of Sat, of Chit and of Ananda. For all terms are annulled and all cognitive experience is overpassed.
19:On the other hand, we have hazarded the suggestion that since all is one Reality, this inferior negation also, this other contradiction or non-existence of Sachchidananda is none other than Sachchidananda itself. It is capable of being conceived by the intellect, perceived in the vision, even received through the sensations as verily that which it seems to deny, and such would it always be to our conscious experience if things were not falsified by some great fundamental error, some possessing and compelling Ignorance, Maya or Avidya. In this sense a solution might be sought, not perhaps a satisfying metaphysical solution for the logical mind, - for we are standing on the border-line of the unknowable, the ineffable and straining our eyes beyond, - but a sufficient basis in experience for the practice of the divine life.
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
OUR kingdom go is the necessary and unavoidable corollary of Thy kingdom come. For the more there is of self, the less there is of God. The divine eternal fulness of life can be gained only by those who have deliberately lost the partial, separative life of craving and self-interest, of egocentric thinking, feeling, wishing and acting. Mortification or deliberate dying to self is inculcated with an uncompromising firmness in the canonical writings of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and most of the other major and minor religions of the world, and by every theocentric saint and spiritual reformer who has ever lived out and expounded the principles of the Perennial Philosophy. But this self-naughting is never (at least by anyone who knows what he is talking about) regarded as an end in itself. It possesses merely an instrumental value, as the indispensable means to something else. In the words of one whom we have often had occasion to cite in earlier sections, it is necessary for all of us to learn the true nature and worth of all self-denials and mortifications.
As to their nature, considered in themselves, they have nothing of goodness or holiness, nor are any real part of our sanctification, they are not the true food or nourishment of the Divine Life in our souls, they have no quickening, sanctifying power in them; their only worth consists in this, that they remove the impediments of holiness, break down that which stands between God and us, and make way for the quickening, sanctifying spirit of God to operate on our souls, which operation of God is the one only thing that can raise the Divine Life in the soul, or help it to the smallest degree of real holiness or spiritual life. Hence we may learn the reason why many people not only lose the benefit, but are even the worse for all their mortifications. It is because they mistake the whole nature and worth of them. They practice them for their own sakes, as things good in themselves; they think them to be real parts of holiness, and so rest in them and look no further, but grow full of self-esteem and self-admiration for their own progress in them. This makes them self-sufficient, morose, severe judges of all those that fall short of their mortifications. And thus their self-denials do only that for them which indulgences do for other people: they withstand and hinder the operation of God upon their souls, and instead of being really self-denials, they streng then and keep up the kingdom of self.
--
Ga-San instructed his adherents one day: Those who speak against killing, and who desire to spare the lives of all conscious beings are right. It is good to protect even animals and insects. But what about those persons who kill time, what about those who destroy wealth, and those who murder the economy of their society? We should not overlook them. Again, what of the one who preaches without enlightenment? He is killing Buddhism.
From One Hundred and One Zen Stories
1.070 - The Seven Stages of Perfection, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
These stages directly correspond to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, what the Buddha taught originally as his gospel. The stages of yoga are nothing but these, mentioned here in a new language altogether.
There is an awareness of the presence of a state beyond all suffering; and when the existence of this state beyond suffering becomes an object of ones awareness, coupled with a feeling that there is a way to it that is the beginning of the actual freedom of the soul. Then, there is a complete shaking up from the very roots of ones being. The internal organ, the mind, whose purpose is to bring about bhoga and aparvarga to consciousness, begins to withdraw its sway over consciousness. The power that the mind has over us gets lessened, and instead of our being mastered by it, we seem to have a chance of gaining mastery over it. This awareness arises only when experiences in the world which are to be undergone in this span of life are about to be exhausted. Until that time, the awareness itself will not be there.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
we dont have to take responsibility for making it happen. In Tibetan Buddhism we make long life pujas with elaborate offerings for our teachers. Once
some people in the West wanted to do this after a series of teachings, and
--
teachings. Some people mix non-Buddhist teachings with Buddhist practices and call it Buddhism. Others misunderstand the Buddhas teachings but
dont realize that theyve misunderstood it, and teach their misunderstanding as if it were what the Buddha taught. Some people have a spectacular
--
Not observing who is qualied and who is not. I remember in the midseventies when people were just learning Tibetan Buddhism, they would
often request highest yoga tantra initiations from Lama Yeshe, Lama, please
--
Someone once said to me, The aspirations in Mahayana Buddhism, the
vows made by the Medicine Buddha and Amitabha, and the dedication to
--
form of Buddhism, does that mean he or she cant be a bodhisattva?
Recognizing certain people as tulkusincarnates of great mastersis a
Tibetan cultural event. It isnt Buddhism, although it doesnt contradict Buddhas teachings. The Tibetans invented this system of looking for and recognizing incarnations of great masters. These tulkus received excellent
education and guidance when they were young. This system was also a way
--
done in deep voices. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are red hats, yellow hats,
and black hats. People compete to get hats; they ght over hats. Such behavior is not Dharma.
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The analysis of the philosophers of this School refers every phenomenon to the category of sorrow. It is quite useless to point out to them that certain events are accompanied with joy: they continue their ruthless calculations, and prove to your satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, that the more apparently pleasant an event is, the more malignantly deceptive is its fascination. There is only one way of escape even conceivable, and this way is quite simple, annihilation. (Shallow critics of Buddhism have wasted a great deal of stupid ingenuity on trying to make out that Nirvana or Nibbana means something different from what etymology, tradition and the evidence of the Classics combine to define it. The word means, quite simply, cessation: and it stands to reason that, if everything is sorrow, the only thing which is not sorrow is nothing, and that therefore to escape from sorrow is the attainment of nothingness.)
Western philosophy has on occasion approached this doctrine. It has at least asserted that no known form of existence is exempt from sorrow. Huxley says, in his Evolution and Ethics, "Suffering is the badge of all the tribe of sentient things."
1.07 - TRUTH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
What is the ultimate teaching of Buddhism?
You wont understand it until you have it.
--
To these unavoidable paradoxes some spiritual writers have chosen to add deliberate and calculated enormities of languagehard sayings, exaggerations, ironic or humorous extravagances, designed to startle and shock the reader out of that self-satisfied complacency which is the original sin of the intellect. Of this second kind of paradox the masters of Taoism and Zen Buddhism were particularly fond. The latter, indeed, made use of paralogisms and even of nonsense as a device for taking the kingdom of heaven by violence. Aspirants to the life of perfection were encouraged to practice discursive meditation on some completely non-logical formula. The result was a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the whole self-centred and world-centred discursive process, a sudden breaking through from reason (in the language of scholastic philosophy) to intuitive intellect, capable of a genuine insight into the divine Ground of all being. This method strikes us as odd and eccentric; but the fact remains that it worked to the extent of producing in many persons the final metanoia, or transformation of consciousness and character.
Zens use of almost comic extravagance to emphasize the philosophic truths it regarded as most important is well illustrated in the first of the extracts cited above. We are not intended seriously to imagine that an Avatar preaches in order to play a practical joke on the human race. But meanwhile what the author has succeeded in doing is to startle us out of our habitual complacency about the home-made verbal universe in which we normally do most of our living. Words are not facts, and still less are they the primordial Fact. If we take them too seriously, we shall lose our way in a forest of entangling briars. But if, on the contrary, we dont take them seriously enough, we shall remain unaware that there is a way to lose or a goal to be reached. If the Enlightened did not preach, there would be no deliverance for anyone. But because human minds and human languages are what they are, this necessary and indispensable preaching is beset with dangers. The history of all the religions is similar in one important respect; some of their adherents are enlightened and delivered, because they have chosen to react appropriately to the words which the founders have let fall; others achieve a partial salvation by reacting with partial appropriateness; yet others harm themselves and their fellows by reacting with a total inappropriatenessei ther ignoring the words altogether or, more often, taking them too seriously and treating them as though they were identical with the Fact to which they refer.
--
In connection with the Mahayanist view that words play an important and even creative part in the evolution of unregenerate human nature, we may mention Humes arguments against the reality of causation. These arguments start from the postulate that all events are loose and separate from one another and proceed with faultless logic to a conclusion that makes complete nonsense of all organized thought or purposive action. The fallacy, as Professor Stout has pointed out, lies in the preliminary postulate. And when we ask ourselves what it was that induced Hume to make this odd and quite unrealistic assumption that events are loose and separate, we see that his only reason for flying in the face of immediate experience was the fact that things and happenings are symbolically represented in our thought by nouns, verbs and adjectives, and that these words are, in effect, loose and separate from one another in a way which the events and things they stand for quite obviously are not. Taking words as the measure of things, instead of using things as the measure of words, Hume imposed the discrete and, so to say, pointilliste pattern of language upon the continuum of actual experiencewith the impossibly paradoxical results with which we are all familiar. Most human beings are not philosophers and care not at all for consistency in thought or action. Thus, in some circumstances they take it for granted that events are not loose and separate, but co-exist or follow one another within the organized and organizing field of a cosmic whole. But on other occasions, where the opposite view is more nearly in accord with their passions or interests, they adopt, all unconsciously, the Humian position and treat events as though they were as independent of one another and the rest of the world as the words by which they are symbolized. This is generally true of all occurrences involving I, me, mine. Reifying the loose and separate names, we regard the things as also loose and separatenot subject to law, not involved in the network of relationships, by which in fact they are so obviously bound up with their physical, social and spiritual environment. We regard as absurd the idea that there is no causal process in nature and no organic connection between events and things in the lives of other people; but at the same time we accept as axiomatic the notion that our own sacred ego is loose and separate from the universe, a law unto itself above the moral dharma and even, in many respects, above the natural law of causality. Both in Buddhism and Catholicism, monks and nuns were encouraged to avoid the personal pronoun and to speak of themselves in terms of circumlocutions that clearly indicated their real relationship with the cosmic reality and their fellow creatures. The precaution was a wise one. Our responses to familiar words are conditioned reflexes. By changing the stimulus, we can do something to change the response. No Pavlov bell, no salivation; no harping on words like me and mine, no purely automatic and unreflecting egotism. When a monk speaks of himself, not as I, but as this sinner or this unprofitable servant, he tends to stop taking his loose and separate selfhood for granted, and makes himself aware of his real, organic relationship with God and his neighbours.
In practice words are used for other purposes than for making statements about facts. Very often they are used rhetorically, in order to arouse the passions and direct the will towards some course of action regarded as desirable. And sometimes, too, they are used poetically that is to say, they are used in such a way that, besides making a statement about real or imaginary things and events, and besides appealing rhetorically to the will and the passions, they cause the reader to be aware that they are beautiful. Beauty in art or nature is a matter of relationships between things not in themselves intrinsically beautiful. There is nothing beautiful, for example, about the vocables, time, or syllable. But when they are used in such a phrase as to the last syllable of recorded time, the relationship between the sound of the component words, between our ideas of the things for which they stand, and between the overtones of association with which each word and the phrase as a whole are charged, is apprehended, by a direct and immediate intuition, as being beautiful.
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
It should, however, be remarked that, within its own ecclesiastical fold, Catholicism has been almost as tolerant as Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism. Nominally one, each of these religions consists, in fact, of a number of very different religions, covering the whole gamut of thought and behaviour from fetishism, through polytheism, through legalistic monotheism, through devotion to the sacred humanity of the Avatar, to the profession of the Perennial Philosophy and the practice of a purely spiritual religion that seeks the unitive knowledge of the Absolute Godhead. These tolerated religions-within-a-religion are not, of course, regarded as equally valuable or equally true. To worship polytheistically may be ones dharma; nevertheless the fact remains that mans final end is the unitive knowledge of the Godhead, and all the historical formulations of the Perennial Philosophy are agreed that every human being ought, and perhaps in some way or other actually will, achieve that end. All souls, writes Father Garrigou-Lagrange, receive a general remote call to the mystical life; and if all were faithful in avoiding, as they should, not merely mortal but venial sin, if they were, each according to his condition, docile to the Holy Ghost, and if they lived long enough, a day would come when they would receive the proximate and efficacious vocation to a high perfection and to the mystical life properly so called. With this statement Hindu and Buddhist theologians would probably agree; but they would add that every soul will in fact eventually attain this high perfection. All are called, but in any given generation few are chosen, because few choose themselves. But the series of conscious existences, corporeal or incorporeal, is indefinitely long; there is therefore time and opportunity for everyone to learn the necessary lessons. Moreover, there will always be helpers. For periodically there are descents of the Godhead into physical form; and at all times there are future Buddhas ready, on the threshold of reunion with the Intelligible Light, to renounce the bliss of immediate liberation in order to return as saviours and teachers again and again into the world of suffering and time and evil, until at last every sentient being shall have been delivered into eternity.
The practical consequences of this doctrine are clear enough. The lower forms of religion, whether emotional, active or intellectual, are never to be accepted as final. True, each of them comes naturally to persons of a certain kind of constitution and temperament; but the dharma or duty of any given individual is not to remain complacently fixed in the imperfect religion that happens to suit him; it is rather to transcend it, not by impossibly denying the modes of thought, behaviour and feeling that are natural to him, but by making use of them, so that by means of nature he may pass beyond nature. Thus the introvert uses discrimination (in the Indian phrase), and so learns to distinguish the mental activities of the ego from the principial consciousness of the Self, which is akin to, or identical with, the divine Ground. The emotional extravert learns to hate his father and mother (in other words to give up his selfish attachment to the pleasures of indiscriminately loving and being loved), concentrates his devotion on the personal or incarnate aspect of God, and comes at last to love the Absolute Godhead by an act, no longer of feeling, but of will illuminated by knowledge. And finally there is that other kind of extravert, whose concern is not with the pleasures of giving or receiving affection, but with the satisfaction of his lust for power over things, events and persons. Using his own nature to transcend his own nature, he must follow the path laid down in the Bhagavad Gita for the bewildered Arjuna the path of work without attachment to the fruits of work, the path of what St. Franois de Sales calls holy indifference, the path that leads through the forgetting of self to the discovery of the Self.
--
Primitive Buddhism is no less predominantly cerebrotonic than primitive Christianity, and so is Vedanta, the metaphysical discipline which lies at the heart of Hinduism. Confucianism, on the contrary, is a mainly viscerotonic systemfamilial, ceremonious and thoroughly this-worldly. And in Mohammedanism we find a system which incorporates strongly somatotonic elements. Hence Islams black record of holy wars and persecutionsa record comparable to that of later Christianity, after that religion had so far compromised with unregenerate somatotonia as to call its ecclesiastical organization the Church Militant.
So far as the achievement of mans final end is concerned, it is as much of a handicap to be an extreme cerebrotonic or an extreme viscerotonic as it is to be an extreme somatotonic. But whereas the cerebrotonic and the viscerotonic cannot do much harm except to themselves and those in immediate contact with them, the extreme somatotonic, with his native aggressiveness, plays havoc with whole societies. From one point of view civilization may be defined as a complex of religious, legal and educational devices for preventing extreme somatotonics from doing too much mischief, and for directing their irrepressible energies into socially desirable channels. Confucianism and Chinese culture have sought to achieve this end by inculcating filial piety, good manners and an amiably viscerotonic epicureanism the whole reinforced somewhat incongruously by the cerebrotonic spirituality and restraints of Buddhism and classical Taoism. In India the caste system represents an attempt to subordinate military, political and financial power to spiritual authority; and the education given to all classes still insists so strongly upon the fact that mans final end is unitive knowledge of God that even at the present time, even after nearly two hundred years of gradually accelerating Europeanization, successful somatotonics will, in middle life, give up wealth, position and power to end their days as humble seekers after enlightenment. In Catholic Europe, as in India, there was an effort to subordinate temporal power to spiritual authority; but since the Church itself exercised temporal power through the agency of political prelates and mitred business men, the effort was never more than partially successful. After the Reformation even the pious wish to limit temporal power by means of spiritual authority was completely abandoned. Henry VIII made himself, in Stubbss words, the Pope, the whole Pope, and something more than the Pope, and his example has been followed by most heads of states ever since. Power has been limited only by other powers, not by an appeal to first principles as interpreted by those who are morally and spiritually qualified to know what they are talking about. Meanwhile, the interest in religion has everywhere declined and even among believing Christians the Perennial Philosophy has been to a great extent replaced by a metaphysic of inevitable progress and an evolving God, by a passionate concern, not with eternity, but with future time. And almost suddenly, within the last quarter of a century, there has been consummated what Sheldon calls a somatotonic revolution, directed against all that is characteristically cerebrotonic in the theory and practice of traditional Christian culture. Here are a few symptoms of this somatotonic revolution.
In traditional Christianity, as in all the great religious formulations of the Perennial Philosophy, it was axiomatic that contemplation is the end and purpose of action. Today the great majority even of professed Christians regard action (directed towards material and social progress) as the end, and analytic thought (there is no question any longer of integral thought, or contemplation) as the means to that end.
1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
Abiding as I-I, the world arises as before, but now there is no one to witness it. I-I is not "in here" looking "out there": there is no in here, no out there, only this. It is the radical end to all egocentrism, all geocentrism, all biocentrism, all sociocentrism, all theocentrism, because it is the radical end of all centrisms, period. It is the final decentering of all manifest realms, in all domains, at all times, in all places. As Dzogchen Buddhism would put it, because all phenomena are primordially empty, all phenomena, just as they are, are self-liberated as they arise.
In that pure empty awareness, I-I am the rise and fall of all worlds, ceaselessly, endlessly. I-I swallow the Kosmos and span the centuries, untouched by time or turmoil, embracing each with primordial purity, fierce compassion. It has never started, this nightmare of evolution, and therefore it will never end.
1.08 - Worship of Substitutes and Images, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
The same ideas apply to the worship of the Pratimas as to that of the Pratikas; that is to say, if the image stands for a god or a saint, the worship is not the result of Bhakti, and does not lead lo liberation; but if it stands for the one God, the worship thereof will bring both Bhakti and Mukti. Of the principal religions of the world we see Vedantism, Buddhism, and certain forms of Christianity freely using images; only two religions, Mohammedanism and Protestantism, refuse such help. Yet the Mohammedans use the grave of their saints and martyrs almost in the place of images; and the Protestants, in rejecting all concrete helps to religion, are drifting away every year farther and farther from spirituality till at present there is scarcely any difference between the advanced Protestants and the followers of August Comte, or agnostics who preach ethics alone. Again, in Christianity and Mohammedanism whatever exists of image worship is made to fall under that category in which the Pratika or the Pratima is worshipped in itself, but not as a "help to the vision" (Drishtisaukaryam) of God; therefore it is at best only of the nature of ritualistic Karmas and cannot produce either Bhakti or Mukti. In this form of image-worship, the allegiance of the soul is given to other things than Ishvara, and, therefore, such use of images, or graves, or temples, or tombs, is real idolatry; it is in itself neither sinful nor wicked it is a rite a Karma, and worshippers must and will get the fruit thereof.
next chapter: 1.09 - The Chosen Ideal
1.10 - Fate and Free-Will, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If we go back to the true Hindu teaching independent of Buddhistic influence, we shall find that it gives us a reconciliation of the dispute by a view of mans psychology in which both Fate and Free-will are recognised. The difference between Buddhism and Hinduism is that to the former the human soul is nothing, to the latter it is everything. The whole universe exists in the spirit, by the spirit, for the spirit; all we do, think and feel is for the spirit. Nature depends upon the Atman, all its movement, play, action is for the Atman.
There is no Fate except insistent causality which is only another name for Law, and Law itself is only an instrument in the hands of Nature for the satisfaction of the spirit. Law is nothing but a mode or rule of action; it is called in our philosophy not Law but Dharma, holding together, it is that by which the action of the universe, the action of its parts, the action of the individual is held together. This action in the universal, the parts, the individuals is called Karma, work, action, energy in play, and the definition of Dharma or Law is action as decided by the nature of the thing in which action takes place,svabhva-niyata karma. Each separate existence, each individual has a swabhava or nature and acts according to it, each group, species or mass of individuals has a swabhava or nature and acts according to it, and the universe also has its swabhava or nature and acts according to it. Mankind is a group of individuals and every man acts according to his human nature, that is his law of being as distinct from animals, trees or other groups of individuals. Each man has a distinct nature of his own and that is his law of being which ought to guide him as an individual. But beyond and above these minor laws is the great dharma of the universe which provides that certain previous karma or action must lead to certain new karma or results.
1.10 - GRACE AND FREE WILL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
For those who take pleasure in theological speculations based upon scriptural texts and dogmatic postulates, there are the thousands of pages of Catholic and Protestant controversy upon grace, works, faith and justification. And for students of comparative religion there are scholarly commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, on the works of Ramanuja and those later Vaishnavites, whose doctrine of grace bears a striking resemblance to that of Luther; there are histories of Buddhism which duly trace the development of that religion from the Hinayanist doctrine that salvation is the fruit of strenuous self-help to the Mahayanist doctrine that it cannot be achieved without the grace of the Primordial Buddha, whose inner consciousness and great compassionate heart constitute the eternal Suchness of things. For the rest of us, the foregoing quotations from writers within the Christian and early Taoist tradition provide, it seems to me, an adequate account of the observable facts of grace and inspiration and their relation to the observable facts of free will.
next chapter: 1.11 - GOOD AND EVIL
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When was this traditional honour first lost or at least tarnished and the ancient Scripture relegated to the inferior position it occupies in the thought of Shankaracharya? I presume there can be little doubt that the chief agent in this work of destruction was the power of Buddhism. The preachings of Gautama and his followers worked against Vedic knowledge by a double process. First, by entirely denying the authority of the Veda, laying a violent stress on its ritualistic character and destroying the general practice of formal sacrifice, it brought the study of the Veda into disrepute as a means of attaining the highest good while at the same time it destroyed the necessity of that study for ritualistic purposes which had hitherto kept alive the old Vedic studies; secondly, in a less direct fashion, by substituting for a time at least the vernacular tongues for the old simple Sanscrit as the more common & popular means of religious propaganda and by giving them a literary position and repute, it made a general return to the old generality of the Vedic studies practically impossible. For the Vedas were written in an ancient form of the literary tongue the real secret of which had already been to a great extent lost even to the learned; such knowledge of it as remained, subsisted with difficulty by means of a laborious memorising and a traditional scholarship, conservative indeed but still slowly diminishing and replacing more & more real knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was no longer possible. The old pre-Buddhistic Sanscrit was, to all appearance, a simple, vigorous, living language understood though not spoken by the more intelligent of the common people just as the literary language of Bengal, the language of Bankim Chandra, is understood by every intelligent Bengali, although in speech more contracted forms and a very different vocabulary are in use. But the new Sanscrit of the revival tended to be more & more a learned, scholarly, polished and rhetorical tongue, certainly one of the most smooth, stately & grandiose ever used by human lips, but needing a special & difficult education to understand its grammar, its rhetoric, its rolling compounds and its long flowing sentences. The archaic language of the Vedas ceased to be the common study even of the learned and was only mastered, one is constrained to believe with less & less efficiency, by a small number of scholars. An education in which it took seven years to master the grammar of the language, became inevitably the grave of all true Vedic knowledge. Veda ceased to be the pivot of the Hindu religion, and its place was taken by the only religious compositions which were modern enough in language and simple enough in style to be popular, the Puranas. Moreover, the conception of Veda popularised by Buddhism, Sanscrit as the more common & popular means of religious propaganda and by giving them a literary position and repute, it made a general return to the old generality of the Vedic studies practically impossible. For the Vedas were written in an ancient form of the literary tongue the real secret of which had already been to a great extent lost even to the learned; such knowledge of it as remained, subsisted with difficulty by means of a laborious memorising and a traditional scholarship, conservative indeed but still slowly diminishing and replacing more & more real knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was no longer possible. The old pre-Buddhistic Sanscrit was, to all appearance, a simple, vigorous, living language understood though not spoken by the more intelligent of the common people just as the literary language of Bengal, the language of Bankim Chandra, is understood by every intelligent Bengali, although in speech more contracted forms and a very different vocabulary are in use. But the new Sanscrit of the revival tended to be more & more a learned, scholarly, polished and rhetorical tongue, certainly one of the most smooth, stately & grandiose ever used by human lips, but needing a special & difficult education to understand its grammar, its rhetoric, its rolling compounds and its long flowing sentences. The archaic language of the Vedas ceased to be the common study even of the learned and was only mastered, one is constrained to believe with less & less efficiency, by a small number of scholars. An education in which it took seven years to master the grammar of the language, became inevitably the grave of all true Vedic knowledge. Veda ceased to be the pivot of the Hindu religion, and its place was taken by the only religious compositions which were modern enough in language and simple enough in style to be popular, the Puranas. Moreover, the conception of Veda popularised by Buddhism, a Scripture of ritual and of animal sacrifice, persisted in the popular mind even after the decline of Buddhism and the revival of great philosophies ostensibly based on Vedic authority. It was under the dominance of this ritualistic conception that Sayana wrote his great commentary which has ever since been to the Indian Pundit the one decisive authority on the sense of Veda. The four Vedas have definitely taken a subordinate place as karmakanda, books of ritual; and to the Upanishads alone, in spite of occasional appeals to the text of the earlier Scriptures, is reserved that aspect of spiritual knowledge & teaching which alone justifies the application to any human composition of the great name of Veda.
But in spite of this great downfall the ancient tradition, the ancient sanctity survived. The people knew not what Veda might be; but the old idea remained fixed that Veda is always the fountain of Hinduism, the standard of orthodoxy, the repository of a sacred knowledge; not even the loftiest philosopher or the most ritualistic scholar could divest himself entirely of this deeply ingrained & instinctive conception. To complete the degradation of Veda, to consummate the paradox of its history, a new element had to appear, a new form of intelligence undominated by the ancient tradition & the mediaeval method to take possession of Vedic interpretation. European scholarship which regards human civilisation as a recent progression starting yesterday with the Fiji islander and ending today with Haeckel and Rockefeller, conceiving ancient culture as necessarily primitive culture and primitive culture as necessarily half-savage culture, has turned the light of its Comparative Philology & Comparative Mythology on the Veda. The result we all know. Not only all vestige of sanctity, but all pretension to any kind of spiritual knowledge or experience disappears from the Veda. The old Rishis are revealed to us as a race of ignorant and lusty barbarians who drank & enjoyed and fought, gathered riches & procreated children, sacrificed and praised the Powers of Nature as if they were powerful men & women, and had no higher hope or idea. The only idea they had of religion beyond an occasional sense of sin and a perpetual preoccupation with a ritual barbarously encumbered with a mass of meaningless ceremonial details, was a mythology composed of the phenomena of dawn, night, rain, sunshine and harvest and the facts of astronomy converted into a wildly confused & incoherent mass of allegorical images and personifications. Nor, with the European interpretation, can we be proud of our early forefa thers as poets and singers. The versification of the Vedic hymns is indeed noble and melodious,though the incorrect method of writing them established by the old Indian scholars, often conceals their harmonious construction,but no other praise can be given. The Nibelungenlied, the Icelandic Sagas, the Kalewala, the Homeric poems, were written in the dawn of civilisation by semi-barbarous races, by poets not superior in culture to the Vedic Rishis; yet though their poetical value varies, the nations that possess them, need not be ashamed of their ancient heritage. The same cannot be said of the Vedic poems presented to us by European scholarship. Never surely was there even among savages such a mass of tawdry, glittering, confused & purposeless imagery; never such an inane & useless burden of epithets; never such slipshod & incompetent writing; never such a strange & almost insane incoherence of thought & style; never such a bald poverty of substance. The attempt of patriotic Indian scholars to make something respectable out of the Veda, is futile. If the modern interpretation stands, the Vedas are no doubt of high interest & value to the philologist, the anthropologist & the historian; but poetically and spiritually they are null and worthless. Its reputation for spiritual knowledge & deep religious wealth, is the most imposing & baseless hoax that has ever been worked upon the imagination of a whole people throughout many millenniums.
Is this, then, the last word about the Veda? Or, and this is the idea I write to suggest, is it not rather the culmination of a long increasing & ever progressing error? The theory this book is written to enunciate & support is simply this, that our forefa thers of early Vedantic times understood the Veda, to which they were after all much nearer than ourselves, far better than Sayana, far better than Roth & Max Muller, that they were, to a great extent, in possession of the real truth about the Veda, that that truth was indeed a deep spiritual truth, karmakanda as well as jnanakanda of the Veda contains an ancient knowledge, a profound, complex & well-ordered psychology & philosophy, strange indeed to our modern conception, expressed indeed in language still stranger & remoter from our modern use of language, but not therefore either untrue or unintelligible, and that this knowledge is the real foundation of our later religious developments, & Veda, not only by historical continuity, but in real truth & substance is the parent & bedrock of all later Hinduism, of Vedanta, Sankhya, Nyaya, Yoga, of Vaishnavism & Shaivism&Shaktism, of Tantra&Purana, even, in a remoter fashion, of Buddhism & the later unorthodox religions. From this quarry all have hewn their materials or from this far-off source drawn unknowingly their waters; from some hidden seed in the Veda they have burgeoned into their wealth of branchings & foliage. The ritualism of Sayana is an error based on a false preconception popularised by the Buddhists & streng thened by the writers of the Darshanas,on the theory that the karma of the Veda was only an outward ritual & ceremony; the naturalism of the modern scholars is an error based on a false preconception encouraged by the previous misconceptions of Sayana,on the theory of the Vedas [as] not only an ancient but a primitive document, the production of semi-barbarians. The Vedantic writers of the Upanishads had alone the real key to the secret of the Vedas; not indeed that they possessed the full knowledge of a dialect even then too ancient to be well understood, but they had the knowledge of the Vedic Rishis, possessed their psychology, & many of their general ideas, even many of their particular terms & symbols. That key, less & less available to their successors owing to the difficulty of the knowledge itself & of the language in which it was couched and to the immense growth of outward ritualism, was finally lost to the schools in the great debacle of Vedism induced by the intellectual revolutions of the centuries which immediately preceded the Christian era.
It is therefore a Vedantic or even what would nowadays be termed a theosophic interpretation of the Veda which in this book I propose to establish. My suggestion is that the gods of the Rigveda were indeed, as the European scholars have seen, masters of the Nature-Powers, but not, as they erroneously theorise, either exclusively or even mainly masters of the visible & physical Nature-Powers. They presided over and in their nature & movement were also & more predominantly mental Nature-Powers, vital Nature-Powers, even supra-mental Nature-Powers. The religion of the Vedic Rishis I suppose on this hypothesis to have been a sort of practical & concrete Brahmavada founded on the three principles of complex existence, isotheism of the gods and parallelism of their functions on all the planes of that complex existence; the secret of their ideas, language & ritual I suppose to rest in an elaborate habit of symbolism & double meaning which tends to phrase & typify all mental phenomena in physical and concrete figures. While the European scholars suppose the Rishis to have been simple-minded barbarians capable only of a gross & obvious personification of forces, only of a confused, barbarous and primitive system of astronomical allegories and animistic metaphors, I suppose them to have been men of daring and observant minds, using a bold and vigorous if sometimes fanciful system of images to express an elaborate practical psychology and self-observation in which what we moderns regard as abstract experiences & ideas were rather perceived with the vividness of physical experiences & images & so expressed in the picturesque terms of a great primitive philosophy. Their outward sacrifice & ritual I suppose to have been partly the symbols & partly the means of material expression for certain psychological processes, the first foundations of our Hindu system of Yoga, by which they believed themselves able to attain inward & outward mastery, knowledge, joy and extended life & being.
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Mahayanist Buddhism which held compassion and helpfulness
to be greater than Nirvana. As the virtues we practise must be
1.12 - TIME AND ETERNITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In the idealistic cosmology of Mahayana Buddhism memory plays the part of a rather maleficent demiurge. When the triple world is surveyed by the Bodhisattva, he perceives that its existence is due to memory that has been accumulated since the beginningless past, but wrongly interpreted. (Lankavatara Sutra), The word here translated as memory, means literally perfuming. The mind-body carried with it the ineradicable smell of all that has been thought and done, desired and felt, throughout its racial and personal past. The Chinese translate the Sanskrit term by two symbols, signifying habit-energy. The world is what (in our eyes) it is, because of all the consciously or unconsciously and physiologically remembered habits formed by our ancestors or by ourselves, either in our present life or in previous existences. These remembered bad habits cause us to believe that multiplicity is the sole reality and that the idea of I, me, mine represents the ultimate truth. Nirvana consists in seeing into the abode of reality as it is, and not reality quoad nos, as it seems to us. Obviously, this cannot be achieved so long as there is an us, to which reality can be relative. Hence the need, stressed by every exponent of the Perennial Philosophy, for mortification, for dying to self. And this must be a mortification not only of the appetites, the feelings and the will, but also of the reasoning powers, of consciousness itself and of that which makes our consciousness what it isour personal memory and our inherited habit-energies. To achieve complete deliverance, conversion from sin is not enough; there must also be a conversion of the mind, a paravritti, as the Mahayanists call it, or revulsion in the very depths of consciousness. As the result of this revulsion, the habit-energies of accumulated memory are destroyed and, along with them, the sense of being a separate ego. Reality is no longer perceived quoad nos (for the good reason that there is no longer a nos to perceive it), but as it is in itself. In Blakes words, If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would be seen as it is, infinite. By those who are pure in heart and poor in spirit, Samsara and Nirvana, appearance and reality, time and eternity are experienced as one and the same.
Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. And not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections; not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time.
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Passing now from theory to historical fact, we find that the religions, whose theology has been least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently the least violent and the most humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all of them obsessed with time), Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism, which has gone hand in hand with the political and economic oppression c the coloured peoples. For four hundred years, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, most of the Christian nations of Europe have spent a good part of their time and energy in attacking, conquering and exploiting their non-Christian neighbours in other continents. In the course of these centuries many individual churchmen did their best to mitigate the consequences of such iniquities; but none of the major Christian churches officially condemned them. The first collective protest against the slave system, introduced by the English and the Spaniards into the New World, was made in 1688 by the Quaker Meeting of Germantown. This fact is highly significant. Of all Christian sects in the seventeenth century, the Quakers were the least obsessed with history, the least addicted to the idolatry of things in time. They believed that the inner light was in all human beings and that salvation came to those who lived in conformity with that light and was not dependent on the profession of belief in historical or pseudo-historical events, nor on the performance of certain rites, nor on the support of a particular ecclesiastical organization. Moreover their eternity-philosophy preserved them from the materialistic apocalypticism of that progress-worship which in recent times has justified every kind of iniquity from war and revolution to sweated labour, slavery and the exploitation of savages and childrenhas justified them on the ground that the supreme good is in future time and that any temporal means, however intrinsically horrible, may be used to achieve that good. Because Quaker theology was a form of eternity-philosophy, Quaker political theory rejected war and persecution as means to ideal ends, denounced slavery and proclaimed racial equality. Members of other denominations had done good work for the African victims of the white mans rapacity. One thinks, for example, of St. Peter Claver at Cartagena. But this heroically charitable slave of the slaves never raised his voice against the institution of slavery or the criminal trade by which it was sustained; nor, so far as the extant documents reveal, did he ever, like John Woolman, attempt to persuade the slave-owners to free their human chattels. The reason, presumably, was that Claver was a Jesuit, vowed to perfect obedience and constrained by his theology to regard a certain political and ecclesiastical organization as being the mystical body of Christ. The heads of this organization had not pronounced against slavery or the slave trade. Who was he, Pedro Claver, to express a thought not officially approved by his superiors?
Another practical corollary of the great historical eternity-philosophies, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, is a morality inculcating kindness to animals. Judaism and orthodox Christianity taught that animals might be used as things, for the realization of mans temporal ends. Even St. Francis attitude towards the brute creation was not entirely unequivocal. True, he converted a wolf and preached sermons to birds; but when Brother Juniper hacked the feet off a living pig in order to satisfy a sick mans craving for fried trotters, the saint merely blamed his disciples intemperate zeal in damaging a valuable piece of private property. It was not until the nineteenth century, when orthodox Christianity had lost much of its power over European minds, that the idea that it might be a good thing to behave humanely towards animals began to make headway. This new morality was correlated with the new interest in Nature, which had been stimulated by the romantic poets and the men of science. Because it was not founded upon an eternity-philosophy, a doctrine of divinity dwelling in all living creatures, the modern movement in favour of kindness to animals was and is perfectly compatible with intolerance, persecution and systematic cruelty towards human beings. Young Nazis are taught to be gentle with dogs and cats, ruthless with Jews. That is because Nazism is a typical time-philosophy, which regards the ultimate good as existing, not in eternity, but in the future. Jews are, ex hypothesi, obstacles in the way of the realization of the supreme good; dogs and cats are not. The rest follows logically.
Selfishness and partiality are very inhuman and base qualities even in the things of this world; but in the doctrines of religion they are of a baser nature. Now, this is the greatest evil that the division of the church has brought forth; it raises in every communion a selfish, partial orthodoxy, which consists in courageously defending all that it has, and condemning all that it has not. And thus every champion is trained up in defense of their own truth, their own learning and their own church, and he has the most merit, the most honour, who likes everything, defends everything, among themselves, and leaves nothing uncensored in those that are of a different communion. Now, how can truth and goodness and union and religion be more struck at than by such defenders of it? If you ask why the great Bishop of Meaux wrote so many learned books against all parts of the Reformation, it is because he was born in France and bred up in the bosom of Mother Church. Had he been born in England, had Oxford or Cambridge been his Alma Mater, he might have rivalled our great Bishop Stillingfleet, and would have wrote as many learned folios against the Church of Rome as he has done. And yet I will venture to say that if each Church could produce but one man apiece that had the piety of an apostle and the impartial love of the first Christians in the first Church at Jerusalem, that a Protestant and a Papist of this stamp would not want half a sheet of paper to hold their articles of union, nor be half an hour before they were of one religion. If, therefore, it should be said that churches are divided, estranged and made unfriendly to one another by a learning, a logic, a history, a criticism in the hands of partiality, it would be saying that which each particular church too much proves to be true. Ask why even the best amongst the Catholics are very shy of owning the validity of the orders of our Church; it is because they are afraid of removing any odium from the Reformation. Ask why no Protestants anywhere touch upon the benefit or necessity of celibacy in those who are separated from worldly business to preach the gospel; it is because that would be seeming to lessen the Roman error of not suffering marriage in her clergy. Ask why even the most worthy and pious among the clergy of the Established Church are afraid to assert the sufficiency of the Divine Light, the necessity of seeking only the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; it is because the Quakers, who have broke off from the church, have made this doctrine their corner-stone. If we loved truth as such, if we sought for it for its own sake, if we loved our neighbour as ourselves, if we desired nothing by our religion but to be acceptable to God, if we equally desired the salvation of all men, if we were afraid of error only because of its harmful nature to us and our fellow-creatures, then nothing of this spirit could have any place in us.
1.13 - SALVATION, DELIVERANCE, ENLIGHTENMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In the theologies of the various religions, salvation is also regarded as a deliverance out of folly, evil and misery into happiness, goodness and wisdom. But political and economic means are held to be subsidiary to the cultivation of personal holiness, to the acquiring of personal merit and to the maintenance of personal faith in some divine principle or person having power, in one way or another, to forgive and sanctify the individual soul. Moreover the end to be achieved is not regarded as existing in some Utopian future period, beginning, say, in the twenty-second century or perhaps even a little earlier, if our favourite politicians remain in power and make the right laws; the end exists in heaven. This last phrase has two very different meanings. For what is probably the majority of those who profess the great historical religions, it signifies and has always signified a happy posthumous condition of indefinite personal survival, conceived of as a reward for good behaviour and correct belief and a compensation for the miseries inseparable from life in a body. But for those who, within the various religious traditions, have accepted the Perennial Philosophy as a theory and have done their best to live it out in practice, heaven is something else. They aspire to be delivered out of separate selfhood in time and into eternity as realized in the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground. Since the Ground can and ought to be unitively known in the present life (whose ultimate end and purpose is nothing but this knowledge), heaven is not an exclusively posthumous condition. He only is completely saved who is delivered here and now. As to the means to salvation, these are simultaneously ethical, intellectual and spiritual and have been summed up with admirable clarity and economy in the Buddhas Eightfold Path. Complete deliverance is conditional on the following: first, Right Belief in the all too obvious truth that the cause of pain and evil is craving for separative, ego-centred existence, with its corollary that there can be no deliverance from evil, whether personal or collective, except by getting rid of such craving and the obsession of I, me, mine"; second, Right Will, the will to deliver oneself and others; third, Right Speech, directed by compassion and charity towards all sentient beings; fourth, Right Action, with the aim of creating and maintaining peace and good will; fifth, Right Means of Livelihood, or the choice only of such professions as are not harmful, in their exercise, to any human being or, if possible, any living creature; sixth, Right Effort towards Self-control; seventh, Right Attention or Recollectedness, to be practised in all the circumstances of life, so that we may never do evil by mere thoughtlessness, because we know not what we do"; and, eighth, Right Contemplation, the unitive knowledge of the Ground, to which recollectedness and the ethical self-naughting prescribed in the first six branches of the Path give access. Such then are the means which it is within the power of the human being to employ in order to achieve mans final end and be saved. Of the means which are employed by the divine Ground for helping human beings to reach their goal, the Buddha of the Pali scriptures (a teacher whose dislike of footless questions is no less intense than that of the severest experimental physicist of the twentieth century) declines to speak. All he is prepared to talk about is sorrow and the ending of sorrow the huge brute fact of pain and evil and the other, no less empirical fact that there is a method, by which the individual can free himself from evil and do something to diminish the sum of evil in the world around him. It is only in Mahayana Buddhism that the mysteries of grace are discussed with anything like the fulness of treatment accorded to the subject in the speculations of Hindu and especially Christian theology. The primitive, Hinayana teaching on deliverance is simply an elaboration of the Buddhas last recorded words: Decay is inherent in all component things. Work out your own salvation with diligence. As in the well-known passage quoted below, all the stress is upon personal effort.
Therefore, Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the Truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, Ananda, who either now or after I am dead shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, shall not look for refuge to anyone beside themselves it is they who shall reach the very topmost Height. But they must be anxious to learn.
1.14 - IMMORTALITY AND SURVIVAL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In oriental discussions of the subject, that which survives death is not the personality. Buddhism accepts the doctrine of reincarnation; but it is not a soul that passes on ( Buddhism denies the existence of a soul); it is the character. What we choose to make of our mental and physical constitution in the course of our life on earth affects the psychic medium within which individual minds lead a part at least of their amphibious existence, and this modification of the medium results, after the bodys death, in the initiation of a new existence either in a heaven, or a purgatory, or another body.
In the Vedanta cosmology there is, over and above the Atman or spiritual Self, identical with the divine Ground, something in the nature of a soul that reincarnates in a gross or subtle body, or manifests itself in some incorporeal state. This soul is not the personality of the defunct, but rather the particularized I-consciousness out of which a personality arises.
1.15 - Index, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Hinduism, and Buddhism, 176
Hipparchus, 81, 91
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yoga, Buddhism and, 176
Zarathustra, 246/1
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Zen Buddhism, 169
Zeus, 206/1
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Foreword to Suzuki's "Introduction to Zen Buddhism" (1939)
The Psychology of Eastern Meditation (1943)
1.16 - Religion, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into gods workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion. He will state that, apart from the deficiencies, each defender of religion will endeavour to represent his religion as the best of all. Each religious truth is relative and the comprehension of it depends on the maturity of the person concerned. Therefore the adept does not interfere with anybody in this respect, nor will he try to sidetrack anyone from his truth, criticize him, to say nothing of condemning him. At the bottom of his heart he may feel sorry for fanatics or atheists without showing it outwardly. Let everybody hold on to what he believes and makes him happy and content. Should everybody stick to this maxim, there would be neither hatred nor religious dissensions on this earth. There would be no reason for disputes and all turns of mind could exist happily side by side.
Quite a different thing is, if a seeker, dissatisfied by materialism and doctrines, and longing for spiritual support, will ask advice and information of an adept. In such a case the adept is obliged to supply the seeker with spiritual light and insight, according to his mental powers. Then the magician should spare neither time nor pains to communicate his spiritual treasures and lead the seeker to the light.
1.16 - The Suprarational Ultimate of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Up to a certain point this recoil has its uses and may easily even, by tapasy, by the law of energy increasing through compression, develop for a time a new vigour in the life of the society, as happened in India in the early Buddhist centuries. But beyond a certain point it tends, not really to kill, for that is impossible, but to discourage along with the vital instincts the indispensable life-energy of which they are the play and renders them in the end inert, feeble, narrow, unelastic, incapable of energetic reaction to force and circumstance. That was the final result in India of the agelong pressure of Buddhism and its supplanter and successor, Illusionism. No society wholly or too persistently and pervadingly dominated by this denial of the life dynamism can flourish and put forth its possibilities of growth and perfection. For from dynamic it becomes static and from the static position it proceeds to stagnation and degeneration. Even the higher being of man, which finds its account in a vigorous life dynamism, both as a fund of force to be transmuted into its own loftier energies and as a potent channel of connection with the outer life, suffers in the end by this failure and contraction. The ancient Indian ideal recognised this truth and divided life into four essential and indispensable divisions, artha, kma, dharma, moka, vital interests, satisfaction of desires of all kinds, ethics and religion, and liberation or spirituality, and it insisted on the practice and development of all. Still it tended not only to put the last forward as the goal of all the rest, which it is, but to put it at the end of life and its habitat in another world of our being, rather than here in life as a supreme status and formative power on the physical plane. But this rules out the idea of the kingdom of God on earth, the perfectibility of society and of man in society, the evolution of a new and diviner race, and without one or other of these no universal ideal can be complete. It provides a temporary and occasional, but not an inherent justification for life; it holds out no illumining fulfilment either for its individual or its collective impulse.
Let us then look at this vital instinct and life dynamism in its own being and not merely as an occasion for ethical or religious development and see whether it is really rebellious in its very nature to the Divine. We can see at once that what we have described is the first stage of the vital being, the infrarational, the instinctive; this is the crude character of its first native development and persists even when it is trained by the growing application to it of the enlightening reason. Evidently it is in this natural form a thing of the earth, gross, earthy, full even of hideous uglinesses and brute blunders and jarring discords; but so also is the infrarational stage in ethics, in aesthetics, in religion. It is true too that it presents a much more enormous difficulty than these others, more fundamentally and obstinately resists elevation, because it is the very province of the infrarational, a first formulation of consciousness out of the Inconscient, nearest to it in the scale of being. But still it has too, properly looked at, its rich elements of power, beauty, nobility, good, sacrifice, worship, divinity; here too are highreaching gods, masked but still resplendent. Until recently, and even now, reason, in the garb no longer of philosophy, but of science, has increasingly proposed to take up all this physical and vital life and perfect it by the sole power of rationalism, by a knowledge of the laws of Nature, of sociology and physiology and biology and health, by collectivism, by State education, by a new psychological education and a number of other kindred means. All this is well in its own way and in its limits, but it is not enough and can never come to a truly satisfying success. The ancient attempt of reason in the form of a high idealistic, rational, aesthetic, ethical and religious culture achieved only an imperfect discipline of the vital man and his instincts, sometimes only a polishing, a gloss, a clothing and mannerising of the original uncouth savage. The modern attempt of reason in the form of a broad and thorough rational, utilitarian and efficient instruction and organisation of man and his life is not succeeding any better for all its insistent but always illusory promise of more perfect results in the future. These endeavours cannot indeed be truly successful if our theory of life is right and if this great mass of vital energism contains in itself the imprisoned suprarational, if it has, as it then must have, the instinctive reaching out for something divine, absolute and infinite which is concealed in its blind strivings. Here too reason must be overpassed or surpass itself and become a passage to the Divine.
1.17 - SUFFERING, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism
The urge-to-separateness, or craving for independent and individualized existence, can manifest itself on all the levels of life, from the merely cellular and physiological, through the instinctive, to the fully conscious. It can be the craving of a whole organism for an intensification of its separateness from the environment and the divine Ground. Or it can be the urge of a part within an organism for an intensification of its own partial life as distinct from (and consequently at the expense of) the life of the organism as a whole. In the first case we speak of impulse, passion, desire, self-will, sin; in the second, we describe what is happening as illness, injury, functional or organic disorder. In both cases the craving for separateness results in suffering, not only for the craver, but also for the cravers sentient environmento ther organisms in the external world, or other organs within the same organism. In one way suffering is entirely private; in another, fatally contagious. No living creature is able to experience the suffering of another creature. But the craving for separateness which, sooner or later, directly or indirectly, results in some form of private and unshareable suffering for the craver, also results, sooner or later, directly or indirectly, in suffering (equally private and unshareable) for others. Suffering and moral evil have the same sourcea craving for the intensification of the separateness which is the primary datum of all creatureliness.
1.17 - The Divine Birth and Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
permanent, vital, universal effect of Buddhism and Christianity has been the force of their ethical, social and practical ideals and their influence even on the men and the ages which have rejected their religious and spiritual beliefs, forms and disciplines; later
Hinduism which rejected Buddha, his sangha and his dharma, bears the ineffaceable imprint of the social and ethical influence of Buddhism and its effect on the ideas and the life of the race, while in modern Europe, Christian only in name, humanitarianism is the translation into the ethical and social sphere and the aspiration to liberty, equality and fraternity the translation into the social and political sphere of the spiritual truths of
Christianity, the latter especially being effected by men who aggressively rejected the Christian religion and spiritual discipline and by an age which in its intellectual effort of emancipation tried to get rid of Christianity as a creed. On the other hand the life of Rama and Krishna belongs to the prehistoric past which has come down only in poetry and legend and may even be regarded as myths; but it is quite immaterial whether we regard them as myths or historical facts, because their permanent truth and value lie in their persistence as a spiritual form, presence, influence in the inner consciousness of the race and the life of the human soul. Avatarhood is a fact of divine life and consciousness which may realise itself in an outward action, but must persist, when that action is over and has done its work, in a spiritual influence; or may realise itself in a spiritual influence and teaching, but must then have its permanent effect, even when the new religion or discipline is exhausted, in the thought, temperament and outward life of mankind.
1.20 - TANTUM RELIGIO POTUIT SUADERE MALORUM, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
While the Right Law still prevailed, innumerable were the converts who fathomed the depths of the Dharma by merely listening to half a stanza or even to a single phrase of the Buddhas teaching. But as we come to the age of similitude and to these latter days of Buddhism, we are indeed far away from the Sage. People find themselves drowning in a sea of letters; they do not know how to get at the one substance which alone is truth. This was what caused the appearance of the Fathers (of Zen Buddhism) who, pointing directly at the human mind, told us to see here the ultimate ground of all things and thereby to attain Buddhahood. This is known as a special transmission outside the scriptural teaching. If one is endowed with superior talents or a special sharpness of mind, a gesture or a word will suffice to give one an immediate knowledge of the truth. Hence, since they were advocates of special transmission, Ummon treated the (historical) Buddha with the utmost irreverence and Yakusan forbade his followers even to read the sutras.
Zen is the name given to this branch of Buddhism, which keeps itself away from the Buddha. It is also called the mystical branch, because it does not adhere to the literal meaning of the sutras. It is for this reason that those who blindly follow the steps of Buddha are sure to deride Zen, while those who have no liking for the letter are naturally inclined towards the mystical approach. The followers of the two schools know how to shake the head at each other, but fail to realize that they are after all complementary. Is not Zen one of the six virtues of perfection? If so, how can it conflict with the teachings of the Buddha? In my view, Zen is the outcome of the Buddhas teaching, and the mystical issues from the letters. There is no reason why a man should shun Zen because of the Buddhas teaching; nor need we disregard the letters on account of the mystical teachings of Zen. Students of scriptural Buddhism run the risk of becoming sticklers for the scriptures, the real meaning of which they fail to understand. By such men ultimate reality is never grasped, and for them Zen would mean salvation. Whereas those who study Zen are too apt to run into the habit of making empty talks and practising sophistry. They fail to understand the significance of letters. To save them, the study of Buddhist scriptures is recommended. It is only when these one-sided views are mutually corrected that there is a perfect appreciation of the Buddhas teaching.
Chiang Chih-chi
It would be hard to find a better summing up of the conclusions, to which any spiritually and psychologically realistic mind must sooner or later come, than the foregoing paragraphs written in the eleventh century by one of the masters of Zen Buddhism.
The extract that follows is a moving protest against the crimes and follies perpetrated in the name of religion by those sixteenth-century Reformers who had turned to God without turning away from themselves and who were therefore far more keenly interested in the temporal aspects of historic Christianity the ecclesiastical organization, the logic-chopping, the letter of Scripturethan in the Spirit who must be worshipped in spirit, the eternal Reality in the selfless knowledge of whom stands mans eternal life. Its author was Sebastian Castellio, who was at one time Calvins favourite disciple, but who parted company with his master when the latter burned Servetus for heresy against his own heresy. Fortunately Castellio was living in Basel when he made his plea for charity and common decency; penned in Geneva, it would have earned him torture and death.
1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
We even, at the worst, reach the state for which Buddhism, in the East presents most ably the case: as in the West, does James Thomson (B.V.) in The City of Dreadful Night; we come to wish for or, more truly to think that we wish for "blest Nirvana's sinless stainless Peace" (or some such twaddle thank God I can't recall Arnold's mawkish and unmanly phrase!) and B.V.'s "Dateless oblivion and divine repose."
I insist on the "think that you wish," because, if the real You did really wish the real That, you could never have come to exist at all! ("But I don't exist." "I know let's get on!")
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All the above, now: Buddhism refuted. Yet it is a possibility and therefore one facet of Truth. "Rest" is an idea: so immobility is one of the moving states. A certain state of mind is (almost by definition) "eternal," yet it most assuredly begins and ends.
And so on for ever I fear it would be nugatory, pleonastic (and oh! several other lovely long adjectives!) to try to guard you from these hydra-headed and protean booby-traps; you must tackle them yourself as they arise, and deal with them as best you can: always remembering that often enough you cannot tell which is you and which is the Monkey Puzzle, or who has won. ("Everybody's won; so everybody must have a prize" applies beautifully). And none of it all matters a row of haricots verts sauts; for the conclusion must always be Doubt (see that beastly The Book of Lies again there's a gorgeous chapter about it[40]) and the practical moral is this: these contradictions don't occur (or don't matter) in Neschamah.
1.24 - RITUAL, SYMBOL, SACRAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
That very large numbers of men and women have an ineradicable desire for rites and ceremonies is clearly demonstrated by the history of religion. Almost all the Hebrew prophets were opposed to ritualism. Rend your hearts and not your garments. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I hate, I despise your feasts; I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. And yet, in spite of the fact that what the prophets wrote was regarded as divinely inspired, the Temple at Jerusalem continued to be, for hundreds of years after their time, the centre of a religion of rites, ceremonials and blood sacrifice. (It may be remarked in passing that the shedding of blood, ones own or that of animals or other human beings, seems to be a peculiarly efficacious way of constraining the occult or psychic world to answer petitions and confer supernormal powers. If this is a fact, as from the anthropological and antiquarian evidence it appears to be, it would supply yet another cogent reason for avoiding animal sacrifices, savage bodily austerities and even, since thought is a form of action, that imaginative gloating over spilled blood, which is so common in certain Christian circles.) What the Jews did in spite of their prophets, Christians have done in spite of Christ. The Christ of the Gospels is a preacher and not a dispenser of sacraments or performer of rites; he speaks against vain repetitions; he insists on the supreme importance of private worship; he has no use for sacrifices and not much use for the Temple. But this did not prevent historic Christianity from going its own, all too human, way. A precisely similar development took place in Buddhism. For the Buddha of the Pali scriptures, ritual was one of the fetters holding back the soul from enlightenment and liberation. Nevertheless, the religion he founded has made full use of ceremonies, vain repetitions and sacramental rites.
There would seem to be two main reasons for the observed developments of the historical religions. First, most people do not want spirituality or deliverance, but rather a religion that gives them emotional satisfactions, answers to prayer, supernormal powers and partial salvation in some sort of posthumous heaven. Second, some of those few who do desire spirituality and deliverance find that, for them, the most effective means to those ends are ceremonies, vain repetitions and sacramental rites. It is by participating in these acts and uttering these formulas that they are most powerfully reminded of the eternal Ground of all being; it is by immersing themselves in the symbols that they can most easily come through to that which is symbolized. Every thing, event or thought is a point of intersection between creature and Creator, between a more or less distant manifestation of God and a ray, so to speak, of the unmanifest Godhead; every thing, event or thought can therefore be made the doorway through which a soul may pass out of time into eternity. That is why ritualistic and sacramental religion can lead to deliverance. But at the same time every human being loves power and self-enhancement, and every hallowed ceremony, form of words or sacramental rite is a channel through which power can flow out of the fascinating psychic universe into the universe of embodied selves. That is why ritualistic and sacramental religion can also lead away from deliverance.
1.25 - SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In India the repetition of the divine name or the mantram (a short devotional or doctrinal affirmation) is called japam and is a favourite spiritual exercise among all the sects of Hinduism and Buddhism. The shortest mantram is OMa spoken sym bol that concentrates within itself the whole Vedanta philosophy. To this and other mantrams Hindus attribute a kind of magical power. The repetition of them is a sacramental act, conferring grace ex opere operato. A similar efficacity was and indeed still is attri buted to sacred words and formulas by Buddhists, Moslems, Jews and Christians. And, of course, just as traditional religious rites seem to possess the power to evoke the real presence of existents projected into psychic objectivity by the faith and devotion of generations of worshippers, so too long-hallowed words and phrases may become channels for conveying powers other and greater than those belonging to the individual who happens at the moment to be pronouncing them. And meanwhile the constant repetition of this word GOD or this word LOVE may, in favourable circumstances, have a profound effect upon the subconscious mind, inducing that selfless one-pointedness of will and thought and feeling, without which the unitive knowledge of God is impossible. Furthermore, it may happen that, if the word is simply repeated all whole, and not broken up or undone by discursive analysis, the Fact for which the word stands will end by presenting itself to the soul in the form of an integral intuition. When this happens, the doors of the letters of this word are opened (to use the language of the Sufis) and the soul passes through into Reality. But though all this may happen, it need not necessarily happen. For there is no spiritual patent medicine, no pleasant and infallible panacea for souls suffering from separateness and the deprivation of God. No, there is no guaranteed cure; and, if used improperly, the medicine of spiritual exercises may start a new disease or aggravate the old. For example, a mere mechanical repetition of the divine name can result in a kind of numbed stupefaction that is as much below analytical thought as intellectual vision is above it. And because the sacred word constitutes a kind of prejudgment of the experience induced by its repetition, this stupefaction, or some other abnormal state, is taken to be the imme thate awareness of Reality and is idolatrously cultivated and hunted after, with a turning of the will towards what is supposed to be God before there has been a turning of it away from the self.
The dangers which beset the practicer of japam, who is insufficiently mortified and insufficiently recollected and aware, are encountered in the same or different forms by those who make use of more elaborate spiritual exercises. Intense concentration on an image or idea, such as is recommended by many teachers, both Eastern and Western, may be very helpful for certain persons in certain circumstances, very harmful in other cases. It is helpful when the concentration results in such mental stillness, such a silence of intellect, will and feeling, that the divine Word can be uttered within the soul. It is harmful when the image concentrated upon becomes so hallucinatingly real that it is taken for objective Reality and idolatrously worshipped; harmful, too, when the exercise of concentration produces unusual psycho-physical results, in which the person experiencing them takes a personal pride, as being special graces and divine communications. Of these unusual psycho-physical occurrences the most ordinary are visions and auditions, foreknowledge, telepathy and other psychic powers, and the curious bodily phenomenon of intense neat. Many persons who practise concentration exercises experience this heat occasionally. A number of Christian saints, of whom the best known are St. Philip Neri and St. Catherine of Siena, have experienced it continuously. In the East techniques have been developed whereby the accession of heat resulting from intense concentration can be regulated, controlled and put to do useful work, such as keeping the contemplative warm in freezing weather. In Europe, where the phenomenon is not well understood, many would-be contemplatives have experienced this heat, and have imagined it to be some special divine favour, or even the experience of union, and being insufficiently mortified and humble, have fallen into idolatry and a God-eclipsing spiritual pride.
The following passage from one of the great Mahayana scriptures contains a searching criticism of the kind of spiritual exercises prescribed by Hinayanist teachersconcentration on symbolic objects, meditations on transience and decay (to wean the soul away from attachment to earthly things), on the different virtues which must be cultivated, on the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism. (Many of these exercises are described at length in The Path of Purity, a book which has been translated in full and published by the Pali Text Society. Mahayanist exercises are described in the Surangama Sutra, translated by Dwight Goddard and in the volume on Tibetan Yoga, edited by Dr. Evans-Wentz.)
In his exercise the Yogin sees (imaginatively) the form of the sun or moon, or something looking like a lotus, or the underworld, or various forms, such as sky, fire and the like. All these appearances lead him in the way of the philosophers; they throw him down into the state of Sravakahood, into the realm of the Pratyekabuddhas. When all these are put aside and there is a state of imagelessness, then a condition in conformity with Suchness presents itself, and the Buddhas will come together from all their countries and with their shining hands will touch the head of this benefactor.
1.27 - CONTEMPLATION, ACTION AND SOCIAL UTILITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In Buddhism, as in Vedanta and in all but the most recent forms of Christianity, right action is the means by which the mind is prepared for contemplation. The first seven branches of the Eightfold Path are the active, ethical preparation for unitive knowledge of Suchness. Only those who consistently practise the Four Virtuous Acts, in which all other virtues are includednamely, the requital of hatred by love, resignation, holy indifference or desirelessness, obedience to the dharma or Nature of Thingscan hope to achieve the liberating realization that samsara and nirvana are one, that the soul and all other beings have as their living principle the Intelligible Light or Buddha-womb.
A question now, quite naturally, presents itself: Who is called to that highest form of prayer which is contemplation? The answer is unequivocally plain. All are called to contemplation, because all are called to achieve deliverance, which is nothing else but the knowledge that unites the knower with what is known, namely the eternal Ground or Godhead. The oriental exponents of the Perennial Philosophy would probably deny that everyone is called here and now; in this particular life, they would say, it may be to all intents and purposes impossible for a given individual to achieve more than a partial deliverance, such as personal survival in some kind of heaven, from which there may be either an advance towards total liberation or else a return to those material conditions which, as all the masters of the spiritual life agree, are so uniquely propitious for taking the cosmic intelligence test that results in enlightenment. In orthodox Christianity it is denied that the individual soul can have more than one incarnation, or that it can make any progress in its posthumous existence. If it goes to hell, it stays there. If it goes to purgatory, it merely expiates past evil doing, so as to become capable of the beatific vision. And when it gets to heaven, it has just so much of the beatific vision as its conduct during its one brief life on earth made it capable of, and everlastingly no more. Granted these postulates, it follows that, if all are called to contemplation, they are called to it from that particular position in the hierarchy of being, to which nature, nurture, free will and grace have conspired to assign them. In the words of an eminent contemporary theologian, Father Garigou-Lagrange, all souls receive a general remote call to the mystical life, and if all were faithful in avoiding, as they should, not only mortal but venial sins, if they were, each according to his condition, generally docile to the Holy Ghost, and if they lived long enough, a day would come when they would receive the proximate and efficacious vocation to a high perfection and to the mystical life properly so called. This view that the life of mystical contemplation is the proper and normal development of the interior life of recollectedness and devotion to Godis then justified by the following considerations. First, the principle of the two lives is the same. Second, it is only in the life of mystical contemplation that the interior life finds its consummation. Third, their end, which is eternal life, is the same; moreover only the life of mystical contemplation prepares imme thately and perfectly for that end.
1.27 - Structure of Mind Based on that of Body, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
You stop me, obviously with a demand for a personal explanation. "How is it," you write, "that you reject with such immitigable scorn the very foundation-stones of Buddhism, and yet refer disciples enthusiastically to the technique of some of its subtlest super-structures?"
I laff.
1.37 - Oriential Religions in the West, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
of Buddhism. Both systems were in their origin essentially ethical
reforms born of the generous ardour, the lofty aspirations, the
--
weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from
their primitive patterns. For it should never be forgotten that by
1.4.03 - The Guru, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What X quotes about the limitation of the power of the Guru to that of a teacher who shows the way but cannot help or guide is the conception of certain paths of Yoga such as the pure Adwaitin and the Buddhist which say that you must rely upon yourself and no one can help you; but even the pure Adwaitin does in fact rely upon the Guru and the chief mantra of Buddhism insists on saran.am to Buddha. For other paths of sadhana, especially those which like the Gita accept the reality of the individual soul as an "eternal portion" of the Divine or which believe that Bhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been relied upon as an indispensable aid.
I don't understand the objection to the validity of Vivekananda's experience; it was exactly the realisation which is described in the Upanishads as a supreme experience of the Self.
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
One seer speaks in the terms of Christianity, another in those of Islam, a third of Buddhism, etc. Is that due to their upbringing?
M.: Whatever may be their upbringing, their experience is the same.
1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
One seer speaks in the terms of Christianity, another in those of Islam, a third of Buddhism, etc. Is that due to their upbringing?
M.: Whatever may be their upbringing, their experience is the same.
1.57 - Public Scapegoats, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
capital of Buddhism--the Rome of Asia--is interesting because it
exhibits, in a clearly marked religious stratification, a series of
1.78 - Sore Spots, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
P.S. One further reflection. With all these "sore spots" is closely linked the idea of cruelty. I need not touch upon the relation of cruelty to sex; the theme has been worn threadbare. But in religion, note the Bottomless Pit and the Eternal Flame; in Buddhism, the eighteen hot and eighteen cold Hells, with many another beneath. Hindu eschatology has countless Hells; even pedestrian, precise Islam, and the calculating Qabalists, each boast of Seven. Again with drugs as with insanity, we are confronted constantly with nameless terrors; the idea of formlessness, of infinity pervades them alike. Consider the man who takes every chance gesture of a stranger in the street as a secret sign passed from one of his persecutors to another; consider those who refuse food because of the mysterious conspiracy to poison them.
All sanity, which is all Science, is founded upon Limit. We must be able to cut off, to define, to measure. Naturally, then, their opposites, Insanity and Religion, have for their prime characteristic, the Indefinable, Incomprehensible, Immeasurable.
1929-06-09 - Nature of religion - Religion and the spiritual life - Descent of Divine Truth and Force - To be sure of your religion, country, family-choose your own - Religion and numbers, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Religion belongs to the higher mind of humanity. It is the effort of mans higher mind to approach, as far as lies in its power, something beyond it, something to which humanity gives the name God or Spirit or Truth or Faith or Knowledge or the Infinite, some kind of Absolute, which the human mind cannot reach and yet tries to reach. Religion may be divine in its ultimate origin; in its actual nature it is not divine but human. In truth we should speak rather of religions than of religion; for the religions made by man are many. These different religions, even when they had not the same origin, have most of them been made in the same way. We know how the Christian religion came into existence. It was certainly not Jesus who made what is known as Christianity, but some learned and very clever men put their heads together and built it up into the thing we see. There was nothing divine in the way in which it was formed, and there is nothing divine either in the way in which it functions. And yet the excuse or occasion for the formation was undoubtedly some revelation from what one could call a Divine Being, a Being who came from elsewhere bringing down with him from a higher plane a certain Knowledge and Truth for the earth. He came and suffered for his Truth; but very few understood what he said, few cared to find and hold to the Truth for which he suffered. Buddha retired from the world, sat down in meditation and discovered a way out of earthly suffering and misery, out of all this illness and death and desire and sin and hunger. He saw a Truth which he endeavoured to express and communicate to the disciples and followers who gathered around him. But even before he was dead, his teaching had already begun to be twisted and distorted. It was only after his disappearance that Buddhism as a full-fledged religion reared its head founded upon what the Buddha is supposed to have said and on the supposed significance of these reported sayings. But soon too, because the disciples and the disciples disciples could not agree on what the Master had said or what he meant by his utterances, there grew up a host of sects and sub-sects in the body of the parent religiona Southern Path, a Northern Path, a Far Eastern Path, each of them claiming to be the only, the original, the undefiled doctrine of the Buddha. The same fate overtook the teaching of the Christ; that too came to be made in the same way into a set and organised religion. It is often said that, if Jesus came back, he would not be able to recognise what he taught in the forms that have been imposed on it, and if Buddha were to come back and see what has been made of his teaching, he would immediately run back discouraged to Nirvana! All religions have each the same story to tell. The occasion for its birth is the coming of a great Teacher of the world. He comes and reveals and is the incarnation of a Divine Truth. But men seize upon it, trade upon it, make an almost political organisation out of it. The religion is equipped by them with a government and policy and laws, with its creeds and dogmas, its rules and regulations, its rites and ceremonies, all binding upon its adherents, all absolute and inviolable. Like the State, it too administers rewards to the loyal and assigns punishments for those that revolt or go astray, for the heretic and the renegade.
The first and principal article of these established and formal religions runs always, Mine is the supreme, the only truth, all others are in falsehood or inferior. For without this fundamental dogma, established credal religions could not have existed. If you do not believe and proclaim that you alone possess the one or the highest truth, you will not be able to impress people and make them flock to you.
1951-04-14 - Surrender and sacrifice - Idea of sacrifice - Bahaism - martyrdom - Sleep- forgetfulness, exteriorisation, etc - Dreams and visions- explanations - Exteriorisation- incidents about cats, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are some very remarkable instances of exteriorisation. I am going to tell you two incidents about cats which occurred quite a long time ago in France. One happened very long ago, long before the war even. We used to have small meetings every weekquite a small number of friends, three or four, who discussed philosophy, spiritual experiences, etc. There was a young boy, a poet, but one who was rather light-hearted; he was very intelligent, he was a student in Paris. He used to come regularly to these meetings (they took place on Wednesday evenings) and one evening he did not come. We were surprised; we had met him a few days before and he had said he would comehe did not come. We waited quite a long time, the meeting was over and at the time of leaving I opened the door to let people out (it was at my house that these meetings were held), I opened the door and there before it sat a big dark grey cat which rushed into the room like mad and jumped upon me, like this, mewing desperately. I looked into its eyes and told myself, Well, these are so-and-sos eyes (the one who was to come). I said, Surely something has happened to him. And the next day we learnt that he had been assassinated that night; the next morning he had been found lying strangled on his bed. This is the first story. The other happened long afterwards, at the time of the war the First [World] War, not the Second the war of the trenches. There was a young man I knew very well; he was a poet and artist (I have already spoken about him), who had gone to the war. He had enlisted, he was very young; he was an officer. He had given me his photograph. (This boy was a student of Sanskrit and knew Sanskrit very well, he liked Buddhism very much; indeed he was much interested in things of the spirit, he was not an ordinary boy, far from it.) He had given me his photograph on which there was a sentence in Sanskrit written in his own hand, very well written. I had framed this photograph and put it above a sort of secretaire (a rather high desk with drawers); well, above it I had hung this photograph. And at that time it was very difficult to receive news, one did not know very well what was happening. From time to time we used to receive letters from him, but for a long time there had been nothing, when, one day, I came into my room, and the moment I entered, without any apparent reason the photograph fell from the wall where it had been well fixed, and the glass broke with a great clatter. I felt a little anxious, I said, There is something wrong. But we had no news. Two or three days later (it was on the first floor; I lived in a house with one room upstairs, all the rest on the ground-floor, and there was a flight of steps leading to the garden) I opened the entrance door and a big grey cat rushed inlight grey, this timea magnificent cat, and, just as the other one had done, it flung itself upon me, like this, mewing. I looked into its eyeshad the eyes of that boy. And this cat, it turned and turned around me and all the time tugged at my dress and miaowed. I wanted to put it out, but it would not go, it settled down there and did not want to move. The next day it was announced in the papers that this boy had been found dead between two trenches, dead for three days. That is, at the time he must have died his photograph had fallen. The consciousness had left the body completely: he was there abandoned, because they did not always go to see what was happening between the trenches; they could not, you understand; he was found two or three days later; at that time probably he had gone out altogether from his body and wanted definitely to inform me about what had happened and he had found that cat. For cats live in the vital being, they have a very developed vital consciousness and can easily be taken possession of by vital forces.
But these two examples are quite extraordinary, for they both came about almost in the same way, and in both instances the eyes of these cats had completely changed they had become human eyes.
1953-10-21, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah! as for Buddhism. The people of the South and the North have different kinds of imagination. The southern people are generally more rigid, arent they? I dont know, but for Buddhism, the Buddhism of the South is quite rigid and doesnt allow any suppleness in the understanding of the text. And it is a terribly strict Buddhism in which all notion of the Godhead in any form whatsoever, is completely done away with. On the other hand, the Buddhism of the North is an orgy of gods! It is true that these are former Buddhas, but still they are turned into gods. And it is this latter that has spread into China and from China gone to Japan. So, one enters a Buddhist temple in Japan and sees There is a temple where there were more than a thousand Buddhas, all sculptureda thousand figures seated around the central Buddha they were there all around, the entire back wall of the temple was covered with images: small ones, big ones, fat ones, thin ones, women, menthere was everything, a whole pantheon there, formidable, and they were like gods. And then too, there were little beings down below with all kinds of forms including those of animals, and these were the worshippers. It was it was an orgy of images. But the Buddhism of the South has the austerity of Protestantism: there must be no images. And there is no divine Consciousness, besides. One comes into the world through desire, into a world of desire, and abandoning desire one goes out of the world and creation and returns to Nirvanaeven the nought is something too concrete. There is no Creator in Buddhism. So, I dont know. The Buddhism of the South is written in Pali and that of the North in Sanskrit. And naturally, there is Tibetan Buddhism written in Tibetan, and Chinese Buddhism written in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism in Japanese. And each one, I believe, is very very different from the others. Well, probably there must be several versions of the Ramayana. And still more versions of the Mahabharata that indeed is amazing!
(Nolini) Of the Ramayana also.
1955-10-05 - Science and Ignorance - Knowledge, science and the Buddha - Knowing by identification - Discipline in science and in Buddhism - Progress in the mental field and beyond it, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1955-10-05 - Science and Ignorance - Knowledge, science and the Buddha - Knowing by identification - Discipline in science and in Buddhism - Progress in the mental field and beyond it
class:chapter
1956-02-15 - Nature and the Master of Nature - Conscious intelligence - Theory of the Gita, not the whole truth - Surrender to the Lord - Change of nature, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, anyway the teaching contained in the Gitaand this surprises you? But there are countless people throughout the world who are convinced of the truth of a teaching, but that doesnt make them capable of realising it. For instance, all Buddhists, the millions of Buddhists in the world who profess that Buddhism is the truthdoes this enable them to become like a Buddha? Certainly not. So, what is so surprising about that?
I told you why there are people who accept this even after having read and studied Sri Aurobindo: why they accept it, hold fast to it, cling to this teaching of the Gita; it is because its comfortable, one doesnt need to make any effort to change ones nature: ones nature is unchangeable, so you dont at all need to think of changing it; you simply let it go its own way, you look at it from the top of your ivory tower and let it do whatever it likes, saying, This is not I, I am not that.
1956-05-23 - Yoga and religion - Story of two clergymen on a boat - The Buddha and the Supramental - Hieroglyphs and phonetic alphabets - A vision of ancient Egypt - Memory for sounds, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, he will return to earth to preach a new Buddhism, is that it?
It seems his teaching will come to an end, and will be replaced by something new.
1957-01-09 - God is essentially Delight - God and Nature play at hide-and-seek - Why, and when, are you grave?, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All those who have had the inner experience have had this experience, that the moment one re-establishes the union with the divine source, all suffering disappears. But there has been a very persistent movement, about which I spoke to you last week, which put at the source of creation not this essential divine Delight but desire. This delight of creation, self-manifestation, self-expression there is an entire line of seekers and sages who have considered it not as a delight but as a desire; the whole line of Buddhism is of this kind. And instead of seeing the solution in a Oneness which restores to us the essential Delight of the manifestation and the becoming, they consider that the goal and also the way are a total rejection of all desire to be and a return to annihilation.
This conception amounts to an essential misunderstanding. The methods recommended for self-liberation are methods of development which can be very useful, but this conception of a world thats essentially bad, for it is the result of desire, and from which one must escape at all costs and as quickly as possible, has been the greatest and most serious distortion of all spiritual life in the history of mankind.
1957-04-03 - Different religions and spirituality, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer; Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. A great thing would be done if all these God-visions could embrace and cast themselves into each other; but intellectual dogma and cult-egoism stand in the way.
All religions have saved a number of souls, but none yet has been able to spiritualise mankind. For that there is needed not cult and creed, but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution.
1957-10-02 - The Mind of Light - Statues of the Buddha - Burden of the past, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Statues there are thousands of statues of the Buddha. There is the Buddha as he is known in India, the Buddha known in Ceylon, the Buddha known in Tibet, the Buddha known in China, in Cambodia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere. If you are speaking of the historical fact, I think they would all tell you that it is to the Gautama Buddha of India they pray, but in fact, each one of these branches of Buddhism, and many more, has its own conception of the Buddha, and it is the conception of a godhead which is worshipped in statues, much more than a divine being, so If you show me a statue and ask me, In this statue is there the influence or the presence of the Buddha as you know him?, I could reply yes or no to you; but when you say whose statues are worshipped, I cannot answer you, for that depends on what they have drawn into the statue they worship. Historically, it is always the same name but in fact I dont know if it is always the same spiritual person! So I cannot answer you.
If you ask me about the statues we saw yesterday You saw how many there were and some of them were very, very different, it was a very different Buddha. There was one which was shown to us very often, and which is quite au thentic, but there were many others which represented at the very least other personalities of the Buddha. It depends on what you mean; if you mean historically, yes, they always say it is the Buddha; but each statue is different.
--
You have a guide for a part of the way but when you have travelled this part leave the road and the guide and go farther! This is something men find difficult to do. When they get hold of something which helps them, they cling to it, they do not want to move any more. Those who have progressed with the help of Christianity do not want to give it up and they carry it on their shoulders; those who have progressed with the help of Buddhism do not want to leave it and they carry it on their shoulders, and so this hampers the advance and you are indefinitely delayed.
Once you have passed the stage, let it drop, let it go! Go farther.
Mother, the present religio-political movement for the revival of Buddhism
What? Oh! I dont take part in politics. It is altogether useless. People use things just for political ends, but that is not at all interesting.
1960 11 12? - 49, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To begin with, there is a way that might be called negative, the way provided by Buddhism and kindred religions: not to see. First of all, to be in such a state of purity and beauty that you do not perceive ugliness and evilit is like something that does not touch you because it does not exist in you.
That is the perfection of the negative method. It is quite elementary: never to notice evil, never to speak of the evil in others, not to perpetuate these vibrations by observation, by criticism, by insistence on what is bad. That is what the Buddha taught: each time you speak of an evil, you help to spread it.
1.hcyc - 8 - Transience, emptiness and enlightenment (from The Shodoka), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Robert Aitken Original Language Chinese Transience, emptiness and enlightenment -- These are the ultimate truths of Buddhism; Keeping and teaching them is true Sangha devotion. If you don't agree, please ask me about it. Cut out directly the root of it all, -- This is the very point of the Buddha-seal. I can't respond to any concern about leaves and branches. <
1.he - Hakuins Song of Zazen, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki Original Language Japanese All beings are primarily Buddhas. It is like water and ice: There is no ice apart from water; There are no Buddhas apart from beings. Not knowing how close the truth is to them, Beings seek for it afar -- what a pity! They are like those who, being in the midst of water, Cry out for water, feeling thirst. They are like the son of the rich man, Who, wandering away from his father, Goes astray amongst the poor. It is all due to their ignorance That beings transmigrate in the darkness Of the Six Paths of existence. When they wander from darkness to darkness, How can they ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Dhyana practice as taught in the Mahayana, No amount of praise can exhaust its merits. The Six Paramitas--beginning with the Giving, Observing the Precepts, And other good deeds, variously enumerated, Such as Nembutsu, Repentance, Moral Training, and so on -- All are finally reducible to the practice of Dhyana. The merit of Dhyana practice, even during a single sitting, Erases the countless sins accumulated in the past. Where then are the Evil Paths to misguide us? The Pure Land cannot be far away. Those who, for once, listening to the Dharma In all humility, Praise it and faithfully follow it, Will be endowed with innumerable merits. But how much more so when you turn your eyes within yourselves And have a glimpse into your self-nature! You find that the self-nature is no-nature - The truth permitting no idle sophistry. For you, then, open the gate leading to the oneness of cause and effect; Before you, then, lies a straight road of non-duality and non-trinity. When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
1.he - The Form of the Formless (from Hakuins Song of Zazen), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki Original Language Japanese When you understand that form is the form of the formless, Your coming-and-going takes place nowhere else but where you are. When you understand that thought is the thought of the thought-less. Your singing-and-dancing is no other than the voice of the Dharma. How boundless is the sky of Samadhi! How refreshingly bright is the moon of the Fourfold Wisdom! Being so is there anything you lack? As the Absolute presents itself before you The place where you stand is the Land of the Lotus, And your person -- the body of the Buddha. [2139.jpg] -- from Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki <
1.tr - The Wind Has Settled, #Ryokan - Poems, #Taigu Ryokan, #Buddhism
This is the wondrous power of Buddhism.
2.00 - BIBLIOGRAPHY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
COOMARASWAMY, ANANDA K. Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism (New York, 1916).
. The Transformation of Nature in Art (Cambridge, Mass., 1935).
. Hinduism and Buddhism (New York, n. d.).
CURTIS, A. M. The Way of Silence (Burton Bradstock, Dorset, 1937).
--
PRATT, J. B. The Pilgrimage of Buddhism (New York, 1928).
RADHAKRISHNAN, S. The Hindu View of Life (London and New York, 1927).
--
SUZUKI, B. L. Mahayana Buddhism (London, 1938).
SUZUKI, D. T. Studies in Zen Buddhism (London, 1927).
. Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (Kyoto and London, 1935).
. Manual of Zen Buddhism (Kyoto, 1935).
TAGORE, RABINDRANATH. One Hundred Poems of Kabir (London, 1915).
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: This Purana is not so early as that. All the Puranas, in fact, are post-Buddhistic. They are a part of the Brahmanic revival which came as a reaction against Buddhism in the Gupta period.
Disciple: They are supposed to have been written in or about the 3rd or 4th century A.D.
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Sauras, as well as the whole of Buddhism and its Scriptures
are merely so many explanations, comments and interpretations
--
was not the heresies of later Buddhism - Buddhism decayed
and senescent, but the triumphant doctrines of the Karmakanda
--
gracious shadow of Buddhism distorted in the sombre & cruel
minds of those fierce Mediterranean races, when they pictured
2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
oneself, the moral ideal of Buddhism is selfless benevolence &
beneficence to others; the moral ideal of Hinduism is the perfect
--
are, as we know, three means of salvation; salvation by knowledge, the central position in Buddhism; salvation by faith &
love, the central position in Christianity; salvation by faith &
--
of later Buddhism, Buddhism decayed and senescent, but the triumphant Karmakanda which made the faithful performance of
Vedic ceremonies the one path and heaven the highest goal. In his
--
but Sankhya and Buddhism agree in rejecting the materialistic
reading of the Universe and oppose to the well-tested certainties
--
Sankhya gives the name of Prakriti, while Vedanta & Buddhism,
admitting the term Prakriti, prefer to call it Maya. But Prakriti
--
Things. Buddhism, still more trenchant, does away with the
reality of Purusha and Prakriti altogether and regards Cosmic
--
fully expressed in their highest and noblest form by Buddhism
five hundred years before they received a passionately emotional
2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, China, and Japan is the Lotus
Bearer, Avalokiteshvara, "The Lord Looking Down in Pity," so
--
Hinayana Buddhism (the Buddhism surviving in Ceylon, Burma, and
Siam) reverses the Buddha as a human hero, a supreme saint and sage.
Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand (the Buddhism of the north), regards
the Enlightened One as a world savior, an incarnation of the universal princi
--
Mahayana Buddhism has developed a pantheon of many Bodhisattvas and
many past and future Buddhas. These all inflect the manifested powers of the
--
standing' " (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism; New York:
The Philosophical Library, no date, p. 63). The word "de-spiration" is con
--
Nirvana'" (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism;
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1916, p. 245).
--
Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 74.
1 2 6
--
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (London, 1927), and Lafcadio
Hearn, Japan (New York, 1904).
2.07 - On Congress and Politics, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Before Buddha there were Kshatriyas in Bengal. When Buddhism collapsed there remained two castes, Brahmins and Shudras, other castes rightly resented being called 'Shudras'. In ancient times the agriculturist, the trader and the craftsman were all Vaishyas.
Disciple: Nowadays there is the democratic ideal.
2.07 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But our mind cannot remain satisfied - the mind of Buddhism itself did not remain satisfied - with this evasion at the very root of the whole matter. In the first place, these philosophies, while thus putting aside the root question, do actually make far-reaching assertions that assume, not only a certain operation and symptoms, but a certain fundamental nature of the Ignorance from which their prescription of remedies proceeds; and it is obvious that without such a radical diagnosis no prescription of remedies can be anything but an empiric dealing.
But if we are to evade the root-question, we have no means of judging whether the assertions advanced are correct or the remedies prescribed the right ones, or whether there are not others which without being so violent, destructively radical or of the nature of a surgical mutilation or extinction of the patient may yet bring a more integral and natural cure. Secondly, it is always the business of man the thinker to know. He may not be able by mental means to know the essentiality of the
2.07 - The Supreme Word of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
tification of their being and their nature. From this need arise the religions of love and works, whose strength is that they satisfy and lead Godwards the most active and developed powers of our humanity, - for only by starting from these can knowledge be effective. Even Buddhism with its austere and uncompromising negation both of subjective self and objective things had still to found itself initially on a divine discipline of works and to admit as a substitute for bhakti the spiritualised emotionalism of a universal love and compassion, since so only could it become an effective way for mankind, a truly liberating religion. Even illusionist Mayavada with its ultralogical intolerance of action and the creations of mentality had to allow a provisional and practical reality to man and the universe and to God in the world in order to have a first foothold and a feasible starting-point; it had to affirm what it denied in order to give some reality to man's bondage and to his effort for liberation.
But the weakness of the kinetic and the emotional religions is that they are too much absorbed in some divine Personality and in the divine values of the finite. And, even when they have a conception of the infinite Godhead, they do not give us the full satisfaction of knowledge because they do not follow it out into its most ultimate and supernal tendencies. These religions fall short of a complete absorption in the Eternal and the perfect union by identity, - and yet to that identity in some other way, if not in the abstractive, since there all oneness has its basis, the spirit that is in man must one day arrive. On the other hand, the weakness of a contemplative quietistic spirituality is that it arrives at this result by a too absolute abstraction and in the end it turns into a nothing or a fiction the human soul whose aspiration was yet all the time the whole sense of this attempt at union; for without the soul and its aspiration liberation and union could have no meaning. The little that this way of thinking recognises of his other powers of existence, it relegates to an inferior preliminary action which never arrives at any full or satisfying realisation in the Eternal and Infinite. Yet these things too which it restricts unduly, the potent will, the strong yearning of love, the positive light and all-embracing intuition
2.08 - ALICE IN WONDERLAND, #God Exists, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
To face God and to encounter Him in our actual life is to live religion. So, religion is not ringing a bell, waving a light, or chanting a Mantra. It is encountering God face to face. So, religion is superior to philosophy, if you understand religion in the true sense of the term. Religion is not Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism. It is the art of envisaging God-being.
Man melting, like ice vanishing before the blaze of the sun. That is religion. When the sun of God-consciousness rises, this substance called body-consciousness evaporates into an ethereal nothing. Gradually, we begin to approximate God-being. The life of religion is the way of gradual approximation to God-consciousness. Here, true love begins to preponderate in our lives. We do not merely think of God as philosophers or academicians or professors. We love God; and we cannot love a thing which is not really there. We cannot love a thing which is only an idea or a concept in our mind.
2.08 - On Non-Violence, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: He also spoke at Bombay on the anniversary of Gautama Buddha and said Buddhism was not given sufficient trial.
Sri Aurobindo: Christianity and Buddhism, I am afraid, will ever remain without being given a trial. They make such a demand on human nature that it cannot be fulfilled so long as man is what he is.
Disciple: I get puzzled by Mahatmaji's logic, or shall I say, by his want of logic. At one time he says: "You must not fast against your enemy because by that you do violence to him. But you can fast when you have a grievance, or a cause, against your father." Then in the Vaikom Satyagraha when the people began to fast he said: "Why do you fast? The king is your father, why do you injure his feelings?"
2.08 - The Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The most dazzling example of this is shown in the history of the study of Buddhism.
The early scholars simply could not understand that the Buddhist canon denies the soul, regards the ego as a delusion caused by a special faculty of the diseased mind, could not understand that the goal of the
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
whose followers is even greater; I refer to Buddhism. As nihilistic
religions, they are akin,--they are religions of decadence,--while
--
concept "God" was already exploded when it appeared. Buddhism is
the only really _positive_ religion to be found in history, even
--
end": the touching refrain of the whole of Buddhism....) And in this
he was right; for it is precisely these passions which are thoroughly
--
The pre-requisites for Buddhism are a very mild climate, great
gentleness and liberality in the customs of a people and _no_
--
the highest of inspirations, and they are _realised._ Buddhism is not
a religion in which perfection is merely aspired to: perfection is
--
through one's self, is not as in the case of Buddhism, excessive
irritability and susceptibility to pain, but rather, conversely, it
--
the cult Buddhism is a religion for _senile_ men, for races which
have become kind, gentle, and over-spiritual, and which feel pain too
--
recipe for taming, for "civilisation." Buddhism is a religion for the
close and exhaustion of civilisation; Christianity does not even find
2.1.02 - Nature The World-Manifestation, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
of Bliss embracing our existence as ether embraces our bodies, nourishing us with its eternal substance and strength and supporting the life and the activity. A world which is essentially a world of bliss - this was the ancient Vedantic vision, the drishti of the Vedic drashta, which differentiates Hinduism in its early virility from the cosmic sorrow of Buddhism and the cosmic disillusionment of Mayavada. But it is possible to fall from this
Bliss, not to realise it with the lower nature, in the Apara Prakriti, not to be able to grasp and possess it. Two things are necessary for the fullness of man's bliss, - the fullness of his being and the fullness of his knowledge creating by their union the fullness of his strength in all its manifestations, viryam, balam, bhrajas, tejas, ojas. For Ananda, Sat & Chit make one reality, and Chit is in its outward working pure force to which our Rishis gave the name of Tapas. To attain even here upon earth this fullness of bliss dependent upon fullness of existence, illumination and force, must always be humanity's drift, man's collective endeavour. To attain it within himself here and beyond, iha ca amutra ca, must always be the drift of the human unit, the individual's endeavour. Wherever the knowledge in him thinks it can grasp this bliss, it will fix its heaven. This is Swarga,
2.10 - On Vedic Interpretation, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Did Buddhism preach poverty?
Sri Aurobindo: There was a division: the monks and the householders. The monks owned no property and for them there was the communal property. For the householders poverty was not regarded as an ideal. Our people never preached poverty.
2.13 - On Psychology, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: A manuscript is said to have been found in Tibet which says that Christ came to India and learnt Buddhism, then went back to Jerusalem and preached his gospel.
Sri Aurobindo: It is a very old story. I believe it was a Russian who invented it. I heard it when I came back from England.
--
It is very difficult to separate what the founder stands for and what has been added on to his name afterwards. For instance, very little of what is now known as Buddhism was taught by Buddha. Take the doctrine of karu, compassion. It was brought in by the teachers of the Mahayana school.
Disciple: According to popular belief among the Jains, Krishna is now in the seventh hell! And in the next cycle he will be one of the Tirthankars! He is now in hell because he was responsible for so much killing hisa.
2.14 - On Movements, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
But this Bahaism is just what suits the common mind. There are now two sects run by Baha Ullahs two sons. Abdul Baha is the younger one. He has some vital force from his father and he used to see some kind of Light in meditation and so he began to think of himself as the incarnation of the Light on earth, and whoever was received in the fold was supposed to be influenced by it. Bahaism has included certain mental concepts also, e.g., toleration, universal brotherhood, equality of man and woman, etc. The other day he included Buddhism also, though he seems to know nothing about it. He has about eleven million followers, of which two million are in Europe.
If the Mahomedans get a religion of that sort it is much better than what they are having now.
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
With this, of course, we have come full circle, come to the point where we began our account in chapter 1. This wasn't just subtle reductionism-the collapse of the Kosmos into the empirical interlocking order-this was gross reductionism-the further collapse of the interlocking order into its atomistic components, a situation that can fairly be described as complete psychotic insanity. (If the Kosmos is the wondrous multidimensional reality anything similar to that described from Plotinus to Schelling, from Mahayana Buddhism to Vedanta Hinduism, or even from
Kant to Rousseau, imagine the blindness and the violence of the mentality that acknowledges only atoms.)
--
The Ascenders have recourse to various forms of Gnosticism, Theravadin Buddhism, a type of Advaita Vedanta, a "higher Inner Voice," the inner Holy Spirit, archetypal psychology, the care of the Soul, contacting the Higher Self-all of which are true enough and altogether important; but in their partiality, in their exclusively Ascending bent, they attempt to get out of flatl and by denying it altogether: Phobos, the fear-laden hand of earth-denying, community-denying, body-denying, sensory-denying escape.
The Descenders, on the other hand, have recourse to the visible, sensible God/dess-but that profound truth, cut off from its complementary Ascending current, degenerates into geocentric, egocentric, highly individualistic and anti-authoritarian stances, desiring to preserve themselves in the free play of uncoerced shadows.16 By becoming one with the Shadows and seamlessly inserting ourselves into a denatured nature, salvation will finally be found-and if it doesn't seem to be working, just insert harder.
2.1.5.1 - Study of Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. Buddhism, Jainism, Illusionism were sufficient to sap all energy out of the country.
True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something else than Matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere. That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in the muddle.
2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: I thought of that but it is not possible. Mother at one time tried to impose some restrictions and regulations but it did not work. One has to change from within. There are, of course, other yogic systems which have such strict regulations. Buddhism is unique in that respect. There is a monastic school in France La Trappe which enjoins strict silence.
Disciple: Is such exterior imposition good?
--
Sri Aurobindo: All preachers are illogical. Were you a fervent Buddhist? Is there much Buddhism in your parts of Bengal?
Disciple: About one or two million people are Buddhists and there is nothing of Buddhism in what they follow.
Mother: Nothing or something of Buddhism?
Disciple: Something.
Mother: In China and Japan also no real Buddhism is left. Only ceremonies remain. In Ceylon they say there is still some authentic Buddhism.
Disciple: In Burma also the same is the case. But the Burmese people do show a great respect for their Bhikshus.
--
Every time the Light has tried to descend it has met with resistance and opposition. Christ was crucified. You may say, "Why should it be like that when he was innocent?" and yet that was the Divine dispensation. Buddha was denied. Sons of Light come, the earth denies and rejects them; afterwards, accepts them in name to reject them in substance. Only a small minority grows towards a spiritual birth, and it is through them that the Divine manifestation takes place. What remains of Buddhism today except a few decrees of Asoka and a few hundred thousand Buddhists?
Disciple: Asoka helped in propagating Buddhism.
Sri Aurobindo: Anybody could have done that.
--
Sri Aurobindo: If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual it would have been much better for real Buddhism. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline. The King of Norway, on whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all who were not Christians and thus succeeded in establishing Christianity! The same happened to Mohammedanism. When it succeeded, the followers of the Prophet became Khalifas; after them the religion declined. It is not kings and emperors that keep alive spirituality but people who are really spiritual that do so.
Disciple: Asoka sacrificed everything for Buddhism.
Sri Aurobindo: But he remained emperor till the end. When kings and emperors try to spread religion they become like Asoka, i.e., make the whole thing mechanical, and the inner truth is lost.
2.17 - The Soul and Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Involved in mind, possessed by the ordinary phenomenon of mental thought, sensation, emotion, reception of the vital and physical impacts of the world and mechanical reaction to them, the soul is subject to Nature. Even its will and intelligence are determined by its mental nature, determined even more largely by the mental nature of its environment which acts upon, subtly as well as overtly, and overcomes the individual mentality; thus its attempt to regulate, to control, to determine its own experience and action is pursued by an element of illusion, since when it thinks it is acting, it is really Nature that is acting and determining all it thinks, wills and does. If there were not this constant knowledge in it that it is, that it exists in itself, is not the body or life but something other which at least receives and accepts the cosmic experience if it does not determine it, it would be compelled in the end to suppose that Nature is all and the soul an illusion. This is the conclusion modern Materialism affirms and to that nihilistic Buddhism arrived; the Sankhyas, perceiving the dilemma, solved it by saying that the soul in fact only mirrors Nature's determinations and itself determines nothing, is not the lord, but can by refusing to mirror them fall back into eternal immobility and peace. There are too the other solutions which arrive at the same practical conclusion, but from the other end, the spiritual, affirming Nature as an illusion or both the soul and Nature as impermanent and pointing us to a state beyond in which their duality has no existence, either by the extinction of both in something permanent and ineffable or at least by the exclusion of the active principle altogether. Though they do not satisfy humanity's larger hope and deep-seated impulse and aspiration, these are valid solutions so far as they go; for they arrive at an Absolute in itself or at the separate absolute of the soul, even if they reject the many rapturous infinites of the Absolute which the true possession of Nature by the soul in its divine existence offers to the eternal seeker in man.
Uplifted into the Spirit the soul is no longer subject to Nature; it is above this mental activity. It may be above it in detachment and aloofness, udasina, seated above and indifferent, or attracted by and lost in, the absorbing peace or bliss of its undifferentiated, its concentrated spiritual experience of itself; we must then transcend by a complete renunciation of Nature and cosmic existence, not conquer by a divine and sovereign possession. But the Spirit, the Divine is not only above Nature; it is master of Nature and cosmos; the soul rising into its spiritual poise must at least be capable of the same mastery by its unity with the Divine. It must be capable of controlling its own nature not only in calm or by forcing it to repose, but with a sovereign control of its play and activity. In the lower poise this is not possible because the soul acts through the mind and the mind can only act individually and fragmentarily in a contented obedience or a struggling subjection to that universal Nature through which the divine knowledge and the divine Will are worked out in the cosmos. But the Spirit is in possession of knowledge and will, of which it is the source and cause and not a subject; therefore in proportion as the soul assumes its divine or spiritual being, it assumes also control of the movements of its nature. It becomes, in the ancient language, svarat, free and a self-ruler over the kingdom of its own life and being. But also it increases in control over its environment, its world. This it can only do by universalising itself; for it is the divine and universal will that it must express in its action upon the world. It must first extend its consciousness and see the universe in itself instead of being like the mind limited by the physical, vital, sensational, emotional, intellectual outlook of the little divided personality; it must accept the world-truths, the world-energies, the world-tendencies, the world-purposes as its own instead of clinging to its own intellectual ideas, desires and endeavours, preferences, objects, intentions, impulses; these, so far as they remain, must be harmonised with the universal. It must then submit its knowledge and will at their very source to the divine Knowledge and the divine Will and so arrive through submission at immergence, losing its personal light in the divine Light and its personal initiative in the divine initiative. To be first in tune with the Infinite, in harmony with the Divine, and then to be unified with the Infinite, taken into the Divine is its condition of perfect strength and mastery, and this is precisely the very nature of the spiritual life and the spiritual existence.
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The Tibetans are more familiar with occultism than with spirituality. The Europeans are more taken up with these occult things. They either believe everything or nothing. That explains their attraction for Tibet, Bhutan and other places with occult atmosphere. Nowadays stories and novels are being written with these themes. Japanese Zen Buddhism, and Chinese Taoism have also attracted their attention.
I also wrote some stories but they are lost; the white ants have finished them and with them has perished my future fame as a story-teller. (Laughter)
--
Sri Aurobindo: It is not so early as that; all the Puranas are posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Brahminical revival which came as a reaction against Buddhism in the Gupta period.
Disciple: The Puranas, even the earliest, are supposed to have been written about the 3rd or the 4th century A.D.
--
Disciple: Talking of Krishna reminds me of Yogi Z, whose sadhana seemed to be going on very well but, they say, he is now attracted to Buddhism.
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord!
--
His attraction towards Buddhism is understandable, because to the European rational mind its rationalism has an appeal. It was through Buddhism that Europe came to and began to know India. Blavatsky founded her Theosophy on Buddhism. Next they understood Shankara in Europe and for many years the Europeans thought there was nothing in India except Shankaras Adwaita. But if Z has taken to Buddhism, his sex attraction is not justifiable. Buddhism is the most exacting path. It is most unindulgent, severe and dry; it is a path of Tapasya.
Disciple: He had perhaps a great mental pride.
--
After local politics, Buddhism etc., the talk turned to the war and the Congress. Pattabhi was elected President. Patel wanted to settle the Rajkot issue, or go to East Africa to offer Satyagraha there.
Disciple: I am afraid if Patel goes to East or South Africa the Indians there would be shot.
--
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is categorical. They believe in the two Purusha and Prakriti, as the final elements. Sankhya and Buddhism were both first understood and appreciated by Europe. Sankhya because of its sharp distinction between Purusha who is consciousness and Prakriti which they believe to be inconscient. According to Sankhya, Prakriti is jada inconscient, and it is the light of the consciousness of Purusha that makes Prakriti appear conscious. It believes that even Buddhi is jada.
But we in our Yoga need not accept this sharp cleavage between Purusha and Prakriti.
The Europeans like Buddhism for its strong rationalism; its logic leads to Shunyam, the state of non-being, which is its aim. There is also a strong note of agnosticism in Buddhism which appeals to them. It is something that hangs in the air, for the base is Shunyam you don't know on what basis the whole thing stands.
There is a certain similarity between Science and Sankhya; for in science they believe that evolution begins with the inconscient and goes up the scale of consciousness.
2.20 - The Philosophy of Rebirth, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But even then the developing vitalistic theory need not spiritualise itself, need not admit the real existence of a soul or its immortality or eternity. It might regard the personality still as a phenomenal creation of the universal Life by the interaction of life consciousness and physical form and force, but with a wider, more variable and subtler action of both upon each other and another history than it had at first seen to be possible. It might even arrive at a sort of vitalistic Buddhism, admitting Karma, but admitting it only as the action of a universal Life-force; it would admit as one of its results the continuity of the stream of personality in rebirth by mental association, but might deny any real self for the individual or any eternal being other than this ever-active vital Becoming. On the other hand, it might, obeying a turn of thought which is now beginning to gain a little in strength, admit a universal Self or cosmic Spirit as the primal reality and Life as its power or agent and so arrive at a form of spiritualised vital Monism. In this theory too a law of rebirth would be possible but not inevitable; it might be a phenomenal fact, an actual law of life, but it would not be a logical result of the theory of being and its inevitable consequence.
Adwaita of the Mayavada, like Buddhism, started with the already accepted belief - part of the received stock of an antique knowledge - of supraphysical planes and worlds and a commerce between them and ours which determined a passage from earth and, though this seems to have been a less primitive discovery, a return to earth of the human personality. At any rate their thought had behind it an ancient perception and even experience, or at least an age-long tradition, of a before and after for the personality which was not confined to the experience of the physical universe; for they based themselves on a view of self and world which already regarded a supraphysical consciousness as the primary phenomenon and physical being as only a secondary and dependent phenomenon. It was around these data that they had to determine the nature of the eternal Reality and the origin of the phenomenal becoming. Therefore they admitted the passage of the personality from this to other worlds and its return into form of life upon earth; but the rebirth thus admitted was not in the Buddhistic view a real rebirth of a real spiritual Person into the forms of material existence. In the later Adwaita view the spiritual reality was there, but its apparent individuality and therefore its birth and rebirth were part of a cosmic illusion, a deceptive but effective construction of universal Maya.
In Buddhistic thought the existence of the Self was denied, and rebirth could only mean a continuity of the ideas, sensations and actions which constituted a fictitious individual moving between different worlds, - let us say, between differently organised planes of idea and sensation; for, in fact, it is only the conscious continuity of the flux that creates a phenomenon of self and a phenomenon of personality. In the Adwaitic Mayavada there was the admission of a Jivatman, an individual self, and even of a real self of the individual;5 but this concession to our normal language and ideas ends by being only apparent. For it turns out that there is no real and eternal individual, no "I" or "you", and therefore there can be no real self of the individual, even no true universal self, but only a Self apart from the universe, ever unborn, ever unmodified, ever unaffected by the mutations of phenomena. Birth, life, death, the whole mass of individual and cosmic experience, become in the last resort no more than an illusion or a temporary phenomenon; even bondage and release can be only such an illusion, a part of temporal phenomena: they amount only to the conscious continuity of the illusory experiences of the ego, itself a creation of the great Illusion, and the cessation of the continuity and the consciousness into the superconsciousness of That which alone was, is and ever will be, or rather which has nothing to do with Time, is for ever unborn, timeless and ineffable. be any true individual, only at most a one Self omnipresent and animating each mind and body with the idea of an "I".
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: In Jainism self-mortification persists. In Buddhism it is not there. Buddha gave it up after a trial. Buddha and Mahavir were contemporaries but they don't seem to have met. Mahavir was born in Vaisali.
Disciple: In Jainism each soul is bound by ignorance and there are three ties of that ignorance and three ways of liberation. This has been symbolised in the Swastika.
2.2.3 - Depression and Despondency, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In speaking of the Buddhist and his nine years of the wall and other instances the Mother was only disproving the view that not having succeeded in seven or eight years meant unfitness and debarred all hope for the future. The man of the wall stands among the greatest names in Japanese Buddhism and his long sterility did not mean incapacity or spiritual unfitness. But apart from that there are many who have gone on persisting for long periods and finally prevailed. It is a common, not an uncommon experience.
***
2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
| 10-05-24 | Gandhi and humility; Romain Rolland, the Indian spirit, Gandhi, Tagore, Buddhism |
| 17-05-24 | Gandhi and boycott of British goods |
| 20-05-24 | Local politics; Tarakeshwar affair; Chrisdanity and Buddhism; Gandhi |
| 02-06-24 | Gandhi on Gita, Dayananda, Arya Samaj |
--
| 14-12-38 | Cagliostro, Nostradamus; Buddhism; meditation; Sri Aurobindo and Mother |
| 15-12-38 | Mental intuition and medical diagnosis; Kundalini |
--
| 23-12-38 | Divine's Omnipotence; Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism; Ramana Maharshi |
| 26-12-38 | Bla-bhva; self-offering; meditation; physical being; dreams, visions, fantasies; Pranam and meditation with Mother |
--
| 19-01-39 | Problems of society, communes; propaganda, morality; psychic and evolution; saints and yogis; boons of Krishna and Shiva; Bhakti, Jnana, Buddhism |
| 20-01-39 | European politics and war. Western visitors and Ashramites |
2.28 - The Divine Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
69: Our nature is complex and we have to find a key to some perfect unity and fullness of its complexity. Its first evolutionary basis is the material life: Nature began with that and man also has to begin with it; he has first to affirm his material and vital existence. But if he stops there, there can be for him no evolution; his next and greater preoccupation must be to find himself as a mental being in a material life - both individual and social - as perfected as possible. This was the direction which the Hellenic idea gave to European civilisation, and the Roman reinforced - or weakened - it with the ideal of organised power: the cult of reason, the interpretation of life by an intellectual thought critical, utilitarian, organising and constructive, the government of life by Science are the last outcome of this inspiration. But in ancient times the higher creative and dynamic element was the pursuit of an ideal truth, good and beauty and the moulding of mind, life and body into perfection and harmony by this ideal. Beyond and above this preoccupation, as soon as mind is sufficiently developed, there awakes in man the spiritual preoccupation, the discovery of a self and inmost truth of being and the release of man's mind and life into the truth of the Spirit, its perfection by the power of the Spirit, the solidarity, unity, mutuality of all beings in the Spirit. This was the Eastern ideal carried by Buddhism and other ancient disciplines to the coasts of Asia and Egypt and from there poured by Christianity into Europe.
70: But these motives, burning for a time like dim torchlights in the confusion and darkness created by the barbaric flood that had submerged the old civilisations, have been abandoned by the modern spirit which has found another light, the light of Science. What the modern spirit has sought for is the economic social ultimate, - an ideal material organisation of civilisation and comfort, the use of reason and science and education for the generalisation of a utilitarian rationality which will make the individual a perfected social being in a perfected economic society. What remained from the spiritual ideal was - for a time - a mentalised and moralised humanitarianism relieved of all religious colouring and a social ethicism which was deemed allsufficient to take the place of a religious and individual ethic. It was so far that the race had reached when it found itself hurried forward by its own momentum into a subjective chaos and a chaos of its life in which all received values were overthrown and all firm ground seemed to disappear from its social organisation, its conduct and its culture.
30.04 - Intuition and Inspiration in Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Perhaps in India the Vaishnavas or the followers of the path of devotion have replaced intuition by inspiration. It is by their influence and at their hands that literature based on inspiration has become so rich, eloquent and intense. Western scholars say that the Aryans were mostly intellectual, principally guided by reason; it is the non-Aryans, the Dravidians, who have introduced the element of emotion into Indian culture. The Aryans generally followed the path of knowledge and the South Indians were predominantly devotional. Perhaps there is some truth in this saying. The Buddhists were also to some extent responsible for the change in the even and tranquil tenor of Aryan culture. In the beginning the Buddhists, like the Vedic Aryans, laid the greatest stress on knowledge. Later on, when Mahayana, the Great Path, came into vogue, there commenced the worship of the Buddha. When the compassion of the Buddha was recognised as the principal trait of Buddhism we moved away from intuition and resorted to inspiration.
Bengal is chiefly the field of inspiration. It is inspiration that dominates the field of action, the art and religion of Bengal. Scholars hold that the Bengalees are three-fourths Buddhists in their culture and education and as a race they are Dravidians to the same degree. No wonder that by the union of these two currents Bengal has become the holy confluence of inspiration like Prayag,the place of pilgrimage, where the Ganga and the Jamuna have met.
30.09 - Lines of Tantra (Charyapada), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
AT least the names, "Natha-yogis" and "Siddhacharyas" must have been familiar to you, perhaps you may have heard about their writings too, the body of poetry known as caryapadavali.Today I would like to say something on this subject. This introduces us to a particular epoch in our history and its peculiar training and culture, where the human consciousness has found a particular expression for which one cannot find a parallel. It was what is known as the age of Tantric Buddhism. During this period, a special kind of spiritual discipline and culture had been growing as a result of the Buddhist influence. It extended mainly over north-eastern India, but the whole of north India and to a certain extent the South too came within its orbit.
This poetry is the record of an inner empire which, it is supposed, may have lasted from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. The story of the discovery of these writings is a fascinating one. Just a little over half a century ago, Pandit Haraprasad Shastri, a, truly gifted scholar and lover of the Bengali language and literature, had been doing some researches into the ancient history of Bengal and was earnestly engaged in the collection of old manuscripts in the villages and the libraries. In this connection he once went to Nepal and there he chanced across some ancient manuscripts, among which there was one that drew his particular attention. At first he thought it might be some work in an earlier form of Hindi and did not accordingly give it much attention.
3.01 - Forms of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
interrupted by different reincarnations. Even in Buddhism,
where this doctrine is of particular importance the Buddha
3.02 - The Motives of Devotion, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
So far, then, all Yogic experience is agreed. But Religion and the Yoga of Bhakti go farther; they attribute to this Being a Personality and human relations with the human being. In both the human being approaches the Divine by means of his humanity, with human emotions, as he would approach a fellow-being, but with more intense and exalted feelings; and not only so, but the Divine also responds in a manner answering to these emotions. In that possibility of response lies the whole question; for if the Divine is impersonal, featureless and relationless, no such response is possible and all human approach to it becomes an absurdity; we must rather dehumanise, depersonalise, annul ourselves in so far as we are human beings or any kind of beings; on no other conditions and by no other means can we approach it. Love, fear, prayer, praise, worship of an Impersonality which has no relation with us or with anything in the universe and no feature that our minds can lay hold of, are obviously an irrational foolishness. On such terms religion and devotion become out of the question. The Adwaitin in order to find a religious basis for his bare and sterile philosophy, has to admit the practical existence of God and the gods and to delude his mind with the language of Maya. Buddhism only became a popular religion when Buddha had taken the place of the supreme Deity as an object of worship.
Even if the Supreme be capable of relations with us but only of impersonal relations, religion is robbed of its human vitality and the Path of Devotion ceases to be effective or even possible. We may indeed apply our human emotions to it, but in a vague and imprecise fashion, with no hope of a human response: the only way in which it can respond to us, is by stilling our emotions and throwing upon us its own impersonal calm and immutable equality; and this is what in fact happens when we approach the pure impersonality of the Godhead. We can obey it as a Law, lift our souls to it in aspiration towards its tranquil being, grow into it by shedding from us our emotional nature; the human being in us is not satisfied, but it is quieted, balanced, stilled. But the Yoga of devotion, agreeing in this with Religion, insists on a closer and warmer worship than this impersonal aspiration. It aims at a divine fulfilment of the humanity in us as well as of the impersonal part of our being; it aims at a divine satisfaction of the emotional being of man. It demands of the Supreme acceptance of our love and a response in kind; as we delight in Him and seek Him, so it believes that He too delights in us and seeks us. Nor can this demand be condemned as irrational, for if the supreme and universal Being did not take any delight in us, it is not easy to see how we could have come into being or could remain in being, and if He does not at all draw us towards him, - a divine seeking of us, - there would seem to be no reason in Nature why we should turn from the round of our normal existence to seek Him.
3.1.01 - The Problem of Suffering and Evil, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
freedom, absolute Light, absolute Beatitude. Is there then an unbridgeable gulf between that which is beyond and that which is here or are they two perpetual opposites and only by leaving this adventure in Time behind, by overleaping the gulf can men reach the Eternal? That is what seems to be at the end of one line of experience which has been followed to its rigorous conclusion by Buddhism and a little less rigorously by a certain type of Monistic spirituality which admits some connection of the world with the Divine, but still opposes them in the last resort to each other as truth and illusion. But there is also this other and indubitable experience that the Divine is here in everything as well as above and behind everything, that all is in That and is
That when we go back from its appearance to its Reality. It is a significant and illumining fact that the knower of Brahman even moving and acting in this world, even bearing all its shocks, can live in some absolute peace, light and beatitude of the Divine.
3.1.03 - A Realistic Adwaita, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Shankara, Buddhism, Evolution
I dont know that I can help you very much with an answer to your friends questions. I can only state my own position with regard to these matters.
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What then is Nirvana? In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul for that does not exist but of a mental compound or stream of associations or saskras which we mistake for ourself. In illusionist Vedanta it means not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal individual self into the one real self or Brahman; it is the idea and experience of individuality that so disappears and ceases,we may say a false light that is extinguished (nirva) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of Nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible; but the individual self or soul is not this ego. The individual soul is the spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal portion of the Divine but can also be described as the Divine himself supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the Divine Life. Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false separative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living in our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in the world and in life.
***
3.10 - The New Birth, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
and in the Zen Buddhism of Japan. From the point of view of psychology,
the names we give to the self are quite irrelevant, and so is the question of
3.2.03 - Jainism and Buddhism, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:3.2.03 - Jainism and Buddhism
author class:Sri Aurobindo
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As to Buddhas attitude towards life, I do not quite see how service to mankind or any ideal of improvement of the world existence can have been part of his aim, since to pass out of life into a transcendence was his object. His eightfold path was the means towards that end and not an aim in itself or indeed in any way an aim. Obviously if right understanding and right action became the common rule of life, there would be a great improvement in the world, but for Buddhas purpose that could be an incidental result and not at all part of his central object. You say, Buddha himself urged the necessity to serve mankind: his ideal was to achieve a consciousness of inner eternity and then be a source of radiant influence and action. But where and when did Buddha say these things, use these terms or express these ideas? The service of mankind sounds like a very modern and European conception; it reminds me of some European interpretations of the Gita as merely teaching the disinterested performance of duty or the pronouncement that the whole idea of the Gita is service. The exclusive stress or overstress on mankind or humanity is also European. Mahayanist Buddhism laid stress on compassion, fellow-feeling with all, vasudhaiva kuumbakam, just as the Gita speaks of the feeling of oneness with all beings and preoccupation with the good of all beings, sarvabhtahite rat, but this does not mean humanity only but all beings and vasudh means all earth-life. Are there any sayings of Buddha which would justify the statement that the object or one object of attaining to Nirvana was to become a source of radiant influence and action? The consciousness of inner eternity may have that result, but can we really say that that was Buddhas ideal, the object which he held in view or for which he came?
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Different Kinds of Buddhism
Buddhism is of many kinds and the entirely nihilistic kind is only one variety. Most Buddhism admits a Permanent as beyond the creation of Karma and Sanskaras. Even the Sunya of the Sunyapanthis is described like the Tao of Lao Tse as a Nothing which is All. So as a higher above mental state is admitted which one tries to reach by a strong discipline of the consciousness, it may be called spirituality.
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There are elements in most Yogas which enter into this one, so it is not surprising if there is something in Buddhism also. But such notions as a Higher Evolution beyond Nirvana seem to me not genuinely Buddhistic, unless of course there is some offshoot of Buddhism which developed something so interpreted by the author. I never heard of it as part of Buddhas teachingshe always spoke of Nirvana as the goal and refused to discuss metaphysically what it might be.
***
About the One [of the Buddhists] there are different versions. I just read somewhere that the Buddhist One is a Superbuddha from whom all Buddhas come but it seemed to me a rehash of Buddhism in Vedantic terms born of a modern mind. The Permanent of Buddhism has always been supposed to be Supracosmic and Ineffable that is why Buddha never tried to explain what it was; for, logically, how can one talk about the Ineffable? It has really nothing to do with the Cosmos which is a thing of sanskaras and Karma.
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There is no reason why the passage about Buddhism [in an essay of the correspondent] should be omitted. It gives one side of the Buddhistic teaching which is not much known or is usually ignored, for that teaching is by most rendered as Nirvana (Sunyavada) and a spiritualised humanitarianism. The difficulty is that it is these sides that have been stressed especially in the modern interpretations of Buddhism and any strictures I may have passed were in view of these interpretations and that onesided stress. I am aware of course of the opposite tendencies in theMahayana and the Japanese cult of Amitabha Buddha which is a cult of bhakti. It is now being said even of Shankara that there was another side of his doctrine but his followers have made him stand solely for the Great Illusion, the inferiority of bhakti, the uselessness of Karmajagan mithy.
***
3.2.04 - The Conservative Mind and Eastern Progress, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But Nature has still more subtle and disguised movements in her dealings with men by which she leads them to change without their knowing that they have changed. It is because she has employed chiefly this method in the vast masses of the East that the conservative habit of mind is so much stronger there than in the West. It is able to nourish the illusion that it has not changed, that it is immovably faithful to the ideas of remote forefa thers, to their religion, their traditions, their institutions, their social ideals, that it has preserved either a divine or an animal immobility both in thought and in the routine of life and has been free from the human law of mutation by which man and his social organisations must either progress or degenerate but can in no case maintain themselves unchanged against the attack of Time. Buddhism has come and gone and the Hindu still professes to belong to the Vedic religion held and practised by his Aryan forefa thers; he calls his creed the Aryan dharma, the eternal religion. It is only when we look close that we see the magnitude of the illusion. Buddha has gone out of India indeed, but Buddhism remains; it has stamped its giant impress on the spirit of the national religion, leaving the forms to be determined by the Tantricism with which itself had made alliance and some sort of fusion in its middle growth; what it destroyed no man has been able to restore, what it left no man has been able to destroy. As a matter of fact, the double cycle which India has described from the early Vedic times to India of Buddha and the philosophers and again from Buddha to the time of the European irruption was in its own way as vast in change religious, social, cultural, even political and administrative as the double cycle of Europe; but because it preserved old names for new things, old formulas for new methods and old coverings for new institutions and because the change was always marked in the internal but quiet and unobtrusive in the external, we have been able to create and preserve the fiction of the unchanging East. There has also been this result that while the European conservative has learned the law of change in human society, knows that he must move and quarrels with the progressist only over the right pace and the exact direction, the Eastern or rather the Indian conservative still imagines that stability may be the true law of mortal being, practises a sort of Yogic sana on the flood of Time and because he does not move himself, thinks for he keeps his eyes shut and is not in the habit of watching the banks that he can prevent the stream also from moving on.
This conservative principle has its advantages even as rapid progress has its vices and its perils. It helps towards the preservation of a fundamental continuity which makes for the longevity of civilisations and the persistence of what was valuable in humanitys past. So, in India, if religion has changed immensely its form and temperament, the religious spirit has been really eternal, the principle of spiritual discipline is the same as in the earliest times, the fundamental spiritual truths have been preserved and even enriched in their contents and the very forms can all be traced back through their mutations to the seed of the Veda. On the other hand this habit of mind leads to the accumulation of a great mass of accretions which were once valuable but have lost their virtue and to the heaping up of dead forms and shibboleths which no longer correspond to any vital truth nor have any understood and helpful significance. All this putrid waste of the past is held to be too sacred to be touched by any profane hand and yet it chokes up the streams of the national life or corrupts its waters. And if no successful process of purification takes place, a state of general ill-health in the social body supervenes in which the principle of conservation becomes the cause of dissolution.
3.2.05 - Our Ideal, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Indian thought into Europe first through the veil of German metaphysics, more latterly by its subtle influence in reawakening the Celtic, Scandinavian and Slavonic idealism, mysticism, religionism, and the direct and open penetration of Buddhism,
Theosophy, Vedantism, Bahaism and other Oriental influences in both Europe and America.
3.2.10 - Christianity and Theosophy, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Love of God and union in separateness through that love and a transformation of the nature by realising certain mental, ethical, emotional, perhaps even physical possibilities (for the Vaishnavas speak of a new cinmaya body) is the principle of Vaishnava Yoga. So there is nothing here that was not already present in that line of Asiatic mysticism which looks to a Personal Deity and insists on the eternal pre-existence and survival of the individual being. A spiritual raising of the nature to its highest possibilities is a part of the Tantric disciplineso that too is not absent from Indian Yoga. The writer seems like most European writers to know only Illusionism and Buddhism and to accept them as the whole wisdom of Asia (sagesse asiatique); but even there he misinterprets their idea and their experience. Adwaita even in its extreme form does not aim at the extinction of existence, the adoption of nothingness, the end of the being and destruction of the essence. Only a certain kind of Nihilistic Buddhism aims at that and even so that Nothingness, Sunya, is described on another side of it as the Permanent. What these disciplines aim at is a passing from Time to Eternity, a putting off of the finite and putting on of the Infinite, a casting off of the bonds of ego and its results, desire, suffering, a falsified existence, in order to live in the true Self. These descriptions of the Christian writer betray an entire ignorance of the realisation which he decries, its infinity, freedom, surpassing peace, the ecstasy of the Brahmananda. It is an extinction of the limited individual personality but a liberation into cosmic and then into transcendental consciousnessan extinction of thought and life but a liberation into an unlimited consciousness and knowledge and being. The personality is extinguished but in something greater than itself, not in something less nor in mere Nant. If it be said that that negates earthly life, so does the Christian ideal, for the Christian ideal aims at the attainment of a celestial existence beyond the earth existence (beyond this single earth life, for reincarnation is not admitted), which is only a vale of sorrows and a passing ordeal. It insists on the preservation of the spiritual personality, but so do Vaishnavism and Shaivism and other Asiatic ideals. The writers ignorance of the many-sidedness of Asiatic wisdom deprives his depreciation of it of all value.
The phrases which struck you as resembling superficially at least our ideal of transformation are of a general character and could be adopted without hesitation by almost any spiritual discipline, even Illusionism would be willing to include it as a stage or experience on the way. All depends on the content you put into the words, what actual change in the consciousness and life they are intended to cover. If the transformation be from sin to sainthood by the union of the soul with God in an intellectual light full of lovewhich is the most definite description of it in these extracts,then it is not at all identical, but rather very far from what I mean by transformation. For the transformation I aim at is not from sin to sainthood but from the lower nature of the Ignorance to the Divine Nature of Light, Peace, Truth, Divine Power and Bliss beyond the Ignorance. It journeys towards a supreme self-existent good and leaves behind it the limited struggling human conception of sin and virtue; it is not an intellectual light that is the sun of its aspiration but a spiritual supra-intellectual supramental light; it is not sainthood that is its culmination but divine consciousnessor if you like, soul-hood, spirit-hood, conscious self-hood, divine-hood. There is therefore between these two kinds or two degrees of transformation an immense difference.
3.4.03 - Materialism, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Objection can at once be made that all these great things have no connection with materialism. The impulse towards them was of old standing and long active in the human mind; the very principle of the humanitarianism which has been one of the striking developments of modern sentiment, was first brought out from our nature and made prominent by religion, compassion and the love of man first intimately and powerfully enforced by Christianity and Buddhism; if they have now a little developed, it is the natural expanding from seeds that had long been sown. Materialism was rather calculated to encourage opposite instincts; and the good it favoured it limited, made arid, mechanised. If all these nobler things have grown and are breaking the bounds set to them, it is because man is fortunately inconsistent and after a certain stage of our development cannot be really and wholly materialistic; he needs ideals, ethical expansion, a closer emotional fulfilment, and these needs he has tacked on to his development of materialistic opinion and corrected its natural results by them. But the ideals themselves were taken from an anterior opinion and culture.
This is the truth, but not the whole truth. The old religious cultures were often admirable in the ensemble and always in some of their parts, but if they had not been defective, they could neither have been so easily breached, nor would there have been the need of a secularist age to bring out the results the religions had sown. Their faults were those of a certain narrowness and exclusive vision. Concentrated, intense in their ideal and intensive in their effect, their expansive influence on the human mind was small. They isolated too much their action in the individual, limited too narrowly the working of their ideals in the social order, tolerated for instance and even utilised for the ends of church and creed an immense amount of cruelty and barbarism which were contrary to the spirit and truth from which they had started. What they discouraged in the soul of the individual, they yet maintained in the action and the frame of society, seemed hardly to conceive of a human order delivered from these blots. The depth and fervour of their aspiration had for its shadow a want of intellectual clarity, an obscurity which confused their working and baulked the expansion of their spiritual elements. They nourished too a core of asceticism and hardly cared to believe in the definite amelioration of the earth life, despised by them as a downfall or a dolorous descent or imperfection of the human spirit, or whatever earthly hope they admitted saw itself postponed to the millennial end of things. A belief in the vanity of human life or of existence itself suited better the preoccupation with an aim beyond earth. Perfection, ethical growth, liberation became individual ideals and figured too much as an isolated preparation of the soul for the beyond. The social effect of the religious temperament, however potentially considerable, was cramped by excessive other-worldliness and distrust in the intellect accentuated to obscurantism.
3.4.2 - Guru Yoga, #The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, #Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, #Buddhism
Guru yoga is an essential practice in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. This is true in sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen. It develops the heart connection with the master. By continually streng thening our devotion, we come to the place of pure devotion in ourselves, which is the unshakeable, powerful base of the practice. The essence of guru yoga is to merge the practitioner's mind with the mind of the master.
What is the true master? It is the formless, fundamental nature of mind, the primordial awareness of the base of everything, but because we exist in dualism, it is helpful for us to visualize this in a form. Doing so makes skillful use of the dualisms of the conceptual mind, to further streng then devotion and help us stay directed toward practice and the generation of positive qualities.
3.5.02 - Thoughts and Glimpses, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer, Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. A great thing would be done if all these God-visions could embrace and cast themselves into each other; but intellectual dogma and cult egoism stand in the way.
All religions have saved a number of souls, but none yet has been able to spiritualise mankind. For that there is needed not cult and creed, but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution.
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Equally striking is his condemnation of idol-worship, one of the earliest in human history,-"he who prays to an image is chattering to a stone wall." The intolerant violence of this protestant rationalism and positivism makes Heraclitus again a precursor of a whole movement of the human mind. It is not indeed a religious protest such as that of Mahomed against the naturalistic, Pagan and idolatrous polytheism of the Arabs or of the Protestants against the aesthetic and emotional saint-worship of the Catholic Church, its Mariolatry and use of images and elaborate ritual; its motive is philosophic, rational, psychological. Heraclitus was not indeed a pure rationalist He believes in the Gods, but as psychological presences, cosmic powers, and he is too impatient of the grossness of the physical image, its hold on the senses, its obscuration of the psychological significance of the godheads to see that it is not to the stone, but to the divine person figured in the stone that the prayer is offered. It is noticeable that in his conception of the gods he is kin to the old Vedic seers, though not at all a religious mystic in his temperament. The Vedic religion seems to have excluded physical images and it was the protestant movements of Jainism and Buddhism which either introduced or at least popularised and made general the worship of images in India. Here too Heraclitus prepares the way for the destruction of the old religion, the reign of pure philosophy and reason and the void which was filled up by Christianity; for man cannot live by reason alone. When it was too late, some attempt was made to re-spiritualise the old religion, and there was the remarkable effort of Julian and Libanius to set up a regenerated Paganism against triumphant Christianity; but the attempt was too unsubstantial, too purely philosophic, empty of the dynamic power of the religious spirit. Europe had killed its old creeds beyond revival and had to turn for its religion to Asia.
Thus, for the general life of man Heraclitus has nothing to give us beyond his hint of an aristocratic principle in society and politics,-and we may note that this aristocratic bent was very strong in almost all the subsequent Greek philosophers. In religion his influence tended to the destruction of the old creed without effectively putting anything more profound in its place; though not himself a pure rationalist, he prepared the way for philosophic rationalism. But even without religion philosophy by itself can give us at least some light on the spiritual destiny of man, some hope of the infinite, some ideal perfection after which we can strive. Plato who was influenced by Heraclitus, tried to do this for us; his thought sought after God, tried to seize the ideal, had its hope of a perfect human society. We know how the Neo-platonists developed his ideas under the influence of the East and how they affected Christianity. The Stoics, still more directly the intellectual descendants of Heraclitus, arrived at very remarkable and fruitful ideas of human possibility and a powerful psychological discipline,-as we should say in India, a Yoga,-by which they hoped to realise their ideal. But what has Heraclitus himself to give us? Nothing directly; we have to gather for ourselves whatever we can from his first principles and his cryptic sentences.
3.7.1.01 - Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Obviously, this scheme of things is only a variation of the old spiritual-material bribe and menace, the bribe of a Heaven of fat joys for the good and the threat of a hell of eternal fire or bestial tortures for the wicked. The idea of the Law of the world as primarily a dispenser of rewards and punishments is cognate to the idea of the Supreme Being as a judge, father and school-master who is continually rewarding with lollipops his good boys and continually caning his naughty urchins. It is cognate also to the barbarous and unthinking system of sometimes savage and always degrading punishment for social offences on which human society, unable still to find out or organise a more satisfactory way, is still founded. Man insists continually on making God in his own image instead of seeking to make himself more and more in the image of God, and all these ideas are the reflection of the child and the savage and the animal in us which we have still failed to transform or outgrow. We should be inclined to wonder how these fancies of children found their way into such profound philosophical religions as Buddhism and Hinduism, if it were not so patent that men will not deny themselves the luxury of tacking on the rubbish from their past to the deeper thoughts of their sages.
No doubt, since these ideas were so prominent, they must have had their use in training humanity. Perhaps even it is true that the Supreme deals with the child soul according to its childishness and allows it to continue its sensational imaginations of heaven and hell for a time beyond the death of the physical body. Perhaps both these ideas of after-life and of rebirth as fields of punishment and reward were needed because suited to our half-mentalised animality. But after a certain stage the system ceases to be really effective. Men believe in Heaven and Hell but go on sinning merrily, quit at last by a Papal indulgence or the final priestly absolution or a death-bed repentance or a bath in the Ganges or a sanctified death at Benares,such are the childish devices by which we escape from our childishness! And in the end the mind grows adult and puts the whole nursery nonsense away with contempt. The reward and punishment theory of rebirth, if a little more elevated or at least less crudely sensational, comes to be as ineffective. And it is good that it should be so. For it is intolerable that man with his divine capacity should continue to be virtuous for a reward and shun sin out of terror. Better a strong sinner than a selfish virtuous coward or a petty hucksterer with God; there is more divinity in him, more capacity of elevation. Truly the Gita has said well, kpa phalahetava. And it is inconceivable that the system of this vast and majestic world should have been founded on these petty and paltry motives. There is reason in these theories? then reason of the nursery, puerile. Ethics? then ethics of the mud, muddy.
The true foundation of the theory of rebirth is the evolution of the soul, or rather its efflorescence out of the veil of Matter and its gradual self-finding. Buddhism contained this truth involved in its theory of Karma and emergence out of Karma but failed to bring it to light; Hinduism knew it of old, but afterwards missed the right balance of its expression. Now we are again able to restate the ancient truth in a new language and this is already being done by certain schools of thought, though still the old incrustations tend to tack themselves on to the deeper wisdom. And if this gradual efflorescence be true, then the theory of rebirth is an intellectual necessity, a logically unavoidable corollary. But what is the aim of that evolution? Not conventional or interested virtue and the faultless counting out of the small coin of good in the hope of an apportioned material reward, but the continual growth towards a divine knowledge, strength, love and purity. These things alone are real virtue and this virtue is its own reward. The one true reward of the works of love is to grow ever in capacity and delight of love up to the ecstasy of the spirits all-seizing embrace and universal passion; the one reward of the works of right Knowledge is to grow perpetually into the infinite Light; the one reward of the works of right Power is to harbour more and more of the Force Divine, and of the works of purity to be freed more and more from egoism into that immaculate wideness where all things are transformed and reconciled into the divine equality. To seek other reward is to bind oneself to a foolishness and a childish ignorance; and to regard even these things as a reward is an unripeness and an imperfection.
And what of suffering and happiness, misfortune and prosperity? These are experiences of the soul in its training, helps, props, means, disciplines, tests, ordeals, and prosperity often a worse ordeal than suffering. Indeed, adversity, suffering may often be regarded rather as a reward to virtue than as a punishment for sin, since it turns out to be the greatest help and purifier of the soul struggling to unfold itself. To regard it merely as the stern award of a Judge, the anger of an irritated Ruler or even the mechanical recoil of result of evil upon cause of evil is to take the most superficial view possible of Gods dealings with the soul and the law of the worlds evolution. And what of worldly prosperity, wealth, progeny, the outward enjoyment of art, beauty, power? Good, if they be achieved without loss to the soul and enjoyed only as the outflowing of the divine Joy and Grace upon our material existence. But let us seek them first for others or rather for all, and for ourselves only as a part of the universal condition or as one means of bringing perfection nearer.
3.7.1.08 - Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This Infinite is figured in both cases by the more insistent and positive type of mind as an Inconscience, - but material in the one, in the other a spiritual infinite zero, - but by the more prudent or flexible thinkers simply as an unknowable. The difference is that the unknown of Science is something mechanical to which mechanically we return by physical dissolution or laya, but the unknown of Buddhism is a Permanent beyond the Law to which we return spiritually by an effort of self-suppression, of self-renunciation and, at the latest end, of self-extinction, by a mental dissolution of the Idea which maintains the law of relations and a moral dissolution of the world-desire which keeps up the stream of successions of the universal action. This is a rare and an austere metaphysics; but to its discouraging grandeur we are by no means compelled to give assent, for it is neither self-evident nor inevitable. It is by no means so certain that a high spiritual negation of what I am is my only possible road to perfection; a high spiritual affirmation and absolute of what I am may be also a feasible way and gate. This nobly glacial or blissfully void idea of a Nirvana, because it is so overwhelmingly a negation, cannot finally satisfy the human spirit, which
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3.7.1.09 - Karma and Freedom, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But these trenchant systems, however satisfactory to the logical reason, are suspect to a synthetic intelligence; and at any rate, as we find that knowledge and ignorance are not in their essence absolute contraries but ignorance and inconscience itself the veil of a secret knowledge, so it may be at least possible that liberty and the compulsion of Karma are not such unbridgeable opposites, but that behind and even in Karma itself there is all the time a secret liberty of the indwelling Spirit. Buddhism and Illusionism too do not assert any external or internal predestination, but only a self-imposed bondage. And very insistently they demand of man a choice between the right and the wrong way, between the will to an impermanent existence and the will to Nirvana, between a will to cosmic existence and the will to an absolute spiritual being. Nor do they demand this choice of the Absolute or of the universal Being or Power, who indeed cares nothing for their claim and goes on very tranquilly and securely with his mighty eternal action, but they ask it of the individual, of the soul of man halting perplexed between the oppositions of his mentality. It would seem then that there is something in our individual being which has some real freedom of will, some power of choice of a great consequence and magnitude, and what is it then that thus chooses, and what are the limits, where the beginning or the end of its actual or its possible liberty?
Difficult also is it to understand how unsubstantial Impermanence can have such a giant hold or present this power of eternal continuity in Time,there must surely, one thinks, be a Permanent which expresses itself in this continuity, dhruvam adhruveu; or how an Illusion,for what is illusion but an inconsequent dream or unsubstantial hallucination?can build up this mighty world of just sequence and firm law and linked Necessity; some secret self-knowledge and wisdom there must be which guides the Energy of Karma in its idea and has appointed for her the paths she must hew in Time. It is because of their persistence of principle in all the transiences of particular form that things have such a hold on our mind and will. It is because the world is so real that we feel so potently its grasp on us and our spirits turn on it with this grip of the wrestler. It is often indeed too fiercely real for us and we seek for liberty in the realm of dream or planes of the ideal and, not finding it sufficiently there, because we have not the freedom nor can develop the mastery to impose our ideal on this active reality, we seek it beyond in the remote and infinite greatness of the Absolute. We shall do better then to fix on that other more generally admissible distinction, namely, of the world of Karma as a practical or relative reality and the being of the Spirit constant behind it or brooding above it as a greater supreme reality. And then we have to find whether in the latter alone is any touch of freedom or whether, as must surely be if it is the Spirit that presides over the Energy at work and over its action, there is here too some element or some beginning at least of liberty, and whether, even if it be small and quite relative, we cannot in these steps of Time, in these relations of Karma make this freedom great and real by dwelling consciously in the greatness of the Spirit. May not that be the sovereignty we shall find here when we rise to the top of the souls evolution?
38.01 - Asceticism and Renunciation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The time and the circumstances in which we are at present demand that we awaken the qualities of dynamic energy (Rajas) and luminous poise (Sattwa), that is to say, activity and knowledge, discarding the qualities of inertia and devote ourselves to the service of the country and the world so that we may rejuvenate the moral and spiritual strength of our land. This is our foremost duty today. We have to recreate an Aryan people rich with knowledge and power and wide catholicity, from out of the womb of this people weak and worn out, weighed down with inertia, narrowed into selfish bounds. It is for this reason that so many souls, full of strength and yogic power, are being born in Bengal. If such people attracted by the charm of asceticism abandon their true law of life and their God-given work, then with the destruction of their true law the nation too will perish. The younger generation seems to imagine that the stage of the student (Brahmacharya) is the time fixed for the acquisition of education and character. The next stage as fixed is that of the householder. And when one has assured the preservation of the family and the future building of the Aryan race and thus freed oneself from the debts to the ancestors and also when one has paid off one's debts to society by the acquisition of wealth and by useful service and when one has paid off one's debts to the world by spreading knowledge and beneficence and love and strength and finally when one has been able to satisfy the Mother of the worlds by one's un stinted labour and high service for the good of Mother India, then it will not be amiss to retire from the world into the forest (Vanaprastha), and take to the ascetic life. Otherwise there arises confusion of social values and growing dominance of the wrong law. I do not speak of young ascetics who have been freed from all debts in a previous life; but it would be wrong for one who has not made himself ready for asceticism to take to it. Great and magnanimous Buddhism has done no doubt immense good to the country, yet no less harm, because of asceticism spreading everywhere and the warrior class (Kshatriya) renouncing their appointed function; and in the end, itself was banished from the country. In the new age the new dispensation must not admit this error.
In the Gita, Sri Krishna has time and again directed Arjuna not to follow asceticism. Why? He admits the virtue of Sannyasa and yet, in spite of the repeated questionings of Arjuna overwhelmed as he was with the spirit of asceticism, abnegation and altruism, Sri Krishna never withdrew his injunctions with regard to the path of action. Arjuna asked, "If desireless Intelligence, founded in Yoga, is greater than karma, then why do you engage me in this terrible work of slaying my elders?" Many have repeated the question of Arjuna, some even have not hesitated to call him the worst Teacher, one who shows the wrong way. In answer, Sri Krishna has explained that renunciation is greater than asceticism, to remember God and do one's appointed work without desire is far greater than freedom to do as one likes. Renunciation means renunciation of desire, renunciation of selfishness. And to learn that renunciation one need not take refuge in solitude. That lesson has to be learnt through work in the field of work; work is the means to climb upon the path of yoga. This world of varied play has been created for the purpose .of bringing delight to its creatures. It is not God's purpose that this game of delight should cease. He wants the creatures to become his comrades and playmates, to flood the world with delight. We are in the darkness of ignorance; that is because, for the sake of the play the Lord has kept himself aloof and thus surrounded himself with obscurity. Many are the ways fixed by him which, if followed would take one out of the darkness, bring him into God's company. If anyone is not interested in the play and desires rest, God will fulfil his desire. But if one follows His way for His sake, then God chooses him, in this world or elsewhere as His fit playmate. Arjuna was Krishna's dearest comrade and playmate, therefore he received the teaching of the Gita's supreme secret. What that supreme secret is I tried to explain in a previous context. The Divine said to Arjuna, "It is harmful to the world to give up work, to give up work is the spirit of asceticism. And an asceticism without renunciation is meaningless. What one gains by asceticism one gains also by renunciation, that is to say, the freedom from Ignorance, equanimity, power, delight, union with Sri Krishna. Whatever the man worshipped by all does, people take that as the ideal and follow it. Therefore, if you give up work through asceticism, all will follow that path and bring about the confusion of social values, and the reign of the wrong law. If you give up the desire for the fruit of action and pursue man's normal law of life, inspire men to follow each his own line of activity, then you will unite with my Law of life and become my intimate friend." Sri Krishna explains furthermore that the rule is to follow the right path through works and finally at the end of the path attain quietude, that is to say, renounce all sense of being the doer. But this is not renunciation of work through asceticism, this is to give up all vital urge to action involving immense labour and effort through the rejection of egoism and through union with the Divine - and transcending all gun as, to do works as an instrument impelled by His force. In that state it is the permanent consciousness of the soul that he is not the doer, he is the witness, part of the Divine; it is the Divine Power that works through his body created for action by his own inner law of being. The soul is the witness and enjoyer, Nature is the doer, the Divine is the giver of sanction. The being so illumined does not seek to help or hinder any work that the Divine Power undertakes. Submitted to the Shakti, the body and mind and intellect engage themselves in the work appointed by God. Even a terrible massacre like that of Kurukshetra cannot stain a soul with sin if it is sanctioned by God, if it occurs in the course of the fulfilment of one's own dharma (Inner Law), but only a few can attain to this knowledge and this goal. It cannot be the law of life for the common man. What then is the duty for the common wayfarers? Even for them the knowledge that He is the Lord, I am the instrument is to a certain extent within their reach. Through this knowledge to remember always the Divine and follow one's inner law of life is the direction that has been given.
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
90 in Buddhism the "four great kings" (lokapata), the world-guardians, form the
quaternity. Cf. the Samyutta-Nikaya, in Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II, p. 242.
--
of Taoism and of Zen Buddhism. 150 Miss X's interest in Eastern
philosophy was due to the deep impression which a better
--
to Zen Buddhism.
340
--
found in the sphere of Tibetan Buddhism. 2 I shall use as an
example a Tibetan mandala, to which my attention was drawn
--
Hinayana Buddhism and appears first in Mahayana Buddhism.
636 The mandala shown here depicts the state of one who has
--
religion of black magic as opposed to Buddhism.
24 The symbol of the star is favoured both by Russia and America. The one is
--
found, for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, and as dance figures
these circular patterns occur also in Dervish monasteries. As
--
7*4 In Tibetan Buddhism the figure has the significance of a
ritual instrument (y antra), whose purpose is to assist meditation
--
Suzuki, Daisetz Teitarq. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. Lon-
don, [1948].
--
HInayana Buddhism, 358
Hindu: philosophy, 36; speculation,
--
Mahayana Buddhism, 358
maiden, 183, 184, 185, 186, 191, 198;
--
Zen Buddhism, 340
Zeus, 46
--
Foreword to Suzuki's "Introduction to Zen Buddhism" (1939)
The Psychology of Eastern Meditation (1943)
6.10 - THE SELF AND THE BOUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[789] That a psychological approach to these matters draws man more into the centre of the picture as the measure of all things cannot be denied. But this gives him a significance which is not without justification. The two great world-religions, Buddhism and Christianity, have, each in its own way, accorded man a central place, and Christianity has stressed this tendency still further by the dogma that God became very man. No psychology in the world could vie with the dignity that God himself has accorded to him.
9.99 - Glossary, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Buddha: (Lit., one who is enlightened) The founder of Buddhism.
Buddha-Gaya: Same as Bodh-Gaya.
APPENDIX I - Curriculum of A. A., #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Sword of Song. ::: A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. ::: A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
--
Liber LXVII. (67) [] - The Sword of Song. ::: A critical study of various philosophies. An account of Buddhism. A. Crowley, Collected Works, Vol. ii, pp. 140-203.
Liber LXX (70) [] - The Cross of a Frog. ::: The Ceremonies proper to obtaining a familiar spirit of a Mercurial nature as described in the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine from a frog or toad.
Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
of Buddhism, the samadhi of yoga, the satori of Zen, the fana of Sufism, the shema of the
Kabbalah, and the Kingdom of Heaven of Christianity.
--
perception, concepts, or sensory impressions the no mind of Buddhism (Chang 1957;
Watts 1957; Kapleau 1989). It is neither an empty mind nor a mind of totally unstructured
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
ages and ages before the "Sacred Doctrine" of Buddhism.
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and gods" ("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 65), how much more may the same be said of the Atlanteans!
It is from the Fourth Race that the early Aryans got their knowledge of "the bundle of wonderful
--
** Says a teacher in "Esoteric Buddhism," on p. 64: "In the Eocene age, even in its very first part, the
great cycle of the fourth race men the (Lemuro) Atlanteans had already reached its highest point (of
--
Humanity in this work, and stated clearly and concisely in Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism."
1. There are seven ROUNDS in every manvantara; this one is the Fourth, and we are in the Fifth RootRace, at present.
--
As stated in "Esoteric Buddhism," the Egyptians, as well as the Greeks and "Romans" some thousand
years ago, were "remnants of the Atlanto-Aryans," i.e., the former, of the older, or the Ruta
--
Theosophy. (Art. "Mr. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism," pp. 325-46).
**** Volney says that, as Aries was in its 15th degree 1447 B.C., it follows that the first degree of
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
"Esoteric Buddhism," and "The Seven Principles in Man." Thus the public will have a chance, at any
rate, of judging after comparison which of the two teachings is the most or the least ABSURD, even
--
existence. (See "Esoteric Buddhism," pp. 53-55. Fourth Ed.) How much older it is from its origin -who knows? As the "Historical" Period has begun, with the Indian Aryans, with their Vedas, for their
multitudes,****** and far earlier in the Esoteric Records, it is useless to establish here any parallels.
--
already reached its highest point . . . ." (Esoteric Buddhism, p. 64) then some of the present difficulties
of science might be easily made to disappear. The rude workmanship of the Palaeolithic tools proves
--
was an event coincident with the elevation of the Alps," a master writes (See Esoteric Buddhism p. 70).
Pari passu, as one portion of the dry land of our hemisphere disappeared, some land of the new
--
earth or globe (See "Esoteric Buddhism"). Wherever the Serpent with the egg is found, there this tenet
was surely present. Their Dracontia are a proof of it. This belief was so universal that, if we seek for it
--
("Esoteric Buddhism," 67). The reply is given above in the text.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 774 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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"confirming" certain passages in the letter of a Master, published in "Esoteric Buddhism." The
eminence of the authorities will not be questioned: -[[First Column]]
Extract from p. 61 of "Esoteric Buddhism."
No. 1.
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race in some of the flat-headed aborigines of your AUSTRALIA." ("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 55.)
[[Second Column continued from previous page]]
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Unveiled,' " a critic on "Esoteric Buddhism" wrote one day. I, who wrote Isis Unveiled, maintain that
the Atlanteans are mentioned as our predecessors, namely, in Volume I., p. 133, when speaking of the
--
par excellence, for, since the appearance of "Esoteric Buddhism," frequent objections have been made,
and doubts expressed as to the correctness of these assertions.
--
the "Day of judgment" meaning a "minor Pralaya" (See "Esoteric Buddhism"). The author of the
"Book of God" and the "Apocalypse" believes that "the Phoenix is very plainly the same as the
--
psychology with the septenary division in "Esoteric Buddhism."
On the left hand side the Kabalistic names of the corresponding human principles are placed, and on
--
Massey when he states that -"The Seven Races of men that have been sublimated and made Planetary (?) by Esoteric Buddhism,**
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** This is indeed news! It makes us fear that the Lecturer had never read "Esoteric Buddhism" before
criticising it, as there are too many such misconceptions in his notices of it.
--
The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes "Esoteric Buddhism" and its teachings, is an
eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent the whole as a newfangled doctrine. And there
--
however, very small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact. Brahmanism and Buddhism, both
viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of
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the pious "Buddhists in disguise"; as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern mysticism, as represented
by the disciples of the philosophies of Aryasanga (the Yogacharya School) and Mahayana, who are
--
been made in "Isis Unveiled," in "Esoteric Buddhism," in "Man," in "Magic: White and Black," etc.,
etc.; and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
nor the Egyptian religion,.neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The
Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious
--
teachings "Esoteric Buddhism." And, having become a habit -- as an old proverb based on daily
experience has it -- "Error runs down an inclined plane, while Truth has to laboriously climb its way up
--
Buddha, with the doctrines broadly outlined in "Esoteric Buddhism." Any thing more erroneous than
this could be hardly imagined. It has enabled our enemies to find an effective weapon against
--
named "neither esotericism nor Buddhism." The esoteric truths, presented in Mr. Sinnett's work, had
ceased to be esoteric from the moment they were made public; nor did it contain the religion of
--
"Esoteric Buddhism" was an excellent work with a very unfortunate
[[Vol. 1, Page]] xviii INTRODUCTORY.
--
"Esoteric Buddhism" was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I was entirely unaware of
the manner in which the author intended to spell the word "Budh-ism."
--
"Esoteric Buddhism" (Preface to the original Edition) that "two years ago (i.e. 1883), neither I nor any
other European living, knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the first time put into a scientific
--
which is "divulged" in "Esoteric Buddhism" -- and much more -- many years before it became her duty
(in 1880) to impart a small portion of the Secret Doctrine to two European gentlemen, one of whom
was the author of "Esoteric Buddhism"; and surely the present writer has the undoubted, though to her,
rather equivocal, privilege of being a European, by birth and education. Moreover, a considerable part
--
Unwise are those who, in their blind and, in our age, untimely hatred of Buddhism, and, by re-action,
of "Budhism," deny its esoteric teachings (which are those also of the Brahmins), simply because the
--
Thus the reader is asked to bear in mind the very important difference between orthodox Buddhism -i.e., the public teachings of Gautama the Buddha, and his esoteric Budhism. His Secret Doctrine,
however, differed in no wise from that of the initiated Brahmins of his day. The Buddha was a child of
--
** Reverend T. Edkins, "Chinese Buddhism."
[[Vol. 1, Page]] xxix INTRODUCTORY.
--
dictu, Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan with having stolen his Vie de Jesus from
the Gospels, and Max Muller his "Sacred Books of the East" or his "Chips" from the philosophies of
--
A few years ago only, it was stated that: -"The esoteric doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala, that the one
infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious successions is
--
philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepaul), speculate only upon the
active condition of this "Essence," which they call Svabhavat, and deem it foolish to theorise upon the
--
* See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp. 97-950.
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 40 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
whereas, it is on the contrary Buddhism (of Gautama, the Buddha) that was "evoked" and entirely
upreared on the tenets of the Secret Doctrine, of which a partial sketch is here attempted, and on
--
annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: "Originally, Buddhism set its face against
all solitary asceticism . . . to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system
--
influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Muller, etc.)
We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, "the highest authority" in such matters, had long ago
--
**** See "Chinese Buddhism," by the Rev. J. C. Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his
conclusions are very frequently erroneous.
--
Brahmanism, Buddhism, the Kabala and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems.
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
* See A. P. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173.
** The first and greatest Reformer who founded the "Yellow-Caps," Gyalugpas. He was born in the
--
* That Swedenborg, who could not possibly have known anything of the esoteric ideas of Buddhism,
came independently near the Occult teaching in his general conceptions, is shown by his essay on the
--
aspects.* Those who have studied Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" can easily grasp the
nomenclature. There are two esoteric schools -- or rather one school, divided into two parts -- one for
--
what is known of Chinese Buddhism (even in its exoteric teachings); and examine the outward shape
of these "Great Kings." In the opinion of the Rev. Joseph Edkins, they are "the Devas who preside each
--
spiritual beings to protect mankind and Buddhism. With the exception of favouritism towards
Buddhism, the four celestial beings are precisely this. They are the protectors of mankind and also the
--
(Compare "Chinese Buddhism," p. 216.)
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 127 THE DRAGONS OF SECRET WISDOM.
--
"Esoteric Buddhism" (the best and
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* "Esoteric Buddhism" and "Man."
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Or as usually named after the manner of Esoteric Buddhism and others: 1, Atma; 2, Buddhi (or
Spiritual Soul); 3, Manas (Human Soul); 4, Kama Rupa (Vehicle of Desires and Passions); 5, Linga
--
globe of our seven was evolved -- just in the same position in relation to each other as the fellowglobes of our chain occupy in regard to our Earth now. (See in "Esoteric Buddhism," "The
Constitution of Man," and the "Planetary Chain.") And now it will be easy to imagine further Globe A
--
This is very well described in "Esoteric Buddhism" and needs no further elucidation for the time
being.
--
particular notice. "Esoteric Buddhism" is too well known in Theosophical circles, and even to the
outside world, for it to be necessary to enter at length upon its merits here. It is an excellent book, and
--
earlier volumes, for both have a number of admirers -- "Esoteric Buddhism" especially. The time has
arrived for the explanation of some matters in this direction. Mistakes have now to be checked by the
--
And now the truth of the remark made in "Esoteric Buddhism" by its author will be fully apparent: -"It is impossible, when the complicated facts of an entirely unfamiliar science are being presented to
untrained minds for the first time, to put them forward with all their appropriate qualifications . . . and
--
comes: -- Amen; so it was. The author of "Esoteric Buddhism" understood it well when he wrote that
such are "the traditional modes of teaching . . . by provoking the perplexity" . . . they do, or do not
--
of "Esoteric Buddhism," in which he put forward a multiplicity of questions. Among these were
questions on such problems as no MASTER, however high and independent he might be, would have
--
("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 46). And in such case, as the Teacher remarks in a letter to him, "Why this
preaching of our doctrines, all this uphill work and swimming in adversum flumen? Why should the
--
Let us now examine two tenets mentioned above and hardly alluded to in "Esoteric Buddhism," and
supplement them as far as lies in our power.
--
Two statements made in "Esoteric Buddhism" must be noticed and the author's opinions quoted. On p.
47 (fifth edition) it is said: -" . . . the spiritual monads . . . do not fully complete their mineral existence on Globe A, then complete
--
To return to "Esoteric Buddhism." It is there stated with regard to the enormous period intervening
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Therefore it becomes evident why that which is pertinently called in Esoteric Buddhism "Wave of
Evolution," and mineral-, vegetable-, animal- and man-"impulse," stops at the door of our Globe, at its
--
himself acquainted with "Esoteric Buddhism" -- that the Stanzas which follow in this Book and Book
II speak of the evolution in our Fourth Round only. The latter is the cycle of the turning-point, after
--
is none, as in "Esoteric Buddhism" Rounds are spoken of in general, while here only the Fourth, or
our present Round, is meant. Then it was the work of formation; now it is that of reformation and
--
statement in "Esoteric Buddhism" which has produced a very fatal impression upon the minds of
many Theosophists. One unfortunate sentence from the work just referred to is constantly brought
--
It is really with surprise that we have ascertained the fact that "Esoteric Buddhism" was so little
understood by some Theosophists, as to have led them into the belief that it thoroughly supported
--
know, in "Esoteric Buddhism." It has been repeatedly stated that evolution as taught by Manu and
Kapila was the groundwork of the modern teachings, but neither Occultism nor Theosophy has ever
--
this, more hereafter. But one has only to turn to p. 47 of "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th edition, to find
there the statement that "Man belongs to a kingdom distinctly separate from that of the animals." With
--
But it is still urged that the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" has "preached Darwinism" all along.
Certain passages would undoubtedly seem to lend countenance to this inference. Besides which the
--
"ape-like." This is vouched for by the very authority from whom the author of "Esoteric Buddhism"
got his information.
--
of "man" from the "ape." Nor does the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" assert it anywhere in his work
in so many words; but, owing to his inclination towards modern science, he uses language which
--
This last sentence gives the corroboration of, and repeats the doctrine of, esoteric Buddhism, for it
alludes directly to the fifth principle (Manas), or the most spiritual part of its essence rather, which
--
refers to "Esoteric Buddhism" -- the first attempt to sketch out an approximate outline of archaic
Cosmogony -- he will find that by a "Round" is meant the serial evolution of nascent material nature,
--
spirit-ward." All this needs little repetition, as it is well explained in "Esoteric Buddhism." That which
was hardly touched upon, and of which the little that was said has misled many, is the origin of man,
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
* In a recent work on the Symbolism in Buddhism and Christianity (in Buddhism and Roman
Catholicism, rather, many later rituals and dogmas in Northern Buddhism in its popular exoteric form,
being identical with those of the Latin Church) some curious facts are to be found. The author of this
--
and modern Buddhist teachings, and sorely confused Lamaism with Buddhism. On page 404 of this
volume, called " Buddhism in Christendom, or Jesus the Essene," our pseudo-Orientalist devotes
--
which endows Buddhism with a personal god (!!), is an unfortunate thrust at the very proofs so
elaborately collected by the unlucky author.
--
He said that the theories propounded by the author of Esoteric Buddhism "were not Buddhism, and
were not Esoteric." The remark is the result of (a) the unfortunate mistake of writing " Buddhism"
--
entitled to respectful hearing. But when one who knows no more of exoteric Buddhism on scientific
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UNCREATED Ray -- a mystery. In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Adi
Buddha (Chogi dangpoi sangye), the One unknown, without beginning or end, identical with
--
familiar channels of Buddhism and Hinduism. For the former is the emanation of the latter; and both
are children of one mother -- ancient Lemuro-Atlantean Wisdom.
--
was but a fragment of this great Continent. (See "Esoteric Buddhism.")
V. The Fifth Continent was America; but, as it is situated at the Antipodes, it is Europe and Asia
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
four cardinal points. . . ." (In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism the genii are
represented by four Dragons -- the "Maharajahs" of the Stanzas.) "The seven Northern
--
fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in Bhagavatgita, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he
had only confused the Buddhists and the older Charvaka materialists. The version exists nowhere in
--
introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas -- led to another "great war"
between himself and Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully distorting
--
VOICE of the soul even in Exoteric Buddhism; and with the female aspect of Kwan-Shai-yin, the
Logos, the verbum of Creation, and at the same time with the voice that speaks audibly to the Initiate,
according to Esoteric Buddhism. Bath Kol, the filia Vocis, the daughter of the divine voice of the
Hebrews, responding from the mercy seat within the veil of the temple is -- a result.
--
believes in the final submersion of Atlantis 850,000 years ago, as taught in "Esoteric Buddhism" (the
gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene age), one has to accept the statement for the socalled Lemuria, the continent of the Third Root Race, first nearly destroyed by combustion, and then
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Both Brahmanism and Buddhism offer hells full of dogs,
which, like Dantes Cerberus, are torturers of souls.
--
holds that this work may be a Brahman satire on Buddhism.
Nimbarka, a mystic whose date is uncertain, has written
--
Kern in his Manual of Indian Buddhism, speaks of the
Nagas as cloudlike serpents. They live underground in deep
--
Manual of Indian Buddhism,
Manuel diconographie chrtienne,
Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
He was interested in occultism, and in 1920 departed for Japan to study Zen Buddhism. In 1924 he left Japan and spend time with tantric lamas in monasteries in North China and Mongolia.
In 1925 he came to India and met Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in Pondicherry, where he was accepted as a sadhak, and Sri Aurobindo gave him the name Pavitra ("Clearness"). In 1951 the Mother appointed him director of the just founded Sri Aurobindo International University Centre. He served in this position for eighteen years, as well as the general secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, until his death in 1969. The Mother reports in Agenda (May 1969) that Pavitra left his body in a totally yogic way and merged with her.
Diamond Sutra 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Nearly thirty years later, as the Buddha approached the time of his Nirvana, Ananda asked what words to place at the beginning of each sutra. The Buddha answered, Evan maya shrutan (Thus have I heard). Later, Ananda used this phrase to preface the hundreds of discourses he repeated from memory at Buddhisms First Council, held shortly after the Buddhas Nirvana in 383 B.C. However, what immediately follows is not a verbatim account but a summary of events, while the portion that Ananda quotes from memory does not begin until the second chapter. Despite this traditional attri bution, it is also possible that this sutra was recalled from memory by Vashpa or some other disciple at the meeting held immediately after the First Council. Vashpa was the First Patriarch of the Mahasanghikas, and it was the Mahasanghikas that gave rise to the Mahayana sects that taught and revered this and other scriptures on the perfection of wisdom. Thus, at the end of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, when Ananda is enjoined not to forget this teaching, this could be interpreted as evidence that he didnt forget or evidence that he did.
Commentators have written volumes on the profundity of evan (thus). Does it mean like so, or does it mean just so? And what is the difference? Is this sutra the finger that points to the moon, or is it the moon itself?
--
Buddhist scholars, however, consider such an attri bution dubious and insist that, given the nature of this teaching, the scriptures of the prajna period could not have been composed much earlier than a century or two before the Christian Era when the first signs of Mahayana Buddhism appeared in India.
However, the sudden appearance of such sutras as this several centuries after the Buddhas Nirvana can also be seen as a reflection of the changing receptivity of their audience rather than proof of de novo compilation. Edward Conze, one of the first Westerners to devote himself to the study of these teachings and the teacher of many of those who now write on the subject, wrote, What seems to be doctrinal innovation may really be nothing but the gradual shifting of the line between esoteric and exoteric teachings. At first, even up to Ashoka (304-232 B.C.), the bulk of the doctrine, except for some moral maxims, and so on, was esoteric. (Buddhist Studies 1934-1972, p. 115) In the months that followed the au thentication of scriptures at Buddhisms First Council in 383 B.C., at least one other meeting was convened to consider additional sermons. Obviously, different groups of disciples honored different teachings, and such a sutra as this surely could not have been widely accepted by an audience that preferred asceticism and monastic discipline, which this sutra holds up to gentle rebuke.
Bhagavan: The term bhagavan was derived from bhaga (vulva) and originally meant like a vulva, and hence fecund or prosperous. Eventually, it was applied to one whose presence bestows prosperity. It is usually translated as Blessed One or World-Honored One and is one of every buddhas ten titles. Others that appear in this sutra include tathagata, sugata, and arhan.
--
It was the Indian custom to honor holy persons and sacred sites by touching the head to the feet or ground and then walking around in a clockwise direction with the right shoulder facing the object of veneration. In the case of monks, they adjusted their robes and bared their right shoulder during this ceremony. Since such circumambulation began in front of the person or site being venerated, pilgrims first faced left and then walked around to the right. Three circumambulations represent a devotees veneration of Buddhisms Three Treasures: the Teacher (the Buddha), the Teaching (the Dharma), and the Taught (the Sangha).
Again, in this first chapter, we see in outline form how the cultivation of the perfections takes place, as charity gives birth to meditation and meditation gives birth to wisdom. These three represent an earlier formulation of what later became the Six Perfections of charity, morality, forbearance, vigor, meditation, and wisdom. Thus, we not only see the essence of Buddhist practice, we also see the essence of wisdom, whereby our everyday activities become the focus of our spiritual cultivation.
DS3, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The term nirvana originally referred to an extinguished fire. In Buddhism, it is used to describe the
condition that exists when the Three Fires of delusion, desire, and anger are extinguished. This is also
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Buddhism. Others again have attempted to use Freemasonry. There have
been even exceptionally foolish magicians who have tried to use a sword
--
weapon, just as Allan Bennett tried to use Buddhism. All these
second-hand swords break, as Wagner saw when he wrote "Siegfried," and
Liber 71 - The Voice of the Silence - The Two Paths - The Seven Portals, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
reader should consult "Science and Buddhism" and similar treatises. But
as it is better than "genuine," being, like The Chymical Marriage of
--
confidently refer it thus. For the "Seven Worlds" are not Buddhism.
23. If thou would'st learn their names, then hearken, and remember. The
--
Buddhism." (See Crowley, //Collected Works//.)
84. And of these modes of Truth:-
--
as that of sat diminishes. In orthodox Buddhism this process continues
indefinitely. There is also the resolution SAT = ASAT.
--
Buddhism ostensibly teaches that creation of any Karma whatever merely
perpetuates "Sorrow."
--
lamp. Canonical Buddhism is certainly the only thing upon which we can
rely as a guide to the teachings of the Buddha, if there ever was a
--
the theory of determinism which is orthodox Buddhism. However, the
question of Free Will has been discussed in a previous Note.
--
[Mayayana, the Big Path; a term for the Hinduized Buddhism of
Tibet.-Ed.] Thy servant here is ready for thy guidance."
--
Buddhism from canonical Cingalese-Burmese-Siamese Buddhism.-Ed.]
2. 'Tis well, Srvaka. I Prepare thyself, for thou wilt have to travel
--
seven more incarnations. There is nothing in Buddhism about the
voluntary undertaking of incarnations in order to help mankind. And of
--
is not Buddhism." From this example the Student will understand that he
had better not worry about Nibbana and its nature, but confine himself
--
different. Blavatsky's attempt to mix up Hinduism and Buddhism is
productive of constant friction. The first Path in Dhyana has nothing
--
every attri bute," is not Buddhism at all, and is quite incompatible
with Buddhism.
Liber, #Liber Null, #Peter J Carroll, #Occultism
Liber LXVII. (67) [C] - The Sword of Song. ::: A critical study of various philosophies. An account of Buddhism. A. Crowley, Collected Works, Vol. ii, pp. 140-203.
Liber LXX (70) [D] - The Cross of a Frog. ::: The Ceremonies proper to obtaining a familiar spirit of a Mercurial nature as described in the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine from a frog or toad.
Phaedo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
12. When we think of God and of man in his relation to God; of the imperfection of our present state and yet of the progress which is observable in the history of the world and of the human mind; of the depth and power of our moral ideas which seem to partake of the very nature of God Himself; when we consider the contrast between the physical laws to which we are subject and the higher law which raises us above them and is yet a part of them; when we reflect on our capacity of becoming the 'spectators of all time and all existence,' and of framing in our own minds the ideal of a perfect Being; when we see how the human mind in all the higher religions of the world, including Buddhism, notwithstanding some aberrations, has tended towards such a beliefwe have reason to think that our destiny is different from that of animals; and though we cannot altogether shut out the childish fear that the soul upon leaving the body may 'vanish into thin air,' we have still, so far as the nature of the subject admits, a hope of immortality with which we comfort ourselves on sufficient grounds. The denial of the belief takes the heart out of human life; it lowers men to the level of the material. As Goe the also says, 'He is dead even in this world who has no belief in another.'
13. It is well also that we should sometimes think of the forms of thought under which the idea of immortality is most naturally presented to us. It is clear that to our minds the risen soul can no longer be described, as in a picture, by the symbol of a creature half-bird, half-human, nor in any other form of sense. The multitude of angels, as in Milton, singing the Almighty's praises, are a noble image, and may furnish a theme for the poet or the painter, but they are no longer an adequate expression of the kingdom of God which is within us. Neither is there any mansion, in this world or another, in which the departed can be imagined to dwell and carry on their occupations. When this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, no other habitation or building can take them in: it is in the language of ideas only that we speak of them.
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
strict disciplines. Buddhism is unique in that respect. In France also there is
a school which enjoins rigorous silence.
--
Cagliostro and Nostradamus whom he has never heard of. Then Buddhism
came in as a topic.
--
there much Buddhism where you come from?
NIRODBARAN: There are about one or two million Buddhists, but there is practically nothing of Buddhism.
THE MOTHER: Is Northern or Southern Buddhism professed?
NIRODBARAN: Southern.
THE MOTHER: In China and Japan too no real Buddhism is foundonly ceremonies. In Ceylon, they say, there is still some au thentic Buddhism.
NIRODBARAN: Also in Burma nothing au thentic remains, I am told, but the
--
What remains of Buddhism today except a few edicts of Asoka and a
few hundred thousand Buddhists?
NIRODBARAN: Asoka helped in propagating Buddhism.
SRI AUROBINDO: Anybody could have done that.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people
who were really spiritual, it would have been much better for real Buddhism. That is always the case with spiritual things. It was after Constantine
embraced Christianity that it began to decline in its substance. The King of
--
NIRODBARAN: Asoka sacrificed everything for Buddhism.
SRI AUROBINDO: But he remained an emperor till the end. When kings and
--
which is called Zen Buddhism. There the disciples have to bear blows from
103
--
under the influence of Buddhism and lastly Shankara made a sharp cut between the two.
SATYENDRA: Why should this cleavage be necessary?
--
posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Bramanical revival which
came in the Gupta period as a reaction to Buddhism.
PURANI: They are supposed to have been written about the third or fourth
--
The European mind is much taken up with Buddhism. Magre was first a
Buddhist. Blavatsky was much influenced by it. Next, when the Europeans
--
than Shankaras Vedanta. Buddhism is most severe and exacting. It is one of
the most difficult paths, a path of hard Tapasya.
--
and Prakriti, as the final elements. Sankhya and Buddhism were first appreciated by Europe because of their sharp distinction between Purusha, who is
consciousness, and Prakriti, which they believe to be Jada, inconscient. According to Sankhya, Prakriti is Jada and it is the light of the consciousness
--
Buddhism, which appeals to the Europeans. In Buddhism, the universe is
195
--
of humanity from Christianity and also from Buddhism. Both Vivekananda
and Gandhi derive it from them. But I don't understand why they speak of
serving humanity only! Buddhism, as well as Jainism, includes animals also
in its idea of service. Even then the chief idea in Buddhism is Karuna, compassion.
The ancient sages too were less exclusive. They said, sarve bhuteshu,
--
PURANI: In Buddhism they have two paths: knowledge and devotion. They
consider Buddha an Avatar.
--
SATYENDRA: Is Zen Buddhism alive in Japan?
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh yes. Lady Batesman is going there to study it. The Zen
--
the same as in Taoism and Buddhism. But it is not really Nothing. What we
can say is that no attri bute of Being can be posited of it. Taoism says that
--
PURANI: There is some similarity between Buddhism and Jainism. Buddha
and Mahavira were contemporaries, though they don't seem to have met.
--
helps a disciple in the spiritual path. There are religions like Buddhism who
don't believe in such things. Buddhism strongly says that one has to rely on
one's own effort. Nobody can help one. By the teachings or precepts or instructions, the path can be shown - that's all.but no other direct and active
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
source. For instance, when Buddhism came in as a shock, it pervaded the
whole of life and brought in a new current everywhere. The saints and Bhaktas can't exert that kind of influence because their urge doesn't pervade the
--
SRI AUROBINDO: Radhakrishnan finds contradictory statements in Buddhism about the Self. In one place, he says, it doesn't recognise the Self and
in another it takes the Self as the sole refuge and giver of enlightenment.
PURANI: Yes, that is a famous quotation. But we thought that Buddhism
doesn't recognise the Self.
--
SATYENDRA: Krishnaprem gives a different interpretation to Buddhism.
He says Nirvana is only a half-way house.
--
some idea of Buddhism. I don't remember exactly what it was.
SRI AUROBINDO: What I might have said or now say about Buddhism is
based on the current idea about Buddhism. Krishnaprem puts his own interpretation.
NIRODBARAN: He follows the Mahayana school.
--
separate liberation. Radhakrishnan is now trying to prove that Buddhism believes in the Self. But then illogicality will come in.
SATYENDRA: The Tibetan Buddhists say that Nirvana is a half-way house.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: No, it was Jainism. In Bengal where Buddhism was
once very dominant they used to eat meat. It is remarkable how Jainism
--
DR. MANILAL: In that case all Buddhism and jainism are false.
NIRODBARAN: Not Buddhism!
PURANI: Why false? There are records by which it could be proved that
--
whether what has been said as regards Buddhism can be verified by experience. That is the important thing.
PURANI: They usually regard four things as possible proof of a fact
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
opment in the Japanese arts inspired by Zen Buddhism: swordsmanship,
archery, Judo, calligraphic painting. The method to reach perfection
--
recital of mantras fulfils a magic function; in Tibetan Buddhism
the work is left to the prayer mill. This attitude lingers on in medieval
--
The same applies to the philosophical systems of Buddhism and
Hinduism, which do not discriminate between object and subject,
--
friends', will be everlastingly punished. As for Hinduism or Buddhism,
and the persistence of religious aspirations throughout human history,
The Anapanasati Sutta A Practical Guide to Mindfullness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom Meditation, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
that have sneaked into Buddhism for a few hundred years.
Their influences can be seen in the 'concentration practices'
The Coming Race Contents, #The Coming Race, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism.
The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
26) Honour to the high and sublime excellence of wisdom! ~ Formula of devotion of Mahayanist Buddhism
27) But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? ~ Job
The Five, Ranks of The Apparent and the Real, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
We do not know by whom the Jeweled-mirror Samadhi was composed. From Sekito Osho, Yakusan Osho, and Ungan Osho, it was transmitted from master to master and handed down within the secret room. Never have [its teachings] been willingly disclosed until now. After it had been transmitted to Tozan Osho, he made clear the gradations of the Five Ranks within it, and composed a verse for each rank, in order to bring out the main principle of Buddhism. Surely the Five Ranks is a torch on the midnight road, a ferry boat at the riverside when one has lost one's way!
But alas! The Zen gardens of recent times are desolate and barren. "Directly-pointing-to-the-ultimate" Zen is regarded as nothing but benightedness and foolishness; and that supreme treasure of the Mahayana, the Jeweled Mirror Samadhi's Five Ranks of the Apparent and the Real, is considered to be only the old and broken vessel of an antiquated house. No one pays any attention to it. [Today's students] are like blind men who have thrown away their staffs, calling them useless baggage. Of themselves they stumble and fall into the mud of heterodox views and cannot get out until death overtakes them. They never know that the Five Ranks is the ship that carries them across the poisonous sea surrounding the rank o f the Real, the precious wheel that demolishes the impregnable prison-house of the two voids. They do not know the important road of progressive practice; they are not versed in the secret meaning within this teaching. Therefore they sink into the stagnant water of sravaka-hood or pratyeka-buddhahood. They fall into the black pit of withered sprouts and decayed seeds. Even the hand of Buddha would find it difficult to save them.
--
For the past eight or nine years or more, I have been trying to incite all of you who boil your daily gruel over the same fire with me to study this great matter thoroughly, but more often than not you have taken it to be the doctrine of another house, and remained indifferent to it. Only a few among you have attained understanding of it. How deeply this grieves me! Have you never heard: " The Gates of Dharma are manifold; I vow to enter them all?" How much the more should this be true for the main principle of Buddhism and the essential road of sanzen!
Shoju Rojin has said: "In order to provide a means wher eby students might directly experience the Four Wisdom's, the patriarchs, in their compassion and with their skill in devising expedients, first instituted the Five Ranks." What are the so-called Four Wisdom's? They are the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, the Universal Nature Wisdom, the Marvelous Observing Wisdom, and the Perfecting-of-Action Wisdom.
The Logomachy of Zos, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Quietism, Buddhism, and other religions, everything which denies the
flesh- is the great inferiority to God in ourselves, an escapism seeking
The Riddle of this World, #unknown, #Unknown, #unset
Vedas. It was repeated in other forms in Buddhism, Christian Gnosticism,
Sufism. Originally, it was not discovered by intellectual speculation, but
--
rigorous conclusion by Buddhism and a little less rigorously by a certain
type of Monistic spirituality which admits some connection of the world
Timaeus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The contradictions involved in the conception of time or motion, like the infinitesimal in space, were a source of perplexity to the mind of the Greek, who was driven to find a point of view above or beyond them. They had sprung up in the decline of the Eleatic philosophy and were very familiar to Plato, as we gather from the Parmenides. The consciousness of them had led the great Eleatic philosopher to describe the nature of God or Being under negatives. He sings of 'Being unbegotten and imperishable, unmoved and never-ending, which never was nor will be, but always is, one and continuous, which cannot spring from any other; for it cannot be said or imagined not to be.' The idea of eternity was for a great part a negation. There are regions of speculation in which the negative is hardly separable from the positive, and even seems to pass into it. Not only Buddhism, but Greek as well as Christian philosophy, show that it is quite possible that the human mind should retain an enthusiasm for mere negations. In different ages and countries there have been forms of light in which nothing could be discerned and which have nevertheless exercised a life-giving and illumining power. For the higher intelligence of man seems to require, not only something above sense, but above knowledge, which can only be described as Mind or Being or Truth or God or the unchangeable and eternal element, in the expression of which all predicates fail and fall short. Eternity or the eternal is not merely the unlimited in time but the truest of all Being, the most real of all realities, the most certain of all knowledge, which we nevertheless only see through a glass darkly. The passionate earnestness of Parmenides contrasts with the vacuity of the thought which he is revolving in his mind.
Space is said by Plato to be the 'containing vessel or nurse of generation.' Reflecting on the simplest kinds of external objects, which to the ancients were the four elements, he was led to a more general notion of a substance, more or less like themselves, out of which they were fashioned. He would not have them too precisely distinguished. Thus seems to have arisen the first dim perception of (Greek) or matter, which has played so great a part in the metaphysical philosophy of Aristotle and his followers. But besides the material out of which the elements are made, there is also a space in which they are contained. There arises thus a second nature which the senses are incapable of discerning and which can hardly be referred to the intelligible class. For it is and it is not, it is nowhere when filled, it is nothing when empty. Hence it is said to be discerned by a kind of spurious or analogous reason, partaking so feebly of existence as to be hardly perceivable, yet always reappearing as the containing mother or nurse of all things. It had not that sort of consistency to Plato which has been given to it in modern times by geometry and metaphysics. Neither of the Greek words by which it is described are so purely abstract as the English word 'space' or the Latin 'spatium.' Neither Plato nor any other Greek would have spoken of (Greek) or (Greek) in the same manner as we speak of 'time' and 'space.'
--- Overview of noun buddhism
The noun buddhism has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Buddhism ::: (a religion represented by the many groups (especially in Asia) that profess various forms of the Buddhist doctrine and that venerate Buddha)
2. Buddhism ::: (the teaching of Buddha that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun buddhism
2 senses of buddhism
Sense 1
Buddhism
=> religion, faith, organized religion
=> institution, establishment
=> organization, organisation
=> social group
=> group, grouping
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
Buddhism
=> religion, faith, religious belief
=> belief
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
=> theological virtue, supernatural virtue
=> cardinal virtue
=> virtue
=> good, goodness
=> morality
=> quality
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun buddhism
2 senses of buddhism
Sense 1
Buddhism
=> Zen, Zen Buddhism
=> Mahayana
=> Hinayana
=> Tantrism
Sense 2
Buddhism
=> Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhism
=> Theravada, Theravada Buddhism
=> Lamaism, Tibetan Buddhism
=> Zen, Zen Buddhism
=> Shingon
=> Tantra, Tantrism
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun buddhism
2 senses of buddhism
Sense 1
Buddhism
=> religion, faith, organized religion
Sense 2
Buddhism
=> religion, faith, religious belief
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun buddhism
2 senses of buddhism
Sense 1
Buddhism
-> religion, faith, organized religion
=> church, Christian church
=> Judaism, Hebraism, Jewish religion
=> Hinduism, Hindooism
=> Taoism
=> Buddhism
=> Khalsa
=> Scientology, Church of Scientology
=> Shinto
=> established church
=> sect, religious sect, religious order
=> cult
=> cult
Sense 2
Buddhism
-> religion, faith, religious belief
=> apophatism
=> cataphatism
=> doctrine of analogy, analogy
=> cult, cultus, religious cult
=> cult
=> ecclesiasticism
=> mysticism, religious mysticism
=> nature worship
=> revealed religion
=> theism
=> paganism, pagan religion, heathenism
=> Christianity, Christian religion
=> Hinduism, Hindooism
=> Brahmanism, Brahminism
=> Jainism
=> Sikhism
=> Buddhism
=> Taoism, Hsuan Chiao
=> Shinto, Shintoism
=> Manichaeism, Manichaeanism
=> Mithraism, Mithraicism
=> Zoroastrianism, Mazdaism
=> Bahaism
=> shamanism, Asian shamanism
=> shamanism
=> Wicca
--- Grep of noun buddhism
buddhism
hinayana buddhism
mahayana buddhism
theravada buddhism
tibetan buddhism
zen buddhism
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Wikipedia - Buddhism and Theosophy -- Relation between Buddhism and Theosophy
Wikipedia - Buddhism and the Roman world
Wikipedia - Buddhism and violence
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Wikipedia - Buddhism and Western philosophy
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Wikipedia - Buddhism in Hong Kong -- Overview of Buddhism in Hong Kong
Wikipedia - Buddhism in India
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Wikipedia - Buddhism in Mongolia
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Morocco -- Buddhism as found in the country of Morocco
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Myanmar -- Overview about the Buddhism in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Nepal -- History of Buddhism in Nepal
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Pakistan
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Russia
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Scotland
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Singapore
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Sri Lanka -- History and demographics of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Taiwan
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Thailand -- Overview about the Buddhism in Thailand
Wikipedia - Buddhism in the Maldives
Wikipedia - Buddhism in the Middle East -- Buddhism in the Middle East
Wikipedia - Buddhism in the Philippines
Wikipedia - Buddhism in the United Kingdom
Wikipedia - Buddhism in the United States
Wikipedia - Buddhism in the West -- The history and demographics of Buddhism in the West
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Venezuela
Wikipedia - Buddhism in Vietnam -- Buddhism in Vietnam
Wikipedia - Buddhism, the Fulfilment of Hinduism
Wikipedia - Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist cuisine -- East Asian cuisine informed by Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist ethics -- Ethics in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist meditation -- practice of meditation in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist modernism -- New movements based on reinterpreted Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist paths to liberation -- Theology of Buddhism: descriptions of the spiritual path
Wikipedia - Buddhist personality types -- Psychology of personality types in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist texts -- Historic literature of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Bussho Gonenkai KyM-EM-^Mdan -- An offshoot of ReiyM-EM-+kai and branch of Nichiren Buddhism
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhism and other religions
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhism and women
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhism in Australia
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Wikipedia - Category:Chan Buddhism
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Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhism stubs
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhism writers
Wikipedia - Category:Zen Buddhism writers
Wikipedia - Chan Buddhism -- Chinese school of Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Chanda (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Chidatsu -- Priest of the Hosso School of Japanese Buddhism
Wikipedia - Chinese Buddhism
Wikipedia - Chinese Esoteric Buddhism
Wikipedia - Classes of Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Comparison of acceptance of Buddhism in India and China -- Comparison of reception and integration of Buddhism in India and later in China
Wikipedia - Comparison of Buddhism and Christianity
Wikipedia - Conversion to Buddhism
Wikipedia - Creator in Buddhism -- Buddhist views on the belief in a creator deity, or any eternal divine personal being
Wikipedia - Critical Buddhism
Wikipedia - Criticism of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Culture of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Cunda (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Cundi (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Dagpo Kagyu -- Branches of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism that trace their lineage back through Gampopa
Wikipedia - Dana (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Death horoscopes in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent
Wikipedia - Deva (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Dhammakaya tradition -- Tradition in Thai Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dharma (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Dharmakaya -- One of the three bodies (trikaya) of a buddha in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dharmapala -- Gods who protect or defend Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dharmaraksita -- Missionary sent by Mauryan emperor Ashoka to proselytize Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dhvaja -- Flag or banner in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism
Wikipedia - Dhyana in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dhyana in Buddhism {{DISPLAYTITLE:''Dhyana'' in Buddhism -- Dhyana in Buddhism {{DISPLAYTITLE:''Dhyana'' in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dhyna in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Diamond Sutra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Diamond Way Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dana -- Concept of charity in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism
Wikipedia - Drikung Kagyu -- One of the eight "minor" lineages of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - D. T. Suzuki -- Japanese scholar who popularized Zen Buddhism in the West
Wikipedia - DuM-aM-8M-%kha -- Concept in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism
Wikipedia - Dzogchen Monastery -- major monastery of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Dzogchen -- tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Early Buddhism
Wikipedia - East Asian Buddhism
Wikipedia - Ekajati -- One of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Ekayana -- Term in Buddhism and Hinduism, meaning "one vehicle", referring to a single spiritual path or destination
Wikipedia - Ellora Caves -- Ancient cave temples of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism in Maharashtra, India
Wikipedia - Empowerment (Tibetan Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Engaged Buddhism
Wikipedia - Enlightenment (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Enlightenment Guaranteed -- 2000 German film about two brothers seeking enlightenment through Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Enlightenment in Buddhism -- "bodhi": knowledge, wisdom, wakeful intellect, or awakened divinity of a Buddha
Wikipedia - Esoteric Buddhism (book)
Wikipedia - Esoteric Buddhism
Wikipedia - Faith in Buddhism -- Important element of the teachings of the Buddha
Wikipedia - Fasting in Buddhism -- Religious practice
Wikipedia - Fetter (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Fierce deities -- Enlightened beings in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Filial piety in Buddhism -- Aspect of Buddhist ethics, story-telling traditions, apologetics and history
Wikipedia - Five hindrances -- In Buddhism, mental obstacles to meditation and well-being in daily life
Wikipedia - Flower Sermon -- Story of the origin of Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Forshang Buddhism World Center -- New religious movement based in Taiwan
Wikipedia - Fuke-shM-EM-+ -- School of Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Gandharan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Garuda -- Eagle-like divine bird in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism
Wikipedia - Gautama Buddha -- Founder of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Gelug -- dominant sect of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Glossary of Buddhism -- Wikipedia glossary
Wikipedia - Glossary of Japanese Buddhism -- Wikipedia glossary
Wikipedia - God in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Greco-Buddhism -- Cultural syncretism in Central and South Asia in antiquity
Wikipedia - Guanyin Famen -- School of Mahayana Buddhism founded in 1988 by Ching Hai.
Wikipedia - Guardians of the directions -- Deities of the eight directions in Hinduism and Buddhism
Wikipedia - Harold George Parlett -- British diplomat and writer on Japanese Buddhism
Wikipedia - Hayagriva (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Heart Sutra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Hinayana -- Contentious term for numerous schools in Buddhism that did not embrace Mahayana teachings
Wikipedia - History of Buddhism in India
Wikipedia - History of Buddhism
Wikipedia - History of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Householder (Buddhism) -- Buddhist layperson with responsibilities
Wikipedia - Human beings in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Humane King Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Humanistic Buddhism
Wikipedia - Index of Buddhism-related articles -- Wikipedia index
Wikipedia - Indian Buddhism
Wikipedia - Indonesian Esoteric Buddhism
Wikipedia - Innumerable Meanings Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Italian Buddhist Union -- Association representing Buddhism in Italy
Wikipedia - Japanese Buddhism
Wikipedia - Japanese Zen -- Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Jati (Buddhism) -- Physical birth In Buddhism
Wikipedia - Kadam (Tibetan Buddhism) -- Renowned Dharma practice & bodhicitta teachings later known as lojong & lamrim
Wikipedia - Kalachakra stupa -- Type of stupa in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Kalachakra -- Nondualistic tantra tradition in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Kappiya -- In Southeast Asian Buddhism, a boy who lives in a temple and assists the monks
Wikipedia - Karma (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Karma in Buddhism -- Action driven by intention which leads to future consequences
Wikipedia - Karma in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Khata -- Traditional ceremonial scarf in Tibetan Buddhism and tengrism
Wikipedia - Kleshas (Buddhism) -- In Buddhism, mental states that cloud the mind
Wikipedia - KM-aM-9M-#itigarbha Bodhisattva PM-EM-+rvapraM-aM-9M-^Gidhana SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - KaraM-aM-9M-^GM-aM-8M-^MavyM-EM-+ha SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Korean Buddhism
Wikipedia - Korean Seon -- Zen school of Korean Buddhism
Wikipedia - LaM-aM-9M-^Ekavatara SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Lama -- Title for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Lineage (Buddhism) -- Lines of transmission in different schools of Buddhism
Wikipedia - List of books related to Buddhism -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of converts to Buddhism
Wikipedia - List of writers on Buddhism -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Longer SukhavatM-DM-+vyM-EM-+ha SM-EM-+tra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Lotus Sutra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Lung (Tibetan Buddhism) -- Principle of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mahakala -- God in Hinduism, and Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mahasamnipata Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mahayana -- Branch of Buddhism
Wikipedia - MaharatnakM-EM-+M-aM-9M--a SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mahayana MahaparinirvaM-aM-9M-^Ga SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - MaitrM-DM-+ -- One of the ten paramM-DM-+s of the Theravada school of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Manas (early Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Mandala -- Spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism
Wikipedia - Marici (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - M-DM-^@tman (Buddhism) -- Buddhist concept of self
Wikipedia - Mekhala and Kanakhala -- Two mahasiddha sisters in Tantric Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sakra (Buddhism) -- Ruler of the TrayastriM-aM-9M-^CM-EM-^[a Heaven
Wikipedia - SM-EM-+raM-aM-9M-^Egama Samadhi SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - SramaM-aM-9M-^Ga -- Tradition in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism
Wikipedia - SrM-DM-+maladevM-DM-+ SiM-aM-9M-^Chanada SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Mental factors (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Merit (Buddhism) -- Concept considered fundamental to Buddhist ethics
Wikipedia - Mindfulness (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Namarupa -- Used in Buddhism to refer to constituent processes of the human being
Wikipedia - Nanda (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Nanto RokushM-EM-+ -- Six Schools of Nara Buddhism
Wikipedia - Naraka (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Nature of mind (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Newar Buddhism -- The form of Vajrayana Buddhism practiced by the Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
Wikipedia - Nianfo -- Repetition of the name of Amitabha in Pure Land Buddhism
Wikipedia - Nichiren Buddhism -- Branch of Buddhism based on the teachings of the thirteenth century Japanese monk Nichiren
Wikipedia - Nichiren ShM-EM-^MshM-EM-+ -- Branch of Nichiren Buddhism
Wikipedia - Nikaya Buddhism -- Group of early Buddhist schools
Wikipedia - NirmaM-aM-9M-^Gakaya -- concept in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Nirodha -- Renounciation of desire in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Nirvana (Buddhism) -- Release from rebirths in saM-aM-9M-^Csara
Wikipedia - Nyingma -- school of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Offering (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Ole Nydahl -- Danish teacher in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Om -- Sacred sound and spiritual symbol in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism
Wikipedia - Ongi kuden -- Text in Nichiren Buddhism
Wikipedia - Ordination of women in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Outline of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Panchen Lama -- Prominent figure in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Parable of the Poisoned Arrow -- Parable used in early Buddhism
Wikipedia - Paracanonical texts (Theravada Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Parinirvana -- concept within Buddhism
Wikipedia - Peter Harvey (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Philippine Esoteric Buddhism
Wikipedia - Platform Sutra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Pointing-out instruction -- Direct introduction to the nature of mind in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Prayer wheel -- Devotional tool in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Pre-sectarian Buddhism
Wikipedia - Presectarian Buddhism
Wikipedia - Prostration (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Puja (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Punyamitra -- 26th Indian Patriarch of Chan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Pure Land Buddhism -- A school of Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Purity in Buddhism -- An important concept within much of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Reality in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Rebirth (Buddhism) -- In Buddhism, the actions of a person lead to a new existence after death, in endless cycles called saM-aM-9M-^Csara
Wikipedia - Refuge (Buddhism) -- Religious concept in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Regong arts -- Popular arts on the subject of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Richard Robinson (Buddhism scholar)
Wikipedia - Rinzai school -- Sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sacca-kiriya -- Motif and concept found in Buddhism and other Indian religions
Wikipedia - Saha -- In Mahayana Buddhism refers to the mundane world, essentially the sum of existence that is other than nirvana
Wikipedia - Sakya -- One of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Salistamba Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Samadhi (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Samadhiraja Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - SaM-aM-9M-^Csara (Buddhism) -- Cycle of repeated birth, mundane existence and dying again
Wikipedia - Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Samsara (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Sandhinirmocana Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sangha (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Sanghyang Adi Buddha -- Concept of God in Indonesian Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sarma (Tibetan Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Sarvastivada -- Early school of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sati (Buddhism) -- Buddhist concept of mindfulness or awareness
Wikipedia - Satipatthana -- Mindfulness in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Schools of Buddhism -- Institutional and doctrinal divisions of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Schools of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Scott Mitchell (Buddhist scholar) -- American scholar of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Secular Buddhism -- Form of non-dogmatic Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sentient beings (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Shambhala Buddhism
Wikipedia - Shingon Buddhism
Wikipedia - Shorter SukhavatM-DM-+vyM-EM-+ha SM-EM-+tra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sila (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Silk Road transmission of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Silk road transmission of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sitatapatra -- Protector against supernatural danger in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Skanda (Buddhism) -- Mahayana bodhisattva regarded as a devoted guardian of Buddhist monasteries who protects the teachings of Buddhism
Wikipedia - SM-EM-^MtM-EM-^M -- Sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Southern, Eastern and Northern Buddhism -- Geographical terms sometimes used to describe the styles of Buddhism practiced in Asia
Wikipedia - Southern Esoteric Buddhism -- Esoteric practices, views and texts within Theravada Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sukhavati -- Pure land of Amitabha in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sunlun Sayadaw -- Burmese Sayadaw and vipassana meditation master of Theravada Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sutra of Forty-two Chapters -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Sutra -- A text in Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism, often a collection of aphorisms
Wikipedia - Svatantrika-PrasaM-aM-9M-^Egika distinction -- doctrinal distinction within Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tachikawa-ryu -- Japanese school of esoteric of Buddhism
Wikipedia - TaM-aM-9M-^Gha -- Concept in Buddhism, referring to thirst, craving, desire, longing, greed
Wikipedia - Tantras (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Tantra -- Esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tantric Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tara (Buddhism) -- Female Bodhisattva
Wikipedia - Tathagatagarbha SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:Buddhism-bio-stub
Wikipedia - Template talk:Buddhism topics
Wikipedia - Template talk:Buddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:Chinese Buddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:Japanese Buddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:Theravada Buddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:Tibetan Buddhism sidebar
Wikipedia - Template talk:Tibetan-Buddhism-stub
Wikipedia - Template talk:TibetanBuddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:WikiProject Buddhism
Wikipedia - Template talk:Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tenma goddesses -- Twelve guardian deities in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Ten Stages Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Terma (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - The Buddha and His Dhamma -- Holy book of Navayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Theosophy and Buddhism
Wikipedia - The Path to Nirvana -- One of the main aims in Buddhism
Wikipedia - The Power of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Theravada Buddhism
Wikipedia - Theravada -- Branch of Buddhism, oldest extant school
Wikipedia - The World of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Three Ages of Buddhism -- Three divisions of time following Buddha's passing
Wikipedia - Three poisons (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Three teachings -- Term referring to Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism collectively, considered as a harmonious aggregate
Wikipedia - Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma -- concept within Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tibetan Buddhism -- form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet
Wikipedia - Tibetan Buddhist canon -- A loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various schools of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tibetan Tantric Practice -- tantric practices in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Timeline of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Trikaya -- Three Bodies concept in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tulku -- Honorary title in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Tushita -- Buddhism heavenly realm
Wikipedia - Ucchusma -- A Vidyaraja in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - UM-aM-9M-#M-aM-9M-^GM-DM-+M-aM-9M-#a Vijaya DharaM-aM-9M-^GM-DM-+ SM-EM-+tra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Vajrapani -- Deity in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Vajrayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Vasumitra (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - VibhaM-aM-9M-^Ega -- Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism
Wikipedia - Vietnamese ThiM-aM-;M-^An -- Vietnamese version of Chan Buddhism
Wikipedia - View (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - VijM-CM-1ana -- Term used in theology & philosophy of Hinduism (for discernment, understanding, knowledge, intelligence) and of Buddhism (for discernment, consciousness, life force, mind)
Wikipedia - Vimalakirti Sutra -- Popular Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Vipassana -- Meditation practice described in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Wheel of Time (film) -- 2003 documentary film about Tibetan Buddhism directed by Werner Herzog
Wikipedia - Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism -- Wikimedia subject-area collaboration
Wikipedia - Wisdom in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Women in Buddhism
Wikipedia - Yama (Buddhism) -- Buddhist deity
Wikipedia - Yama -- god of death and the ruler of the hell, in Hinduism, Buddhism, and various Indo-European mythologies
Wikipedia - Yana (Buddhism)
Wikipedia - Yogambara -- Tutelary deity in Tibetan Buddhism belonging to the Wisdom-mother class of the Anuttarayoga tantra
Wikipedia - Yulanpen Sutra -- Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Zazen -- Meditative discipline in Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Zen Buddhism
Wikipedia - Zen -- School of Mahayana Buddhism
Wikipedia - Zhang Yudrakpa Tsondru Drakpa -- Founder of the Tshalpa Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Zhiyi -- Founder of the Tiantai tradition of Buddhism in China
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Ascetic#Buddhism
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Bhumi_(Buddhism)
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Bhumi_(Buddhism)#See_also
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Europe
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Italy
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Japan#Sanron
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Japan#S.C5.8Dt.C5.8D
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Japan#Shingon
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Mongolia
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism#Origins_of_Mahayana
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism#Praj.C3.B1.C4.81_.28Wisdom.29:_vipassana_meditation
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhism#Suffering:_causes_and_solution
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Abhidhamma_Pitaka_enumerations
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Attachment_to_rites_and_rituals_.28s.C4.ABlabbata-par.C4.81m.C4.81so.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Bibliography
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Cutting_through_the_fetters
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Doubt_.28vicikicch.C4.81.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Fetter_of_suffering
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Identity_view_.28sakk.C4.81ya-di.E1.B9.AD.E1.B9.ADhi.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Individual_fetters
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Lists_of_fetters
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Relationship_to_other_core_concepts
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Sutta_Pitaka_enumerations
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:ExtentOfBuddhismAndTrade.jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Buddhism.svg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:The_Refuge_in_Three_Jewels_(Buddhism).png
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Five_Wisdoms#Vajrayana_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#Bibliography
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#Mahayana_traditions
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#Mummification
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#Theravada_traditions
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Funeral_(Buddhism)#Tibetan_traditions
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Garuda#In_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Buddhism#0.E2.80.939
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Buddhism#Five_five-hundred_year_periods
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Buddhism#Z
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Japanese_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Attitudes_towards_theories_of_creation
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Brahma_in_the_Pali_Canon
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Brahmins_and_communion_with_God
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Devas
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#God_as_a_maintainer_and_the_force_behind_the_world
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#God_as_manifestation_of_mind
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#God_in_early_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Literature
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Mahayana
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Mahayana_and_tantric_mystical_doctrines
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Other_common_gods_referred_to_in_the_Canon
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Primordial_Buddhas
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Schopenhauer
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Tathagata_and_Dharmakaya_as_God_equivalents
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Theravada
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#The_Supernatural_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Thought_as_creator
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Vajrayana
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Veneration_of_the_Buddha
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Guru#Guru_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#1st_Buddhist_council_.285th_c._BCE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#2nd_Buddhist_council_.284th_c._BCE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#3rd_Buddhist_council_.28c.250_BCE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Ashokan_proselytism_.28c._261_BCE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Central_and_Northern_Asia
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Central_Asia
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Central_Asian_expansion
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#China
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Early_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Emergence_of_the_Vajrayana_.285th_century.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Expansion_of_Buddhism_to_the_West
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Expansion_to_Sri_Lanka_and_Burma
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Greco-Buddhist_interaction_.282nd_c._BCE.E2.80.931st_c._CE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Hellenistic_world
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#India
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Japan
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Khmer_Empire_.289th.E2.80.9313th_century.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Life_of_the_Buddha
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Mahayana_expansion_.281st_c._CE.E2.80.9310th_c._CE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Parthia
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Rise_of_Mahayana_.281st_c._BCE.E2.80.932nd_c._CE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Rise_of_the_Sunga_.282nd.E2.80.931st_c._BCE.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Southeast_Asia
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Srivijayan_Empire_.287th.E2.80.9313th_century.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Tarim_Basin
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Theravada_Renaissance_.2811th_century_CE.E2.80.94_.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#The_Two_Fourth_Councils
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism#Vietnam
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Homa_(ritual)#Homa_ritual_in_Shingon_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Contemporary_Buddhist_householder_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Householder_ethics
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Householders_.26_future_lives
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Householders_.26_Nibbana
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Lay-monastic_reciprocity
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Mahayana_perspectives
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Mahayana_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#_note-2
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Prominent_householders_in_the_Pali_canon
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Theravada_perspectives
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Theravada_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Vajrayana_perspectives
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#Vajrayana_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Householder_(Buddhism)#What_is_a_householder.3F
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Humanistic_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/I%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%ADha-deva(t%C4%81)_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#0.E2.80.939
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#A
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#B
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#C
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#D
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#E
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#F
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#G
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#H
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#I
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#K
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#top
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#U
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#Y
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Index_of_Buddhism-related_articles#Z
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Japanese_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma#Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#Incorrect_understandings_of_karma
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#In_the_Early_Sutras
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#Karma_family_in_Indo-Tibetan_cosmology
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#Karma_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#Other_causal_categories
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/K%C4%ABla_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Korean_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#Chod_lineage
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#Preservation_of_lineages
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#Transmission_of_Ch.27an_to_the_Nyingmapa
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Lineage_(Buddhism)#Zen_lineages
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mahayana_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mahayana#Early_Mahayana_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mahayana#Late_Mahayana_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Main_Hall_(Japanese_Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Manas_(early_Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mandala#Early_and_Theravada_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mandala#In_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mandala#Nichiren_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mandala#Pure_Land_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mandala#Shingon_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mantra#Mantra_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mantra#Mantra_in_Indo-Tibetan_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mantra#Mantra_in_non-esoteric_Mahayana_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mantra#Mantra_in_Shingon_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mantra#Some_other_mantras_in_Tibetan_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Middle_way#Chinese_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mindstream#Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mysticism#Mysticism_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Newar_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/New_Kadampa_Tradition#Kadampa_Buddhism_and_Tibetan_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/New_Kadampa_Tradition#Separation_from_contemporary_Tibetan_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Nichiren_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Nichiren_Buddhism#Major_Nichiren_Buddhist_schools
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Nirvana#Nirvana_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Nontheism#Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Nun#Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#Bibliography
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#Mahayana_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#Non-material_offerings
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Offering_(Buddhism)#Theravada_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women#Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women_in_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#1._The_Noble_Truth_of_Suffering
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#2._The_Noble_Truth_of_the_Cause_of_Suffering
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#3._The_Noble_Truth_of_the_Cessation_of_Suffering
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#4._The_Noble_Truth_of_the_Path_leading_to_the_Cessation_of_Suffering
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Acquired_factors
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#American_Buddhists
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Arousing
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Attainment_of_Enlightenment
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Branches_of_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#British_Buddhists
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddha.27s_disciples_and_early_Buddhists
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhism_worldwide
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_cosmology
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_culture
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_devotion
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_meditation
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_modernism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_monasticism_and_laity
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_philosophy
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_pilgrimage
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_practices
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Buddhist_scriptures_and_texts
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Burmese_Buddhists
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Calming
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Chief_Disciples
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Chinese_Buddhists
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Comparative_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Concentration_.E2.80.94_Sam.C4.81dhikkhandha
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Concepts_unique_to_Mahayana_and_Vajrayana
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Current_life
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Dependent_Origination
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Doctrines_of_Buddhism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Early_Buddhist_schools
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Eight_Worldly_Conditions
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Faculties
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#First_five_disciples_of_the_Buddha
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Aggregates
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Faculties
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Powers_for_one_in_training
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Qualities
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Strengths
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Subjects_for_Contemplation
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Five_Things_that_lead_to_Awakening
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Rebirth_(Buddhism)#Etymology_and_Doctrine
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Refuge_(Buddhism)#Notes
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Refuge_(Buddhism)#Refuge_Wording
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Refuge_(Buddhism)#Vows
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Yana_(Buddhism)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism)
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Bhikkhuni: Buddhism, Sri Lanka, Revolution (2018) ::: 8.9/10 -- 1h 10min | Documentary | 13 March 2018 (Poland) -- It is a documentary film about the revival of women's ordination in Theravada Buddhism. Shortly after Enlightenment, the Buddha said: "I shall not come to my final passing away, until my ... S Director: Malgorzata Dobrowolska Writer: Malgorzata Dobrowolska
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Saint☆Oniisan -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Seinen Slice of Life -- Saint☆Oniisan Saint☆Oniisan -- Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha, the founders of Christianity and Buddhism, are living together as roommates in a Tokyo apartment while taking a vacation on Earth. The comedy often involves jokes about Christianity, Buddhism, and all things related, as well as the main characters' attempts to hide their identities and understand modern society in Japan. -- -- OVA - Dec 3, 2012 -- 76,787 7.50
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