TERMS STARTING WITH
buddhistic ::: a. --> Same as Buddhist, a.
buddhist ::: n. --> One who accepts the teachings of Buddhism. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Buddha, Buddhism, or the Buddhists.
Buddhist Councils. See SAMGĪTI and listings under COUNCIL, FIRST, etc.
Buddhist Councils
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. A term coined by the Sanskritist FRANKLIN EDGERTON, who compiled the definitive grammar and dictionary of the language, to refer to the peculiar Buddhist argot of Sanskrit that is used both in many Indic MAHAYANA scriptures, as well as in the MAHAVASTU, a biography of the Buddha composed within the LOKOTTARAVADA subgroup of the MAHASAMGHIKA school. Edgerton portrays Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts as the products of a gradual Sanskritization of texts that had originally been composed in various Middle Indic dialects (PRAKRIT). Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) texts were not wholesale renderings of vernacular materials intended to better display Sanskrit vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, but rather were ongoing, and often incomplete, reworkings of Buddhist materials, which reflected the continued prestige of Sanskrit within the Indic scholarly community. This argot of Sanskrit is sometimes called the "GATHA dialect," because its peculiarities are especially noticeable in MahAyAna verse forms. Edgerton describes three layers of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit based on the extent of their hybridization (and only loosely chronological). The first, and certainly earliest, class consists solely of the MahAvastu, the earliest extant BHS text, in which both the prose and verse portions of the scripture contain many hybridized forms. In the second class, verses remain hybridized, but the prose sections are predominantly standard Sanskrit and are recognizable as BHS only in their vocabulary. This second class includes many of the most important MahAyAna scriptures, including the GAndAVYuHA, LALITAVISTARA, SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA, and SUKHAVATĪVYuHASuTRA. In the third class, both the verse and prose sections are predominantly standard Sanskrit, and only in their vocabulary would they be recognized as BHS. Texts in this category include the AstASAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA, BODHISATTVABHuMI, LAnKAVATARASuTRA, MuLASARVASTIVADA VINAYA, and VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA.
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
TERMS ANYWHERE
2. This view has affinities with, and has occasionally developed into, the notion of a World Mind or Absolute Mind as posited in Vedantic and Buddhist idealism, patristic and scholastic Christian theism, objective idealism, and absolute idealism. See Idealism, The Absolute. -- W.L.
abhayadAna. (T. mi 'jigs pa sbyin pa; C. wuwei [bu]shi/shi wuwei; J. mui[fu]se/semui; K. muoe[bo]si/si muoe 無畏[布]施/施無畏). In Sanskrit, the "gift of fearlessness"; said to be one of the expanded list of three (sometimes four) forms of giving/gifts (DANA), along with the "gift of dharma" (DHARMADANA) and the "gift of material goods" (AMIsADANA). This particular type of gift is typically offered by BODHISATTVAs, whose encouragement, consolation, teaching of the dharma, and so forth relieve the fears, worries, and tribulations of the beneficiary. The common Buddhist practice of purchasing animals from butchers in order to save them from slaughter (see FANGSHENG) is considered to be a form of abhayadAna.
Abhayagiri (Sanskrit) Abhayagiri [from a not + bhaya fear + giri mountain, hill] Mount Fearless; a mountain in Sri Lanka. According to Fa-hien, the Chinese traveler, in 400 AD. Abhayagiri had an ancient Buddhist vihara (monastery) of some 5,000 priests and ascetics, whose studies comprised both the Mahayana and Hinayana systems, as well as Triyana (three paths), “the three successive degrees of Yoga. . . . Tradition says that owing to bigoted intolerance and persecution, they left Ceylon and passed beyond the Himalayas, where they have remained ever since” (TG 2-3).
AbhayAkaragupta. (T. 'Jigs med 'byung gnas sbas pa) (d. c. 1125). Indian tantric Buddhist master who was born into a brAhmana family in either Orissa or northeast India near Bengal. Sources vary regarding his dates of birth and death, although most agree that he was a contemporary of the PAla king RAmapAla, who began his reign during the final quarter of the eleventh century. AbhayAkaragupta became a Buddhist monk in response to a prophetic vision and trained extensively in the esoteric practices of TANTRA, while nevertheless maintaining his monastic discipline (VINAYA). AbhayAkaragupta was active at the monastic university of VIKRAMAsĪLA in Bihar and became renowned as both a scholar and a teacher. He was a prolific author, composing treatises in numerous fields of Buddhist doctrine, including monastic discipline and philosophy as well as tantric ritual practice and iconography. Many Sanskrit manuscripts of his works have been preserved in India, Nepal, and Tibet, and his writings were influential both in India and among Newari Buddhists in Nepal. Translations of his works into Tibetan were begun under his supervision, and more than two dozen are preserved in the Tibetan canon. To date, AbhayAkaragupta's writings best known in the West are his treatises on tantric iconography, the VajrAvalī and NispannayogAvalī, and his syncretistic ABHIDHARMA treatise MunimatAlaMkAra.
abhicAra. [alt. abhicara] (T. mngon spyod). In Sanskrit, "magic" or "wrathful action"; in ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, the fourth of the four activities (CATURKARMAN) of the Buddhist tantric adept. AbhicAra is broken down into mArana "killing," mohana "enchanting," stambhana "paralyzing," vidvesana "rendering harm through animosity," uccAtana "removing or driving away," and vasīkarana "subduing." After initiation (ABHIsEKA), adepts who keep their tantric commitments (SAMAYA) properly and reach the requisite yogic level are empowered to use four sorts of enlightened activity, as appropriate: these four types of activities are (1) those that are pacifying (S. sANTICARA); (2) those that increase prosperity, life span, etc. (PAUstIKA), when necessary for the spread of the doctrine; (3) those that subjugate or tame (S. VAsĪKARAnA) the unruly; and finally (4) those that are violent or drastic measures (abhicAra) such as war, when the situation requires it. In the MANJUsRĪNAMASAMGĪTI, CAnakya, Candragupta's minister, is said to have used abhicAra against his enemies, and because of this misuse of tantric power was condemned to suffer the consequences in hell. Throughout the history of Buddhist tantra, the justification of violence by invoking the category of abhicAra has been a contentious issue. PADMASAMBHAVA is said to have tamed the unruly spirits of Tibet, sometimes violently, with his magical powers, and the violent acts that RWA LO TSA BA in the eleventh century countenanced against those who criticized his practices are justified by categorizing them as abhicAra.
Abhidhammatthasangaha. In PAli, "Summary of the Meaning of Abhidharma"; a synoptic manual of PAli ABHIDHARMA written by the Sri Lankan monk ANURUDDHA (d.u.), abbot of the Mulasoma VihAra in Polonnaruwa, sometime between the eighth and twelfth centuries CE, but most probably around the turn of the eleventh century. (Burmese tradition instead dates the text to the first century BCE.) The terse Abhidhammatthasangaha Has been used for centuries as an introductory primer for the study of abhidharma in the monasteries of Sri Lanka and the THERAVADA countries of Southeast Asia; indeed, no other abhidharma text has received more scholarly attention within the tradition, especially in Burma, where this primer has been the object of multiple commentaries and vernacular translations. The Abhidhammatthasangaha includes nine major sections, which provide a systematic overview of PAli Buddhist doctrine. Anuruddha summarizes the exegeses appearing in BUDDHAGHOSA's VISUDDHIMAGGA, though the two works could hardly be more different: where the Visuddhimagga offers an exhaustive exegesis of THERAVADA abhidharma accompanied by a plethora of historical and mythical detail, the Abhidhammatthasangaha is little more than a list of topics, like a bare table of contents. Especially noteworthy in the Abhidhammatthasangaha is its analysis of fifty-two mental concomitants (CETASIKA), in distinction to the forty-six listed in SARVASTIVADA ABHIDHARMA and the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA. There is one major PAli commentary to the Abhidhammatthasangaha still extant, the PorAnatīkA, which is attributed to Vimalabuddhi (d.u.). The Abhidhammatthasangaha appears in the Pali Text Society's English translation series as Compendium of Philosophy.
abhidhammika. [alt. Abhidhammika]. In PAli, "specialist in the ABHIDHAMMA"; scholarly monks who specialized in study of the abhidhamma (S. ABHIDHARMA) section of the Buddhist canon. In the PAli tradition, particular importance has long been attached to the study of abhidharma. The AttHASALINĪ says that the first ABHIDHAMMIKA was the Buddha himself, and the abhidhammikas were presumed to be the most competent exponents of the teachings of the religion. Among the Buddha's immediate disciples, the premier abhidhammika was SAriputta (S. sARIPUTRA), who was renowned for his systematic grasp of the dharma. Monastic "families" of abhidhamma specialists were known as abhidhammikagana, and they passed down through the generations their own scholastic interpretations of Buddhist doctrine, interpretations that sometimes differed from those offered by specialists in the scriptures (P. sutta; S. SuTRA) or disciplinary rules (VINAYA) . In medieval Sri Lanka, the highest awards within the Buddhist order were granted to monks who specialized in this branch of study, rather than to experts in the scriptures or disciplinary rules. Special festivals were held in honor of the abhidhamma, which involved the recital of important texts and the granting of awards to participants. In contemporary Myanmar (Burma), where the study of abhidhamma continues to be highly esteemed, the seventh book of the PAli ABHIDHARMAPItAKA, the PAttHANA ("Conditions"), is regularly recited in festivals that the Burmese call pathan pwe. Pathan pwe are marathon recitations that go on for days, conducted by invited abhidhammikas who are particularly well versed in the PatthAna, the text that is the focus of the festival. The pathan pwe serves a function similar to that of PARITTA recitations, in that it is believed to ward off baleful influences, but its main designated purpose is to forestall the decline and disappearance of the Buddha's dispensation (P. sAsana; S. sASANA). The TheravAda tradition considers the PatthAna to be the Buddha's most profound exposition of ultimate truth (P. paramatthasacca; S. PARAMARTHASATYA), and according to the PAli commentaries, the PatthAna is the first constituent of the Buddha's dispensation that will disappear from the world as the religion faces its inevitable decline. The abhidhammikas' marathon recitations of the PatthAna, therefore, help to ward off the eventual demise of the Buddhist religion. This practice speaks of a THERAVADA orientation in favor of scholarship that goes back well over a thousand years. Since at least the time of BUDDHAGHOSA (c. fifth century CE), the life of scholarship (P. PARIYATTI), rather than that of meditation or contemplation (P. PAtIPATTI), has been the preferred vocational path within PAli Buddhist monasticism. Monks who devoted themselves exclusively to meditation were often portrayed as persons who lacked the capacity to master the intricacies of PAli scholarship. Even so, meditation was always recommended as the principal means by which one could bring scriptural knowledge to maturity, either through awakening or the realization (P. pativedha; S. PRATIVEDHA) of Buddhist truths. See also ABHIDHARMIKA.
AbhidharmakosabhAsya. (T. Chos mngon pa'i mdzod kyi bshad pa; C. Apidamo jushe lun; J. Abidatsuma kusharon; K. Abidalma kusa non 阿毘達磨倶舎論). In Sanskrit, "A Treasury of ABHIDHARMA, with Commentary"; an influential scholastic treatise attributed to VASUBANDHU (c. fourth or fifth century CE). The AbhidharmakosabhAsya consists of two texts: the root text of the Abhidharmakosa, composed in verse (kArikA), and its prose autocommentary (bhAsya); this dual verse-prose structure comes to be emblematic of later SARVASTIVADA abhidharma literature. As the title suggests, the work is mainly concerned with abhidharma theory as it was explicated in the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA, the principal scholastic treatise of the VAIBHAsIKAABHIDHARMIKAs in the SarvAstivAda school. In comparison to the MahAvibhAsA, however, the AbhidharmakosabhAsya presents a more systematic overview of SarvAstivAda positions. At various points in his expositions, Vasubandhu criticizes the SarvAstivAda doctrine from the standpoint of the more progressive SAUTRANTIKA offshoot of the SarvAstivAda school, which elicited a spirited response from later SarvAstivAda-VaibhAsika scholars, such as SAMGHABHADRA in his *NYAYANUSARA. The AbhidharmakosabhAsya has thus served as an invaluable tool in the study of the history of the later MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. The Sanskrit texts of both the kArikA and the bhAsya were lost for centuries before being rediscovered in Tibet in 1934 and 1936, respectively. Two Chinese translations, by XUANZANG and PARAMARTHA, and one Tibetan translation of the work are extant. The Kosa is primarily concerned with a detailed elucidation of the polysemous term DHARMA, the causes (HETU) and conditions (PRATYAYA) that lead to continued rebirth in SAMSARA, and the soteriological stages of the path (MARGA) leading to enlightenment. The treatise is divided into eight major chapters, called kosasthAnas. (1) DhAtunirdesa, "Exposition on the Elements," divides dharmas into various categories, such as tainted (SASRAVA) and untainted (ANASRAVA), or compounded (SAMSKṚTA) and uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA), and discusses the standard Buddhist classifications of the five aggregates (SKANDHA), twelve sense fields (AYATANA), and eighteen elements (DHATU). This chapter also includes extensive discussion of the theory of the four great elements (MAHABHuTA) that constitute materiality (RuPA) and the Buddhist theory of atoms or particles (PARAMAnU). (2) Indriyanirdesa, "Exposition on the Faculties," discusses a fivefold classification of dharmas into materiality (rupa), thought (CITTA), mental concomitants (CAITTA), forces dissociated from thought (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA), and the uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA). This chapter also has extensive discussions of the six causes (HETU), the four conditions (PRATYAYA), and the five effects or fruitions (PHALA). (3) Lokanirdesa, "Exposition on the Cosmos," describes the formation and structure of a world system (LOKA), the different types of sentient beings, the various levels of existence, and the principle of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) that governs the process of rebirth, which is discussed here in connection with the three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future. (4) Karmanirdesa, "Exposition on Action," discusses the different types of action (KARMAN), including the peculiar type of action associated with unmanifest materiality (AVIJNAPTIRuPA). The ten wholesome and unwholesome "paths of action" (KUsALA-KARMAPATHA and AKUsALA-KARMAPATHA) also receive a lengthy description. (5) Anusayanirdesa, "Exposition on the Proclivities," treats the ninety-eight types of ANUsAYA in relation to their sources and qualities and the relationship between the anusayas and other categories of unwholesome qualities, such as afflictions (KLEsA), contaminants (ASRAVA), floods (OGHA), and yokes (yoga). (6) MArgapudgalanirdesa, "Exposition on the Path and the [Noble] Persons," outlines how either insight into the four noble truths and carefully following a series of soteriological steps can remove defilements and transform the ordinary person into one of the noble persons (ARYAPUDGALA). (7) JNAnanirdesa, "Exposition on Knowledge," offers a detailed account of the ten types of knowledge and the distinctive attributes of noble persons and buddhas. (8) SamApattinirdesa, "Exposition on Attainment," discusses different categories of concentration (SAMADHI) and the attainments (SAMAPATTI) that result from their perfection. (9) Appended to this main body is a ninth section, an independent treatise titled the Pudgalanirdesa, "Exposition of the Notion of a Person." Here, Vasubandhu offers a detailed critique of the theory of the self, scrutinizing both the Buddhist PUDGALAVADA/VATSĪPUTRĪYA "heresy" of the inexpressible (avAcya) "person" (PUDGALA) being conventionally real and Brahmanical theories of a perduring soul (ATMAN). Numerous commentaries to the Kosa, such as those composed by VASUMITRA, YAsOMITRA, STHIRAMATI, and Purnavardhana, attest to its continuing influence in Indian Buddhist thought. The Kosa was also the object of vigorous study in the scholastic traditions of East Asia and Tibet, which produced many indigenous commentaries on the text and its doctrinal positions.
AbhidharmamahAvibhAsA. (T. Chos mngon pa bye brag bshad pa chen po; C. Apidamo dapiposha lun; J. Abidatsuma daibibasharon; K. Abidalma taebibasa non 阿毘達磨大毘婆沙論). In Sanskrit, "Great Exegesis of ABHIDHARMA," also commonly known as MahAvibhAsA; a massive VAIBHAsIKA treatise on SARVASTIVADA abhidharma translated into Chinese by the scholar-pilgrim XUANZANG and his translation bureau between 656 and 659 at XIMINGSI in the Tang capital of Chang'an. Although no Sanskrit version of this text is extant, earlier Chinese translations by Buddhavarman and others survive, albeit only in (equally massive) fragments. The complete Sanskrit text of the recension that Xuanzang used was in 100,000 slokas; his translation was in 200 rolls, making it one of the largest single works in the Buddhist canon. According to the account in Xuanzang's DA TANG XIYU JI, four hundred years after the Buddha's PARINIRVAnA, King KANIsKA gathered five hundred ARHATs to recite the Buddhist canon (TRIPItAKA). The ABHIDHARMAPItAKA of this canon, which is associated with the SarvAstivAda school, is said to have been redacted during this council (see COUNCIL, FOURTH). The central abhidharma treatise of the SarvAstivAda school is KATYAYANĪPUTRA's JNANAPRASTHANA, and the AbhidharmamahAvibhAsA purports to offer a comprehensive overview of varying views on the meaning of that seminal text by the five hundred arhats who were in attendance at the convocation. The comments of four major ABHIDHARMIKAs (Ghosa, DHARMATRATA, VASUMITRA, and Buddhadeva) are interwoven into the MahAvibhAsA's contextual analysis of KAtyAyanīputra's material from the JNAnaprasthAna, making the text a veritable encyclopedia of contemporary Buddhist scholasticism. Since the MahAvibhAsA also purports to be a commentary on the central text of the SarvAstivAda school, it therefore offers a comprehensive picture of the development of SarvAstivAda thought after the compilation of the JNAnaprasthAna. The MahAvibhAsA is divided into eight sections (grantha) and several chapters (varga), which systematically follow the eight sections and forty-three chapters of the JNAnaprasthAna in presenting its explication. Coverage of each topic begins with an overview of varying interpretations found in different Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, detailed coverage of the positions of the four major SarvAstivAda Abhidharmikas, and finally the definitive judgment of the compilers, the KAsmīri followers of KAtyAyanĪputra, who call themselves the VibhAsAsAstrins. The MahAvibhAsA was the major influence on the systematic scholastic elaboration of SarvAstivAda doctrine that appears (though with occasional intrusions from the positions of the SarvAstivAda's more-progressive SAUTRANTIKA offshoot) in VASUBANDHU's influential ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA, which itself elicited a spirited response from later SarvAstivAda-VaibhAsika scholars, such as SAMGHABHADRA in his *NYAYANUSARA. The MahAvibhAsa was not translated into Tibetan until the twentieth century, when a translation entitled Bye brag bshad mdzod chen mo was made at the Sino-Tibetan Institute by the Chinese monk FAZUN between 1946 and 1949. He presented a copy of the manuscript to the young fourteenth DALAI LAMA on the Dalai Lama's visit to Beijing in 1954, but it is not known whether it is still extant.
abhidharma. (P. abhidhamma; T. chos mngon pa; C. apidamo/duifa; J. abidatsuma/taiho; K. abidalma/taebop 阿毘達磨/對法). In Sanskrit, abhidharma is a prepositional compound composed of abhi- + dharma. The compound is typically glossed with abhi being interpreted as equivalent to uttama and meaning "highest" or "advanced" DHARMA (viz., doctrines or teachings), or abhi meaning "pertaining to" the dharma. The SARVASTIVADA Sanskrit tradition typically follows the latter etymology, while the THERAVADA PAli tradition prefers the former, as in BUDDHAGHOSA's gloss of the term meaning either "special dharma" or "supplementary dharma." These definitions suggest that abhidharma was conceived as a precise (P. nippariyAya), definitive (PARAMARTHA) assessment of the dharma that was presented in its discursive (P. sappariyAya), conventional (SAMVṚTI) form in the SuTRAS. Where the sutras offered more subjective presentations of the dharma, drawing on worldly parlance, simile, metaphor, and personal anecdote in order to appeal to their specific audiences, the abhidharma provided an objective, impersonal, and highly technical description of the specific characteristics of reality and the causal processes governing production and cessation. There are two divergent theories for the emergence of the abhidharma as a separate genre of Buddhist literature. In one theory, accepted by most Western scholars, the abhidharma is thought to have evolved out of the "matrices" (S. MATṚKA; P. mAtikA), or numerical lists of dharmas, that were used as mnemonic devices for organizing the teachings of the Buddha systematically. Such treatments of dharma are found even in the sutra literature and are probably an inevitable by-product of the oral quality of early Buddhist textual transmission. A second theory, favored by Japanese scholars, is that abhidharma evolved from catechistic discussions (abhidharmakathA) in which a dialogic format was used to clarify problematic issues in doctrine. The dialogic style also appears prominently in the sutras where, for example, the Buddha might give a brief statement of doctrine (uddesa; P. uddesa) whose meaning had to be drawn out through exegesis (NIRDEsA; P. niddesa); indeed, MAHAKATYAYANA, one of the ten major disciples of the Buddha, was noted for his skill in such explications. This same style was prominent enough in the sutras even to be listed as one of the nine or twelve genres of Buddhist literature (specifically, VYAKARAnA; P. veyyAkarana). According to tradition, the Buddha first taught the abhidharma to his mother MAHAMAYA, who had died shortly after his birth and been reborn as a god in TUsITA heaven. He met her in the heaven of the thirty-three (TRAYASTRIMsA), where he expounded the abhidharma to her and the other divinities there, repeating those teachings to sARIPUTRA when he descended each day to go on his alms-round. sAriputra was renowned as a master of the abhidharma. Abhidharma primarily sets forth the training in higher wisdom (ADHIPRAJNAsIKsA) and involves both analytical and synthetic modes of doctrinal exegesis. The body of scholastic literature that developed from this exegetical style was compiled into the ABHIDHARMAPItAKA, one of the three principal sections of the Buddhist canon, or TRIPItAKA, along with sutra and VINAYA, and is concerned primarily with scholastic discussions on epistemology, cosmology, psychology, KARMAN, rebirth, and the constituents of the process of enlightenment and the path (MARGA) to salvation. (In the MAHAYANA tradition, this abhidharmapitaka is sometimes redefined as a broader "treatise basket," or *sASTRAPItAKA.)
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.
abhidhyA. (P. abhijjhA; T. brnab sems; C. tan; J. ton; K. t'am 貪). In Sanskrit, "covetousness"; a synonym for greed (LOBHA) and craving (TṚsnA), abhidhyA is listed as the eighth of ten unwholesome courses of action (AKUsALA-KARMAPATHA). AbhidhyA is a more intense form of lobha in which one's inherent greed or lust for objects has evolved into an active pursuit of them in order to make them one's own ("Ah, would that they were mine," the commentaries say). The ten courses of action are divided into three groups according to whether they are performed by the body, speech, or mind. Covetousness is classified as an unwholesome mental course of action and forms a triad along with malice (VYAPADA) and wrong views (MITHYADṚstI). Only extreme forms of defiled thinking are deemed an unwholesome course of mental action (akusalakarmapatha), such as the covetous wish to misappropriate someone else's property, the hateful wish to hurt someone, or adherence to pernicious doctrines. Lesser forms of defiled thinking are still unwholesome (AKUsALA), but do not constitute a course of action. The unwholesome course of bodily action is of three types: killing, stealing, and unlawful sexual intercourse. The unwholesome course of verbal action includes four: false speech, slander, abusive speech, and prattle. The list of ten wholesome and ten unwholesome courses of action occurs frequently in mainstream Buddhist scriptures.
abhirati. (T. mngon dga'; C. miaoxi/abiluoti; J. myoki/abiradai; K. myohŭi/abiraje 妙喜/阿比羅提). In Sanskrit, "delight," "repose," or "wondrous joy"; the world system (LOKADHATU) and buddha-field (BUDDHAKsETRA) of the buddha AKsOBHYA, which is said to be located in the east. Abhirati is one of the earliest of the buddha-fields to appear in Buddhist literature and is depicted as an idealized form of our ordinary SAHA world. As its name implies, abhirati is a land of delight, the antithesis of the suffering that plagues our world, and its pleasures are the by-products of Aksobhya's immense merit and compassion. In his land, Aksobhya sits on a platform sheltered by a huge BODHI TREE, which is surrounded by row after row of palm trees and jasmine bushes. The soil is golden in color and as soft as cotton. Although abhirati, like our world, has a sun and moon, both pale next to the radiance of Aksobhya himself. In abhirati, there are gender distinctions, as in our world, but no physical sexuality. A man who entertains sexual thoughts toward a woman would instantly see this desire transformed into a DHYANA that derives from the meditation on impurity (AsUBHABHAVANA), while a woman can become pregnant by a man's glance (even though women do not experience menstruation). Food and drink appear spontaneously whenever a person is hungry or thirsty. Abhirati is designed to provide the optimal environment for Buddhist practice, and rebirth there is a direct result of an adept having planted meritorious roots (KUsALAMuLA), engaging in salutary actions, and then dedicating any merit deriving from those actions to his future rebirth in that land. Aksobhya will eventually attain PARINIRVAnA in abhirati through a final act of self-immolation (see SHESHEN). Abhirati is described in the AKsOBHYATATHAGATASYAVYuHA, an important precursor to the more famous SUKHAVATĪVYuHA that describes SUKHAVATĪ, the buddha-field of AMITABHA.
abhisamAcArikAsīla. (C. biqiu weiyi; J. biku igi; K. pigu wiŭi 比丘威儀). In PAli, "virtuous (or proper) conduct"; often abbreviated simply as abhisamAcArikA. The term may be used generically to refer to the basic moral codes (sĪLA) that are followed by all Buddhists, whether lay or monastic. More specifically, in the context of the Buddhist monastic codes (VINAYA), abhisamAcArikA refers to the broad standards of behavior and norms that are expected of a monk (BHIKsU) or nun (BHIKsUnĪ) living in a monastery. In the monastic tradition, we find a distinction between two kinds of moral discipline. The first is abhisamAcArikAsīla, which indicates a set of more mundane, external prescriptions including how a monk should treat his superior and how a monastery should be maintained from day to day. For example, the abhisamAcArikA section of the MAHASAMGHIKA VINAYA includes detailed instructions on how and when to hold the recitation of the monastic rules (UPOsADHA). The text lists the spaces that are appropriate for this ritual and gives detailed instructions on how the space is to be cleaned and prepared for the recitation. As with other monastic instructions, these rules are accompanied by a story that serves as an impetus for the making of the rule. The second type of moral discipline is ADIBRAHMACARIYAKASĪLA, which are rules of conduct that will lead one further toward the complete eradication of suffering (DUḤKHA). AbhisamAcArikAsīla is understood to be the lesser discipline with mundane ends, while Adibrahmacariyakasīla is understood to be the higher transcendent discipline.
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.
abhisamaya. (T. mngon rtogs; C. xianguan; J. genkan; K. hyon'gwan 現觀). In Sanskrit and PAli, "comprehension," "realization," or "penetration"; a foundational term in Buddhist soteriological theory, broadly referring to training that results in the realization of truth (satyAbhisamaya; P. saccAbhisamaya). This realization most typically involves the direct insight into the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvary AryasatyAni) but may also be used with reference to realization of the twelvefold chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), the noble eightfold path (ARYAstAnGAMARGA), the thirty-seven wings of enlightenment (BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA), etc., thus making all these doctrines specific objects of meditation. The PAli PAtISAMBHIDAMAGGA discusses forty-four specific kinds of abhisamaya, all related to basic doctrinal lists. In the SARVASTIVADA abhidharma, abhisamaya occurs on the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), through a "sequential realization" (anupurvAbhisamaya) of sixteen moments of insight into the four noble truths. This gradual unfolding of realization was rejected by the THERAVADA school and was strongly criticized in HARIVARMAN's *TATTVASIDDHI, both of which advocated the theory of instantaneous realization (ekaksanAbhisamaya). In the YOGACARA school of MAHAYANA, abhisamaya is not limited to the path of vision, as in the SarvAstivAda school, but also occurs on the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMARGA) that precedes the path of vision through the abhisamayas of thought, faith, and discipline, as well as on the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA) through two abhisamayas associated with wisdom and an abhisamaya associated with the ultimate path (NIstHAMARGA). The term comes to be associated particularly with the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, attributed to MAITREYANATHA, which sets forth the various realizations achieved on the "HĪNAYANA" and MAHAYANA paths. In the eight chapters of this text are delineated eight types of abhisamaya, which subsume the course of training followed by both sRAVAKAs and BODHISATTVAs: (1) the wisdom of knowing all modes (SARVAKARAJNATA), (2) the wisdom of knowing the paths (MARGAJNATA), (3) the wisdom of knowing all phenomena (SARVAJNATA), (4) manifestly perfect realization of all (the three previous) aspects (sarvAkArAbhisambodha), (5) the summit of realization (murdhAbhisamaya; see MuRDHAN), (6) gradual realization (anupurvAbhisamaya), (7) instantaneous realization (ekaksanAbhisamaya), and (8) realization of the dharma body, or DHARMAKAYA (dharmakAyAbhisambodha).
Abidharma: The third part of the Buddhist Tripitaka (q.v.) containing lessons in metaphysics and occultism.
Absolute ::: A term which unfortunately is much abused and often misused even in theosophical writings. It is aconvenient word in Occidental philosophy by which is described the utterly unconditioned; but it is apractice which violates both the etymology of the word and even the usage of some keen and carefulthinkers as, for instance, Sir William Hamilton in his Discussions (3rd edition, p.13n), who apparentlyuses the word absolute in the exactly correct sense in which theosophists should use it as meaning"finished," "perfected," "completed." As Hamilton observes: "The Absolute is diametrically opposed to,is contradictory of, the Infinite." This last statement is correct, and in careful theosophical writings theword Absolute should be used in Hamilton's sense, as meaning that which is freed, unloosed, perfected,completed.Absolute is from the Latin absolutum, meaning "freed," "unloosed," and is, therefore, an exact Englishparallel of the Sanskrit philosophical term moksha or mukti, and more mystically of the Sanskrit term socommonly found in Buddhist writings especially, nirvana -- an extremely profound and mysticalthought.Hence, to speak of parabrahman as being the Absolute may be a convenient usage for Occidentals whounderstand neither the significance of the term parabrahman nor the etymology, origin, and proper usageof the English word Absolute -- "proper" outside of a common and familiar employment.In strict accuracy, therefore, the student should use the word Absolute only when he means what theHindu philosopher means when he speaks of moksha or mukti or of a mukta -- i.e., one who has obtainedmukti or freedom, one who has arrived at the acme or summit of all evolution possible in any onehierarchy, although as compared with hierarchies still more sublime, such jivanmukta is but a merebeginner. The Silent Watcher in theosophical philosophy is an outstanding example of one who can besaid to be absolute in the fully accurate meaning of the word. It is obvious that the Silent Watcher is notparabrahman. (See also Moksha, Relativity)
Absolute [from Latin ab away + solvere to loosen, dissolve] Freed, released, absolved; parallel to the Sanskrit moksha, mukti (set free, released), also to the Buddhist nirvana (blown out), all three terms signifying one who has obtained freedom from the cycle of material existence.
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.
acintya. (P. acinteyya; T. bsam gyis mi khyab pa; C. bukesiyi; J. fukashigi; K. pulgasaŭi 不可思議). In Sanskrit, "inconceivable"; a term used to describe the ultimate reality that is beyond all conceptualization. PAli and mainstream Buddhist materials refer to four specific types of "inconceivables" or "unfathomables" (P. acinteyya): the range or sphere of a buddha, e.g., the extent of his knowledge and power; the range of meditative absorption (DHYANA); the potential range of moral cause and effect (KARMAN and VIPAKA); and the range of the universe or world system (LOKA), i.e., issues of cosmogony, whether the universe is finite or infinite, eternal or transitory, etc. Such thoughts are not to be pursued, because they are not conducive to authentic religious progress or ultimately to NIRVAnA. See also AVYAKṚTA.
Adbhuta-dharma (Sanskrit) Adbhuta-dharma [from adbhuta wonderful, marvelous + dharma law, truth, religion] One of the nine angas (divisions of Buddhist texts) that treats of marvels and wonders.
adhisthAna. (P. adhitthAna; T. byin gyis brlabs pa; C. jiachi; J. kaji; K. kaji 加持). In Sanskrit, lit. "determination" or "decisive resolution" and commonly translated as "empowerment." Literally, the term has the connotation of "taking a stand," viz., the means by which the buddhas reveal enlightenment to the world, as well as the adept's reliance on the buddhas' empowerment through specific ritual practices. In the former sense, adhisthAna can refer to the magical power of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, in which contexts it is often translated as "blessing" or "empowerment." As the LAnKAVATARASuTRA notes, it is thanks to the buddhas' empowerment issuing from their own original vows (PRAnIDHANA) that BODHISATTVAS are able to undertake assiduous cultivation over three infinite eons (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) so that they may in turn become buddhas. The buddhas' empowerment sustains the bodhisattvas in their unremitting practice by both helping them to maintain tranquillity of mind throughout the infinity of time they are in training and, ultimately, once the bodhisattvas achieve the tenth and final stage (BHuMI) of their training, the cloud of dharma (DHARMAMEGHA), the buddhas appear from all the ten directions to anoint the bodhisattvas as buddhas in their own right (see ABHIsEKA). ¶ In mainstream Buddhist materials, adhisthAna refers to the first of a buddha's six or ten psychic powers (ṚDDHI), the ability to project mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA) of himself, viz., to replicate himself ad infinitum. In PAli materials, adhitthAna is also used to refer to the "determination" to extend the duration of meditative absorption (P. JHANA; S. DHYANA) and the derivative psychic powers (P. iddhi; S. ṚDDHI).
adhyAtmavidyA. (T. nang rig pa; C. neiming; J. naimyo; K. naemyong 内明). In Sanskrit, "inner knowledge," viz. knowledge of the three trainings (TRIsIKsA) and the two stages (UTPATTIKRAMA and NIsPANNAKRAMA) of TANTRA; the term is sometimes used to refer to knowledge of Buddhist (as opposed to non-Buddhist) subjects.
Adinidana (Sanskrit) Ādinidāna [from ādi first + nidāna binding from ni down + dāna band, rope from the verbal root da to bind on, fasten] A binding, halter, fetter; the first and supreme causality or originating link in the succeeding chain of nidanas, called in Buddhist writings the twelve causes of manifested existence; otherwise a chain or concatenation of cause and effect throughout the range of manifested being.
Adinidana-svabhavat (Sanskrit) Ādinidāna-svabhavat [from ādi first, primordial + nidāna causation + svabhavat self-being, self-becoming from sva self + the verbal root bhū to be, become] Primordial causation of self-becoming; as in Buddhist thought nidana also signifies primal essence or substance and svabhavat is equated with the Father-Mother of manifestation, the term could be translated “primordial causality-essence Father-Mother.” It is the highest portion of the manifesting or Third Logos of our galaxy; and because the Third Logos of every solar system is a reflection of the galactic Third Logos, the adinidana-svabhavat of any solar system is in its reaches the adinidana-svabhavat of the galaxy.
Agama. (T. lung; C. ahan jing; J. agongyo; K. aham kyong 阿含經). In Sanskrit and PAli, "text" or "scripture"; a general term for received scriptural tradition. The term Agama is commonly paired with two other contrasting terms: Agama and YUKTI (reasoning) are the means of arriving at the truth; Agama and ADHIGAMA (realization) are the two divisions of the BUDDHADHARMA-the verbal or scriptural tradition and that which is manifested through practice. In its Sanskrit usage, the term Agama is also used to refer more specifically to the four scriptural collections of the mainstream tradition (now lost in Sanskrit but preserved in Chinese translation), attributed to the Buddha and his close disciples, which correspond to the four PAli NIKAYAs: (1) DĪRGHAGAMA or "Long Discourses," belonging to the DHARMAGUPTAKA school and corresponding to the PAli DĪGHANIKAYA; (2) MADHYAMAGAMA or "Medium Discourses," associated with the SARVASTIVADA school and corresponding to the PAli MAJJHIMANIKAYA; (3) SAMYUKTAGAMA or "Connected Discourses," belonging to the SarvAstivAda school (with a partial translation perhaps belonging to the KAsYAPĪYA school) and corresponding to the PAli SAMYUTTANIKAYA; and (4) EKOTTARAGAMA or "Numerically Arranged Discourses," variously ascribed to the Dharmaguptakas, or less plausibly to the MAHASAMGHIKA school or its PRAJNAPTIVADA offshoot, and corresponding to the PAli AnGUTTARANIKAYA. Despite the similarities in the titles of these collections, there are many differences between the contents of the Sanskrit Agamas and the PAli nikAyas. The KHUDDAKANIKAYA ("Miscellaneous Collection"), the fifth nikAya in the PAli canon, has no equivalent in the extant Chinese translations of the Agamas; such miscellanies, or "mixed baskets" (S. ksudrakapitaka), were however known to have existed in several of the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, including the Dharmaguptaka, MahAsAMghika, and MAHĪsASAKA.
Agantukaklesa. (P. Agantukakilesa; T. glo bur gyi nyon mongs; C. kechen fannao; J. kyakujin bonno; K. kaekchin ponnoe 客塵煩惱). In Sanskrit, "adventitious afflictions" or "adventitious defilements"; indicating that the KLEsA are accidental and extrinsic qualities of the mind, rather than natural and intrinsic. This notion builds on an ancient strand in Buddhist thought, such as in the oft-quoted passage in the PAli AnGUTTARANIKAYA: "The mind, O monks, is luminous but defiled by adventitious defilements" (pabhassaraM idaM bhikkave cittaM, taN ca kho Agantukehi upakkilesehi upakkilittham). Since defilements are introduced into the thought processes from without, the intrinsic purity of the mind (CITTA) can be restored through counteracting the influence of the klesa and overcoming the inveterate tendency toward attachment and its concomitant craving (LOBHA) and ill will (DVEsA), which empower them.This concept of Agantukaklesa is critical to the MAHAYANA doctrine of TATHAGATAGARBHA (embryo of buddhahood), where the mind is presumed to be innately enlightened, but that enlightenment is temporarily obscured or concealed by defilements (KLEsA) that are extrinsic to it.
Agathon, To (Greek) The good (principle), the highest or supreme good in a moral sense, summum bonum; Plato’s name for that aspect of the divine otherwise called the unmanifest or First Logos. Although sometimes equated with atman, which corresponds to the Greek pneuma, paramatman is a better equivalent for to agathon. It is likewise equivalent to the Buddhist alaya (the indissoluble or everlasting).
AggaNNasutta. (C. Xiaoyuan jing; J. Shoengyo; K. Soyon kyong 小經). In PAli, "Discourse on Origins" or "Sermon on Things Primeval"; the twenty-seventh sutta of the DĪGHANIKAYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the fifth SuTRA in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHAGAMA); the sutra provides a Buddhist account of the origins of the world and of human society. The Buddha preached the sermon at SAvatthi (sRAVASTĪ) to two ordinands, VAsettha and BhAradvAja, to disabuse them of the belief that the priestly brAhmana caste was superior to the Buddha's khattiya (KsATRIYA), or warrior, caste. The Buddha describes the fourfold caste system of traditional Indian society as a by-product of the devolution of sentient beings. In the beginning of the eon (KALPA), beings possess spiritual bodies that are luminous, able to travel through the air, and feed on joy. But out of greed for sensual gratification, they degenerate into physical beings with ever grosser propensities: e.g., the coarser the food they eat (first a cream on the surface of water, then creepers, then eventually rice), the coarser their bodies become, until the beings develop sex organs, begin to have intercourse, and in turn build dwellings in order to conceal their debauchery. As their bodies become ever more physical, their life spans in turn also decrease. Immorality, strife, and violence ensue until people finally realize they need a leader to save them from anarchy. They elect the first human king, named MahAsammata, who was also the first ksatriya. It was out of the ksatriya lineage deriving from this first king that the other three classes-brAhmana, vaisya, and sudra-also evolved. This account challenges the mainstream Indian belief that the brAhmana caste is congenitally superior (descending, it claims, from the mouth of the god BrahmA himself) and posits that the effort of moral and spiritual perfection, not the accident of birth, is the true standard of human superiority. Although the Buddhist tradition presumes that this sermon offers a distinctively Buddhistic account of the origin and development of both the universe and society, many of the topoi adopted in the story derive from Brahmanical cosmogonies, perhaps employed here as a satire of Brahmanical pretensions in Indian society. The scripture has also been treated by modern interpreters as offering an incipient Buddhist "environmentalism," wherein human actions, motivated by greed and lust, cause deleterious effects on the physical world, turning, for example, naturally growing rice into a rice that must be cultivated.
Agni. (T. Me lha; C. Huoshen; J. Kashin; K. Hwasin 火神). The Vedic fire deity adopted into the Buddhist pantheon as the guardian of the southeast. In the MAHAVAIROCANABHISAMBODHISŮTRA, he is identified as an incarnation of VAIROCANA; in Tibet, he is associated with HEVAJRA. Agni is depicted riding a goat, with one face and two hands, the right holding a rosary, the left a vase full of the nectar of immortality (AMṚTA). The term also refers to a class of pre-Buddhist fire deities absorbed into the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon.
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").
Aham (Sanskrit) Aham Ego, I, conception of one’s individuality; the basis and psychologically the magic agent which is the root of ahamkara, the organ or faculty which produces in human beings the sense of egoity or individuality on whatever plane. While this faculty is perhaps the most powerful agent in the forward drive of evolutionary unfoldment, it is, nevertheless, but an illusory manifestation within the individual of paramatman, the supreme self of the hierarchy. The individuality, which is a characteristic of the monad, is not likewise merely maya, any more than human egoity manifesting is the full expression of the cosmic paramatman. The first cosmic Logos or paramatman is as creative of multitudes of children monads as is a human being, or indeed any other entity on its own plane. Every such child-monad is identic in substance, intelligence, and consciousness with parabrahman, and yet each is an eternal individual. As the Buddhist metaphor suggests, the sea of cosmic life is divided into incomputable hosts of drops of spirit called monads, each of which is predestined to undertake through long eons its cosmic pilgrimage in evolutionary unfoldment, finally to return and merge into the cosmic sea which gave it birth — “the dew-drop slips into the shining Sea” (Light of Asia).
Ahimsa (Sanskrit) Ahiṃsā [from a not + the verbal root hiṃs to injure, kill, destroy] Harmlessness; one of the cardinal virtues. The sanctity of life is imbodied in the teachings of the Buddhists and Jains, as well as of many Hindu schools. Asoka, the first Buddhist emperor, particularly espoused ahimsa as part of the practice of dharma. According to Manu (4:148), one may acquire the faculty of “remembering former births” by the observance of ahimsa.
Ahimsa: (Skr.) Non-injury, an ethical principle applicable to all living beings and subscribed to by most Hindus. In practice it would mean, e.g., abstaining from animal food, relinquishing war, rejecting all thought of taking life, regarding all living beings akin. It has led to such varied phenomena as the Buddhist's sweeping the path before him or straining the water, the almost reverential attitude toward the cow, and Gandhi's non-violent resistence campaign. -- K.F.L.
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.
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.
Ajahn Chah BodhiNAna. (1918-1992). A prominent Thai monk who was one of the most influential Thai forest-meditation masters (PHRA PA) of the twentieth century. Born in the village of Baan Gor in the northeastern Thai province of Ubon Ratchathani, he was ordained as a novice at his local temple, where he received his basic education and studied the Buddhist teachings. After several years of training, he returned to lay life to attend to the needs of his parents, but motivated by his religious calling, at the age of twenty, he took higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) as a BHIKsU and continued his studies of PAli scripture. His father's death prompted him to travel to other monasteries in an effort to acquire a deeper understanding of Buddhist teaching and discipline under the guidance of different teachers. During his pilgrimage, he met AJAHN MUN BHuRIDATTA, the premier meditation master of the Thai forest-dwelling (ARANNAVASI) tradition. After that encounter, Ajahn Chah traveled extensively throughout the country, devoting his energies to meditation in forests and charnel grounds (sMAsANA). As his reputation grew, he was invited to establish a monastery near his native village, which became known as Wat Pa Pong after the name of the forest (reputed to be inhabited by ghosts) in which it was located. Ajahn Chah's austere lifestyle, simple method of mindfulness meditation, and straightforward style of teaching attracted a large following of monks and lay supporters, including many foreigners. In 1966, he established Wat Pa Nanachat, a branch monastery specifically for Western and other non-Thai nationals, next to Wat Pa Pong. In 1976, he was invited to England, which led to the establishment of the first branch monastery of Wat Pa Pong there, followed by others in Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy. He also visited the United States, where he spoke at retreats at the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, Massachusetts. Ajahn Chah died in 1992, after several years in a coma.
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.
AjAtasatru. (P. AjAtasattu; T. Ma skyes dgra; C. Asheshi wang; J. Ajase o; K. Asase wang 阿闍世王). In Sanskrit, "Enemy While Still Unborn," the son of King BIMBISARA of Magadha and his successor as king. According to the PAli account, when BimbisAra's queen VAIDEHĪ (P. Videhī) was pregnant, she developed an overwhelming urge to drink blood from the king's right knee, a craving that the king's astrologers interpreted to mean that the son would eventually commit patricide and seize the throne. Despite several attempts to abort the fetus, the child was born and was given the name AjAtasatru. While a prince, AjAtasatru became devoted to the monk DEVADATTA, the Buddha's cousin and rival, because of Devadatta's mastery of yogic powers (ṚDDHI). Devadatta plotted to take revenge on the Buddha through manipulating AjAtasatru, whom he convinced to murder his father BimbisAra, a close lay disciple and patron of the Buddha, and seize the throne. AjAtasatru subsequently assisted Devadatta in several attempts on the Buddha's life. AjAtasatru is said to have later grown remorseful over his evil deeds and, on the advice of the physician JĪVAKA, sought the Buddha's forgiveness. The Buddha preached to him on the benefits of renunciation from the SAMANNAPHALASUTTA, and AjAtasatru became a lay disciple. Because he had committed patricide, one of the five most heinous of evil deeds that are said to bring immediate retribution (ANANTARYAKARMAN), AjAtasatru was precluded from attaining any degree of enlightenment during this lifetime and was destined for rebirth in the lohakumbhiya hell. Nevertheless, Sakka (S. sAKRA), the king of the gods, described AjAtasatru as the chief in piety among the Buddha's unenlightened disciples. When the Buddha passed away, AjAtasatru was overcome with grief and, along with other kings, was given a portion of the Buddha's relics (sARĪRA) for veneration. According to the PAli commentaries, AjAtasatru provided the material support for convening the first Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIRST) following the Buddha's death. The same sources state that, despite his piety, he will remain in hell for sixty thousand years but later will attain liberation as a solitary buddha (P. paccekabuddha; S. PRATYEKABUDDHA) named Viditavisesa. ¶ MahAyAna scriptures, such as the MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA and the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING ("Contemplation Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life"), give a slightly different account of AjAtasatru's story. BimbisAra was concerned that his queen, Vaidehī, had yet to bear him an heir. He consulted a soothsayer, who told him that an aging forest ascetic would eventually be reborn as BimbisAra's son. The king then decided to speed the process along and had the ascetic killed so he would take rebirth in Vaidehī's womb. After the queen had already conceived, however, the soothsayer prophesized that the child she would bear would become the king's enemy. After his birth, the king dropped him from a tall tower, but the child survived the fall, suffering only a broken finger. (In other versions of the story, Vaidehī is so mortified to learn that her unborn son will murder her husband the king that she tried to abort the fetus, but to no avail.) Devadatta later told AjAtasatru the story of his conception and the son then imprisoned his father, intending to starve him to death. But Vaidehī kept the king alive by smuggling food to him, smearing her body with flour-paste and hiding grape juice inside her jewelry. When AjAtasatru learned of her treachery, he drew his sword to murder her, but his vassals dissuaded him. The prince's subsequent guilt about his intended matricide caused his skin break out in oozing abscesses that emitted such a foul odor that no one except his mother was able to approach him and care for him. Despite her loving care, AjAtasatru did not improve and Vaidehī sought the Buddha's counsel. The Buddha was able to cure the prince by teaching him the "NirvAna Sutra," and the prince ultimately became one of the preeminent Buddhist monarchs of India. This version of the story of AjAtasatru was used by Kosawa Heisaku (1897-1968), one of the founding figures of Japanese psychoanalysis, and his successors to posit an "Ajase (AjAtasatru) Complex" that distinguished Eastern cultures from the "Oedipal Complex" described by Sigmund Freud in Western psychoanalysis. As Kosawa interpreted this story, Vaidehī's ambivalence or active antagonism toward her son and AjAtasatru's rancor toward his mother were examples of the pathological relationship that pertains between mother and son in Eastern cultures, in distinction to the competition between father and son that Freud posited in his Oedipal Complex. This pathological relationship can be healed only through the mother's love and forgiveness, which redeem the child and thus reunite them.
Ajita. (T. Ma pham pa; C. Ayiduo; J. Aitta; K. Ailta 阿逸多). In Sanskrit and PAli, "Invincible"; proper name of several different figures in Buddhist literature. In the PAli tradition, Ajita is said to have been one of the sixteen mendicant disciples of the brAhmana ascetic BAvarĪ who visited the Buddha at the request of their teacher. Upon meeting the Buddha, Ajita saw that he was endowed with the thirty-two marks of a great man (MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA) and gained assurance that the Buddha's renown was well deserved. Starting with Ajita, all sixteen of the mendicants asked the Buddha questions. Ajita's question is preserved as the AjitamAnavapucchA in the ParAyanavagga of the SUTTANIPATA. At the end of the Buddha's explanations, Ajita and sixteen thousand followers are said to have become worthy ones (ARHAT) and entered the SAMGHA. Ajita returned to his old teacher BAvarī and recounted to him what happened. BAvarī himself converted and later became a nonreturner (ANAGAMIN). ¶ Another Ajita is Ajita-Kesakambala (Ajita of the Hair Blanket), a prominent leader of the LOKAYATA (Naturalist) school of Indian wandering religious (sRAMAnA) during the Buddha's time, who is mentioned occasionally in Buddhist scriptures. His doctrine is recounted in the PAli SAMANNAPHALASUTTA, where he is claimed to have denied the efficacy of moral cause and effect because of his materialist rejection of any prospect of transmigration or rebirth. ¶ An Ajita also traditionally appears as the fifteenth on the list of the sixteen ARHAT elders (sOdAsASTHAVIRA), who were charged by the Buddha with protecting his dispensation until the advent of the next buddha, MAITREYA. Ajita is said to reside on Mt. GṚDHRAKutA (Vulture Peak) with 1,500 disciples. He is known in Chinese as the "long-eyebrowed arhat" (changmei luohan) because he is said to have been born with long white eyebrows. In CHANYUE GUANXIU's standard Chinese depiction, Ajita is shown sitting on a rock, with both hands holding his right knee; his mouth is open, with his tongue and teeth exposed. East Asian images also sometimes show him leaning on a staff. In Tibetan iconography, he holds his two hands in his lap in DHYANAMUDRA. ¶ Ajita is finally a common epithet of the bodhisattva MAITREYA, used mostly when he is invoked in direct address.
Ajīvaka. [alt. AjīvakA; Ajīvika]. (T. 'Tsho ba can; C. Xieming waidao; J. Jamyo gedo; K. Samyong oedo 邪命外道) In Sanskrit and PAli, "Improper Livelihood"; one of the major early sects of Indian wandering religious (sRAMAnA) during the fifth century BCE. Makkhali GosAla (S. MASKARIN GOsALĪPUTRA) (d. c. 488 BCE), the leader of the Ajīvakas, was a contemporary of the Buddha. No Ajīvaka works survive, so what little we know about the school derives from descriptions filtered through Buddhist materials. Buddhist explications of Ajīvaka views are convoluted and contradictory; what does seem clear, however, is that the Ajīvakas adhered to a doctrine of strict determinism or fatalism. The Ajīvakas are described as believing that there is no immediate or ultimate cause for the purity or depravity of beings; all beings, souls, and existent things are instead directed along their course by fate (niyati), by the conditions of the species to which they belong, and by their own intrinsic natures. Thus, attainments or accomplishments of any kind are not a result of an individual's own action or the acts of others; rather, according to those beings' positions within the various stations of existence, they experience ease or pain. Makkhali GosAla is portrayed as advocating a theory of automatic purification through an essentially infinite number of transmigrations (saMsArasuddhi), by means of which all things would ultimately attain perfection. The Buddha is said to have regarded Makkhali GosAla's views as the most dangerous of heresies, which was capable of leading even the divinities (DEVA) to loss, discomfort, and suffering. BUDDHAGHOSA explains the perniciousness of his error by comparing the defects of Makkhali's views to those of the views of two other heretical teachers, Purana Kassapa (S. Purana KAsyapa) (d. c. 503 BCE), another Ajīvaka teacher, and AJITA-Kesakambala, a prominent teacher of the LOKAYATA (Naturalist) school, which maintained a materialist perspective toward the world. Purana asserted the existence of an unchanging passive soul that was unaffected by either wholesome or unwholesome action and thereby denied the efficacy of KARMAN; Ajita advocated an annihilationist theory that there is no afterlife or rebirth, which thereby denied any possibility of karmic retribution. Makkhali's doctrine of fate or noncausation, in denying both action and its result, was said to have combined the defects in both those systems of thought.
AkAra. (T. rnam pa; C. xingxiang; J. gyoso; K. haengsang 行相). In Sanskrit, "aspect," "mode," "form," or "image"; a polysemous term that is notably employed in discussions of epistemology to describe an image cast by an object, which serves as the actual object of sense perception. At an early stage of its history (as Akṛti), the term refers to what a word articulates. Over time, it came to mean the content of a word (that may or may not be connected with an actual content in reality) and then the mediating mental image. Buddhist philosophical schools differ as to whether or not such an "aspect" is required in order for sense perception to occur. VAIBHAsIKAS are non-aspectarians (NIRAKARAVADA) who say mind knows objects directly; SAUTRANTIKAS are aspectarians (SAKARAVADA) who say mind knows through an image (AkAra) of the object that is taken into the mind. YOGACARAS are aspectarians insofar as they do not accept external objects; they are divided into satyAkAravAdin (T. rnam bden pa), or true aspectarians, who assert that appearances as gross objects exist and are not polluted by ignorance; and alīkAkAravAdin (T. rnam rdzun pa), or false aspectarians, who assert that appearances as gross objects do not exist and are polluted by ignorance. In SARVAKARAJNATA ("knowledge of all modes"), the name in the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA) literature for the omniscience of a buddha, AkAra is synonymous with DHARMAS. In the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, there are 173 aspects that define the practice (prayoga) of a bodhisattva. They are the forms of a bodhisattva's knowledge (of impermanence that counteracts the mistaken apprehension of permanence, for example) informed by BODHICITTA and the knowledge that the knowledge itself has no essential nature (SVABHAVA).
Akasa-bhuta (Sanskrit) Ākāśa-bhūta [from ākāśa ether, space + bhūta element, existing, being from the verbal root bhū to be, become] The aether element, the Father-Mother element, third in the descending scale of seven cosmic bhutas which in the Upanishads are reckoned as five, and in Buddhist writings as four. Akasa-bhuta has its analog in the Third Logos, which because it is formative or creative is called Father-Mother. Not the ether, which is merely one of its lowest principles and only slightly more ethereal than physical matter.
AkAsAnantyAyatana. (P. AkAsAnaNcAyatana; T. nam mkha' mtha' yas skye mched; C. kong wubian chu; J. kumuhenjo; K. kong mubyon ch'o 空無邊處). In Sanskrit, "sphere of infinite space"; the first and lowest (in ascending order) of the four levels of the immaterial realm (ARuPYADHATU) and the first of the four immaterial absorptions (DHYANA). It is a realm of rebirth as well as a meditative state that is entirely immaterial (viz., there is no physical [RuPA] component to existence) in which the mind comes to an awareness of unlimited pervasive space (AKAsA) without the existence of material objects. Beings reborn in this realm are thought to live as long as forty thousand eons (KALPAS). However, as a state of being that is still subject to rebirth, even the realm of infinite space remains part of SAMSARA. Like the other levels of the realm of subtle materiality (RuPADHATU) and the immaterial realm, one is reborn in this state by achieving the specific level of meditative absorption of that state in the previous lifetime. One of the most famous and influential expositions on the subject of these immaterial states comes from the VISUDDHIMAGGA of BUDDHAGHOSA, written in the fifth century. Although there are numerous accounts of Buddhist meditators achieving immaterial states of SAMADHI, they are also used polemically in Buddhist literature to describe the attainments of non-Buddhist yogins, who mistakenly identify these exalted states within saMsAra as states of permanent liberation from rebirth. See also DHYANASAMAPATTI; DHYANOPAPATTI.
Akasa-sakti (Sanskrit) Ākāśa-śākti [from ākāśa ether, space + śakti power, energy, from the verbal root śak to be strong, able] Used by Blavatsky for the soul or energy of prakriti: “The Tibetan esoteric Buddhist doctrine teaches that Prakriti is cosmic matter, out of which all visible forms are produced; and Akasa that same cosmic matter — but still more imponderable, its spirit, as it were, ‘Prakriti’ being the body or substance, and Akasa-Sakti its soul or energy” (BCW 3:405n). Each divinity is supposed to have his sakti (active energy), mythologically referred to as his consort or feminine counterpart. Thus akasa-sakti is used as the akasa-power in the all-various differentiations of prakriti.
Akasa (Sanskrit) Ākāśa [from ā + the verbal root kāś to be visible, appear, shine, be brilliant] The shining; ether, cosmic space, the fifth cosmic element. The subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space. It is not the ether of science, but the aether of the ancients, such as the Stoics, which is to ether what spirit is to matter. In the Brahmanical scriptures, akasa is used for what the Northern Buddhists call svabhavat, more mystically adi-buddhi (primeval buddhi); it is also mulaprakriti, cosmic spirit-substance, the reservoir of being and of beings. Genesis refers to it as the waters of the deep. It is universal substantial space, and mystically in its highest elements is alaya.
Akasa(Sanskrit) ::: The word means "brilliant," "shining," "luminous." The fifth kosmic element, the fifth essenceor "quintessence," called Aether by the ancient Stoics; but it is not the ether of science. The ether ofscience is merely one of its lower elements. In the Brahmanical scriptures akasa is used for what thenorthern Buddhists call svabhavat, more mystically Adi-buddhi -- "primeval buddhi''; it is alsomulaprakriti, the kosmical spirit-substance, the reservoir of Being and of beings. The Hebrew OldTestament refers to it as the kosmic "waters." It is universal substantial space; also mystically Alaya.(See also Mulaprakriti, Alaya)
AkAsa. (T. nam mkha'; C. xukong; J. koku; K. hogong 虚空). In Sanskrit, "space" or "spatiality"; "sky," and "ether." In ABHIDHARMA analysis, AkAsa has two discrete denotations. First, as "spatiality," AkAsa 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," AkAsa comes also to be described as the absence of obstruction and is enumerated as one of the permanent phenomena (nityadharma) because it does not change from moment to moment. Space in this sense is also interpreted as being 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). (Because this ethereal form of AkAsa is thought to be glowing, it is sometimes used as a metaphor for buddhahood, which is said to be radiant like the sun or space.) In addition to these two abhidharma definitions, the sphere of infinite space (AKAsANANTYAYATANA) has a meditative context as well through its listing as the first of the four immaterial DHYANAS. AkAsa is recognized as one of the uncompounded dharmas (ASAMSKṚTADHARMA) 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.
akopya. (P. akuppa; T. mi 'khrugs pa; C. budong; J. fudo; K. pudong 不動). In Sanskrit, "imperturbable" or "unshakable"; used often in mainstream Buddhist materials in reference to the "imperturbable" liberation of mind (CETOVIMUKTI) that derives from mastering any of the four meditative absorptions (P. JHANA; S. DHYANA). The term is also deployed in treatments of mastery of the "adept path" (AsAIKsAMARGA) of the ARHAT: once the imminent arhat realizes the knowledge of the cessation (KsAYAJNANA) of the afflictions (KLEsA), and becomes imperturbable in that experience, the "knowledge of nonproduction" (ANUTPADAJNANA) arises-viz., the awareness that the klesas, once eradicated, will never arise again.
AksobhyatathAgatasyavyuha. (T. De bzhin gshegs pa mi 'khrugs pa'i bkod pa; C. Achu foguo jing; J. Ashuku bukkokukyo; K. Ach'ok pulguk kyong 阿閦佛國經). In Sanskrit, "The Array of the TATHAGATAAKsOBHYA"; a SuTRA in which the Buddha, at sARIPUTRA's request, teaches his eminent disciple about the buddha AKsOBHYA; also known as the Aksobhyavyuha. It was first translated into Chinese in the mid-second century CE by LOKAKsEMA, an Indo-Scythian monk from KUSHAN, and later retranslated by the Tang-period monk BODHIRUCI in the early eighth century as part of his rendering of the RATNAKutASuTRA. The scripture also exists in a Tibetan translation by Jinamitra, Surendrabodhi, and Ye shes sde. The text explains that in the distant past, a monk made a vow to achieve buddhahood. He followed the arduous BODHISATTVA path, engaging in myriad virtues; the text especially emphasizes his practice of morality (sĪLA). He eventually achieves buddhahood as the buddha Aksobhya in a buddha-field (BUDDHAKsETRA) located in the east called ABHIRATI, which the sutra describes in some detail as an ideal domain for the practice of the dharma. As its name implies, Abhirati is a land of delight, the antithesis of the suffering that plagues our world, and its pleasures are the by-products of Aksobhya's immense merit and compassion. In his land, Aksobhya sits on a platform sheltered by a huge BODHI TREE, which is surrounded by rows of palm trees and jasmine bushes. Its soil is golden in color and as soft as cotton, and the ground is flat with no gullies or gravel. Although Abhirati, like our world, has a sun and moon, both pale next to the radiance of Aksobhya himself. In Abhirati, the three unfortunate realms (APAYA) of hell denizens, ghosts, and animals do not exist. Among humans, there are gender distinctions but no physical sexuality. A man who entertains sexual thoughts toward a woman would instantly see that desire transformed into a DHYANA that derives from the meditation on impurity (AsUBHABHAVANA), while a woman can become pregnant by a man's glance (even though women do not experience menstruation). Food and drink appear spontaneously whenever a person is hungry or thirsty. There is no illness, no ugliness, and no crime. Described as a kind of idealized monastic community, Abhirati is designed to provide the optimal environment to engage in Buddhist practice, both for those who seek to become ARHATs and for those practicing the bodhisattva path. Rebirth there is a direct result of having planted virtuous roots (KUsALAMuLA), engaging in wholesome actions, and then dedicating any merit deriving from those actions to one's future rebirth in that land. One is also reborn there by accepting, memorizing, and spreading this sutra. Aksobhya will eventually attain PARINIRVAnA in Abhirati through a final act of self-immolation (see SHESHEN). After his demise, his teachings will slowly disappear from the world.
akusalamula. (P. akusalamula; T. mi dge ba'i rtsa ba; C. bushangen; J. fuzenkon; K. pulson'gŭn 不善根). In Sanskrit, "unwholesome faculties," or "roots of evil"; these refer to the cumulative unwholesome actions performed by an individual throughout one's past lives, which lead that being toward the baleful destinies (DURGATI) of animals, hungry ghosts, and the denizens of hell. The Buddhist tradition offers various lists of these unwholesome faculties, the most common of which is threefold: craving or greed (LOBHA), aversion or hatred (DVEsA), and delusion (MOHA). These same three are also known in the sutra literature as the "three poisons" (TRIVIsA). These three factors thus will fructify as unhappiness in the future and provide the foundation for unfavorable destinies or rebirths (APAYA). These three unwholesome roots are the converse of the three wholesome faculties, or "roots of virtue" (KUsALAMuLA), viz., nongreed (alobha), nonhatred (advesa), and nondelusion (amoha), which lead instead to happiness or liberation (VIMOKsA). See also SAMUCCHINNAKUsALAMuLA.
Alaya ::: Also called "Storehouse Consciousness". In Buddhist philosophy this is a primordial state of awareness and potentiality from which all other seeds of causality and karma flow. It has been described as "the last barrier to complete enlightenment" and hence, if we are speaking Kabbalistically, is associated with the path between Kether and the Veils of Negative Existence.
Alaya(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word: a, "not"; laya, from the verb-root li, "to dissolve"; hence "theindissoluble." The universal soul; the basis or root or fountain of all beings and things -- the universe,gods, monads, atoms, etc. Mystically identical with akasa in the latter's highest elements, and withmulaprakriti in the latter's essence as "root-producer" or "root-nature." (See also Akasa, Buddhi,Mulaprakriti)[NOTE: The Secret Doctrine (1:49) mentions Alaya in the Yogachara system, most probably referring toalaya-vijnana, but adds that with the "Esoteric 'Buddhists' . . . 'Alaya' has a double and even a triplemeaning." -- PUBLISHER]
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.
Alchi. The name, possibly of early Dardic origin, of a monastic complex located approximately twenty miles northwest of Leh, in the Ladakh region of the northwestern Indian state of Kashmir. The complex is renowned for its exceptional collection of early Tibetan Buddhist painting and statuary. Local legend ascribes Alchi's foundation to the great eleventh-century translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO. While the monastery's early history is obscure, inscriptions within the complex attribute its foundation to Skal ldan shes rab (Kalden Sherap) and Tshul khrims 'od (Tsultrim Ö), active sometime between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The complex of Alchi, called the chos 'khor ("dharma enclave"), comprises five main buildings: (1) the 'dus khang ("assembly hall"); (2) the lo tsA ba'i lha khang ("translator's temple"); (3) the 'Jam dpal lha khang ("MaNjusrī temple"); (4) the gsum brtsegs ("three-storied [temple]"); and (5) the lha khang so ma ("new temple"). While the 'dus khang stands as the earliest and largest structure, the gsum brtsegs is perhaps most famous for its three-storied stucco statues of AVALOKITEsVARA, MAITREYA, and MANJUsRĪ, each painted in elaborate detail. The temple also contains extraordinary murals painted by western Tibetan and Kashmiri artisans.
Alīdha. (T. g.yas brkyang ba). A Sanskrit term used to describe the Buddhist iconographic posture (ASANA) in which the figure holds one leg bent forward at the knee with the other leg stretched out in the opposite direction. While the term generally refers to standing postures, it may also apply to seated poses and is distinguished from PRATYALĪdHA, where the leg positions are reversed. Sources vary in describing which leg is outstretched and which leg is bent. In Tibetan tantric art, the Alīdha posture is often found in deities of the MOTHER TANTRA class. See also ASANA.
Aloka lena. A cave near modern Matale in Sri Lanka where, during the last quarter of the first century BCE, during the reign of King VAttAGAMAnI ABHAYA, the PAli tipitaka (TRIPItAKA) and its commentaries (AttHAKATHA) were said to have been written down for the first time. The DĪPAVAMSA and MAHAVAMSA state that a gathering of ARHATs had decided to commit the texts to writing out of fear that they could no longer be reliably memorized and passed down from one generation to the next. They convened a gathering of five hundred monks for the purpose, the cost of which was borne by a local chieftain. The subcommentary by Vajirabuddhi and the SAratthadīpanī (c. twelfth century CE) deem that the writing down of the tipitaka occurred at the fourth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FOURTH), and so it has been generally recognized ever since throughout the THERAVADA world. However, the fourteenth-century SADDHAMMASAnGAHA, written at the Thai capital of AYUTHAYA, deems this to be the fifth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIFTH), the fourth council being instead the recitation of VINAYA by MahA Arittha carried out during the reign of King DEVANAMPIYATISSA.
Also a great arhat Kshatriya (460?-534) who traveled to China, and was instrumental in disseminating Buddhist teachings there. His guru, Panyatara, is said to have given him the name Bodhidharma to mark his understanding (bodhi) of the Law (dharma) of the Buddha.
Also a sacred plant spoken of in Buddhist legends; and a name of a famous cave of seven chambers where Gautama Buddha taught esoteric truths to his select circle of arhats, located near Mount Baibhar in Rajagriha, the ancient capital of Mogadha; it was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian (SD 1:xx).
Also the sacred circular pictures in Buddhist art.
Also used for “the central hemispherical dome of solid earth, brick, or stone which forms the core of the Buddhist stupa”.
Amarakosa (Sanskrit) Amarakośa [from a not + mara dying from the verbal root mṛ to die + kośa treasury, sheath, dictionary] Also Amarakosha. Immortal treasury; a dictionary written by Amara or Amara-Simha, sage, scholar, and Buddhist, about whom not very much is definitely known. Orientalists place him anywhere between the 2nd and 6th centuries. They are unanimous, however, in rating the Amarakosa as equal in quality and importance for the Sanskrit language as is Panini’s grammar.
Amarapura. The "Immortal City"; Burmese royal capital during the Konbaung period (1752-1885), built by King Bodawpaya (r. 1782-1819). Amarapura was one of five Burmese capitals established in Upper Burma (Myanmar) after the fall of Pagan between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, the others being Pinya, SAGAING, AVA (Inwa), and Mandalay. Located five miles north of the old capital of Ava (Inwa) and seven miles south of Mandalay on the southern bank of the Irrawaddy river, it served as the capital of the Burmese kingdom twice: from 1783 to 1823 and again from 1837 to 1857. The city was mapped out in the form of a perfect square, its perimeter surrounded by stout brick walls and further protected by a wide moat. The city walls were punctuated by twelve gates, three on each side, every gate crowned with a tiered wooden pavilion (B. pyatthat). Broad avenues laid out in a grid pattern led to the center of the city where stood the royal palace and ancillary buildings, all constructed of teak and raised above the ground on massive wooden pylons. Located to the north of the city was a shrine housing the colossal MAHAMUNI image of the Buddha (see ARAKAN BUDDHA), which was acquired by the Burmese as war booty in 1784 when King Bodawpaya conquered the neighboring Buddhist kingdom of Arakan. Since its relocation at the shrine, the seated image has been covered with so many layers of gold leaf that its torso is now completely obscured, leaving only the head and face visible. In 1816, Bodawpaya erected the monumental Pahtodawgyi pagoda, modeled after the Shwezigon pagoda at Pagan. Its lower terraces are adorned with carved marble plaques depicting episodes from the JATAKAs. Another major shrine is the Kyauktawgyi pagoda, located to the southeast of the city on the opposite shore of Taungthaman lake. Kyauktawgyi pagoda is reached via the U Bein Bridge, a 3,000-foot- (1,200-meter) long bridge spanning the lake, which was constructed from teakwood salvaged from the royal palace at the vanquished capital of Ava. Amarapura was site of the THUDHAMMA (P. Sudhamma) reformation begun in 1782 under the patronage of Bodawpaya, which for a time unified the Burmese sangha under a single leadership and gave rise to the modern Thudhamma NikAya, contemporary Burma's largest monastic fraternity. The Thudhamma council that Bodawpaya organized was directed to reform the Burmese sangha throughout the kingdom and bring it under Thudhamma administrative control. In 1800, the president of the council conferred higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) on a delegation of five low-caste Sinhalese ordinands who returned to Sri Lanka in 1803 and established a branch of the reformed Burmese order on the island; that fraternity was known as the AMARAPURA NIKAYA and was dedicated to opening higher ordination to all without caste distinction. In 1857, when the royal residence was shifted from Amarapura to nearby Mandalay, the city walls and palace compound of Amarapura were disassembled and used as building material for the new capital. Today, Amarapura is home to modern Burma's most famous monastic college, Mahagandayon Kyaung Taik, built during the British period and belonging to the Shwegyin NikAya.
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 Buddha ::: [in Buddhist legend "the Buddha of measureless splendour"] who turned away when his spirit was on the threshold of nirvana and took the vow never to cross its while a single being remained in the sorrow and the Ignorance.
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.
Amita-buddha (Sanskrit) Amita-buddha Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist name for universal, primeval wisdom or soul, equivalent to adi-buddha. Also the celestial name of Gautama Buddha. Tsong-kha-pa is considered a direct incarnation of Amita-buddha (BCW 14:425-8; SD 1:108&n).
Amituo jiupin yin. (J. Amida kuhon'in; K. Amit'a kup'um in 阿彌陀九品印). In Chinese, lit. "the nine-levels gesture of AMITABHA"; in East Asian Buddhist iconography, the distinctive gesture (MUDRA) associated with images of AmitAbha Buddha, whose western paradise of SUKHAVATĪ is said to have nine levels through which devotees pass in the process of attaining enlightenment. The gesture is formed with the index finger and thumbs of both hands touching each other, with one hand typically raised in the air.
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.
Amrita ::: The nectar of immortality. In various traditions, especially Buddhist, there is an alchemical process that the mind and body engage in to clarify awareness and to transform perceptions of reality and encourage realization. This refers to the result of such practices. Amrita is not just a metaphor though: there are shifts in the mind-body complex that occur through practices that unlock and allow certain energies to flow and certain patterning to fall away.
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. (T. phyir mi 'ong ba; C. buhuan/bulai/anahan; J. fugen/furai/anagon; K. purhwan/pullae/anaham 不還/來/阿那含). In Sanskrit and PAli, "nonreturner"; the third of the four types of Buddhist saint or "noble person" (ARYAPUDGALA) in the mainstream traditions, along with the SROTAAPANNA or "stream-enterer" (the first and lowest grade), the SAKṚDAGAMIN or "once-returner" (the second grade), and the ARHAT or "worthy-one" (the fourth and highest grade). The anAgAmin is one who has completely put aside the first five of ten fetters (SAMYOJANA) that bind one to the cycle of rebirth: (1) belief in the existence of a perduring self (SATKAYADṚstI), (2) belief in the efficacy of rites and rituals (sĪLAVRATAPARAMARsA), (3) skeptical doubt about the efficacy of the path (VICIKITSA), (4) sensual craving (KAMARAGA), and (5) malice (VYAPADA). The anAgAmin has also weakened considerably the last five of the ten fetters (including such affective fetters as pride, restlessness, and ignorance), thus enervating the power of SAMSARA. Having completely eradicated the first five fetters, which are associated with the sensuous realm (KAMADHATU), and weakened the latter five, the anAgAmin is a "nonreturner" in the sense that he will never be reborn in the kAmadhAtu again; instead, he will either complete the path and become an arhat in the present lifetime or he will be reborn in the "pure abodes," or sUDDHAVASA (corresponding to the five highest heavens in the subtle-materiality realm, or RuPADHATU); and specifically, in the AKANIstHA heaven, the fifth and highest of the pure abodes, which often serves as a way station for anAgAmins before they achieve arhatship. As one of the twenty members of the ARYASAMGHA (see VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA), the anAgAmin is the name for a candidate (pratipannaka) for anAgAmin (the third fruit of the noble path). In addition, the ANAGAMIPHALASTHA is the basis for several subdivisions of the twenty members. The anAgamin may be either a follower through faith (sRADDHANUSARIN) or a follower through doctrine (DHARMANUSARIN) with either dull (MṚDVINDRIYA) or keen faculties (TĪKsnENDRIYA). The anAgAmins have eliminated all of the nine levels of afflictions that cause rebirth in the sensuous realm (kAmadhAtu) that the ordinary (LAUKIKA) path of meditation (BHAVANAMARGA) removes. Depending on their earlier career, they may be VĪTARAGAPuRVIN (those who have already eliminated sensuous-realm faults prior to reaching the path of vision) and an Anupurvin (those who reach the four fruits of the noble path in a series). Those with dull faculties are Anupurvin who have earlier been SAKṚDAGAMIPHALASTHA. Those with keen faculties reach the third fruit when they attain the VIMUKTIMARGA (path of liberation from the afflictions, or KLEsA) on the DARsANAMARGA (path of vision). See also ANABHISAMSKARAPARINIRVAYIN; SABHISAMSKARAPARINIRVAYIN; UPAPADYAPARINIRVAYIN.
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."
Anahata-sabda (Sanskrit) Anāhata-śabda [from an not + ā-han to beat, strike + śabda sound from the verbal root śabd to make noise, cry out, invoke] Unstruck circle of sound; the immaterial sound produced by no form of material substance; a mystical bell-like sound at times heard by the dying which slowly lessens in intensity until the moment of death. Also heard by the yogi or contemplative at certain stages of his meditation. The Theravada Buddhists speak of this inner signal as the voice of devas which resemble the “sound of a golden bell” (Digha-nikaya 1:152). The anahata-sabda is, in reality, a reflection of the inherent sound-characteristic of akasa (cf VS 18, 78).
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.
Ananke ::: “This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy,—that was a notion of the Greeks,—a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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.
Anatta (Pali) Anattā [from an not + attā self, soul] Non-self, nonegoity; a Buddhist doctrine postulating that there is no unchanging, permanent self (atta, Sanskrit atman) in the human being, in contrast to the Upanishad view that the atman or inner essence of a human being is identic with Brahman, the Supreme, which pervades and is the universe. While Gautama Buddha stresses the nonreality of self, regarding as continuous only its attributes (the five khandas; Sanskrit skandhas) which return at rebirth, there is scriptural testimony in both Southern and Northern Schools that the Buddha recognized a fundamental selfhood in the human constitution (ET 593-4 3rd & rev ed).
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.
Anban shouyi jing. (J. Anpanshuikyo; K. Anban suŭi kyong 安般守意經). In Chinese, "The AnApAna Guarding the Mind Scripture" composed by the Parthian teacher and translator AN SHIGAO sometime during the second century. Although the text purports to be a translation of a Middle Indic analogue of the PAli ANAPANASATISUTTA, the text is interspersed with commentarial notes on the practice of mindfulness of the process of breathing in and breathing out (ANAPANASMṚTI, P. AnApAnasati) and brief explanations of such numerical categories as the five SKANDHAs, twelve AYATANAs, and so on. The text is similar in content to certain sections of the ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA. The Anban shouyi jing relies heavily upon indigenous Chinese terminology and consequently serves as an important source for studying the process through which Buddhist meditative techniques were introduced into China. The Sogdian monk KANG SENGHUI wrote a preface and commentary to this text, but his commentary is no longer extant.
AndhakA. In PAli, "Those from Andhra," a collective designation used by BUDDHAGHOSA, in the introduction to his commentary to the KATHAVATTHU, to refer to the RAjagirīya, SiddhArthika, PuRVAsAILA, and Aparasaila MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, which seem to have been related to the CAITYA [alt. Caitiya] school, a collateral line of the MAHASAMGHIKA school.
anga. (T. yan lag; C. zhi; J. shi; K. chi 支). In Sanskrit and PAli, literally "branch" or "limb" but, in the context of Buddhist doctrine, usually connoting "section" or a constituent of a list. The term is used as an abbreviation for the PAli NAVAnGA and Sanskrit DVADAsAnGA, the nine or twelve sections or categories of the Buddha's word (BUDDHAVACANA), divided according to structure, literary style, or content (see List of Lists). It is also widely used in Buddhist lists such as seven factors of enlightenment (BODHYAnGA), eightfold noble path (ARYAstAnGAMARGA), and so on.
Angkor Thom. Twelfth-century Khmer (Cambodian) temple city constructed by Jayavarman VII (r. 1181-c. 1220) and dedicated to AVALOKITEsVARA. Built shortly after the Khmer capital was sacked by invading Chams from the region of today's central Vietnam, Angkor Thom is surrounded by a hundred-meter-wide moat and an eight-meter-high wall. Arranged in the shape of a perfect rectangle oriented toward the cardinal directions, its walls are pierced at their center by gates that connect the city to the outside world via four broad avenues that bridge the moat. The avenues are flanked by massive railings in the form of a cosmic snake (NAGA) held aloft on one side by divinities (DEVA) and on the other by ASURAs, a motif recalling the Hindu creation myth of the churning of the cosmic ocean. The avenues run at right angles toward the center of the city complex, where the famous funerary temple of BAYON is located. Constructed of sandstone and in the form of a terraced pyramid, the Bayon represents among other symbols Mt. SUMERU, the axis mundi of the Hindu-Buddhist universe. The temple is entered through four doorways, one on each side, that lead through galleries richly carved with bas-reliefs depicting scenes from contemporary life and Hindu mythology. The temple is crowned with fifty-two towers, the largest of which occupies the center and pinnacle of the structure. The four sides of every tower bear colossal guardian faces that are believed to be portraits of Jayavarman VII in the guise of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. The Bayon is the first of Angkor's many temples dedicated to a MAHAYANA Buddhist cult; those built earlier were exclusively Hindu in affiliation. Beneath the central tower is a chamber that once housed a buddha image protected by a hooded nAga. This image was situated above a receptacle intended to receive the king's ashes at death. The Bayon thus combines the function and architectural elements of a Hindu temple and a Buddhist STuPA; and Jayavarman's identification with Avalokitesvara was but an extension of Angkor's long-standing Hindu devarAja (divine king) cult, which identified the reigning monarch as an incarnation of siva. Angkor Thom was the last of several temple cities that cover the large area known today as Angkor, each city having been built by a successive Khmer king and crowned with an elaborate funerary shrine at its center. The most famous of these is the nearby ANGKOR WAT, the largest religious structure in the world, built by Suryavarman II between 1131 and 1150.
Angkor Wat. Massive temple complex and religious monument located in northwest Cambodia; the name refers to both a specific temple and the larger archaeological site, which includes hundreds of temples, including ANGKOR THOM, an ancient capital city of the Khmer kingdom. The Angkor Wat temple was constructed under the auspices of King Suryavarman II (r. 1131-1150 CE) in honor of the Hindu god Visnu. The temple is constructed in high Khmer (Cambodian) classical style and consists of five major towers, which are said to represent the five peaks surrounding Mt. SUMERU, the axis mundi of the universe in Indian cosmology; it also includes an extensive bas-relief, the longest continuous such carving in the world, that depicts famous episodes in Hindu mythology. As the fortunes of the Khmer empire declined along with the Hindu religion it had supported, Angkor Wat was later reconceived as a Buddhist monument, and a Hall of a Thousand Buddhas added to its main entrance. In 1992, UNECSCO designated the entire complex as a World Heritage Site.
AngulimAla. (S. alt. AngulimAlīya; T. Sor mo phreng ba; C. Yangjuemoluo; J. okutsumara; K. Anggulmara 央掘摩羅). In Sanskrit and PAli, literally, "Garland of Fingers"; nickname given to AhiMsaka, a notorious murderer and highwayman who was converted by the Buddha and later became an ARHAT; the Sanskrit is also seen written as AngulimAlya and AngulimAlīya. AhiMsaka was born under the thieves' constellation as the son of a brAhmana priest who served the king of KOsALA. His given name means "Harmless," because even though his birth was attended by many marvels, no one was injured. The boy was intelligent and became a favorite of his teacher. His classmates, out of jealousy, poisoned his teacher's mind against him, who thenceforth sought AhiMsaka's destruction. His teacher instructed AhiMsaka that he must collect one thousand fingers as a gift. (In an alternate version of the story, the brAhmana teacher's wife, driven by lust, attempted to seduce the handsome student, but when he rebuffed her, the resentful wife informed her husband that it was instead he who had attempted to seduce her. Knowing that he could not defeat his disciple by force, the vengeful brAhmana teacher told his student that he must kill a thousand people and string together a finger from each victim into a garland as the final stage of his training.) Following his teacher's instructions, he began to murder travelers, cutting off a single finger from each victim. These he made into a garland that he wore around his neck, hence his nickname AngulimAla, or "Garland of Fingers." With one finger left to complete his collection, AngulimAla resolved to murder his own mother, who was then entering the forest where he dwelled. It was at this time that the Buddha decided to intervene. Recognizing that the thief was capable of attaining arhatship in this life but would lose that chance if he killed one more person, the Buddha taunted AngulimAla and converted him through a miracle: although the Buddha continued to walk sedately in front of the brigand, AngulimAla could not catch him no matter how fast he ran. Intrigued at this feat, AngulimAla called out to the Buddha to stop, but the Buddha famously responded, "I have stopped, AngulimAla; may you stop as well." AngulimAla thereupon became a disciple of the Buddha and spent his time practicing the thirteen austere practices (see DHUTAnGA), eventually becoming an ARHAT. Because of his former misdeeds, even after he was ordained as a monk and became an arhat, he still had to endure the hatred of the society he used to terrorize, sometimes suffering frightful beatings. The Buddha explained that the physical pain he suffered was a consequence of his violent past and that he should endure it with equanimity. His fate illustrates an important point in the theory of KARMAN: viz., even a noble one who has overcome all prospect of future rebirth and who is certain to enter NIRVAnA at death can still experience physical (but not mental) pain in his last lifetime as a result of past heinous deeds. AngulimAla also became the "patron saint" of pregnant women in Buddhist cultures. Once, while out on his alms round, AngulimAla was profoundly moved by the suffering of a mother and her newborn child. The Buddha recommended that AngulimAla cure them by an "asseveration of truth" (SATYAVACANA). The Buddha first instructed him to say, "Sister, since I was born, I do not recall that I have ever intentionally deprived a living being of life. By this truth, may you be well and may your infant be well." When AngulimAla politely pointed out that this was not entirely accurate, the Buddha amended the statement to begin, "since I was born with noble birth." The phrase "noble birth" can be interpreted in a number of ways, but here it seems to mean "since I became a monk." When AngulimAla spoke these words to the mother and her child, they were cured. His statement has been repeated by monks to pregnant women over the centuries in the hope of assuring successful childbirth. See also AnGULIMALĪYASuTRA.
animittayoga. (T. mtshan med kyi rnal 'byor). Literally, "yoga without signs," a term that occurs in Buddhist tantric literature and is especially associated with YOGATANTRA among the four classes of tantric texts. It refers to those meditation practices in which one meditates on emptiness (suNYATA) in such a way that there are no dualistic appearances or "signs." It is contrasted with SANIMITTAYOGA or "yoga with signs," practices that entail dualistic appearances or signs in the sense that the meditator visualizes seed syllables (BĪJA) and deities.
Aniruddha. (P. Anuruddha; T. Ma 'gags pa; C. Analü; J. Anaritsu; K. Anayul 阿那律). One of the ten great disciples of the Buddha, who was GAUTAMA's first cousin and brother of MAHANAMAN. Along with many others of the Buddha's relatives in the sAKYA clan, such as ANANDA and DEVADATTA, Aniruddha renounced the life of a householder to become a disciple of the Buddha when the Buddha returned to his home town of KAPILAVASTU after his enlightenment. According to legend, Aniruddha was once scolded by the Buddha for sleeping too much. Aniruddha subsequently devoted himself to vigorous practice without sleep (see DHUTAnGA), as a consequence of which he became blind. The PAli THERAGATHA notes that he did not sleep at all for twenty-five years, and that for the last thirty years of his life, he slept only during the last watch of the night. Despite his physical blindness, he attained through his meditative practice the divine eye (DIVYACAKsUS) and came to be ranked as foremost among the Buddha's disciples in that attainment. For this reason, in East Asia, he is given the epithet Tianyan Diyi or "First of Those Who Have the Divine Eye." According to PAli tradition, after the recitation of the Buddha's teachings at the first Buddhist council (COUNCIL, FIRST), Aniruddha and his disciples were entrusted with preserving the AnGUTTARANIKAYA. Aniruddha and the Buddha held one another in particularly high regard, and many of the Buddha's discourses were addressed personally to him. In assemblies, Aniruddha always sat near the Buddha, and he was present at the Buddha's death. He consoled his fellow monks at their master's passing (PARINIRVAnA) and advised the MALLA on how properly to carry out the funerary rites.
anisong. In Thai, "blessings" (from the PAli AnisaMsa [S. ANUsAMSA], "blessing" or "merit"), referring to a type of text in the northern Thai tradition that explains the benefits of certain merit-making rituals. The anisong may have been written specifically to encourage participation in Buddhist rituals and festivals.
aNjali[mudrA]. (T. thal mo sbyar ba; C. hezhang; J. gassho; K. hapchang 合掌). In Sanskrit and PAli, "gesture of supplication" or "gesture of greeting." The aNjali is a traditional Indian gesture of salutation and respect wherein the palms of the hands are pressed together with fingers pointing up, usually at the level of the heart or the forehead. As a specific type of gesture (MUDRA), aNjali is used to symbolize thusness (TATHATA). In Buddhist iconography, this is one of the principal mudrAs of AVALOKITEsVARA, who in several forms holds a wish-fulfilling gem (CINTAMAnI) between cupped palms at his heart. This gesture is also commonly seen in images of religious donors and patrons.
Anle ji. (安樂集). In Chinese, "Collected Writings on the Land of Peace and Happiness"; an influential Chinese Buddhist treatise compiled by the monk DAOCHUO sometime during the early seventh century. The text is divided into twelve sections that largely consist of scriptural quotations and exhortations to seek rebirth in AMITABHA's PURE LAND, otherwise known as the land of peace and happiness (ANLEGUO). The Anle ji classifies the Buddha's teachings into two "gates" known as the "sagely way" (shengdao men) and the "pure land" (jingtu men). The latter refers to the teachings of the Buddha that emphasize the chanting of his name and especially that of the buddha AmitAbha, and the former refers to those teachings that expound the means of attaining NIRVAnA or enlightenment. This classification became the standard defense for the practice of NIANFO, or "chanting the name of the Buddha." Many of Daochuo's contemporaries, such as Jiacai (d.u.), also noted inconsistencies in certain parts of the text that have even led some to argue that the text was not compiled by Daochuo.
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.
An Shigao. (J. An Seiko; K. An Sego 安世高) (fl. c. 148-180 CE). An early Buddhist missionary in China and first major translator of Indian Buddhist materials into Chinese; he hailed from Arsakes (C. ANXI GUO), the Arsacid kingdom (c. 250 BCE-224 CE) of PARTHIA. (His ethnikon AN is the Chinese transcription of the first syllable of Arsakes.) Legend says that he was a crown prince of Parthia who abandoned his right to the throne in favor of a religious life, though it is not clear whether he was a monk or a layperson, or a follower of MAHAYANA or SARVASTIVADA, though all of the translations authentically ascribed to him are of mainstream Buddhist materials. An moved eastward and arrived in 148 at the Chinese capital of Luoyang, where he spent the next twenty years of his life. Many of the earliest translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese are attributed to An Shigao, but few can be determined with certainty to be his work. His most famous translations are the Ren benyu sheng jing (MAHANIDANASUTTANTA), ANBAN SHOUYI JING (ANAPANASATISUTTA), Yinchiru jing, and Daodi jing. Although his Anban shouyi jing is called a SuTRA, it is in fact made up of both short translations and his own exegesis on these translations, making it all but impossible to separate the original text from his exegesis. An Shigao seems to have been primarily concerned with meditative techniques such as ANAPANASMṚTI and the study of numerical categories such as the five SKANDHAs and twelve AYATANAs. Much of An's pioneering translation terminology was eventually superseded as the Chinese translation effort matured, but his use of transcription, rather than translation, in rendering seminal Buddhist concepts survived, as in the standard Chinese transcriptions he helped popularize for buddha (C. FO) and BODHISATTVA (C. pusa). Because of his renown as an early translator, later Buddhist scriptural catalogues (JINGLU) in China ascribed to An Shigao many works that did not carry translator attributions; hence, there are many indigenous Chinese Buddhist scriptures (see APOCRYPHA) that are falsely attributed to him.
antagrAhadrsti. (T. mthar 'dzin gyi lta ba; C. bianjian; J. henken; K. pyon'gyon 邊見). In Sanskrit, "extreme views"; one of the five major types of (wrong) views (DṚstI), along with the view that there is a perduring self, or soul (SATKAYADṚstI); fallacious views (MITHYADṚstI); the attachment to views (DṚstIPARAMARsA); and attachment to rites and rituals (sĪLAVRATAPARAMARsA). "Extreme views" refers specifically to the mistaken notion that there is a perduring soul that continues to be reborn unchanged from one lifetime to the next, or to the self as being annihilated at death and thus not subject to rebirth. The former view is called the extreme of eternalism (sAsVATADṚstI; P. sassataditthi); the latter, the extreme of annihilationism (UCCHEDADṚstI; P. ucchedaditthi). The Buddhist middle way (MADHYAMAPRATIPAD) between these two extremes posits that there is no permanent, perduring soul (countering eternalism), and yet there is karmic continuity from one lifetime to the next (countering annihilationism).
antarAbhava. (T. bar do'i srid pa/bar do; C. zhongyin/zhongyou; J. chuin/chuu; K. chungŭm/chungyu 中陰/中有). In Sanskrit, "intermediate state" or "transitional existence," a transitional state between death (maranabhava) and rebirth (upapattibhava), distinct from the five or six destinies of SAMSARA (see GATI), during which time the transitional being (GANDHARVA) prepares for rebirth. The antarAbhava is considered one of sentient beings' "four modes of existence" (catvAro bhavAḥ), along with birth/rebirth (upapattibhava), life (purvakAlabhava), and death (maranabhava). The notion of an intermediate state was controversial. Schools that accepted it, including the SARVASTIVADA and most MAHAYANA traditions, resorted to scriptural authority to justify its existence, citing, for example, SuTRAs that refer to seven states of existence (bhava), including an antarAbhava. A type of nonreturner (ANAGAMIN), the third stage of sanctity in the mainstream Buddhist schools, was also called "one who achieved NIRVAnA while in the intermediate state" (ANTARAPARINIRVAYIN), again suggesting the scriptural legitimacy of the antarAbhava. There were several views concerning the maximum duration of the ANTARABHAVA. The ABHIDHARMAMAHAVIBHAsA, for example, lists such variations as instantaneous rebirth, rebirth after a week, indeterminate duration, and forty-nine days. Of these different durations, forty-nine days became dominant, and this duration is found in the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA and the YOGACARABHuMIsASTRA. Ceremonies to help guide the transitional being toward a more salutary rebirth, if not toward enlightenment itself, take place once weekly (see QIQI JI); these observances culminate in a "forty-ninth day ceremony" (SISHIJIU [RI] ZHAI), which is thought to mark the end of the process of transition, when rebirth actually occurs. The transitional being in the intermediate state is termed either a gandharva (lit. "fragrance eater"), because it does not take solid food but is said to subsist only on scent (gandha), or sometimes a "mind-made body" (MANOMAYAKAYA). During the transitional period, the gandharva is searching for the appropriate place and parents for its next existence and takes the form of the beings in the realm where it is destined to be reborn. In the Tibetan tradition, the antarAbhava is termed the BAR DO, and the guidance given to the transitional being through the process of rebirth is systematized in such works as the BAR DO THOS GROL CHEN MO, commonly known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Like several of the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, the THERAVADA scholastic tradition rejects the notion of an intermediate state, positing instead that an instantaneous "connecting" or "linking" consciousness (P. patisandhiviNNAna; S. *pratisaMdhivijNAna) directly links the final moment of consciousness in the present life to the first moment of consciousness in the next.
anubhAva. (T. mthu; C. weishen; J. ijin; K. wisin 威神). In Sanskrit and PAli, "majesty" or "splendor"; referring to the inconceivable power and glory of the buddhas, the spiritual equivalent to the majesty of royalty. The term is often found in compound to express different aspects of Buddhistic splendor. For example, the buddhas are said to have the ability to display various psychic powers (ṚDDHI), including telekinesis, and the ability to walk through walls and to project themselves infinitely (see ADHIstHANA); the majestic power displayed through these thaumaturgic abilities is termed ṛddhyanubhAva (P. iddhAnubhAva).
anumAna. (T. rjes su dpag pa; C. biliang; J. hiryo; K. piryang 比量). In Sanskrit and PAli, "inference." In Buddhist logic and epistemology, inference is considered to be one of the two forms of valid knowledge (PRAMAnA), along with direct perception (PRATYAKsA). Inference allows us to glean knowledge concerning objects that are not directly evident to the senses. In the Buddhist logical traditions, inferences may be drawn from logical signs (HETU, LInGA): e.g., there is a fire on the mountain (SADHYA), because there is smoke (SADHANA), like a stove (SAPAKsA), unlike a lake (VIPAKsA).
anupadhisesanirvAna. [alt. nirupadhisesanirvAna] (P. anupAdisesanibbAna; T. phung po'i lhag ma med par mya ngan las 'das ba / lhag med myang 'das; C. wuyu niepan; J. muyonehan; K. muyo yolban 無餘涅槃). In Sanskrit, "the nirvAna without remainder"; one of the two kinds of NIRVAnA, along with "the nirvAna with remainder" (SOPADHIsEsANIRVAnA). After a buddha or, in some interpretations, an ARHAT has achieved awakening (BODHI), some Buddhist schools distinguish between the experience of nirvAna while it is still accompanied by a substratum of existence (upadhi = SKANDHA) and the nirvAna that is completely freed from that substratum. According to this view, at the time of his enlightenment under the BODHI TREE, the Buddha achieved the nirvAna with remainder, because he had destroyed all causes for future rebirth, but the "remainder" of his mind and body persisted. The anupadhisesanirvAna subsequently occurred at the time of the Buddha's death. It was achieved through having brought an absolute end to any propensity toward defilement (KLEsA) and of the causes that would lead to any prospect of future rebirth; it is therefore the total extinction of all conventional physical and mental existence. The nirvAna that is experienced at death is thus "without remainder" because there are no physical or mental constituents remaining that were the products of previous KARMAN; anupadhisesanirvAna is therefore synonymous with PARINIRVAnA. Since this type of nirvAna results from the complete eradication of the afflictive destructions (KLEsAVARAnA), MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS typically claim that it is accessible by sRAVAKAs and PRATYEKABUDDHAs. However, according to those proponents of the MAHAYANA who assert that all beings will eventually become buddhas, arhats do not enter anupAdisesanirvAna upon death but instead enter the uncontaminated realm (ANASRAVADHATU), where they remain in states of deep concentration until they are roused by the buddhas and exhorted to abandon their "unafflicted ignorance" (AKLIstAJNANA). In the YOGACARA school, anupAdisesanirvAna is one of the four kinds of nirvAna, which entails the cessation of any tendency toward delusion through the transformation of the eighth consciousness, the storehouse consciousness (ALAYAVIJNANA), into the mirrorlike knowledge (ADARsAJNANA).
Anuruddha. (P) The PAli name for one of the ten chief disciples of the Buddha; see ANIRUDDHA. ¶ Anuruddha is also the name of the author of the THERAVADA abhidhamma manual ABHIDHAMMATTHASAnGAHA, as well as the Paramatthavinicchaya and the NAmarupapariccheda. Anuruddha flourished during the eleventh or twelfth century and was the abbot of Mulasoma VihAra. His Abhidhammatthasangaha has for centuries been the most widely used introductory text for the study of ABHIDHAMMA (S. ABHIDHARMA) in monastic colleges throughout the PAli Buddhist world.
anusaMsa. [alt. AnusaMsa; AnusaMsA, etc.] (P. AnisaMsa; T. phan yon; C. gongde/liyi; J. kudoku/riyaku; K. kongdok/iik 功德/利益). In Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, "blessing," "benefit," "reward," or "advantage" that accrues from leading a virtuous life or performing various types of virtuous actions. In the PAli MAHAPARINIBBANASUTTANTA, for example, while preaching on the benefits of moral rectitude to a gathering of lay disciples in the city of PAtaligAma (see PAtALIPUTRA), the Buddha enumerates five such blessings that a morally upright person can expect to acquire in this lifetime: first, great wealth (bhogakkhandha); second, a good reputation (kittisadda); third, self-confidence (visArada); fourth, a peaceful death (asammulho kAlaM karoti); and fifth, after he dies, a happy rebirth (saggaM lokaM upapajjati). In contrast, a morally dissolute person can expect in this lifetime: first, poverty due to sloth; second, a bad reputation; third, shame in the presence of others; fourth, an anxious death; and fifth, after he dies, an unhappy rebirth. In the so-called graduated discourse (P. ANUPUBBIKATHA), the Buddha also teaches the blessings of renunciation (nekkhamme AnisaMsa) as a prerequisite to understanding the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. Different lists of five, ten, or eighteen such blessings appear in Sanskrit sources. The PRAJNAPARAMITA literature has long passages praising the merit gained from writing out in book form, reading, memorizing, and generally worshipping the prajNApAramitA as compared, in particular, to worshiping a STuPA containing the relics of a TATHAGATA, and the commentarial literature lists the benefits (anusaMsa) of the BODHISATTVA's path of vision (DARsANAMARGA) when compared with the earlier understanding of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS.
anuttarayogatantra. (T. bla na med pa'i rnal 'byor rgyud). In Sanskrit, "unsurpassed yoga tantra." According to an Indian classification system, later adopted in Tibet, anuttarayogatantra is the highest category in the fourfold division of tantric texts, above YOGATANTRA, CARYATANTRA, and KRIYATANTRA. Texts classified as unsurpassed yoga tantras include such works as the GUHYASAMAJATANTRA, the HEVAJRATANTRA, and the CAKRASAMVARATANTRA. These tantras were further divided into mother tantras (MATṚTANTRA) and father tantras (PITṚTANTRA). The mother tantras, also known as dAKINĪ tantras, are traditionally said to emphasize wisdom (PRAJNA) over method (UPAYA), especially wisdom in the form of the mind of clear light (PRABHASVARACITTA). The father tantras are those that, between method (upAya) and wisdom (prajNA), place a particular emphasis on method, especially as it pertains to the achievement of the illusory body (MAYADEHA) on the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA). According to Tibetan exegetes, buddhahood can only be achieved through the practice of anuttarayogatantra; it cannot be achieved by the three "lower tantras" or by the practice of the PARAMITAYANA. The many practices set forth in the anuttarayogatantras are often divided into two larger categories, those of the stage of generation (utpattikrama) and those of the stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA). The latter typically includes the practice of sexual yoga. The status of the KALACAKRATANTRA, historically the latest of the unsurpassed yoga tantras (the text includes apparent references to Muslim invaders in the Indian subcontinent), was accorded special status by DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN; TSONG KHA PA in his SNGAGS RIM CHEN MO ("Great Exposition of the Stages of Tantra") gave it a separate place within a general anuttarayogatantra category, while others such as Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros said it was not a Buddhist tantra at all.
anuvyaNjana. (T. dpe byad; C. hao; J. ko; K. ho 好). In Sanskrit and PAli, "minor mark" or "secondary characteristic"; the secondary characteristics of an object, in distinction to its generic appearance, or "sign" (NIMITTA). Advertence toward the generic sign and secondary characteristics of an object produces a recognition or perception (SAMJNA) of that object, which may then lead to clinging or rejection and ultimately suffering. ¶ The term anuvyaNjana [alt. vyaNjana] also refers specifically to the eighty minor marks of a "great man" (MAHAPURUsA) and specifically of a buddha; these are typically mentioned in conjunction with the thirty-two major marks of a great man (MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA). These are set forth at length in, for example, the PANCAVIMsATISAHASRIKAPRAJNAPARAMITA (see PRAJNAPARAMITA) and chapter eight of the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA and are known as well in mainstream Buddhist sources.
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.
Any being in a state of high spiritual and intellectual ecstasy is surrounded with a glory or brilliant, coruscating aura, which at times can even be perceived by the physical eye; sometimes this nimbus or glory surrounds the head more particularly, and at other times it surrounds the entire body. It is shot through with colors coruscating and flashing brilliantly in a most beautiful fashion, because the vital aura which surrounds every animate being in times of spiritual ecstasy is stimulated to unusual activity, and thus surrounds the being with splendor. The sun in the heavens is a cosmic example, for the floods of sunlight which it pours forth are the vital aura, nimbus, or glory surrounding the solar heart. The adoption of the nimbus surrounding the heads or entire bodies of the Christian saints was a clear case of borrowing from the Orient, because from time immemorial the nimbus has been used there to signify spiritual ecstasy, as exemplified in large numbers of Buddhist images.
ApadAna. In PAli, "Heroic Tales" or "Narratives" (cf. S. AVADANA); the thirteenth book of the KHUDDAKANIKAYA of the PAli SUTTAPItAKA, this collection includes hagiographies of 547 monks and forty nuns, all arahant (S. ARHAT) disciples who lived during the lifetime of the Buddha. The text also contains two introductory chapters in verse. The first, the "BuddhApadAna," is a series of encomiums praising the merits and perfections (P. pAramī; S. PARAMITA) of the Buddha and an account of the past lives during which he mastered these qualities. The second chapter, the "PaccekabuddhApadAna," deals with solitary buddhas who do not teach (paccekabuddha; S. PRATYEKABUDDHA). Quite distinctively, the ApadAna names thirty-five buddhas of antiquity, in contrast to the twenty-four listed in the BUDDHAVAMSA; this is one of the reasons that the ApadAna is presumed to be one of the latest books in the PAli canon. The third and fourth chapters offer accounts of the noble deeds of the senior disciples, including many of the most famous names in Buddhist history. Each story focuses on a specific meritorious action performed by one of these elders while they trained under a buddha in a previous lifetime, followed by an account of what wholesome result that action produced in subsequent lifetimes, and how this ultimately led them to achieve arahantship in the present life. The collection thus highlights the merit that results from perfecting specific types of moral actions.
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.
apoha. (T. gzhan sel; C. chu; J. jo; K. che 除). In Sanskrit, "exclusion"; a technical term in later Indian Buddhist philosophy of language and epistemology, which describes comprehension through the negative process of exclusion: i.e., only by excluding everything that is other than the target concept will the significance of that concept be comprehended. Buddhist apoha theory therefore posits that concepts convey meaning only to the extent that they "exclude" other meanings: e.g., the concept "chair" is understood only by the mental consciousness excluding everything else that is "not chair." Concepts thus do not denote the actual objects that they purport to reference but instead denote the mere "exclusion" of everything else that is not relevant. See also VYATIREKA.
Apollonius of Tyana First-century neo-Pythagorean, known for his ascetic life, moral teachings, and occult powers. His biography is a Hermetic allegory, though based on facts. A theurgist and adept of high powers, he studied Phoenician sciences as well as Pythagorean philosophy. He traveled widely, journeying to Babylon and India where he associated with the Chaldeans, Magi, Brahmans, and Buddhists. His life was spent preaching noble ethics, prophesying, healing, and performing many well-attested phenomena or “miracles.” Before his death he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus. Blavatsky states that he was a nirmanakaya rather than an avatara.
apranihita. (P. appanihita; T. smon pa med pa; C. wuyuan; J. mugan; K. muwon 無願). In Sanskrit, "wishless"; apranihita is one of the three "gates to deliverance" (VIMOKsAMUKHA), along with emptiness (suNYATA) and signlessness (ANIMITTA). Once signlessness has exposed the dangers (ADĪNAVA) inherent in sensory perception, the meditator loses all desire for the compounded (SAMSKṚTA) things of this world and adverts instead toward the uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA), which is NIRVAnA. The wishless is produced through insight into suffering (DUḤKHA) and serves as the counteragent (PRATIPAKsA) to all the intentions (Asaya) and aspirations (PRAnIDHANA) one has toward any compounded dharma. Once the meditator has abandoned all such aspirations, he or she is then able to advert toward nirvAna, which has no relation to anything that can be desired (VAIRAGYA). This leads to the seeming conundrum of Buddhist soteriology, viz., that nirvAna can only be attained once the meditator no longer has any desire for anything, including nirvAna itself. The SARVASTIVADA and YOGACARA schools sought to resolve this conundrum about nirvAna being uncaused by positing that nirvAna was a specific type of effect, the VISAMYOGAPHALA, or "disconnection fruition," which was disconnected from the afflictions (KLEsA).
apsaras. (P. accharA; T. chu skyes mo; C. tiannÜ; J. tennyo; K. ch'onnyo 天女). In Sanskrit, "celestial nymph" (lit. "between the vapors [of the clouds]"); female divinities who dwell in the sky but have the capacity to visit the earth at will and thus occupy a liminal state between the celestial and the terrestrial worlds; they are eventually incorporated into Buddhist cosmology as one of several different types of nonhuman beings who dwell in the sensuous realm (KAMADHATU). According to Indian mythology, they are married to the "celestial musicians" (GANDHARVA). The apsaras occupy an ambivalent position in Buddhist cosmology, since they are sometimes depicted as the debauched seductresses of Buddhist ascetics, at other times as the heavenly reward of leading a spiritual life. In Buddhist art, the apsaras are typically depicted as aerial beings fluttering above Buddhist deities or saints.
arahant. (S. arhat). In PAli, "worthy one"; the highest of the four grades of Buddhist saint or "noble person" (ariyapuggala) recognized in the mainstream Buddhist schools. For a full description see ARHAT; LUOHAN.
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.
aranya. (P. araNNa; T. dgon pa; C. [a]lanruo; J. [a]rannya; K. [a]ranya [阿]蘭若). In Sanskrit, "forest" or "wilderness"; the ideal atmosphere for practice, and one of the various terms used to designate the residences of monks. The solitude and contentment fostered by forest dwelling was thought to provide a better environment for meditation (BHAVANA) than the bustle and material comforts of city monasteries, and there is some evidence in mainstream Buddhist materials of discord between monks who followed the two different ways of life. Forest dwelling was frequently championed by the Buddha, and living at the root of a tree was one of the thirteen specific ascetic practices (S. DHuTAGUnA, P. DHUTAnGA) authorized by the Buddha. Forest dwelling is also used as a metaphor for the renunciation and nonattachment that monks were taught to emulate. Forest dwellers are called aranyaka (P. araNNaka or AraNNaka). See also ARANNAVASI; PHRA PA.
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 (Sanskrit) Arhat [from the verbal root arh to be worthy, merit, be able] Worthy, deserving; also enemy slayer [from ari enemy + the verbal root han to slay, smite], an arhat being a slayer of the foe of craving, the entire range of passions and desires, mental, emotional, and physical. Buddhists in the Orient generally define arhat in this manner, while modern scholars derive the word from the verbal root arh. Both definitions are equally appropriate (Buddhist Catechism 93).
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.
artha. (P. attha/attha; T. don; C. yi; J. gi; K. ŭi 義). In Sanskrit, "meaning" or "object"; a polysemous term of wide import in Buddhist materials. In perhaps its most common usage, artha refers to the meaning or denotation of a term (and is always spelled attha in PAli in this meaning), and, as the first of the four reliances (PRATISARAnA), suggests that adepts should rely on the real meaning (artha) of words rather than their mere "letter" (vyaNjana). In other contexts, however, artha may also be contrasted with DHARMA to refer to the principal denotation of a word rather than its interpreted connotations, implying the "literal meaning" of a term rather than its imputed "true spirit." Artha, as extensive understanding of meaning, is also listed as one of the four discriminating insights (PRATISAMVID), along with knowledge of reasons or causal interconnections (DHARMA), explanation (NIRUKTI), and eloquence (PRATIBHANA). In other contexts, artha also can mean a sensory object; an event, matter, or aim; and welfare, benefit, profit, or even wealth. Thus, the bodhisattva seeks the welfare (artha) of others.
ArupyarAga. (P. aruparAga; T. gzugs med pa'i 'dod chags; C. wuse tan; J. mushikiton; K. musaek t'am 無色貪). In Sanskrit, "craving for immaterial existence"; the seventh of ten "fetters" (SAMYOJANA) that keep beings bound to the cycle of rebirth (SAMSARA). ArupyarAga is the desire to be reborn as a divinity (DEVA) in the immaterial realm (ARuPYADHATU), where beings are composed entirely of mentality and are perpetually absorbed in the meditative bliss of the immaterial absorptions or attainments (ARuPYAVACARADHYANA). Craving for immaterial existence is permanently eliminated upon attaining the stage of a worthy one (ARHAT), the fourth and highest degree of Buddhist sanctity (ARYAPUDGALA) in the mainstream schools.
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.
AryasaMgha. (P. ariyasangha; T. 'phags pa'i dge 'dun; C. shengseng; J. shoso; K. songsŭng 聖僧). "Noble community" or "community of noble ones"; the community of followers of the Buddha who are noble persons (ARYAPUDGALA). There are eight types or grades of noble persons according to their respective attainment of the paths and fruits of the noble path (ARYAMARGAPHALA). These are (1) the person who has entered the path of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNAPHALAPRATIPANNAKA); (2) the person who abides in the fruit of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNAPHALASTHA); (3) the person who has entered the path of once-returner (SAKṚDAGAMIPHALAPRATIPANNAKA); (4) the person who abides in the fruit of once-returner (SAKṚDAGAMIPHALASTHA); (5) the person who has entered the path of nonreturner (ANAGAMIPHALAPRATIPANNAKA); (6) the person who abides in the fruit of nonreturner (ANAGAMIPHALASTHA); (7) the person who has entered the path of a worthy one (ARHATPRATIPANNAKA); and (8) the person who has attained the fruit of a worthy one (ARHAT) (see also VIMsATIPRABHEDASAMGHA). These eight persons are said to constitute the "SAMGHA jewel" among the three jewels (RATNATRAYA) to which Buddhists go for refuge (sARAnA).
AryAstAngamArga. (P. ariyAtthangikamagga; T. 'phags lam yan lag brgyad; C. bazhengdao; J. hasshodo; K. p'alchongdo 八正道). In Sanskrit, "noble eightfold path"; the path (MARGA) that brings an end to the causes of suffering (DUḤKHA); the fourth of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvAry AryasatyAni). This formulation of the Buddhist path to enlightenment appears in what is regarded as the Buddha's first sermon after his enlightenment, the "Setting Forth the Wheel of Dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA), in which he sets forth a middle way (MADHYAMAPRATIPAD) between the extremes of asceticism and sensual indulgence. That middle way, he says, is the eightfold path, which, like the four truths, he calls "noble" (ARYA); the term is therefore commonly rendered as "noble eightfold path." However, as in the case of the four noble truths, what is noble is not the path but those who follow it, so the compound might be more accurately translated as "eightfold path of the [spiritually] noble." Later in the same sermon, the Buddha sets forth the four noble truths and identifies the fourth truth, the truth of the path, with the eightfold path. The noble eightfold path is comprised of (1) right views (SAMYAGDṚstI; P. sammAditthi), which involve an accurate understanding of the true nature of things, specifically the four noble truths; (2) right intention (SAMYAKSAMKALPA; P. sammAsankappa), which means avoiding thoughts of attachment, hatred, and harmful intent and promoting loving-kindness and nonviolence; (3) right speech (SAMYAGVAC; P. sammAvAcA), which means refraining from verbal misdeeds, such as lying, backbiting and slander, harsh speech and abusive language, and frivolous speech and gossip; (4) right action or right conduct (SAMYAKKARMANTA; P. sammAkammanta), which is refraining from physical misdeeds, such as killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; (5) right livelihood (SAMYAGAJĪVA; P. sammAjīva), which entails avoiding trades that directly or indirectly harm others, such as selling slaves, selling weapons, selling animals for slaughter, dealing in intoxicants or poisons, or engaging in fortune-telling and divination; (6) right effort (SAMYAGVYAYAMA; P. sammAvAyAma), which is defined as abandoning unwholesome states of mind that have already arisen, preventing unwholesome states that have yet to arise, sustaining wholesome states that have already arisen, and developing wholesome states that have yet to arise; (7) right mindfulness (SAMYAKSMṚTI; P. sammAsati), which means to maintain awareness of the four foundations of mindfulness (SMṚTYUPASTHANA), viz., body, physical sensations, the mind, and phenomena; and (8) right concentration (SAMYAKSAMADHI; P. sammAsamAdhi), which is one pointedness of mind. ¶ The noble eightfold path receives less discussion in Buddhist literature than do the four noble truths (of which they are, after all, a constituent). Indeed, in later formulations, the eight factors are presented not so much as a prescription for behavior but as eight qualities that are present in the mind of a person who has understood NIRVAnA. The eightfold path may be reduced to a simpler, and more widely used, threefold schema of the path that comprises the "three trainings" (TRIsIKsA) or "higher trainings" (adhisiksA) in morality (sĪLA; P. sīla; see ADHIsĪLAsIKsA), concentration (SAMADHI, see ADHISAMADHIsIKsA), and wisdom (PRAJNA; P. paNNA; see ADHIPRAJNAsIKsA). In this schema, (1) right views and (2) right intention are subsumed under the training in higher wisdom (adhiprajNAsiksA); (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, and (5) right livelihood are subsumed under higher morality (adhisīlasiksA); and (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration are subsumed under higher concentration (adhisamAdhisiksA). According to the MADHYANTAVIBHAGA, a MAHAYANA work attributed to MAITREYANATHA, the eightfold noble path comprises the last set of eight of the thirty-seven constituents of enlightenment (BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA), where enlightenment (BODHI) is the complete, nonconceptual awakening achieved during the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA). After that vision, following the same pattern as the Buddha, right view is the perfect understanding of the vision, and right intention is the articulation of the vision that motivates the teaching of it. Right mindfulness, right effort, and right concentration correspond respectively to the four types of mindfulness (SMṚTYUPASTHANA), four efforts (PRAHAnA), and four ṚDDHIPADA ("legs of miraculous attainments," i.e., samAdhi) when they are perfect or right (samyak), after the vision of the four noble truths.
asaMjNAsamApatti. [alt. asaṁjNisamApatti] (P. asaNNasamApatti; T. 'du shes med pa'i snyoms par 'jug pa; C. wuxiang ding; J. musojo; K. musang chong 無想定). In Sanskrit, "equipoise of nonperception" or "unconscious state of attainment"; viz., a "meditative state wherein no perceptual activity remains." It is a form of meditation with varying, even contradictory, interpretations. In some accounts, it is positively appraised: for example, the Buddha was known for entering into this type of meditation in order to "rest himself" and, on another occasion, to recover from illness. In this interpretation, asaMjNAsamApatti is a temporary suppression of mental activities that brings respite from tension, which in some accounts, means that the perception (SAMJNA) aggregate (SKANDHA) is no longer functioning, while in other accounts, it implies the cessation of all conscious thought. In such cases, asaṁjNasamApatti is similar to AnimittasamApatti in functions and contents, the latter being a meditative stage wherein one does not dwell in or cling to the "characteristics" (NIMITTA) of phenomena, and which is said to be conducive to the "liberation of the mind through signlessness (ANIMITTA)" (P. Animittacetovimutti)-one of the so-called three gates to deliverance (VIMOKsAMUKHA). Elsewhere, however, asaṁjNAsamApatti is characterized negatively as a nihilistic state of mental dormancy, which some have mistakenly believed to be final liberation. Non-Buddhist meditators were reported to mistake this vegetative state for the ultimate, permanent quiescence of the mind and become attached to this state as if it were liberation. In traditional Buddhist classificatory systems (such as those of the YOGACARA school and the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA), asaMjNAsamApatti is sometimes also conflated with the fourth DHYANA, and the karmic fruition of dwelling in this meditation is the rebirth in the asaMjNA heaven (ASAMJNIKA) located in the "realm of subtle materiality," where the heavens corresponding to the fourth dhyAna are located (see RuPADHATU). Together with the "trance of cessation" (NIRODHASAMAPATTI), these two forms of meditation are classified under the CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAMSKARA ("forces dissociated from thought") category in SARVASTIVADA ABHIDHARMA texts, as well as in the one hundred dharmas of the YogAcAra school, and are also called in the East Asian tradition "the two kinds of meditation that are free of mental activity" (er wuxin ding).
asaMjNika. (P. asaNNa; T. 'du shes med pa; C. wuxiang tian; J. musoten; K. musang ch'on 無想天). In Sanskrit, "free from discrimination," or "nonperception"; according to some systems, one of the heavens of the fourth meditative absorption (DHYANA) associated with the realm of subtle materiality (RuPADHATU; see RuPAVACARADHYANA). In the PAli tradition, it is one of the seven heavens of the fourth dhyAna; in Sanskrit sources, in some cases, it is considered a ninth heaven of the fourth dhyAna, and in other cases, it is considered to be a region of the BṚHATPHALA heaven. It is a place of rebirth for those who, during their lifetimes as humans, have cultivated the trance of nonperception (ASAMJNASAMAPATTI), a state of meditative trance in which there is no mental activity; it is compared to dreamless sleep. During their long lifetime in this heaven, these divinities have a slight perception of having been born there and then have no other thoughts, sensations, or perceptions until the end of their period of rebirth in that heaven. Such beings are called asaNNasatta ("unconscious beings") in PAli. This particular state is often described as the attainment of non-Buddhist ascetics, who mistake it for the state of liberation (VIMOKsA).
asaMkhyeyakalpa. (P. asankheyyakappa; T. bskal pa grangs med pa; C. asengqi jie; J. asogiko; K. asŭnggi kop 阿僧祇劫). In Sanskrit, "incalculable eon" or "infinite eon." The longest of all KALPAs is named "incalculable" (ASAMKHYA); despite its name, it has been calculated by dedicated Buddhist scholiasts as being the length of a mahAkalpa (itself, eight intermediate kalpas in duration) to the sixtieth power. The BODHISATTVA path leading to buddhahood is presumed to take not one but three "incalculable eons" to complete, because the store of merit (PUnYA), knowledge (JNANA), and wholesome actions (KUsALA-KARMAPATHA) that must be accumulated by a bodhisattva in the course of his training is infinitely massive. Especially in the East Asian traditions, this extraordinary period of time has been taken to mean that practice is essentially interminable, thus shifting attention from the goal to the process of practice. For example, the AVATAMSAKASuTRA's statement that "at the time of the initial arousal of the aspiration for enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPADA), complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI) is already achieved" has been interpreted in the East Asian HUAYAN ZONG to imply that enlightenment is in fact achieved at the very inception of religious training-a realization that renders possible a bodhisattva's commitment to continue practicing for three infinite eons. In YOGACARA and MADHYAMAKA presentations of the path associated with the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, the three incalcuable eons are not considered infinite, with the bodhisattva's course divided accordingly into three parts. The first incalcuable eon is devoted to the paths of accumulation (SAMBHARAMARGA) and preparation (PRAYOGAMARGA); the second incalculable eon devoted to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA) and the first seven bodhisattva stages (BHuMI); and the third incalculable eon devoted to the eighth, ninth, and tenth stages.
asaMprajanya. (P. asampajaNNa; T. shes bzhin med pa; C. buzhengzhi; J. fushochi; K. pujongji 不正知). In Sanskrit, "without circumspection" or "without clear comprehension." In Buddhist psychological analysis, when contact with sensory objects is made "without circumspection" (asaMprajanya), then "attachment" (RAGA), "greed" (LOBHA), "aversion" (DVEsA), or "delusion" (MOHA) may result. The YOGACARA school lists asaMprajanya in its hundred dharmas (C. BAIFA) list as the last of twenty secondary afflictions (UPAKLEsA). AsaMprajanya is the opposite of SAMPRAJANYA (P. sampajaNNa), a term closely related to "mindfulness" (S. SMṚTI; P. sati), with which is it often used in compound as "mindfulness and clear comprehension."
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.
Asana. (T. 'dug stangs; C. zuofa/zuo; J. zaho/za; K. chwabop/chwa 坐法/座). In Sanskrit, "posture"; commonly referring to the position of the legs and feet in representations of Buddhist images. Asanas may be seated or standing, passive or active, and, in the context of esoteric imagery, they are usually prescribed in literary sources such as TANTRAs and SADHANAs. The term may also be used to refer to the physical support or seat for a Buddhist deity. See also ACALASANA; ALĪdHA; ARDHAPARYAnKA; BHADRASANA; LALITASANA; MAITREYASANA; NṚTYASANA; PADMASANA; PRALAMBAPADASANA; PRATYALĪdHA; RAJALĪLASANA; SATTVAPARYAnKA; SATTVARDHAPARYAnKA; VAJRAPARYAnKA; VAJRASANA.
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).
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).
Asceticism: (Gr. askesis, exercise) The view -- now and then appearing in conjunction with religion, particularly the Christian and Buddhistic one, or the striving for personal perfection or salvation, for self and others -- that the body is an evil and a detriment to a moral, spiritual, and god-pleasing life. Hence the negative adjustments to natural functions, desires, and even needs, manifesting themselves in abnegation of pleasures, denial of enjoyments, non-gratification of the senses, stifling of physical cravings, as well as self-torture which is meant to allay or kill off physical and worldly longings by destroying their root, in preparation for a happier, perhaps desireless future, in a post mortem existence. -- K.F.L.
asceticism. (S. duskaracaryA; P. dukkarakArikA; T. dka' ba spyod pa; C. kuxing; J. kugyo; K. kohaeng 苦行). Derived from the Greek term askesis, "to exercise"; the performance of austerities, both mental and physical, for the purpose of attaining enlightenment (BODHI) and, in certain cases, special powers or knowledges (ABHIJNA). The basic Buddhist attitude toward asceticism, as found in the narrative surrounding the life of the Buddha, has been a negative one, particularly with regard to those practices associated with physical torment, such as fasting. The Buddha himself is said to have once practiced asceticism with five fellow ascetics in the forest of URUVILVA, only to eventually abandon it for the middle way (MADHYAMAPRATIPAD) between sensual indulgence and mortification of the flesh. Ascetic practices nevertheless continued to be important in the various Buddhist traditions, as attested to by the life stories of the teachers MI LA RAS PA (Milarepa), BODHIDHARMA, and HAKUIN EKAKU to name but a few. See also DUsKARACARYA; DHUTAnGA; TAPAS.
Ashta-vijnana (Sanskrit) Aṣṭa-vijñāna [from aṣṭa eight + vijñāna function of consciousness, discernment] Eight or eightfold faculties; used in mystical Mahayana Buddhist works to signify what in Hindu philosophy is called the jnanendriyas (organs of consciousness or of conscious existence in imbodied life). This group of inner faculties, functions, or powers of consciousness has direct reference to the skandhas of Brahmanical philosophy. While the skandhas range from the highest down to and including those of the astral-vital-physical vehicle, nevertheless when closely grouped together the ashta-vijnana may be considered as a unitary vehicle, the field of action of the spiritual ego; hence “One must see with his spiritual eye, hear with his Dharmakayic ear, feel with the sensations of his Ashta-vijnyana (spiritual ‘I’) before he can comprehend this doctrine fully . . .” (ML 200).
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.
Asraya. (T. gnas; C. suoyi; J. sho'e; K. soŭi 所依). In Sanskrit, lit. "basis." In the SAUTRANTIKA school, the term is used idiosyncratically to refer to the "substratum" of existence. This substratum is the psychophysical entity that was presumed to exist independently from the momentary flow of the conscious continuum (SAMTANA) and thus to provide the physical support for thought (CITTA) and the mental concomitants (CAITTA). This SautrAntika teaching was critiqued by other Buddhist schools as skirting dangerously close to the proscribed notion of a perduring self (ATMAN). The term is also adopted subsequently in the YOGACARA school to refer to the "transformation of the basis" (AsRAYAPARAVṚTTI) of the mind, the path, and the proclivities, which transforms an ordinary person (PṚTHAGJANA) into a noble one (ARYA).
astAngasamanvAgataM upavAsaM. (P. atthangasamannAgataM uposathaM; T. yan lag brgyad pa'i gso sbyong; C. bazhaijie; J. hassaikai; K. p'alchaegye 八齋戒). In Sanskrit, the "fortnightly assembly with its eight constituents," more popularly known as the eight rules of conduct (sIKsAPADA; P. sikkhApada). On the fortnightly UPOsADHA days, Buddhist laity would take three additional precepts beyond their standard list of five precepts (PANCAsĪLA) to help foster a sense of renunciation. The full list of eight includes prohibitions against (1) killing, (2) stealing, (3) engaging in sexual misconduct, (4) lying, and (5) consuming intoxicants; these are supplemented by these three extra precepts prohibiting (6) resting on a high or luxurious bed, (7) using makeup and perfumes and enjoying music and dance, and (8) eating at improper times (viz., after midday). See also BAGUAN ZHAI; sĪLA.
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.
asubhabhAvanA. (P. asubhabhAvanA; T. mi sdug pa bsgom pa; C. bujing guan; J. fujokan; K. pujong kwan 不淨觀). In Sanskrit, the "contemplation on the impure" or "foul"; a set of traditional topics of meditation (see KAMMAttHANA) that were intended to counter the affliction of lust (RAGA), develop mindfulness (SMṚTI; P. SATI) regarding the body, and lead to full mental absorption (DHYANA). In this form of meditation, "impure" or "foul" is most often used to refer either to a standardized list of thirty-one or thirty-two foul parts of the body or to the various stages in the decay of a corpse. In the case of the latter, for example, the meditator is to observe nine or ten specific types of putrefaction, described in gruesome detail in the Buddhist commentarial literature: mottled discoloration of the corpse (vinīlakasaMjNA), discharges of pus (vipuyakasaMjNA), decaying of rotten flesh (vipadumakasaMjNA), bloating and tumefaction (vyAdhmAtakasaMjNA), the exuding of blood and the overflow of body fluids (vilohitakasaMjNA), infestation of worms and maggots (vikhAditakasaMjNA), the dissolution of flesh and exposure of bones and sinews (viksiptakasaMjNA), the cremated remains (vidagdhakasaMjNA), and the dispersed skeletal parts (asthisaMjNA). The KAyagatAsatisutta of the MAJJIHIMANIKAYA includes the contemplation of the impure within a larger explanation of the contemplation of one's body with mindfulness (KAYANUPAsYANA; see also SMṚTYUPASTHANA); before the stages in the decay of the corpse, it gives the standardized list of thirty-one (sometimes thirty-two) foul parts of the body: the head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, large intestines, small intestines, gorge, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin-oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, and urine. These parts are chosen specifically because they will be easily visualized, and may have been intended to be the foul opposites of the thirty-two salutary marks of the great man (MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA). The Chinese tradition also uses a contemplation of seven kinds of foulness regarding the human body in order to counter lust and to facilitate detachment. (1) "Foulness in their seeds" (C. zhongzi bujing): human bodies derive from seminal ejaculate and, according to ancient medicine, mother's blood. (2) "Foulness in their conception" (C. shousheng bujing): human bodies are conceived through sexual intercourse. (3) "Foulness in their [gestational] residence" (C. zhuchu bujing): human bodies are conceived and nurtured inside the mother's womb. (4) "Foulness in their nutriments" (C. shidan bujing): human bodies in the prenatal stage live off and "feed on" the mother's blood. (5) "Foulness in their delivery" (C. chusheng bujing): it is amid the mess of delivery, with the discharge of placenta and placental water, that human bodies are born. (6) "Foulness in their entirety" (C. jüti bujing): human bodies are innately impure, comprising of innards, excrement, and other foul things underneath a flimsy skin. (7) "Foulness in their destiny" (C. jiujing bujing): human bodies are destined to die, followed by putrid infestation, decomposition, and utter dissolution. There is also a contemplation on the nine bodily orifices (C. QIAO), which are vividly described as constantly oozing pus, blood, secretions, etc. ¶ As contemplation on foulness deepens, first an eidetic image (S. udgrahanimitta, P. UGGAHANIMITTA), a perfect mental reproduction of the visualized corpse, is maintained steadily in mind; this is ultimately followed by the appearance of the representational image (S. pratibhAganimitta, P. PAtIBHAGANIMITTA), which the VISUDDHIMAGGA (VI.66) describes as a perfectly idealized image of, for example, a bloated corpse as "a man with big limbs lying down after eating his fill." Continued concentration on this representational image will enable the meditator to access up to the fourth stage of the subtle-materiality dhyAnas (ARuPYAVACARADHYANA). After perfecting dhyAna, this meditation may also be used to develop wisdom (PRAJNA) through developing increased awareness of the reality of impermanence (ANITYA). Foulness meditation is ritually included as part of the THERAVADA ordination procedure, during which monks are taught the list of the first five of the thirty-two foul parts of the body (viz., head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, and skin) in order to help them ward off lust.
Asura Cave. A cave south of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal where PADMASAMBHAVA is said to have meditated and conquered the twelve bstan ma (tenma) goddesses. It is an important pilgrimage place, considered sacred by Tibetan and Newar Buddhists as well as Hindus, and the site of several Tibetan monasteries. According to the writings of one Tibetan lama, the fourth KHAMS SPRUL (Khamtrul) Rin po che, the cave may take its name from a small passage at its rear that is purported to lead to the realm of the ASURAs.
asura. (T. lha ma yin; C. axiuluo; J. ashura; K. asura 阿修羅). In Sanskrit and PAli, lit., "nongods," also translated rather arcanely as "demigod" and "titan," referring to both a class of divinities and the destiny where those beings reside in the sensuous realm (KAMADHATU); in the list of six destinies (GATI), the asuras are ranked between the realms of the divinities (DEVA) and human beings (MANUsYA) and are usually considered to be a baleful destiny (see APAYA; DURGATI). The asuras live in the oceans surrounding the central continent of the world and in the lower reaches of Mount SUMERU. The asuras are said to be constantly jealous of the good fortunes of the divinities (deva), which prompted the king of the gods INDRA [alt. sAKRA] to expel them from their original home in the heaven of the thirty-three (TRAYASTRIMsA); the asuras continue to engage in futile warfare against the devas above them to regain access to their lost realm. Many indigenous non-Buddhist deities, such as the Tibetan srung ma (sungma), were placed in this realm as they were assimilated into the Buddhist pantheon.
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.
Asvajit. (P. Assaji; T. Rta thul; C. Ashuoshi; J. Asetsuji; K. Asolsi 阿示). The fifth of the five ascetics (PANCAVARGIKA), along with AJNATAKAUndINYA (P. ANNAtakondaNNa), BHADRIKA (P. Bhaddiya), VAsPA (P. Vappa), and MAHANAMAN (P. MahAnAma), who practiced austerities with GAUTAMA prior to his enlightenment. Subsequently, when Gautama abandoned the severe asceticism they had been practicing in favor of the middle way (MADHYAMAPRATIPAD), Asvajit and his companions became disgusted with Gautama's backsliding and left him, going to the ṚsIPATANA (P. Isipatana) deer park, located in the northeast of VArAnasī. After the Buddha's enlightenment, however, the Buddha sought them out to teach them the first sermon, the DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA (P. DHAMMACAKKAPAVATTANASUTTA); while listening to this sermon, Asvajit achieved the first stage of awakening or "opening of the dharma eye" (DHARMACAKsUS), becoming a stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA), and was immediately ordained as a monk using the informal EHIBHIKsUKA, or "come, monk," formula. Five days later, the Buddha then preached to the group of five new monks the second sermon, the *AnAtmalaksanasutra (P. ANATTALAKKHAnASUTTA), which led to Asvajit's becoming a worthy one (ARHAT). It was through an encounter with Asvajit that sARIPUTRA and MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, the Buddha's two chief disciples, were initially converted. SAriputra witnessed Asvajit's calm demeanor while gathering alms in the city of RAJAGṚHA. Impressed, he approached Asvajit and asked who his teacher was and what were his teachings. In response, Asvajit said that he was new to the teachings and could offer only the following summary: "Of those phenomena produced through causes, the TathAgata has proclaimed their causes and also their cessation. Thus has spoken the great renunciant." His description, which came to known as the YE DHARMA (based on its first two words of the summary), would become perhaps the most commonly repeated statement in all of Buddhist literature. Upon hearing these words, sAriputra attained the stage of stream-entry (see SROTAAPANNA), and when he repeated what he heard to his friend MaudgalyAyana, he also did so. The two then agreed to become the Buddha's disciples. According to PAli sources, Asvajit once was approached by the ascetic Nigantha Saccaka, who inquired of the Buddha's teachings. Asvajit explained the doctrine of nonself (ANATMAN) with a summary of the Anattalakkhanasutta, which the Buddha had taught him. Convinced that he could refute that doctrine, Nigantha Saccaka challenged the Buddha to a debate and was vanquished. The PAli commentaries say that Asvajit intentionally offered only the briefest of explanations of the nonself doctrine as a means of coaxing the ascetic into a direct encounter with the Buddha.
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."
Atman is for each individualized consciousness its laya-center or entrance way into cosmic manifestation. It is our self precisely because it is a link which connects us with the cosmic hierarch. Through this atmic laya-center stream the divine forces from above, which by their unfolding on the lower planes originate and become seven principles. “We say that the Spirit (the ‘Father in secret’ of Jesus), or Atman, is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible and indivisible, that which does not exist and yet is, as the Buddhists say of Nirvana. It only overshadows the mortal; that which enters into him and pervades the whole body being only its omnipresent rays, or light, radiated through Buddhi, its vehicle and direct emanation” (Key 101).
Atman. (P. attan; T. bdag; C. wo; J. ga; K. a 我). In Sanskrit, "self" or "I," with a similar range of meanings as the terms possess in English, but used especially to refer to a perduring substratum of being that is the agent of actions, the possessor of mind and body (NAMARuPA), and that passes from lifetime to lifetime. The misconception that there is an "I" (Atman), a perduring soul that exists in reality (SATKAYADṚstI), and a "mine" (Atmīya), viz., things that belong to me, injects a "point of view" into all of one's perception (SAMJNA), which inevitably leads to clinging (toward things we like, viz., LOBHA) and hatred (toward things we dislike, viz., DVEsA). This mistaken belief that there is such a permanent self is regarded as fundamental ignorance (AVIDYA) and the root cause of all suffering (DUḤKHA). The Buddha therefore taught "nonself" (ANATMAN) as a palliative to this misconception of permanence. The precise meaning of Atman, the ways in which the misconception arises, and how that misconception is then extended beyond the person are considered in great detail in the various Buddhist philosophical schools. See also PUDGALA.
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.
Attachment ::: An enormously complicated subject. Attachment is more akin to a sixth (seventh? eighth?) sense from the perspective of self on the physical layer (stage) of reality, but is best defined from the reference frame of Root Self, that is Source Consciousness. From the perspective of Root Consciousness, it is the capacity to cohere subsetted portions of Oneself (i.e. "selves") as a lens through which to impart qualia to experience. The term has a baser meaning, of course, but even in respect to Buddhist philosophy, attachment is what imparts the qualia of Suffering to dualistic experience as it persists this illusion of separation of Self and, at a deeper level, the illusion of experiential existence that the process of enlightenment seeks to extinguish.
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.
atthakathA. In PAli, lit. "recital of meaning" or "exegesis"; referring specifically to the "commentaries" to the first four NIKAYAs, or scriptural collections, that comprise the PAli Buddhist canon (tipitaka; S. TRIPItAKA). According to THERAVADA tradition, MAHINDA brought the PAli tipitaka and atthakathAs to Sri Lanka from the Indian mainland during the third century CE, during the time of King AsOKA. The language of those Indian commentaries is unknown, but they were initially written down in Sri Lanka in some sort of Sinhalese PRAKRIT. That first Sinhalese recension of the four atthakathAs was superseded when, two centuries later, the renowned TheravAda scholiast, BUDDHAGHOSA, rewrote them in PAli and wrote a lengthy prolegomenon to this massive body of commentarial literature, which he titled the VISUDDHIMAGGA ("Path of Purification"). In conjunction with the systematic overview provided in the Visuddhimagga, the atthakathAs thus claim to offer a comprehensive account of the full panoply of Buddhist doctrine. The atthakathA to the last, and latest, of the nikAyas, the KHUDDAKANIKAYA ("Miscellaneous Discourses"), was composed separately, probably sometime between 450 and 600 CE, by the prolific PAli commentator DHAMMAPALA, and seems to draw on a separate textual recension from that used by Buddhaghosa.
Atthakavagga. (S. Arthavargīya; C. Yizu jing; J. Gisokukyo; K. Ŭijok kyong 義足經). In PAli, "The Octet Chapter" [alt. "The Chapter on Meaning," as the Chinese translation suggests], an important chapter of the SUTTANIPATA. Based on analysis of the peculiar meters and grammatical formations used in this text, philologists have reached a broad consensus that the Atthakavagga and its companion chapter, the PArAyanavagga, are among the very earliest strata of extant PAli literature and may have existed even during the Buddha's own lifetime. The PAli suttas include citations and exegeses of some of the verses from the Atthakavagga, and the MAHANIDESA, a commentary that covers the text, is accepted as canonical in the PAli canon (tipitaka, S. TRIPItAKA). All this evidence suggests its relative antiquity within the canon. The teachings contained in the chapter seem to suggest an early stratum of Buddhist teachings, prior to their formalization around fixed numerical lists of doctrines. The technical terminology that becomes emblematic of the standardized Buddhist presentation of doctrine is also relatively absent in its verses (GATHA). The Atthakavagga offers a rigorous indictment of the dangers inherent in "views" (P. ditthi; S. DṚstI) and displays a skepticism about religious dogmas in general, seeing them as virulent sources of attachment that lead ultimately to conceit, quarrels, and divisiveness. Some scholars have suggested that the kind of thoroughgoing critique of views presented in the Atthakavagga might have been the prototype of the later MADHYAMAKA logical approach, which sought to demonstrate the fallacies inherent in any philosophical statement. The verses also seem to represent an earlier stage in the evolution of Buddhist institutions, when monks still lived alone in the forest or with small groups of fellow ascetics, rather than in larger urban monasteries. Monks are still referred to as hermits or "seers" (P. isi, S. ṛsi), a generic Indian term for religious recluses, rather than the formal Buddhist term bhikkhu (BHIKsU) as is seen in the prose passages. A two-roll Chinese translation of a Sanskrit or Middle Indic recension of the text was made by ZHI QIAN during the Wu dynasty (c. 223-253 CE).
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.
AurangAbAd. A complex of twelve rock-cut Buddhist caves located at the outskirts of the city of AurangAbAd in the modern Indian state of Maharashtra. The oldest structure at the site is the severely damaged Cave 4, which dates to the beginning of the Common Era. The complex functioned as a center of popular devotion and secular patronage in the region. This strong linkage of the site with popular religiosity is particularly evident in Cave 2, with its central sanctum and pradaksinapatha for circumambulation (PRADAKsInA) left undecorated to display a number of individually commissioned votive panels. The arrangement combines the ritual need for circumambulation with the preference for placing the main buddha against the rear wall by creating a corridor around the entire shrine. The entrance to the shrine is flanked by the BODHISATTVAs MAITREYA and AVALOKITEsVARA, both attended by serpent kings (NAGA); the shrine itself contains a seated buddha making the gesture of turning the wheel of the DHARMA (DHARMACAKRAMUDRA) flanked by two bodhisattvas. The creation of the AurangAbAd cave site appears to have been connected with the collapse of the VAkAtakas, who had patronized the cave temples at AJAntA. AurangAbAd rose in response, testimony to the triumph of the regional powers and local Buddhist forces at the end of the fifth century. The small number of cells for the SAMGHA, the presence of the life-size kneeling devotees with a portrait-like appearance and royal attire sculpted in Cave 3, and the individually commissioned votive panels in Cave 2 indicate the growing importance of the "secular" at AurangAbAd. The strong affinities in design, imagery, and sculptural detail between AurangAbAd Cave 3 and Caves 2 and 26 at AjantA indicate that the same artisans might have worked at both sites. The sculptural panels in Cave 7, which date to the mid-sixth century, may demonstrate the growing importance of tantric sects, with their use of the imagery of voluptuous females with elaborate coiffures serving as attendants to bodhisattvas or buddhas.
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.
avacara. (T. spyod pa; C. jieji; J. kaike; K. kyegye 界繫). In Sanskrit and PAli, when used at the end of compound words, means "sphere," "domain," or "realm of existence." In Buddhist cosmology, the term refers to the things that "belong to the sphere" of the three realms of existence (traidhAtukAvacara, see TRAIDHATUKA), which comprise the entire phenomenal universe: the sensuous realm (kAmAvacara or KAMADHATU), the realm of subtle materiality or form (rupAvacara or RuPADHATU), and the immaterial or formless realm (ArupyAvacara or ARuPYADHATU). The three realms of existence taken together comprise all of SAMSARA, the cycle of rebirth, and are the spheres within which beings take rebirth: there are no realms of existence that are unoccupied, and no beings are born anywhere other than in these three spheres. The sensuous realm is the lowest stratum of the universe and contains the following destinies (GATI), in ascending order: denizens of hell, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods (ASURA), and divinities (DEVA). Rebirth in the sensuous realm is the result of past performance of either predominantly unwholesome deeds (in the case of hell denizens, hungry ghosts, animals, and asuras), a mix of unwholesome and wholesome deeds (as with human beings), or predominantly wholesome deeds (the divinities). The beings in the sensuous realm all have a coarser physical constituent. The realm of subtle materiality is occupied by the BRAHMA and other gods, whose minds are perpetually absorbed in one of the four subtle-materiality meditative absorptions (RuPAVACARADHYANA). Rebirth in the realm of subtle materiality is the result of mastery of one or all of these four dhyAnas, and the beings residing there are refined enough that they require only the subtlest of material foundations for their consciousnesses. The immaterial realm is occupied by divinities who are entirely mental, no longer requiring even a subtle-material foundation for their ethereal states of mind. The divinities in the immaterial realm are perpetually absorbed in immaterial trance states, and rebirth there is the result of mastery of one or all of the immaterial dhyAnas (ARuPYAVACARADHYANA).
avadAna. (P. apadAna; T. rtogs par brjod pa; C. apotuona/piyu; J. ahadana or apadana/hiyu; K. ap'adana/piyu 阿波陀那/譬喩). In Sanskrit, "tales" or "narrative"; a term used to denote a type of story found in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist literature. The precise meaning of the word has been the subject of much discussion. In the Indian BrAhmanas and srauta literature, the term denotes either something that is sacrificed or a portion of a sacrifice. The term avadAna was originally thought to mean "something cut off; something selected" and was presumed to derive from the prefix ava- + the Sanskrit root √dA. Feer, who published a French translation of the AVADANAsATAKA in 1891, tentatively translated it as "légende, action héroïque," while noting that the Tibetans, the Chinese, and the Mongols all employed differing translations of the word as well. (The Chinese use a transcription, apotuona, as well as a translation, piyu, meaning "simile." The Tibetan rtogs brjod has been rendered as "judgment" or "moral legend"; literally, it means the presentation or expression of the realizations [of an adept]. The Mongolian equivalent is domok.) Feer's rendering of avadAna is closer to its meaning of "heroic action" in classical Indian works such as the RaghuvaMsa and the KumArasambhava. AvadAnas are listed as the tenth of the twelvefold (DVADAsAnGA) division of the traditional genres of Buddhist literature, as classified by compositional style and content. The total corpus of the genre is quite extensive, ranging from individual avadAnas embedded in VINAYA texts, or separate sutras in the SuTRAPItAKA, to avadAnas that circulated either individually or in avadAna collections. These stories typically illustrate the results of both good and bad KARMAN, i.e., past events that led to present circumstances; in certain cases, however, they also depict present events that lead to a prediction (VYAKARAnA) of high spiritual attainment in the future. AvadAnas are closely related to JATAKAs, or birth stories of the Buddha; indeed, some scholars have considered jAtakas to be a subset of the avadAna genre, and some jAtaka tales are also included in the AVADANAsATAKA, an early avadAna collection. AvadAnas typically exhibit a three-part narrative structure, with a story of the present, followed by a story of past action (karman), which is then connected by identifying the past actor as a prior incarnation of the main character in the narrative present. In contrast to the jAtakas, however, the main character in an avadAna is generally not the Buddha (an exception is Ksemendra's eleventh-century BodhisattvAvadAnakalpalatA) but rather someone who is or becomes his follower. Moreover, some avadAnas are related by narrators other than the Buddha, such as those of the AsOKAVADANA, which are narrated by UPAGUPTA. Although the avadAna genre was once dismissed as "edifying stories" for the masses, the frequent references to monks as listeners and the directives to monks on how to practice that are embedded in these tales make it clear that the primary audience was monastics. Some of the notations appended to the stories in sura's [alt. Aryasura; c. second century CE] JATAKAMALA suggest that such stories were also used secondarily for lay audiences. On the Indian mainland, both mainstream and MAHAYANA monks compiled avadAna collections. Some of the avadAnas from northwestern India have been traced from kernel stories in the MuLASARVASTIVADA VINAYA via other mainstream Buddhist versions. In his French translation of the AvadAnasataka, Feer documented a number of tales from earlier mainstream collections, such as the AvadAnasataka, which were reworked and expanded in later MahAyAna collections, such as the RatnAvadAnamAlA and the KalpadrumAvadAnamAlA, which attests to the durability and popularity of the genre. Generally speaking, the earlier mainstream avadAnas were prose works, while the later MahAyAna collections were composed largely in verse.
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.
Avara-saila-sangharama (Sanskrit) Avara-śaila-saṅghārāma [from avara western +śaila mountain + saṅghārāma monastery] A Buddhist school or monastery situated on the “western mountain,” in a place variously spelled Dhanakataka, Dhanyakataka, Dhanakstchaka, and Dhanakacheka, which according to Eitel was “built 600 BC, and deserted AD 600” (TG 44).
Avatamsaka Sutra (Sanskrit) Avataṃsaka Sutra The Flower Ornament Scripture or The Flower Adornment Scripture; a long and very profound Buddhist scripture, which Nagarjuna “brought back from the Realm of the Nagas” (adepts) (BCW 14:510). The basis for modern translations is the Chinese translation of Shikshananda (652-710). (BCW 14:285, 423; 6:100-1)
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.
avavAda. (P. ovAda; T. gdams ngag; C. jiaodaolun; J. kyodoron; K. kyodoron 教導論). In Sanskrit, "admonitions" or "instructions"; oral instructions that provide practical advice to a student. These may include instructions given to a monk or nun, or instructions on how to put into practice a particular doctrine or teaching. The term carries the connotation of advice drawn from experience in contrast to learning derived from books, although a true practitioner is said to be someone who can see all of the SuTRAs and sASTRAs as avavAda. The term often appears in compound with its near-synonym anusAsanī as "admonition and instruction" (avavAdAnusAsanī). The compound OVADAPAtIMOKKHA (S. *avavAdaprAtimoksa) is also used to refer to a foundational disciplinary code (PRATIMOKsA) handed down by the past buddha VIPAsYIN (P. Vipassī), which is believed to summarize the teachings fundamental to all the buddhas; it is found in the MAHAPADANASUTTANTA [DĪGHANIKAYA no. 14] and DHAMMAPADA v. 183: "Not doing anything evil,/Undertaking what is wholesome,/Purifying one's mind:/This is the teaching of the buddhas" (P. sabbapApassa akaranaM/kusalassupasampadA/sacittapariyodapanaM/etaM buddhAna sAsanaM). This verse has been widely incorporated into THERAVADA Buddhist rituals and ceremonies. According to the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, in the PRAJNAPARAMITA sutras, there are distinct avavAda for each stage of the bodhisattva path (MARGA) corresponding to the twenty-two stages of BODHICITTA.
Avesa. (T. 'bebs pa; C. aweishe; J. abisha; K. amisa 阿尾捨). In Sanskrit, "possession"; the possession of shamans and mediums by a spirit or divinity so they could serve as oracles. Specific rites are outlined in esoteric Buddhist materials to incite possession in young children of usually seven or eight years of age; once the children began to shake from their inhabitation by the possessing deity, they would be asked a series of questions regarding portents for the future. In China, the tantric master VAJRABODHI was said to have used two seven-year-old girls as oracles in the palace, who were claimed to have been possessed by two deceased princesses. In Tibet, some of the bodies (rten, sku rten) through which an oracle (lha) speaks attained considerable importance in the religious and even political affairs of the state; among them the GNAS CHUNG (Nechung) oracle, said to be the pre-Buddhist spirit PE HAR, who was tamed by PADMASAMBHAVA and tasked with protecting the Buddha's teaching, has the status of state oracle.
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).
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.
ba da zizai wo. (J. hachidai jizaiga; K. p'al tae chaje a 八大自在我). In Chinese, the "eight great types of autonomy of the self." In distinction to mainstream Buddhist teachings about the absence of a perduring self (ANATMAN), the Chinese recension of the MAHAYANA MAHAPARINIRVAnASuTRA teaches a doctrine of a "great self" (dawo, S. mahAtman) that is realized through enlightenment. According to the Chinese renderings, a buddha, having realized this great self, is capable of eight kinds of miraculous transformations (ba shenbian; ba zizai): (1) self-manifesting (he has the power to make his body appear as multiple emanations; nengshi yishen wei duoshen); (2) infinite enlargement (his physical body appears to fill the myriad world systems; shi yichenshen man daqian jie); (3) levitation and translocation (viz., to transport himself to remote places through space; dashen qingju yuandao); (4) incarnating into myriad species or categories of sentient beings (xian wulianglei changju); (5) intentional synesthesia (e.g., to see with his ears, to smell with his eyes, etc.; zhugen huyong); (6) attaining any ability imaginable, but without giving rise to the (conceited) thought of attainment (de yiqie fa wude xiang); (7) elaborating on the meaning of a single scriptural stanza for innumerable eons (before exhausting his knowledge and eloquence; shuo yiji yi jing wuliang jie); (8) pervading all of infinite space (shenbian zhuchu youru xukong). Other MahAyAna scriptures outline similarly fantastic and dramatic depictions of greatly apotheosized buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas.
Baddha (Sanskrit) Baddha [from the verbal root bandh to bind, tie] Bound, tied, fixed; in Hinduism “bound by the fetters of existence, or evil” (Kapila). ” ‘Baddha’ differs from ‘Mukta’ in being encased as it were within these 36 Tatwams, while the other is free” (Subba Row, Theosophist 3:43). As a noun, used by Jains and Buddhists for that which binds or fetters the ray of the imbodied spirit.
baguan zhai. (S. astAngasamanvAgataM upavAsaM; P. atthangasamanAgataM uposathaM; T. yan lag brgyad dang ldan pa'i bsnyen gnas; J. hakkansai; K. p'algwan chae 八關齋). In Chinese, "eight-restrictions fast"; also known as bajie ("eight precepts"), bajie zhai ("eight-precepts fast"), bafenzhaijie ("eight-fold fasting precepts"), etc. This fast was held on specific days when the laity was expected to observe a temporary set of more restrictive moral precepts. For one day and night, the laity would leave their homes and keep eight precepts (AstAnGASAMANVAGATAn UPAVASAM; see sĪLA), as if they had entered the SAMGHA, effectively becoming monks or nuns for a day. According to the Chinese Buddhist calendar, the UPOsADHA days reserved for the eight-precepts fast were the eighth, fourteenth, fifteenth, twenty-third, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth of each month. The eight precepts prohibit (1) killing, (2) stealing, (3) engaging in sexual misconduct, (4) lying, (5) consuming intoxicants, (6) resting on a high or luxurious bed, (7) using makeup and perfumes and enjoying music and dance, and (8) eating at improper times. Monasteries sometimes handed out certificates to those laypeople who participated in the precepts ceremony. In Korea, the p'algwan chae (which in Korean is usually called the P'ALGWANHOE, or "eight-restrictions festival") became an important winter festival of thanksgiving held over two full-moon days of the eleventh lunar month; the festival combined indigenous religious practices propitiating the spirits of mountains and rivers with tributes to the memory of fallen warriors. In Tibet, important religious dignitaries customarily give the precepts to both ordained and lay followers before sunrise on days marking important festivals. See also UPAVASA; JINGDU SANMEI JING.
BAhiranidAna. In PAli, lit., the "Outer Origin," a work by BUDDHAGHOSA, conceived as a preface to his SAMANTAPASADIKA, his commentary on the VINAYA, considered by some to be his most important work. The BAhiranidAna recounts the early history of the dispensation (sASANA), from the Buddha's death through the convocation of the first three Buddhist councils and on to the recitation of the vinaya in Sri Lanka by MAHARIttHA during the reign of the Sinhalese king DEVANAMPIYATISSA. Although not technically a VAMSA, or "chronicle," the work is based on the same sources as the DĪPAVAMSA, seeking to establish the authenticity of the vinaya by tracing it back to its origins, before beginning the formal commentary upon it. A translation of the BahīranidAna appears in the Pali Text Society's English translation series as The Inception of Discipline.
Bahyanumeya-vada: (Skr.) A Hinayana Buddhist theory (vada), otherwise known as Sautran-tika, based upon a realist epistemology. It assumes the reality and independence of mind and object, which atter is inferred (anumeya) as being outside (bahya) consciousness and apprehended only when the sensory apparatus functions and certain physical conditions are fulfilled. -- K.F.L.
Bahyapratyaksa-vada: (Skr.) A Hinayana Buddhist theory (vada) of realism, otherwise known as Vaibhasika. It holds that objects exist outside (bahya) the mind and consciousness, but that they must be directly (pratyaksa) and not inferentially (cf. Bahyanumeya-vada) known. -- K.F.L.
bAhyArtha. (T. phyi don; C. waijing; J. gekyo; K. oegyong 外境). In Sanskrit, "external object"; referring specifically to sensory objects (AYATANA) that exist externally to the sensory consciousnesses (VIJNANA) that perceive them; the term is sometimes also seen in Sanskrit as bahirdhArtha. Such objects are knowable because there is some feature or quality (AKARA) that is specific to that particular sense datum. In the MADHYAMAKA school, the conventional existence of external objects is sometimes upheld, although they are said to lack intrinsic nature (SVABHAVA). External objects are built up out of atoms (PARAMAnU), the smallest particles, sometimes compared to a mote of dust. These indivisible atoms serve as building blocks that coalesce to create an external object large enough to have an impact on a sensory faculty (INDRIYA). In his critique of individual atoms in his MADHYAMAKALAMKARA, sANTARAKsITA describes three basic assertions about how this process happens: (1) different atoms are connected with one another; (2) the atoms are surrounded by external atoms of the same class, with interstices in between, each grounding the others' potential; they cohere and do not drift apart because of a reciprocal energy but do not touch each other; (3) there are no interstices at all between the atoms. In the YOGACARA school, external objects are presumed not to exist prior to and separate from the sensory consciousnesses that perceive them, and thus lack any intrinsic reality of their own. VASUBANDHU's VIMsATIKA presents the YogAcAra view that indivisible atoms of any type cannot form gross objects. The YogAcAra refutation is part of a larger project to demonstrate that Buddhist notions of causality are tenable only in the absence of external objects. According to this view, the conscious experience of apparent external objects is in fact the result of residual impressions (VASANA) left by earlier, similar experiences on an eighth consciousness, the storehouse-like subconscious (ALAYAVIJNANA).
Bailian jiao. (白蓮教). In Chinese, "White Lotus teachings." As with the BAILIAN SHE, this name was used frequently during the Ming dynasty to refer pejoratively to various religious teachings and magical techniques deemed heretical or traitorous by local officials and Buddhist leaders. No specific religious group, however, seems to coincide precisely with this appellation. The White Lotus teachings are nonetheless often associated with millenarian movements that began to appear during the Mongol Yuan dynasty. Religious groups associated with these movements compiled their own scriptures, known as "precious scrolls" (BAOJUAN), which spoke of the future buddha MAITREYA and the worship of Wusheng Laomu ("Eternal Venerable Mother").
Bailian she. (J. Byakurensha; K. Paengnyonsa 白蓮社). In Chinese, "White Lotus Society." In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the Chinese monk LUSHAN HUIYUAN assembled a group of 123 monks and laymen on LUSHAN and contemplated the image of the buddha AMITABHA; this group came to be known as the White Lotus Society. This name was also used by putatively heterodox lay Buddhist organizations that flourished during the Tang, Song, and early Yuan dynasties, as well as by monks mainly associated with the TIANTAI school. Inspired by Huiyuan's White Lotus Society and the repentance rituals of the Tiantai school, Mao Ziyuan (c. 1086-1166) constructed halls for repentance called White Lotus repentance halls and promoted the practice of NIANFO (see BUDDHANUSMṚTI) as a means of maintaining the five moral precepts (PANCAsĪLA). Mao Ziyuan's White Lotus Society was further popularized by the monk Pudu (1255-1330), who compiled an influential treatise known as the Lushan lianzong baojian ("Precious Mirror of the Lotus Tradition at Mt. Lu"). Despite ongoing governmental suppression, he and many other lay followers established cloisters and worship halls all over the country. There seems to be little if any connection between these later organizations and that of Lushan Huiyuan. These lay organizations primarily focused on the recitation of the name of AmitAbha in hopes of ensuring rebirth in his PURE LAND. During the early Ming, the name White Lotus Society was frequently associated with rebellious millenarian movements that worshipped the future buddha MAITREYA, which prompted the Ming government to ban any use of the name. Another more common name for these millenarian movements was BAILIAN JIAO. White Lotus societies also flourished in Korea during the Koryo dynasty, where they were called Paengnyon kyolsa (White Lotus retreat societies). Especially well known was the White Lotus Society (Paengnyonsa) established at Mandoksa in 1211 by WoNMYO YOSE (1163-1240), the mid-Koryo revitalizer of the Korean CH'oNT'AE (TIANTAI) tradition and a colleague of POJO CHINUL. See also JIESHE.
Baimasi. (J. Hakubaji; K. Paengmasa 白馬寺). In Chinese, "White Horse Monastery"; according to tradition, the oldest Buddhist monastery in China; putatively founded in 75 CE in the Chinese capital of Luoyang by MINGDI (r. 58-75), emperor of the Latter Han dynasty. According to a well-known legend found in the preface to the SISHI'ER ZHANG JING ("Sutra in Forty-Two Sections"), in 67 CE, Emperor Ming had a dream of a radiant golden figure flying through the air, whom his vassals later told him was the Buddha. He subsequently sent envoys to the Western Regions (Xiyu, viz., Central Asia), where this divine being was presumed to reside. The envoys were said to have returned three years later with a copy of the Sishi'er zhang jing and two foreign missionaries, KAsYAPA MATAnGA and Zhu Falan (Dharmaratna). The emperor ordered that a monastery be built on their behalf in the capital of Luoyang; this monastery was named Baimasi because the two Indian monks were said to have arrived in China with scriptures carried on white horses. This legend probably originated in the third century as a means of legitimizing the apocryphal Sishi'er zhang jing. A second founding narrative, which occurs in the GAOSENG ZHUAN ("Biographies of Eminent Monks"), begins with a monastery in India of the same name. According to this legend, a king ordered the destruction of all Buddhist monasteries, but spared one monastery because in his dream he saw a white horse circumambulating the monastery and took this to be an auspicious omen. This king then renamed the monastery White Horse monastery, and, in a reversal of his previous order, began establishing new monasteries throughout India. Emperor Ming thus imitated him in building his own White Horse Monastery in Luoyang. Baimasi quickly became a center for Buddhist study and practice, housing both foreign and Chinese monks. During the Wei dynasty (220-265 CE), SAMGHAVARMAN stayed there; during the Six Dynasties period (420-589 CE), DHARMARAKsA, Dharmaruci, and BuddhasAnta (d.u.); and during the Tang dynasty, BUDDHATRATA. During the Five Dynasties period (the transition from the Tang to the Song dynasties), Baimasi flourished as a residence for CHAN masters, and during the later Jin dynasty (936-947 CE), it also served as a center for the HUAYAN ZONG. The monastery burned down during the early twelfth century but was rebuilt in 1175 CE by the Jin-dynasty prince Sengyan and was extensively renovated during both the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Baiyi Guanyin. (S. PAndaravAsinī; T. Gos dkar mo; J. Byakue kannon; K. Paegŭi Kwanŭm 白衣觀音). In Chinese, "White-Robed GUANYIN (Perceiver of Sounds)." An esoteric form of the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEsVARA (known as Guanyin in Chinese), who became a popular focus of cultic worship in East Asia. The cult of Baiyi Guanyin began around the tenth century in China, whence it spread to Korea and Japan. Several indigenous Chinese scriptures praise the compassion and miraculous powers of White-Robed Guanyin. According to the various Baiyi Guanyin APOCRYPHA, she was also a grantor of children, as was Songzi Guanyin. Many testimonials from literati are appended to these scriptures, which attest to Baiyi Guanyin's ability to ensure the birth of sons, although it is also said that she granted children of both genders. Like many other Guanyin-related texts, the White-Robed Guanyin texts frequently invoke esoteric Buddhist terminology such as DHARAnĪ, MUDRA, and MANTRA. Beginning in the tenth century, Baiyi Guanyin's cult was associated with the founding of temples, as well as the production of countless images commissioned by both religious and laity. Many worshippers, especially monastics and royalty, had visions of White-Robed Guanyin. These dreams range from being promised children in return for a residence (such as the Upper Tianzhu monastery outside of Hangzhou, later also associated with Princess MIAOSHAN), to enlarging existing structures or even restoring them once a vision or dream of White-Robed Guanyin occurred. In such visions and dreams, White-Robed Guanyin appeared as a female, thus differentiating this form of the bodhisattva from SHUIYUE GUANYIN (Moon-in-the-Water Avalokitesvara), who was similarly dressed in a white robe, but appeared as a male. Some miracle tales highlighting the donors' names were also produced in honor of Baiyi Guanyin, lending further credence to the accounts of the bodhisattva's miraculous powers.
Ba Khin, U. (1899-1971). Influential lay Burmese teacher of insight meditation (S. VIPAsYANA; P. VIPASSANA). Born to a working-class family in Rangoon, U Ba Khin was educated in Christian middle and high schools. Married with six children, he began his career as a government clerk during the British colonial period, later becoming accountant general of independent Burma. He began practicing vipassanA in 1937 under the guidance of Saya Thet Gyi, a lay meditation teacher and disciple of the Burmese monk LEDI SAYADAW. He explored several styles of tranquility (P. samatha, S. sAMATHA) and insight meditation and eventually developed his own technique of vipassanA by drawing on his own experiences. The method he devised focuses on physical sensations (VEDANA), beginning at the crown of the head and continuing throughout the body; his approach is considered to be especially effective in producing states of deep concentration (SAMADHI). In 1941, U Ba Khin met the famous meditation teacher Webu Sayadaw, who encouraged him to teach his meditation technique to others. He began teaching small groups informally and eventually, while accountant general, taught vipassanA to his staff. Under his influence, the government of Burma instituted a policy of encouraging civil servants to practice meditation as part of their daily routine. In 1952, U Ba Khin established the International Meditation Centre in Rangoon, where he taught meditation and began holding intensive ten-day vipassanA retreats on a regular basis. After his retirement from government service in 1953, he devoted all of his time to promoting vipassanA practice. He also played an active role in the sixth Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, SIXTH), held in Rangoon from 1954-1956. His style of vipassanA is one of the most widely disseminated techniques internationally, and his disciples include such well-known meditation teachers as S. N. Goenka.
BAmiyAn. (C. Fanyanna; J. Bon'enna; K. Pomyonna 梵衍那) (The Chinese is probably a transcription of the Indian equivalency Bayana). A complex of several hundred Buddhist caves situated in the heart of the Hindu Kush mountains, some seventy miles northwest of the modern city of Kabul, Afghanistan; renowned for two massive standing buddhas carved into the cliff face, which were the largest in the world. The BAmiyAn Valley was a thriving Buddhist center of the LOKOTTARAVADA school from the second through roughly the ninth century CE, until Islam entered the region. Scholars tend to divide the valley into three sections: the western section contained a giant standing buddha (some 177 feet, or fifty-five meters high) and numerous painted caves; the eastern section contained a second large-scale buddha statue (some 124 feet, or thirty-eight meters high); and the central section is marked by a smaller buddha image. The seventh-century Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG described a giant reclining buddha at BAmiyAn, although no archaeological evidence of such a statue has been found. The series of caves excavated between the massive statues vary in size and layout and include both monastic residences (VIHARA) as well as cave basilicas perhaps used for worship by passing monks and traveling merchants. The diversity of artistic styles found at BAmiyAn, like those in the caves at DUNHUANG, is a reminder of its crucial position along the ancient SILK ROAD. In 1222 CE, the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan defaced some of the statues, and the Taliban of Afghanistan shelled the two large buddha statues and destroyed them in March 2001. In 2003, the archaeological remains of the BAmiyAn Valley were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Bandhudatta. (C. Pantoudaduo; J. Banzudatta; K. Pandudalta 槃頭達多). A teacher of KUMARAJĪVA, the scholar-monk who eventually became the preeminent translator of Indian Buddhist materials into Chinese. KumArajīva's mother became a Buddhist nun when her son was seven years old. She also had her son ordained at that time and two years later took him to Kashmir to further his studies. There, over the course of the next three years, he was instructed in the AGAMAs and SARVASTIVADA doctrine by Bandhudatta. KumArajīva later invited his teacher to KUCHA, where he sought to convert him to the MAHAYANA. Bandhudatta initially resisted, comparing the doctrine of suNYATA to an invisible garment worn by a madman, but KumArajīva was eventually able to win him over.
baojuan. (寶巻). In Chinese, "precious scrolls" or "treasure scrolls"; a genre of scripture produced mainly by popular religious sects with Buddhist orientations during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The baojuan are believed to have been divinely revealed to select beings who often became the leaders of these new religious movements (see also T. GTER MA). The earliest extant baojuan, which focuses on the worship of MAITREYA, the future buddha, is dated 1430, shortly after the fall of the Yuan dynasty. Lo Qing (1442-1527), a lay Buddhist, founded the Wuwei jiao ("Teachings of Noninterference"), for instance, for which he produced "five books and six volumes" of baojuan. Precious scrolls seem to share certain mythological elements, such as a new cosmogony of both the creation and demise of the world. Many of them also expound a new soteriology based on CHAN meditation and Daoist alchemy. The baojuan genre seems to be an evolutionary development from the earlier Buddhist vernacular narrative known as "transformation texts" (BIANWEN). Like bianwen, the baojuan were also employed for both popular entertainment and religious propagation.
Baolin zhuan. (J. Horinden; K. Porim chon 寶林傳). In Chinese, "Chronicle of the Bejeweled Forest (Monastery)"; an important early lineage record of the early Chinese CHAN tradition, in ten rolls; also known as Da Tang Shaozhou Shuangfeng shan Caoxi Baolin zhuan or Caoxi Baolin zhuan. The title refers to Baolinsi, the monastery in which HUINENG, the legendary "sixth patriarch" (LIUZU) of Chan, resided. The Baolin zhuan was compiled by the obscure monk Zhiju (or Huiju) in 801, and only an incomplete version of this text remains (rolls 7, 9, 10 are no longer extant). As one of the earliest extant records of the crucial CHAN legend of patriarchal succession (cf. FASI, ZUSHI), the Baolin zhuan offers a rare glimpse into how the early Chan tradition conceived of the school's unique place in Buddhist history. Texts like the Baolin zhuan helped pave the way for the rise of a new genre of writing, called the "transmission of the lamplight records" (CHUANDENG LU), which provides much more elaborate details on the principal and collateral lineages of the various Chan traditions. The Baolin zhuan's list of patriarchs includes the buddha sAKYAMUNI, twenty-eight Indian patriarchs beginning with MAHAKAsYAPA down to BODHIDHARMA (the Baolin Zhuan is the earliest extant text to provide this account), and the six Chinese patriarchs: Bodhidharma, HUIKE, SENGCAN, DAOXIN, HONGREN, and HUINENG (the Baolin zhuan's entries on the last three figures are no longer extant). For each patriarch, the text gives a short biography and transmission verse (GATHA).
Baomingsi. (保明寺). In Chinese, "Protecting the Ming [Dynasty] Monastery"; located in West Huang Village in the Western Hills near Beijing and closely associated with the Ming imperial family. According to legend, the monastery was established by the Ming dynasty emperor Yingzong (r. 1457-1464 CE) in 1457 CE, in honor of a nun known only by her surname, Lü. While the Ming emperor was being held captive by the Mongols, Nun Lü, who by that time had died, is said to have provided him with food and drink to keep him alive. After he returned to power in 1457 CE, the Yingzong Emperor gave the nun the posthumous imperial rank of "imperial younger sister" (yumei) and built a convent in her honor. Due to her rank, Nun Lü subsequently came to be called an "imperial aunt" (huanggu), and the monastery was renamed Huanggusi. Later in the Ming, its original name Baomingsi was restored. Baomingsi benefited from its close relationship to Ming royalty. During the Chenghua reign era of the Ming (1465-1487 CE), a petition was made for it to receive an imperially bestowed plaque, which was eventually granted during the reign of the Xiaozong emperor (r. 1488-1505 CE). This bestowal brought the monastery imperial protection and exemption from taxes and corvée labor. During the reign of the Jiajing emperor (r. 1507-1567 CE), a period during which Buddhist monasteries and convents were severely persecuted, the emperor spared Baomingsi because of its patronage by two empress dowagers: his own and his predecessor's mothers. A bell was cast for the Guanyin Hall of Baomingsi during the reign of the Longqing emperor (r. 1537-1572 CE) commemorating Nun Lü. The inscriptions on the bell include one commemorating the date of its casting. The other inscription is a list of more than a hundred donors, headed by Empress Dowager Cisheng, further legitimizing the relationship of Baomingsi with the Ming imperial family.
Baotang Wuzhu. (J. Hoto Muju: K. Podang Muju 保唐無住) (714-774). Chinese monk in the early CHAN school, who is considered the founder of the BAOTANG ZONG during the Tang dynasty. Baotang is the name of the monastery where Wuzhu resided (located in present-day Sichuan province). Wuzhu is said to have attained awakening through the influence of Chen Chuzhang (d.u.), a lay disciple of the monk Hui'an (582-799; a.k.a. Lao'an); Chen was thought to be an incarnation of the prototypical Buddhist layman VIMALAKĪRTI. According to the LIDAI FABAO JI, Wuzhu attended a mass ordination performed by the Korean monk CHoNGJONG MUSANG at Jingzhong monastery in the city of Chengdu. Upon hearing Musang's instructions to practice in the mountains, Wuzhu left for Baiyaishan, where he remained for the next seven years (759-766). He subsequently went to the monastery Konghuisi, until he finally moved to Baotangsi, where he passed away in the summer of 774. Wuzhu was famous for his antinomian teachings that rejected all devotional practices, and is remembered as the founder of the eponymous BAOTANG ZONG. Wuzhu's successor was a lay disciple by the name of Tu Hongjian, deputy commander-in-chief and vice president of the Imperial Chancellery.
Baozang lun. (J. Hozoron; K. Pojang non 寶藏論). In Chinese, "Treasure Store Treatise," in one roll, attributed to SENGZHAO. The treatise comprises three chapters: (1) the broad illumination of emptiness and being, (2) the essential purity of transcendence and subtlety, and (3) the empty mystery of the point of genesis. Doctrinally, the Baozang lun resembles works associated with the NIUTOU ZONG of the CHAN school, such as the JUEGUAN LUN, XINXIN MING, and WUXIN LUN. In both terminology and rhetorical style, the treatise is also similar to the Daode jing and to texts that belong to the Daoist exegetical tradition known as Chongxuan. The author(s) of the Baozang lun thus sought to synthesize the metaphysical teachings of the Buddhist and Daoist traditions.
bar bskor. (barkor) In Tibetan, "middle circuit"; the middle of three main ritual circuits in the Tibetan capital of LHA SA, skirting the outer walls of the JO KHANG temple and its surrounding structures. The other two circuits are the "inner circuit" (nang bskor) going around the central statue in the Jo khang, and the "sanctuary circuit" (gling bskor) around what used to be the limits of the city of Lha sa. The bar bskor is a major center for religious activity in the city, drawing devotees from all parts of the Tibetan Buddhist world to walk, prostrate, pray, and perform offerings around the ambulatory. It is also an important social venue and marketplace, where individuals meander through street vendors' stalls and modern Chinese department stores. Since the late 1980s, the bar bskor has become the stage for political protest, merging civil expression with religious and social ritual space.
Bardo ::: In certain Buddhist traditions, a bardo is a transitional state of consciousness after death in which rebirths are worked out. There are actually specific practices that can be cultivated to work out the details of rebirths and how to deal with the liminal state immediately after the death of the physical body.
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.
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.
baxiang. (J. hasso; K. p'alssang 八相). In Chinese, "eight episodes"; eight archetypal events in the life of any buddha: (1) descending from TUsITA heaven to undertake his final life as a BODHISATTVA; (2) entering the womb of his mother for his final life; (3) birth; (4) renunciation (i.e., leaving home to become a monk); (5) subjugating MARA; (6) attaining enlightenment; (7) turning the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA) at the first sermon; (8) passing into PARINIRVAnA. Another common list is (1) descent from tusita heaven; (2) birth in LUMBINĪ; (3) seeing the four portents (CATURNIMITTA); (4) going forth into homelessness (PRAVRAJITA); (5) ascetic practice in the HimAlayas; (6) subjugating MAra beneath the BODHI TREE and attaining enlightenment; (7) turning the wheel of the dharma in the Deer Park (MṚGADAVA); (8) passing into parinirvAna beneath twin sALA trees. The lists may differ slightly, e.g., replacing subjugating MAra with gestation in the womb. These eight episodes are common themes in Buddhist art. See also TWELVE DEEDS OF A BUDDHA.
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.
Bayon. One of the most important Buddhist temples sites at ANGKOR THOM, the temple-city of the ancient Khmer kingdom; built by the Khmer king Jayavarman VII (r. 1181-c. 1220). The Bayon is a funerary temple located at the center of the Angkor Thom city complex. Constructed of sandstone and in the form of a terraced pyramid, the Bayon represents among other symbols Mt. SUMERU, the axis mundi of the Hindu-Buddhist universe. The temple is entered through four doorways, one on each side, that lead through galleries richly carved with bas-reliefs depicting scenes from contemporary life and Hindu mythology. The temple is crowned with fifty-two towers, the largest of which occupies the center and pinnacle of the structure. The four sides of every tower bear colossal guardian faces that are believed to be portraits of Jayavarman VII in the guise of the bodhisattva AVALOKITEsVARA. The Bayon is the first of Angkor's many temples specifically dedicated to a MAHAYANA Buddhist cult; those built earlier were exclusively Hindu in affiliation. Beneath the central tower is a chamber that once housed a buddha image protected by a hooded cobra. This image was situated above a receptacle intended to receive the king's ashes at death. The Bayon thus combines the function and architectural elements of a Hindu temple and a Buddhist STuPA, while Jayavarman's identification with Avalokitesvara was but an extension of Angkor's long-standing Hindu devarAjan (divine king) cult.
buddhistic ::: a. --> Same as Buddhist, a.
buddhist ::: n. --> One who accepts the teachings of Buddhism. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Buddha, Buddhism, or the Buddhists.
bdud. (dü). In Tibetan, "demon"; a class of pre-Buddhist harmful spirits, who are said to cause fits of unconsciousness and other illnesses, and are counteracted through a glud (lü) ceremony known as the brgya bzhi (gyashi). The bdud are depicted as black wrathful gods, carrying a snare (S. pAsa, T. zhags pa) or notched staff (T. khram shing) and riding black horses. There are also female bdud, known as bdud mo. The bdud are classified according to numerous schemata that include a different deity as the king. In BON texts, they are commonly grouped in classes of four or five: the sa (earth) bdud in the east, rlung (wind) bdud in the north, me (fire) bdud in the west and chu (water) bdud in the south; sometimes a fifth class, the lha (god) bdud, is added at the zenith. Bdud is also used as the Tibetan translation of MARA, evil personified.
Beal, Samuel. (1825-1889). British translator of Chinese Buddhist works. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, he worked as a chaplain in the British navy and rector of various Anglican parishes, including Wark and Northumberland. In 1877, Beal was appointed as lecturer, and later professor, of Chinese at University College, London, where he specialized in Chinese Buddhist materials. Beal is perhaps best known for his translations of the travelogues of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India, including FAXIAN (c. 399/337-422), Song Yun (c. 516-523), and XUANZANG (600/602-664). Especially influential was his translation of Xuanzang's travelogue DA TANG XIYU JI, which he rendered as Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World (two volumes, 1884). Beal's anthology of Chinese Buddhist texts, A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese (1872), includes translations of a wide range of important Buddhist texts. Beal also compiled one of the first Western-language catalogues of the Chinese Buddhist canon. Other books of his include The Romantic Legend of sAkya Buddha (1876) and Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as Dhammapada (1878).
bedagat ::: n. --> The sacred books of the Buddhists in Burmah.
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.
Beishan lu. (北山録). In Chinese, lit. "North Mountain Record"; a lengthy treatise in ten rolls, compiled by the Chinese monk Shenqing (d. 1361). This comprehensive treatise provides a detailed account of the formation of the world, the appearance of sages and sacred texts, and the history of Chinese thought. Among its many claims, the harmony of Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian thought and its harsh critique of the CHAN school's "transmission of the lamplight" (chuandeng; see CHUANDENG LU) theory were the most controversial and came under attack later by FORI QISONG.
benji. (J. honzai; K. ponje 本際). In Chinese, "point of genesis"; the term frequently appears in Buddhist and Chongxuan Daoist texts. Buddhist writers used the term to translate the Sanskrit terms BHuTAKOtI ("ultimate state"), purvakoti ("absolute beginning"), and KOtI ("end"), which all denote a sense of limit, end, or origin. The term benji was also sometimes used as a synonym for NIRVAnA and for "absolute truth" (PARAMARTHASATYA); in certain texts, it could also refer to the origin of SAMSARA. Other terms, such as zhenji ("apex of truth") or shiji ("apex of reality"), are also used in place of benji as expressions for ultimate truth.
benjue. (J. hongaku; K. pon'gak 本覺). In Chinese, lit. "original enlightenment"; also sometimes translated as "inherent" or "intrinsic" enlightenment. The term was apparently coined in China and explicated in many Buddhist APOCRYPHA, such as the DASHENG QIXIN LUN and the KŬMGANG SAMMAE KYoNG. The Dasheng qixin lun synthesized the earlier Indian theories of TATHAGATAGARBHA and ALAYAVIJNANA, which came to stand for two different aspects of the one mind (YIXIN). The Dasheng qixin lun also posited a difference between attaining awakening through a process of cultivation known as "actualizing enlightenment" (SHIJUE) and the inherent purity of the mind represented by the term "original enlightenment" (benjue). From the standpoint of the buddhas and sages, the mind of the ordinary sentient being is seen as being inherently endowed with the tathAgatagarbha, the embryo of buddhahood and thus intrinsically in a state of "original enlightenment" (benjue). From the standpoint of sentient beings, however, the foundation of that same mind is the AlayavijNAna, which, as a storehouse of a seemingly infinite number of seeds or potencies (BĪJA) of past unwholesome deeds, is defiled and thus in need of purification through a process of "actualizing enlightenment" (shijue). Once that actualization process is completed, however, one realizes that the enlightenment achieved through cultivation is in fact identical to the enlightenment that is innate, viz., "original enlightenment" (benjue). Hence, the difference between these two types of enlightenment is ultimately a matter of perspective: the buddhas and sages see the mind as the innately pure tathAgatagarbha and thus originally enlightened, while ordinary persons (PṚTHAGJANA) see the mind as defiled and thus needing purification through the process of actualizing enlightenment. See also HONGAKU.
Bezeklik. In Uighur, "Place of Paintings"; an archeological site in Central Asia with more than seventy cave temples unique for their Uighur Buddhist wall paintings and inscriptions. Situated near the ruins of the ancient Uighur capital of Gaochang (Kharakhoja) and east of the modern city of TURFAN (in China's Xinjiang province), the Bezeklik caves were in use from roughly the fourth to the twelfth centuries CE. In addition to the extensive Buddhist presence in the caves, scholars have also found evidence of Manichaean Christian influence at the site. Nearby cave complexes include Toyuk and Sangim. In 1905, the German explorer Albert von Le Coq visited the site and removed many of its painted wall murals so that they could be sent back to Europe for study and safekeeping. Ironically, many of the murals von Le Coq removed were destroyed during the Allied bombing of Berlin during World War II. What remains of his collection is now housed in museums in Berlin.
Bhadravihara (Sanskrit) Bhadravihāra [from bhadra auspicious, blessed + vihāra temple] The name of a Buddhist monestary. H. P. Blavatsky writes: “the Monastery of the Sages or Bodhisattvas. A certain Vihara or Matham in Kanyakubdja” (TG 55).
Bhante ::: A polite particle used to refer to Buddhist monastics in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition. It is used in a gender-neutral manner but translates as "Venerable Sir" from Pali.
Bhava (Sanskrit) Bhava [from the verbal root bhū to be, become] Being; coming into existence, birth, production, origin; worldly existence, the world. As used in Buddhist literature, the continuity of becoming, one of the links in the twelvefold chain of causation (nidanas), therefore also birth. As the third nidana, bhava is the karmic agent which leads every new sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence in the trailokya and gatis.
bhikshu. ::: hindu or buddhist monk; religious mendicant
Bhumi (Sanskrit) Bhūmi [from the verbal root bhū to become, grow into] The earth, land, ground; position, posture, attitude; metaphorically a step, degree, or stage in yoga, the Buddhists enumerating ten or more.
Boddhisatva Vow ::: Although this can mean different things to specific Buddhist traditions, it is used on this site to refer to the vow made to all permutations of "self" as part of the decision to engage in the actitivies of a Bodhisattva.
Bodhisattva: Sanskrit for existence in wisdom. In Buddhist terminology, one who has gone through the ten stages (dasa-bhumi —q.v.) to spiritual perfection and is qualified to enter Nirvana and become a Buddha, but prefers to remain a Buddha-to-be in order to work for the salvation and deification of all beings.
Bodhisattva: (Skr.) "Existence (sattva) in a state of wisdom (bodhi)", such as was attained by Gautama Buddha (s.v.); a Buddhist wise and holy man. -- K.F.L.
Bodhisattva ::: Without delving too deeply into Buddhist philosophy, a Bodhisattva can be thought of as a being that has attained at least some level of enlightenment and has made the compassionate decision to continue causally in the phenomenal world in order to help raise all other beings from states of suffering toward realization and to help elevate and evolve society for the betterment of all beings.
Bodhi Tree or Bo Tree The tree of wisdom or knowledge; the tree (Pippala or Ficus religiosa) “under which Sakyamuni meditated for seven years and then reached Buddhaship. It was originally 400 feet high, it is claimed; but when Hiouen-Tsang saw it, about the year 640 of our era, it was only 50 feet high. Its cuttings have been carried all over the Buddhist world and are planted in front of almost every Vihara or temple of fame in China, Siam, Ceylon, and Tibet” (TG 59).
Bön: A pre-Buddhist, animistic and Shamanistic religion of Tibet.
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.
bonze ::: n. --> A Buddhist or Fohist priest, monk, or nun.
Boodhasp (Chaldean) “An alleged Chaldean; but in esoteric teaching a Buddhist (a Bodhisattva), from the East, who was the founder of the esoteric school of Neo-Sabeism, and whose secret rite of baptism passed bodily into the Christian rite of the same name. For almost three centuries before our era, Buddhist monks overran the whole country of Syria, made their way into the Mesopotamian valley and visited even Ireland” (TG 61).
boodhist ::: n. --> Same as Buddhist.
Bosatsu: In Japanese Buddhist terminology, the equivalent of Bodhisattva (q.v.).
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.
Buddhachchhaya (Sanskrit) Buddhacchāyā [from buddha awakened one + chāyā shadow] The shadow of the Buddha; during certain commemorative Buddhist celebrations, an image said to have appeared in the temples and in a certain cave visited by Hiuen-Tsang (c. 602 – 664), the famous Chinese traveler (IU 1:600-01).
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.
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&
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.
Bumapa (Tibetan) [possibly dbu ma pa (u-ma-pa) translation of Sanskrit madhyamaka or madhyamika the school of Buddhist philosophy which follows Nagarjuna] “A school of men, usually a college of mystic students” (TG 69).
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.
Chaitya (Sanskrit) Caitya [from the verbal root cit to think, perceive] The individual soul; also a funeral monument or memorial, often containing the ashes of the deceased. Sometimes with Buddhists, a sacred building containing a revered image.
Chakravartin (Sanskrit) Cakravartin [from cakra wheel, cycle + vartin turning, one who governs] Sovereign of the world, universal ruler; a title applied to several Hindu emperors, but referring particularly to Vishnu, who in the treta yuga in the form of a universal monarch protected the three worlds. At the end of kali yuga, legend states that Vishnu will appear again under his form of the Kalki-avatara, or Maitreya as the Buddhists say, reforming or doing away with the wicked and inaugurating a realm of spirituality and righteousness.
Chandragupta (Sanskrit) Candragupta The invisible moon, the secret or concealed moon, moon-protected. The name of a celebrated king regarded as the founder of the Maurya dynasty of Magadha, and grandfather of the famous Buddhist king Asoka.
Chang Heng-ch'u: (Chang Tsai, Chang Tzu-hou, 1021-1077) Was a typical Confucian government official and teacher. When young, he was interested in military strategy. He studied the Chung Yung (Golden Mean) at the advice of a prominent scholar, and went on to Taoist and Buddhist works. But he finally returned to the Confucian classics, explored their meanings and discussed them with the Ch'eng brothers. His works called Chang Heng-ch'u Hsien-sheng Ch'uan-chi (complete works of Master Chang Heng-ch'u) are indispensable to the study of the Neo-Confucian (li hsueh) movement. -- W.T.C.
Cheta or Che-ti (Chinese) Used in Chinese Buddhist works in reference to the famous Saptaparna Cave mentioned by a number of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims and writers, such as Fa-hian and Hiuen-Tsang. This cave is supposed to be one of the spots where the brilliant shadow of Gautama Buddha may still be seen on the walls of the cave at certain times by those who are fit and ready to perceive it. It is stated that in this famous cave, Gautama Buddha used to meditate and teach his arhats and disciples.
Chhanmuka (Sanskrit) Chanmūka “A great Bodhisattva with the Northern Buddhists, famous for his ardent love of Humanity; regarded in the esoteric schools as a Nirmanakaya” (TG 80).
Chhinnamasta Tantrika (Sanskrit) Chinnamastā Tāntrika [from chinna severed + masta head] Buddhist tantric sect named for the goddess Chhinnamasta, represented with a decapitated head. In their highest initiation, the adept “must ‘cut off his own head with the right hand, holding it in the left.’ Three streams of blood gush out from the headless trunk. One of these is directed into the mouth of the decapitated head . . .; the other is directed toward the earth as an offering of the pure, sinless blood to mother Earth; and the third gushes toward heaven, as a witness for the sacrifice of ‘self-immolation.’ Now, this had a profound Occult significance which is known only to the initiated . . .” (BCW 4:265-6).
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.
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).
Chitta-smriti-upasthana (Sanskrit) Citta-smṛti-upasthāna [from citta intelligence, thought, knowledge + smṛti remembrance + upasthāna placing before oneself, a following after, pursuit] Placing before oneself the knowledge of remembrance; in Buddhist literature “keeping ever in mind the transitory character of man’s life, and the incessant revolution of the wheel of existence” (TG 324).
Christos(Greek) Christos or "Christ" is a word literally signifying one who has been "anointed." This is a directreference, a direct allusion, to what happened during the celebration of the ancient Mysteries. Unction oranointing was one of the acts performed during the working of the rites of those ancient Mysteries in thecountries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The Hebrew word for an anointed one is mashiahh -"messiah" is a common way of misspelling the Hebrew word -- meaning exactly the same thing as theGreek word Christos.Each human being is an incarnation, an imbodiment, of a ray of his own inner god -- the divinity living inthe core of the core of each one. The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call it the ChristImmanent, the immanent Christos, and they are right as far as they go, but they do not carry the thoughtfar enough. Mystically speaking, the Christos is the deathless individuality; and when the strivingpersonal ego becomes united permanently with this stainless individuality, the resultant union is thehigher ego, "the living Christ" -- a Christ among men, or as the Buddhists would say, a human ormanushya-buddha.
Chutuktu, Hutukhtu (Mongolian) Also Khutukhtu, Houtouktou, etc. Saintly; same as the Tibetan tulku or chutuktu and the Chinese huo-fo (living buddha), rendered into Chinese by the ideographs tsai lai jen (the man who comes again, the one who returns), identic in meaning with the Buddhist tathagata. A high initiate or adept; those individuals who are, or are supposed to be, incarnations of a bodhisattva or some lower buddha; although these so-called incarnations may be not actual reimbodiments in the strict sense, but rather what may be described as overshadowings by a buddhic or buddha-power. The chutuktu is able, upon leaving his body at death, consciously to seek reimbodiment almost immediately in some child newly born, or at the moment of birth. Blavatsky states that it is commonly believed that there are “generally five manifesting and two secret Chutuktus among the high lamas” (TG 85).
Coilas ::: (Most often spelled Kailas). One of the highest and most rugged mountains of the Himalayan range, located in the southwestern part of China. It is an important holy site both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva and also regard it as the abode of Kubera, and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it with Mount Sumeru, cosmic centre of the universe.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
coilas ::: (Most often spelled Kailas.) "One of the highest and most rugged mountains of the Himalayan range, located in the southwestern part of China. It is an important holy site both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva and also regard it as the abode of Kubera, and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it with Mount Sumeru, cosmic centre of the universe.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Contemplation ::: On this site contemplation refers to residing within non-dual awareness. This is the state of consciousness being attuned to the Causal and is a goal of many meditative practices and several Tibetan Buddhist lineages such as Dzogchen.
cycle of reincarnation A term coined by {Ivan Sutherland} ca. 1970 to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose {peripheral} hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main {CPU}, at which point the cycle begins again. Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in {graphics-processor} ({blitter}) design, and at least one or two in communications and {floating-point} processors. Also known as "the Wheel of Life", "the Wheel of Samsara" and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-16)
cycle of reincarnation ::: A term coined by Ivan Sutherland ca. 1970 to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again.Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in graphics-processor (blitter) design, and at least one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also known as the Wheel of Life, the Wheel of Samsara and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea.[Jargon File] (1994-11-16)
dagoba ::: n. --> A dome-shaped structure built over relics of Buddha or some Buddhist saint.
Dagoba (Singhalese) A dome-shaped structure (stupa) built over relics of Buddha or Buddhist saints.
Dakini ::: A female wisdom entity in Tibetan Buddhist and Tantric traditions.
Damaru ::: A small drum used in Tibetan Buddhist practices. Some forms of it are made from human skulls.
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.”
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.
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.
Deva ::: An being in Buddhist tradition that entails a higher level of understanding and power than human consciousness. Associated with minor gods in other systems and can be considered an evolved form of humanity's current state.
Devasena (Sanskrit) Devasena A Buddhist arhat; the feminine, Devasenā, is a host of spiritual or celestial beings, and a name given to Vach as an aspect of Sarasvati, goddess of occult wisdom.
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.
Duodenary (or Dodecad) The number 12, or a group of 12. A most important number in cosmic symbology, as in the 12 signs of the zodiac, the 12 apostles, the 12 great gods of Olympus and other theogonies, the 12 sons of Jacob, and 12 months of the year. The Olympian gods are six male and six female, showing dual aspects of each of the six rays of the logos (not including the synthesizing seventh); and the signs of the zodiac in astrology are similarly divided into masculine and feminine. In Buddhist cosmogony are the 12 nidanas — the chief causes of manifested existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes, ending on this our physical plane. In theosophy the 12 globes, principles, etc., are distributed on seven planes, five on the three arupa planes, and seven on the four rupa planes.
Dzyan: The Tibetan equivalent of the Buddhist term dhyana (q.v.).
Ekasloka-Sastra (Sanskrit) Ekaśloka-śāstra [from eka one + śloka stanza + śāstra scripture] A Buddhist mystical work written by Nagarjuna, called in Chinese the Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun.
Ephesus was one of the foci of the universal secret doctrine, a laboratory whence sprang light derived from the quintessence of Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Chaldean philosophy (IU 2:155). It was such in the early days of Christianity, and from it spread that Gnosis to which the Church was later so bitter an antagonist. It was “famous for its great metaphysical College where Occultism (Gnosis) and Platonic philosophy were taught in the days of the Apostle Paul. . . . It was at Ephesus where was the great College of the Essenes and all the lore the Tanaim had brought from the Chaldees” (TG 114).
Eros: (Gr.) 1. Possessive desire or love, commonly erotic. 2. In Platonic thought, the driving force of life aspiring to the absolute Good; hence the motive underlying education, fine art, and philosophy. The connotation of aesthetic fascination, impersonality, and intense desire is retained in Plato's use of the term. Hence Eros is to be distinguished from the Indian Bhakti (selfless devotion), the Buddhist Metta (disinterested benevolence), the Confucian Jen (humanity, charity), and Ai (personal love), and the Christian Agapao (sacrificial, protective brotherly love), and Phileo (personal affection or fondness). -- W.L.
Every incarnate buddha lives and works in the fourth or lowest buddhakshetra, as Gautama Buddha did; but at the same time, and more particularly when he has laid aside the physical body, he can live and work at will in the next higher buddhakshetra as a nirmanakaya; again as a dhyani-bodhisattva in his higher intermediate spiritual-psychological principle, he can at will function in the next higher buddhakshetra; while last, the dhyani-buddha within him lives and does its own sublime labor on the highest buddhakshetras as a dhyani-buddha. Here lies the true explanation of the many apparently conflicting statements made about the various kinds of buddhas and their various duties or functions, as found in the Buddhist scriptures, especially in the Mahayana writings of Central and Northern Asia.
Financial support for the project was provided by the Numata Fund in Buddhist Studies and the 14th Dalai Lama Fund in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies; the UCLA Academic Senate Faculty Research Grant Program; the UCLA International Institute; the University of Michigan Institute for the Study of Buddhist Traditions; and the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. A generous supplemental grant to help complete the project was provided by Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (America).
“First it [the light of the Logos] is the life, or the Mahachaitanyam of the cosmos; that is one aspect of it; secondly, it is force, and in this aspect it is the Fohat of the Buddhist philosophy; lastly, it is wisdom, in the sense that it is the Chichakti [Chichchakti] of the Hindu philosophers. All these three aspects are . . . combined in our conception of the Gayatri” (N on BG 90).
fohist ::: n. --> A Buddhist priest. See Fo.
Furthermore, the universe is a social order, and nothing can stand by itself. At the same time, everything has its opposite. "No two of the productions of creation are alike," and the Taoist doctrine of the equality of things must be rejected. In the eternal sequence of appearance and disappearance every creation is new, and the Buddhist doctrine of transmigration must be rejected.
Gedong, Gyelong, Gelung (Tibetan) dge slong (ge-long) Buddhist monk, translating Sanskrit bhikshu.
Gelukpas (Tibetan) dge lugs pa (ge-lug-pa, ge-luk-pa) Also Gelugpas. Model of virtue, or a contraction for earlier names of Tsong-kha-pa’s school dga’ ldan pa’i lugs, or dga’ ldan lugs pa, derived from the name of the great monastery of Ganden (dga ldan) which he founded. Those who follow the precepts inaugurated by the Tibetan Buddhist reformer Tsong-kha-pa (1358-1417).
guru purnima. ::: annual festival traditionally celebrated by hindus and buddhists &
has the X nature (From Zen Buddhist koans of the form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?") Common hacker construction for "is an X", used for humorous emphasis. "Anyone who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it truly has the {loser} nature!" See also {the X that can be Y is not the true X}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-11)
has the X nature ::: (From Zen Buddhist koans of the form Does an X have the Buddha-nature?) Common hacker construction for is an X, used for humorous emphasis. Anyone who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it truly has the loser nature! See also the X that can be Y is not the true X.[Jargon File] (1995-01-11)
Hdu-Byed (Tibetan) (hDu-bYed) ’du byed (du-je) Equivalent of Sanskrit samskara; many meanings, including the fourth in the Buddhist list of five skandhas.
henna ::: n. --> A thorny tree or shrub of the genus Lawsonia (L. alba). The fragrant white blossoms are used by the Buddhists in religious ceremonies. The powdered leaves furnish a red coloring matter used in the East to stain the hails and fingers, the manes of horses, etc.
The leaves of the henna plant, or a preparation or dyestuff made from them.
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.
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 ancient Egypt the various forms of the disk were favorite symbols, representing either the sun or moon. The deities specially connected with the solar disk were Amen-Ra, Aten, and Horus. In ancient India the disk or chakra was frequently associated with Vishnu; with the Buddhists it appears in the symbol of the wheel which every buddha is represented as turning or setting in motion.
In Buddhist works four degrees of training, in these cases equivalent to initiation, are given: 1) srotapatti (he who has entered the stream), one who has commenced the task of transmuting the forces of his nature to the purposes of his higher self; 2) sakridagamin (he who comes once more), one who will be reborn on earth only once again before reaching the lower degrees of nirvana; 3) anagamin (he who does not come), one who will no longer be reincarnated anymore, unless the choice be made to remain on earth in order to help humanity; and 4) arhat or arhan (the worthy one), one who at will can and does experience nirvana even during his life on earth.
In Buddhist writings Aruna is the name of 1) a Kshattriya king who sired Sikhi Buddha; 2) a class of gods; 3) a naga or serpent-king; 4) a king of Potali in Assaka who, being victorious in battle against the Kalinga king, won the latter’s four daughters; and 5) a pleasure ground near Anupama where the Buddha Vessabhu, a week after attaining enlightenment, delivered his first discourse.
In Buddhist writings, the Sutras are the second division of sacred works, generally known under the equivalent Pali term Suttas.
In China: the Wu Chi (Non-Being), T'ai Chi (Being), and, on occasion, Tao. In India: the Vedantic Atman (Self) and Brahman (the Real), the Buddhist Bhutatathata (indeterminate Thatness), Vignaptimatra (the One, pure, changeless, eternal consciousness grounding all appearances), and the Void of Nagarjuna.
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).
Indian Aesthetics: Art in India is one of the most diversified subjects. Sanskrit silpa included all crafts, fine art, architecture and ornament, dancing, acting, music and even coquetry. Behind all these endeavors is a deeprooted sense of absolute values derived from Indian philosophy (q.v.) which teaches the incarnation of the divine (Krsna, Shiva, Buddha), the transitoriness of life (cf. samsara), the symbolism and conditional nature of the phenomenal (cf. maya). Love of splendour and exaggerated greatness, dating back to Vedic (q.v.) times mingled with a grand simplicity in the conception of ultimate being and a keen perception and nature observation. The latter is illustrated in examples of verisimilous execution in sculpture and painting, the detailed description in a wealth of drama and story material, and the universal love of simile. With an urge for expression associated itself the metaphysical in its practical and seemingly other-worldly aspects and, aided perhaps by the exigencies of climate, yielded the grotesque as illustrated by the cave temples of Ellora and Elephanta, the apparent barbarism of female ornament covering up all organic beauty, the exaggerated, symbol-laden representations of divine and thereanthropic beings, a music with minute subdivisions of scale, and the like. As Indian philosophy is dominated by a monistic, Vedantic (q.v.) outlook, so in Indian esthetics we can notice the prevalence of an introvert unitary, soul-centric, self-integrating tendency that treats the empirical suggestively and by way of simile, trying to stylize the natural in form, behavior, and expression. The popular belief in the immanence as well as transcendence of the Absolute precludes thus the possibility of a complete naturalism or imitation. The whole range of Indian art therefore demands a sharing and re-creation of absolute values glimpsed by the artist and professedly communicated imperfectly. Rules and discussions of the various aspects of art may be found in the Silpa-sastras, while theoretical treatments are available in such works as the Dasarupa in dramatics, the Nrtya-sastras in dancing, the Sukranitisara in the relation of art to state craft, etc. Periods and influences of Indian art, such as the Buddhist, Kushan, Gupta, etc., may be consulted in any history of Indian art. -- K.F.L.
In exoteric Buddhist literature, Manjusri is looked upon as the god of wisdom because the title is personalized or anthropomorphized as an individual, but “It is erroneous to take literally the worship of the human Bodhisattvas, or Manjusri. It is true that, exoterically, the Mahayana school teaches adoration of these without distinction, and that Hiuen-Tsang speaks of some disciples of Buddha as being worshipped. But esoterically it is not the disciple or the learned Manjusri personally that received honours, but the divine Bodhisattvas and Dhyani Buddhas that animated . . . the human forms” (SD 2:34n).
In order to appreciate fully the meaning of the universe, man must comprehend Reason. This can be done by "investigating things to the utmost" (ko wu), that is, by "investigating the Reason of things to the utmost (ch'iung li)." When sufficient effort is made, and understanding naturally comes, one's nature will be realized and his destiny will be fulfilled, since "the exhaustive investigation of Reason, the full realization of one's nature, and the fulfillment of destiny are simultaneous." When one understands Reason, he will find that "All people are brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions," because all men have the same Reason in them. Consequently one should not entertain any distinction between things and the ego. This is the foundation of the Neo-Confucian ethics of jen, true manhood, benevolence or love. Both the understanding of Reason and the practice of jen require sincerity (ch'eng) and seriousness (ching) which to the Neo-Confucians almost assumed religious significance. As a matter of fact these have a certain correspondence with the Buddhist dhyana and prajna or meditation and insight. Gradually the Neo-Confucian movement became an inward movement, the mind assuming more and more importance.
Instead of khadga, the ancient Buddhist writers frequently used eka-sringa (one-horned), likewise signifying rhinoceros with the reference to the one-pointed spiritual self-interest and spiritual selfishness, of the prayeka buddhas.
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 Buddhist sutras, sakkayaditthi is the first chain to be broken upon entering the path; when the path is really entered this chain is in fact recognized to be nonexistent.
In the Dhammapada, one of the most respected texts of the Southern Buddhists, we read: “The self is the master of the self [atta hi attano natho], for who else could be its master?” (12:160); in the Mahaparinibbana-sutta (2:33, 35): attadipa attasarana, “be ye as those who have the self [atta] as their light [diva, also translated as island]; be ye as those who have the self [atta] as their refuge [sarana]” (cf RK Dh. 12, 45). Also we find Nagarjuna stating in his commentary on the Prajna-paramita: “Sometimes the Tathagata taught that the Atman verily exists, and yet at other times he taught that the Atman does not exist” (Chinese recension of Yuan Chung).
In the Mahabharata (Adi-parvan, ch 66) Airavata guards the eastern zone. Four such “elephants” (sometimes eight, each with its sakti or feminine potency) uphold the structure of the earth. The mighty four-tusked Airavata, therefore, represents one of the lokapalas (world protectors) — called by Buddhists maharajas (great kings) — which are the guardians and supporters of the universe. They are also mystically connected with the lipikas, the eternal karmic scribes. In the Bhagavad-Gita (10:2, 7) Krishna, in naming his divine manifestations, says that among elephants he is Airavata.
“It is a kind of cosmogony which contains all the fundamental tenets of Esoteric Cosmogenesis. Thus he says that in the beginning there was naught but limitless and boundless Space. All that lives and is, was born in it, from the ‘Principle which exists by Itself, developing Itself from Itself,’ i.e., Swabhavat. As its name is unknown and its essence is unfathomable, philosophers have called it Tao (Anima Mundi), the uncreate, unborn and eternal energy of nature, manifesting periodically. Nature as well as man when it reaches purity will reach rest, and then all become one with Tao, which is the source of all bliss and felicity. As in the Hindu and Buddhistic philosophies, such purity and bliss and immortality can only be reached through the exercise of virtue and the perfect quietude of our worldly spirit; the human mind has to control and finally subdue and even crush the turbulent action of man’s physical nature; and the sooner he reaches the required degree of moral purification, the happier he will feel” (TG 320).
“It is the flower sacred to nature and her Gods, and represents the abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both spiritual and physical nature. It was held sacred from the remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the Buddhists after them; revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches, who made of it a messenger as the Christians do now, who replace it with the water lily. It had, and still has, its mystic meaning which is identical with every nation on the earth” (SD 1:379).
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.
Jataka (Sanskrit) Jātaka [from the verbal root jan to be born] A birth story; the 550 Jataka tales form one of the books of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Buddhist canon. These stories are supposed to have been related by the Buddha and are considered by some to be the accounts of his former lives, and by others to be a group of tales built of occult truth and past experiences of the Buddha and treated in an allegorical way by some of his first and greatest disciples in order to depict a synopsis of the evolutionary history of the human race.
Jetavaniya (Sanskrit) Jetavanīya [from Jetavana a grove near Sravasti where the Buddha at one time promulgated his doctrines] A Buddhist mystical school of Ceylon, which tradition alleges was founded about 247 BC by Katyayana, a favorite disciple of Gautama Buddha. One of the three divisions of an early Buddhist school called the Sthavirakaya founded some 300 BC.
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.”
Kalpa ::: A Sanskrit term used to qualify long periods of time within Hindu and Buddhist cosmological models. For example, a "Maha-Kalpa" or "Great Kalpa" refers to the largest period of time in Buddhist cosmology — estimated at trillions of years — and is the unit used to measure the most profound cyclical recyclings (apocalypses) experiential reality undergoes.
Kama-dhatu (Sanskrit) Kāmadhātu Desire world; first of the Buddhist trailokya (three regions), called kama (desire), rupa (form), and arupa (formless). In the theosophic scheme, kama-dhatu is composed of the seven manifested globes of the earth-chain on the four lowest cosmic planes. Rupa-dhatu (form or image world) is composed of the five superior globes on the higher three cosmic planes. Arupa-dhatu (formless or imageless world), composed of the three highest of the ten cosmic planes, is to us a purely subjective world, a state rather than a place. The dhatus correspond in meaning with the Hindu lokas.
Kami: (Japanese) Originally denoting anything that inspires and overawes man with a sense of holiness, the word assumed a meaning in Japanese equivalent to spirit (also ancestral spirit), divinity, and God. It is a central concept in the pre-Confucian and pre-Buddhistic native religion which holds the sun supreme and still enjoys national support, while it may also take on a more abstract philosophic significance. -- K.F.L.
Kanjur (Tibetan) bka’ ’gyur (kang-gyur, kan-jur) [from bka’ sacred word + ’gyur translation] The portion of the Tibetan Buddhist canon containing the sutras, the texts ascribed to the Buddha himself and called the “Buddha Word” (Sanskrit buddha-vachana). The second part of the Tibetan Buddhist cannon, the Tanjur, contains sastras or commentaries and other scholastic works. The Kanjur consists almost entirely of works translated from Sanskrit or other Indian languages. Although the texts contained in the Kanjur are overwhelmingly of Indian origin, the compilation of the Kanjur was done in Tibet, and in structure it differs greatly from the old Indian Tripitakas. Four more or less complete recensions of the Buddhist canon survive: the Pali, the Chinese, the Tibetan, and the Mongolian, this last, however, being a translation of the Tibetan. The first three recensions differ from each other in content and arrangement. The overall arrangement of the Kanjur is in three sections, giving the Sanskrit names: Vinaya (monastic discipline), Sutra (discourses of the Buddha), and Tantra (esoteric and ritual texts). The Sutra section is divided into several subsections. Each section or subsection contains numerous individual texts.
Kargyutpas (Tibetan) bka’ rgyud pa (kar-gyu-pa) Succession; a sect of semi-reformed Buddhists founded by Marpa in the last half of the 11th century and continued under his successor Milarepa. The adherents of this sect, in common with many other semi-ascetic bodies, believe in a successive order of teachers.
Khuddaka-patha (Pali) Khuddaka-pāṭha [from khuddaka little one + pāṭha reading, text] A Buddhist scripture given to neophytes upon joining the Samgha (the Buddhist brotherhood); first book in the Khuddaka-Nikaya — a collection of short canonical Buddhist books. This brief text contains some of the most beautiful poems in Buddhist literature, and the reverential feelings evoked by reading it are unquestionably the principal reason for its use. It opens with a profession of faith in the Buddha, in the Doctrine, and in the Order.
Ksanika-vada: (Skr.) The Buddhistic theory (vada) asserting that everything exists only momentarily (ksanika), hence changes continually. -- K.F.L.
Kshanti (Sanskrit) Kṣānti [from the verbal root kṣam to be patient] Patience; one of the six Buddhist paramitas.
Kuen-lun-shan (Chinese) One of the sacred mountains in China, situated in the southwest between China and Tibet in the Keun-lun range which divides Tibet on the south from Eastern Turkestan. Every three years Buddhists assembled there, their observances climaxed by religious marvels produced by the hierophant (styled Foh-chu, “buddha-teacher”) under the Tree of Knowledge and Life (Sung-ming-shu).
Kukkuta-pada-giri (Sanskrit) Kukkuṭa-pāda-giri [from kukkuṭa cock + pāda foot + giri mountain] Also called Guru-pada-giri, the teacher’s mountain; a mountain situated about seven miles from Gaya, famous owing to a persistent report that the Buddhist arhat Mahakasyapa even to this day dwells in its caves.
Kwan-yin, Kuan-yin (Chinese) The Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, the female aspect of Kwan-shai-yin, referred to in the Stanzas of Dzyan as the triple of Kwan-shai-yin, residing in Kwan-yien-tien, “because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is the ‘Mother, the Wife and the Daughter’ of the Logos, just as in the later theological translations she became ‘the Father, Son and (the female) Holy Ghost’ — the Sakti or Energy — the Essence of the three. Thus in the Esotericism of the Vedantins, Daiviprakriti, the Light manifested through Eswara, the Logos, is at one and the same time the Mother and also the Daughter of the Logos or Verbum of Parabrahmam; while in that of the trans-Himalayan teachings it is — in the hierarchy of allegorical and metaphysical theogony — ‘the Mother’ or abstract, ideal matter, Mulaprakriti, the Root of Nature . . . a correlation of Adi-Bhuta, manifested in the Logos, Avalokiteshwara; and from the purely occult and Cosmical, Fohat, the ‘Son of the Son,’ the androgynous energy resulting from this ‘Light of the Logos’ ” (SD 1:136-7).
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.
Lamrin (Tibetan) lam rim. Stages of the path; the name for a genre of Tibetan Buddhist literature. The most famous such work is Tsong-kha-pa’s Lam rim chen mo, which claims to be based on the earliest such work, the Bodhipathapradipa by Atisha (Dipamkara-shrijnana).
Lha ::: In respect to some Tibetan Buddhist traditions' view of the soul, this is the Causal and higher Mental Body and the sheath of self corresponding to the transcendental and truly transpersonal.
Light above, others as an infinite ocean i of Power above. If certain schools of Buddhists felt it in their experience as a limit- less Siinya, the Vedantists ou the contrary sec it as a positive
Ling chos: Tibetan legends and tales of gods, demons and giants; parts of an ancient pre-Buddhist religion, carried on in the folklore of the peoples of Tibet.
Lotus sutra: The most popular Buddhist scriptures in the Orient, which teaches salvation for all creatures and propounds the principle that “One is All and All is One.”
Madhyamaka: Another name for the Buddhist school of Sunyavada (s.v.), so-called because it assumes a middle path (madhyama) between theories clinging to the knowableness of the noumenal and the sufficiency of the phenomenal. -- K.F.L.
madhyamika (Buddhists) ::: [the name of a school of Buddhists].
Magadha (Sanskrit) Magadha An ancient country in South Behar, India which after the establishment of Buddhism in India, was ruled by Buddhist kings.
Maha-Parinibbana-Sutta or Suttanta (Pali) Mahā-Parinibbāna-Sutta [from mahā great + parinibbāna complete nirvana + sutta, suttanta text, book] The Book of the Great Decease of the Buddhist Pali canon, “one of the most authoritative of the Buddhist sacred writings” (TG 200).
Maharajikas (Sanskrit) Mahārājika-s [from mahārāja king] The kingly; in Buddhist philosophy a class of gods inhabiting the lowest heaven. Their number is variously given, e.g., 236 or 220.
Mahasattipathana (Skt.): A Buddhist mode of meditation in which the mind is not restrained to a single object but is set to observe the flow of thoughts with the purpose of locating its source and analysing its nature.
Mahavansa, Mahavamsa (Sanskrit) Mahāvaṃśa [from mahā great + vaṃśa lineage, race] Great lineage; a Pali work written by the monk Mahanama in the 5th century, treating of Buddhist history and its spread in Ceylon; regarded as an authoritative historical work.
Mahavihara-Vasinah (Sanskrit) Mahāvihāra-vāsinaḥ [from mahā great + vihāra monastery + vāsinaḥ plural of vāsin dweller] Dwellers of the great monastery; a highly mystical Buddhist school of Ceylon, founded by Katyayana, according to tradition a pupil of Gautama Buddha. One of the three divisions of an early Buddhist school called the Sthavirakaya. See also JETAVANIYA
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.
Mahayana-Sutra (Sanskrit) Mahāyāna-sūtra [from Mahāyāna great vehicle + sūtra textbook] Writings which treat of the Buddhist teachings as they were promulgated originally by Nagarjuna.
mahayana ::: ["the great vehicle", the name of a system of Buddhist teaching].
Main works: Sense and Beauty, 1896; Interpret. of Poetry and Religion, 1900; Life of Reason, 5 vols , 1905-6 (Reason in Common Sense, Reason in Society, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, Reason in Science); Winds of Doctrine, 1913; Egotism in German Philosophy, 1915; Character and Opinion in the U. S., 1920; Skepticism and Animal Faith, 1923; Realms of Being, 4 vols., 1927-40 (Realm of Essence, Realm of Matter, Realm of Truth, Realm of Spirit). -- B.A.G.F. Sarva-darsana-sangraha: (Skr.) A work by Madhvavacarya, professing to be a collection (sangraha) of all (sarva) philosophic views (darsana) or schools. It includes systems which acknowledge and others which reject Vedic (s.v.) authority, such as the Carvaka, Buddhist and Jaina schools (which see). -- K.F.L.
Mala ::: Buddhist prayer beads. Examples of use include counting iterations of a mantra or number of breaths.
mandala ::: Mandala A sanskrit word meaning section, a mandala is a symmetrical design used for meditational, or spiritual purposes. Tibetan Buddhists are known for the mandalas they take months to make from coloured grains of sand, which, when complete, they blow away to demonstrate the impermanence of all things. See also glyph.
Mara —the Satan of Buddhist mythology.
Maya ::: A Sanskrit term that refers to several Buddhist concepts and philosophies depending on the source and time period. It generally translates as "illusion" or "magic show" and is used to depict the phenomenal world as being devoid of fundamentally true substance. This is due to the causal emanation of it from noumenal reality.
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.
Melek is a Buddhist paraphrase for the devil
Melha who, in Buddhist theogony, is identified
Meru: In Buddhist mythology and occult tradition, the mountain situated at the center of the earth; it is regarded as the spiritual center of the universe. (Also called Maru.)
Mudra(Sanskrit) ::: A general name for certain intertwinings or positions of the fingers of the two hands, usedalone or together, in devotional yoga or exoteric religious worship, and these mudras or digital positionsare held by many Oriental mystics to have particular esoteric significance. They are found both in theBuddhist statues of northern Asia, especially those belonging to the Yogachara school, and also in Indiawhere they are perhaps particularly affected by the Hindu tantrikas. There is doubtless a good deal of hidefficacy in holding the fingers in proper position during meditation, but to the genuine occult student thesymbolic meaning of such mudras or digital positions is by far more useful and interesting. The subject istoo intricate, and of importance too small, to call for much detail of explanation here, or even to attempt afull exposition of the subject.
Mudra (Sanskrit) Mudrā A symbol of power over invisible evil influences, whether as a simple posture or a posture considered as a talisman. Applied to certain positions of the fingers practiced in devotion, meditation, or exoteric religious worship, thought by some to imitate ancient Sanskrit characters, and therefore to have magic efficacy and to have a particular esoteric significance. Used both in the Northern Buddhist Yogacharya school and by the Hindu Tantrikas, with both symbolic and practical meanings.
Myalba (Tibetan) dmyal ba (nyal-wa) Northern Buddhist name for our earth, which they considered a hell for those whose karma it is to reincarnate on it for the purgation of suffering and experience. Exoterically, Myalba is usually translated and is looked upon as one of the hells. Equivalent to the Sanskrit naraka or avichi.
Mystical School of Buddhism: That school in Buddhist philosophy which considers the universe itself to be the Great Sun Buddha (Mahavairocana).
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.
Namas (Sanskrit) Namas [from nam to bow, make reverence; cf Pali namo] A reverence, consisting of an inclination of the body; both in act and in writing a reverential salutation. “The first word of a daily invocation among Buddhists, meaning ‘I humbly trust, or adore, or acknowledge’ the Lord, as: ‘Namo tasso Bhagavato Arahato’ etc., addressed to Lord Buddha. The priests are called ‘Masters of Namah’ [Namas] — both Buddhist and Taoist, because this word is used in liturgy and prayers, in the invocation of the Triratna, and with a slight change in the occult incantations to the Bodhisattvas and Nirmanakayas” (TG 224).
name is a paraphrase for the devil in Buddhist lore.
Namshe ::: In respect to some Tibetan Buddhist traditions' view of the soul, this is the Astral and lower Mental Body and the sheath of self corresponding to the emotive and mental aspects of individualistic ego.
Native historians attribute the foundation of the temple to the Prince of Roma, a legendary hero, while European scholars place it in the 13th century under Buddhist influence. This does not account for the preponderating scenes from ancient Hindu mythology, for the figures sculptured in the Egyptian manner (the side turned toward the front), for the man-fish deity (similar to Dagon of ancient Babylon) sculptured several times on the walls, or for the kabeirian gods of Samothrace, with their parent Vulcan. Though the Kabiri were once universally worshiped as the most ancient of the Asiatic mystery-gods, this worship was abandoned 200 years BC, and the Samothracian Mysteries had been completely altered by that time (IU 1:566).
Nidana (Sanskrit) Nidāna [from ni down, into + the verbal root dā to bind] That which binds, to earth or to existence, philosophically speaking. Originally meaning bond, rope, halter — that which binds. From this arose the implication of binding cause, or bonds of causation, and hence in Buddhist philosophy it signifies cause of existence, the concatenation of cause and effect. The twelve nidanas given as the chief causes are: 1) jati (birth) according to one of the chatur-yoni, the four modes of entering incarnation, each mode placing the being in one of the six gatis; 2) jara-marana (decrepitude) and death, following the maturity of the skandhas; 3) bhava, which leads every sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence in the trailokya and gatis; 4) upadana, the creative cause of bhava which thus becomes the cause of jati, and this creative cause is the clinging to life; 5) trishna (thirst for life, love, attachment); 6) vedana (sensation) perception by the senses, the fifth skandha; 7) sparsa (the sense of touch) contact of any kind, whether mental or physical; 8) shadayatana (the organs of sensation) the inner or mental astral seats of the organs of sense; 9) nama-rupa (name-form, personality, a form with a name to it) the symbol of the unreality of material phenomenal appearances; 10) vijnana, the perfect knowledge of every perceptible thing and of all objects in their concatenation and unity; 11) samskara, action on the plane of illusion; and 12) avidya (nescience, ignorance) lack of true perception.
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.
Nirvana: (Skr. blown out) The complete extinction of individuality, without loss of consciousness, in the beatific rejoining of the liberated with the metaphysical world-ground. A term used principally by Buddhists though denoting a state the attainment of which has been counselled from the Upanishads (q.v.) on as the summum bonum. It is invariably defined as a condition in which all pain, suffering, mental anguish and, above all, samsara (q.v.) have ceased. It is doubtful that complete extinction of life and consciousness or absolute annihilation is meant. -- K.F.L.
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.
“nowhere shows Yama ‘as having anything to do with the punishment of the wicked.’ As king and judge of the dead, a Pluto in short, Yama is a far later creation. One has to study the true character of Yama-Yami throughout more than one hymn and epic poem, and collect the various accounts scattered in dozens of ancient works, and then he will obtain a consensus of allegorical statements which will be found to corroborate and justify the Esoteric teaching, that Yama-Yami is the symbol of the dual Manas, in one of its mystical meanings. For instance, Yama-Yami is always represented of a green colour and clothed with red, and as dwelling in a palace of copper and iron. Students of Occultism know to which of the human ‘principles’ the green and the red colours, and by correspondence the iron and copper, are to be applied. The ‘twofold-ruler’ — the epithet of Yama-Yami — is regarded in the exoteric teachings of the Chino-Buddhists as both judge and criminal, the restrainer of his own evil doings and the evil-doer himself. In the Hindu epic poems Yama-Yami is the twin-child of the Sun (the deity) by Sanjna (spiritual consciousness); but while Yama is the Aryan ‘lord of the day,’ appearing as the symbol of spirit in the East, Yami is the queen of the night (darkness, ignorance) ‘who opens to mortals the path to the West’ — the emblem of evil and matter. In the Puranas Yama has many wives (many Yamis) who force him to dwell in the lower world (Patala, Myalba, etc., etc.); and an allegory represents him with his foot lifted, to kick Chhaya, the handmaiden of his father (the astral body of his mother, Sanjna, a metaphysical aspect of Buddhi or Alaya). As stated in the Hindu Scriptures, a soul when it quits its mortal frame, repairs to its abode in the lower regions (Kamaloka or Hades). Once there, the Recorder, the Karmic messenger called Chitragupta (hidden or concealed brightness), reads out his account from the Great Register, wherein during the life of the human being, every deed and thought are indelibly impressed — and, according to the sentence pronounced, the ‘soul’ either ascends to the abode of the Pitris (Devachan), descends to a ‘hell’ (Kamaloka), or is reborn on earth in another human form” (TG 376).
Om Mani Padme Hum Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ (Sanskrit) Om! the jewel in the lotus, hum! One of the most sacred Buddhist mantras or verbal formulas; used very frequently in Tibet and in surrounding countries of the Far East. Not only is every syllable said to have a secret power of producing a definite result, but the whole invocation has a number of meanings. When properly pronounced or changed, it produces different results, differing from the others according to the intonation and will given to the formula and its syllables. This mystic sentence above all refers to the indissoluble union between man and the universe, and thus conveys “I am in thee and thou art in me.” Each of us has within himself the jewel in the lotus or the divine self within. When understood in a kosmic sense, it signifies the divine kosmic self within, inspiring all beings within the range of that kosmic divinity.
Om Vajrapani Hum (Sanskrit) Om vajrapāṇi hum [from Om the mystical syllable, uttered at the commencement of mantras + vajrapāṇi from vajra thunderbolt + pānīn holder + hum Tibetan mystical syllable equivalent to Om] Om! the holder of the thunderbolt, hum! Many of the mantras used in India and Tibet are not completed grammatical sentences, as the mantra is said to derive its potency from its rhythm as well as from its tonal utterance. The title of thunderbolt-holder is properly given to one who holds the thunderbolt of the spirit — one who has awakened the divine monad within himself. Vajrapani with Northern Buddhists is a class of celestial beings, and also a dhyani-bodhisattva, the hierarch of this class of beings. This mantric sentence is therefore an appeal, by an elevation in aspiration, to at least temporary spiritual union with this class of celestial entities.
pagoda ::: n. --> A term by which Europeans designate religious temples and tower-like buildings of the Hindoos and Buddhists of India, Farther India, China, and Japan, -- usually but not always, devoted to idol worship.
An idol.
A gold or silver coin, of various kinds and values, formerly current in India. The Madras gold pagoda was worth about three and a half rupees.
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.
pali ::: n. --> pl. of Palus.
A dialect descended from Sanskrit, and like that, a dead language, except when used as the sacred language of the Buddhist religion in Farther India, etc. ::: pl. --> of Palus
Pansil [from Sanskrit pañca-śīla from pañca five + śīla practice, behavior] The five moral precepts imbodied in practice which every Buddhist, layman and bhikkhu (or bhikshu), promises to observe. Taking pansil publicly is tantamount to becoming a Buddhist. It consists of undertaking abstinence from 1) injuring or killing any living thing (panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami); 2) theft or taking that which is not given (adinnadana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami); 3) immoral sensual enjoyment (kamesu michchhachara veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami); 4) false speech or lying (musavada veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami); and 5) intoxication as tending to becloud and weaken the mind (sura-meraya-majja-pamada-tthana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami).
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.
Paramartha, in the view of Buddhist initiates, is that final or ultimate goal possible of attainment in the present sevenfold planetary manvantara by the striving and advancing adept. When he has overcome, subdued, and transformed the characteristics of the lower quaternary of his sevenfold constitution so that he lives in the highest part of the upper triad — when he has attained self-conscious living in his own monadic essence — he thereupon attains paramartha or that absolute consciousness which, because of its freedom from all human qualifications or characteristics, can equally be called absolute unconsciousness. Expressed in another way, it is conscious existence as a nirvani. It is the state into which the upper triad of the buddha passes, once the buddha state has been reached. This entrance of the buddha’s higher triad into nirvana by no means inhibits his lower quaternary from active service in the world, for his lower quaternary, being washed of all the characteristics of ordinary personality and overshadowed by the buddha’s higher triad, is a nirmanakaya of high degree.
Paramita (Sanskrit) Pāramitā [from pāram beyond + ita gone from the verbal root i to go] Gone or crossed to the other shore; derivatively, virtue or perfection. The paramitas vary in number according to the Buddhist school: some quoting six, others seven or ten; but they are the glorious or transcendental virtues — the keys to the portals of jnana (wisdom). Blavatsky gives these seven keys as (VS 47-8): 1) dana “the key of charity and love immortal”; 2) sila (good character), “the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action”; 3) kshanti, “patience sweet, that nought can ruffle”; 4) viraga, “indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived”; 5) virya (strength, power), “the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal TRUTH, out of the mire of lies terrestrial”; 6) dhyana (profound spiritual-intellectual contemplation, with utter detachment from all objects of sense and of a lower mental character), human consciousness in the higher reaches of this state becomes purely buddhic, with the summit of the manas acting as vehicle for the retention of what the percipient consciousness experiences; once the golden gate of dhyana is opened, the pathway stretching thence leads towards the realm of “Sat eternal”; and 7) prajna (understanding, wisdom), that part of the mind that functions when active as the vehicle of the higher self; “the key to which makes of man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis.”
Pasa (Sanskrit) Pāśa [from the verbal root paś to fasten, bind] A snare, noose, tie, bond, chain, fetter — both literally and figuratively. Especially used in connection with Yama, the Hindu god of death, represented as carrying a noose. The Jains and Buddhists use the term for anything that binds or fetters the soul, e.g., the outer world of matter and sense. “As an emblem of ‘door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet’ it signifies the ‘strait gate’ that leads to the kingdom of heaven, far more than the ‘birth-place’ in a physiological sense.
peepul tree ::: --> A sacred tree (Ficus religiosa) of the Buddhists, a kind of fig tree which attains great size and venerable age. See Bo tree.
Phowa ::: In Buddhist Tantric tradition this is the practice of "conscious dying" and involves learning how to move the consciousness toward a desired rebirth or toward enlightenment at the time of the death of the physical body.
Phurba ::: A stake-like tool and ritual implement associated with Tibetan Buddhist practice.
Planetary spirits parallel the Buddhist dhyani-chohans or dhyanis; with the exception that the Buddhist phrase has far larger application as it includes not merely planetary spirits but likewise spiritual beings of various grades in a solar system. The higher planetaries are those presiding over an entire chain of globes, and their influence extends over all the seven, ten, or twelve globes of a chain. There are also planetaries belonging to the same general planetary hierarchy who preside over a single globe of a chain, and again lower planetaries such as those in more or less immediate touch with mankind. There are planetaries of high spiritual status, and planetaries of far lower status who at times even may be spoken of as dark planetaries. Thus it is that the work of the higher planetaries is beautiful, compassionate, and indeed sublime; whereas the lowest or dark planetaries are frequently the agents of matter as contrasted with spirit.
ponghee ::: n. --> A Buddhist priest of the higher orders in Burmah.
POSSIBILITIES. ::: Three main possibilities for the sadhaka . to wait on the Grace and rely on the Divine ; to do everything himself like the Advaitin and the Buddhist ; to take the middle path, go forward by aspiration and rejection etc , helped by the
Practically all philosophers of religion (to name in addition to thoce above only Schleiermacher, Lotze, Pfleiderer, Hoffding, Siebeck, Galloway, Ladd, Wundt, Josiah Royce, W. E. Hocking, Barth, and Hauer) are carried by an ethical idealism, being interested in the good life as the right relation between God and man, conforming by and large to the ethical citegories of determinism, indeterminism, mechanism, rationalism, etc. Buddhists, though not believing in God, profess an ethics religiously motivated and supported philosophically.
Prasanga-madhyamika (Sanskrit) Prasaṅga-mādhyamika “A Buddhist school of philosophy in Tibet. It follows, like the Yogacharya system, the Mahayana or ‘Great Vehicle’ of precepts; but, having been founded far later than the Yogacharya, it is not half so rigid and severe. It is a semi-exoteric and very popular system among the literati and laymen” (TG 260).
P’u-to (Chinese) A sacred island in China, a famous seat of Buddhist teaching. Many statues are erected to Kwan-yin, the patron deity, and to Kwan-shai-yin.
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.
sahaja dharma ::: ["natural law of being"; an esoteric Buddhist cult].
Saha-loka-dhatu, Sahalo-kadhatu (Sanskrit) Saha-loka-dhātu [from saha unity, union + loka world, plane + dhātu essential element] United world-elements, chiliocosm or universe. Also a Buddhist phrase meaning “the world inhabited by men,” or the earth.
Saha (Sanskrit) Sahā [from the verbal root sah to endure, suffer] One of the loka-dhatus or divisions of the world in Buddhist philosophy: the world inhabited by men, or the earth — Buddhists consider this earth a world of suffering. Adopted into theosophy to signify the earth and likewise any inhabited or manifested world or globe in the chiliocosm or sakvala. Theosophy recognizes no hells in nature except those spheres of experience, evolutionary progress, and purgation through suffering which all the manifested globes of space are in almost infinitely varying degrees.
Sakridagamin (Sanskrit) Sakṛdāgāmin [from sakṛt once + āgāmin one coming from ā-gam to come] In mystical Buddhist philosophy, he who will receive birth (only) once more; also the second stage of the fourfold path that leads to nirvana, the path of arhatship. See also ARHAT
Samantaprabhasa (Sanskrit) Samantaprabhāsa Universal or perfect splendor; according to Buddhist legend, this is the general name by which each of the 500 perfected arhats will reappear as individuals on our earth as a buddha.
Samanya: (Skr. similar, generic, etc.) Generality, universality, the universal in contrast to the particular. The universal is understood in the realist manner by the Nyaya- Vaisesika to be eternal and distinct from, yet inherent in the particular, in the nominalist manner, by the Buddhists, to have no intrinsic existence; in the manner of universalia in re by the Jainas and Advaita Vedanta. -- K.F.L.
Sambhala(Sanskrit) ::: A place-name of highly mystical significance. Many learned occidental Orientalists haveendeavored to identify this mystical and unknown locality with some well-known modern district ortown, but unsuccessfully. The name is mentioned in the Puranas and elsewhere, and it is stated that out ofSambhala will appear in due course of time the Kalki-Avatara of the future. The Kalki-Avatara is one ofthe manifestations or avataras of Vishnu. Among the Buddhists it is also stated that out of Sambhala willcome in due course of time the Maitreya-Buddha or next buddha.Sambhala, however, although no erudite Orientalist has yet succeeded in locating it geographically, is anactual land or district, the seat of the greatest brotherhood of spiritual adepts and their chiefs on earthtoday. From Sambhala at certain times in the history of the world, or more accurately of our own fifthroot-race, come forth the messengers or envoys for spiritual and intellectual work among men.This Great Brotherhood has branches in various parts of the world, but Sambhala is the center or chieflodge. We may tentatively locate it in a little-known and remote district of the high tablelands of centralAsia, more particularly in Tibet. A multitude of airplanes might fly over the place without "seeing" it, forits frontiers are very carefully guarded and protected against invasion, and will continue to be so until thekarmic destiny of our present fifth root-race brings about a change of location to some other spot on theearth, which then in its turn will be as carefully guarded as Sambhala now is.
Sambhala, Shambhala (Sanskrit) Śambhala A mystical and unknown locality, mentioned in the Puranas and elsewhere, from which will appear in due course the Kalki-avatara of Vishnu. Sometimes spelled Shambala. Buddhists state that out of Sambhala will come the next buddha, Maitreya. Sambhala
Samma Sambuddha: A term used by Buddhist mystics for a person’s sudden remembering of all of his past incarnations, through the mastery of Yoga.
Samma-sambuddha (Pali) Sammā-sambuddha Used by mystic Buddhists and raja-yogins to signify the complete or perfected knowledge of the whole series of one’s past lives, a phenomenon of memory obtained through the practice of true inner yoga or self-control. More generally, full or complete awaking, in the sense that all the higher nature of the individual is thoroughly awakened and active, thus conferring virtual omniscience as regards our solar system; it likewise brings with it great spiritual and psychic powers. It is the full efflorescence and self-conscious activity of the spiritual monad in and through the one who has attained to this sublime degree in spiritual unfoldment, the becoming at one with the cosmic Logos.
Sammasati (Pali): A Buddhist term meaning Right Recollection in the sense of Right Viewpoint.
Samyutta-Nikaya (Pali) Saṃyutta-Nikāya One of the principal Buddhist works: one of five parts of the Suttanta-Pitaka — a collection of Suttas (dialogs between the Buddha and his disciples). Also spelled Samyuttaka-Nikaya.
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.
Sapphire Many ancient peoples knew how to avail themselves of the magical virtues of precious stones. The sapphire was especially valued because supposed to enshrine some of the influences of Venus as transmitted through other attributes to Luna or the higher aspect of the Moon, and so to be able to induce equanimity and banish evil thoughts. ” ‘The sapphire,’ say the Buddhists, ‘will open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace than any other gem; but he who would wear it must lead a pure and holy life’ ” (IU 1:265). Modern authorities surmise that the sappheiros of the Greeks and the sappir of the Bible were our lapis lazuli, while our sapphire was called hyacinthus. The same qualities are attributed to the color blue.
Sapta-tathagatas (Sanskrit) Sapta-tathāgata-s [from sapta seven + tathāgata thus come and gone, name applied to the Buddha] “The chief seven Nirmanakayas among the numberless ancient world-guardians. Their names are inscribed on a heptagonal pillar kept in a secret chamber in almost all Buddhist temples in China and Tibet. The Orientalists are wrong in thinking that these are ‘the seven Buddhist substitutes for the Rishis of the Brahmans’ ” (TG 290). See also TATHAGATHA-GUPTA
Satori: The Japanese Zen Buddhist term for “enlightenment,” as the culmination of meditation.
Sautrantika: A Buddhist school of representationalism, same as Bahyanumeya-vada (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Schopenhauer, Arthur: (1738-1860) Brilliant, manysided philosopher, at times caustic, who attained posthumously even popular acclaim. His principal work, The World as Will and Idea starts with the thesis that the world is my idea, a primary fact of consciousness implying the inseparableness of subject and object (refutation of materialism and subjectivism). The object underlies the principle of sufficient reason whose fourfold root Schopenhauer had investigated previously in his doctoral dissertation as that of becoming (causality), knowing, being, and acting (motivation). But the world is also obstinate, blind, impetuous will (the word taken in a larger than the dictionary meaning) which objectifies itself in progressive stages in the world of ideas beginning with the forces of nature (gravity, etc.) and terminating in the will to live and the products of its urges. As thing-in-itself, the will is one, though many in its phenomenal forms, space and time serving as principia individuationis. The closer to archetypal forms the ideas (Platonic influence) and the less revealing the will, the greater the possibility of pure contemplation in art in which Schopenhauer found greatest personal satisfaction. Propounding a determinism and a consequential pessimism (q.v.), Schopenhauer concurs with Kant in the intelligible character of freedom, makes compassion (Mitleid; see Pity) the foundation of ethics, and upholds the Buddhist ideal of desirelessness as a means for allaying the will. Having produced intelligence, the will has created the possibility of its own negation in a calm, ascetic, abstinent life.
Shin-sieu (Chinese) A sage and seer; the sixth Buddhist Patriarch of North China who taught the esoteric doctrine of bodhidharma, one of whose sayings appears in The Voice of the Silence: “For mind is like a mirror; it gathers dust while it reflects. It needs the gentle breezes of Soul Wisdom to brush away the dust of our illusions. Seek, O Beginner, to blend thy Mind and Soul”; “The human mind is like a mirror which attracts and reflects every atom of dust, and has to be, like that mirror, watched over and dusted every day” (VS 26, 83).
Shunyata ::: The Buddhist concept representing "Emptiness" or "Non-Experience". See The Veils of Negative Existence.
Sighra or Sighraga (Sanskrit) Śīghra, Śīghraga Swiftly moving; the father of Maru, “’who is still living through the power of Yoga, and will manifest himself in the beginning of the Krita age in order to re-establish the Kshattriyas in the nineteenth Yuga’ say the Puranic prophecies”; Moru (Morya, Maurya) standing for “the dynasty of Buddhist sovereigns of Pataliputra which began with the great King Chandragupta, the grandsire of King Asoka. It is the first Buddhist Dynasty” (TG 299).
Sila (Sanskrit) Śīla [from the verbal root śīl to serve, practice] Moral fortitude, ethical steadiness, one of the Buddhist paramitas. Described as “the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action” (VS 47). The Mahayana Sraddhotpada Sastra says of practicing sila: “Lay disciples, having families, should abstain from killing, stealing, adultery, lying, duplicity, slander, frivolous talk, covetousness, malice, currying favor, and false doctrines. Unmarried disciples should, in order to avoid hindrances, retire from the turmoil of worldly life and, abiding in solitude, should practise those ways which lead to quietness and moderation and contentment. . . . They should endeavor by their conduct to avoid all disapproval and blame, and by their example incite others to forsake evil and practise the good.” (FSO p. 45)
Sramanacharya (Sanskrit) Śramaṇācārya [from śramaṇa ascetic + āchārya teacher] A Buddhist or Jain teacher of ascetic type.
Sramana (Sanskrit) Śramaṇa [from the verbal root śram to exert] Making effort or exertion; toiling, laboring; one who performs acts of penance and mortification — an ascetic of such type. Particularly applied to Buddhist monks or mendicants, to Buddha, or to a Jain ascetic.
Sri Aurobindo: "This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy, — that was a notion of the Greeks, — a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga *Ananke"s.
Sri Aurobindo: “This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy,—that was a notion of the Greeks,—a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sthavira or Sthavirakaya (Sanskrit) Sthāvira, Sthāvirakāya [from sthāvira old; an old and venerable bhikṣu] The school of the elder, president, or chohan; one of the earliest philosophical contemplative schools, founded in 300 BC, distinctly Buddhist in character. In 247 BC, it split into three divisions: the Mahavihara (dweller of the great monasteries); Jetavaniyah; and Abhaya-giri-vasinah. It is one of the four branches of the Vaibhashika school founded by Katyayana, one of the disciples of Gautama Buddha and author of the Abhidharma-Jnana-Prasthana-Sastra. All these schools are highly mystical, although frequently stated to be materialistic, which may be the fact in later times when they had degenerated and literalism took the place of the original mystical intent and significance of their teachings. See also ABHAYAGIRI
Suka (Sanskrit) Śuka The bright one; applied to several Hindu mythological characters. In Buddhist literature, a Brahmin ascetic said to have been a maharshi, who became a jivanmukta.
Sunya-vada: A Buddhist theory (vada) holding the world to be void (sunya) or unreal. Otherwise known as Madhyamaka (q.v.), this Mahayana (q.v.) school as founded by Nagarjuna and elaborated in the Madhyama-kasastra, is hardly correctly translated by nihilism. To be sure, the phenomenal world is said to have no reality, yet the world underlying it defies description, also because of our inability to grasp the thing-in-itself (svabhava). All we know is its dependence on some other condition, its co-called "dependent origination". Thus, nothing definite being able to be said about the real, it is, like the apparent, as nothing, in other words, sunya, void. -- K.F.L.
Sunya-vada: Sanskrit for void-theory. A Buddhist theory (vada) holding the world to be void (sunya) or unreal. According to it, the phenomenal world has no reality; yet the world underlying it defies description, also because of our inability to grasp the thing-in-itself (svabhava). All we know is its dependence on some other condition, its so-called “dependent origination.” Thus, nothing definite being able to be said about the real, it is, like the apparent, as nothing, in other words, sunya, void.
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.
Sutras: The second part of the Buddhist Tripitaka (q.v.), containing the teachings of Gautama Buddha. They consist of 250 chapters, divided in five nikayas.
Sutta-pitaka (Pali) Sutta-piṭaka [from sutta (Sanskrit sūtra) dialogue, originally a thread + piṭaka basket] The third section of the Buddhist canon (the Tripitaka or Three Baskets) treating on the dialogs (suttas) of the Buddha and his disciples, especially those in the style of discourses and narratives.
Svabhavat may be considered as parabrahman-mulaprakriti (superspirit-rootmatter), the one underlying cosmic being or substance, the divine source; the self-existent and, to our as yet undeveloped minds, the great vacuity — mahasunya. It is equivalent to the Northern Buddhist adi-buddhi (primordial buddhi), the Brahmanical akasa, and the Hebrew cosmic waters.
Svabhavat(Sanskrit) ::: The neuter present participle of a compound word derived from the verb-root bhu, meaning "tobecome," from which is derived a secondary meaning "to be," in the sense of growth.Svabhavat is a state or condition of cosmic consciousnesssubstance, where spirit and matter, which arefundamentally one, no longer are dual as in manifestation, but one: that which is neither manifestedmatter nor manifested spirit alone, but both are the primeval unity -- spiritual akasa -- where mattermerges into spirit, and both now being really one, are called "Father-Mother," spirit-substance.Svabhavat never descends from its own state or condition, or from its own plane, but is the cosmicreservoir of being, as well as of beings, therefore of consciousness, of intellectual light, of life; and it isthe ultimate source of what science, in our day, so quaintly calls the energies of nature universal.The northern Buddhists call svabhavat by a more mystical term, Adi-buddhi, "primeval buddhi"; theBrahmanical scriptures call it akasa; and the Hebrew Old Testament refers to it as the cosmic "waters."The difference in meaning between svabhavat and svabhava is very great and is not generallyunderstood; the two words often have been confused. Svabhava is the characteristic nature, thetype-essence, the individuality, of svabhavat -- of any svabhavat, each such svabhavat having its ownsvabhava. Svabhavat, therefore, is really the world-substance or stuff, or still more accurately that whichis causal of the world-substance, and this causal principle or element is the spirit and essence of cosmicsubstance. It is the plastic essence of matter, both manifest and unmanifest. (See also Akasa)
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.
Svastika, Swastika (Sanskrit) Svastika An auspicious or lucky object; especially applied to the mystic symbol — a cross with four equal arms, the extremities of which are bent sharply at right angles, all in the same direction — marked upon persons and things in order to denote good luck, although originally the symbol had a far deeper significance. Sometimes the arms are bent to the left, sometimes to the right. The symbol is very widespread, and extremely ancient, engraved on every rock-temple and prehistoric building in India, and wherever Buddhists have flourished, as well as in Greece, among the ancient Scandinavians, and in ancient America. It has been called the Jaina Cross; Fylfot, Mjolnir, or Thor’s Hammer by the Scandinavian peoples; and in the Chaldean Book of Numbers the Worker’s Hammer.
Svayambhu-sunyata (Sanskrit) Svayambhū-śūnyatā [from svayambhū self-becoming + śūnyatā void] The self-becoming void of infinitude; in Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics, sunyata means that which is empty or void to human eye or understanding because of feebleness of penetrating vision, but otherwise the absolute fullness of spirit. “Spontaneous self-evolution; self-existence of the real in the unreal, i.e., of the Eternal Sat in the periodical Asat” (TG 315).
Tadaikya (Sanskrit) Tadaikya [from tat that, the Boundless + aikya oneness, harmony, identity from eka one] Oneness or unity with the Boundless or parabrahman, the frontierless, unknowable kosmic essence, which is never limited by any name but is commonly called tat (That). In the relations of the human being with the kosmic spirit, tadaikya signifies the reentrance of the higher human ego into its supernal source, atman, which in Buddhist philosophy is called assuming the dharmakaya, the equivalent of entering nirvana.
Talapoin (East Indian) A Buddhist monk of Ceylon, Siam, or Burma. The laws laid down for the Talapoins are very strict, particularly in regard to unchastity. Many of these ascetics have demonstrated their remarkable powers over nature, especially in medical practices (cf IU 2:620-1).
Tanha: In Buddhist terminology, the will to lead a separate, personal incarnate existence.
Tanjur (Tibetan) Bstan-hgyur, bstan ’gyur (ten-gyur, ten-jur) Translation of the sastras; the second part of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, the first part being the Kanjur (both words came into Western languages via Mongolian). The Tanjur is divided into three parts: a one-volume collection of hymns or praises to the Buddha, and two voluminous collections of sastras: tantra commentaries and sutra commentaries. Although called commentaries, these also include independent treatises, and the sutra-commentaries section also includes miscellaneous works such as letters, dictionaries, grammars, medical works, etc. The Tanjur is even larger than the Kanjur, containing up to 225 volumes. Four editions are known in the West: Narthang, Peking, Derge, and Cone (cho-ne) — all 18th century blockprints, although the Tanjur is much older as a manuscript collection. The Tanjur contains works assumed to be Tibetan translations of the works of Indian Buddhist masters, other than the Buddha himself. Compositions by Tibetan masters, however authoritative, are not included in the Tanjur.
Tao chiao: The Taoist religion, or the religion which was founded on the exotic interpretation of the teachings of the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu (Huang Lao) that flourished in the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), which assimilated the Yin Yang philosophy, the practice of alchemy, and the worship of natural objects and immortals, and which became highly elaborated through wholesale imitation of the Buddhist religion. -- W.T.C.
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).
Ten-brel chug-nyi is the Tibetan expression of the causal relations inherent in and affecting peregrinating monads, which bring about manifestation in successive imbodiments; this Buddhist teaching shows a somewhat more elaborate philosophical development in the Tibetan doctrine than elsewhere. Freedom from the entangling relations affecting consciousness is to be found by an earnest and strict following of the Four Noble Truths leading into the Noble Eightfold Path; yet the essence of the religion of the buddhas is in the words of Gautama Buddha: “To cease from all evil or wrong doing; to become enamored of virtue; to cleanse one’s own heart or nature — here is the religion of the Buddhas.” See also NIDANA
The ethical teachings of the Bhagavad Gita (q.v.). of the various religio-philosophical groups, of the Buddhists and Jainas of Greater India, are high; but if such ideals have not been attained generally in practice, or even if repulsive and cruel rituals and linga worship are prevalent, such phenomena are understandable if we consider the 340 millions of teeming humanity within the fold of Hinduism, from aborigines to a Gandhi, Tagore, and Sir Raman. Treatises dealing with practical morality are very numerous. They may be classed into those of a purely religious leaning among which we might count all religio-philosophical literature of the Vedic and non-Vedic tradition, including drama and epic literature, and those that deal specifically with practices of the nature of self-culture (cf. Yoga), religious observances (sacrifice, priest-craft, rites, ceremonies, etc.), household affairs and duties (Grhyasutras), and the science of polity and government (Arthasastras). -- K.F.L..
The greatest initiates and yogis since Sankaracharya’s time are reputed to have come from the ranks of the Advaita-Vedantists. “Yet the root philosophy of both Adwaita and Buddhist scholars is identical, and both have the same respect for animal life, for both believe that every creature on earth, however small and humble, ‘is an immortal portion of the immortal matter’ — for matter with them has quite another significance than it has with either Christian or materialist — and that every creature is subject to Karma” (SD 1:636; cf 2:637).
The idea conveyed is the unity of all who accept the doctrine of the Lord, i.e., Buddhists. More mystically applied by Buddhist initiates to signify likewise the unity or universal brotherhood of all human beings at any time or place, who through knowledge or natural intuition follow the law of the Buddhas, the law of right and compassion.
“The lack of any mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul; and the lexicographers countenance the usage. In Theosophical teachings the term ‘Spirit’ is applied solely to that which belongs directly to Universal Consciousness, and which is its homogeneous and unadulterated emanation. Thus, the higher Mind in Man or his Ego (Manas) is when linked indissolubly with Buddhi, a spirit; while the term ‘Soul,’ human or even animal (the lower Manas acting in animals as instinct), is applied only to Kama-Manas, and qualified as the living soul. This is nephesh, is Hebrew, the ‘breath of life.’ Spirit is formless and immaterial, being, when individualised, of the highest spiritual substance — Suddasatwa [Suddha-sattva], the divine essence, of which the body of the manifesting highest Dhyanis are formed. Therefore, the Theosophists reject the appellation ‘Spirits’ for those phantoms which appear in the phenomenal manifestation of the Spiritualists, and call them ‘shells,’ and various other names. (See Suksham Sarira [sukshma-sarira].) Spirit, in short, is no entity in the sense of having form; for, as Buddhist philosophy has it, where there is a form, there is a cause for pain and suffering. But each individual spirit — this individuality lasting only throughout the manvantaric life-cycle — may be described as a centre of consciousness, a self-sentient and self-conscious centre; a state, not a conditioned individual. This is why there is such a wealth of words in Sanskrit to express the different States of Being, Beings and Entities, each appellation showing the philosophical difference, the plane to which such unit belongs, and the degree of its spirituality or materiality. Unfortunately these terms are almost untranslatable into our Western tongues” (TG 306-7).
Thera (Pali) Thera A Buddhist priest, especially a bhikkhu of Gautama Buddha’s community; specifically a senior member. Three grades were distinguished: thera bhikkhu (a senior); majjhima bhikkhu (middle or secondary disciple); and nava bhikkhu (novice). Four characteristics are mentioned, however, making a man a thera: high character, knowing the essential doctrines by heart, practicing the four jhanas (stages of meditation), and being conscious of having attained at least relative freedom through the destruction of the mental intoxications. A senior woman was termed theri or therika.
“There were Annedoti who came after him, five in number (our race being the fifth) — ‘all like Oannes in form and teaching the same’; but Musarus Oannes was the first to appear, and this he did during the reign of Ammenon, the third [fourth] of the ten antediluvian Kings whose dynasty ended with Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah. . . . This allegory of Oannes, the Annedotus, reminds us of the ‘Dragon’ and ‘Snake-Kings’; the Nagas who in Buddhist legends instruct people in wisdom on lakes and rivers, and end by becoming converts to the good Law and Arhats. The meaning is evident. The ‘fish’ is an old and very suggestive symbol in the Mystery-language, as is also ‘water.’ Ea or Hea was the god of the sea and Wisdom, and the sea serpent was one of his emblems, his priests being ‘serpents’ or Initiates. Thus one sees why Occultism places Oannes and the other Annedoti in the group of those ancient ‘adepts’ who were called ‘marine’ or ‘water dragons’ — Nagas. Water typified their human origin (as it is a symbol of earth and matter and also of purification), in distinction to the ‘fire Nagas’ or the immaterial, Spiritual Beings, whether celestial Bodhisattvas or Planetary Dhyanis, also regarded as the instructors of mankind. The hidden meaning becomes clear to the Occultist, once he is told that ‘this being (Oannes) was accustomed to pass the day among men, teaching; and when the Sun had set, he retired again into the sea, passing the night in the deep, ‘for he was amphibious,’ i.e., he belonged to two planes: the spiritual and the physical. For the Greek word amphibios means simply ‘life on two planes,’ . . . The word was often applied in antiquity to those men who, though still wearing a human form, had made themselves almost divine through knowledge, and lived as much in the spiritual supersensuous regions as on earth. Oannes is dimly reflected in Jonah, and even in John, the Precursor, both connected with Fish and Water” (TG 236-7).
The Roman Empire was entirely tolerant of religious beliefs, but took strong measures with the early Christians because they were, from the legal viewpoint of the conservative Roman magistrate, religious and quasi-political radicals of a dangerous type. They were atheists in that they did not accept the State gods. Later, to the Christians, the pagans in their turn became atheists because though they believed in gods, they did not believe in the orthodox Christian God. Theosophists, Buddhists, Confucianists, etc., have been at various times called atheists because they do not accept monotheism. To strip a deity of personal human attributes is, in the eyes of monotheists, to deny the existence of that deity altogether.
The Secret Doctrine (1:49) mentions Alaya in the Yogachara system, most probably referring to alaya-vijnana, but adds that with the “Esoteric ‘Buddhists’ . . . ‘Alaya’ has a double and even a triple meaning.”
The Three Characteristics ::: Dukkha, Anicca, and Anatta. The Buddhist concept that expresses the three constant elements in all conscious experience and that through an intimate understanding, and disentangling, of lead to enlightenment.
The trailokya are all, in each case, nonphysical spheres, and pertain to the postmortem states of entities. These three worlds are wholly exoteric groupings — not meaning false, but not sufficiently explained in the exoteric literature to develop the real significances. In theosophy there are seven or ten groupings of the postmortem realms or states. These states cannot be grouped under the Brahmanical three worlds, but under the three Buddhist dhatus or lokas. Rupa-dhatu and arupa-dhatu may be called dhyanas (contemplation), thus designating the deeply contemplative character of the excarnate egos sunken in the profound deeps of consciousness. See also TRIBHUVANA
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 [first] Logos may be called in the language of old writers either Eswara or Pratyagatma or Sabda Brahmam. It is called the Verbum or the Word by the Christians, and it is the divine Christos who is eternally in the bosom of his father. It is called Avalokiteswara by the Buddhists; at any rate, Avalokiteswara in one sense is the Logos in general, . . . In almost every doctrine they have formulated the existence of a centre of spiritual energy which is unborn and eternal, and which exists in a latent condition in the bosom of Parabrahmam at the time of pralaya, and starts as a centre of conscious energy at the time of cosmic activity. It is the first gnatha or the ego in the cosmos, and every other ego and every other self . . . is but its reflection or manifestation. In its inmost nature it is not unknowable as Parabrahmam, but it is an object of the highest knowledge that man is capable of acquiring. . . .
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.
Thyan-kam (Tibetan) Attributed to the great Buddhist Tibetan adept Tsong-kha-pa in a work of Aphorisms: “the power or knowledge of guiding the impulses of cosmic energy in the right direction” (SD 1:635).
Tirthikas (Sanskrit) Tīrthika-s [from tīrtha holy place] The holy ones; “the Brahmanical Sectarians ‘beyond’ the Himalayas called ‘infidels’ by the Buddhist in the sacred land, Tibet, and vice versa” (VS 85-6).
tope ::: n. --> A moundlike Buddhist sepulcher, or memorial monument, often erected over a Buddhist relic.
A grove or clump of trees; as, a toddy tope.
A small shark or dogfish (Galeorhinus, / Galeus, galeus), native of Europe, but found also on the coasts of California and Tasmania; -- called also toper, oil shark, miller&
Trailokya (Sanskrit) Trailokya [from tri three + loka world, sphere] Also Triloka. The three worlds — heaven, earth, and the lower regions (esoterically the spiritual, psychic or astral, and terrestrial spheres); as ordinarily given in Brahmanical philosophy as Bhur (earth), Bhuvah (firmament, heaven), and Svar (skyey atmosphere). The Buddhist trailokya or division into three worlds is somewhat different, being from lowest to highest: kama-dhatu or -loka (desire world), rupa-dhatu (form world), and arupa-dhatu (formless world).
Trikaya: Sanskrit for triple body. That school in Buddhist mysticism which conceives of the Buddha as having three bodies, viz.: The Law-Body (Dharma-kaya) which is the soul of Buddha, the Enjoyment-Body (Sambhogakaya) which is the embodiment of Wisdom, and the Transformation-Body (Nirmana-kaya) which is the embodiment of compassion.
Tripitaka (Sanskrit) Tripiṭaka [from tri three + piṭaka basket] The three baskets, pitaka being the name by which one of the collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures is known. This threefold collection consists of Sastra-pitaka often called the Sutra-pitaka, the rules or precepts; Vinaya-pitaka, the discipline and rules for the priesthood and ascetics; and Abhidharma-pitaka, the philosophical and metaphysical dissertations. “There is a fourth division — the Samyakta Pitaka. But as it is a later addition by the Chinese Buddhists, it is not accepted by the Southern Church of Siam and Ceylon” (TG 341).
Tripitaka: "The Three Baskets", the Buddhistic Canon as finally adopted by the Council of Sthaviras, or elders, held under the auspices of Emperor Asoka, about 245 B.C., at Pataliputra, consisting of three parts "The basket of discipline", "the basket of (Buddha's) sermons", and "the basket of metaphysics." -- K.F.L.
Tripitaka: “The Three Baskets,” the Buddhistic Canon as finally adopted by the Council of Sthaviras, or elders, held under the auspices of Emperor Asoka, about 245 B.C., at Pataliputra, consisting of three parts: “The basket of discipline” (Vinaya), “the basket of (Buddha’s) sermons” (Sutras), and “the basket of metaphysics” (Abidharma).
Trisarana (Sanskrit) Triśaraṇa The three refuges or protections, also called triratna or ratnatraya (three jewels); the Buddhist formula Buddha, dharma, sangha or samgha. Originally bodhi, dharma, and sangha (wisdom, its laws, and its priests or spiritual exponents).
Tulku (Tibetan) sprul sku [short for sprul pa’i sku (tul-pe-ku) from sprul pa phantom, disembodied spirit; cf Sanskrit nirmāṇakāya body of magical transformation] Applied to a lama of high rank, often to the head abbot of a monastery; specifically, to those lamas who have proved their ability of remembering their office and standing in a former incarnation, e.g., by selecting articles belonging previously to themselves, describing details of a former life, surroundings, etc. The two most important tulkus in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy are the Tashi and Dalai Lamas. Tulku is often referred to as an incarnation but, outside of the many varieties of an incarnating or imbodying power or energy, incarnation in popular usage is the direct continuance of a previous imbodiment. These so-called living buddhas of Tibet are one kind of tulku — the transmission of a spiritual power or energy from one Buddha-lama of a Tibetan monastery when he dies, to a child or adult successor. If the transmission is successful, the result is tulku.
Tulpa ::: As part of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, a tulpa is a type of artificial spirit created within a visualized mandala and into which a deity is invoked.
Tum [possibly Sanskrit tvam thou] An ancient fraternity, formerly existing in Northern India, and well known in the days of the persecution of Buddhists there. Tum “has a double meaning, that of darkness (absolute darkness), which as absolute is higher than the highest and purest of lights, and a sense resting on the mystical greeting among Initiates, ‘Thou art thou, thyself,’ equivalent to saying ‘Thou art one with the Infinite and the All’ ”; “The ‘Tum B’hai’ have now become the ‘Aum B’hai,’ spelt, however, differently at present, both schools having merged into one. The first was composed of Kshatriyas, the second of Brahmans” (TG 345).
Udumbara (Sanskrit) Udumbara A variety of the fig tree, Ficus glomerata; also a rare species of lotus called the nila-udumbara (blue lotus), regarded by Buddhists as a highly noteworthy omen whenever it blossoms, which it is said to do but rarely.
Ullambana (Mongolian) [from Sanskrit ud up, completion + the verbal root labh to reach, attain] Attainment or recovery of spiritual status; the festival of all souls, “held in China on the seventh moon annually, when both ‘Buddhist and Tauist priests read masses, to release the souls of those who died on land or sea from purgatory, scatter rice to feed Pretas [thirty-six classes of demons ever hungry and thirsty], consecrate domestic ancestral shrines, . . . recite Tantras . . . accompanied by magic finger-play (mudra) to comfort the ancestral spirits of seven generations in Naraka’ (a kind of purgatory or Kama Loka)” (TG 351).
Upadana (Sanskrit) Upādāna [from upa-ādā to receive] The act to taking or appropriating for oneself: in philosophy, the act of withdrawal, or receiving into the inner being, of the organs of sense from the outer world. In Buddhist literature the term is enlarged to signify the grasping at or clinging to existence caused by trishna (desire, thirst) causing bhava (new births); likewise the fourth of the twelve nidanas (bond, causes of existence), the chain of causation. In Vedantic philosophy, a cause, motive, or material cause of any kind; thus, when analyzed, the meaning is the same in Vedantic and Buddhist philosophies.
Upasika (Sanskrit) Upāsikā A woman votary of the Buddha, as distinguished from a bhikshuni — a Buddhist mendicant or nun. The title was given to Blavatsky by the Mahatmas.
Vacuum Emptiness, the necessary correlative of plenum or fullness: the two being one of those pairs of opposites which the mind is bound to postulate as a basis of reasoning. It stands for the spiritual condition of a cosmic hierarchy before it emanates its streams of manifestation — “the symbol of the absolute Deity or Boundless Space, esoterically” (TG 357). Democritus taught that the first principles are atoms and a vacuum, which is equivalent to the manifest and the unmanifest, deity latent and deity patent, but the atoms of Democritus, being spiritual indivisibles, are not the atoms of science but what in theosophy are called monads, and likewise the vacuum of void of Democritus is the equivalent of the archaic Buddhist sunyata or the ancient Buddhist or Brahmanic arupa (formless) spheres.
Vaibhashika (Sanskrit) Vaibhāṣika An ancient Buddhist school, formed of the followers of the Vibhasha-sastra. Originally of distinctly mystical character, due to later degeneracy this school became materialistic; its philosophy holds “that no mental concept can be formed except through direct contact between the mind, via the senses, such as sight, touch, taste, etc., and external objects” (TG 358).
Vaisakha (Sanskrit) Vaiśākhā “A celebrated female ascetic, born at Sravasti, and called sudatta, ‘virtuous donor.’ She was the mother-abbess of a Vihara, or convent of female Upasikas [students], and is known as the builder of a Vihara for Sakyamuni Buddha. She is regarded as the patroness of all the Buddhist female ascetics” (TG 359).
Various terms more or less synonymous are akasa, the universal egg (from which Brahma issued as light), the virgin egg, the virgin mother, the immaculate root (fructified by the ray), the primeval deep, the abyss, the great mother. The divine ray and chaos are father-mother or cosmic fire and water. Chaos-Theos-Cosmos are the triple deity or all-in-all. Chaos was personified in Egypt by the goddess Neith, who is the Father-Mother of the Stanzas of Dzyan, the akasa of the Hindus, the svabhavat of the northern Buddhists, and the Icelandic ginnungagap.
Vihara (Sanskrit) Vihāra [from vi-hṛ to spend or pass time, roam, wander through] A Buddhist or Jain monastery or temple; originally a hall where the monks met or walked about, afterwards used as temples. Today those viharas are in towns and cities, but in earlier times they were generally rock-temples or caves found only in unfrequented jungles, on mountaintops, and in the most deserted places.
Vijnana-vada: Sanskrit for theory of consciousness; specifically that consciousness is of the essence of reality; also the Buddhist school of subjective idealism otherwise known as Yogacara (q.v.).
Vijnana-vada: (Skr.) Theory (vada) of consciousness, specifically that consciousness is of the essence of reality; also the Buddhist school of subjective idealism otherwise known as Yogacara (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Vinaya-pitaka (Sanskrit) Vinaya-piṭaka [from vinaya discipline + piṭaka basket] The second section of the Buddhist canon treating of the training and discipline of monks; Tripitaka (three baskets) is the name given to the Buddhist canon.
Vinaya: The first part of the Buddhist Tripitaka, containing the code of rules governing the lives of monks, whether alone or in communities.
Virya (Sanskrit) Vīrya Strength, dauntless energy, fortitude and firmness in thought and conduct; one of the Buddhist paramitas.
What is here called selfishness corresponds in the minds of Buddhist philosophers and scholars to the ideas they disputed grouped about the word atman. They never intended to deny the fundamental meaning of atman or selfhood, and yet this misconception of ancient Buddhist teaching has brought about the false idea that Gautama Buddha and his followers taught that man has no essential self or selfhood. Because selfishness was popularly considered the permanent soulhood in man, the doctrine of anatma (in Pali, anatta) was strongly and continuously taught. The deduction shows clearly that even in India at the time of the Buddha, selfhood in its popular sense of concentration on the lower self and its interests was as popular and widespread as today. It is a paradox that in selflessness is found the noblest and highest emanation of self-expression of the atman or spiritual self in man.
With Buddhists, ignorance, one of the three roots of vice. In the Vishnu-Purana, infatuation personified as the offspring of Brahma.
With Mahayana Buddhists alaya is both the universal soul and the spiritual self of an advanced sage. Aryasangha taught that “he who is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation into the true Nature of Existence” (cf SD 1:49-51; also FSO 98n).
Wu Wei (Chinese) Inaction, inactivity; quiescence, placidity. Used in Taoism in relation to the tao of man, the idea being that “Heaven is emptiness” and by practicing wu wei (inaction) and becoming “empty” one becomes at one with heaven or tao. Reminiscent of the highly mystical import of the Buddhist sunyata (Sanskrit, “emptiness,” “void”). In all such words the difficulty is in finding ordinary language to convey the thought. There is not an absolutely empty point of space in all infinitude; what seems to the human senses to be cosmic vacuity is actually complete or absolute fullness, a pleroma as the Gnostics said. Cosmic sunyata or wu wei is emptiness simply because it lacks the lowest forms of matter — forms and bodies which are like the spume or bubbles on the sea of cosmic reality, which to human senses is empty because invisible, intangible, and not subject to sense perception.
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).
Yidam ::: A type of deity within Tantric Buddhist practices that is the manifestation of already enlightened beings.
Yogacara: A Mahayana Buddhist school which puts emphasis on Yoga as well as acara, ethical conduct.
Yogacara: A Mahayana (q.v.) Buddhist school which puts emphasis on Yoga (q.v.) as well is acara, ethical conduct. Believing in subjective idealism, it is also designated as Vijnana-vada (q.v.). Since we know the world never apart from the form it has in consciousness, the latter is an essential to it. All things exist in consciousness, they cannot be proven to exist otherwise. -- K.F.L.
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44 Buddhist Texts
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5 Buddhist Maxims
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2 Buddhist Canons in Pali
2 Kobayashi Issa
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1 Buddhist Women's Song. Source: "Passionate Enlightenment
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52 Frederick Lenz
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1:Indolence is a soil. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
2:How joyful to look upon the awakened and to keep company with the wise. ~ Buddhist Proverb, #KEYS
3:Nowhere at all - that's the nature of mind! ~ Tanatric Buddhist Woman Song, (8th - 11th c.), #KEYS
4:The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher. ~ Buddhist Proverb, #KEYS
5:True knowledge does not grow old, so have declared the sages of all times. ~ Buddhist Canons in Pali, #KEYS
6:Heedlessness is the road of death. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
7:How rueful, this world." ~ Jien, (1155-1225), a Japanese poet, historian, and Buddhist monk, Wikipedia., #KEYS
8:There is no pollution like unto hatred. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
9:Renovate thyself daily. ~ A Chinese Buddhist Inscription, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
10:To every man is given a key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell.
~ Buddhist Proverb,#KEYS
11:There is no happiness apart from rectitude. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
12:When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence." ~ Robin Williams, #KEYS
13:There is the Truth where Love and Righteousness are ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
14:Patience is an invincible breast-plate. ~ Chinese Buddhist Scriptures, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
15:Root out in thee all love of thyself and all egoism. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
16:Three roots of evil: desire, disliking and ignorance. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
17:Leave hereafter iniquity and accomplish righteousness. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
18:Patience from a Buddhist perspective is not a "wait and see" attitude, but rather one of 'just be there.' " ~ Lodro Rinzler, #KEYS
19:Who is blinder even than the blind? The man of passion. ~ Buddhist Maxim, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
20:good advice never satiates the wise." ~ Sakya Pandita, (1182-1251), Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist scholar, Wikipedia., #KEYS
21:Battle with all thy force to cross the great torrent of desire. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
22:Wisdom is like unto a beacon set on high, which radiates its light even in the darkest night. ~ Buddhist Meditations from the Japanese, #KEYS
23:Happy the man who has tamed the senses and is utterly their master. ~ Buddhist Maxims, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
24:A bad thought is the most dangerous of thieves. ~ Buddhist scriptures from the Chinese, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
25:Be watchful, divest yourself of all neglectfulness; follow the path. ~ Buddhist Maxims, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
26:Use all your forces for endeavour and leave no room for carelessness. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
27:Be firm in the accomplishment of your duties, the great and the small. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
28:The wise in joy and in sorrow depart not from the equality of their souls. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
29:and the whole moon and entire sky are reflected in even one drop of water." ~ Dōgen Zenji, (1200 - 1253), Japanese Buddhist priest, Wikipedia., #KEYS
30:An evil thought is the most dangerous of all thieves. ~ Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
31:As a living man abstains from mortal poisons, so put away from thee all defilement. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
32:True knowledge does not grow old, so have declared the sages of all times. ~ Buddhist Canons in Pali, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
33:Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, (b. 1926) Vietnamese Buddhist monk, founder of the Plum Village Tradition, Wikipedia, #KEYS
34:A torrent of clarity streams from the mind which is purified in full of all its impurities. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
35:Seek out swiftly the way of righteousness; turn without delay from that which defiles thee. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
36:Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do." ~ Kenko Yoshida, (1284-1350) Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work: "Essays in Idleness," Wikipedia., #KEYS
37:An upright life tastes calm repose by night and by day; it is penetrated with a serene felicity. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
38:Awake, arise; strive incessantly towards the knowledge so that thou mayst attain unto the peace. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
39:He who has perfectly mastered himself in thought and speech and act, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
40:Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
41:With a heart pure and overflowing with love I desire to act towards others even as I would toward myself. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
42:Young and old and those who are growing to age, shall all die one after the other like fruits that fall. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
43:If thou art weary of suffering and affliction, do no longer any transgression, neither openly nor in secret. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
44:My brothers, when you accost each other, two things alone are fitting, instructive words or a grave silence. ~ Buddhist Scripture, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
45:ike burning coals are our desires; they are full of suffering, full of torment and a yet heavier distressfulness. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
46:When thou art purified of thy omissions and thy pollutions, thou shalt come by that which is beyond age and death. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
47:Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
48:Like the waves of a rivulet, day and night are flowing the hours of life and coining nearer and nearer to their end. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
49:Those who are consecrated to Truth shall surely gain the other shore and they shall cross the torrent waves of death. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
50:Wisdom is like unto a beacon set on high, which radiates its light even in the darkest night. ~ Buddhist Meditations from the Japanese, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
51:Be not taken in the snares of the Prince of death, let him not cast thee to the ground because thou hast been heedless. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
52:The man full of uprightness is happy here below, sweet is his sleep by night and by day his heart is radiant with peace. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
53:animal, or human being. Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine, We vow to not abuse the great truth of the Three Treasures." ~ Stephanie Kaza, Professor, practicing Soto Zen Buddhist, Wik., #KEYS
54:The chatuskoti, or the Fourfold Negation, (NOT THIS: NOT THAT: NOT BOTH: NOT NEITHER) is a principal tool in Buddhist contemplation and analytic meditation." ~ For source & explanation see:, #KEYS
55:A wise man emulates the smallest good trait of others even if he has innumerable good qualities of his own." ~ Sakya Pandita, (1182-1251), a Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
56:Like the waves of a river that flow slowly on and return never back, the days of human life pass and come not back again. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
57:Only in a hut built for the moment can one live without fear." ~ Kamo no Chōmei, (1153 or 1155-1216), a Japanese author, poet, and essayist. Became a Buddhist and lived as a hermit, Wikipedia., #KEYS
58:The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage." ~ Eric Maisel, #KEYS
59:he man who has conquered his unreined desires, offers no hold to sorrow; it glides over him like water over the leaves of the lotus. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
60:He whose mind is utterly purified from soil, as heaven is pure from stain and the moon from dust, him indeed I call a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
61:An attentive scrutiny of thy being will reveal to thee that it is one with the very essence of absolute perfection. ~ Buddhist Writings in the Japanese, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
62:We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, (b. 1926) a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, published more than 100 books, including more than 40 in English, Wikipedia., #KEYS
63:As a ripe fruit is at every moment in peril of detaching itself from the branch, so every creature born lives under a perpetual menace of death. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
64:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy to possess and the joy to renounce; but nobler is the joy of renunciation. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
65:et all men accomplish only the works of righteousness, and they shall build for themselves a place of safety where they can store their treasures. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
66:Two kinds of joy are there O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the senses and the joy of the spirit; but nobler is the joy of the spirit. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
67:He who practises wisdom without anger or covetousness, who fulfils with fidelity his vows and lives master of himself, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
68:The lives of mortal men are like vases of many colours made by the potter's hands; they are broken into a thousand pieces ; there is one end for all. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
69:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of distraction and the joy of vigilance; but nobler is the joy that is heedful. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
70:A single day of life of the man who stimulates himself by an act of energy, is of more value than a hundred years passed in norchalance and indolence. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
71:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of egoism and the joy to forget oneself; but nobler is the joy of self-oblivion. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
72:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the sated senses and the joy of the equal soul; but nobler is the joy of equality. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
73:When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, (b. 1926) a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, published more than 100 books, including more than 40 in English, Wikipedia., #KEYS
74:He who has conquered the desire of the present life and of the future life, who has vanquished all fear and broken all chain, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
75:t is in the foundation of our being that the conditions of existence have their root. It is from the foundation of our being that they start up and take form. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
76:Watch with care over your heart and give not way to heedlessness; practise conscientiously every virtue and let not there be born in you any evil inclination. ~ Buddhist Maxims, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
77:with a radish." ~ Kobayashi Issa, (1763 - 1828) Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest, known for his haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply Issa, a pen name meaning Cup-of-Tea, Wikipedia., #KEYS
78: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
79:Let not the favourable moment pass thee by, for those who have suffered it to escape them, shall lament when they find themselves on the path which leads to the abyss. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
80:As the perfect man speaks so he acts; as he acts, so the perfect man speaks. It is because he speaks as he acts and acts as he speaks that he is called the perfect. ~ Buddhist Scripture, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
81:He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ Buddhist Mediations from the Japanese, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
82:Why do you so earnestly seek the truth in distant places? Look for delusions and truth in the bottom of your own hearts." ~ Taigu Ryokan, (1758-1831) eccentric Sōtō Zen Buddhist monk, remembered for his poetry and calligraphy, Wikipedia., #KEYS
83:Buddha's discourse 'Turning the Wheel of Dhamma' can be boiled down to: Embrace, Let Go, Stop, Act! This template can be applied to every situation in life." ~ Stephen Batchelor, (b. 1953) "Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist,", (2010), p. 6., #KEYS
84:The Buddhist Nirvana won by the heroic spirit of moral self-conquest and calm wisdom is a state of ineffable calm and joy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - III, #KEYS
85:You cannot fathom a wise man's depth until you question or debate him. Until you beat a drum, What distinguishes it from other objects." ~ Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen, (1182-1251), a Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist scholar, Wikipedia., #KEYS
86:I strive not against the world, but it is the world which strives against me.-It is better to perish in the battle against evil than to be conquered by it and remain living. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
87:The disciple has rejected indolence and indolence conquers him not; loving the light, intelligent, clearly conscient, he purifies his heart of all laxness and all lassitude. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
88:Therefore regard attentively this ocean of impermanence, contemplate it even to its foundation and labour no more to attain but one sole thing,-the kingdom of the Permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
89:Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, (b. 1926) Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, founder of the Plum Village Tradition, Wikipedia., #KEYS
90:Wherefore, O my brothers, if men blame you, condemn you, persecute or attack you, you shall not be indignant, you shall not be discouraged and your spirit shall not be cast down. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
91:The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle." ~ Tara Brach, (b.1953), an American psychologist, proponent of Buddhist meditation, author and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C., Wikipedia., #KEYS
92:He who watches over his body, his speech, his whole self, who is full of serenity and joy, possesses a spirit unified and finds satisfaction in solitude, he is in-deed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
93:I left Europe [for India] as a Christian, I discovered I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist without ever having ceased to be a Christian." ~ Raimon Panikkar, (1918 - 2010), Catalan Roman Catholic priest and a proponent of Interfaith dialogue, Wikipedia., #KEYS
94:Every action a man performs in thought, word and act, remains his veritable possession. It follows him and does not leave him even as a shadow separates not by a line from him who casts it. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
95:You may say 'existence,' but you can't grasp it! You may say 'nonexistence,' but many things appear! It is beyond the sky of 'existence' and 'nonexistence' - I know it but cannot point to it!" ~ Buddhist Women's Song. Source: "Passionate Enlightenment," 1995, #KEYS
96:When a thought of anger or cruelty or a bad and unwholesome inclination awakes in a man, let him immediately throw it from him. let him dispel it, destroy it, prevent it from staying with him. ~ Buddhist Maxims, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
97:Flying out from the Great Buddha's nose: a swallow." ~ Kobayashi Issa, (1763 - 1828) Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest, known for his haiku poems and journals, better known as simply Issa, a pen name meaning Cup-of-tea, Wikipedia., #KEYS
98:Unless the mind be trained to selflessness and infinite compassion, one is apt to fall into the error of seeking liberation for self alone." ~ Gampopo, (1079-1153), a Tibetan Buddhist teacher in the Kagyu lineage, as well as a doctor and tantric master, Wikipedia., #KEYS
99:e who punishes not, kills not, permits not to be killed, who is full of love among those who are full of hate, full of sweetness among those who are full of cruelty, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
100:One road conducts to the goods of this world, honour and riches, but the other to victory over the world. Seek not the goods of the world, riches and honour. Let your aim be to transcend the world. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
101:He who afflicts no living creature, who neither kills nor allows to be killed, him indeed I call a man of religion. Whoever wishes to consecrate himself to the spiritual life, ought not to destroy any life. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
102:The Tibetans use an image I have found helpful… Make the mind like a big clear sky & let everything arise & vanish on its own. Then the mind stays balanced, relaxed, observing the flow." ~ J. Goldstein "The Experience of Insight: A Simple & Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation", #KEYS
103:Deliver yourself from all that is not your self; but what is it that is not your self? The body, the sensations, the perceptions, the relative differentiations. This liberation will lead you to felicity and peace. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
104:Whoso has been careless and has conquered his carelessness, whoso having committed errors concentrates his whole will towards good, shines on the darkened world like the moon in a cloudless sky, ~ Buddhist Sayings from the Chinese, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
105:I know nothing which engenders evil and weakens good so much as carelessness; in the uncaring evil appears at once and effaces good. I know nothing which engenders good and weakens evil so much as energy; in the energetic good at once appears and evil vanishes. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
106:182. To mingle the right action with the action that is not akin to it is called the confused practice. The man that erreth therein hath not attained unto the single heart. He knoweth not thankfulness for the grace of the Enlightened One. ~ Shinran, Wisdom of the East Buddhist Psalms translated from the Japanese of Shinran Shonin, #KEYS
107:he action of man made of desire, dislike and illusion starts from his own being, in himself it has its source and, wherever it is found, must come to ripeness, and wherever his action comes to ripeness, man gathers its fruits whether in this or some other form of life. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
108:He who puts away from him all passion, hatred, pride and hypocrisy, who pronounces words instructive and benevolent, who does not make his own what has not been given to him, who without desire, covetousness, impatience knows the depths of the Permanent, he is indeed a.man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
109:This is the noble way in regard to the origin of suffering; its origin is that thirst made up of egoistic desires which produces individual existence and which now here, now there hunts for its self-satisfaction, and such is the thirst of sensation, the thirst of existence, the thirst of domination and well-being. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
110:Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, #KEYS
111:As the floods when they have thrown themselves into the ocean, lose their name and their form and one cannot say of them, "Behold, they are here, they are there, " though still they are, so one cannot say of the Perfect when he has entered into the supreme Nirvana, "He is here, he is there," though he is still in existence. ~ Buddhist Meditations, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
112:There is an internal war in man between reason and the passions. He could get some peace if he had only reason without passions or only passions without reason, but because he has both, he must be at war, since he cannot have peace with one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided and in opposition to himself. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
113:The saintly disciple who applies himself in silence to right meditation, has surmounted covetousness, negligence, wrath, the inquietude of speculation and doubt; he contemplates and enlightens all beings friendly or hostile, with a limitless compassion, a limitless sympathy, a limitless serenity. He recognises that all internal phenomena are impermanent, subjected to sorrow and without substantial reality, and turning from these things he concentrates his mind on the permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
114:When the disciple regarding his ideas sees appear in him bad and unwholesome thoughts, thoughts of covetousness, hatred, error, he should either turn his mind from them and concentrate on a healthy idea, or examine the fatal nature of the thought, or else he should analyse it and decompose it into its different elements, or calling up all his strength and applying the greatest energy suppress it from his mind: so bad and unwholesome thoughts withdraw and disappear, and the mind becomes firm, calm, unified, vigorous. ~ Buddhist Maxims, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
115:The man who does not think about religion, imagines that there is only one that is true, the one in which he was born. But thou hast only to ask thyself what would happen if thou wert born in another religion, thou, Christian, if thou wert born a Mahomedan, thou, Buddhist, a Christian and thou, Mahomedan, a Brahmin. Is it possible that we alone with our religion should be in the truth and that all others should be subjected to falsehood? No religion can become true merely by thy persuading thyself or persuading others that it alone is true. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
116:Saichō's Prayer
So long as I have not attained the stage where my six faculties are pure, I will not venture out into the world.
So long as I have not realized the absolute, I will not acquire any special skills or arts (e.g. medicine, divination, calligraphy, etc.)
So long as I have not kept all the precepts purely, I will not participate in any lay donor's Buddhist meetings.
So long as I have not attained wisdom (lit. hannya 般若), I will not participate in worldly affairs unless it be to benefit others.
May any merit from my practice in the past, present and future be given not to me, but to all sentient beings so that they may attain supreme enlightenment. ~ Saichō,#KEYS
117:he consciousness which is born of the battle of the sense-organs with their corresponding objects, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in it; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes its origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. The sensations which are born of the senses, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in them; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes its origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. The perception and the representation of the objects sensed by the senses, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in them; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
118:The thunderbolt (vajra) is one of the major symbols in Buddhist iconography, signifying the spiritual power of Buddhahood (indestructible enlightenment) which shatters the illusory realities of the world. The Absolute, or Adi Buddha, is represented in the images of Tibet as Vajra-Dhara (Tibetan: Dorje-Chang) "Holder of the Adamantine Bolt.
...
We know also that among primitive peoples warriors may speak of their weapons as thunderbolts. Sicut in coelo et in terra: the initiated warrior is an agent of the divine will; his training is not only in manual but also in spiritual skills. Magic (the supernatural power of the thunderbolt), as well as physical force and chemical poison, gives the lethal energy to his blows. A consummate master would require no physical weapon at all; the power of his magic word would suffice. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,#KEYS
119:For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of ensuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole. ~ Nikola Tesla, #KEYS
120:Self-Abuse by Drugs
Not a drop of alcohol is to be brought into this temple.
Master Bassui (1327-1387)1
(His dying instructions: first rule)
In swinging between liberal tolerance one moment and outraged repression the next,
modern societies seem chronically incapable of reaching consistent attitudes about
drugs.
Stephen Batchelor2
Drugs won't show you the truth. Drugs will only show you what it's like to be on drugs.
Brad Warner3
Implicit in the authentic Buddhist Path is sila. It is the time-honored practice
of exercising sensible restraints [Z:73-74]. Sila's ethical guidelines provide the
bedrock foundation for one's personal behavior in daily life. At the core of every
religion are some self-disciplined renunciations corresponding to sila. Yet, a profound irony has been reshaping the human condition in most cultures during the
last half century. It dates from the years when psychoactive drugs became readily
available. During this era, many naturally curious persons could try psychedelic
short-cuts and experience the way their consciousness might seem to ''expand.'' A
fortunate few of these experimenters would become motivated to follow the nondrug meditative route when they pursued various spiritual paths.
One fact is often overlooked. Meditation itself has many mind-expanding, psychedelic properties [Z:418-426]. These meditative experiences can also stimulate a
drug-free spiritual quest.
Meanwhile, we live in a drug culture. It is increasingly a drugged culture, for which overprescribing physicians must shoulder part of the blame. Do
drugs have any place along the spiritual path? This issue will always be hotly
debated.4
In Zen, the central issue is not whether each spiritual aspirant has the ''right''
to exercise their own curiosity, or the ''right'' to experiment on their own brains in
the name of freedom of religion. It is a free country. Drugs are out there. The real
questions are:
Can you exercise the requisite self-discipline to follow the Zen Buddhist Path?
Do you already have enough common sense to ask that seemingly naive question,
''What would Buddha do?'' (WWBD).
~ James Austin, Zen-Brain_Reflections,_Reviewing_Recent_Developments_in_Meditation_and_States_of_Consciousness,#KEYS
121: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
122: 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
123:Evil
Hasten towards the good, leave behind all evil thoughts, for to do good without enthusiasm is to have a mind which delights in evil.
If one does an evil action, he should not persist in it, he should not delight in it. For full of suffering is the accumulation of evil.
If one does a good action, he should persist in it and take delight in it. Full of happiness is the accumulation of good.
As long as his evil action has not yet ripened, an evildoer may experience contentment. But when it ripens, the wrong-doer knows unhappiness.
As long as his good action has not yet ripened, one who does good may experience unhappiness. But when it ripens, the good man knows happiness.
Do not treat evil lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the fool fills himself little by little with wickedness.
Do not treat good lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the sage fills himself little by little with goodness.
The merchant who is carrying many precious goods and who has but few companions, avoids dangerous roads; and a man who loves his life is wary of poison. Even so should one act regarding evil.
A hand that has no wound can carry poison with impunity; act likewise, for evil cannot touch the righteous man.
If you offend one who is pure, innocent and defenceless, the insult will fall back on you, as if you threw dust against the wind.
Some are reborn here on earth, evil-doers go to the worlds of Niraya,1 the just go to the heavenly worlds, but those who have freed themselves from all desire attain Nirvana.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can find refuge from his evil actions.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can hide from death.
People have the habit of dealing lightly with thoughts that come. And the atmosphere is full of thoughts of all kinds which do not in fact belong to anybody in particular, which move perpetually from one person to another, very freely, much too freely, because there are very few people who can keep their thoughts under control.
When you take up the Buddhist discipline to learn how to control your thoughts, you make very interesting discoveries. You try to observe your thoughts. Instead of letting them pass freely, sometimes even letting them enter your head and establish themselves in a quite inopportune way, you look at them, observe them and you realise with stupefaction that in the space of a few seconds there passes through the head a series of absolutely improbable thoughts that are altogether harmful.
...?
Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking one's own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life.
*
What you must know is exactly the thing you want to do in life. The time needed to learn it does not matter at all. For those who wish to live according to Truth, there is always something to learn and some progress to make. 2 October 1969 ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
124: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:It's much better to become a Buddha than a Buddhist. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 2:Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 3:The Buddhist message is a message not of the negation of life, but one of affirmation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 4:From a Buddhist perspective, it is incorrect to always assume that we know what is best. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 5:When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 6:In the world of Buddhist mind, in the advanced states, we go beyond time, space, life, death and Newsweek. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 7:In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 8:I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 9:I was initiated as a Buddhist monk at the age of 19, but I think that initiation is simply a starting point. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 10:Career success means making enough money to lead the kind of life you would like to lead as a practicing Buddhist. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 11:According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 12:I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that's my religion. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 13:To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 14: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 15:I don't look at anything. Every person whether he is Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist, he is my brother, my sister. I think we all do like that. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 16:The Tibetan Buddhist realization is that mind does not have any particular qualities or attributes of its own. It's clear - clear light. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 17:A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that's to find the truth each day in every part of their life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 18:In Buddhist Yoga, we refer to our mutlilife karmic traits as samskaras. They are the internal karmic patterns that make each of us who we are. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 19:Nirvana- In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 20:Thoughts can at best point to the truth, but it never is the truth. That’s why the Buddhist say: The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 21:According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the "quivering of the pure heart" when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 22:From my own personal encounters and studies with both Tantric and Zen Buddhist monks, I have found them to be humorous, warm, charming, and compassionate. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 23:One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 24:Being a Buddhist monk means never losing one's optimism in spite of all difficulties. It also means being harder on yourself than any of your teachers ever were. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 25:Since there were others, a long time ago, who were kind enough to give me a hard time and allow me to study with them, I try and express the same Buddhist courtesy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 26:Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 27: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 28: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 29:It's been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 30:I recommend computer science to people who practice meditation. The mental structures that are used in computer science are very similar exercises done in Buddhist monasteries. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 31:A Buddhist is working not just to get paid, but working to advance spiritually. You shouldn't create a syntactical break in your mind between your career and your religious practice. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 32:Beneath the sophistication of Buddhist psychology lies the simplicity of compassion. We can touch into this compassion whenever the mind is quiet, whenever we allow the heart to open. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 33:I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 34:Work sustains us as bodies and it consumes a great deal of energy. The conservation of energy is the component theme of Buddhist practice and yoga. That is why people live in monasteries. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 35:virtue, mindfulness (also called concentration), and wisdom. These are the three pillars of Buddhist practice, as well as the wellsprings of everyday well-being, psychological growth, and spiritual realization. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 36:We're connected to the Buddhist order, to the mind of enlightenment. All day long we draw the power and force from that world, from all the teachers and all the adherents of the practices and the principles. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 37:Originally, I was interested in athletic pursuits like snowboarding, martial arts and surfing. When I went to the Himalayas and met a number of Buddhist monks I was introduced to a new way of looking at life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 38: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 39:As Buddhist monks, our task is to bring ourselves resolutely more and more into light, to forgive and forget, to forget those who create problems for us because to remember them is only to keep problems is mind. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 40:Everything that I teach as an enlightened Buddhist teacher is towards directing an individual to happiness, a balanced wisdom and knowledge that is sometimes just bubbly and euphoric or just very still and profound. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 41:With mountain biking, it's always that constant thing, negotiating singletrack, which I like, but for a road ride that rhythm is really Buddhist. When you get a good pedal stoke, it's that thing of everything works. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 42:I have often discussed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in talks I have given about meditation. But, since I also teach Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist mediation, I have a very eclectic approach to the subject. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 43:Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions ... very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you'd see a Buddhist landscape fog. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 44: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 45:Whether you believe in God or not does not matter much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 46:I am the happiest person I've ever met. This is what Buddhist Yoga and a healthy dose of reading the Declaration of the Independence, The Constitution and the Federalist Papers and anything else I could get my hands on has given me. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 47:Our spirit grows and develops traits in each incarnation that it passes through, and then collects and carries the essence of those traits into future lifetimes. In Buddhist Yoga we refer to our multi-life karmic traits as samskaras. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 48: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 49:What makes a difference is when we take our mind and put it into the scriptures, when we read the Buddhist Canon, the Pali Canon, when we read the Tibetan books, when we read anything inspiring - somebody else's journey into the world of enlightenment. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 50:I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy: it's serious business. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 51:The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 52:A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 53:What matters is that you meditate, you're seeking enlightenment, you're on the pathway to enlightenment, and you're having fun. Don't look for reassurance in the eyes of others. Look for reassurance in your own eyes. Only you know if Buddhist practice is improving the quality of your life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 54:Our problem mostly in our abuse of each other and the planet is greed. Just the rampant, incredible greed that people have partly because they're empty and they can't get enough because they're - you know, it's that Buddhist thing about the hungry ghost with the little mouth and the big belly. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 55:The satsang is - within the mass culture - like little mushrooms here and there, and somebody, maybe a Christian and a Hindu and a Buddhist, come together; doesn't matter, because those are paths. They're paths to the One. But those satsangs are what the world needs. And as I say - heart to heart - that's what satsang is. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 56:Imagine a multidimensiona l spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 57:I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure Soul. Love has befriended me so completely it has turned to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known. ~ hafez, @wisdomtrove 58:Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth& 59:Where is fate and who is fate? We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none else has the praise. We make our own destiny. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. Each must assimilate the spirit of other religion and yet preserve his individuality and follow his own law of growth. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 60:Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads. The ancient Asiatics knew this well enough, and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for unmasking the illusion of the personality. The human merry-go-round sees many changes: the illusion that cost India the efforts of thousands of years to unmask is the same illusion that the West has labored just as hard to maintain and strengthen. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 61:Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generatng that kind of energy toward yourself - if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself - it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it's clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 62:It is neither just the religious, the spiritual, the power-hungry, the evil, the ignorant, the corrupt, the Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Jew, nor the atheist that makes a hypocrite, but being a human being. Any man who thinks himself to be free of hypocrisy while committed to cherry-picking others for such, I am confident, the Almighty can prove to him a great deal of his own hypocrisy even beyond his earthly comprehension. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 63:The interesting thing was that the Roman Catholic monks and the Buddhist monks had no trouble understanding each other. Each of them was seeking the same experience and knew that the experience was incommunicable. The communication is only an effort to bring the hearer to the edge of the abyss; it is a signpost, not the thing itself. But the secular clergy reads the communication and gets stuck with the letter, and that's where you have the conflict. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 64:What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 65:The great secret found at the heart of all the major spiritual traditions of the world is this. If you pay close attention to your identity, you will discover your subjective nature as awareness. This is your deep I. It is what the Hindu philosophers call the ‘atman’, the Buddhist masters call your ‘buddha-nature’, and the Christian mystics call your ‘spirit’. The word ‘spirit’ means essence. The word ‘essence’ comes from the Latin ‘esse’ meaning ‘to be’. Your deep I is your being. It is what you are. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 66:One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it." ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 67:I'm not [a Buddhist]. The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The teachings can help you, but really, we're all here with the opportunity the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that... I'm just not interested in labels. I find all of them They're hard to wear. And they're hard to wear because we're always - hopefully - growing. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 68:Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 69: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:Indolence is a soil. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
2:The Buddhist explanation ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
3:I am a simple Buddhist monk. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
4:Gotta keep it peace like a buddhist ~ Jay Z, #NFDB
5:Buddhist sutra, the Tripitaka. ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
6:I'm just the worst little Buddhist in town. ~ Cher, #NFDB
7:Heedlessness is the road of death. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
8:You only lose what you cling to. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
9:"May all beings have happy minds." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
10:Give, even if you only have little. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
11:I didn't realize I was in a Buddhist temple. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
12:There is no pollution like unto hatred. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
13:Renovate thyself daily. ~ A Chinese Buddhist Inscription, #NFDB
14:I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment. ~ Uma Thurman, #NFDB
15:There is no happiness apart from rectitude. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
16:I'm no buddhist, but this is fu**ing enlightmentment ~ Bjork, #NFDB
17:I'm no fucking Buddhist, but this is enlightmentment ~ Bj rk, #NFDB
18:Do not speak- unless it improves on silence. ~ Buddhist Saying, #NFDB
19:There is no hierarchy in Japanese Buddhist poetry. ~ Robert Bly, #NFDB
20:"Change how you see and see how you change." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
21:When the student is ready,The Master appears. ~ Buddhist Proverb, #NFDB
22:Do not speak -- unless it improves on silence. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
23:"Do not speak – unless it improves on silence." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
24:There is the Truth where Love and Righteousness are ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
25:"When the student is ready, the master appears." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
26:"The no-mindno-thinksno-thoughtsabout no-things." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
27:It's much better to become a Buddha than a Buddhist. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
28:Patience is an invincible breast-plate. ~ Chinese Buddhist Scriptures, #NFDB
29:Root out in thee all love of thyself and all egoism. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
30:Three roots of evil: desire, disliking and ignorance. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
31:Be where you are, otherwise you will miss your life. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
32:Do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
33:Leave hereafter iniquity and accomplish righteousness. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
34:Peace comes from within.Do not seek it from without. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
35:Train your mind to see something good in everything. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
36:It is desirable for Buddhist affairs to help civilian rule. ~ Ye Xiaowen, #NFDB
37:Who is blinder even than the blind? The man of passion. ~ Buddhist Maxim, #NFDB
38:"There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
39:Why is the vegetarian Buddhist dressed like a jewel thief? ~ Jenn Bennett, #NFDB
40:I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
41:"Never stop learning because life never stops teaching." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
42:No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
43:"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it from without." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
44:Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying. ~ Scott Hawkins, #NFDB
45:I'm not a Buddhist, or a card-carrying member of any religion. ~ Matt Dillon, #NFDB
46:I knew a Buddhist once, and I've hated myself ever since. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
47:"No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
48:Mindfulness has been called the heart of Buddhist meditation. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
49:"Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
50:Battle with all thy force to cross the great torrent of desire. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
51:Marvelous oriental pace he's got, just like a Buddhist statue. ~ Harry Carpenter, #NFDB
52:the Buddhist advice that we should try to live in the moment— ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
53:"Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
54:"The Buddhist notion of diligence is to delight in positive deeds." ~ Ringu Tulku, #NFDB
55:"Every minute you are angry, you loose 60 seconds of happiness. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
56:Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
57:Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
58:Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
59:Advanced Buddhist Yoga is the art of altering your karmic patterns. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
60:Don't keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions. ~ Buddhist Proverb, #NFDB
61:Don't keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
62:I used a lot of pancake makeup and a prayer, and a Buddhist chant. ~ Steven Cojocaru, #NFDB
63:Buddhist practice is the grounding for this work, this life, this way. ~ Joan Halifax, #NFDB
64:Happy the man who has tamed the senses and is utterly their master. ~ Buddhist Maxims, #NFDB
65:A bad thought is the most dangerous of thieves. ~ Buddhist scriptures from the Chinese, #NFDB
66:As a Buddhist, I was trained to be tolerant of everything except intolerance ~ U Thant, #NFDB
67:Be watchful, divest yourself of all neglectfulness; follow the path. ~ Buddhist Maxims, #NFDB
68:I'm a lapsed Buddhist like I'm a lapsed Catholic. I take it to a point. ~ Abel Ferrara, #NFDB
69:Use all your forces for endeavour and leave no room for carelessness. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
70:Be firm in the accomplishment of your duties, the great and the small. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
71:Change is never painful, only your resistance to change is painful. ~ Buddhist proverb^, #NFDB
72:"Don't keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
73:foundational Buddhist concept of anicca—the impermanence of all things. ~ Peter Brannen, #NFDB
74:Imagine the wisdom to be passed down from the classical Buddhist texts. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
75:"Live happily in the present moment. It is the only moment we have." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
76:"You have no friends. You have no enemies. You only have teachers." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
77:"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
78:I meditate twice a day. I chant. I lean more towards Buddhist practices. ~ Taryn Manning, #NFDB
79:"Doubt is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
80:Shambhala is a Buddhist tradition with its own unique view and approach. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
81:Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
82:Buddha was not a Christian, but Jesus would have made a good Buddhist. ~ Ray Wylie Hubbard, #NFDB
83:Buddhist mindfulness meditation called vipassana, which means “to see clearly ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
84:The wise in joy and in sorrow depart not from the equality of their souls. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
85:I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
86:An evil thought is the most dangerous of all thieves. ~ Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, #NFDB
87:As the Zen Buddhist saying goes, how you do anything is how you do everything. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
88:"Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
89:A Stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one who says “f*** you” to fate. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
90:Buddhist faith prohibits violence and killing. I have no need of weapons. ~ Laura Joh Rowland, #NFDB
91:If we can’t be ballplayers together, maybe I can start bein’ a Buddhist. ~ David James Duncan, #NFDB
92:One of the things that kills Buddhist spiritual life is excessive seriousness. ~ Gil Fronsdal, #NFDB
93:The root of your problems vanishes when you cherish others. —Buddhist teaching ~ Tosha Silver, #NFDB
94:You are the sky. Everything else–it’s just the weather. PEMA CHÖDRÖN, BUDDHIST ~ Mike Robbins, #NFDB
95:Be the witness of your thoughts. You are what observes, not what you observe. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
96:I believe forgiveness is possible for everybody, for everything, but I'm a Buddhist. ~ Alan Ball, #NFDB
97:In the light of Buddhist meditation, love is impossible without understanding. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
98:...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that. ~ William James, #NFDB
99:The insights of science have enriched many aspects of my own Buddhist worldview. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
100:"You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
101:The primary purpose of Buddhist contemplative practice is to alleviate suffering. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
102:"Be the witness of your thoughts. You are what observes, not what you observe."" ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
103:Even if one isn't a committed Buddhist, it just helps us become better human beings. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
104:I like change. There's something Buddhist about it - continuous change is wonderful. ~ David Bailey, #NFDB
105:As a living man abstains from mortal poisons, so put away from thee all defilement. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
106:Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
107:The Buddhist version of poverty is a situation where you have nothing to contribute. ~ Michael Palin, #NFDB
108:True knowledge does not grow old, so have declared the sages of all times. ~ Buddhist Canons in Pali, #NFDB
109:A generous heart, kind speech, and compassion are the things which renew humanity. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
110:True knowledge does not grow old, so have declared the sages of all times. ~ Buddhist Canons in Pali, #NFDB
111:The Buddhist message is a message not of the negation of life, but one of affirmation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
112:I practice Buddhist philosophy and contemplation but I don't know if I'm more of anything. ~ Goldie Hawn, #NFDB
113:You haven't partied until you've partied at dawn in complete silence with Buddhist monks. ~ Cameron Diaz, #NFDB
114:"Compassion is our deepest nature.It arises from our interconnection with all things." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
115:From a Buddhist perspective, it is incorrect to always assume that we know what is best. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
116:"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
117:If you propose to speak, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
118:One moment can change a day. One day can change a life. One life can change the world. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
119:"Let go of anger. Let go of pride. When you are bound by nothing you go beyond sorrow." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
120:the Buddhist scripture expresses it: Those who refuse to discriminate might as well be dead ~ Colin Wilson, #NFDB
121:This is Buddhist meditation-to penetrate, to be one with, in order to really understand. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
122:A torrent of clarity streams from the mind which is purified in full of all its impurities. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
123:Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. ~ Buddhist proverb#peace #sundaythoughts, #NFDB
124:I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it personally.' ~ Alan Ball, #NFDB
125:Seek out swiftly the way of righteousness; turn without delay from that which defiles thee. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
126:(They) were responsible for spreading the Buddhist religion throughout India and East Asia. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
127:To every man is given a key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
128:My family is Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist and Catholic. I don't believe in man-made religions. ~ Whoopi Goldberg, #NFDB
129:"To every man is given a key to the gates of heaven.The same key opens the gates of hell." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
130:Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” Buddhist nun Pema Chodron ~ Erin Loechner, #NFDB
131:"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
132:"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
133:To every man is given a key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell.
~ Buddhist Proverb,#NFDB
134:You are a seeker. Delight in the mastery of your hands and feet, of your words and thoughts. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
135:A Buddhist teacher once said that a poisonous snake is only poisonous when you walk toward it. ~ Daniel Gottlieb, #NFDB
136:An upright life tastes calm repose by night and by day; it is penetrated with a serene felicity. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
137:Awake, arise; strive incessantly towards the knowledge so that thou mayst attain unto the peace. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
138:It is the Buddhist belief that at every moment the universe is not only dying but being reborn. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
139:There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden. ~ Chuck Close, #NFDB
140:"Thousand of candles can be lit from a single candle. Happiness never ceases by being shared." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
141:To combat hatred directed toward a person, a Buddhist cultivates loving kindness toward that person. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
142:With gentleness overcome anger. With generosity overcome meanness. With truth overcome deceit. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
143:"You are a seeker. Delight in the mastery of your hands and feet, of your words and thoughts." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
144:Zen and Buddhism have produced martial arts, because of the Buddhist injunction against weapons. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
145:Actually, from the Buddhist context all words—and all beings—are verbs, in dynamic activity. ~ Taigen Dan Leighton, #NFDB
146:"Thousand of candles can be lit from a single candle. Happiness never ceases by being shared." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
147:"Be a peacemaker in everyday life. Display peace in everything you do. Be peace. Live in peace." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
148:When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
149:"With gentleness overcome anger. With generosity overcome meanness. With truth overcome deceit." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
150:"Buddhist practice is simply a system directed to the one end of lessening the suffering of life." ~ Ananda Metteyya, #NFDB
151:He who has perfectly mastered himself in thought and speech and act, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
152:The Essential Discipline for Daily Use,” written by the Buddhist monk Doc The from Bao Son pagoda, ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
153:The prohibition of L'shon Hara is the Jewish equivalent of the Buddhist practice of Right Speech. ~ Sylvia Boorstein, #NFDB
154:Whenever anyone, Buddhist or not, sees a Temple or an image of Buddha they receive blessings. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #NFDB
155:"It doesn't matter whether one calls themselves a Buddhist or not a Buddhist. The dharma is love." ~ Garchen Rinpoche, #NFDB
156:Science is reaching the conclusions that we had been taught through the Tibetan Buddhist experience. ~ Gelek Rimpoche, #NFDB
157:The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
158:The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment. ~ Sandra Cisneros, #NFDB
159:Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
160:Wouldn't it be great if health-care plans included a list of Buddhist monks among the network providers? ~ Regina Brett, #NFDB
161:the most basic Buddhist stance: sober examination of what lies before you, leaving aside all assumptions. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
162:To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. —BUDDHIST PROVERB ~ Ted Bell, #NFDB
163:I’m not Buddhist, I’m not Hindu, I’m not Christian, but I still feel like I have a deep connection with God. ~ Katy Perry, #NFDB
164:There is no way to happiness—happiness is the way.” –THICH NHAT HANH Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Nobel ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
165:With a heart pure and overflowing with love I desire to act towards others even as I would toward myself. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
166:Young and old and those who are growing to age, shall all die one after the other like fruits that fall. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
167:If the Buddhist's job is to be detached, I think that the artist's job is to be both detached and attached. ~ Gerald Stern, #NFDB
168:The old joke is that a Buddhist is someone who is either meditating or feeling guilty about not meditating. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
169:I Have Learned so much from God That I can no longer call myself A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, A Buddhist, a Jew. ~ Hafez, #NFDB
170:In the world of Buddhist mind, in the advanced states, we go beyond time, space, life, death and Newsweek. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
171:"There are only two mistakes one can make on the road to truth; not going all the way and not starting." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
172:In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
173:I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
174: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
175:If thou art weary of suffering and affliction, do no longer any transgression, neither openly nor in secret. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
176:I was initiated as a Buddhist monk at the age of 19, but I think that initiation is simply a starting point. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
177:According to the Buddhist point of view, there is no human problem that cannot be solved by human beings. ~ Lama Thubten Yeshe, #NFDB
178:Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge. From ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
179:Do not overrate what you have received nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
180:I'm nothing special, just an ordinary human being. That's why I always describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
181:As my Buddhist teachers have shown me, wisdom emerges in the space around words as much as from language itself. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
182:Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
183:Don't become a Buddhist. The world doesn't need Buddhist. Do practice Compassion. The world needs more compassion. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
184:"Do not overrate what you have received nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
185:"'No self. No problem' said the Buddhist Master when asked to explain the deeper meaning of Buddhism." ~ Eckhart Tolle#teachings, #NFDB
186: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
187:I’d classify myself as a Buddhist. I believed that every living thing came from the earth and was to be respected ~ Robert Dugoni, #NFDB
188:My brothers, when you accost each other, two things alone are fitting, instructive words or a grave silence. ~ Buddhist Scripture, #NFDB
189:I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion. ~ Ron Reagan, #NFDB
190:The instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
191:There's a Buddhist saying that when your house is done your life is over. I hope Tom works on Camp Weasel forever. ~ Heather Lende, #NFDB
192:Career success means making enough money to lead the kind of life you would like to lead as a practicing Buddhist. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
193:Like burning coals are our desires; they are full of suffering, full of torment and a yet heavier distressfulness. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
194:My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy. ~ Richard Gere, #NFDB
195:There aren’t any coincidences, Mrs. Walker,” I said. “Only cycles and patterns.” “Buddhist?” “A superstitious cynic. ~ Laird Barron, #NFDB
196:"These [religious] images - be they Christian or Buddhist or what you will - are lovely, mysterious, richly intuitive." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
197:When thou art purified of thy omissions and thy pollutions, thou shalt come by that which is beyond age and death. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
198:Right now, I'm following the Buddhist principle: Smile as abuse is hurled your way and this too shall pass. ~ Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, #NFDB
199:Sir, if someone took a Buddhist holy book and flushed it down my toilet, the first thing I would do is call a plumber! ~ Ajahn Brahm, #NFDB
200:He's a Catholic, a Hindy, an atheist, a Chein, a Buddhist, a Baptist and a Jew, and he knows, he shouldn't kill. ~ Buffy Sainte Marie, #NFDB
201:Like the waves of a rivulet, day and night are flowing the hours of life and coining nearer and nearer to their end. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
202:Perhaps I had inadvertently brushed up against the Buddhist axiom, that enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment. ~ Maggie Nelson, #NFDB
203:"These [religious] images -- be they Christian or Buddhist or what you will -- are lovely, mysterious, richly intuitive." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
204:According to Buddhist psychology most of our troubles stem from attachment to things that we mistakenly see as permanent. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
205:"Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things." ~ Buddhist proverb||compassion #connectedness, #NFDB
206: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
207:I realize I don’t have to be a Christian who follows the church, or a Buddhist nun in robes, or a convert to Judaism ~ Sarah Macdonald, #NFDB
208:Those who are consecrated to Truth shall surely gain the other shore and they shall cross the torrent waves of death. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
209:Wisdom is like unto a beacon set on high, which radiates its light even in the darkest night. ~ Buddhist Meditations from the Japanese, #NFDB
210:However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them? ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
211:To be honest, I’m trying to maintain a Buddhist detachment about the whole thing to stop it taking ten years off my life. ~ Mark Haddon, #NFDB
212:Wisdom is like unto a beacon set on high, which radiates its light even in the darkest night. ~ Buddhist Meditations from the Japanese, #NFDB
213:According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
214:Be not taken in the snares of the Prince of death, let him not cast thee to the ground because thou hast been heedless. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
215: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
216:The man full of uprightness is happy here below, sweet is his sleep by night and by day his heart is radiant with peace. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
217:There is a buddhist proverb which I like a lot. It says: "Every body deserves mercy". That means that every body is holy. ~ Paul Virilio, #NFDB
218:According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
219:"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?" ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
220:I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that's my religion. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
221: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
222:In the Buddhist tradition, one who has realized the fullness of compassion and lives from compassion is called a bodhisattva. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
223:"It is better to conquer yourself, than to win a thousand battles. Then victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you." ~ Buddhist proverb, #NFDB
224:Like the waves of a river that flow slowly on and return never back, the days of human life pass and come not back again. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
225:According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles stem from attachment to things that we mistakenly see as permanent. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
226:between me and reality. As one Buddhist author put it, the “craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere” permeated my whole life. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
227:But for the first time, I had a religious identity. I had come home. And so I called myself a Zen Buddhist at the age of 18. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
228:We have made a great effort to maintain all levels of Buddhist education; it has helped us have a kind of renaissance, really. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
229:The lesson Jobs learned from his Buddhist days was that material possessions often cluttered life rather than enriched it. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
230:"To be a good Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience." ~ D.T. Suzuki, #NFDB
231:To say one is revolutionary is a little like saying one is a Zen Buddhist - if you say you are, you probably aren't. ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti, #NFDB
232:The Buddhist teachings tell us that over the course of many lifetimes all beings have been our mothers. At one time, all these ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
233:To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
234:Many Buddhist temple priests regard their parishioners as possessions and fear their departure as a diminishing of assets. ~ Kentetsu Takamori, #NFDB
235:Don’t believe everything you think,” said Gamache, before releasing the hand and opening the door. “Pema Chödrön. A Buddhist nun. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
236:I was always searching. I became a Buddhist in my twenties when I came to Los Angeles. I met a group of people who I really loved. ~ Alley Mills, #NFDB
237:. . . how could I protect myself? I had the Viking's scabbard, but not the sword; I had the Buddhist's robe, but not the faith. ~ Andrew Davidson, #NFDB
238:In 1993, I retired from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to devote myself full time to Buddhist studies and to the practice of Aikido. ~ Joseph Jarman, #NFDB
239:it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
240:And don’t feel like you’re committing a felony-level violation of Buddhist dogma just because you think of yourself as being a self. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
241:As a Buddhist, I see no distinction between religious practice and daily life. Religious practice is a twenty-four hour occupation. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
242:If I say, "I am a monk." or "I am a Buddhist," these are, in comparison to my nature as a human being, temporary. To be human is basic. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
243:I've had loss in my life, and I like to think my mother's energy lives on in some faintly Buddhist way. I do find some comfort there. ~ Damian Lewis, #NFDB
244:Steve Jobs, for instance, adopted the Zen Buddhist concept of “beginner’s mind,” the ability to see a situation as if for the first time. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
245:A Buddhist wishes to point out that desires are what prevent people from achieving happiness, that materialism is the cause of discord. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
246:He whose mind is utterly purified from soil, as heaven is pure from stain and the moon from dust, him indeed I call a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
247:My dad was a Buddhist when I was young. So, at a point when I begging become Catholic he was saying "no" and imparting Buddhist precepts. ~ Sean Astin, #NFDB
248:The man who has conquered his unreined desires, offers no hold to sorrow; it glides over him like water over the leaves of the lotus. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
249:An attentive scrutiny of thy being will reveal to thee that it is one with the very essence of absolute perfection. ~ Buddhist Writings in the Japanese, #NFDB
250:As is said in Buddhist religion: Only the empty glass can be filled; a glass already full can receive nothing new from the higher realms. ~ David Tacey, #NFDB
251:Buddha was not a Buddhist. Jesus was not a Christian. Muhammad was not a Muslim. They were teachers who taught Love…Love was their religion ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
252:Buddhist saying that trying to seek happiness through sensory gratification is like trying to quench your thirst by drinking saltwater. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
253:Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not of the East, nor of the West.... ~ Rumi, #NFDB
254: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
255:There's a Buddhist precept that the only thing you deserve is the chance to do the work, and I've been given the chance to do the work. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
256: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
257:I don't look at anything. Every person whether he is Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist, he is my brother, my sister. I think we all do like that. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
258:I sort of believe that my voice was preordained; I'm a Buddhist who believes in reincarnation so I think that my voice is a few lifetimes old. ~ K D Lang, #NFDB
259:The Tibetan Buddhist realization is that mind does not have any particular qualities or attributes of its own. It's clear - clear light. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
260:A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that's to find the truth each day in every part of their life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
261:Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
262:Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
263:The Buddha teaches respect for all life.”
“Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?”
“No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying. ~ Scott Hawkins,#NFDB
264:Buddhist texts say that in the cycle of death and rebirth, no place, not even one the size of a needle’s point, is exempt from suffering. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
265:Marxists want nothing more than to stop being Marxists. In this respect, being a Marxist is nothing like being a Buddhist or a billionaire. ~ Terry Eagleton, #NFDB
266:The purpose of Buddhist practice is universal awakening, not dramatic experiences of opening any more than passive states of serenity. ~ Taigen Dan Leighton, #NFDB
267:Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
268:No matter the level of subtlety of view, all Buddhist schools agree that only a previous moment of mind can cause the present moment of mind. ~ Tashi Tsering, #NFDB
269:The Dalai Lama says that when a Catholic and a Buddhist speak, the Buddhist becomes a deeper Buddhist and the Catholic becomes a deeper Catholic. ~ Pico Iyer, #NFDB
270: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
271:Buddhist psychology did not differentiate cognitive from emotional states in the way Western thought differentiated the passions from reason. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
272:“Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926) Vietnamese Buddhist monk, founder of the Plum Village Tradition, Wikipedia, #NFDB
273:I left Europe [for India] as a Christian, I discovered I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist without ever having ceased to be a Christian. ~ Raimon Panikkar, #NFDB
274:In Buddhist Yoga, we refer to our mutlilife karmic traits as samskaras. They are the internal karmic patterns that make each of us who we are. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
275:I want to love all the children of God - Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist - everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
276:To a Mahayana Buddhist exposed to Nagarjuna’s thought, there is an unmistakable resonance between the notion of emptiness and the new physics. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
277:Although I'm not Christian, I was raised Christian. I'm an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I've got a very strong sense of morality. ~ Rachel Griffiths, #NFDB
278: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
279:As a ripe fruit is at every moment in peril of detaching itself from the branch, so every creature born lives under a perpetual menace of death. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
280: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
281:There are some Buddhist philosophers (a branch referred to as Zen) who say that sometimes a bad thing happens to prevent a worse thing happening, ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
282:The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world,” says an old Buddhist teaching ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
283:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy to possess and the joy to renounce; but nobler is the joy of renunciation. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
284:Ultimately one must abandon the path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet. ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, #NFDB
285:Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
286:Two kinds of joy are there O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the senses and the joy of the spirit; but nobler is the joy of the spirit. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
287:According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the "quivering of the pure heart" when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
288:If you want to experience the unalloyed ecstasy of life, you can accomplish this through the twin Buddhist practices of meditation and mindfulness. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
289:Let all men accomplish only the works of righteousness, and they shall build for themselves a place of safety where they can store their treasures. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
290:In every country in the world, killing human beings is condemned. The Buddhist precept of non-killing extends even further, to include all living beings. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
291:I wouldn't consider myself a Buddhist or a card-carrying zealot at all. My first commitment is as a scientist to uncover the truth about all this. ~ Richard Davidson, #NFDB
292:So vipashyana experience and practice is absolutely necessary for a person who follows the Buddhist path and really wants to understand the dharma. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
293:But the Buddhist teachings are not only about removing the symptoms of suffering, they’re about actually removing the cause, or the root, of suffering. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
294:He who practises wisdom without anger or covetousness, who fulfils with fidelity his vows and lives master of himself, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
295:Looking deeply into the wrong perceptions, ideas, and notions that are at the base of our suffering is the most important practice in Buddhist meditation. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
296:Our brains construct a world that no one else can see, touch, or hear. Or, as Buddhist teachers sometimes say, “The truth is a pathless land. ~ Donna Jackson Nakazawa, #NFDB
297:The lives of mortal men are like vases of many colours made by the potter’s hands; they are broken into a thousand pieces ; there is one end for all. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
298:This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This is like this, because that is like that.” This is the Buddhist teaching of Genesis. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
299:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of distraction and the joy of vigilance; but nobler is the joy that is heedful. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
300:A single day of life of the man who stimulates himself by an act of energy, is of more value than a hundred years passed in norchalance and indolence. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
301:In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you learn to let go? —JACK KORNFIELD, BUDDHIST TEACHER ~ Wendy Maltz, #NFDB
302:true Shaolin disciples, in accordance with Buddhist precepts — though true Shaolin disciples need not be Buddhists, and many aren’t — do not tell lies. ~ Wong Kiew Kit, #NFDB
303:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of egoism and the joy to forget oneself; but nobler is the joy of self-oblivion. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
304:I’m someone who can sit in a Buddhist temple, and I can sit with Pentecostals or with Orthodox Jews, and I still feel like I am in tune with all of them. ~ Vera Farmiga, #NFDB
305:Since we became Buddhist, we have lived in peace with them. We did not invade them. We did not want them to invade us. We have never declared war on China. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
306:I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan. ~ Kumar Sangakkara, #NFDB
307:My father is an atheist. My mother is Buddhist. They encouraged my siblings and me to take the best part of other religions to make our own belief system. ~ Winona Ryder, #NFDB
308:Some Buddhists, however, never seem to get past the void, and I suppose I view this as a kind of Buddhist 'Old Testament' that I don't especially like. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
309:Some consider me as a living Buddha. That's nonsense. That's silly. That's wrong. If they consider me a simple Buddhist monk, however, that's probably okay. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
310:The legendary Buddhist flower udumbara is believed to blossom once every three millennia! What about the Flower of Peace? In every ten million years? ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
311:From my own personal encounters and studies with both Tantric and Zen Buddhist monks, I have found them to be humorous, warm, charming, and compassionate. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
312:I have had moments where I've had mental-health issues and I've felt like yoga and meditating and reading these Buddhist self-help books actually really help. ~ Mike White, #NFDB
313:It is striking that Popper, whom I know had no background in Buddhist thought, arrived at an almost identical classification of the categories of reality. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
314:Art as the single superior counter-force against all will to negation of life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par excellence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
315: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
316:One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
317:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the sated senses and the joy of the equal soul; but nobler is the joy of equality. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
318:crucial decisions that shape how scaling unfolds. One of these universal decisions is whether and when to take a more “Catholic” or a more “Buddhist” path. ~ Robert I Sutton, #NFDB
319:He who has conquered the desire of the present life and of the future life, who has vanquished all fear and broken all chain, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
320:In his chronic forgetfulness, EP has achieved a kind of pathological enlightenment, a perverted vision of the Buddhist ideal of living entirely in the present. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
321:I don't know how many serious Christians exist here in America, but the Japanese, the younger generation is leaving the Buddhist religion mentality behind. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto, #NFDB
322:If a man purposely does me wrong,” a Buddhist says, “I will return him my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
323:[I'm concerned with] aesthetics and this idea of how the passage between life and death goes. I can visually present that by borrowing this Buddhist statue. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto, #NFDB
324:One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
325:You grow, learn, and the more I can sit in silence and be comfortable with myself, the more I can make noise, as ironic and Zen Buddhist and satanic as it sounds! ~ Nikki Sixx, #NFDB
326:Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
327:I do some compassionate mindfulness every day. It's like a Buddhist thing. I tell myself that I'm doing a good job, that kind of thing. It makes me feel better. ~ Maria Bamford, #NFDB
328:If you think the same as everybody else around you it is fair to say that you are not so much a representative of your culture, but a victim of it. Buddhist Proverb ~ Rick Page, #NFDB
329:It is in the foundation of our being that the conditions of existence have their root. It is from the foundation of our being that they start up and take form. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
330:Watch with care over your heart and give not way to heedlessness; practise conscientiously every virtue and let not there be born in you any evil inclination. ~ Buddhist Maxims, #NFDB
331:Being a Buddhist monk means never losing one's optimism in spite of all difficulties. It also means being harder on yourself than any of your teachers ever were. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
332: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
333:Mrs. Bascomb greeted them with the same surprised tone she might have used if she were traveling and happened to run into them at a Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka. ~ Joanne Fluke, #NFDB
334:Society doesn't need that everybody is behaving in the full normal way... like people in a Buddhist monastery... But eccentricity may also connect with the irrational. ~ John Muir, #NFDB
335:There’s a theory,” said Myrna. “Not sure if it’s Buddhist or Taoist or what, that says that there are certain people we meet time and again, in different lifetimes. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
336:Today in Sri Lanka, Pope Francis visited a Buddhist temple. When asked why, the Pope said, 'Just keeping my options open. It's a dicey job market. You never know.' ~ Conan O Brien, #NFDB
337:Veganism is simply letting compassion guide our choice of food. As such, it is a basic Buddhist practice that ought to be expected of everyone who takes refuge vows. ~ Norm Phelps, #NFDB
338:He led quite a great life, ... He was an Old Testament figure railing against the establishment - a Jewish guy from New York who became a Buddhist, a poet, a musician. ~ Tom Hayden, #NFDB
339:I don't really go down one path. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Christian or a Muslim, or Jewish. I couldn't put myself into any organized faith. ~ Dean Cain, #NFDB
340: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
341: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
342:At the end, the meditator arrives at the true goal of Buddhist meditation: to see that the “self” that we take to be the ridgepole of our lives is actually an illusion. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
343: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
344:Since there were others, a long time ago, who were kind enough to give me a hard time and allow me to study with them, I try and express the same Buddhist courtesy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
345:Computer science is fascinating. As you study computer science, you will find that you develop your mind. It is literally like doing Buddhist exercises all day long. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
346:In Buddhist practice a great deal of time is spent practicing mandala meditation. You learn to visualize and hold simultaneous concepts in the mind during meditation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
347:The best part of all is that no matter how long you practice, or what method you use, every technique of Buddhist meditation ultimately generates compassion. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, #NFDB
348: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
349:Let not the favourable moment pass thee by, for those who have suffered it to escape them, shall lament when they find themselves on the path which leads to the abyss. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
350:Mindfulness is the direct application of Buddhist teachings to a physical event, a way of doing or accomplishing something, or a way of thinking and viewing something. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
351:As the perfect man speaks so he acts; as he acts, so the perfect man speaks. It is because he speaks as he acts and acts as he speaks that he is called the perfect. ~ Buddhist Scripture, #NFDB
352:By practicing Buddhist Yoga, you can become happy, ecstatic and free in your current incarnation, even if you have never been that way before in any of your past lives. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
353:From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it. ~ Richard Gere, #NFDB
354:The most prominent Buddhist in the world today, I think, would likely say that this is even truer in his case: he is just a finger pointing at a finger pointing at the moon. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
355:Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying. ~ Scott Hawkins, #NFDB
356:The Buddhist concept is that it takes 48 days to get near this state [of death]. So it's a slow process, moving into, not a permanent death, but the world of the dead. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto, #NFDB
357:He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ Buddhist Mediations from the Japanese, #NFDB
358:To me this technical acceptation seems not applicable here, where we have to deal with the simplest moral precepts, and not with psychological niceties of Buddhist philosophy. ~ Max Muller, #NFDB
359:Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, #NFDB
360:I strive not against the world, but it is the world which strives against me.—It is better to perish in the battle against evil than to be conquered by it and remain living. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
361:The disciple has rejected indolence and indolence conquers him not; loving the light, intelligent, clearly conscient, he purifies his heart of all laxness and all lassitude. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
362:The gopis seek Krishna, another part of themselves that create ecstasy. The man seeks the woman, the woman seeks the man. The Tantric Buddhist seeks annihilation of the ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
363:Therefore regard attentively this ocean of impermanence, contemplate it even to its foundation and labour no more to attain but one sole thing,—the kingdom of the Permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
364:Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
365:Buddhist mindfulness is about the present, but I also think its about being real. Being awake to everything. Feeling like nothing can hurt you if you can look it straight on. ~ Krista Tippett, #NFDB
366: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
367:Today, due to the massive Chinese population transfer, the nation of Tibet truly faces the threat of extinction, along with its unique cultural heritage of Buddhist spirituality. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
368:An old Buddhist monk told me once that the mind is like an untrained monkey. If you don’t give it something to do, it will tear your house apart and smear shit on all the walls. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
369:It's been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
370:Ju jitsu is very Buddhist. All that we fear we hold close to ourselves to survive. So if you're drowning and you see a corpse floating by, hang on to it because it will rescue you. ~ Tom Hardy, #NFDB
371:The role of the Buddhist teacher is to explain your options and to show you what creates karma. All our discussions are basically karmic until you're fully engaged in samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
372:In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence - ignorance... about the separation of self and other... about the consequences of our actions. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
373:In our work we do not differentiate between Hindu or Muslim, Buddhist or Sikh, Parsee or Pariah. We are all brothers here — all Children of the same Mother India. ~ Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, #NFDB
374:I recommend computer science to people who practice meditation. The mental structures that are used in computer science are very similar exercises done in Buddhist monasteries. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
375:The bears, over the years, have developed a primitive but heartfelt Buddhist discipline. Beneath the cinnamon trees they practice the repetition of the Growling Sutra. The ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
376:Wherefore, O my brothers, if men blame you, condemn you, persecute or attack you, you shall not be indignant, you shall not be discouraged and your spirit shall not be cast down. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
377: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
378:In Buddhist writings, mention is often made of “the abyss of birth." An abyss indeed, a gulf into which we do not fall but from which, instead, we emerge, to our universal chagrin. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
379:It is the Buddhist belief that all things, experiences and people are inherently empty. That is a simple way of saying that all physical and nonphysical things have another side. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
380:The basic Buddhist stand on the question of equality between the genders is age-old. At the highest tantric levels, at the highest esoteric level, you must respect women: every woman. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
381:Many people, including Buddhist monks, spend thousands of hours sitting in what they call meditation. In reality, what they're doing is thinking and ruminating upon their problems. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
382:If, on the other hand, I relate to others from the perspective of myself as someone different—a Buddhist, a Tibetan, and so on—I will then create walls to keep me apart from others. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
383:It is ironic that Samuel Berger learned of this espionage in exactly the same month that Al Gore was attending his now famous fund-raiser with Buddhist nuns in Southern California. ~ Lamar Alexander, #NFDB
384:Much of traditional Buddhist practice is directed toward the ability to see life accurately, beyond all the expectations, projections, and distortions that we typically bring to it. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
385:The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage. ~ Eric Maisel, #NFDB
386:Wife indeed!" laughed Monkey. "You haven't got a wife now. There are some sorts of Taoists that are family men; but who ever heard of a Buddhist priest calmly talking about his 'wife'? ~ Wu Cheng en, #NFDB
387:A Buddhist is working not just to get paid, but working to advance spiritually. You shouldn't create a syntactical break in your mind between your career and your religious practice. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
388:At least half of your mind is always thinking, I'll be leaving; this won't last. It's a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I'm just sad. ~ Anne Carson, #NFDB
389:Buddhist scriptures recommend that you hide your good qualities and achievements like a lamp inside a vessel. You should not advertise them unless there is great purpose in doing so. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
390:Buddhist teachings put it this way: “Just as the great oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so do all of the teachings of Buddha have but one taste, the taste of liberation. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
391:... "The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world," says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
392:Beneath the sophistication of Buddhist psychology lies the simplicity of compassion. We can touch into this compassion whenever the mind is quiet, whenever we allow the heart to open. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
393:I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
394:It's probably even the case that if you stoked up some Buddhist monks with tons of testosterone, they'd become wildly competitive as to who can do the most acts of random kindness. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
395:“The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing – or heart, mind, and hands – or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage.” ~ Eric Maisel, #NFDB
396:If we had to accept the idea of an independent creator, the explanations given in [several Buddhist texts] which completely refutes the existence per se of all phenomena, would be negated. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
397:In many traditions, the world was sung into being: Aboriginal Australians believe their ancestors did so. In Hindu and Buddhist thought, Om was the seed syllable that created the world. ~ Jay Griffiths, #NFDB
398:When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life. ~ Ralph Fiennes, #NFDB
399:He who watches over his body, his speech, his whole self, who is full of serenity and joy, possesses a spirit unified and finds satisfaction in solitude, he is in-deed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
400:I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
401:We have chosen words like teacher, master, and guru as titles for the people to whom we go for spiritual training and counsel. But the original Buddhist term is spiritual friend. ~ Shambhala Publications, #NFDB
402:Don’t think about Buddhist terminology; don’t think about what the books say or anything like that. Just ask yourself simply, “How, at this moment, do I interpret myself?” That’s all. ~ Lama Thubten Yeshe, #NFDB
403:In the emerging culture, darkness represents spirituality. We see this in Buddhist temples, as well as Catholic and orthodox churches. Darkness indicates that something serious is happening. ~ Dan Kimball, #NFDB
404:The Buddhist understanding of mind is primarily derived from empirical observations grounded in the phenomenology of experience, which includes the contemplative techniques of meditation. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
405:Work sustains us as bodies and it consumes a great deal of energy. The conservation of energy is the component theme of Buddhist practice and yoga. That is why people live in monasteries. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
406:Firstly, as a Buddhist monk, I hold that violence is not good. Secondly, I am a firm believer in the Gandian ethic of passive resistance. And thirdly, in reality, violence is not our strength. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
407:In the Buddhist view... what is keeping us out of the garden is not the jealousy or wrath of any god, but our own instinctive attachment to what we take to be our lives. ~ Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By, #NFDB
408:Some of my most precious moments of insight have been those in which I have seen clearly that gratitude is the only possible response." (Sylvia Boorstein, from "You Don't Look Buddhist") ~ Sylvia Boorstein, #NFDB
409:All the dogmatists have been terrified by the lion’s roar of shunyata. Wherever they may reside, shunyata lies in wait!
Nagarjuna: Master of Wisdom: Writitngs of the Buddhist Mastar Nagarjuna ~ N g rjuna,#NFDB
410:Every action a man performs in thought, word and act, remains his veritable possession. It follows him and does not leave him even as a shadow separates not by a line from him who casts it. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
411:"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
412:There's a kind of training, when you are sitting in a session in the Japanese tradition or any of the Buddhist traditions, taking your lotus posture or whatever it is. That's what you're doing. ~ Anne Waldman, #NFDB
413: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
414:In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is the mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
415:And finally, be assured that Zen asks nothing even as it promises nothing. One can be a Protestant Zen Buddhist, a Catholic Zen Buddhist or a Jewish Zen Buddhist. Zen is a quiet thing. It listens. ~ Howard Fast, #NFDB
416:The point of the spiritual revolution is not to become a good Buddhist, but to become a wise and compassionate human being, to awaken from our life of complacency and ignorance and to be a buddha. ~ Noah Levine, #NFDB
417:When a thought of anger or cruelty or a bad and unwholesome inclination awakes in a man, let him immediately throw it from him. let him dispel it, destroy it, prevent it from staying with him. ~ Buddhist Maxims, #NFDB
418: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
419:I'm not a preacher, but I preach. I'm not a Buddhist, but I chant. I'm not race theorist, but I have questions and ponderances around the complexities of race and class and culture wherever I am. ~ Theaster Gates, #NFDB
420:On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
421:The Buddhist Nirvana won by the heroic spirit of moral self-conquest and calm wisdom is a state of ineffable calm and joy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - III, #NFDB
422:As Buddhist teachers often point out, knowledge, in the sense of prajña, is not knowledge about anything. There is no abstract knower of an experience that is separate from the experience itself. ~ Francisco Varela, #NFDB
423:Folding a garment often reminds me of the priests who carve Buddhist statues. They gaze intently at a piece of wood until they see the shape of the figure within it and carve the wood until it emerges. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
424:He who punishes not, kills not, permits not to be killed, who is full of love among those who are full of hate, full of sweetness among those who are full of cruelty, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
425:“If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926) Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, founder of the Plum Village Tradition, Wikipedia, #NFDB
426:One road conducts to the goods of this world, honour and riches, but the other to victory over the world. Seek not the goods of the world, riches and honour. Let your aim be to transcend the world. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
427:Why should one be a Christian? It is ugly. Be a christ if you can be, but don’t be a Christian. Be a buddha if you have any respect for yourself, but don’t be a Buddhist. The Buddhist believes. Buddha knows. ~ Osho, #NFDB
428:The Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I’m not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss. ~ David Goggins, #NFDB
429:Fixing things together. Empathy and cooperation – good Buddhist principles, by the way. Fixing a flawed creation so that it can nurture life and mind, for ever – even beyond the end of time, perhaps. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
430:for others gating remains very open, especially among young children, artists, schizophrenics, specialists of the sacred such as shamans and Buddhist masters, and those ingesting psychotropics. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
431:In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
432:A Buddhist adage teaches, “If you want to know who you were in your past life, look to your present circumstances. If you want to know who you will be in your future life, look to your present actions. ~ Demetra George, #NFDB
433:Freedom is the real source of human happiness and creativity. Irrespective of whether you are a believer or nonbeliever, whether Buddhist, Christian, or Jew, the important thing is to be a good human being. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
434:If you are a student of an enlightened master, you can literally tap into his aura, anywhere and at anytime. All you have to do is meditate on your Buddhist master and the light will come into your mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
435:Christ wasn't a Christian and Buddha wasn't a Buddhist and Muhammad wasn't Muslim. These people were having the experience of unity consciousnesses and universal consciousness and they spoke of it in words. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
436:He who afflicts no living creature, who neither kills nor allows to be killed, him indeed I call a man of religion. Whoever wishes to consecrate himself to the spiritual life, ought not to destroy any life. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
437: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
438:One is a Buddhist if he or she accepts the following four truths: All compounded things are impermanent. All emotions are pain. All things have no inherent existence. Nirvana is beyond concepts. ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
439:I think China's view of freedom has to do with material wealth and modernity, and the Dalai's Lama view of freedom is liberation in the Buddhist sense, which is freedom from ignorance and freedom from suffering. ~ Pico Iyer, #NFDB
440:Buddhist discipline is designed to transmute trishna, or egoic narcissism, into Karuna, Divine Narcissism; that is, to transmute self-love, which excludes love of others, into Self-love, which is love of others. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
441:Pema Chödrön, an ordained Buddhist nun, writes of compassion and suggests that its truest measure lies not in our service of those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them. ~ Gregory Boyle, #NFDB
442:We're connected to the Buddhist order, to the mind of enlightenment. All day long we draw the power and force from that world, from all the teachers and all the adherents of the practices and the principles. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
443:Originally, I was interested in athletic pursuits like snowboarding, martial arts and surfing. When I went to the Himalayas and met a number of Buddhist monks I was introduced to a new way of looking at life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
444:Because my main concern is the Tibetan Buddhist culture, not just political independence, I cannot seek self-rule for central Tibet and exclude the 4 million Tibetans in our two eastern provinces of Amdo and Kham. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
445:It is not appropriate to ask a Buddhist, “What is the purpose of life?” because the question suggests that somewhere out there, perhaps in a cave or on a mountaintop, an ultimate purpose exists. The ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
446:Mindfulness means that as we go through the day we learn to gain control of our mind, our emotions. We learn to conserve energy in a variety of simple and complicated ways that we learned in Buddhist practice. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
447:[Someone] said that what I described as the Buddhist voice - the life-denying voice of censure and guilt - sounded to him very much like a Catholic voice. This is, indeed, a mystery, and it intrigues me, too. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
448:As Buddhist monks, our task is to bring ourselves resolutely more and more into light, to forgive and forget, to forget those who create problems for us because to remember them is only to keep problems is mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
449:Have big dreams but focus only on what you can control: your own thoughts, words and actions. This was Gandhi's way ... in the words of Buddhist poet Gary Snyder, our job is to move the world a millionth of an inch. ~ Eboo Patel, #NFDB
450:Here’s my personal definition of a Buddhist: someone who prioritizes cultivating her relationship to her own heartmind—and her relationship to other sentient beings—above whatever else she might achieve in life. ~ Ethan Nichtern, #NFDB
451:Bernadette never went to Mass; she was a fundamentalist Christian. Mother often said she only used religion as a framework for her craziness. She could just as easily have been a Muslim or a Buddhist or a white witch. ~ Donal Ryan, #NFDB
452:Deliver yourself from all that is not your self; but what is it that is not your self? The body, the sensations, the perceptions, the relative differentiations. This liberation will lead you to felicity and peace. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
453:I never really got around to discussing that specific topic which I think it crucially important to understand. If you were a monk in Buddhist time and you had sex, there was a good chance a child would be conceived. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
454:Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching. Nonaggression has the power to heal. Not harming ourselves or others is the basis of enlightened society. ~ Pema Chodron, Comfortable With Uncertainty, #NFDB
455:Whoso has been careless and has conquered his carelessness, whoso having committed errors concentrates his whole will towards good, shines on the darkened world like the moon in a cloudless sky, ~ Buddhist Sayings from the Chinese, #NFDB
456:If on the quantum level, matter is revealed to be less solid and definable than it appears, then it seems to me that science is coming closer to the Buddhist contemplative insights of emptiness and interdependence. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
457:I fully love and accept you and want to hang out with you and be friends if you’re Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Jedi or love the opposite sex or love the same sex or love Rick Springfield circa 1983. ~ Rachel Hollis, #NFDB
458:Death and dying provide a meeting-point between the Tibetan Buddhist and modern scientific traditions. I believe both have a great deal to contribute to each other on the level of understanding and of practical benefit. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
459:Don't spend your life worrying about what you are missing out on. Not to be Buddhist about it- okay, to be a little Buddhist about it- life isn't about being pleased with what you are doing, but about what you are being. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
460:Everything that I teach as an enlightened Buddhist teacher is towards directing an individual to happiness, a balanced wisdom and knowledge that is sometimes just bubbly and euphoric or just very still and profound. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
461:With mountain biking, it's always that constant thing, negotiating singletrack, which I like, but for a road ride that rhythm is really Buddhist. When you get a good pedal stoke, it's that thing of everything works. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
462:If you resort to violent methods because the other side has destroyed your monastery, for example, you then have lost not only your monastery, but also your special Buddhist practices of detachment, love, and compassion. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
463:The great masters of the Buddhist tradition, as well as the Buddhist teachings on bodhichitta and lojong, teach us that self-protection is a tendency that needs to be reversed in order to experience genuine happiness ~ Anyen Rinpoche, #NFDB
464:Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions ... very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you'd see a Buddhist landscape fog. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
465:I have often discussed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in talks I have given about meditation. But, since I also teach Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist mediation, I have a very eclectic approach to the subject. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
466:You missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over be present out there. ~ John Green, #NFDB
467:Buddhist practice is aimed primarily at cultivating the antidotes to these afflictive thoughts and emotions, with the goal of eradicating the root of our unenlightened existence to bring about liberation from suffering. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
468:There's a Buddhist story about the guy who wants to be enlightened, and then he gets a cow and a wife and a child, and all these things get in the way of his enlightenment. So, yeah, I have no chance of being enlightened. ~ Larkin Grimm, #NFDB
469: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
470:If you think there's an important difference between being a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist, then you're making a division between your heart, what you love with, and the way you act in the world. ~ Coleman Barks, #NFDB
471:I came to California in 1970 and so many people were asking if I was a Buddhist or knew Zen theory, asking if I was enlightened already or not. So I said, "Yes, I am enlightened," and then I studied quickly to catch up. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto, #NFDB
472:If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace. —The Venerable Ajahn Chah, twentieth-century Buddhist monk In ~ Marci Shimoff, #NFDB
473:There's only two classes of people: terrorists and non-terrorists. Terrorists come in every flavour: there are Buddhist terrorists right now killing Rohingya in Burma! Buddhists! They're not allowed to kill bugs. ~ Malcolm Wrightson Nance, #NFDB
474:Different people describe me in a different ways. Some describe me as the living Buddha. Nonsense. Some describe me as 'God-king.' Nonsense. Some consider me as a demon or a wolf in Buddhist robes. That also, I think nonsense. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
475:If ever you're getting a dog, Francis, make sure it's a Buddhist. Good-natured dogs, the Buddhists. Never, never get a Mahommedan. They'll eat you sleeping. Never a Catholic dog. They'll eat you every day including Fridays. ~ Frank McCourt, #NFDB
476:In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of the body and mind. Whate very happens to the body also happens to the mind....This is a very important encounter (engaging in sex) , not to be done in a casual manner. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
477:The Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for what damages the life of a man; but the Buddhist is sorry for him because he is alive. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
478:Well neither of us were "Buddhists" then because it was new to us. We were 60's people. Psychedelic relics, you know... whatever, right on, radicals and world changers, social peaceniks perhaps, with a Buddhist spiritual veneer. ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
479:I'm a Buddhist. You might have a Christian obligation to catch pneumonia while you sit for two and a half hours listening to some twerp in a dress drone on about the virtue of wedded life but, dear as you are to me, I don't. ~ Natasha Pulley, #NFDB
480:Philosophically speaking, from the Buddhist point of view, both human beings and animals possess what in Tibetan is called shepa, which can be roughly translated as “consciousness,” albeit to different degrees of complexity. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
481:Whether you believe in God or not does not matter much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
482:Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught. This book is meant to be a basic Buddhist primer, but no one should be daunted. It's easier than you think [p. 4] ~ Sylvia Boorstein, #NFDB
483: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
484:From the Buddhist perspective, a full human understanding must not only offer a coherent account of reality, our means of apprehending it, and the place of consciousness but also include a clear awareness of how we should act. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
485:The Buddhist approach to this collective suffering is to turn toward it. We understand that genuine happiness and meaning will come through tending to suffering. We overcome out own despair bby helping other to overcome theirs. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
486: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
487:Whether you believe in God or not does not matter much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
488:Buddhist practices offer a way of saying, 'Hey, come back over here, reconnect.' The only way that you'll actually wake up and have some freedom is if you have the capacity and courage to stay with the vulnerability and the discomfort. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
489:MRA is the good road of an ideology inspired by God upon which all can unite. Catholic, Jew and Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Confucianist - all find they can change, where needed, and travel along this good road together. ~ Frank Buchman, #NFDB
490:Nonetheless, I'm not sure this entirely accounts for my Buddhist voice, which tells me forever to give up writing, to give up on relationships, simply to give up. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to me to be the voice of innocence. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
491:The Buddhist mindset seeks to eliminate the self. That is to say, what we want to experience is life, not self. When there's less self and more life, we're very content, and when there's more self and less life we're quite unhappy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
492:The main point of the Buddhist teachings is to dissolve the dualistic struggle, our habitual tendency to struggle against what’s happening to us or in us. The teachings instruct us to move toward difficulties rather than backing away. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
493:Zen Buddhist scholar Daisetz T. Suzuki said, "If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an "artless art" growing out of the Unconscious. ~ Dov Seidman, #NFDB
494:I am the happiest person I've ever met. This is what Buddhist Yoga and a healthy dose of reading the Declaration of the Independence, The Constitution and the Federalist Papers and anything else I could get my hands on has given me. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
495:Our spirit grows and develops traits in each incarnation that it passes through, and then collects and carries the essence of those traits into future lifetimes. In Buddhist Yoga we refer to our multi-life karmic traits as samskaras. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
496:The secure attachment of Western psychology is actually akin to Buddhist non-attachment; avoid-ant attachment is the inverse of being mindful and present; and anxious attachment aligns with Buddhist notions of clinging and grasping. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
497:If we can't prevent nuclear disaster that will be not just a political failure, but be the highest spiritual failure of mankind. Whether we are Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish or others we must work to prevent that failure. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
498: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
499:I think there's a lot of great beliefs in the Buddhist religion, I think there's a lot of great beliefs in the Christian religion, I think there's a lot of great beliefs in no religion. It just depends on how you feel on the inside. ~ Cristian Machado, #NFDB
500:She was a pious Buddhist and every day in her prayers asked Buddha not ro reincarnate her as a woman. "Let me become a cat or dog, but not a woman," was her constant murmur as she shuffled around the house, oozing apology with every step. ~ Jung Chang, #NFDB
501:They had an old-fashioned sincerity...that touched Archy in this time when everything good in life was either synthesised in transgenic cyborg vats or shade-grown in small batches by a Buddhist collective of blind ex-Carmelite Wiccans. ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
502:What I was able to bring to the Christian part of it was the humanism and the humanistic point of view. It was the hook in terms of being able to make that adjustment. I wasn't born Buddhist, so I do have some other traditions to pull from. ~ Ron Glass, #NFDB
503:One of the books that has guided me in the last ten years of my life to help me to be that leader is the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace. He's a Vietnamese monk. He was nominated for a Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King. ~ Sandra Cisneros, #NFDB
504:1963 when President Diêm passed a law prohibiting his people from celebrating the Buddhist national holiday, many Vietnamese have understandably associated Christianity with foreign attempts to establish political and cultural domination. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
505:I am a reformed Taoist, part-time Buddhist, Hindu, animist, pagan, Jewish mystic, and Christian. I always got along great with priests and rabbis and mullahs and gurus, even though I spend most of my life constructively criticizing them. ~ Steven Van Zandt, #NFDB
506:I Climb To The Leyou Tombs Before Leaving For
Wuxing
Even in this good reign, how can I serve?
The lone cloud rather, the Buddhist peace....
Once more, before crossing river and sea,
I face the great Emperor's mountain-tomb.
~ Du Mu,#NFDB
507:In my head I am in one of those Buddhist caves where you see a thousand Buddha faces on the wall. In my head I am on my seventeen-year-old acid trip, when I saw my personas fall one minute after another, as if I was dying every moment. ~ Francesco Clemente, #NFDB
508:Taking my cue from the progress of meditation, I have found that the first task of working through from a Buddhist perspective is to uncover how the spatial metaphor of self is being used defensively to keep key aspects of the person at bay. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
509:I myself am a Buddhist, not a Christian. But I cannot help but think that if Christ ran a public establishment, it would be open to all, and He would be the last to refuse service to anyone. It is, simply put, the most un-Christian of notions. ~ George Takei, #NFDB
510:Our Buddhist sutra tells us that when conditions are sufficient, we see forms, and when conditions are not sufficient, we don't. When all conditions are prsesent, phenomena can be perceived by us, and so they are revealed to us as existing, ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
511:From a Buddhist point of view, the first thing to help is yourself, to get your own mind together. And to really understand how to benefit beings, not just on the physical level, but on all levels. Then there are endless beings you can benefit. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
512:Active addiction is a kind of hell. It is like being a hungry ghost, wandering through life in constant craving and suffering. Refuge Recovery, the Buddhist-inspired approach to treating addiction, offers a plan to end the suffering of addiction. ~ Noah Levine, #NFDB
513:A more common explanation for the feeling of being Old in Soul is tied up in Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation, or metempsychosis. Interestingly, this is most likely where the origin of the phrase “Old Soul” came from in the first place. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
514:Nanamoli Thera (Osbert Moore). The Life of the Buddha. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publishing Society, 1992 (1st edition 1972). Shantideva. The Bodhicaryavatara. (1) Translated from Sanskrit by Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton. Oxford/New York: ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
515:There's many lanes on the highway of enlightenment, they don't have to be on the razor's edge like the yellow line dotted in the middle. Balance is appropriate, not too tight, not too loose, the Middle Way as we call it in Buddhist dharma teachings. ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
516:Alan Watts, the Buddhist scholar, proposed the existence of a mental faculty he called forgettory, which is the flip side of memory. There are times, Watts maintained, when we need to forget things, to let them slip away into the unremembered past. ~ Larry Dossey, #NFDB
517:Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön warns against what she insightfully terms “idiot compassion”—using kindness to avoid conflict when a resounding “no” is required. I completely agree. To preserve our emotional freedom, we must know where to draw the line. ~ Judith Orloff, #NFDB
518:In sum, passing over to Buddhist spiritual practice has taught me, and can teach my church, that all our words, whether in Christian theology or Christian liturgy, must arise from and lead back to Silence. Only then do they have something to say. ~ Paul F Knitter, #NFDB
519:By changing our inner state of mind, we can change any suffering or hardship into a source of joy, regarding it as a means for forging and developing our lives. To turn even sorrow into a source of creativity - this is the way of life of a Buddhist ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
520:Finch asked, "Are they Christians or something?"
Hofspaur chortled and shook his head. "No. They're not Christians. I don't even know what the fuck to call them. They're like communist Buddhist vegan assholes. Who all happen to be ex-hackers. ~ Jay Caspian Kang,#NFDB
521:The Eightfold Path “is not a recipe for a pious Buddhist existence in which you do everything right and get nothing wrong,; it is a means of orienting yourself so that your fears and habits do not tip the balance of your existence. ~ Mark Epstein, Advice Not Given, #NFDB
522:The martial arts would not be developed by Buddhist monks until after that, but to remain historically accurate, I would have had to leave out an important question that I felt needed to be addressed, which is, "What if Jesus had known kung fu? ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
523:According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life. The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
524:Thus a Buddhist text says, “If the accumulation of false imaginations is cleared away, Enlightenment will appear. But the strange thing is that when people gain Enlightenment they realize that without false imaginations there could be no Enlightenment. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
525: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
526:Dada is not modern at all, it is rather a return to a quasi-Buddhist religion of indifference. Dada puts an artificial sweetness onto things, a snow of butterflies coming out of a conjurer's skull. Dada is stillness and does not understand the passions. ~ Tristan Tzara, #NFDB
527:What makes a difference is when we take our mind and put it into the scriptures, when we read the Buddhist Canon, the Pali Canon, when we read the Tibetan books, when we read anything inspiring - somebody else's journey into the world of enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
528:I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy: it's serious business. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
529:To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen or one believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one believes in air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you experience. ~ Robert M Pirsig, #NFDB
530:A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
531:Doing meditation you may need to experiment to discover what kinds of thoughts are best for your own unique interests and situation. For you it might be a repetitive "mantra," or simply an open state of watching your breath, like in the Buddhist tradition. ~ Tim McCarthy, #NFDB
532: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
533:Religion is one of the most important forces in the world. Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, or a Hindu, religion is a great force, and it can help one have command of one's own morality, one's own behavior, and one's own attitude. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
534:A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
535:Buddhist monks have known for centuries that meditation can change the mind. Now we are inspired by His Holiness to examine with our technology the precise brain changes that occur with practice... The unique collaboration on meditation is just beginning. ~ Richard Davidson, #NFDB
536:I know many Catholic priests and nuns who use the Buddhist teachings to become better Catholics, and Jews who use them to become better Jews. Why not?! It just takes us towards more deeply recognizing our original nature, which is what we all share after all. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
537:I'm not really hip to too much of the Zen or the Buddhist point of view, but you see I don't have to be because I just know that they're all the same, it's all the same, it's just whichever one you want to take and it happens that I'm taking the Hindu one. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
538:Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers in the West, a rare combination of mystic, poet, scholar, and activist. His luminous presence and the simple, compassionate clarity of his writings have touched countless lives. ~ Joanna Macy, #NFDB
539:forgiveness always heals; it does not matter whether you are Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Jewish. Forgiveness is one of the patterns that is always true, it is part of The Story. There is no specifically Catholic way to feed the hungry or to steward the earth. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
540:The Buddhists think that, because we've all had infinite previous lives, we've all been each other's relatives. Therefore all of you, in the Buddhist view, in some previous life ... have been my mother - for which I do apologize for the trouble I caused you. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
541:I’ve often cited the Buddhist proverb “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Although it is not always evident at the time, all of our experiences in this life, even those that are painful, have a true and necessary purpose in our soul’s journey. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
542:Buddhist teachers say that anything you do to escape fundamental duality just kicks more energy into it. Your only choice is to stop. That unsplit, unifying place—beyond ordinary human ego awareness—is found at the fulcrum. This is the holy place, the whole place. ~ RA Johnson, #NFDB
543:I'm not Buddhist, I'm not Hindu, I'm not Christian, but I still feel like I have a deep connection with God. I pray all the time — for self-control, for humility. There's a lot of gratitude in it. Just saying 'thank you' sometimes is better than asking for things. ~ Katy Perry, #NFDB
544:I was once told by a Buddhist master that there are two kinds of children in the world: those born to repay the kindness of their parents, and those born only to take what their parents have. Ask yourself: Which kind of a son or daughter are you to your parents? ~ Haemin Sunim, #NFDB
545:I know nothing which engenders evil and weakens good so much as carelessness; in the uncaring evil appears at once and effaces good. I know nothing which engenders good and weakens evil so much as energy; in the energetic good at once appears and evil vanishes. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
546:It was entirely due to my mother [a devout Buddhist] and her kindness and perseverance that the family was saved from utter ruin. For a period of 17 years--from the age of 9 until I was 25 years old--my mother never spent a day free from domestic difficulties. ~ Chiang Kai shek, #NFDB
547:Shambhala does have unique teachings, as do many Buddhist traditions. For example, certain teachings within Shambhala have to do with raising the personal windhorse, or the energy of the individual, so a person has good fortitude to be able to live a good life. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
548:The Buddhist mind is more complicated than the Christian mind. It comes up with endless heavens, endless hells, endless earths, and then we have something lower than hell. We have endless sub-realms that make hell look like Club Med and we have endless nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
549:To me, this is from a Buddhist perspective or whatever, sometimes people who are working out their political beliefs, they can rage against the man, and yet at the same time can be oblivious to their own way of stepping on the foot of the person right next to them. ~ Mike White, #NFDB
550:I hate to sound like a weirdo Buddhist, but the only things that really matter in this world are the relationships you have with the people you love, and the meaningful things that you do. Haters don’t fit anywhere into that. Don’t devote any mental space to them. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
551:The idea of fixing of healing is an important part of any genuine spiritual approach. Kabbalah is very much about this idea of fixing of things that have been damaged. From a Buddhist point of view, things have been damaged because ignorance has intoxicated the mind. ~ Richard Gere, #NFDB
552:According to the general Buddhist view, the whole of saṃsāra, with its myriad pleasant and miserable realms, is a prison. But from the perspective of pristine awareness, all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is equally suffused by the primordial purity of the Great Perfection. ~ B Alan Wallace, #NFDB
553:Some of Buddhist texts say that, in the moment after you die, you think of New Jersey and you go to New Jersey or you think of 1820 and you go to 1820. Also, all your sort of inner-symbology gets writ large. So, if you're a Christian, you see Christian iconography. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
554:I bring quadruple diversity to the Senate: I'm a woman; I'll be the first Asian woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate; I am an immigrant; I am a Buddhist. When I said this at one of my gatherings, they said, 'Yes, but are you gay?' and I said, 'Nobody's perfect.' ~ Mazie Hirono, #NFDB
555:An agnostic Buddhist would not regard the Dharma as a source of answers to questions of where we came from, where we are going, what happens after death. He would seek such knowledge in the appropriate domains: astrophysics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, etc. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
556:I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
557:The Buddha would not have liked people to call themselves Buddhist. To him that would have been a fundamental error because there are no fixed identities. He would have thought that someone calling himself a Buddhist has too much invested in calling himself a Buddhist. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
558:The Dali Lama and other notable Buddhist teachers have now indicated that since the world has plunged into a dark age, the information available in the tantras, which include the very, very powerful Kundalini release techniques, should be made available to the public. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
559:I hate to sound like a weirdo Buddhist, but the only things that really matter in this world are the relationships you have with the people you love, and the meaningful things that you do. Haters don’t fit anywhere into that. Don’t devote any mental space to them.” The ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
560:Shift your focus to what’s occurring right now. This is why Buddhist monks and yogis practice nonjudgmental awareness—the process of being aware of the present, without attaching emotional reactivity to it. This mindfulness practice cuts off worry and anxiety at the source. ~ Alex Korb, #NFDB
561:There’s a Buddhist saying that peace is like a sun that’s always shining in your heart. It’s just hidden behind clouds of fear, doubt, worry, and desire that continually orient you toward the past or the future. The sun comes out only when you’re in the present moment. ~ Joan Borysenko, #NFDB
562:Throughout his career, Jobs liked to see himself as an enlightened rebel pitted against evil empires, a Jedi warrior or Buddhist samurai fighting the forces of darkness. IBM was his perfect foil. He cleverly cast the upcoming battle not as a mere business competition, ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
563:Look at the sky, and at the earth, and think that all things pass. All of the mountains and rivers you see, and all the forms of life, and all creations of nature, all pass. Then you will understand the truth; you will see what remains, what does not pass. —BUDDHIST WISDOM ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
564:The action of man made of desire, dislike and illusion starts from his own being, in himself it has its source and, wherever it is found, must come to ripeness, and wherever his action comes to ripeness, man gathers its fruits whether in this or some other form of life. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
565:I get up at sunrise. I'm a Buddhist, so I chant in the morning. My wife and I sit and have coffee together, but then it's list-making time. I have carpentry projects. We have roads we keep in repair. It's not back-breaking, but it's certainly aerobic and mildly strenuous. ~ Patrick Duffy, #NFDB
566:But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it’s over, be present out there,” he said, ~ John Green, #NFDB
567:In the mystical experience, which transcends all religious traditions and cultures and languages, the Christian, the Buddhist, the Muslim, and the Vedantist alike come to the same realization: They realize the oneness of their own soul and God, the Soul of the universe. ~ Swami Abhayananda, #NFDB
568:From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
569:When we survey the whole field of religion, we find a great variety in the thoughts that have prevailed there; but the feelings on the one hand and the conduct on the other are almost always the same, for Stoic, Christian, and Buddhist saints are practically indistinguishable ~ William James, #NFDB
570:Buddhist Barbie"
In the 5th century B.C.
an Indian philosopher
Gautama teaches "All is emptiness"
and "There is no self."
In the 20th century A.D.
Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man
with such a belly could pose,
smiling, and without a shirt. ~ Denise Duhamel,#NFDB
571:Buddhist Barbie"
In the 5th century B.C.
an Indian philosopher
Gautama teaches "All is emptiness"
and "There is no self."
In the 20th century A.D.
Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man
with such a belly could pose,
smiling, and without a shirt. ~ Denise Duhamel,#NFDB
572:At a personal level, as a Buddhist practitioner, I deliberately visualize and think about death in my daily practice. Death is not separated from our lives. Due to my research and thoughts about death, I have some guarantee and some conviction that it will be a positive experience. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
573:Buddhist Barbie
In the 5th century B.C.
an Indian philosopher
Gautama teaches 'All is emptiness'
and 'There is no self.'
In the 20th century A.D.
Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man
with such a belly could pose,
smiling, and without a shirt.
~ Denise Duhamel,#NFDB
574:Buddhist concept of mindfulness means precisely a way of being in which one is fully concentrated on everything one is doing at any given moment, whether it is planting a seed or cleaning a room or eating. Or as a Zen master has said: “When I sleep I sleep, when I eat I eat …” 10. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
575:Buddhist practice is an ongoing investigation of reality, a microscopic examination of the very process of perception. Its intention is to pick apart the screen of lies and delusions through which we normally view the world, and thus to reveal the face of ultimate reality. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
576:I can't tell how moving it is to open my email and see a picture of 1,500 Buddhist monks and nuns in the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh forming a human 350 against the backdrop of the melting glaciers. This is not their fault, and yet they're stepping up to be part of the solution. ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
577:In the Buddhist tradition, where mindful meditation comes from, anger is regarded as a somewhat unhealthy,unskillful emotion because we can be blinded by it. We don't see clearly and tend to do things and say things that are harmful out of the anger because we don't have clarity. ~ Mark Coleman, #NFDB
578:The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says "Do not flatter your benefactors," but who, in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
579:Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and best-selling author, said in his book The Joy of Living: “Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them. ~ Tammy Strobel, #NFDB
580:Fortuna wished to make amends. Somehow she had summoned and flushed Myrna minx from a subway tube, from some picket line, from the pungent bed of some Eurasian existentialist, from the hands of some epileptic Negro Buddhist, from the verbose midst of a group therapy session. ~ John Kennedy Toole, #NFDB
581:Waterlilies always come in Buddhist sculpture. The Buddhas all stand on lotus pedestals, because the lotus is grown from the mud. The mud represents the stained world, a dirty world, but growing from the dirt is such a beautiful, pure thing. This is the way the spirit should be. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto, #NFDB
582:According to the Buddhist tradition,” he began, “there is no sort of conversion or missionary work. It is not good to ask someone to follow a different faith. Yet, because there are so many different mental dispositions, one religion simply cannot serve, cannot satisfy all people. ~ Rodger Kamenetz, #NFDB
583:In the Buddhist texts, some of them say, when you die, basically that wild horse gets cut loose, and the mind is incredibly powerful and expansive, omniscient and can go anywhere and see anything, but - and this is the catch - it's colored by the habits of thought we made in life. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
584: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
585:Mystical experiences nearly always lead one to a belief that some aspect of consciousness is imperishable. In a Buddhist metaphor the consciousness of the individual is like a flame that burns through the night. It is not the same flame over time, yet neither is it another flame. ~ Marilyn Ferguson, #NFDB
586:The core approach of Buddhist psychology involves a combination of meditative contemplation, which can be described as a phenomenological inquiry; empirical observation of motivation, as manifested through emotions, thought patterns and behavior, and critical philosophical analysis. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
587:Buddhist meditation doen't necessarily mean sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed. Simply observing how your mind is responding to the sense world as you go about your business - walking, talking, shopping, whatever - can be a really perfect meditation and bring a perfect result. ~ Thubten Yeshe, #NFDB
588:Religion has failed us. Christ was not a Christian. Buddha was not a Buddhist. Mohammed was not a Mohammedan. And yet ever since the dawn of history, we have engaged in conflict and war and terrorism and murder and racism and ethnocentrism and bigotry and prejudice in the name of God. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
589:He who puts away from him all passion, hatred, pride and hypocrisy, who pronounces words instructive and benevolent, who does not make his own what has not been given to him, who without desire, covetousness, impatience knows the depths of the Permanent, he is indeed a.man of religion. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
590: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
591: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
592:My beliefs are that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then it becomes a lie. I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don't be Christian, be Christ-like. Don't be Buddhist, be Buddha-like. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
593:Many Buddhist teachers have described compassion as the ability to react freely and accurately in any situation. Being nice or feeling sorry for someone may be called for, but so may being fierce and unyielding. When sweetness is applied indiscriminately, it is seen as 'idiot compassion.' ~ Issan Dorsey, #NFDB
594:At a wat temple in the mountains of Northern Thailand, a Buddhist teacher once reminded me of a simple truth. "Life," he said, "is offered as a means of self-expression, only giving us what we seek when we listen to the
heart." The highest forms of this expression are acts of kindness. ~ Michael Newton,#NFDB
595:At times, Zen does get into some Buddhist Cosmology. Nishijima Roshi, my main teacher would talk about that and almost every time immediately say that it was only one way of looking at it. Whenever addressing realms of Heaven or Hell, he'd also address that it was just a psychological state. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
596:For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
597:What matters is that you meditate, you're seeking enlightenment, you're on the pathway to enlightenment, and you're having fun. Don't look for reassurance in the eyes of others. Look for reassurance in your own eyes. Only you know if Buddhist practice is improving the quality of your life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
598:[A Buddhist monk on a pilgrimage speaks to a museum curator.]
And I come here alone. For five--seven--eighteen--forty years it was in my mind that the old Law was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom, charms, and idolatry....'
So it comes with all faiths. ~ Rudyard Kipling,#NFDB
599:A Buddhist scholar once explained to me that most Westerners mistakenly think that Nirvana is what you arrive at when your suffering is over and only an eternity of happiness stretches ahead. But such bliss would always be shadowed by the sorrow of the past and would therefore be imperfect. ~ Andrew Solomon, #NFDB
600:Bryant shunned reporters whom he saw talking to O’Neal. O’Neal, in turn, refused to accept help from the same trainers who taped Bryant’s ankles. Their desperate coach, the Buddhist, bookish Phil Jackson, wound up consulting a therapist, and at one point recommended that O’Neal read “Siddhartha. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
601:We've hired the calmest babies in the world to play the hysterical Thomas. One did finally start to cry but stopped every time Chris [Newman (assistant director)] yelled 'Action'. ... Babies smiled all afternoon. Buddhist babies. They didn't cry once. We, however, were all in tears by 5 p.m. ~ Emma Thompson, #NFDB
602:Our problem mostly in our abuse of each other and the planet is greed. Just the rampant, incredible greed that people have partly because they're empty and they can't get enough because they're - you know, it's that Buddhist thing about the hungry ghost with the little mouth and the big belly. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
603:I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whole idea of life after death is ridiculous. ~ Harvey Fierstein, #NFDB
604:As a Buddhist, I was trained to be tolerant of everything except intolerance. I was brought up not only to develop the spirit of tolerance but also to cherish moral and spiritual qualities such as modesty, humility, compassion, and, most important, to attain a certain degree of emotional equilibrium. ~ U Thant, #NFDB
605:I believe that the practice of compassion and love—a genuine sense of brotherhood and sisterhood—is the universal religion. It does not matter whether you are Buddhist or Christian, Moslem or Hindu, or whether you practice religion at all. What matters is your feeling of oneness with humankind. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
606:Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept, but it is part of the history of human origin. It is proof of the mindstream's capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities. It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
607:What we're calling 'presencing' is possible because of this womb, where the absolute and the manifest interact. I think a buddhist would say that presencing can arise to the extent that we develop the capacity, individually and collectively, to extend our conscious awareness in both domains. ~ Betty Sue Flowers, #NFDB
608:The skandhas present a complete picture of ego. According to Buddhist psychology, the ego is simply a collection of skandhas or heaps—but actually there is no such thing as ego. It is a brilliant work of art, a product of the intellect, which says, “Let’s give all this a name. Let’s call it ‘I. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
609:We have to know what is Buddhadharma and what is not Buddhadharma. It needn't go on forever. You don't have to spend 18 years at it. But still, a basic and uncompromised understanding of Buddhist principles is important. Very basic: the three signs of being, the four noble rruths, karma, and so on. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
610:Most people think that an enlightened Buddhist Teacher is a fireman; His job is to put the fire out so that you can live in your home safely. But seeker beware! A fully enlightened Buddhist teacher is an arsonist! His job is to set your spirit on fire...by feeding the flames of your soul with love. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
611: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, #NFDB
612:On a spiritual level, on a place where you want to be a better human being and listen more, I try. I joke, but it has. I mean, I don't consider myself a card-carrying Buddhist, you know. But I do believe deeply in the ideas, and I think anytime you have interest in anything, it somehow humbles you. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal, #NFDB
613:The one philosophy or religion I find I am most close to is the Buddhist one. I think it is the one that respects others and the one that doesn't say that this is the only way. I think happiness is the moment when - if you've forgotten those little things - they suddenly come back into focus for you. ~ Penelope Cruz, #NFDB
614: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
615:My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
616:My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
617:I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
618:Taoist chanting, Confucian chanting, Christian chanting, Buddhist chanting don't matter. Chanting Coca Cola, Coca Cola, Coca Cola … can be just as good if you keep a clear mind. But if you don't keep a clear mind, and are only following your thinking as you mouth the words, even the Buddha cannot help you. ~ Seungsahn, #NFDB
619:An unknown passer-by had seen a young priest running away, a thin smear of saffron in the night. If a Buddhist monk had really been involved Sunil knew it would be bad for everyone. It would take one single gesture, he thought, on furious shaven head, for centuries of lotus flowers to be wiped out forever. ~ Roma Tearne, #NFDB
620:I just want to live as a simple Buddhist monk, but during the last thirty years I have made many friends around the world and I want to have close contact with these people. I want to contribute to harmony and peace of mind, for less conflict. Wherever the possibililty is, I'm ready. This is my life's goal. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
621:Prayers are answered when the individual’s subconscious mind responds to the mental picture or thought in his or her mind. This law of belief is the secret operating principle in all the religions of the world. It is the hidden reason for their psychological truth. The Buddhist, the Christian, the Moslem ~ Joseph Murphy, #NFDB
622: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
623:I think that young people are going to continue on with the work on pluralism for two reasons, really. One is because it's the reality of the world that they live in, and I think young people from different backgrounds are asking themselves, what does it mean for me to be a Buddhist and friends with a Baptist? ~ Eboo Patel, #NFDB
624:The perfume of incense reminds us of the pervading influence of virtue, the lamp reminds us of light of knowledge and the flowers which soon fade and die, reminds us of impermanence. When we bow, we express our gratitude to the Buddha for what his teachings have given us. This is the nature of Buddhist worship. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
625:Basically, the Buddhist attitude is that you should not accept certain things through sheer faith. And for that you need a skeptical attitude. Buddha himself made this clear to his followers. He said you should not accept those things I taught out of respect for me, but rather through investigation by yourself. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
626:I could head east from Fifth Avenue and reliably reach Madison, turn south from 53rd and get to 52nd every single time. The scientist—or the Buddhist—might declare such perceptions were illusions, but not one of them would head uptown to get to the Bowery. They knew what they knew. They saw what they saw. So ~ Andrew Klavan, #NFDB
627:Cleaning the temple is part of Buddhist training, but tidying the temple is not. With cleaning, we can let our minds empty while our hands keep moving, but tidying requires us to think—about what to discard, what to keep, and where to put it. You could say that tidying orders the mind while cleaning purifies it. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
628:Buddhist meditation has two aspects — shamatha and vipashyana. We tend to stress the importance of vipashyana (“looking deeply”) because it can bring us insight and liberate us from suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha (“stopping”) is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
629:During the last 2,500 years in Buddhist monasteries, a system of seven practices of reconciliation has evolved. Although these techniques were formulated to settle disputes within the circle of monks, i think they might also be of use in our households and in our society.The first practice is Face-to-Face-Sitting. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
630:These two features—luminosity, or clarity, and knowing, or cognizance—have come to characterize “the mental” in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought. Clarity here refers to the ability of mental states to reveal or reflect. Knowing, by contrast, refers to mental states’ faculty to perceive or apprehend what appears. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
631:Those who would be employed in propagating the Gospel should be familiar with the doctrines he is to combat and the doctrines he is to teach, and acquire a complete knowledge both of the Sacred Scriptures and of these philosophical and mythological dogmas which form the souls of the Buddhist and Hindu Systems. ~ William Carey, #NFDB
632:Like the Artha-shastra, but perhaps for the opposite reason, the Kama-sutra is wary of nuns; it advises a married woman not to hang out with “any woman who is a beggar, a religious mendicant, a Buddhist nun, promiscuous, a juggler, a fortune-teller, or a magician who uses love-sorcery worked with roots (4.1.9). ~ Wendy Doniger, #NFDB
633: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
634:We have one impermanent experience, and, unable to be at peace as it passes, we reach out and grab for another,
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition defines renunciation as accepting what comes into our lives and letting go of what leaves our lives. To renounce in this sense is to come to a state of simple being. ~ Sharon Salzberg,#NFDB
635:All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’—they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait. ~ Diana Vreeland, #NFDB
636:In Buddhist literature, we are told the story of the hamsa who was shot dead in front of the Buddha by a hunter. The Buddha looked at the hunter and asked, ‘Can you bring it back to life?’ The hunter replied, ‘No, I cannot.’ The Buddha then said, ‘If you cannot give life, what gives you the right to take life? ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
637:There is a Possibility of freedom from suffering. By removing the causes of suffering, it is possible to attain a state of Liberation, a state free from suffering. According to Buddhist thought, the root causes of suffering are ignorance, craving, and hatred. These are called the ‘three poisons of the mind.’These ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
638:182. To mingle the right action with the action that is not akin to it is called the confused practice. The man that erreth therein hath not attained unto the single heart. He knoweth not thankfulness for the grace of the Enlightened One. ~ Shinran, Wisdom of the East Buddhist Psalms translated from the Japanese of Shinran Shonin, #NFDB
639:This is the noble way in regard to the origin of suffering; its origin is that thirst made up of egoistic desires which produces individual existence and which now here, now there hunts for its self-satisfaction, and such is the thirst of sensation, the thirst of existence, the thirst of domination and well-being. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
640: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
641:There is a director who should make 'Silver Surfer' - he is mentally committed to it. He's doing another movie now. What's most important to me about this guy, first, is that he's incredible with visuals. But he's also a spiritual guy, a Zen Buddhist. ... Galactus is a force of nature, not a being. That's all I'm saying. ~ Avi Arad, #NFDB
642:Well it's always been an interesting area for me. In referencing something I just reread from Dogen it says, "Enlightenment doesn't break the person anymore than the reflection breaks the water" and Suzuki in his commentary is saying you don't lose your personality once you acquire some sort of Buddhist understanding. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
643:Then another thing, now this is mainly for our interest about Tibet, our struggle. Whole struggle depend on within person. For dangerous. Foolish! Not for this only institution or even not only for Buddhist dogma, but before national sort of right, our right. So therefore this struggle must carried by people themselves. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
644:The satsang is - within the mass culture - like little mushrooms here and there, and somebody, maybe a Christian and a Hindu and a Buddhist, come together; doesn't matter, because those are paths. They're paths to the One. But those satsangs are what the world needs. And as I say - heart to heart - that's what satsang is. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
645:If you take the negative as absolute and definitive, however, you increase your worries and anxiety, whereas by broadening the way you look at a problem, you understand what is bad about it, but you accept it. This attitude comes to me, I think, from my practice and from Buddhist philosophy, which help me enormously. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
646:The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, ~ Ernst F Schumacher, #NFDB
647:What’s that mean?” Eddie asked. “I hate it when you start up with your Zen Buddhist shit, Roland.” “It means I don’t know,” Roland said. “Who is this man Zen Buddhist? Is he wise like me?” Eddie looked at Roland for a long, long time before deciding the gunslinger was making one of his rare jokes. “Ah, get outta here... ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
648:Now you are on the Buddhist way. Keep up your meditation, as there is no instant illumination. The mind moves slowly into this. Do not become attached to your method. When, in the course of your meditation, your consciousness will have expanded and been transformed, you will then recognize that all the ways are valid ways. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
649:By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment. ~ Christmas Humphreys, #NFDB
650:By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment? ~ Christmas Humphreys, #NFDB
651:Tolerance is a form of generosity and it is a form of wisdom. There is nothing anywhere in the Dharma [Buddhist scriptures] that should ever lead anyone to become intolerant. Our goal as Buddhists is to learn to accept all kinds of people and to help all kinds of people discover the wisdom of the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha ~ Hsing Yun, #NFDB
652:God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don't think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
653:While there may have lived an individual teacher who gave the ancient wisdom its peculiarly “Buddhist” coloring, his personality is completely overshadowed, as he must have wished it should be, by the eternal substance with which he identified himself. In other words, “the Buddha is only anthropomorphic, not a man”. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
654:What yoga philosophy and all the great Buddhist teachings tells us is that solidity is a creation of the ordinary mind and that there never was anything permanent to begin with that we could hold on to. Life would be much easier and substantially less painful if we lived with the knowledge of impermanence as the only constant. ~ Donna Farhi, #NFDB
655:As the books got more and more Zionist and less and less socialist, my entire generation, at least a large percentage of it, simply left Judaism. We became Buddhist and Hindu and atheist or agnostic, all of which (except Christian) were more in keeping with peaceful self-transformative ideas that did not bow down to militarism. ~ Roseanne Barr, #NFDB
656:In his book on happiness, Buddhist scholar and former scientist Matthieu Ricard has added three other more exalted states of joy: rejoicing (in someone else’s happiness, what Buddhists call mudita) delight or enchantment (a shining kind of contentment) spiritual radiance (a serene joy born from deep well-being and benevolence) ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
657:In our usual mind state, we are continually activating the process that in Buddhist terminology is known as 'bhava,' which literally means 'becoming.' In this space of becoming, we are subtly leaning forward into the future, trying to have security based on feeling that we can hold on, we can try to keep things from changing. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
658:Maitake mushrooms are known in Japan as “the dancing mushroom.” According to a Japanese legend, a group of Buddhist nuns and woodcutters met on a mountain trail, where they discovered a fruiting of maitake mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Rejoicing at their discovery of this delicious mushroom, they danced to celebrate. ~ Paul Stamets, #NFDB
659:The Dalai Lama began by saying it’s not possible for everyone to be a Christian or a Buddhist. “There’s no other choice but for followers of the world’s religions to accept the reality of other faiths. We have to live together. In order to live happily, we must respect each other’s traditions. I really admire other traditions. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
660:The so-called mahatmas and saints are all cowards. I have never come across a single mahatma—Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist—who can be said to be really a rebellious spirit. Unless one is rebellious, one is not religious. Rebellion is the very foundation of religion. ~ Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), p. 19, #NFDB
661:Only Zorbas become Buddhas - and Buddha was never a monk, A monk is one who has never been a Zorba and has become enchanted by the words of Buddhas. A monk is an imitator, he is false, pseudo. He imitates Buddhas. He may be Christian, he may be Buddhist, he may be a Hindu - that doesn't make much difference - but he imitates Buddhas. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
662:I live for the moment. I'm basically a Buddhist-type person. I'm just here right now, and I don't think about what's going to happen a hundred years from now. I try to concentrate on what's going on right now. But I'm really trying to run this company like it is going to be here a hundred years from now. That's what's important. ~ Yvon Chouinard, #NFDB
663:Imagine a multidimensiona l spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
664:As the floods when they have thrown themselves into the ocean, lose their name and their form and one cannot say of them, “Behold, they are here, they are there, ” though still they are, so one cannot say of the Perfect when he has entered into the supreme Nirvana, “He is here, he is there,” though he is still in existence. ~ Buddhist Meditations, #NFDB
665:During the last 2,500 years in Buddhist monasteries, a system of seven practices of reconciliation has evolved. Although these techniques were formulated to settle disputes within the circle of monks, i think they might also be of use in our households and in our society.
The first practice is Face-to-Face-Sitting. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
666:For me, a male image that I'm really moved by is somewhere between of Oscar Wilde type of a male: the fop, the long hair, the suits, too witty for his own good, incredibly smart, scathingly funny - all that. But then my other ideal is more like the Buddhist monk - the shaved head, actually someone who sublimates their sexuality. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
667:Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
668:As the floods when they have thrown themselves into the ocean, lose their name and their form and one cannot say of them, “Behold, they are here, they are there, ” though still they are, so one cannot say of the Perfect when he has entered into the supreme Nirvana, “He is here, he is there,” though he is still in existence. ~ Buddhist Meditations, #NFDB
669:There is an internal war in man between reason and the passions. He could get some peace if he had only reason without passions or only passions without reason, but because he has both, he must be at war, since he cannot have peace with one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided and in opposition to himself. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
670:From the Buddhist point of view, all living beings -- that is, beings with feelings, experiences, and sensations -- are considered equal. Human beings can live without eating meat. As human beings, I think that deep down our nature tends towards vegetarianism and leads us to do everything in our power to prevent harming other species. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
671:The individuation of dharma practice occurs whenever priority is given to the resolution of a personal existential dilemma over the need to conform to the doctrines of a Buddhist orthodoxy. Individuation is a process of recovering personal authority through freeing ourselves from the constraints of collectively held belief systems. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
672:You could throw out all of the spiritual trappings on the Buddhist path and still have a set of basic practices that lead to the effects promised. You could also keep all of the spiritual trappings, do the basic practices, and produce the same results, assuming of course that you had the extra time and resources necessary to do both. ~ Daniel M Ingram, #NFDB
673:No matter how hard I tried, I was incapable of giving more importance to a hypothetical, post-mortem existence than to this very life here and now.
Moreover, the Buddhist teachings and practices that had the most impact upon me did so precisely because they heightened my sense of being fully alive in and responsive to this world. ~ Stephen Batchelor,#NFDB
674:One should keep oneself occupied all the time with wholesome deeds such as: learning, teaching, memorizing, reading, scrutinizing, and chanting the Buddhist scriptures; discharging the daily duties of a monk; discussing the Dhamma, only speaking about the Dhamma; giving or listening to Dhamma talks; and practicing asceticism (dhutaṅga). ~ Mahasi Sayadaw, #NFDB
675:The point of Buddhist meditation is not to stop thinking, for cultivation of insight clearly requires intelligent use of thought and discrimination. What needs to be stopped is conceptualisation that is compulsive, mechanical and unintelligent, that is, activity that is always fatiguing, usually pointless, and at times seriously harmful. ~ B Alan Wallace, #NFDB
676:Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
677:You've got a lifetime to mull over the Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness. But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over, be present out here. ~ John Green, #NFDB
678:Whenever I'd asked him about that key: "It's nothing, it's not the key to anything, a tattoo is just a tattoo, only as permanent as the body." How I swooned when he spoke to me in that vaguely Buddhist, vaguely nihilist accent. In reality it was a shitty tattoo that was a warning to anyone who looked at them that they were not available. ~ Stephanie Danler, #NFDB
679: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
680:The Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I’m not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss. That’s just nature. Each specific life comes with its own personalized portion of pain. It’s coming for you. You can’t stop it. And you know it. ~ David Goggins, #NFDB
681:The whole world is filled with conclusions. Someone is a Christian, someone is a Hindu, someone is a Jaina, someone is a Buddhist – that is why truth is missing. A religious person cannot be a Christian, a Hindu, or a Buddhist; a religious person can only be a sincere inquirer. He inquires and he remains open without any conclusions. His boat is empty. ~ Osho, #NFDB
682:To design, to code, to write is to embrace danger, to plunge ahead into the unknown, making new things out of constantly changing materials, exposing yourself to criticism and failure every single day. It’s like being a sand painter in a windstorm, except Buddhist monks probably don’t have to figure out how to fit IAB ad units into their mandalas. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
683:Que je croie. Que tu croies. Qu'il ou qu'elle croie. She said it over and over, like it wasn't a verb so much as a a Buddhist mantra. Que je croie. Que tu croies. Qu'il ou qu'elle croie. What a funny thing to say over and over again: I would believe; you would believe; he or she would believe. Believe what? I thought, and right then, the rain came. ~ John Green, #NFDB
684:If the situation was such that there was only one learned lama or genuine practitioner alive, a person whose death would cause the whole of Tibet to lose all hope of keeping its Buddhist way of life, then it is conceivable that in order to protect that one person it might be justified for one or 10 enemies to be eliminated if there was no other way. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
685: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
686:Dear gods, Pa is a very devout Buddhist. Please help my Pa return home. He is not mean and does not like to hurt other people. Help him return and I will do anything you say. I will devote my entire life to you. I will believe you always. If you cannot bring Pa home to us, please make sure they don’t hurt him, or please make sure Pa dies a quick death. ~ Loung Ung, #NFDB
687:When you climb a ladder and arrive on the sixth step and you think that is the highest, then you cannot come to the seventh. So the technique is to abandon the sixth in order for the seventh step to be possible. And this is our practice, to release our views. The practice of nonattachment to views is at the heart of the Buddhist practice of meditation. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
688: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
689:International peace means a peace between nations, not a peace after the destruction of nations, like the Buddhist peace after the destruction of personality. The golden age of the good European is like the heaven of the Christian: it is a place where people will love each other; not like the heaven of the Hindu, a place where they will be each other. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
690: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
691:If you decide to go on a Buddhist path, you have to be careful if you start mixing a lot of different traditions you are not totally familiar with - mixing this kind of meditation with that kind of practice or this kind of visualization with that kind of mantra. Then you really are concocting your own thing, and you have no idea what is going to happen. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
692:I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure Soul. Love has befriended me so completely it has turned to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known. ~ Hafez, #NFDB
693:Death for [the Buddhist] is the shadow on the face of life, for the opposite of death is birth, not life; that which is born must die. Life has no opposite, for life goes on; only its forms must change unceasingly. It is life which creates, uses and then destroys each form of life, whether yours or mine or that of the mountain, the empire or the fly. ~ Christmas Humphreys, #NFDB
694:Then you’ve had a good day of it, I suppose."
"Then you suppose wrong," said Lymond shortly. "I’ve had a damned carking afternoon. A Moslem would blame my Ifrit, a Buddhist explain the papingo was really my own great-grandmother, and a Christian, no doubt, call it the vengeance of the Lord. As a plain, inoffensive heathen, I call it bloody annoying. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,#NFDB
695:Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
696:If there's one thing I've learned in the last 18+ years of interacting with over 60,000 people during my vegan lecture tour, it's that everyone is the same, whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, Republican, Democrat, independent, socialist, fascist, black, white, Asian, Latino, Native, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gun or anti-gun. ~ Gary Yourofsky, #NFDB
697:Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
698:I often think of the words of the great Buddhist master Padmasambhava: "Those who believe they have plenty of time get ready only at the time of death. Then they are ravaged by regret. But isn't it far too late?" What more chilling commentary on the modern world could there be than most people die unprepared for death, as they have lived, unprepared for life? ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
699:The Buddhist word sunyata, or emptiness, has as its original, etymological meaning “a pregnant void, the hollow of a pregnant womb.” When a therapist is able to create such a fertile condition, through the use of her own silence, the patient cannot help but come in contact with that which is still unfinished and with which he is still identified, albeit unawares. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
700:Our true nature is the nature of no birth and no death. Only when we touch our true nature can we transcend the fear of non-being, the fear of annihilation. An American friend, whose name is Elly Kleinman, said to me "Nothing is born, nothing dies." Although he did not practice as a Buddhist but as a company owner, he found the same truth the Buddha discovered. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
701:Christian church, a Muslim mosque, a Buddhist monastery or a Sikh gurudwara are spaces designed to bring the community together and focus on a common goal—confess sins, reaffirm submission, awaken to desires and delusions and learn from the songs of the sages, as the case may be. But a Hindu temple is the house of a deity. We go to see them and be seen by them, ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
702:an agnostic Buddhist would not be a believer with claims to revealed information about supernatural or paranormal phenomena and in this sense would not be religious. I’ve recently started saying to myself “I’m not a religious person” and finding that to be strangely liberating. You don’t have to self-identify as a religious person in order to practice the dharma. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
703: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
704: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
705:There are energies that reside in each phone and phoneme. And we can release them. And it can be grand and vast and you can create a realm where you can dwell for a while. Where things are perfect symbols of themselves, no manipulation. And that connects to me to the Buddhist view. From that perspective we can wake up on the spot, be conscious of our world, think of others. ~ Anne Waldman, #NFDB
706:Whether this mysterious sanctuary hidden amid Pemako’s mist-shrouded mountains can ever be located geographically is of secondary importance to the journey itself. In the Buddhist tradition, the goal of pilgrimage is not so much to reach a particular destination as to awaken within oneself the qualities and energies of the sacred site, which ultimately lie within our own minds. ~ Ian Baker, #NFDB
707:Within the framework of the Buddhist Path, reflecting on suffering has tremendous importance because -realizing the nature of suffering, you will develop greater resolve to put an end to the causes of suffering and the unwholesome deeds which lead to suffering. And it will increase your enthusiasm for engaging in the wholesome actions and deeds which lead to happiness and joy. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
708:However, the common usage of ego, both within Buddhist teachings and in the world at large, makes ego sound like an entity that has a shape and a size, and that can be extracted like a tooth. It doesn’t work that way. Ego is not an object; it’s more like a process that follows through on the proclivity for grasping, and for holding on to fixed ideas and identities. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, #NFDB
709:There are many graphic artists who have interpreted The Ancient One as a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, we're kind of shifting that a bit. We're trying not to be fixed, we're trying not to be fixed to any one thing, any one gender, any one spiritual discipline, and any one race even; we're just trying to wing it beyond that. So it's a new gesture really, just another interpretation. ~ Tilda Swinton, #NFDB
710:Buddhist teachings discourage us from clinging and grasping to those we hold dear, and from trying to control the people or the relationship. What’s more, we’re encouraged to accept the impermanence of all things: the flower that blooms today will be gone tomorrow, the objects we possess will break or fade or lose their utility, our relationships will change, life will end. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
711:Ted kisses Rachel with tongue and squeezes her ass. In doing so, he discovers that it is possible to enjoy something and yet not care about it in the slightest. He finds this sensation—feeling pleasure, and simultaneously feeling detached from the pleasure—to be, itself, quite pleasurable. He wonders if he has miraculously become a Buddhist, or suffered a psychotic break. ~ Kristen Roupenian, #NFDB
712:A Buddhist community—a sangha—is not something one is merely born into or chooses to join but something one is challenged to create. A sangha provides a matrix of communal support for people to realize their commitment to a common vision or concerṇ Yet it is always in danger of deteriorating into an institution intent on preserving the power of a minority of professionals. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
713:It is a fundamental tenet of Buddhist thought that before emptiness of self can be realized, the self must be experienced fully, as it appears. It is the task of therapy, as well as of meditation, to return those split-off elements to a person’s awareness—to make the person see that they are not, in fact, split-off elements at all, but essential aspects of his or her own being. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
714:When we say that this definition of good and evil is universally acceptable, what we mean is that any rational and reasonable person—any rational and reasonable Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or Christian or Jew or any atheist, for that matter—can accept that this is a reasonable definition of good and evil, because it is based on what we know about how the universe works. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
715:The first candle will, of course, burn out in time. But before this happens, the light from it will be passed on to another candle, and then to another, so that though the candles may change, the light will burn forever, like the light on a Buddhist altar. As the candles change, so will the way in which two people love each other; yet their love, like the light, need never go out. ~ Naoya Shiga, #NFDB
716:What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, “respond” rather than simply “react.” In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
717: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
718:Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, #NFDB
719:inevitably someone will ask me about the word mindfulness with a tone of caution, suggesting that this is a Buddhist concept. It is true that Buddhists have long been faithful to the practice of mindfulness, but striving to live mindfully is a universal quest and belongs to us all. Living mindfully is the art of living awake and ready to embrace the gift of the present moment. ~ Macrina Wiederkehr, #NFDB
720:One day I saw a picture of the Buddha on a Buddhist magazine and he was sitting on the grass, and he was sitting on the grass, very peaceful, smiling, and I was impressed. Around me people were not like that, so I had the desire to be someone like him. I nourished that kind of desire until the age of sixteen, when I had the permission from my parents to go and ordain as a Buddhist monk. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
721:Ignorance, vulnerability, fear, anger, and desire are expressions of the infinite potential of your buddha nature. There's nothing inherently wrong or right with making such choices. The fruit of Buddhist practice is simply the recognition that these and other mental afflictions are nothing more or less than choices available to us because our real nature is infinite in scope. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, #NFDB
722:The Arab conquest was not only a matter of military domination. It was not like the Mongol invasion. The Mongols invaded Iran, but Iran did not become Shamanist or Buddhist. Some people say that the Arab invasion was just a military conquest, but this is not so. Rather, it was accompanied by a profound spiritual transformation that took place wherever Muslims went and settled down. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
723:This northerly route of east–west transit and trade, extending from the Panjab and the upper Indus to Bihar and the lower Ganga, now became as much the main axis of Aryanisation as it would subsequently of Buddhist proselytisation and even Magadhan imperialism. It was known as the Uttarapatha, the Northern Route, as distinct from the Daksinapatha (whence the term ‘Deccan’) or Southern Route. ~ John Keay, #NFDB
724:In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth. Someone once told me, "Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished." In both Buddhist and Confucian writings of the philosophers of former times, there are also many missing chapters. ~ Yoshida Kenk, #NFDB
725:In the early Buddhist view, then, a persons identity resides not in an enduring self but in his actions (karma)- that is in the choices that shape these actions. Because the dispositions formed by previous choices can be modified in turn by present behaviour, this identity as choice-maker is fluid, its experience alterable. While it is affected by the past, it can also break free of the past. ~ Joanna Macy, #NFDB
726:I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist and I'm influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born a perfect being and we spend most of our lives with a clouded vision trying to realize our perfection," he says. At critical moments in the book, T.S. registers his inkling of this realization. When he makes his maps, it feels like taking down dictation from the universe. ~ Reif Larsen, #NFDB
727: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
728:I believe in kindness and karma—which could make me a Buddhist. I believe in mystic healing and crystals’ powers—which could make me a witch. I believe in truth, honor, and forgiveness—which could make me a Christian. I even believe in the existence of past lives and that each and every one of us is watched over by guides from the other side—which, to some, would make me totally woo-woo squared. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
729:If you are a Buddhist, inspire yourself by thinking of the bodhisattva. If you are a Christian, think of the Christ, who came not to be served by others but to serve them in joy, in peace, and in generosity. For these things, these are not mere words, but acts, which go all the way, right up to their last breath. Even their death is a gift, and resurrection is born from this kind of death. (157) ~ Jean Leloup, #NFDB
730:Jesus did not live a calm life. He cared too much. Yet he was not a tense person. He was not irritable, anxious, or driven. But he was not detached, cool, or aloof, either. He was no stoic or Buddhist. He plunged into the storms of human sufferings and sins. He felt keenly. At his friend Lazarus’s tomb, in the presence of death and human woe, he both bristled with anger and wept with sorrow. ~ David A Powlison, #NFDB
731:Dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience yet they are often overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality. In the dream state our bodies are at rest, yet we see and hear, move about and are even able to learn. When we make good use of the dream state it is almost as if our lives were doubled: instead of a hundred years we live to be two hundred -- Tibetan Buddhist Tarthang Tulku from ~ Stephen LaBerge, #NFDB
732:The general notions about human understanding...which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture, they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom. ~ J Robert Oppenheimer, #NFDB
733:Then there were the people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konarak; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
734:A wise man once told me- he’s a muslim by the way- that he has more in common with a jew than he does a fanatic of his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or a Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic of his own religion. In fact, he has more in common with a ration, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic of his own religion ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
735:Would you say that any one sacred book is superior to all others in the world? ... I say the New Testament, after that, I should place the Koran, which in its moral teachings, is hardly more than a later edition of the New Testament. Then would follow according to my opinion the Old Testament, the Southern Buddhist Tripitaka, the Tao-te-king of Laotze, the Kings of Confucius, the Veda and the Avesta. ~ Max Muller, #NFDB
736:If you are a Buddhist, inspire yourself by thinking of the bodhisattva. If you are a Christian, think of the Christ, who came not to be served by others but to serve them in joy, in peace, and in generosity. For these things, these are not mere words, but acts, which go all the way, right up to their last breath. Even their death is a gift, and resurrection is born from this kind of death. (157) ~ Jean Yves Leloup, #NFDB
737:In the end it is nothing other than the loving kindness with which the woman cares for her child that makes the difference. Her concern concentrates on one thing just like the Buddhist practice of concentration. She thinks of nothing but her child, which is similar to Buddhist compassion. That must be why, although she created no other causes to bring about it, she was reborn in the Brahma heaven. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
738: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
739:This is the version of the emptiness doctrine that makes sense to me, and it’s the version most widely accepted by Buddhist scholars: not the absence of everything, but the absence of essence. To perceive emptiness is to perceive raw sensory data without doing what we’re naturally inclined to do: build a theory about what is at the heart of the data and then encapsulate that theory in a sense of essence. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
740:If you exchanged wedding vows, tape them to your bathroom mirror and read them aloud to yourself every morning along with the ritual brushing of teeth. It's not realistic to believe that you will live your promises as a daily practice -- unless you're a saint or a highly evolved Zen Buddhist. Not where marriage is concerned. But you can make a practice of returning to your vows when the going gets rough. ~ Harriet Lerner, #NFDB
741:I’m going to die of humiliation,” she said. “No, you won’t,” Leo replied. “I’m an expert on humiliation, and if it were fatal, I’d have died a dozen times by now.” “You can’t die a dozen times.” “You can if you’re a Buddhist,” Beatrix said helpfully. Leo smoothed Poppy’s shining hair. “I hope Harry Rutledge is,” he said. “Why?” Beatrix asked. “Because there’s nothing I’d rather do than kill him repeatedly. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
742:on a strictly cellular level, repeated experience can change the way the brain works. This is the why behind the how of the Buddhist teachings that deal with eliminating mental habits conducive to unhappiness.
...
because experience changes the neuronal structure of the brain, when we observe the mind this way, we can change the cellular gossip that perpetuates our experience of our “self. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche,#NFDB
743:Aesthetics is not an end in itself. But in our culture, which is becoming more multi-sensory and less respectful of God, we have a responsibility to pay attention to the design of the space where we assemble regularly. In the emerging culture, darkness represents spirituality. We see this in Buddhist temples, as well as Catholic and Orthodox churches. Darkness communicates that something serious is happening. ~ Dan Kimball, #NFDB
744: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
745:As a Buddhist I was determined to root out all desires, including especially my “sick” desire for other boys and men. Only through ridding myself of all “hankerings” could I achieve nirvana and escape the endless cycle of rebirth. The odd thing is that the transmigration of the soul from one body (old and ailing) into another (a happy baby’s) didn’t sound so bad—in fact, it was what most Americans longed for. ~ Edmund White, #NFDB
746:A more appropriate question to ask a Buddhist is simply, “What is life?” From our understanding of impermanence, the answer should be obvious: “Life is a big array of assembled phenomena, and thus life is impermanent.” It is a constant shifting, a collection of transitory experiences. And although myriad life-forms exist, one thing we all have in common is that no living being wishes to suffer. We ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
747:Celibacy is one of the most unnatural things. It has destroyed so many human beings - millions - Catholic monks, Hindu monks, Buddhist monks, Jaina monks, nuns. For centuries they have been teaching celibacy; and the most amazing thing is, even in the twentieth century, not a single medical expert, physiologist, has stood up and said that celibacy is impossible, that in the very nature of things, it cannot happen. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
748:Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is best of all to be sane and happy. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
749:If we follow the Buddhist logic that we are becoming part of glory of the universe, one huge consciousness, well, that's just too much togetherness for my taste. I couldn't even do a group art project in second grade. How am I going to share understanding with the rest of the creation? If this proves to be the case, I'm too much of a loner for death, but I'm also scared of being lonely. Where does that leave me? ~ Lena Dunham, #NFDB
750:We need a sense of the oneness of the 7 billion human beings alive today. When I meet people, I don't think about being different from them, about being Tibetan, Buddhist or even the Dalai Lama. I only think about being a human being. We all share the potential for positive and negative emotions, yet one of our special qualities is our human mind, our intelligence. If we use it well we'll be successful and happy. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
751:...I came to the conclusion seeing also that the 'influence' of Brahmin and Buddhist thought upon Europe, as in Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Deussen, had largely been through romantic misunderstanding that my only hope of really penetrating to the heart of that mystery would lie in forgetting how to think and feel as an American or a European: which, for practical as well as sentimental reasons, I did not wish to do. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
752:The trains in any country contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Ceylonese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
753: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
754: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
755:If we follow the Buddhist logic that we are becoming part of the glory of the universe, one huge consciousness, well, that's just too much togetherness for my taste. I couldn't even do a group art project in second grade. How am I going to share understanding with the rest of the creation? If this proves to be the case, I'm too much of a loner for death, but I'm also scared of being lonely. Where does that leave me? ~ Lena Dunham, #NFDB
756:I never really wanted to have a Guru, I was more interested in Buddhist philosophy and meditation, and had a psychological background in college, but he had so much love. To be with him, there was nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. Nothing he taught, philosophy or meditation, are the things I went to India to look for, or was interested in, but he sort of jumped into my heart and then pulled, he pried it open. ~ Surya Das, #NFDB
757: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
758: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
759: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
760: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
761:it would be possible to become a Stone Age native. For over 30 years, I programmed and conditioned myself to this end. In the last 10 of it, I would say I realistically experienced the physical, mental, and emotional reality of the Stone Age. But to borrow a Buddhist phrase, eventually came a setting face-to-face with pure reality. I learned that it is not possible for human beings as we know them to live off the land. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
762:Can there be a completely different set of laws of physics in a different universe, or do the laws of physics as we understand them hold true in all possible universes? If the answer is that a different set of laws can operate in a different universe system, this would suggest (from a Buddhist perspective) that even the laws of physics are entangled with the karma of the sentient beings that will arise in that universe. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
763:One can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna. A globalization of evangelism 'in connection' with others, and a globally 'in-formed' gospel, is capable of talking across the fence with Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim - people from other so called 'new' religious traditions ('new' only to us) - without assumption of superiority and power ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
764: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
765:Crucial to how we feel is being aware of how we are feeling in the moment. The sine qua non of that is to realize that you are being emotional in the first place. The earlier you recognize an emotion, the more choice you will have in dealing with it. In Buddhist terms, it's recognizing the spark before the flame. In Western terms, it's trying to increase the gap between impulse and saying or doing something you might regret later. ~ Paul Ekman, #NFDB
766:Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generatng that kind of energy toward yourself - if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself - it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it's clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
767:Self-actualization is not a sudden happening or even the permanent result of long effort. The eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist poet-saint Milarupa suggested: "Do not expect full realization; simply practice every day of your life." A healthy person is not perfect but perfectible, not a done deal but a work in progress. Staying healthy takes discipline, work, and patience, which is why our life is a journey and perforce a heroic one. ~ David Richo, #NFDB
768:Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads. The ancient Asiatics knew this well enough, and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for unmasking the illusion of the personality. The human merry-go-round sees many changes: the illusion that cost India the efforts of thousands of years to unmask is the same illusion that the West has labored just as hard to maintain and strengthen. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
769:During the Crusades, when Christians were in the mood to slaughter infidels, they were very cognizant of God’s sanctioning faith-based mass murder in parts of the Bible. During the Cold War, when the United States was part of an international multifaith alliance that included Muslim and Buddhist nations, this motif was played down; whole generations of American Christians were weaned on a misleadingly sunny selection of Bible stories. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
770:Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan ~ Kumar Sangakkara, #NFDB
771: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
772:When I speak about love and compassion, I do so not as a Buddhist, nor as a Tibetan, nor as the Dalai Lama. I do so as one human being speaking with another. I hope that you at this moment will think of yourself as a human being rather than as an American, Asian, European, African, or member of any particular country. These loyalties are secondary. If you and I find common ground as human beings, we will communicate on a basic level. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
773:The identity of just one thing, the "clash of civilization" view that you're a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Christian, I think that's such a limited way of seeing humanity, and schools have the opportunity to bring out the fact that we have hundreds of identities. We have our national identity. We have our cultural identity, linguistic identity, religious identity. Yes, cultural identity, professional identity, all kinds of ways. ~ Amartya Sen, #NFDB
774:There is a scripture in the Buddhist tradition called the Heart Sutra, which says that there is no birth, no old age, and no death, and no end to birth, old age, or death. This is a very important part of the sutra. There is no birth, no old age, and no death. This is true from the absolute point of view. But unless we’ve also realized, simultaneously, that there is no end to birth, old age, and death, then our realization is not complete. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
775:After a week in front of the screen, the opportunity to work with my hands—with all my senses, in fact—is always a welcome change of pace, whether in the kitchen or in the garden. There’s something about such work that seems to alter the experience of time, helps me to reoccupy the present tense. I don’t want you to get the idea it’s made a Buddhist of me, but in the kitchen, maybe a little bit. When stirring the pot, just stir the pot. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
776:A wise man once told me - he's a Muslim, by the way - that he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Jew than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic from his own religio. In fact, he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
777:For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. ~ Nikola Tesla, in "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy with Special References to the Harnessing of the Sun's Energy" in Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900), #NFDB
778:Ko Un's poems evoke the open creativity and fluidity of nature, and funny turns and twists of Mind. Mind is sometimes registered in Buddhist terms - Buddhist practice being part of Ko Un's background. Ko Un writes spare, short-line lyrics direct to the point, but often intricate in both wit and meaning. Ko Un has now traveled worldwide and is not only a major spokesman for all Korean culture, but a voice for Planet Earth Watershed as well. ~ Gary Snyder, #NFDB
779: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
780:One of the things I regret about not putting in that book or I think it's there but I didn't really elaborate on it, is contraception. I came across someone who articulated very clearly that one of the things which makes our approach to Buddhist practice in regards to sex different these days than it was in Buddhist times, is the simple existence of reliable contraception, which is a no brainer but I missed really addressing it in the book. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
781:Religious history also offers another striking parallel between Rome and China. The Buddhist faith began to penetrate the Han empire in the first century A.D., and soon won converts in high places. Its period of official dominance in court circles extended from the third to the ninth centuries A.D. This obviously parallels the successes that came to Christianity in the Roman empire during the same period. ~ William Hardy McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (1976), #NFDB
782:It is neither just the religious, the spiritual, the power-hungry, the evil, the ignorant, the corrupt, the Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Jew, nor the atheist that makes a hypocrite, but being a human being. Any man who thinks himself to be free of hypocrisy while committed to cherry-picking others for such, I am confident, the Almighty can prove to him a great deal of his own hypocrisy even beyond his earthly comprehension. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
783:Buddhist psychology has developed a distinct system of classification. Rather than dividing thoughts into classes like “good” and “bad,” Buddhist thinkers prefer to regard them as “skillful” versus “unskillful.” An unskillful thought is one connected with greed, hatred, or delusion. These are the thoughts that the mind most easily builds into obsessions. They are unskillful in the sense that they lead you away from the goal of liberation. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
784:The heart qualities of faith, confidence, and trust are actual powers we can cultivate. In Buddhist texts they are likened to a magical gem that settles impurities in water. Faith in the possibility of awakening, confidence in the moment’s experience and in the nature of awareness itself, trust in the direction of our lives—all of these settle doubt, confusion, and agitation. They create an inner environment of clarity, stillness, and beauty. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
785:Acceptance is not passivity. Sometimes we are justifiably displeased. What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, “respond” rather than simply “react.” In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
786:Twenty minutes into French class, Madame O’Malley was conjugating the verb to believe in the subjunctive. Que je croie. Que tu croies. Qu’il ou qu’elle croie. She said it over and over, like it wasn’t a verb so much as a Buddhist mantra. Que je croie; que tu croies; qu’il ou qu’elle croie. What a funny thing to say over and over again: I would believe; you would believe; he or she would believe. Believe what? I thought, and right then, the rain came. ~ John Green, #NFDB
787:one can either believe in rebirth or not believe in it. But there is a third alternative: that of agnosticism—to acknowledge in all honesty that one does not know. One does not have either to assert it or to deny it; one neither has to adopt the literal versions presented by tradition nor fall into the other extreme of believing that death is a final annihilatioṇ This, I feel, could provide a good Buddhist middle way for approaching the issue today. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
788:So for James, too, will derives not from the freedom to initiate thoughts, but to focus on and select some while stifling, blocking-or vetoing-others. For Buddhist mindfulness practice, it is the moment of restraint that allows mindful awareness to take hold and deepen. The essence of directed mental force is first to stop the grinding machine-like automaticity of the urge to act. Only then can the wisdom of the prefrontal cortex be actively engaged. ~ M Mitchell Waldrop, #NFDB
789:
A flock of birds
skims the upper sky
One white cloud
mopes lazily by.
We mark each other
mountain and I
Till only the mountain
fills my eye.
Li Po (701-762) is China's great Taoist and Buddhist poet. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ Li Bai, Sitting Alone On Jingting Mountain by Li Po
,#NFDB
790:......the interesting thing was that the Roman Catholic monks and the Buddhist monks had no trouble understanding each other. Each of them was seeking the same experience and knew that the experience was incommunicable. The communication is only an effort to bring the hearer to the edge of the abyss; it is a signpost, not the thing itself. But the secular clergy reads the communication and gets stuck with the letter, and that's where you have the conflict. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
791:I began my adult life with the hypothesis that it would be possible to become a Stone Age native. For over 30 years, I programmed and conditioned myself to this end. In the last 10 of it, I would say I realistically experienced the physical, mental, and emotional reality of the Stone Age. But to borrow a Buddhist phrase, eventually came a setting face-to-face with pure reality. I learned that it is not possible for human beings as we know them to live off the land. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
792:Religion in Chinatown, as in most places, is based less on a cogent theology and more on a collection of random fears, superstitions, prejudices, forgotten customs, vestigial animism, and social control. Mrs. Ling, while a professed Buddhist of the Pure Land tradition, also kept waving cat charms, lucky coins, and put great faith in the good fortune of the color red...and was very much in favor of any tradition, superstition, or ritual that involved fireworks... ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
793:I often say that I'm a Buddhist-Episcopalian. I say that partly to annoy people.I like to annoy people who think that a religion can contain the whole truth. No religion, it seems to me, contains the whole truth. I think it's mad to think that there is nothing to learn from other traditions and civilizations. If you accept that other religions have something to offer and you learn from them, that is what you become: a Buddhist-Episcopalian or a Hindu-Muslim or whatever. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
794:I think the Buddhist ethic is clearer and more systematic in some ways. The Buddhist notion is that our chief problems are greed, hatred and delusion. Well, delusion is not much mentioned in the Christian tradition. In the West, we have underplayed the idea that our moral and spiritual troubles have to do with a lack of clarity or insight because original sin has dominated so much of our thinking. We tend to think that our troubles are caused by insufficient will power. ~ Ninian Smart, #NFDB
795:Fanaticism is the opposite of love. A wise man once told me - he's a Muslim, by the way - that he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Jew than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic of his own religion. In fact, he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic of his own religion. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
796:As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
797:The Buddhist explanation is that we feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing—fluid, unfixed, and open. Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
798:NOT CAUSING HARM obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people. It also includes not being aggressive—not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our minds. Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching on the healing power of nonaggression. Not harming ourselves or others in the beginning, not harming ourselves or others in the middle, and not harming ourselves or others in the end is the basis of enlightened society. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
799:People kill and a re killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. [...] The second precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the was in Vietnam, is about letting go of views: "Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
800:As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
801:When I ask people to contemplate selflessness, the sometimes react as if I've asked them to put their house on the market or give away all their money. If there was a self that existed in the way we think, discovering selflessness would be like putting our house on the market. But in the Buddhist tradition, the discovery of selflessness is called "completely joyful." It's not called "the raw end of the deal," or "I'd rather go back to bed," or "This is scary and depressing." ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
802:As a book person and a movie person, I feel Jewish. My Dad was more Buddhist than anything, and on the West Coast I've often had the impression that Jews become Buddhists. I think, if anything, my religion has more to do with California consciousness, vibrations and energy. My wife isn't Jewish. There's nothing ceremonial going on at our house, I mean, occasionally a candle gets lit. But, definitely, my Judaism is an ongoing relationship, one that remains to be consummated. ~ Jonathan Raymond, #NFDB
803:According to the Buddhist tradition, the spiritual path is the process of cutting through our confusion, of uncovering the awakened state of mind. When the awakened state of mind is crowded in by ego and its attendant paranoia, it takes on the character of an underlying instinct. So it is not a matter of building up the awakened state of mind, but rather of burning out the confusions which obstruct it. In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
804:Buddhist say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientist confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you've been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn't set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating mental circuits. ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
805:In Buddhist psychology “conceit” has a special meaning: that activity of the mind that compares itself with others. When we think about ourselves as better than, equal to, or worse than someone else, we are giving expression to conceit. This comparing mind is called conceit because all forms of it—whether it is “I’m better than” or “I’m worse than,” or “I’m just the same as”—come from the hallucination that there is a self; they all refer back to a feeling of self, of “I am. ~ Joseph Goldstein, #NFDB
806:I think it would help if, when people are first ordained, they underwent a period of strict training, maybe for several years. During this time they would learn basic Buddhist philosophy in a monastic community where all the teaching and training was directed toward living a perfect monastic life and wasn't channeled out to fit into the lay life - which is what usually happens in Dharma centers where the teachings are directed toward how to live the Dharma in your everyday life. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
807:From a Buddhist point of view, the actual experience of death is very important. Although how or where we will be reborn is generally dependent on karmic forces, our state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of our next rebirth. So at the moment of death, in spite of the great variety of karmas we have accumulated, if we make a special effort to generate a virtuous state of mind, we may strengthen and activate a virtuous karma, and so bring about a happy rebirth. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
808:The saintly disciple who applies himself in silence to right meditation, has surmounted covetousness, negligence, wrath, the inquietude of speculation and doubt; he contemplates and enlightens all beings friendly or hostile, with a limitless compassion, a limitless sympathy, a limitless serenity. He recognises that all internal phenomena are impermanent, subjected to sorrow and without substantial reality, and turning from these things he concentrates his mind on the permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
809:One of my practices comes from an ancient Indian teacher. He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there’s no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that. (The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, “If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?”) ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
810:There are two reasons why I currently teach within the framework of mindfulness. The first is that mindfulness is the least culture-bound of the three Buddhist practice traditions. It is relatively easy to extract it from the cultural and doctrinal matrix within which it arose and to present it as an evidence-based, secular, and culturally neutral process. The second reason is that the general method of mindfulness shares some features with the general method of modern science. I ~ Shinzen Young, #NFDB
811:people astray and into potentially horrific acts. Both of these views relate to the world that is delivered to us by our senses. There is a third way that Buddhist practitioners know as “Emptiness.” This is the unseen, formless energy that extrudes itself as the myriad forms of the world, creating and then retrieving them back to the source. Suzuki Roshi suggested that we think of it as the white screen in a movie theater, the unseen background against which the shimmering movie of ~ Peter Coyote, #NFDB
812:I'm not sure if Cupitt himself still uses this term, but it's useful in suggesting that, actually, there are more choices than the choice between nihilism and faith. In fact, the issue may not be faith as such but the fact that for millennia, Christianity has buttressed itself with a particular kind of metaphysics that has now seemingly reached the end of its life-span. But perhaps Buddhist metaphysics could provide an alternative here - or, at least, offer a direction of travel. ~ George Pattison, #NFDB
813:Kaneta said, “What determined life or death? No Buddhist priest knows, no Christian pastor—not even the Pope in Rome. So I would say, ‘There’s one thing I can tell you, and that is that you are alive, and so am I. This is a certainty. And if we are alive, then there must be some meaning to it. So let’s think about it, and keep thinking about it. I’ll be with you as we think. I’ll stay with you, and we will do it together.’ Perhaps it sounds glib. But that is what I could say. ~ Richard Lloyd Parry, #NFDB
814:over beside Mr. Baynes, General Tedeki said in a soft voice, “You witness the man’s despair. He, you see, was no doubt raised as a Buddhist. Even if not formally, the influence was there. A culture in which no life is to be taken; all lives holy.” Mr. Baynes nodded. “He will recover his equilibrium,” General Tedeki continued. “In time. Right now he has no standpoint by which he can view and comprehend his act. That book will help him, for it provides an external frame of reference. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
815:What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
816:Common to all schools of thought, from Sri Lanka to Tibet, the unifying theme of the Buddhist approach is this remarkable imperative: “Pay precise attention, moment by moment, to exactly what you are experiencing, right now, separating out your reactions from the raw sensory events.” This is what is meant by bare attention: just the bare facts, an exact registering, allowing things to speak for themselves as if seen for the first time, distinguishing any reactions from the core event. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
817:I’ve seen worse, though. That bandage will hold it until she’s anesthetized. I’m pretty sure I can stitch her up in time.” She looked at him levelly. “If you were trying to save her life, you probably did.” Steve turned this notion over in his mind, examining it. He smiled. “Yeah?” “Yeah. It really was dumb, though.” Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying. ~ Scott Hawkins, #NFDB
818:One Mongolian leader became a very, very brutal dictator and eventually became a murderer. Previously, he was a monk, and then he became a revolutionary. Under the influence of his new ideology, he actually killed his own teacher. Pol Pot's family background was Buddhist. Whether he himself was a Buddhist at a young age, I don't know. Even Chairman Mao's family background was Buddhist. So one day, if the Dalai Lama becomes a mass murderer, he will become the most deadly of mass murderers. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
819:While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
820:It does not matter whether one is a Buddhist like me, or a Christian like the Archbishop, or any other religion, or no religion at all. From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. No differences in our culture or our education or our religion affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire joy and contentment. But so often these feelings are fleeting and hard to find, like a butterfly that lands on us and then flutters away. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
821:Neither am I,” Ari said. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t helping. An old Buddhist monk told me once that the mind is like an untrained monkey. If you don’t give it something to do, it will tear your house apart and smear shit on all the walls.” “Really?” On the table in front of her, Patrick’s eight-pack shook with laughter. “I want to meet this monk.” “Really. He said meditation gives your monkey something better to do. Even if you think you’re bad at it, the monkey is still busy.” Patrick ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
822:There is a passage in the Buddhist Sutra on Mindfulness called the Nine Cemetery Contemplations. Apprentice monks are instructed to meditate on a series of decomposing bodies in the charnel ground, starting with a body “swollen and blue and festering,” progressing to one “being eaten by…different kinds of worms,” and moving on to a skeleton, “without flesh and blood, held together by the tendons.” The monks were told to keep meditating until they were calm and a smile appeared on their faces. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
823:4. What he taught may be summed up in a few words, as the perfume of many roses may be distilled into a few drops of attar: Everything in the world of Matter is unreal; the only reality is in the world of Spirit. Emancipate yourselves from the tyranny of the former; strive to attain the latter. The Rev. Samuel Beal, in his Catena of Buḍḍhist Scriptures from the Chinese puts it differently. "The idea underlying the Buddhist religious system is," he says, "simply this: 'all is vanity'. ~ Henry Steel Olcott, #NFDB
824:I've always been fond of the idea expressed in Buddhist art, that there are certain objects that, just by seeing them, can plant a seed for liberation in the individual. That class of objects is called "liberation through seeing." Certain Buddha images are like that, but if it were possible, I would like to find contemporary non-traditional sacred images. Maybe it sounds pretentious, but most spiritual paths point to the possibility that we all can access the deep, absolute dimensions of reality. ~ Alex Grey, #NFDB
825:For Nishitani, then, the only way beyond nihilism is through nihilism. And here Nishitani borrows from the Buddhist concept of śūnyatā, conventionally translated as “nothingness” or “emptiness.” In contrast to the relative nothingness of modern nihilism, which is privative, and predicated on the absence of being (that is, an ontology), Nishitani proposes an absolute nothingness, which is purely negative and predicated on a paradoxical foundation of non-being (that is, a meontology). “Emptiness ~ Eugene Thacker, #NFDB
826:There is this persistent theme in all of these notions that death is made more easy, whatever that means, if you've learned the territory before you get there. And you know, in the Mahayana Buddhist situation it even becomes as extreme as saying; 'life is essentially a preparation for death, a studying of the maps of a learning of the skills a packing of your picnic basket so that when you get out there and demons are sniffing you up one side and down the other you don't bungle your mantras'. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
827:lost-and-found items left behind on trains and in stations, and the unusual, strange items among them—the ashes of cremated people, wigs, prosthetic legs, the manuscript of a novel (the stationmaster read a little bit of it and found it dull), a neatly wrapped, bloodstained shirt in a box, a live pit viper, forty color photos of women’s vaginas, a large wooden gong, the kind Buddhist priests strike as they chant sutras … “Sometimes you’re not sure what to do with them,” the stationmaster said. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
828:The Buddhist explanation is that we feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing—fluid, unfixed, and open. Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty. It seems that insecurity ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
829:Emptiness” is a singularly unappetizing term. I don’t think it was ever meant to be attractive. The Tibetan Buddhist scholar Herbert V. Guenther once translated it as “the open dimension of being,” which sounds a lot more appealing than “emptiness.” “Transparency” was a term I played with for a while, which also makes emptiness sound more palatable. Yet we have to remember that even two thousand years ago Nāgārjuna was having to defend himself against the nihilistic implications of emptiness. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
830:Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under our feet. For instance, if what we're feeling is rage, we usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to it. One is to blame others. Lay it all on somebody else; drive all blames into everyone else. The other alternative is to feel guilty about our rage and blame ourselves. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
831:I was born in England and brought up in London. When I was 18 I read a book and came across the Dharma. I was halfway through the book when I turned to my mother and said, "I'm a Buddhist," to which she replied, "Oh are you dear? Well finish the book and then you can tell me about it." I realised I'd always been Buddhist but I just hadn't known it existed, because in those days not even the word 'Buddha' was ever spoken. This was in in the 1960s, so there wasn't that much available, even in London. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
832:Let others slander me; I bear their condemnation. Those who try to burn the sky only exhaust themselves. When I hear it, it's just like drinking sweet dew. Thus smelted and refined, suddenly one enters the inconceivable. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, Let others slander me (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,#NFDB
833:You can call it tathata, suchness. 'Suchness' is a Buddhist way of expressing that there is something in you which always remains in its intrinsic nature, never changing. It always remains in its selfsame essence, eternally so. That is your real nature. That which changes is not you, that is mind. That which does not change in you is buddha-mind. You can call it no-mind, you can call it samadhi, satori. It depends upon you; you can give it whatsoever name you want. You can call it christ-consciousness. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
834:Misunderstanding may arise by confusing the Buddhist and scientific definitions of death. Within the scientific system you spoke quite validly of the death of the brain and the death of heart. Different parts of the body can die separately. However, in the Buddhist system, the word death is not used in that way. You'd never speak of the death of a particular part of the body, but rather of the death of an entire person. When people say that a certain person died, we don't ask, "Well, which part died?" ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
835: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
836:In Buddhist theory, two Sanskrit terms, vitarka and vicara, are used to describe the subtle attachments of mind. Vitarka characterizes the state of “seeking,” when our attention is attached to what we’re trying to make happen. Vicara characterizes the state of “watching,” when, even though we’re not trying to force something to happen, we’re still attached to an outcome we are waiting for. With either, our mental attachment makes us blind or resistant to other aspects of what is happening right now. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
837:Another thing: ... [Spirituality] evaporates when they say, “This is right, and that is wrong.” All quarrels are [with forms and creeds] never in the spirit. The Buddhist offered for years glorious preaching; gradually, this spirituality evaporated. ... [Similarly with Christianity.] And then began the quarrel whether it is three gods in one or one in three, when nobody wants to go to God Himself and know what He is. We have to go to God Himself to know whether He is three in one or one in three. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
838:You've got a lifetime to mull over the Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness." He spoke every sentence as if he'd written it down, memorized it, and was now reciting it. "But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over, be present out there," he said, nodding toward the lake and beyond.' ~Dr. Hyde, pg 50 ~ John Green, #NFDB
839:Our Butkara ruins were a magical place to play hide-and-seek. Once some foreign archaeologists arrived to do some work there and told us that in times gone by it was a place of pilgrimage, full of beautiful temples domed with gold where Buddhist kings lay buried. My father wrote a poem, “The Relics of Butkara,” which summed up perfectly how temple and mosque could exist side by side: “When the voice of truth rises from the minarets, / The Buddha smiles, / And the broken chain of history reconnects. ~ Malala Yousafzai, #NFDB
840: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
841:Dharma is not about credentials. It's not about how many practices you've done, or how peaceful you can make your mind. It's not about being in a community where you feel safe or enjoying the cachet of being a 'Buddhist.' It's not even about accumulating teachings, empowerments, or 'spiritual accomplishments.' It's about how naked you're willing to be with your own life, and how much you're willing to let go of your masks and your armor and live as a completely exposed, undefended, and open human person. ~ Reginald Ray, #NFDB
842:The religious mind is something entirely different from the mind that believes in religion. You cannot be religious and yet be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. A religious mind does not seek at all, it cannot experiment with truth. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, or by your conditioning as a Hindu or whatever religion you belong to. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is—what actually is. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
843:Zeena Schreck is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist, author, musician/composer, tantric teacher, mystic, animal rights activist, and counter-culture icon known by her mononymous artist name, ZEENA. Her work stems from her experience within the esoteric, shamanistic and magical traditions of which she's practiced, taught and been initiated. She is a practicing Tibetan Buddhist yogini, teaches at the Buddhistische Gesellschaft Berlin and is the spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement (SLM). ~ Zeena Schreck, #NFDB
844: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
845:As I indicated in an earlier chapter, it is so important to pause and think through some of these basic issues while you are young, before the pressures of job and family become distracting. Everyone must deal with the eternal questions sooner or later. You will benefit, I think, from doing that work now. As I said earlier, whether you are an atheist, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, a New Ager, an agnostic, or a Christian, the questions confronting the human family are the same. Only the answers will differ. ~ James C Dobson, #NFDB
846:We cannot avoid the globalization of knowledge and information. When I was a boy growing up in Kansas, I could never think about a Buddhist, or a Hindu, or Muslim, or even a Protestant - I grew up in such a Catholic ghetto. That's not possible anymore, unless you live in a cave or something. So either we have knowledge of what the other religions and other denominations are saying, and how they tie into the common thread, or we end up just being dangerously ignorant of other people and therefore prejudiced. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
847:I could make a strong, if not conclusive, case for the idea that plants are more intelligent than people—more beautiful, more pacific, more ingenious in their ways of reproduction, more at home in their surroundings, and even more sensitive. Why, we even use flower-forms as our symbols of the divine when the human face reminds us too much of ourselves—the Hindu-Buddhist mandala, the golden lotus, and the Mystic Rose in Dante’s vision of Paradise. Nothing else reminds us so much of a star with a living heart. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
848:I was raised as a churchgoer but I wasn't a practising Christian. I wasn't an agnostic or atheist either. My view is that we should all take a bit from every religion and philosophy. I'm not a Buddhist but I like Buddhist philosophies, in particular. They give you a very good structure that you can build your life around. For instance, I definitely believe in karma, the idea that what goes around, comes around. I wondered whether Bob was my reward for having done something good, somewhere in my troubled life. ~ James Bowen, #NFDB
849:In what is now known as Bodh Gaya…a Buddhist temple stands beside an ancient pipal, descended from that bodhi tree, or “enlightenment tree,” and I watched the rising of the morning star and came away no wiser than before. But later I wondered if the Tibetan monks were aware that the Bodhi tree was murmuring with gusts of birds, while another large pipal, so close by that it touched the holy tree with many branches, was without life. I make no claim for the event: I simply declare what I saw at Bodh Gaya. ~ Peter Matthiessen, #NFDB
850:Meditate but one hour upon the self’s nonexistence and you will feel yourself to be another man,” said a priest of the Japanese Kusha sect to a Western visitor.
Without having frequented the Buddhist monasteries, how many times have I not lingered over the world’s unreality, and hence my own? I have not become another man for that, no, but there certainly has remained with me the feeling that my identity is entirely illusory, and that by losing it I have lost nothing, except something, except everything. ~ Emil M Cioran,#NFDB
851:One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it." ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
852:The reference in the text to “noble sons and noble daughters” has additional significance that modern practitioners should bear in mind. This phrase clearly indicates that as far as efficacy of the practice of the perfection of wisdom is concerned, there is no difference based on gender. In fact, this is true as well for all key aspects of the Buddhist path. For example, let us examine the Vinaya teachings on ethics and monastic discipline, which are so essential to the continued survival of the Buddhadharma. ~ Thupten Jinpa, #NFDB
853:The Buddhist view is not like that. Rather the Buddhist view is that if the causes of suffering have been created, then there will be suffering. It is not that some external being has decided to make us miserable for some reason. The Buddhist view is that the causes have come together completely and manifested their result. Likewise, when we experience happiness, it is because the various factors that give rise to happiness have come together, not because some external being decided that we should be happy. ~ Khenchen Thrangu, #NFDB
854:Who is without thought? Who is without birth? If there is really no production, there is nothing not produced. Summon a wooden statue and inquire of it. Apply yourself to seeking Buddha-hood; sooner or later you will accomplish it. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, Who is without thought? (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,#NFDB
855:Redefinition is a nightmare—we think we’ve arrived, in our nice Pottery Barn boxes, and that this or that is true. Then something happens that totally sucks, and we are in a new box, and it is like changing into clothes that don’t fit, that we hate. Yet the essence remains. Essence is malleable, fluid. Everything we lose is Buddhist truth—one more thing that you don’t have to grab with your death grip, and protect from theft or decay. It’s gone. We can mourn it, but we don’t have to get down in the grave with it. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
856:I think it's more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn't really work in a way where there's a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it's a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you're following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal, #NFDB
857:I think what happens in a religious life is that we have those experiences of affirmation and that one starts to live a Christian life or a Jewish life or a Muslim life or a Buddhist life, by affirming that affirmation each day. Each day you say 'Yes' to that Yes. So the life of being a Christian for example, is always a life of double affirmation, that you each day say 'Yes' to those counter-experiences of saying 'Yes', even when you're not experiencing them at that time, you're remaining loyal to that experience. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
858:If, however, one disingenuously seizes on passages out of context or, due to personal sentiments, distorts the instructions of the text, then the months and years will be needlessly drawn out while actual realization will have no basis for development. One's circumstance would then be like the pauper who spends his time calculating the wealth of other men. What possible benefit could this have for oneself? ~ Zhiyi, The Essentials of Buddhist Meditation, as translated by Bhikshu Dharmamitra (Klavinka Buddhist Classics: 2009) p. 35, #NFDB
859:You've got a lifetime to mull over the Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness." He spoke every sentence as if he'd written it down, memorized it, and was now reciting it. "But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over, be present out there," he said, nodding toward the lake and beyond.' ~ John GreenDr. Hyde, pg 50 ~ John Green, #NFDB
860:The point of the pilgrimage,” as a Buddhist priest told the traveling author Oliver Statler on his journey around the Japanese island of Shikoku, “is to improve yourself by enduring and overcoming difficulties.” In other words, if the journey you have chosen is indeed a pilgrimage, a soulful journey, it will be rigorous. Ancient wisdom suggests if you aren't trembling as you approach the sacred, it isn't the real thing. The sacred, in its various guises as holy ground, art, or knowledge, evokes emotion and commotion. ~ Phil Cousineau, #NFDB
861:When the disciple regarding his ideas sees appear in him bad and unwholesome thoughts, thoughts of covetousness, hatred, error, he should either turn his mind from them and concentrate on a healthy idea, or examine the fatal nature of the thought, or else he should analyse it and decompose it into its different elements, or calling up all his strength and applying the greatest energy suppress it from his mind: so bad and unwholesome thoughts withdraw and disappear, and the mind becomes firm, calm, unified, vigorous. ~ Buddhist Maxims, #NFDB
862:Buddhist thought and modern psychology converge on this point: in human life as it’s ordinarily lived, there is no one self, no conscious CEO, that runs the show; rather, there seem to be a series of selves that take turns running the show—and, in a sense, seizing control of the show. If the way they seize control of the show is through feelings, it stands to reason that one way to change the show is to change the role feelings play in everyday life. I’m not aware of a better way to do that than mindfulness meditation. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
863:The Dhammapada, an ancient Buddhist text (which anticipated Freud by thousands of years), says: “What you are now is the result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the result of what you are now. The consequences of an evil mind will follow you like the cart follows the ox that pulls it. The consequences of a purified mind will follow you like your own shadow. No one can do more for you than your own purified mind—no parent, no relative, no friend, no one. A well-disciplined mind brings happiness. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
864:I was raised as a churchgoer but I wasn't a practising Christian. I wasn't an agnostic or atheist either. My view is that we should all take a bit from every religion and philosophy. I'm not a Buddhist but I like Buddhist philosophies, in particular. They give you a very good structure that you can build your life around. For instance, I definitely believe in karma, the idea that what goes around, comes around. I wondered whether Bob was my reward for having done something good, somewhere in my troubled life. - Chapter 21 ~ James Bowen, #NFDB
865:In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground....I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
866:The best system of religion is that which best trains us to surrender unto the Supreme Lord. This is the basic principle underlying Bhagavad-gītā. We can select our own religion and be Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Christian or whatever, as long as we know the real purpose of religion. Indeed, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam does not recommend that we give up our present religion, but it does hint at the purpose of religion. That purpose is love of Godhead, and that religion which teaches us best how to love the Supreme Lord is the best religion. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
867:Greek philosophers, beginning with Thales, were men of speculative temperament. What is the world made of? What are the elements and the processes by which the world is transformed? Greek philosophy and science were born together, of the passion to know. The Buddha’s aim was not to know the world or to improve it but to escape its suffering. His whole concern was salvation. It is not easy for us in the West to understand or even name this Buddhist concern. To say that the Buddhists had a “philosophy” would be misleading. ~ Daniel J Boorstin, #NFDB
868: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
869:In Buddhist ideology, the conventional self is that which is constructed in a way by the use of the pronoun, and when you realize there is no absolute ego there, no disconnected one, self, or ego, then that actually strengthens your conventional ego. It does so in the sense that then you realize it's a construction, and you can strengthen it in order to help others, or do whatever you're trying to do, it's not like you no longer know who you are. Then you can organize your behavior by using your ego, as it's now the pronoun. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
870:The Hard Way INASMUCH AS no one is going to save us, to the extent that no one is going magically to enlighten us, the path we are discussing is called the “hard way.” This path does not conform to our expectation that involvement with the Buddhist teaching will be gentle, peaceful, pleasant, compassionate. It is the hard way, a simple meeting of two minds: if you open your mind, if you are willing to meet, then the teacher opens his mind as well. It is not a question of magic; the condition of openness is a mutual creation. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
871:The Sikhs have shown me how to be strong, the Vipassana course taught me how to calm my mind, India's Muslims have shown me the meaning of surrender and sacrifice, and the Hindus have illustrated an infinite number of ways to the divine. But right now the Buddhist way of living attracts me the most. It complements my society's psychological approach to individual growth and development, my desire to take control and take responsibility for my own happiness and it advocates a way of living that encourages compassion and care. ~ Sarah Macdonald, #NFDB
872: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
873:The more you ask, the more you get, but it takes practice to get good at it. success is a numbers game. As the Buddhist sages observed, “Every arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of one hundred misses.” Flex your “asking muscles” by asking for a better table at your favorite restaurant, for a free second scoop at your local ice cream shop or for a complimentary upgrade on your next airline flight. you might be surprised at the abundance that will flow into your life when you just ask sincerely for the things you want. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
874:But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: "For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist." ~ Paul Watzlawick, #NFDB
875:I'm not [a Buddhist]. The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The teachings can help you, but really, we're all here with the opportunity the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that...I'm just not interested in labels. I find all of them constrictive. They're hard to wear. And they're hard to wear because we're always - hopefully - growing. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
876:Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
877:Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles-external matter and internal mind or consciousness-although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
878:The man who does not think about religion, imagines that there is only one that is true, the one in which he was born. But thou hast only to ask thyself what would happen if thou wert born in another religion, thou, Christian, if thou wert born a Mahomedan, thou, Buddhist, a Christian and thou, Mahomedan, a Brahmin. Is it possible that we alone with our religion should be in the truth and that all others should be subjected to falsehood? No religion can become true merely by thy persuading thyself or persuading others that it alone is true. ~ Tolstoi, #NFDB
879:Historically, Buddhist monks hoping to detach themselves from lust and curb their desire for permanence would meditate on the form of a rotting corpse. Known as the nine cemetery contemplations, the meditation would focus the different stages of decomposition: “(1) distension (choso); (2) rupture (kaiso); (3) exudation of blood (ketsuzuso); (4) putrefaction (noranso); (5) discoloration and desiccation (seioso); (6) consumption by animals and birds (lanso); (7) dismemberment (sanso); (8) bones (kosso); and (9) parched to dust (shoso). ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
880: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
881:Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
882:I'm working at trying to be a Christian and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddyit's serious business. It's not something where you think, Oh, I've got it done. I did it all day, hotdiggety. The truth is, all day long you try to do it, try to be it, and then in the evening if you're honest and have a little courage you look at yourself and say, Hmm. I only blew it eighty-six times. Not bad. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
883: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
884:I thought about the garden tended by a monk living in mindfulness. His flowers are always fresh and green, nourished by the peace and joy which flow from his mindfulness. One of the ancients said, When a great Master is born, the water in the rivers turns clearer and the plants grow greener. We ought to listen to music or sit and practice breathing at the beginning of every meeting or discussion. *The Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation has carried on a program of raising financial support for families within Vietnam who took in orphans. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
885: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
886:Whether one is looking at the so-called Age of Reason, the Middle Ages, the modern age, or the pre-Christian era, gnostic philosophy remains the same dynamic, liberating power. Existing in time, it points beyond time. It calls us to wake up from materialist vision to a more profound, higher, and more centered perception. Whether the expression of the gnosis is apparently Christian, classical, Jewish, magical, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Eastern, or Western, the wisdom of the ages speaks to us as it did to our ancestors—if we choose to listen. ~ Tobias Churton, #NFDB
887:Nurses have nerves of steel and the mind-over-matter proficiency of a Buddhist monk. If, for example, you haltingly inform a nurse that you have just passed what appeared to be a large part of your brain into the toilet, via the birth canal, the nurse will not gag but instead will admonish you for flushing it away before showing it to her. Blood, phlegm, and mucus—all things intrauterine or subdermal, septic or dyspeptic—are attended to with efficient grace by nurses, who are the underpaid soothers and healers in every hospital, all over the world. ~ Ann Leary, #NFDB
888:To use the symbolic language of Bodkin’s scheme, he would then be abandoning the conventional estimates of time in relation to his own physical needs, and entering the world of total neuronic time, where the massive intervals of the geological timescale calibrated his existence. Here, a million years was the shortest working unit, and the problems of food and clothing were as irrelevant as they would have been to a Buddhist contemplative lotus-squatting before an empty rice bowl under the protective canopy of the million-headed cobra of eternity. ~ J G Ballard, #NFDB
889: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
890:150 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
891:The last stage of the development of ego is the fifth skandha, consciousness. At this level an amalgamation takes place: the intuitive intelligence of the second skandha, the energy of the third, and the intellectualization of the fourth combine to produce thoughts and emotions. Thus at the level of the fifth skandha we find the six realms as well as the uncontrollable and illogical patterns of discursive thought. This is the complete picture of ego. It is in this state that all of us have arrived at our study of Buddhist psychology and meditation. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
892:With Sudden enlightened understanding Of the Dhyana of the Thus Come Ones, The six crossings-over and ten thousand practices are complete in substance, In a dream, very clearly, there are six destinies; After Enlightenment, completely empty, there is no universe. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, With Sudden enlightened understanding (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,#NFDB
893:The life of a man is like a ball in the river, the Buddhist texts state - no matter what our will wants or desires, we are swept along by an invisible current that finally delivers us to the limitless expanse of the black sea. This image rather appeals to me. It suggests there are times when we float lightly along life's surface, bobbing from one languid, long pool to another. But then, when we least expect it, we turn a river bend and find ourselves plummeting over a thundering waterfall into the churning abyss below. This I have experienced. And more. ~ Richard C Morais, #NFDB
894:Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
895:The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
896:David (Paul) Cho now heads Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, generally regarded as the largest church in the world today. But as a young man he was a Buddhist, dying of tuberculosis in hopeless poverty. He had heard that “the God of the Christians” helped people, healed people, so where he was he simply asked “their” God to help him. And their God did. He healed this young Korean man, and taught him, and gave him an abundance of the kingdom life that was and is in Jesus, the Son of man. And now that same life flows through David Cho to thousands of others. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
897: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
898:Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
899:Although I'm not Christian, I was raised Christian. I'm an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I've got a very strong sense of morality - it's just a different morality than the loud voices of the Christian morality.... I can't tell you how many films I've turned down because there was an absence of morality. And I don't mean that from any sort of Judeo-Christian-Muslim point of view. I'm not saying they're wrong and can't be made. But, fundamentally, I'm such a humanist that I can't bear to make films that make us feel humanity is more dark than it is light. ~ Rachel Griffiths, #NFDB
900:If you read the literature of the great religions, time and time again you come across descriptions of what is usually referred to as “spiritual experience.” You will find that in all the various traditions this modality of spiritual experience seems to be the same, whether it occurs in the Christian West, the Islamic Middle East, the Hindu world of Asia, or the Buddhist world. In each culture, it is quite definitely the same experience, and it is characterized by the transcendence of individuality and by a sensation of being one with the total energy of the universe. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
901:The trains in any country contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Singhalese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks, Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes, Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. The railway bazaar, with its gadgets and passengers, represented the society so completely that to board it was to be challenged by the national character. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
902:Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic Benedictine monk and scholar who spent a great deal of time in Christian–Buddhist interfaith dialogue, has explained, “It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. Every moment is a gift. There is no certainty that you will have another moment, with all the opportunity that it contains. The gift within every gift is the opportunity it offers us. Most often it is the opportunity to enjoy it, but sometimes a difficult gift is given to us and that can be an opportunity to rise to the challenge. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
903:It is as if a woman has a right to vote, but the polling place is across the state and casting a ballot costs two weeks’ pay, and as if she has a right to be a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist, but her place of worship is a four-hour bus ride away, and before she can go to services she has to listen to a fundamentalist Christian sermon warning her that if she doesn’t accept Jesus as her personal savior she’s going straight to hell. We would never accept the kinds of restrictions on our other constitutional rights that we have allowed to hamper the right to end a pregnancy. ~ Katha Pollitt, #NFDB
904:If you live your life subject to the rules of Judeo-Christian tradition (or Buddhist, Islamic, or another religious tradition), then you will do more good than harm on this earth. You will love your neighbor and help other people out. You will not do things that hurt others or yourself. So, if everyone was religious wouldn’t the world be a much better place in which to live? Of course it would. And if there is no God at the end of it all, what does it matter? You’re in the ground or scattered to the winds. If the deity is a fraud, you won’t possibly care. You’re gone. But ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
905:PROCESS PHILOSOPHY, a school greatly influenced by Alfred North Whitehead, holds that mind and brain are manifestations of a single reality, one that is in constant flux. It thus is compatible with classical Buddhist philosophy, which views clear and penetrating awareness of change and impermanence (anicca in Pali) as the essence of insight. Thus, as Whitehead put it, "The reality is the process," and it is a process made up of vital transient "drops of experience, complex, and interdependent." This view is strikingly consistent with recent developments in quantum physics. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
906:The Buddhist ideal of awakening implies that we can sever our links with our evolutionary past. We can raise ourselves from the sleep in which other animals pass their lives. Our illusions dissolved, we need no longer suffer. This is only another doctrine of salvation, subtler than that of the Christians, but no different from Christianity in its goal of leaving our animal inheritance behind.
But the idea that we can rid ourselves of animal illusion is the greatest illusion of all. meditation may give us a fresher view of things but cannot uncover them as they are in themselves. ~ John Gray,#NFDB
907: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
908: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
909:There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
910:It is clearly seen: There is not a single thing. Nor are there any people; nor are there any Buddhas. The great thousand worlds are bubbles in the sea. All the worthy Sages are like flashes of lightning. Even if an iron wheel were rolled over one's head, Samadhi and wisdom would be fully bright and never lost. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, It is clearly seen (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,#NFDB
911:Khubilai’s capital in China, Khanbalikh (also known as Ta-tu or Dadu), was symbolic of the way Mongol rulers amalgamated the diverse cultures, beliefs, and skills of their domains. In it were built a shrine for Confucians, an altar with Mongolian soil and grass from the steppes, and buildings of significant Chinese architectural influence. As historian Morris Rossabi points out, Khubilai “sought the assistance of Persian astronomers and physicians, Tibetan Buddhist monks” and “Central Asian [Muslim] soldiers.” One can only imagine it must have been a city of grand cosmopolitan dimensions. ~ Tim Cope, #NFDB
912:After their time in the monastery, most young men and women will return to their villages, having completed their training with the elders. They are now accepted as “ripe,” as initiated men and women, respected in their community. Outwardly they will have learned the religious forms and sacred rituals of the Buddhist community. Inwardly, these ancient forms are intended to awaken an unshakable virtue and inner respect, fearlessness in the face of death, self-reliance, wisdom, and profound compassion. These qualities give one who leaves the monastery the hallmark of a mature man or woman. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
913:Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100 percent empty space — so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note. Buddhists have known that for over 2,500 years. “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
914:The Buddha isn’t a god or deity to be worshipped. He was a rebel and an overthrower, the destroyer of ignorance, the great physician who discovered the path to freedom from suffering. The Buddha left a legacy of truth for us to experience for ourselves. The practices and principles of his teachings lead to the direct experience of liberation. This is not a faith-based philosophy, but an experiential one. The point of the spiritual revolution is not to become a good Buddhist, but to become a wise and compassionate human being, to awaken from our life of complacency and ignorance and to be a buddha. ~ Noah Levine, #NFDB
915:As a Buddhist Sutra hears the voice of the Bodhisattva of compassion: The wondrous voice, the voice of the onewho attends to the cries of the world The noble voice, the voice of the risingtide surpassing all the sounds of the world Let our mind be attuned to that voice. Put aside all doubt and meditate on thepure and holy nature of the regarderof the cries of the world Because that is our reliance in situationsof pain, distress, calamity, death. Perfect in all merits, beholding all sentientbeings with compassionate eyes, making the ocean of blessings limitless, Before this one, we should incline. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
916:Awakening as a moment of now
Awakening as an experience
Awakening as a moment
that is the same - today, yesterday or tomorrow
Awakening of a Hinduist, of a Buddhist, of a Christian
of a believer or a nonbeliever
Awakening that lives within every single cell
Awakening within no qualities
as emptiness of Consciousness
as direct contact
with love and light and life
experienced
with every breath
Awakening as resting within true nature
as acting from the true nature
as Remembering
Awakening as opening
to the possibility of Now ~ Nata a Nuit Pantovi,#NFDB
917:The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain-porridge unleavened literature licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
918:In the Spring 2014 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Linda Heuman wrote in her article, ‘The Science Delusion’: In White’s view, once scientism rewrites our story so that the things human beings care about – like love, wonder, presence, or play – are reduced to atoms, genes, or neurons, human lives become easy prey to corporate and political interests. We become ‘mere functions within systems.’ White wants us to wake up and recognize that this view is not scientific discovery, it is ideology. Mistaking one for the other has profound consequences, ‘not just for knowledge but even more importantly for how we live. ~ Gordon White, #NFDB
919: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
920:In hindsight, I see it was my decision not to let go. I didn't know how, though some days I focused completely on it: using therapy, distraction, exercise. Other days I left myself wildly grieve. Finn affects it all: every conversation I have, what I choose to wear, what books I read, what films and shows I watch. There's that Buddhist quote, (S)he who angers you owns you. She owned me. I allowed it. She controlled me. I knew this feeling of misery would pass, that what I needed was time, but I was impatient. Unfortunately, we must live through the present to get to the future, writes Hanif Kureishi in his novel Intimacy. ~ Chloe Caldwell, #NFDB
921:There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme. ~ Ray Bradbury, Afterword to the 1979 edition of Fahrenheit 451, #NFDB
922:Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance? The atheist might say that they get their self-image from being a good person. They are a good person and they hope that eventually they will get a verdict that confirms that they are a good person. Performance leads to the verdict. For the Buddhist too, performance leads to the verdict. If you are a Muslim, performance leads to the verdict. All this means that every day, you are in the courtroom, every day you are on trial. That is the problem. But Paul is saying that in Christianity, the verdict leads to performance. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
923:Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi, Only Breath
,#NFDB
924:Our spiritual journey is a bit like Dante's Inferno. Before making our way out of "hell," we must walk through the depths of our inner darkness. Many religions symbolize these experiences well. Two famous examples include the case of Jesus who had to face Satan in the desert and Buddha's encounter with Mara (the Buddhist Satan) before his “awakening.” Shadow Work is the practice of exploring your inner darkness. It involves identifying, accepting, loving and integrating all the parts of you that you believe are secretly shameful, embarrassing, unacceptable, ugly or scary. This dark and repressed place within us is known as the Shadow Self. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
925:The spook pimp was up. The spook pimp was de-O’d and revived. He bossed his whores around. He made his whores strip. He made his whores hop on three tables. They linked up. They performed table tricks. They French-kissed and went 69. Wayne weaved. Pete steadied him. A Buddhist monk walked in. His robe dripped. He looked stupefied. His robe reeked of gas. He bowed. He squatted. He lit a match. He gook-cooked with gas. He whooshed. He flared. Flames hit the ceiling. The lez shows dispersed. The monk burned. The fire spread. Some clubhoppers screeched. The barman stretched a fizz cord. The barman spritzed club soda. The barman sprayed the monk. ~ James Ellroy, #NFDB
926: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
927:Why does the mind interfere at all? Because the mind is created by society. It is society’s agent within you; it is not in your service, remember! It is your mind, but it is not in your service; it is in a conspiracy against you. It has been conditioned by society; society has implanted many things in it. It is your mind but it no longer functions as a servant to you, it functions as a servant to society. If you are a Christian then it functions as an agent of the Christian church, if you are a Hindu then your mind is Hindu, if you are a Buddhist your mind is Buddhist. And reality is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Buddhist; reality is simply as it is. ~ Osho, #NFDB
928: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
929:Mindfulness has been called the heart of Buddhist meditation. Fundamentally, mindfulness is a simple concept. Its power lies in its practice and its applications. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greatet awareness, clarity 7 , and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
930:They trigger creativity, because they make us so vulnerable and open our heart to become its large self. Buddhist philosopher Joanna Macy says that when your heart breaks, the universe can pour through. That is how it is. When the universe pours through, so, too, does the creativity of the universe. How many comedians are funny in spite of and because of deep tragedies in their life, which have opened their souls up to the ultimate paradoxes of living? Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life’s sorrows with grace. Humor, too, seems built into the fabric of the universe, so filled with paradox and surprise and uncanny combinations. ~ Matthew Fox, #NFDB
931:I can’t possibly love them well if I first demand that they be like me in order to receive it. I am a Christian, but I fully love and accept you and want to hang out with you and be friends if you’re Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Jedi or love the opposite sex or love the same sex or love Rick Springfield circa 1983. Not only that: I think the ability to seek out community with people who are different from me makes me a stronger, better version of myself. Trying to be in community with people who don’t look or vote or believe like you do, though sometimes uncomfortable, will help you stretch and grow into the best version of yourself. ~ Rachel Hollis, #NFDB
932:As for my own religious practice, I try to live my life pursuing what I call the Bodhisattva ideal. According to Buddhist thought, a Bodhisattva is someone on the path to Buddhahood wo dedicates themselves entirely to helping all other sentient beings towards release from suffering. The word Bodhisattva can best be understood by translating the Bodhi and Sattva separately: Bodhi means the understanding or wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality, and a Sattva is someone who is motivated by universal compassion. The Bodhissatva ideal is thus the aspiration to practise infinite compassion with infinite wisdom. releasing sentient beings from suffering. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
933:There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan. His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by immitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. ~ William James, #NFDB
934:Buddhist monks cremated the remains of Sherpa guides who were buried in the deadliest avalanche to hit Mount Everest, a disaster that has prompted calls for a climbing boycott by Nepal's ethnic Sherpa community. A Sherpa boycott could critically disrupt the Everest climbing season, which is key to the livelihood of thousands of Nepali guides and porters. Everest climbers have long relied on Sherpas for everything from hauling gear to cooking food to high-altitude guiding. At least 13 Sherpas were killed when a block of ice tore loose from the mountain and triggered a cascade that ripped through teams of guides hauling gear. Three Sherpas missing in Friday's ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
935:The consciousness which is born of the battle of the sense-organs with their corresponding objects, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in it; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes its origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. The sensations which are born of the senses, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in them; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes its origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. The perception and the representation of the objects sensed by the senses, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in them; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
936:Buddhist teachings have long emphasized the importance of being less “self-involved.” When we are fearful and anxious, we are concerned about our self and its well-being. These are autonoetic thoughts about one’s health, family, friends, wealth, life, death, and so on. Our conscious self, according to Mark Epstein, who is a Buddhist psychoanalyst, will do almost anything to maintain the independence, power, control, or success that it has achieved, even if to do so other people, other cultures, or the world has to suffer.192 A healthier approach, Epstein says, is to let go of the “absolute self” that we construct and recognize our broader role in life. ~ Joseph E LeDoux, #NFDB
937:One may be an excellent pianist, mathematician, gardener, or scientist and still be cranky and jealous, but in the West one can be considered a great moralist and yet not live by one’s moral principles. We must simply recall here the Buddhist requirement that a person and his or her teachings be compatible. Ethics is not like any ordinary science. It must arise from the deepest understanding of human qualities, and such understanding comes only when one undertakes the journey of discovery personally. An ethic that is built exclusively on intellectual ideas and that is not buttressed at every point by virtue, genuine wisdom, and compassion has no solid foundation. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
938:Here we run into an unfortunate mix of vocabulary. Yet listen to the Dalai Lama on this point: “Selflessness is not a case of something that existed in the past becoming nonexistent. Rather, this sort of “self” is something that never did exist. What is needed is to identify as nonexistent something that always was nonexistent.”4 It is not ego, in the Freudian sense, that is the actual target of the Buddhist insight, it is, rather, the self-concept, the representational component of the ego, the actual internal experience of one’s self that is targeted. The point is that the entire ego is not transcended; the self-representation is revealed as lacking concrete existence. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
939:As she read over Eve's shoulder, Mavis let out a low whistle. "Not the Roarke! The incredibly wealthy, fabulous to look at, sexily mysterious Roarke who owns approximately twenty-eight percent of the world, and its satellites?"
All Eve felt was irritation. "He's the only one I know."
"You know him." Mavis rolled her green shadowed eyes. "Dallas, I've underestimated you unforgivably. Tell me everything. How, when, why? Did you sleep with him? Tell me you slept with him, then give me every tiny detail."
"We've had a secret, passionate affair for the last three years, during which time I bore him a son who's being raised on the far side of the moon by Buddhist monks. ~ J D Robb,#NFDB
940:Absorbed totally, absorbed in whatsoever she was doing… He understood for the first time: this is what meditation is. Not that you sit for a special period and repeat a mantra, not that you go to the church or to the temple or to the mosque, but to be in life – to go on doing trivial things, but with such absorption that the profundity is revealed in every action. He understood what meditation is, for the first time. He had been meditating, he had been struggling hard, but for the first time meditation was there, alive. He could feel it. He could have touched it, it was almost tangible, and then he remembered that closing one eye and opening the other is a symbol, a Buddhist symbol. ~ Osho, #NFDB
941:It's a Buddhist concept. Nonduality. It's about oneness, about how things that seem to be separate are really connected to one another. There are no separations...This is not just a piece of wood. This is also the clouds that brought the rain that watered the tree, and the birds that nested in it and the squirrels that fed on its nuts. It is also the food my grandparents fed me that made me strong enough to cut the tree, and it's the steel in the axe I used. And it's how you know your fox, which allowed you to carve him yesterday. And it's the story you will tell your children when you give this to them. All these things are separate but also one, inseparable. Do you see? ~ Sara Pennypacker, #NFDB
942: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
943:The prevalent idea that karma is a superstitious or archaic belief probably stems from the simplified versions of the idea that emerged from old-world Asia. In poor conditions, among uneducated people, the Buddha’s teachings were usually delivered very simply. People in such circumstances tend to express their wish to create good karma by making ritual offerings to ordained members of the sangha, or by worshipping Buddha images, or by doing circumambulations of Buddhist shrines and reliquaries, or by feeding the poor, and so on. In a modern context, karma tends to be associated predominantly with this type of generalization, again invoking the primitive, superstitious image. ~ Traleg Kyabgon, #NFDB
944:He and Egan also spoke for hours on the phone many nights. One topic they wrestled with was his belief, which came from his Buddhist studies, that it was important to avoid attachment to material objects. Our consumer desires are unhealthy, he told her, and to attain enlightenment you need to develop a life of nonattachment and nonmaterialism. He even sent her a tape of Kobun Chino, his Zen teacher, lecturing about the problems caused by craving and obtaining things. Egan pushed back. Wasn’t he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted? “He was irritated by the dichotomy, and we had exuberant debates about it,” Egan recalled. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
945:As a foundational principle, all Buddhist practices are based on clear perception, using the naked and direct honesty of mindfulness practice as a basis to create a bare attention and direct experience of the present reality. At the same time, if Vajrayana is about ritualizing every aspect of our consciousness in the service of awakening, then paying attention to the way things really are includes making use of the mind’s imaginative capacity. The point of self-awareness is not to turn off our projector, per se, but to study the projector, to realize that the projector is always on, and to notice that our experiences are projections that arise in the theater of the heartmind. The ~ Ethan Nichtern, #NFDB
946:Saichō's Prayer
So long as I have not attained the stage where my six faculties are pure, I will not venture out into the world.
So long as I have not realized the absolute, I will not acquire any special skills or arts (e.g. medicine, divination, calligraphy, etc.)
So long as I have not kept all the precepts purely, I will not participate in any lay donor's Buddhist meetings.
So long as I have not attained wisdom (lit. hannya 般若), I will not participate in worldly affairs unless it be to benefit others.
May any merit from my practice in the past, present and future be given not to me, but to all sentient beings so that they may attain supreme enlightenment. ~ Saichō,#NFDB
947:Fanaticism is the opposite of love,’ I said, recalling one of Khaderbhai’s lectures. A wise man once told me—he’s a Muslim, by the way—that he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Jew than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. In fact, he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. I agree with him, and I feel the same way. I also agree with Winston Churchill, who once defined a fanatic as someone who won’t change his mind and can’t change the subject. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
948:What Love Tells Us About God Love, which might be called the attraction of all things toward all things, is a universal language and underlying energy that keeps showing itself despite our best efforts to resist it. It is so simple that it is hard to teach in words, yet we all know it when we see it. After all, there is not a Native, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, or Christian way of loving. There is not a Methodist, Lutheran, or Orthodox way of running a soup kitchen. There is not a gay or straight way of being faithful, nor a Black or Caucasian way of hoping. We all know positive flow when we see it, and we all know resistance and coldness when we feel it. All the rest are mere labels. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
949:man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, ‘Look at my two noble friends — they are dumb, but they are loyal.’ I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant. Suspecting it, I have nevertheless depended on this tolerance all my life, and if I were, even now, without either a dog or a horse in my keeping, I should feel I had lost contact with the earth. I should be as concerned as a Buddhist monk having lost contact with Nirvana. ~ Beryl Markham, #NFDB
950:Through Buddhist awareness practices, we free ourselves from the suffering of trance by learning to recognize what is true in the present moment, and by embracing whatever we see with an open heart. This cultivation of mindfulness and compassion is what I call Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance reverses our habit of living at war with experiences that are unfamiliar, frightening or intense. It is the necessary antidote to years of neglecting ourselves, years of judging and treating ourselves harshly, years of rejecting this moment’s experience. Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our life as it is. A moment of Radical Acceptance is a moment of genuine freedom. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
951:Without a memory, EP has fallen completely out of time. He has no stream of consciousness, just droplets that immediately evaporate. If you were to take the watch off his wrist—or, more cruelly, change the time—he’d be completely lost. Trapped in this limbo of an eternal present, between a past he can’t remember and a future he can’t contemplate, he lives a sedentary life, completely free from worry. “He’s happy all the time. Very happy. I guess it’s because he doesn’t have any stress in his life,” says his daughter Carol, who lives nearby. In his chronic forgetfulness, EP has achieved a kind of pathological enlightenment, a perverted vision of the Buddhist ideal of living entirely in the present. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
952:She gave me another side-eyed glance but didn’t speak. “The first is ‘How did it make you feel?’ in reference to my time on the Lois McKendrick as a crewman.” “Classic Zen,” she said. “Interesting approach.” “What?” “The question. It’s a classic question from an ancient Buddhist school of meditation. He didn’t ask you to answer it, did he.” It wasn’t a question. “No, I’m not supposed to answer it. Just feel it.” She grinned. I could see her teeth gleaming in her reflection. “It’s phrased to break your focus, to give your mind a split second of a break from overthinking. To put you in touch with yourself in ways that most of us find difficult. Tai chi does the same thing using the movements as focus. ~ Nathan Lowell, #NFDB
953: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
954:There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan. His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. ~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 1, #NFDB
955:I know a wise Buddhist monk who, in a speech to his fellow countrymen, once said he'd love to know why someone who boasts that he is the cleverest, the strongest, the bravest or the most gifted man on earth is thought ridiculous and embarrassing, whereas if, instead of 'I', he says, 'we are the most intelligent, the strongest, the bravest and the most gifted people on earth', his fellow countrymen applaud enthusiastically and call him a patriot. For there is nothing patriotic about it. One can be attached to one's own country without needing to insist that the rest of the world's inhabitants are worthless. But as more and more people were taken in by this sort of nonsense, the menace to peace grew greater. ~ E H Gombrich, #NFDB
956:The aim of far too many teachings these days is to make people "feel good," and even some Buddhist masters are beginning to sound like New Age apostles. Their talks are entirely devoted to validating the manifestation of ego and endorsing the "rightness" of our feelings, neither of which have anything to do with the teachings we find in the pith instructions. So, if you are only concerned about feeling good, you are far better off having a full body massage or listening to some uplifting or life-affirming music than receiving dharma teachings, which were definitely not designed to cheer you up. On the contrary, the dharma was devised specifically to expose your failings and make you feel awful. ~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, #NFDB
957:Who am I? You know who I am. Or you think you do. I’m your florist. I’m your grocer. I’m your porter. I’m your waiter. I’m the owner of the dry-goods store on the corner of Elm. I’m the shoeshine boy. I’m the judo teacher. I’m the Buddhist priest. I’m the Shinto priest. I’m the Right Reverend Yoshimoto. So prease to meet you. (…) I’m the one you call Jap. I’m the one you call Nip. I’m the one you call Slits. I’m the one you call Slopes. I’m the one you call Yellowbelly. I’m the one you call Gook. I’m the one you don’t see at all—we all look alike. I’m the one you see everywhere—we’re taking over the neighborhood. I’m the one you look for under your bed every night before you go to sleep. (…) I’m your nightmare… ~ Julie Otsuka, #NFDB
958: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
959:Awakening’ is the keystone and the symbol of the whole Buddhist ascesis: to think that ‘awakening’ and ‘nothingness’ can be equivalent is an extravagance that should be obvious to everyone. Nor should the notion of ‘vanishing,’ applied in a well-known simile of nibbāna to the fire that disappears when the flame is extinguished, be a source of misconception. It has been said with justice that, in similes of this sort, one must always have in mind the general Indo-Aryan concept that indicates that the extinguishing of the fire is not its annihilation, but its return to the invisible, pure, supersensible state in which it was before it manifested itself through a combustible in a given place and in given circumstances. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
960: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
961:The trains [in a country] contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Ceylonese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks, Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes, Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. The railway bazaar with its gadgets and passengers represented the society so completely that to board it was to be challenged by the national character. At times it was like a leisurely seminar, but I also felt on some occasions that it was like being jailed and then assaulted by the monstrously typical. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
962:The trains [in a country] contain the essential paraphernalia of the culture: Thai trains have the shower jar with the glazed dragon on its side, Ceylonese ones the car reserved for Buddhist monks, Indian ones a vegetarian kitchen and six classes, Iranian ones prayer mats, Malaysian ones a noodle stall, Vietnamese ones bulletproof glass on the locomotive, and on every carriage of a Russian train there is a samovar. The railway bazaar with its gadgets and passengers represented the society so completely that to board it was to be challenged by the national character. At times it was like a leisurely seminar, but I also felt on some occasions that it was like being jailed and then assaulted by the monstrously typical. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
963:him the ordinary man whose Buddhist spirituality often flickered, really just questing for inner silence with not too much of an outer mess, although the sordid invasions of the everyday already defeated him like a spiderweb wound around his brain with at least one demon of political carnage cancelling out all his most joyous moments, even when he had his daughter Lou in his arms and kissed her, all these nasty little hominids squeezed his mental space chuckling and ridiculing, as if to say we’re the worst ones, the liars, the sneaks, and and we always come out on top, so your happiness is always going to be shaky at best, and the best he could do was push them away with the gradual torpor of silence and yoga practice ~ Marie Claire Blais, #NFDB
964:Denigrating ourselves is probably the major way that we cover over bodhichitta [open heart]. Does not trying to change mean we have to remain angry and addicted until the day we die? This is a reasonable question. Trying to change ourselves doesn’t work in the long run because we’re resisting our own energy. Self-improvement can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion. We are, as the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva pointed out, very much like a blind person who finds a jewel buried in a heap of garbage. Right here in what we’d like to throw away, in what we find repulsive and frightening, we discover the warmth and clarity of bodhichitta. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
965:I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God’s will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha’s teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
966:So with awakening, the stakes go up. The more awake we get, the higher the stakes get. I remember when I was staying at a Buddhist monastery for a while. The abbess there, a wonderful woman, talked about this process of awakening as climbing a ladder. With each step you go, you have less and less tendency to look down. You have less tendency to act in ways you know aren’t true or to speak in ways you know aren’t true or do things you know aren’t coming from truth. You start to realize that the consequences have become greater; the more awake we get, the greater the consequences are. Finally, the consequences of acting outside of truth become immense; the slightest action or behavior that’s not in accordance with the truth can be unbearable to us. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
967:I read of a Buddhist teacher who developed Alzheimer's. He had retired from teaching because his memory was unreliable, but he made one exception for a reunion of his former students. When he walked onto the stage, he forgot everything, even where he was and why. However, he was a skilled Buddhist and he simply began sharing his feelings with the crowd. He said, "I am anxious. I feel stupid. I feel scared and dumb. I am worried that I am wasting everyone's time. I am fearful. I am embarrassing myself." After a few minutes of this, he remembered his talk and proceeded without apology. The students were deeply moved, not only by his wise teachings, but also by how he handled his failings.
There is a Buddhist saying, "No resistance, no demons. ~ Mary Pipher,#NFDB
968:Simplicity and non-violence are obviously closely related. The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching: “Cease to do evil; try to do good.” As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each other’s throats than people depending upon a high rate of use. Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade. ~ Ernst F Schumacher, #NFDB
969:In any event, the view from nowhere may be the pithiest way of describing what Buddhist enlightenment would be like: the view that carries none of my selfish biases, or yours, and that in a certain sense isn’t even a particularly human perspective, or the perspective of any other species. This, truly, would be a view that defied natural selection’s authority, because natural selection is all about specific perspectives. It is about creating lots and lots of different perspectives, each of which is shaped fundamentally by the principle that it is truer than competing perspectives, and none of which is naturally imbued with awareness of that fact, much less awareness of its absurdity. Buddhist enlightenment is about transcending all these perspectives. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
970: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
971:Robert Thurman, professor of Buddhist studies at Columbia University, often uses an amusing and powerful image to describe what living compassionately, with lovingkindness, could look like: 'Imagine you're on the New York City subway,' he begins, 'and these extraterrestrials come and zap the subway car so that all of you in it are going to be together...forever.' What do we do? If someone is hungry, we feed them. If someone is freaking out, we try to calm them down. We might not like everybody, or approve of them - but we're going to be together forever, so we need to get along, take care of one another, and acknowledge that our lives are linked. Isn't living on planet Earth like being in that subway car? We're all together forever; our lives are linked. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
972:such as “comparing mind,” and “wanting mind.” They had a term, too, for that thing I did where something would bother me and I would immediately project forward to an unpleasant future (e.g., Balding → Unemployment → Flophouse). The Buddhists called this prapañca (pronounced pra-PUN-cha), which roughly translates to “proliferation,” or “the imperialistic tendency of mind.” That captured it beautifully, I thought: something happens, I worry, and that concern instantaneously colonizes my future. My favorite Buddhist catchphrase, however, was the one they used to describe the churning of the ego: “monkey mind.” I’ve always been a sucker for animal metaphors, and I thought this one was perfect. Our minds are like furry little gibbons: always agitated, never at rest. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
973:The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan’s will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite’s will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
974:Roll the Dharma thunder, Beat the Dharma drum. Clouds of kindness gather. Sweet dew is dispersed; Dragons and elephants tread upon it, moistening everything. The Three Vehicles and five natures are all roused awake. The Himalaya Pinodhni grass is unalloyed indeed; Pure ghee produced from it I have often partaken of. The nature completely pervades all natures. The dharma everywhere contains all dharmas. One moon universally appears in all waters. The moons in all waters are by one moon gathered in. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts
~ Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia, Roll the Dharma thunder (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,#NFDB
975:Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance? The atheist might say that they get their self-image from being a good person. They are a good person and they hope that eventually they will get a verdict that confirms that they are a good person. Performance leads to the verdict. For the Buddhist too, performance leads to the verdict. If you are a Muslim, performance leads to the verdict. All this means that every day, you are in the courtroom, every day you are on trial. That is the problem. But Paul is saying that in Christianity, the verdict leads to performance. It is not the performance that leads to the verdict. In Christianity, the moment we believe, God says ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
976:author class:Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
In my early years, I set out to acquire learning, And I studied commentaries and inquired into Sutras and Shastras. Distinguishing among terms and characteristics, I didn't know how to stop. Entering the sea to count the sands I exhausted myself in vain. But the Thus Come One reprimanded this folly: What benefit is there in counting other's treasures?! Unsuccessful all along, I felt I had practiced in vain. Many years I wasted as a transient, like dust in the wind. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts
~ my early years, I set out to acquire learning (from The Song of Enlightenment)
,#NFDB
977:Although Winnicott wrote extensively about the importance of mother-child attunement, he also came to a profound appreciation of how vital it is for a mother to be able to let her child down. A parent has to be willing to disappoint, he found, because disappointment, as the Buddha also said, is inevitable. In so doing, in letting a child down, in being truthful about one’s inability to meet all of one’s child’s needs, a disappointing parent moves a child toward a capacity to cope with everyday life. In one of his final papers, Winnicott wrote movingly of how a child’s primitive anger at his parent’s imperfections can turn into empathy. The critical ingredient for this transformation is the parent’s ability not to take the child’s anger personally, a Buddhist idea if there ever was one. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
978:Rather than attaining nirvana, I see the aim of Buddhist practice to be the moment-to-moment flourishing of human life within the ethical framework of the eightfold path here on earth. Given what is known about the biological evolution of human beings, the emergence of self-awareness and language, the sublime complexity of the brain, and the embeddedness of such creatures in the fragile biosphere that envelops this planet, I cannot understand how after physical death there can be continuity of any personal consciousness or self, propelled by the unrelenting force of acts (karma) committed in this or previous lives. For many—perhaps most—of my coreligionists, this admission might lead them to ask, “Why, then, if you don’t believe such things, do you still call yourself a ‘Buddhist’? ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
979:The definition of compassion that most accurately reflects what I’ve learned from the research is from American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. In her book The Places That Scare You, Chödrön writes: When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us….In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
980:I’m helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are “near enemies” to every great virtue—reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can’t possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a “pathological empathy” of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can’t help but stay present ~ Krista Tippett, #NFDB
981:happen, and it’s not uncommon for them to happen for some people. What people usually see, if their experiences are real, is what needs to be seen, what needs to be freed. As one great Buddhist abbess said to me, “You usually don’t have a past life that shows you what a sterling example of enlightenment you were, because enlightenment leaves no trace; it is like a fire that burns clean. There’s no karmic imprint it leaves behind.” She said if you have any past lives, you’re probably going to see what a grade-A jackass you were—which I loved, and which has corresponded to my experience. I didn’t necessarily always see what a grade-A jackass I was, although in some cases, I saw that I was a lot more than a grade-A jackass. Most of the past lives I saw were moments of confusion, moments of unresolved karmic conflict. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
982: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
983: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
984:You can do it at any time. You can do it when you are sitting in a bus – that is, watch, observe. Be attentive to what is happening around you and what is happening in yourself – aware of the whole movement. You see, meditation is really a form of emptying the mind of everything known. Without this, you cannot know the unknown. To see anything new, totally new, the mind must be empty of all the past.
Truth, or God, or whatever name you like to give to it must be new, not something which is the result of propaganda, the result of conditioning. The Christian is conditioned by 2,000 years of propaganda, the Hindu, the Buddhist likewise conditioned. So for them God or Truth is the result of propaganda. But that is not Truth. Truth is something living every day. Therefore the mind must be emptied to look at Truth. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#NFDB
985:Over mochi ice cream, Grandma tells us about all the places she wants to take us in Korea: the Buddhist temples, the outdoor food markets, the skin clinic where she goes to get her moles lasered off. She points at a tiny mole on Kitty’s cheek and says, “We’ll get that taken care of.”
Daddy looks alarmed, and Trina’s quick to ask, “Isn’t she too young?”
Grandma waves her hand. “She’ll be fine.”
Then Kitty asks, “How old do you have to be to get a nose job in Korea?” and Daddy nearly chokes on his beer.
Grandma gives her a threatening look. “You can never, ever change your nose. You have a lucky nose.”
Kitty touches it gingerly. “I do?”
“Very lucky,” Grandma says. “If you change your nose, you’ll change your luck. So never do it.”
I touch my own nose. Grandma’s never said anything about my nose being lucky. ~ Jenny Han,#NFDB
986:How could boredom be beneficial? In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is described as a precursor to insight and discovery. Parents sometimes want their children to be bored because they have an intuitive sense that grappling with this uncomfortable state is how kids discover what they’re interested in, quiet their mind, and find outlets to channel their energy. We wish more parents would trust that when their kids get bored, they’ll find the way out on their own, resisting the temptation to schedule activities from morning to night to keep boredom at bay. But don’t just take our word for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2007 consensus statement on how child-directed, exploratory play is far superior when it comes to developing emotional, social, and mental agility than structured, adult-guided activity. ~ Todd Kashdan, #NFDB
987:And it is a strange fact that in all these churches there is never a moment of quietness, except when it is empty. Because if you are quiet, you might inquire. If you are quiet, you might begin to doubt. But if you are occupied all the time, you never have time to look around, to question, to doubt, to ask. That may be one of the great tricks of the human mind. What is meditation and why should one meditate? Is it natural? Like breathing, like seeing, like hearing, is it natural? And why have we made it so unnatural? Taking postures, following systems of Buddhist meditation, Tibetan meditation, Christian meditation, Tantric meditations, and the meditations set by your favorite guru. Aren’t all those really abnormal? Why should I take a certain position to meditate? Why should I practice, practice, practice? To arrive where? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
988:Some terrorism analysts have seen the southern insurgency as an Islamic jihad that forms part of the broader network of AQ-linked extremism, with Islamic theology and religious aspirations (for shari’a law or an Islamic emirate) as a key motivator.73 This surface impression is reinforced by the facts that the violence is led by ustadz74 and other religious teachers, that the mosques and ponoh (Islamic schools) have a central role as recruiting and training bases, and that militants repeatedly state that they are fighting a legitimate defensive jihad against the encroachment of the kafir (infidel) Buddhist Thai government. Clearly, also, the AQ affiliate Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) has used Thailand as a venue for key meetings, financial transfers, acquisition of forged documents,75 and money laundering and as a transit hub for operators. ~ David Kilcullen, #NFDB
989:The most deeply one sinks into one's own religious truth,' Knitter says, 'the more broadly one can appreciate and learn from other truths.'
That has been true for me, both as a teacher and as a spiritual seeker. Unlike the young man bent on keeping his Christian faith uncontested and pure, I have gained insight every time I have put mine to the test. Sometimes the results are distressing, as when I find the silence of the meditation bench more healing than the words of my favorite psalms, or when I take greater refuge in the Buddhist concept of impermanence than in the Christian assurance of eternal life. Yet this is how i have discovered that I am Christian to the core. However many other religious languages I learn, I dream in Christian. However much I learn from other spiritual teachers, it is Jesus I come home to at night. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,#NFDB
990:The time of the lone wolf, Capitalism, for instance, is indeed over. It cannot possibly sustain itself without gobbling up the world. That is what we see all around us. Women and children in Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Haiti, Mexico, China and elsewhere in the world forced into starvation and slavery as they turn out the tennis balls and cheap sneakers for the affluent. Ancient trees leveled to make more housing while housing that could be saved and reused is torn down and communities heartlessly displaced. Mining of the earth for every saleable substance she has. Fouling of the waters that is her blood. Murdering innocents, whether people, animals or plants, in pursuit of oil. The lone wolf is the hungry ghost (in Buddhist thought) that can never get enough; whose mouth may be small but whose stomach is boundless. We cannot afford him. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
991:For the modern economist this is very difficult to understand. He is used to measuring the “standard of living” by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is “better off” than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. Thus, if the purpose of clothing is a certain amount of temperature comfort and an attractive appearance, the task is to attain this purpose with the smallest possible effort, that is, with the smallest annual destruction of cloth and with the help of designs that involve the smallest possible input of toil. The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. ~ Ernst F Schumacher, #NFDB
992: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
993:However when we talk about dependent arising or dependent origination in the Buddhist context, our understanding should not be limited to dependent arising only in terms of causes and conditions. Rather our understanding must embrace a broader and in some sense deeper understanding of dependence. Dependence need not necessarily be understood only in terms of causes and conditions; one can talk about dependence in relation to parts and the whole. The very concepts of parts and a whole are interconnected and interdependent. In some sense one emerges only in relationship to the other. Still there is a further and deeper understanding of dependent origination which is to understand dependent origination in terms of a designated basis and the designation that involves a labeling process. This view understands things and events in the form of mental constructs. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
994:The thunderbolt (vajra) is one of the major symbols in Buddhist iconography, signifying the spiritual power of Buddhahood (indestructible enlightenment) which shatters the illusory realities of the world. The Absolute, or Adi Buddha, is represented in the images of Tibet as Vajra-Dhara (Tibetan: Dorje-Chang) "Holder of the Adamantine Bolt.
...
We know also that among primitive peoples warriors may speak of their weapons as thunderbolts. Sicut in coelo et in terra: the initiated warrior is an agent of the divine will; his training is not only in manual but also in spiritual skills. Magic (the supernatural power of the thunderbolt), as well as physical force and chemical poison, gives the lethal energy to his blows. A consummate master would require no physical weapon at all; the power of his magic word would suffice. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,#NFDB
995:Destructiveness cannot bring happiness; destruction is against the law of creation. The law of creation is to be creative. So Buddha says if you are destructive you will be miserable.If you are envious, infatuated, competitive, ambitious, jealous, possessive, you will be in misery.
In Buddhist terminology there is nothing like sin, only mistakes, errors. There is no condemnation. You can correct the error, you can correct the mistake. It is simple.
One has to leave the parents, one has to leave the home, one has to leave the past. one has to become totally independent, alone....trembling in that aloneness, but one has to become alone. One has to become absolutely responsible for oneself, and then only can understand the mind. If you go on depending on others, your very dependence will not allow you to understand who you are. ~ Osho,#NFDB
996:Not that we must resort to indifference, of course, which neither Stoic sage nor Buddhist monk would for a moment countenance: compassion and benevolence to others, indeed to all other forms of life, must remain the highest ethical imperative of our behaviour. But passion is not acceptable in the home of the wise man, and familial ties, when they become too binding, must be loosened. Which is why, like the Greek sage, the Buddhist monk lives, as much as possible, in a condition of solitude. (The word ‘monk’ derives from the Greek monos, meaning ‘alone’.) It is truly in solitude that wisdom can bloom, uncompromised by the difficulties associated with all forms of attachment. It is impossible, in effect, to have a wife or husband, children or friends without becoming in some degree attached to them. We must free ourselves of these ties if we wish to overcome the fear of death. ~ Luc Ferry, #NFDB
997:The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor is a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion at the expense of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: "Help and not Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension". ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
998:In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly challenges the religious authorities of the day, but ultimately what he’s saying is relevant to all forms of religion. It wouldn’t matter if he grew up a Jew, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu, because he’s speaking about the structure of religion itself—its hierarchy, its tendency to become corrupted by human beings’ desires for power, for influence, for money. Jesus, I think, had a profound understanding that the religion itself, instead of connecting us to the radiance of being, connecting us to that spiritual mystery, could easily become a barrier to divinity. As soon as we get too caught up with the rites and the rituals and the Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots of conventional religion, we begin to lose sight of the primary task of religion, which is to orient us toward the mystery of being and awaken us to what we really are. Of course, ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
999:I sat down on the bench in front of the print and made some notes. “Katsushika Hokusai. 1760–1849. Japanese printmaker. Leading Japanese expert on Chinese painting. Master of the Ukiyo-e form. Nichiren Buddhist.” Later, at home, I Googled Hokusai. He died at eighty-nine, and sure enough, on his deathbed—still looking to penetrate deeper into his art—he had exclaimed, “If only heaven will give me just another ten years!… Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter.” Hokusai was a man who saw his work as a means to “penetrate to the essential nature” of things. And he appears to have succeeded. His work, a hundred and fifty years after his death, could reach right off a gallery wall and grab me in the gut. More than anything, I was intrigued by the quality of Hokusai’s passion for his work. He helped me see that a life devoted to dharma can be a deeply ardent life. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
1000:One famous Japanese haiku illustrates the state that Sid managed to discover in himself. It is one that Joseph Goldstein has long used to describe the unique attentional posture of bare attention: The old pond. A frog jumps in. Plop!2 Like so much else in Japanese art, the poem expresses the Buddhist emphasis on naked attention to the often overlooked details of everyday life. Yet, there is another level at which the poem may be read. Just as in the parable of the raft, the waters of the pond can represent the mind and the emotions. The frog jumping in becomes a thought or feeling arising in the mind or body, while “Plop!” represents the reverberations of that thought or feeling, unelaborated by the forces of reactivity. The entire poem comes to evoke the state of bare attention in its utter simplicity. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1001:But how does one square this with the idea of rebirth, of something distinct from that which dies but which is somehow reborn and so passes from life to life? To answer this question, more or less every Buddhist school has come up with a different explanation—a fact that in itself suggests that their answers are based on speculatioṇ Most schools claim that what is reborn is some kind of consciousness. Some say that this is simply the sixth sense (manovijñāṇa); others speak of a special existence-generating mind (bhavangacitta); still others propose the presence of an underlying foundation consciousness (ālayavijñāṇa); while the tantric traditions talk of a combination of extremely subtle energy and mind. But as soon as one hypothesizes the presence of some kind of subtle stuff, no matter how sophisticated the technical term one invents to denote it, one has already reintroduced the notion of some kind of esoteric self-substance. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
1002:Q. Positive means not negative? A. Yes, and much more besides. An emotion that cannot become negative gives enormous understanding, has an enormous cognitive value. It connects things that cannot be connected in an ordinary state. To have positive emotions is advised and recommended in religions, but they do not say how to get them. They say, ‘Have faith, have love’. How? Christ says, ‘Love your enemies’. It is not for us; we cannot even love our friends. It is the same as saying to a blind man, ‘You must see!’ A blind man cannot see, otherwise he would not be a blind man. That is what positive emotion means. Q. How can we learn to love our enemies? A. Learn to love yourself first—you do not love yourself enough; you love your false personality, not yourself. It is difficult to understand the New Testament or Buddhist writings, for they are notes taken in school. One line of these writings refers to one level and another to another level. ~ P D Ouspensky, #NFDB
1003:He invited the Indian scholar Paramartha to come and set up a Translation Bureau for Buddhist texts, and the scholar stayed for twenty-three years. He invited the great Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth patriarch after the Shakyamuni Buddha, to come from Kanchipuram in India, near the Temple of the Golden Lizard, but their meeting was disappointing. The Emperor asked Bodhidharma what merit he had accumulated by building monasteries and stupas in his kingdom. “No merit” was the reply. He asked what was the supreme meaning of sacred truth. “The expanse of emptiness. Nothing sacred.” Finally, the Emperor pointed at Bodhidharma and said, “Who is that before Us?” “Don’t know,” said Bodhidharma. The Emperor didn’t understand. So Bodhidharma left Ch’ien-k’ang and wandered until he came to the Shao-lin Monastery, where he sat motionless for nine years facing a wall, and then transmitted his teachings, the origin of Ch’an in China and Japanese Zen. ~ Eliot Weinberger, #NFDB
1004:Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in, and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.
When we are spiritually bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it. And then we tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits. I see this as an ‘occupational hazard’ of the spiritual path, in that spirituality does involve a vision of going beyond our current karmic situation. ~ Ram Dass,#NFDB
1005:The old saint is speaking, almost in essence, of the whole approach of all religions: “Love of mankind will destroy me. Man is too imperfect a thing for me.” This is egoistic. He thinks himself to be perfect and mankind is too imperfect a thing. Of course a perfect man can only love a perfect God – and God is just your hallucination. If you persist, you may see the God of your conception: it is nothing but a dream seen with open eyes – it is hallucinatory. There is nobody in front of you, but your own idea has hypnotized you. That’s why a Christian will see Jesus and a Buddhist will see Buddha and a Hindu will see Krishna. Even by mistake a Christian never sees Buddha or Krishna. Even by mistake Krishna never comes to a Christian, Christ never comes to a Hindu – because these people don’t exist. They are part of your mind; you create them. The Bible says God created man in his own image. I say unto you: man creates God in his own image. Zarathustra ~ Osho, #NFDB
1006:Pema calls these activities “the six ways of compassionate living”: generosity, patience, discipline, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or wisdom. The basis for all these practices is the cultivation of maitri, an unconditional loving-kindness with ourselves that says, “Start where you are.” In Buddhist terms, this path is known as bodhisattva activity. Simply put, a bodhisattva is one who aspires to act from an awakened heart. In terms of the Shambhala teachings, it is the path of warriorship. To join these two streams, Pema likes to use the term warrior-bodhisattva, which implies a fresh and forward-moving energy that is willing to enter into suffering for others’ benefit. Such action relates to overcoming the self-deception, self-protection, and other habitual reactions that we use to keep ourselves secure—in a prison of concepts. By gently and precisely cutting through these barriers of ego, we develop a direct experience of bodhichitta. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1007:The view that human beings are inherently flawed, confused, and aggressive has proliferated throughout human history, across cultures, religions, and countless fields of “secular” inquiry. This view, which Pema Chödrön calls the view of “Basic Badness,” has consequently had a huge “invisible hand” in shaping a wide range of systems within which we all live, especially the system of our own heart and mind. There’s no way to avoid the following point: the Shambhala and Buddhist teachings stand in direct and total opposition to a view that human beings are originally sinful and fundamentally flawed. The Shambhala teachings say that human beings, all human beings, are basically good and endowed with inherent wisdom (Buddha nature). Here, “good” does not mean “better than.” Good does not stand in relation to “bad,” because there is no bad when it comes to human nature. Without comparison, “good” here means whole, pure, and totally worthy of existing. ~ Ethan Nichtern, #NFDB
1008:So I really appreciate your coming to have this conversation,” the Dalai Lama said. “In order to develop our mind, we must look at a deeper level. Everyone seeks happiness, joyfulness, but from outside—from money, from power, from big car, from big house. Most people never pay much attention to the ultimate source of a happy life, which is inside, not outside. Even the source of physical health is inside, not outside. “So there may be a few differences between us. You usually emphasize faith. Personally I am Buddhist, and I consider faith very important, but at the same time the reality is that out of seven billion people, over one billion people on the planet are nonbelievers. So we cannot exclude them. One billion is quite a large number. They are also our human brothers and sisters. They also have the right to become happier human beings and to be good members of the human family. So one need not depend on religious faith to educate our inner values. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1009:We’ve made it private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines. We’ve fetishized it as romance, when its true measure is a quality of sustained, practical care. We’ve lived it as a feeling, when it is a way of being. It is the elemental experience we all desire and seek, most of our days, to give and receive. The sliver of love’s potential that the Greeks separated out as eros is where we load so much of our desire, center so much of our imagination about delight and despair, define so much of our sense of completion. There is the love the Greeks called filia—the love of friendship. There is the love they called agape—love as embodied compassion, expressions of kindness that might be given to a neighbor or a stranger. The Metta of the root Buddhist Pali tongue, “lovingkindness,” carries the nuance of benevolent, active interest in others known and unknown, and its cultivation begins with compassion towards oneself. ~ Krista Tippett, #NFDB
1010:For a long time I didn’t have a defined Dana doctrine to describe this approach; it was more a ball of string. Then one morning at a hotel I came back to my room for bed after a speaking event, and the hotel staff had placed a Zen card with a Buddhist saying on my pillow (this will make Gutfeld roll his eyes). It read, “Say little. But when you speak, utter gentle words that touch the heart. Be truthful. Express kindness. Abstain from vanity. This is the way.” I had an “Aha!” moment when I read those words, because it captured how I was trying to live my life most productively and happily. I carried the card with me for months until I tacked it in my medicine cabinet, and I still see it every morning and night when I brush my teeth. The card is a little worn, but its message never gets old. In the morning it helps set my intention for the day, and at night it reminds me to forgive myself if I haven’t lived up to it (usually because I’ve let Bob Beckel push my buttons). ~ Dana Perino, #NFDB
1011:I don’t have custody. Wayne is just—We’re on good terms about our son. It’s not an issue.” “Got a number where we can reach him?” “Yes, but he’s on a plane right now. He visited for the Fourth. He’s headed back this evening.” “You sure about that? How do you know he boarded the plane?” “I’m sure he had nothing to do with this, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re not fighting over our son. My ex is the most harmless and easygoing man you’ve ever met.” “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve met some pretty easygoing fellas. I know a guy up in Maine who leads a Buddhist-themed therapy group, teaches people about managing their temper and addictions through Transcendental Meditation. The only time this guy ever lost his composure was the day his wife served him with a restraining order. First he lost his Zen, then he lost two bullets in the back of her head. But that Buddhist-themed therapy group he runs sure is popular on his cell block in Shawshank. Lotta guys with anger-management issues in there. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
1012:achieving enlightenment. Enlightenment, for them, was escaping the cycle of rebirth. Reincarnation was a curse to avoid, not some type of immortality.” “Sounds Buddhist,” Samuel said. “It is. Mahavira and Buddha were contemporaries. But they are not the same.” The dead man paused before continuing. “Because of their belief in the cycle of rebirth, Jains also believed every living thing had a soul. Not just intelligent creatures, but the trees, birds, plants. Everything. So the pain man inflicts on other living creatures is really the pain he inflicts on himself. ‘Many times I have been drawn and quartered, torn apart, and skinned, helpless in snares and traps, a deer. An infinite number of times I have been felled, stripped of my bark, cut up and sawn into planks.’” “That’s not possible. You can’t exist without destroying something else that is living,” Samuel said. “I must kill to live. Everything in existence must kill something to stay alive.” “You can if you are not of the living. ~ J Thorn, #NFDB
1013:When I think about what it would take to achieve freedom from all psychological stuff, the response that comes is this: life is about stuff. Stuff is part of being alive. There is no way out of this while you are still living. There will be confusion, pain, miscommunication, misinterpretation, maladaptive patterns of behavior, unhelpful emotional reactions, weird personality traits, neurosis and possibly much worse. There will be power plays, twisted psychological games, people with major personality disorders (which may include you), and craziness. The injuries continue right along with the healing and eventually the injuries win and we die. This is a fundamental teaching of the Buddha. I wish the whole Western Buddhist World would just get over this notion that these practices are all about getting to our Happy Place where nothing can ever hurt us or make us neurotic and move on to actually mastering real Buddhist practice rather than chasing some ideal that will never appear. ~ Daniel M Ingram, #NFDB
1014:RICHES WITHOUT WINGS. Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. —Eph. iv. I. Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit. —Selden. Less coin, less care; to know how to dispense with wealth is to possess it. —Reynolds. Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven's best treasures, peace and health. —Gray. Money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. —Franklin. There are treasures laid up in the heart, treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him beyond death, when he leaves this world. —Buddhist Scriptures. "It is better to get wisdom than gold; for wisdom is better than rubies, and all things that may be desired are not to be compared to it." "Better a cheap coffin and a plain funeral after a useful, unselfish life, than a grand mausoleum after a loveless, selfish life. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1015:To the Buddhist or the eastern fatalist, existence is a science or a plan, which must end up in a certain way. But to a Christian, existence is a STORY, which may end up in any way. In a thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he MIGHT be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatable hero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that he would lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn't. In Christian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man "damned": but it is strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.
All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? - that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. ~ G K Chesterton,#NFDB
1016:Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impossible hope.” Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth; or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1017: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
1018:As any good Buddhist will tell you, the only way to find permanent joy is by embracing the fact that nothing is permanent. Chapters 12 through 15 will discuss the “patterned disorder” that organizes the chaos of change, so that even on a road no one has traveled before, you’ll have some idea what dangers you face, and how to conquer them. I’m not going to tell you that all this is going to be painless, but I can assure you that it will be wonderful. Take it from Dan. You may recall that in his case, the way back to la verace via lay directly through Hell. Dante’s journey took him as low as a human being could sink, through his worst fears and most bitter truths, down to the very center of the earth. And then, by continuing straight “downward” through the center and beyond, he was suddenly headed up. Before him he could see “the beautiful things that Heaven bears,” things like purpose, fulfillment, excitement, compassion, and delight. He was still tired and scared, but he wasn’t sleepwalking, and he wasn’t lost. There ~ Martha N Beck, #NFDB
1019: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
1020:Those who had seen eyes like hers before understood instantly that she was a woman who had suffered, but wore it well, with dignity and grace. Rather than dragging her down into depression, her pain had lifted her into a peaceful place. She was not a Buddhist, but shared philosophies with them, in that she didn’t fight what happened to her, but instead drifted with it, allowing life to carry her from one experience to the next. It was that depth and wisdom that shone through her work. An acceptance of life as it really was, rather than trying to force it to be what one wanted, and it never could be. She was willing to let go of what she loved, which was the hardest task of all. And the more she lived and learned and studied, the humbler she was. A monk she had met in Tibet called her a holy woman, which in fact she was, although she had no particular affinity for any formal church. If she believed in anything, she believed in life, and embraced it with a gentle touch. She was a strong reed bending in the wind, beautiful and resilient. ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
1021:As Stapp puts it, “For the quantum process to operate, a question must be addressed to Nature.” Formulating that question requires a choice about which aspect of nature is to be probed, about what sort of information one wishes to know. Critically, in quantum physics, this choice is free: in other words, no physical law prescribes which facet of nature is to be observed. The situation in Buddhist philosophy is quite analogous. Volition, or Karma, is the force that provides the causal efficacy that keeps the cosmos running. According to the Buddha’s timeless law of Dependent Origination, it is because of volition that consciousness keeps arising throughout endless world cycles. And it is certainly true that in Buddhist philosophy one’s choice is not determined by anything in the physical, material world. Volition is, instead, determined by such ineffable qualia as the state of one’s mind and the quality of one’s attention: wise or unwise, mindful or unmindful. So in both quantum physics and Buddhist philosophy, volition plays a special, unique role. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
1022: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
1023:In succeeding chapters we will explore the emerging evidence that matter alone does not suffice to generate mind, but that, to the contrary, there exists a "mental force" that is not reducible to the material. Mental force, which is closely related to the ancient Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and karma, provides a basis for the effects of mind on matter that clinical neuroscience finds. What is new here is that a question with deep philosophical roots, as well as profound philosophic al and moral implications, can finally be addressed (if not yet fully solved) through science. If materialism can be challenged in the context of neuroscience, if stark physical reductionism can be replaced by an outlook in which the mind can exert causal control, then, for the first time since the scientific revolution, the scientific worldview will become compatible with such ideas as will-and, therefore, with morality and ethics. The emerging view of the mind, and of the mind-matter enigma, has the potential to imbue human thought and action with responsibility once again. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
1024:Practice listening to other people talk about their beliefs without interrupting them. Listen to Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, Mormons, Anarchists, Republicans, KKK members, Heterosexuals, Homosexuals, Meat Eaters, Vegans, Scientists, Scientologists, and so on . . . Develop the ability to listen to ANYTHING without losing your temper. The first principle here at Buddhist Boot Camp is that the opposite of what you know is also true. Accept that other people’s perspectives on reality are as valid as your own (even if they go against everything you believe in), and honor the fact that someone else’s truth is as real to them as yours is to you. Then (and this is where it gets even more difficult), bow to them and say, “Namaste,” which means the divinity within you not only acknowledges the divinity within others, but honors it as well. Compassion is the only thing that can break down political, dogmatic, ideological, and religious boundaries. May we all harmoniously live in peace. You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger. —The Buddha ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
1025:One can even find the trident (as big as, El Candelabro, which is a well-known prehistoric geoglyph found on the northern face of the Paracas Peninsula) as a pre-Incan ritual object which were created by the Sun-worshipping priests of Paracas. In India, it is linked to the Hindu "trident-bearer" Shiva, spouse of the skull-bearing (skull-topped staff, khatvanga) goddess Kali. The Egyptians (according to Plutarch) even offered incense to the Sun three times every day marking thereby the perpetuity of the Sun worship religion among them. All this points to a major unified Sun religion across the globe which were physically expressed on royalty through elongated skulls. This is a rebel-religion that breaks loose from the mandate imposed on it from the higher authority. Even the [form of the Buddhist khatvanga was derived from the emblematic staff of the early Indian Shaivite yogins, known as kapalikas or 'skull-bearers'. The kapalikas were originally miscreants who had been sentenced to a twelve-year term of penance for the crime of inadvertently killing a Brahmin]. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1026: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
1027:I’m not insisting that we be brimming with hope — it’s OK not to be optimistic. Buddhist teachings say, you know, feeling that you have to maintain hope can wear you out, so just be present… The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here, and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world — because it will not be healed without that. That [is] what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.
[…]
How is the story going to end? And that seems almost orchestrated to bring forth from us the biggest moral strength, courage, and creativity. I feel because when things are this unstable, a person’s determination, how they choose to invest their energy and their heart and mind can have much more effect on the larger picture than we’re accustomed to think. So I find it a very exciting time to be alive, if somewhat wearing emotionally. ~ Joanna Macy,#NFDB
1028:No matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn't anything that isn't made easier through constant familiarity and training. Through training, we can change; we can transform ourselves. Within Buddhist practice there are various methods of trying to sustain a calm mind when some disturbing event happens. Through repeated practice of these methods we can get to the point where some disturbance may occur but the negative effects on our mind remain on the surface, like the waves that may ripple on the surface of an ocean but don't have much effect deep down. And, although my own experience may be very little, I have found this to be true in my own small practice. So, if I receive some tragic news, at that moment I may experience some disturbance within my mind, but it goes very quickly. Or, I may become irritated and develop some anger, but again, it dissipates very quickly. There is no effect on the deeper mind. No hatred. This was achieved through gradual practice; it didn't happen overnight.'
Certainly not. The Dalai Lama has been engaged in training his mind since he was four years old. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,#NFDB
1029:When I contacted her about my research, Dr. Dalmau's colleague Dr. Rita Balice-Gorodn brought up the old Indian proverb, often used by neuroscientists studying the brain, about six blind men trying to identify an elephant, offering it as a way of understanding how much more we have to learn about the disease.
Each man grabs hold of a different part of the animal and tries to identify the unnamed object. One man touches the tail and says, "rope"; one touches a leg and says, "pillar"; one feels a trunk and says, "tree"; one feels an ear and says, "fan"; one feels the belly and says, "wall"; the last one feels the tusk and is certain it's a "pipe." (The tale has been told so many times that the outcomes differ widely. In a Buddhist iteration, the mean are told they are all correct and rejoice; in another, the men break out in violence when they can't agree.)
Dr. Balice-Gordon has a hopeful interpretation of the analogy: "We're sort of approaching the elephant from the front end and from the back end in the hopes of touching in the middle. We're hoping to paint a detailed enough landscape of the elephant. ~ Susannah Cahalan,#NFDB
1030:Revaluing is a deep form of Relabeling. Anyone whose grasp of reality is reasonably intact can learn to blame OCD symptoms on a medical condition. But such Relabeling is superficial, leading to no diminution of symptoms or improved ability to cope. This is why classical cognitive therapy (which aims primarily to correct cognitive distortions) seldom helps OCD patients. Revaluing went deeper. Like Relabeling, Reattributing, and Refocusing, Revaluing was intended to enhance patients’ use of mindful awareness, the foundation of Theravada Buddhist philosophy. I therefore began teaching Revaluing by reference to what Buddhist philosophy calls wise (as opposed to unwise) attention. Wise attention means seeing matters as they really are or, literally, “in accordance with the truth.” In the case of OCD, wise attention means quickly recognizing the disturbing thoughts as senseless, as false, as errant brain signals not even worth the gray matter they rode in on, let alone worth acting on. By refusing to take the symptoms at face value, patients come to view them “as toxic waste from my brain,” as the man with chapped hands put it. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
1031:including salutary effects on the following: • major depression • drug addiction • binge eating • smoking cessation • stress among cancer patients • loneliness among senior citizens • ADHD • asthma • psoriasis • irritable bowel syndrome Studies also indicated that meditation reduced levels of stress hormones, boosted the immune system, made office workers more focused, and improved test scores on the GRE. Apparently mindfulness did everything short of making you able to talk to animals and bend spoons with your mind. This research boom got its start with a Jew-Bu named Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Manhattan-raised, MIT-trained microbiologist who claimed to have had an elaborate epiphany—a “vision,” he called it—while on a retreat in 1979. The substance of the vision was that he could bring meditation to a much broader audience by stripping it of Buddhist metaphysics. Kabat-Zinn designed something called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), an eight-week course that taught secularized meditation to tens of thousands of people around America and the world. Having a simple, replicable meditation protocol made it easy to test the effects on patients. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
1032:What about this idea of good and evil in mythology, of life as a conflict between the forces of darkness and the forces of light? CAMPBELL: That is a Zoroastrian idea, which has come over into Judaism and Christianity. In other traditions, good and evil are relative to the position in which you are standing. What is good for one is evil for the other. And you play your part, not withdrawing from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but seeing that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder: a mysterium tremendum et fascinans. “All life is sorrowful” is the first Buddhist saying, and so it is. It wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow—loss, loss, loss. You’ve got to say yes to life and see it as magnificent this way; for this is surely the way God intended it. MOYERS: Do you really believe that? CAMPBELL: It is joyful just as it is. I don’t believe there was anybody who intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” And the way to awake from it is not to be afraid, and to recognize that all of this, as it is, is a ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1033:In the traditional descriptions of the progress of meditation, beginning practice always involves coming to terms with the unwanted, unexplored, and disturbing aspects of our being. Although we try any number of supposedly therapeutic maneuvers, say the ancient Buddhist psychological texts, there is but one method of successfully working with such material—by wisely seeing it. As Suzuki Roshi, the first Zen master of the San Francisco Zen Center, put it in a talk entitled “Mind Weeds”: We say, “Pulling out the weeds we give nourishment to the plant.” We pull the weeds and bury them near the plant to give it nourishment. So even though you have some difficulty in your practice, even though you have some waves while you are sitting, those waves themselves will help you. So you should not be bothered by your mind. You should rather be grateful for the weeds, because eventually they will enrich your practice. If you have some experience of how the weeds in your mind change into mental nourishment, your practice will make remarkable progress. You will feel the progress. You will feel how they change into self-nourishment. . . . This is how we practice Zen.11 ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1034:We do not have to believe in magic spells for this to work. We only have to be able to enjoy a film. The same elements are at work: cinematic technology, suspension of disbelief, the director’s skill in organizing a compelling narrative. The result is the same. Life, too, is like this. What appears to us through the senses seems real and solid enough, but once we submit it to deeper scrutiny (whether through physics, postmodern philosophy, or Buddhist meditation), that out-thereness-in-its-own-right of the thing starts to dissolve. Once we notice its utter contingency, the gut feeling that there must be something solid and unchanging at its core weakens. The thing is seen not only to emerge from a complex set of causes and conditions but also to depend on a vast number of parts, attributes, and components. If we look closer still, we find that it is what it is because of the way we talk and think about it, because of the peculiar way in which our culture perceptually organizes it so that it makes sense. Nothing else, no extra metaphysical essence, is necessary. While language forces us to use the word “it,” ultimately there is nothing to which it refers. Life ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
1035:LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY FATHER
My Lord, the Creator, has many names, but He is one and the same. God is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, and Hindu. God is love. God is truth, and the true light of love sees no walls. Do not abandon him even when your days are gray; for He is only returning your call when you asked for strength. The Creator will talk to you only in daylight, through the rays of the sun, and He does not use words. Instead, he will reflect his dancing mirrors inside your head, and they will communicate to your heart and change your biochemistry to see with His eyes and think like Him. There is no such thing as prophets and seers; for all of mankind was created equal. However, if you are open to love all without fear, and to forgive all without hate, He will radiate His love through your heart and eyes in a way that your magnetic field becomes a reflection of His sunshine. Yes, God is near and God is here. His tests are many, but so are his blessings. Yes, faith is the flame to eliminate all fear. For if you are truly good, serve Him, and stand only by your conscience -- He will grant you whatever you ask of Him when you enter His heavenly garden. ~ Suzy Kassem,#NFDB
1036:We heard about people who go back to their roots. That is good, but don't get stuck in the root. There is the branch, the leaf, the flower - all reaching toward the immense sky. We are many things. In Israel looking for my "roots", I realized that while I was a Jew, I was also an American, a feminist, a writer, a Buddhist. We are products of the modern era - it is our richness and our dilemma. We are not one thing. Our roots are becoming harder to dig out. Yet they are important and the ones most easy to avoid because there is often pain embedded there - that's why we left in the first place.
When I first moved to Minnesota, Jim White, a very fine poet, said to me, "Whatever you do, don't become a regional writer." Don't get caught in the trap of becoming provincial. While you write about the cows in Iowa, how they stand and bend to chew, feel compassion simultaneously for the cows in Russia, in Czechoslovakia, for their eventual death and for their flanks cooked and served in stews, in bowls and on plates, to feed people on both sides of the earth. Go into your region, but don't stop there. Let it pique your curiosity to examine and look closely at more of the world. ~ Natalie Goldberg,#NFDB
1037:There never was a face as fair as yours,
A heart as true, a love as pure and keen.
These things endure, if anything endures.
But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures
Us in its silence, the supreme serene
Crowning the dagoba, what destined die
Rings on the table, what resistless dart
Strike me I love you; can you satisfy
The hunger of my heart!
Nay; not in love, or faith, or hope is hidden
The drug that heals my life; I know too well
How all things lawful, and all things forbidden
Alike disclose no pearl upon the midden,
Offer no key to unlock the gate of Hell.
There is no escape from the eternal round,
No hope in love, or victory, or art.
There is no plumb-line long enough to sound
The abysses of my heart!
There no dawn breaks; no sunlight penetrates
Its blackness; no moon shines, nor any star.
For its own horror of itself creates
Malignant fate from all benignant fates,
Of its own spite drives its own angel afar.
Nay; this is the great import of the curse
That the whole world is sick, and not a part.
Conterminous with its own universe
the horror of my heart!
ANANDA VIJJA.
~ Aleister Crowley, The Buddhist
,#NFDB
1038: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
1039:The Buddhist
There never was a face as fair as yours,
A heart as true, a love as pure and keen.
These things endure, if anything endures.
But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures
Us in its silence, the supreme serene
Crowning the dagoba, what destined die
Rings on the table, what resistless dart
Strike me I love you; can you satisfy
The hunger of my heart!
Nay; not in love, or faith, or hope is hidden
The drug that heals my life; I know too well
How all things lawful, and all things forbidden
Alike disclose no pearl upon the midden,
Offer no key to unlock the gate of Hell.
There is no escape from the eternal round,
No hope in love, or victory, or art.
There is no plumb-line long enough to sound
The abysses of my heart!
There no dawn breaks; no sunlight penetrates
Its blackness; no moon shines, nor any star.
For its own horror of itself creates
Malignant fate from all benignant fates,
Of its own spite drives its own angel afar.
Nay; this is the great import of the curse
That the whole world is sick, and not a part.
Conterminous with its own universe
the horror of my heart!
ANANDA VIJJA.
~ Aleister Crowley,#NFDB
1040: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
1041:Oh, maybe Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen is my hero. He’s like Zorba the Buddha. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian guru who I think was murdered by American government and who later changed his name to Osho, he had this notion of a character called Zorba the Buddha who — we’ll say a man, but it could be a woman too — who was contemplative, led a serene spiritual life, meditated a lot, was a nonviolent, placid person who lived in the spirit but who also knew how to work and make money, knew how to utilize the Internet, knew how much to tip a maître d’ in a Paris nightclub, who was of the world and enjoyed the world and all of its sensual pleasures in terms of food, sex, drink, color, art, but also at the same time was deeply spiritual. And I’ve kind of superimposed that Zorba the Buddha figure onto Leonard Cohen, perhaps unfairly, but he strikes me as someone who is close to that figure. I like the fact that he meditates, that he has spent time alone — a lot of it in anguish in a Buddhist monastery — that he is so adept with language and loves women and wears beautiful Armani suits and will sit and sip wine at a sidewalk café with beautiful girls and yet be able to have this rich inner life, not just creatively but also spiritually. ~ Mara Altman, #NFDB
1042:Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now...to become fully human is something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes. Based on my limited wisdom and experience, there is more than one way to do this. If I were a Buddhist, I might do it by taking the bodhisattva vow, and if I were a Jew, I might do it by following Torah. Because I am a Christian, I do it by imitating Christ, although i will be the first to admit that I want to stop about a day short of following him all the way.
In Luke's gospel, there comes a point when he turns around and says to the large crowd of those trailing after him, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple" (14:26). Make of that what you will, but I think it was his way of telling them to go home. He did not need people to go to Jerusalem to die with him. He needed people to go back where they came from and live the kinds of lives that he had risked his own life to show them: lives of resisting the powers of death, of standing up for the little and the least, of turning cheeks and washing feet, of praying for enemies and loving the unlovable. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,#NFDB
1043:My colleague Sylvia Boorstein tells of Phil, a Buddhist practitioner in New York who had worked with loving-kindness practice for years. One evening on a small side street in SoHo, a disheveled man with a scraggly beard and dirty blond hair accosted Phil, pointed a gun at him, and demanded his money. Phil was carrying more than six hundred dollars in his wallet and he handed it all over. The mugger shook his gun and demanded more. Stalling for time, Phil gave him his credit cards and then the whole wallet. Looking dazed and high on some drug, the mugger said, “I’m gonna shoot you.” Phil responded, “No, wait, here’s my watch—it’s an expensive one.” Disoriented, the mugger took the watch, waved the gun, and said again, “I’m gonna shoot you.” Somehow Phil managed to look at him with loving-kindness and said, “You don’t have to shoot me. You did good. Look, you got nearly seven hundred dollars; you got credit cards and an expensive watch. You don’t have to shoot me. You did really good.” The mugger, confused, lowered the gun slowly. “I did good?” he asked. “You did really good. Go and tell your friends, you did good.” Dazed, the mugger wandered off, saying softly to himself, “I did good.” Whenever our goodness is seen, it is a blessing. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1044:Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. Its the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produces courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of hunderd bazaar devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things - is that what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home.
Then there were people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konark; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindi, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incoparable beauty, India. ~ Gregory David Roberts,#NFDB
1045:You stupid brahmin! You have left the Vedas, but now you are worshipping Buddha’s sayings, the Dhammapada. So what is the point? You have changed your books, you have changed your philosophy, but you remain all the time the same stupid man.” Saraha was shocked. Nobody had talked to him that way; only an uncultured woman can talk that way. And the way she laughed was so uncivilized, so primitive – but still, something was very much alive. He was feeling pulled; she was a great magnet and he was nothing but a piece of iron. Then she said, “You think you are a Buddhist?” He must have been in the robe of the Buddhist monk, the yellow robe. She laughed again and she said, “Buddha’s meaning can only be known through actions, not through words and not through books. Is not enough, enough for you? Are you not yet fed up with all this? Do not waste any more time in that futile search. Come and follow me!” And something happened, something like a communion. He had never felt like that before. In that moment the spiritual significance of what she was doing dawned upon Saraha. Neither looking to the left, nor looking to the right had he seen her – just looking in the middle. For the first time he understood what Buddha means by being in the middle: avoid the excess. ~ Osho, #NFDB
1046:After their time in the monastery, most young men and women will return to their villages, having completed their training with the elders. They are now accepted as “ripe,” as initiated men and women, respected in their community. Outwardly they will have learned the religious forms and sacred rituals of the Buddhist community. Inwardly, these ancient forms are intended to awaken an unshakable virtue and inner respect, fearlessness in the face of death, self-reliance, wisdom, and profound compassion. These qualities give one who leaves the monastery the hallmark of a mature man or woman. Perhaps as you read about this ordination process, its beauty will strike a chord in you that intuitively knows about the need for initiations. This does not mean that you have to enter a monastery to seek this remarkable and wonderful training. By reading about this tradition, you may simply awaken that place in yourself, which exists in each of us, that longs for wholeness and integrity, because the awakening that comes through initiation is a universal story. In our time we need to reclaim rites of passage, we need to honor elders, we need to find ways to remind our young people and the whole of our communities of the sacredness of life, of who we really are. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1047:In China the egalitarian movement came not just from Zhu's vision, but also the Taoist ideas of balance, as Zhu would always point out. In Travancore it rose out of the Buddhist idea of compassion, in Yingzhou from the Hodenosaunee idea of the equality of all, in Firanja from the idea of justice before God. Everywhere the idea existed, but the world still belonged to a tiny minority of rich; wealth had been accumulating for centuries in a few hands, and the people lucky enough to be born into this old aristocracy lived in the old manner, with the rights of kings now spread among the wealthy of the Earth. Money had replaced land as the basis of power, and money flowed according to its own gravity, its laws of accumulation, which though divorced from nature, were nevertheless the laws ruling most countries on Earth, no matter their religious or philosophical ideas of love, compassion, charity, equality, goodness, and the like. Old Zhu had been right: humanity's behavior was still based on old laws, which determined how food and land and water and surplus wealth around, how the labor of the eight billions was owned. If these laws did not change, the living shell of the earth might well be wrecked, and inherited by seagulls and ants and cockroaches. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
1048:Here’s what I know about Cole,” Jeremy said. Punctuated by the silence, it sounded like he was in a pulpit. “Cole’s religion is debunking the impossible. He doesn’t believe in impossible. He doesn’t believe in no. Cole’s religion is waiting for someone to tell him it can’t be done so he can do it. Anything. Doesn’t matter what that something is, so long as it can’t be done. Here’s an origin story for you. In the beginning of time there was an ocean and a void, and God made the ocean into the world and he made the void into Cole.”
Victor laughed.
“I thought you said you were a Buddhist,” Jan said.
“Part-time,” Jeremy replied.
Debunking the impossible.
Now, the pines stretched up so high on either side of the road that it felt like I was tunneling to the middle of the world. Mercy Falls was an unnumbered stretch of miles behind me.
I was sixteen again, and the road unwound in front of me, endless possibilities. I felt wiped clean, empty, forgiven. I could drive forever, anywhere. I could be anyone. But I felt the pull of Boundary Wood around me and, for once, the business of being Cole St. Clair no longer felt like such a curse. I had a purpose, a goal, and it was the impossible: finding a cure.
I was so close. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,#NFDB
1049:The early Wittgenstein and the logical positivists that he inspired are often thought to have their roots in the philosophical investigations of René Descartes.9 Descartes’s famous dictum “I think, therefore I am” has often been cited as emblematic of Western rationalism. This view interprets Descartes to mean “I think, that is, I can manipulate logic and symbols, therefore I am worthwhile.” But in my view, Descartes was not intending to extol the virtues of rational thought. He was troubled by what has become known as the mind-body problem, the paradox of how mind can arise from nonmind, how thoughts and feelings can arise from the ordinary matter of the brain. Pushing rational skepticism to its limits, his statement really means “I think, that is, there is an undeniable mental phenomenon, some awareness, occurring, therefore all we know for sure is that something—let’s call it I—exists.” Viewed in this way, there is less of a gap than is commonly thought between Descartes and Buddhist notions of consciousness as the primary reality. Before 2030, we will have machines proclaiming. Descartes’s dictum. And it won’t seem like a programmed response. The machines will be earnest and convincing. Should we believe them when they claim to be conscious entities with their own volition? ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
1050:Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court. ~ Mark Twain,#NFDB
1051: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
1052:A smart person, one who perhaps had her mind filled with religious ideas as a child but who recognizes that genuine mysteries exist with respect to the origins of the universe, can experience real pain if she opts for an easy mysticism. By the same token, if she refuses to opt for that easy mysticism and announces that she doesn't know ultimate answers and can't know ultimate answers, then she falls prey to the coldness and sadness that come with suspecting that the universe is taking no interest in her. Pain is waiting for her in either case, whether she tries to maintain a mysticism that she can see right through or if she sheds that easy mysticism but then doesn't know how to handle the resultant meaninglessness. As it happens, natural psychology provides a complete, satisfying, and uplifting response to this conundrum, one based on the idea of living the paradigm shift from seeking meaning to making meaning. If, however, she happens not to land on this good idea, she can spend a lifetime mired simultaneously in both unhappy camps, drawn to one mystical or spiritual enthusiasm after another—one year a Catholic, then a Buddhist, then a pagan, then a Taoist, then something with no name but with New Age trappings, and so on—while at the same time paralyzed by the thought that the universe has no meaning. ~ Eric Maisel, #NFDB
1053:To experience the ocean of essence, resembling the sphere of unchanging space: free of center and perimeter, pervading the expanse. Enlightened mind transcends cognitions! Rootless and baseless are appearance and void, in the self-arisen rikpa of every perception. Vivid is the sense of noncessation: luminous, the absence of object perception. Within the voidness free of class distinction all appearances dissolve, for their ground is lost; The rikpa of liberation is spread evenly. Subject and object are both void, for their roots are lost. The essence of self-arisen wisdom and all duality are cleansed like the sky; subjects and objects arise as free from bounds, as naked dharmakaya! This is the Great Perfection, free of cognition! The self-arisen ground primordially pure, the ultraversed path supremely swift, the unsought fruit spontaneously savored, such is the Great Perfection, in the radiant dharmakaya. This primordial sphere of pervasive essence is the Great Perfection of samsara and nirvana; this song of transcending -- beyond cause and effect, beyond all endeaver, was sung by Longchen Rabjam Zangpo. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
~ Longchen Rabjampa, An Adamantine Song on the Ever-Present
,#NFDB
1054:In the meantime, prominent British pastor John R. W. Stott, who acknowledged that suffering is “the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith,” has reached his own conclusion: I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. . . . In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. ‘The cross of Christ . . . is God’s only self-justification in such a world’ as ours.25 ~ Lee Strobel, #NFDB
1055:Why is society crumbling, collapsing, as it surely is?
One of the fundamental reasons is that the individual – you – has ceased to be creative.
I will explain what I mean. You & I have become imitative, we are copying, outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly, when learning a technique, when communicating with each other on the verbal level, naturally there must be some imitation, copy. I copy words. To become an engineer, I must first learn the technique, then use the technique to build a bridge.
There must be a certain amount of imitation, copying, in outward technique, but when there is inward, psychological imitation, surely we cease to be creative.
Our education, our social structure, our so-called religious life, are all based on imitation; that is, I fit into a particular social or religious formula. I have ceased to be a real individual; psychologically, I have become a mere repetitive machine with certain conditioned responses, whether of the Hindu, the Christian, the Buddhist, the German, or the Englishman.
Our responses are conditioned according to the pattern of society, whether it is Eastern or Western, religious or materialistic. So one of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is imitation, and one of the disintegrating factors is the leader, whose very essence is imitation. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#NFDB
1056:When wind dissolves into consciousness, we are close to the moment of death, but according to Buddhist texts we are not actually dead until the “inner breath” ceases. The Bardo of Dying is not yet complete. This time, when the outer breath has ceased and before the inner breath ceases, is one of the most beneficial times for a lama to be present. It is very difficult for a dying person to recognize the moment when the outer breath ceases; we need knowledgeable entrusted Dharma friends, and our lama if possible, as well as incredible mindfulness at this time. Yet if we practice now, it will definitely benefit us! In the West, the signs of the dissolution of the elements may be difficult to notice if life-support technology takes over some of the dying person’s bodily functions. If we are practitioners with strong faith in Dharma and we believe that we are dying, we may want to decide in advance about using life support when we are at this advanced stage in the dying process, leaving advance directives to inform friends, family, and physicians about our wishes. This is, of course, a very emotional decision for the friends and family of the person who is dying, and one that is difficult to make when the process of death has actually begun. I believe that each and every being should have the right to make these decisions for themselves and to die as they wish. ~ Anyen Rinpoche, #NFDB
1057: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
1058:Buddhist meditation takes this untrained, everyday mind as its natural starting point, and it requires the development of one particular attentional posture—of naked, or bare, attention. Defined as “the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us at the successive moments of perception,”1 bare attention takes this unexamined mind and opens it up, not by trying to change anything but by observing the mind, emotions, and body the way they are. It is the fundamental tenet of Buddhist psychology that this kind of attention is, in itself, healing: that by the constant application of this attentional strategy, all of the Buddha’s insights can be realized for oneself. As mysterious as the literature on meditation can seem, as elusive as the koans of the Zen master sometimes sound, there is but one underlying instruction that is critical to Buddhist thought. Common to all schools of thought, from Sri Lanka to Tibet, the unifying theme of the Buddhist approach is this remarkable imperative: “Pay precise attention, moment by moment, to exactly what you are experiencing, right now, separating out your reactions from the raw sensory events.” This is what is meant by bare attention: just the bare facts, an exact registering, allowing things to speak for themselves as if seen for the first time, distinguishing any reactions from the core event. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1059:Your Holiness, many believe that as a monk you have renounced pleasure or enjoyment.” “And sex,” the Dalai Lama added, although that was not exactly where I was going. “What?” the Archbishop said. “Sex, sex,” the Dalai Lama repeated. “Did you just say that?” the Archbishop said incredulously. “Oh, oh,” the Dalai Lama said with a laugh, noticing the Archbishop’s surprise, and then reached over to reassure him, which caused the Archbishop to erupt in a gleeful cackle. “So aside from sex,” I said, trying to bring us back, “have you renounced pleasure and enjoyment? I sat next to you at lunch, and it looked like you were really enjoying the wonderful food. What is the role for you of enjoying the pleasures of life?” “I love food. Without food, my body can’t survive. You also,” he said, turning to the Archbishop, “can’t just think God, God, God. I cannot just think about compassion, compassion, compassion. Compassion will not fill my stomach. But, you see, each meal we have to develop the ability to consume the meal without attachment.” “Huh?” the Archbishop asked, not quite following how the Dalai Lama was using the Buddhist term attachment, and perhaps also not quite following how anyone could not be attached to one’s food. “Not eating out of greed,” the Dalai Lama explained. “Eating only for the survival of the body. One must think about the deeper value of nourishing the body. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1060:Modern economics does not distinguish between renewable and non-renewable materials, as its very method is to equalise and quantify everything by means of a money price. Thus, taking various alternative fuels, like coal, oil, wood, or water-power: the only difference between them recognised by modern economics is relative cost per equivalent unit. The cheapest is automatically the one to be preferred, as to do otherwise would be irrational and “uneconomic.” From a Buddhist point of view, of course, this will not do; the essential difference between nonrenewable fuels like coal and oil on the one hand and renewable fuels like wood and water-power on the other cannot be simply overlooked. Non-renewable goods must be used only if they are indispensable, and then only with the greatest care and the most meticulous concern for conservation. To use them heedlessly or extravagantly is an act of violence, and while complete non-violence may not be attainable on this earth, there is nonetheless an ineluctable duty on man to aim at the ideal of non-violence in all he does…
As the world’s resources of non-renewable fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—are exceedingly unevenly distributed over the globe and undoubtedly limited in quantity, it is clear that their exploitation at an ever-increasing rate is an act of violence against nature which must almost inevitably lead to violence between men. ~ Ernst F Schumacher,#NFDB
1061:I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering. 'The cross of Christ ... is God’s only self-justification in such a world” as ours....' 'The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak; they rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone. ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
1062:Zen has been called the "religion before religion," which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith. And that phrase evokes that natural religion of our early childhood, when heaven and a splendorous earth were one. But soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, at the bottom of each breath, there is a hollow place filled with longing. We become seekers without knowing that we seek, and at first, we long for something "greater" than ourselves, something apart and far away. It is not a return to childhood, for childhood is not a truly enlightened state. Yet to seek one's own true nature is "a way to lead you to your long lost home." To practice Zen means to realize one's existence moment after moment, rather than letting life unravel in regret of the past and daydreaming of the future. To "rest in the present" is a state of magical simplicity...out of the emptiness can come a true insight into our natural harmony all creation. To travel this path, one need not be a 'Zen Buddhist', which is only another idea to be discarded like 'enlightenment,' and like 'the Buddha' and like 'God. ~ Peter Matthiessen, #NFDB
1063:The scythe or sickle of Perseus was made from a hard stone and most Sumerian tools were made of flint; [some, like the sickles for cutting the barley were made simply of hard clay]. However, the sickle has a Khopesh-like shape and was referenced in the Rosetta Stone as the "sword". [The earliest known depiction of a Khopesh is from the Stele of Vultures, depicting King Eannatum of Lagash wielding the weapon]. And this very word means in the Semitic language, 'Lamb of Sacrifice'. So, not only were the sickle a pure Semitic tool for slaughtering the Aryan demons (e.g., Jewish Menorah, Hindu Manasa & Buddhist Mucalinda), it also symbolized the cleansing and purification of the Semitic heritage from the Aryan infiltration. That was not all what I have discovered so far; it turns out that the very etymological root of the word 'Gospel' in the Semitic tongue is derived from the word 'Naga' with the prefix of 'An-' added to it - signaling the opposing meaning therewith to undo the Aryan reversed Symbolism. Although the original Semitic word of 'Naga' means 'to save/deliver', the Aryan plagiarism and belligerent Symbolism against the Semitic tongue annexed the word to the point were the very same expression needed modification; this time real salvation was delivered from none other but God Himself through Scripture (i.e., The Gospel) and through delivering the blessed baby from the hands of satan - ushering thereby a new era of Prophecy. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1064:Jonathan Sacks; “One way is just to think, for instance, of biodiversity. The extraordinary thing we now know, thanks to Crick and Watson’s discovery of DNA and the decoding of the human and other genomes, is that all life, everything, all the three million species of life and plant life—all have the same source. We all come from a single source. Everything that lives has its genetic code written in the same alphabet. Unity creates diversity. So don’t think of one God, one truth, one way. Think of one God creating this extraordinary number of ways, the 6,800 languages that are actually spoken. Don’t think there’s only one language within which we can speak to God. The Bible is saying to us the whole time: Don’t think that God is as simple as you are. He’s in places you would never expect him to be. And you know, we lose a bit of that in English translation. When Moses at the burning bush says to God, “Who are you?” God says to him three words: “Hayah asher hayah.”Those words are mistranslated in English as “I am that which I am.” But in Hebrew, it means “I will be who or how or where I will be,” meaning, Don’t think you can predict me. I am a God who is going to surprise you. One of the ways God surprises us is by letting a Jew or a Christian discover the trace of God’s presence in a Buddhist monk or a Sikh tradition of hospitality or the graciousness of Hindu life. Don’t think we can confine God into our categories. God is bigger than religion. ~ Krista Tippett, #NFDB
1065:You’ve probably had a similar experience with someone you know. I’ve already recounted the stories of three of my closest friends—one in high school, one in college, and one in seminary—who seemed so dedicated to serving the Lord, and yet all of them eventually turned their backs on Him. One became a dope-smoking rock-concert promoter, and another became a Buddhist. These were not casual acquaintances, but friends at a very close level. I was sure they shared my passion for the true gospel as much as they shared my love for sports. These three young men proved to me that you can profess Christ and not know Him. You can think you’re a Christian and later see clearly that you’re not; you can certainly deceive other people. Seeing these seemingly intelligent, dedicated, strong Christians abandon their beliefs forced me to think about who is really a Christian and what being a Christian really means. Their actions portrayed them as fellow soldiers of Christ, but in the end their hearts exposed them as traitors. Spiritual defectors are an integral part of the story of Christianity, both past and present. They’re in your life and mine, just as they were in Jesus’ life. They shouldn’t surprise you, defeat you, disappoint you, or cause you to despair. Jesus’ insights on spiritual defectors in John 6, and the reaction to His teaching about the issue, give us one of the most compelling and enlightening stories of His ministry. It’s worth considering closely. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1066:It has been the strange fate of Tibet, once one of the most isolated places on earth, to function as a laboratory for the most ambitious and ruthless human experiments of the modern era: the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and now a state-imposed capitalism. After having suffered totalitarian communism, Tibetans now confront a dissolute capitalism, one that seeks arrogantly, and often violently, to turn all of the world's diverse humanity into middle-class consumers. But it seems wrong to think of Tibetans, as many outsiders do, as helpless victims of large, impersonal forces.
It is no accident that the Tibetans seem to have survived the large-scale Communist attempt at social engineering rather better than most people in China itself. This is at least partly due to their Buddhist belief in the primacy of empathy and compassion. And faced with an aggressively secular materialism, they may still prove, almost alone in the world, how religion, usually dismissed, and not just by Mao, as "poison," can be a source of cultural identity and moral values; how it can become a means of political protest without blinding the devout with hatred and prejudice; how it can help not only heal the shocks and pain of history- the pain that has led people elsewhere in the world into nihilistic rage- but also create a rational and ethical national culture, what may make a freer Tibet, whenever it comes about, better prepared for its state of freedom than most societies. ~ Pankaj Mishra,#NFDB
1067:The young man making a hash of his visit to the Garden of Allah that December evening was a mess of contradictions. He was a cofounder of one of the most successful startups ever, but he didn’t want to be seen as a businessman. He craved the advice of mentors, and yet resented those in power. He dropped acid, walked barefoot, wore scraggly jeans, and liked the idea of living in a commune, yet he also loved nothing more than speeding down the highway in a finely crafted German sports car. He had a vague desire to support good causes, but he hated the inefficiency of most charities. He was impatient as hell and knew that the only problems worth solving were ones that would take years to tackle. He was a practicing Buddhist and an unrepentant capitalist. He was an overbearing know-it-all berating people who were wiser and immensely more experienced, and yet he was absolutely right about their fundamental marketing naïveté. He could be aggressively rude and then truly contrite. He was intransigent, and yet eager to learn. He walked away, and he walked back in to apologize. At the Garden of Allah he displayed all the brash, ugly behavior that became an entrenched part of the Steve Jobs myth. And he showed a softer side that would go less recognized over the years. To truly understand Steve and the incredible journey he was about to undergo, the full transformation that he would experience over his rich life, you have to recognize, accept, and try to reconcile both sides of the man. ~ Brent Schlender, #NFDB
1068: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
1069:I do not know if you read some time ago how one of the Marshals of the Russian army reporting to the Polit Bureau, said that in the army they were training soldiers under hypnosis —you know what that means? You are put under hypnosis and taught how to kill, how to obey completely, function with complete independence, but within a pattern, under the authority of a superior. Now culture and society are doing exactly the same thing to each one of us. Culture and society have hypnotized you. Do please listen to this very carefully, it is not only being done in the army in Russia, but it is being done all over the world. When you read the Gita endlessly, or the Koran, or repeat some mantram, some endlessly repeated words, you are doing exactly the same thing. When you say, “I am a Hindu”, “I am a Buddhist”, “I am a Muslim”, “I am a Catholic”, the same pattern is being repeated, you have been mesmerized, hypnotized; and technology is doing exactly the same thing. You can be a clever lawyer, a first-class engineer, or an artist, or a great scientist, but always within a fragment of the whole. I do not know if you see this, not because I describe it, but actually see what is taking place. The Communists are doing it, the Capitalists are doing it, everybody, parents, schools, education, they are all shaping the mind to function within a certain pattern, a certain fragment. And we are always concerned with bringing about a change within the pattern, within the fragment.
Madras
3 January 1968 ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#NFDB
1070:Not being able to see this, culture-based explanations for economic development have usually been little more than ex post facto justifications based on a 20/20 hindsight vision. So, in the early days of capitalism, when most economically successful countries happened to be Protestant Christian, many people argued that Protestantism was uniquely suited to economic development. When Catholic France, Italy, Austria and southern Germany developed rapidly, particularly after the Second World War, Christianity, rather than Protestantism, became the magic culture. Until Japan became rich, many people thought East Asia had not developed because of Confucianism. But when Japan succeeded, this thesis was revised to say that Japan was developing so fast because its unique form of Confucianism emphasized co-operation over individual edification, which the Chinese and Korean versions allegedly valued more highly. And then Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea also started doing well, so this judgement about the different varieties of Confucianism was forgotten. Indeed, Confucianism as a whole suddenly became the best culture for development because it emphasized hard work, saving, education and submission to authority. Today, when we see Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia, Buddhist Thailand and even Hindu India doing well economically, we can soon expect to encounter new theories that will trumpet how uniquely all these cultures are suited for economic development (and how their authors have known about it all along). ~ Ha Joon Chang, #NFDB
1071:To be detached from the world, (in the sense that Buddhist and Taoists and Hindus often talk about detachment), does not mean to be non-participative. By that I don't mean that you just go through doing everything mechanically and have your thoughts elsewhere. I mean a complete participation, but still detached.
And the difference between the two attitudes is this..
On the one hand, there is a way of being so anxious about physical pleasure, so afraid that you won't make it, that you grab it too hard..that you just have to have that thing, and if you do that, you destroy it completely.. and therefore after every attempt to get it, you feel disappointed, you feel empty, you feel something was lost..and so you want it again, you have to keep repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating..because you never really got that. And it is this that's the hang up, this is what is meant by attachment to this world...
But on the other hand, pleasure in its fullness cannot be experienced, when one is grasping it..
I knew a little girl to whom someone gave a bunny rabbit. She was so delighted with the bunny rabbit and so afraid of losing it, that taking it home in the car, she squeezed it to death with love. And lots of parents do that to their children. And lots of spouses do it to each other. They hold on too hard, and so take the life out of this transient, beautifully fragile thing that life is.
To have it, to have life, and to have its pleasure, you must at the same time let go of it. ~ Alan W Watts,#NFDB
1072:Freud’s explanations dovetail with the Buddhists’ in the realization that ultimate happiness cannot be derived from sensual pleasures. There are inherent limitations to the pleasures of sexual gratification, Freud found. By mining the nature of sexuality, he came to the paradoxical conclusion that there is “something in the nature of the sexual instinct itself [that] is unfavorable to the realization of complete satisfaction.”4 Rather than unleashing a never-ending torrent of unregulated passion, as many sexually conflicted persons fear, integration of the Animal Realm inevitably reveals pleasure to be inherently fleeting. It cannot be sustained forever, we find, and its completion returns us to a state of impoverishment, of unrest, of separateness, desire, or tension. Freud’s description of pleasure elucidates a basic Buddhist concept, namely, that the pursuit of pleasurable sensory experiences leads inevitably to a state of dissatisfaction, because it is in the nature of pleasure not to be sustainable: What we call happiness in the strict sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only possible as a periodic phenomenon. When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged it only produces a feeling of mild contentment. We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things. Thus our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution.5 ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1073:The metaphysical mutation that gave rise to materialism and modern science in turn spawned two great trends: rationalism and individualism. Huxley’s mistake was in having poorly evaluated the balance of power between these two. Specifically, he underestimated the growth of individualism brought about by an increased consciousness of death. Individualism gives rise to freedom, the sense of self, the need to distinguish oneself and to be superior to others. A rational society like the one he describes in Brave New World can defuse the struggle. Economic rivalry—a metaphor for mastery over space—has no more reason to exist in a society of plenty, where the economy is strictly regulated. Sexual rivalry—a metaphor for mastery over time through reproduction—has no more reason to exist in a society where the connection between sex and procreation has been broken. But Huxley forgets about individualism. He doesn’t understand that sex, even stripped of its link with reproduction, still exists—not as a pleasure principle, but as a form of narcissistic differentiation. The same is true of the desire for wealth. Why has the Swedish model of social democracy never triumphed over liberalism? Why has it never been applied to sexual satisfaction? Because the metaphysical mutation brought about by modern science leads to individuation, vanity, malice and desire. Any philosopher, not just Buddhist or Christian, but any philosopher worthy of the name, knows that, in itself, desire—unlike pleasure—is a source of suffering, pain and hatred. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
1074:According to logic 'nothing" is that of which everything can truly be denied and nothing can truly be affirmed. The idea therefore either of a finite or infinite nothing is a contradiction in terms. And yet according to theologians "God the self existent being is a most simple, unchangeable, incorruptible being; without parts, figure, motion, divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter. For all such things so plainly and necessarily imply finiteness in their very notion and are utterly inconsistent with complete infinity." Therefore the God here offered to the adoration of the XlXth century lacks every quality upon which man's mind is capable of fixing any judgment. What is this in fact but a being of whom they can affirm nothing that is not instantly contradicted. Their own Bible their Revelation destroys all the moral perceptions they heap upon him unless indeed they call those qualities perfections that every other man's reason and common sense call imperfections, odious vices and brutal wickedness. Nay more he who reads our Buddhist scriptures written for the superstitious masses will fail to find in them a demon so vindictive, unjust, so cruel and so stupid as the celestial tyrant upon whom the Christians prodigally lavish their servile worship and on whom their theologians heap those perfections that are contradicted on every page of their Bible. Truly and veritably your theology has created her God but to destroy him piecemeal. Your church is the fabulous Saturn, who begets children but to devour them. ~ Koot Hoomi, in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, (1923), Letter No. X, p. 54, 1881, #NFDB
1075:being. Sometimes if we don't do anything, we help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It is like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person does not have to do much, just to be himself and the situation can change. That is also an aspect of Dharmakaya: not talking, not teaching, just being.
This is true not only of humans, but other species as well. Look at the trees in our yard. An oak tree is an oak tree. That is all it has to do. If an oak tree is less than an oak tree, then we are all in trouble. Therefore, the oak tree is preaching the Dharma. Without doing anything, not serving in the School of Youth Service, not preaching, not even sitting in meditation, the oak tree is very helpful to all of us just by being there. Every time we look at the oak tree we have confidence. During the summer we sit under it and we feel cool, relaxed. We know that if the oak tree is not there, and all the other trees are not there, we will not have good air to breathe.
We also know that in our former lives we were trees. Maybe we have been an oak tree ourselves. This is not just Buddhist; this is scientific. The human species is a very young species - we appeared on earth only recently. Before that, we were rock, we were gas, we were minerals, and then we were single-celled beings. We were plants, we were trees, and now we have become humans. We have to recall our past existences. When we shout at the oak tree, the oak tree is not offended, it does not raise its nose; therefore, the oak tree is part of our Dharmakaya. We can learn from everything that is around, that is in us. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
1076:One great question underlies our existence,” the Dalai Lama had said before the trip. “What is the purpose of life? After much consideration, I believe that the purpose of life is to find happiness. “It does not matter whether one is a Buddhist like me, or a Christian like the Archbishop, or any other religion, or no religion at all. From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. No differences in our culture or our education or our religion affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire joy and contentment. But so often these feelings are fleeting and hard to find, like a butterfly that lands on us and then flutters away. “The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status. Some of my friends are billionaires, but they are very unhappy people. Power and money fail to bring inner peace. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside. “Sadly, many of the things that undermine our joy and happiness we create ourselves. Often it comes from the negative tendencies of the mind, emotional reactivity, or from our inability to appreciate and utilize the resources that exist within us. The suffering from a natural disaster we cannot control, but the suffering from our daily disasters we can. We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1077:The entire virtue of religious practices can be conceived from the Buddhist tradition concerning the recitation of the name of the Lord. It is said that the Buddha made a vow to raise up to himself all those who recite his name with the desire to be saved by him, into the Land of Purity; and that because of this vow the recitation of the name of the Lord really has the virtue of transforming the soul. Religion is nothing else but this promise of God. Every religious practice, every rite, every liturgy is a form of the recitation of the name of the Lord, and must in principle really have virtue, the virtue of saving anyone devoted to it with desire. Every religion pronounces the name of the Lord in its own language. Most often, it is better for people to name God in their own native language rather than in a foreign language. Apart from exceptions, the soul is incapable of completely abandoning itself in the moment if it must impose on itself even a minor effort in searching for words in a strange language, even when they know it well . . . A change of the religion is for the soul like a change of language for the writer. Not every religion, it is true, is equally apt for the correct recitation of the name of the Lord. Certain ones, without a doubt, are very imperfect intermediaries. The religion of Israel, for example, must have truly been a very imperfect intermediary for having crucified Christ. The Roman religion scarcely even deserves the name of religion. But in a general, the hierarchy of religions is a very difficult thing to discern, nearly impossible, perhaps completely impossible. For a religion is known from the inside. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1078:It is the postscript to the war that offers the most revelatory and startling commentary on Dutugemunu's life. Despite his newfound wealth and his peactime luxuries, Dutugemunu wanders gloomily about his palace, too often remembering the carnage he wrought on the battlefield and worried over the deep karmic deficits he has incurred. The elders of the Sangha, the Buddhist clergy, notice this and send a delegation of eight monks to minister to his anguish.
'In truth, venerable sirs,' Dutugemunu tells the monks when they arrive, 'how can there be comfort to me in that I caused the destruction of a great army of myriads of men?'
'There is no hindrance on the way to heaven because of your acts,' one of the monks assures his king. Slaughtering Tamils is no moral mistake. Only the equivalent of one and a half men died at Dutugemunu's hands, according to the Sangha's official arithmetic, because the Tamils 'were heretical and evil and dies as though they were animals. You will make the Buddha's faith shine in many ways. Therefore, Lord of Men, cast away your mental confusion.'
Being thus exhorted, the great king was comforted; his kill rate would never disturb him again. He does, however, recall that, once upon a breakfast, he ate a red-pepper pod without consciously setting aside a portion of it for the Sangha, as was the royal practice. 'For this,' he decides, 'penance must be done by me.' A hierarchy of sin springs into being, in which dishonouring the Sangha by denying it a due share of a red-pepper pod counts as a graver transgression, worthier of penance, than massacring thousands of Tamils on the battlefield. ~ Samanth Subramanian,#NFDB
1079:In the Buddhist teachings on compassion there’s a practice called “one at the beginning, and one at the end.” When I wake up in the morning, I do this practice. I make an aspiration for the day. For example, I might say, “Today, may I acknowledge whenever I get hooked.” Or, “May I not speak or act out of anger.” I try not to make it too grandiose, as in, “Today, may I be completely free of all neurosis.” I begin with a clear intention, and then I go about the day with this in mind. In the evening, I review what happened. This is the part that can be so loaded for Western people. We have an unfortunate tendency to emphasize our failures. But when Dzigar Kongtrül teaches about this, he says that for him, when he sees that he has connected with his aspiration even once briefly during the whole day, he feels a sense of rejoicing. He also says that when he recognizes he lost it completely, he rejoices that he has the capacity to see that. This way of viewing ourselves has been very inspiring for me. He encourages us to ask what it is in us, after all, that sees that we lost it. Isn’t it our own wisdom, our own insight, our own natural intelligence? Can we just have the aspiration, then, to identify with the wisdom that acknowledges that we hurt someone’s feelings, or that we smoked when we said we wouldn’t? Can we have the aspiration to identify more and more with our ability to recognize what we’re doing instead of always identifying with our mistakes? This is the spirit of delighting in what we see rather than despairing in what we see. It’s the spirit of letting compassionate self-reflection build confidence rather than becoming a cause for depression. Being ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1080:If the ideal with regard to work is to get rid of it, every method that 'reduces the work load' is a good thing. The most
potent method, short of automation, is the so-called 'division of labour' and
the classical example is the pin factory eulogised in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.' Here it is not a matter of ordinary specialisation, which mankind
has practised from time immemorial, but of dividing up every complete process of production into minute parts, so that the final product can be produced at great speed without anyone having had to contribute more than a totally insignificant and, in most cases, unskilled movement of his limbs.
The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal: it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the
most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as
an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated
without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure. ~ Ernst F Schumacher,#NFDB
1081: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
1082:A beautiful example of a long-term intention was presented by A. T. Ariyaratane, a Buddhist elder, who is considered to be the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. For seventeen years there had been a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. At one point, the Norwegians were able to broker peace, and once the peace treaty was in effect, Ariyaratane called the followers of his Sarvodaya movement together. Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice. Over 650,000 people came to the gathering to hear how he envisioned the future of Sri Lanka. At this gathering he proposed a five-hundred-year peace plan, saying, “The Buddha teaches we must understand causes and conditions. It’s taken us five hundred years to create the suffering that we are in now.” Ari described the effects of four hundred years of colonialism, of five hundred years of struggle between Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, and of several centuries of economic disparity. He went on, “It will take us five hundred years to change these conditions.” Ariyaratane then offered solutions, proposing a plan to heal the country. The plan begins with five years of cease-fire and ten years of rebuilding roads and schools. Then it goes on for twenty-five years of programs to learn one another’s languages and cultures, and fifty years of work to right economic injustice, and to bring the islanders back together as a whole. And every hundred years there will be a grand council of elders to take stock on how the plan is going. This is a sacred intention, the long-term vision of an elder. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1083: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
1084:Just as I do not see how anyone can expect really to understand Kant and Hegel without knowing the German language and without such an understanding of the German mind as can only be acquired in the society of living Germans, so a fortiori I do not see how anyone can understand Confucius without some knowledge of Chinese and a long frequentation of the best Chinese society. I have the highest respect for the Chinese mind and for Chinese civilisation; and I am willing to believe that Chinese civilisation at its highest has graces and excellences which may make Europe seem crude. But I do not believe that I, for one, could ever come to understand it well enough to make Confucius a mainstay.
I am led to this conclusion partly by an analogous experience. Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lanman, and a year in the mazes of Patanjali's metaphysics under the guidance of James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification. A good half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were after and their subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys lay in trying to erase from my mind all the categories and kinds of distinction common to European philosophy from the time of the Greeks. My previous and concomitant study of European philosophy was hardly better than an obstacle. And I came to the conclusion seeing also that the 'influence' of Brahmin and Buddhist thought upon Europe, as in Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Deussen, had largely been through romantic misunderstanding that my only hope of really penetrating to the heart of that mystery would lie in forgetting how to think and feel as an American or a European: which, for practical as well as sentimental reasons, I did not wish to do ~ T S Eliot,#NFDB
1085:The system can be paralyzed in yet another way. Every feedback system needs a margin of “lag” or error. If we try to make a thermostat absolutely accurate–that is, if we bring the upper and lower limits of temperature very close together in an attempt to hold the temperature at a constant 70 degrees–the whole system will break down. For to the extent that the upper and lower limits coincide, the signals for switching off and switching on will coincide! If 70 degrees is both the lower and upper limit the “go” sign will also be the “stop” sign; “yes” will imply “no” and “no” will imply “yes.” Whereupon the mechanism will start “trembling,” going on and off, on and off, until it shakes itself to pieces. The system is too sensitive and shows symptoms which are startlingly like human anxiety. For when a human being is so self-conscious, so self-controlled that he cannot let go of himself, he dithers or wobbles between opposites. This is precisely what is meant in Zen by going round and round on “the wheel of birth-and-death,” for the Buddhist samsara is the prototype of all vicious circles. We saw that when the furnace responds too closely to the thermostat, it cannot go ahead without also trying to stop, or stop without also trying to go ahead. This is just what happens to the human being, to the mind, when the desire for certainty and security prompts identification between the mind and its own image of itself. It cannot let go of itself. It feels that it should not do what it is doing, and that it should do what it is not doing. It feels that it should not be what it is, and be what it isn’t. Furthermore, the effort to remain always “good” or “happy” is like trying to hold the thermostat to a constant 70 degrees by making the lower limit the same as the upper. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1086: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
1087:When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?
For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole. ~ Nikola Tesla,#NFDB
1088:One of the best descriptions of the actual psychological experiences that come with deep meditation is the Visuddhimagga (Path of purification), a fourth-century meditation manual composed on the island of Sri Lanka by an Indian Buddhist named Buddhaghosa. In the Visuddhimagga he laid out the early Buddhist vision of what can be achieved psychologically through the cultivation of certain critical factors of mind that are developed through meditation practice. As a cross section of the meditative mind, this manual is unparalleled. Through the relentless development of both concentration (the ability to rest the mind in a single object of awareness) and mindfulness (the ability to shift attention to a succession of objects of awareness), the meditator eventually enters into states that are variously described as ones of either terror or delight. These are states that do not often unfold in psychotherapy: they may be glimpsed or remembered, but they do not come forward inexorably, as they do in meditation practice. Their emergence is predicated on the development of certain ego functions beyond the normal operating range of everyday life. Listen, for example, to the classic descriptions of some of these states. The experiences of delight, for instance, are characterized by varying degrees of rapture or happiness, of which there are said to be five grades: Minor happiness is only able to raise the hairs on the body. Momentary happiness is like flashes of lightning at different moments. Showering happiness breaks over the body again and again like waves on the seashore. Uplifting happiness can be powerful enough to levitate the body and make it spring up in the air. . . . But when pervading (rapturous) happiness arises, the whole body is completely pervaded, like a filled bladder, like a rock cavern invaded by a huge inundation.1 ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1089:Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.” He’s had notable success with this carrot-and-stick approach. Join us and thrive, or whatever happens to you as a result of your own sinful stubbornness is your problem. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
1090:a Chinese poem says: Entering the forest, he does not disturb a blade of grass; Entering the water, he does not cause a ripple. For the image represents a number of qualities which are, in fact, aspects of the same thing. It represents the sage’s freedom and detachment of mind, a skylike consciousness in which experience moves without leaving any stain. As another poem says: The bamboo shadows sweep the stairs, But stir no dust. Yet, paradoxically, this detachment from is also a harmony with, for the man who goes into the forest without disturbing a blade of grass is a man in no conflict with nature. Like the Native American scouts, he walks without a single twig cracking beneath his feet. Like the Japanese architects, he builds a house which seems to be a part of its natural surroundings. The image also represents the fact that the way of the sage cannot be traced and followed, since no authentic wisdom can be imitated. Each man must find it for himself, because there is really no way of putting it into words, of reaching it by any specific methods or directions. But there is actually the most intimate connection between these two apparently separate uses of the metaphor—the way of the sage, on the one hand, and the impermanence of life, on the other. And the connection reveals the one deepest and most central principle of those Asian philosophies which so puzzle the Western mind by identifying the highest wisdom with what, to us, seems the doctrine of abject despair. Indeed, the word despair in a particular sense is the proper translation of the Hindu–Buddhist term nirvana—to “de-spirate,” to breathe out, to give up the ghost. We cannot understand how the Asians manage to equate this despair with ultimate bliss—unless, as we are prone to suppose, they are after all a depraved and spineless people, long accustomed to fatalism and resignation. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1091:Mainstream Muslims are in a bind. The Islamic State professes that there is one God, and that Muhammad is his last and greatest prophet. Denying the Islamic State's faith and its supporters' status as Muslims, excommunicating them because you disagree with their version of Islam, is to concede the match. After all, takfir is the official sport of the Islamic State, and if you practice it, you become one of them. For Muslims who hate the group, the Islamic State's claim that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet is a statement of faith that forces a painful admission: the Islamic State is a Muslim phenomenon. Wicked, perhaps. Ultra-violent, certainly. But Muslim, by definition. No one wants the most well-known practitioners of his religion also to be its most fanatical and blood thirsty. Most religions have zealots that the mainstream would prefer to make disappear, and the Muslim bind is not unique [. . .] The Islamic State is as Islamic as the above are Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist or Catholic, which is to say it is thoroughly Islamic, even though it is, by its own proud admission, a minority sect. Whether it is "legitimate" is a question other believers answer for themselves, overwhelmingly in the negative. But these questions of legitimacy are a matter of opinion and dogma. The fact the majority believes the Islamic State to be deviant does not make them objectively deviant, any more than many Christians' view of Mormonism as deviant makes Mormonism illegitimate or a perversion of Christianity [. . .] Being in a minority, violent or not, does not equate to being illegitimate [. . .] It takes astonishing levels of denial to claim, as uncountable Muslims and non-Muslims have, that the Islamic State has "nothing to do with Islam", merely because the group's heinous behavior clashes with mainstream or liberal Muslim interpretation. ~ Graeme Wood, #NFDB
1092:How many of us are dead because of their potential unleashed? Your calorie masters showed us what happens. People die."
"Everyone dies." The doctor waves a dismissal. "But you die now because you cling to the past. We should all be windups by now. It's easier to build a person impervious to blister rust than to protect an earlier version of the human creature. A generation from now, we could be well-suited for our new environment. Your children could be the beneficiaries. Yet you people refuse to adapt. You cling to some idea of a humanity that evolved in concert with your environment over millennia, and which you now, perversely, refuse to remain in lockstep with.
"Blister rust is our environment. Cibiscosis. Genehack weevil. Cheshires. They have adapted. Quibble as you like about whether they evolved naturally or not. Our environment has changed. If we wish to remain at the top of our food chain, we will evolve. Or we will refuse, and go the way of the dinosaurs and Felis domesticus. Evolve or die. It has always been nature's guiding principle, and yet you white shirts seek to stand in the way of inevitable change." He leans forward. "I want to shake you sometimes. If you would just let me, I could be your god and shape you to the Eden that beckons us."
"I'm Buddhist."
"And we all know windups have no souls." Gibbons grins. "No rebirth for them. They will have to find their own gods to protect them. Their own gods to pray for their dead." His grin widens. "Perhaps I will be that one, and your windup children will pray to me for salvation." His eyes twinkle. "I would like a few more worshippers, I must admit. Jaidee was like you. Always such a doubter. Not as bad as Grahamites, but still, not particularly satisfactory for a god."
Kanya makes a face. "When you die, we will burn you to ash and bury you in chlorine and lye and no one will remember you."
The doctor shrugs, unconcerned. "All gods must suffer. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi,#NFDB
1093: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
1094:You will also be tempted to try to hold onto a sense of presence, to make a steady state of it. It will not work. If you are lucky, you’ll just miss the moment and be frustrated. If you are successful in holding on, things will be much worse. At some point you will discover that what you are holding is not real; it is something you yourself have contrived. You will also discover that you have been suppressing and deceiving yourself in order to keep it.
. . . In trying to maintain a state, we are naturally expressing our deep desire for wakeful presence in love. But it is a wrong way of expressing it. This way becomes willful so quickly and insidiously that we lose touch with our relationship with grace . . . And grace, thank God, is not dependent upon our state of mind.
Some traditions would disagree with my advice. Much of the spirituality of the early Christian desert, for example, advised using all one’s mental strength to hold onto remembrance of Christ. Some Hindu and Buddhist disciplines encourage a similar forcefulness. Such effortful concentration may have a place in monastic settings and can be helpful as a temporary mental stretch before yielding into simple presence. But I do not recommend it as a steady diet for people who live in the world of families, homes, and workplaces. I have tried it myself, and it only created great trouble for me. I became depressed and irritable inside and absolutely obnoxious around friends and family.
. . . I suggest you become familiar with the feeling you have inside when you make a resolution or strive to cling to something . . . Get to know the feeling well, so that whenever you feel it you can stop what you’re doing, take a breath, relax, yield a little, and let your real self turn to the real God. . . Seek to encourage yourself instead of manipulating yourself. Cultivate your receptivity to the little interior glances instead of grasping for them. Live, love, and yearn with unbearable passion, but don’t try to make it happen and don’t try to hold on when it does happen. ~ Gerald G May,#NFDB
1095:Paradox is any self-contradictory proposition that, when investigated, may prove to be well-founded or true. Once understood, it opens the gateway to higher wisdom. But how can contradictory principles both be true? As the Buddhist Riddle of Five Truths puts it: “It is right. It is wrong. It is both right and wrong. It is neither right nor wrong. All exist simultaneously.” Charles Dickens expressed the paradox of his era, equally true today, when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” going on to describe that time as one of belief and incredulity, light and darkness, hope and despair. Two opposing statements can each be true depending on the observer: it’s true that spiders are merciless killers from the viewpoint of tiny insects caught in their webs—but for most humans, nearly all spiders are harmless creatures. A story of the Sufi sage Mullah Nasruddin expresses the nature of paradox when he’s asked to arbitrate between two men with opposing views. Hearing the first man, he remarks, “You’re right.” When he hears the second man, he also says, “You’re right.” When a bystander points out, “They can’t both be right,” the mullah scratches his head and says, “You’re right.” Let’s go deeper and consider four central sets of paradoxical truths: * Time is real. It moves from past to present to future. * There is no time, no past, no future—only the eternal present. * You possess free will and can thus take responsibility for your choices. * Free will is an illusion—your choices are influenced, even predetermined, by all that preceded them. * You are, or possess, a separate inner self existing within a body. * No separation exists—you are a part of the same Consciousness shining through billions of eyes. * Death is an inevitable reality you’ll meet at the end of life. * The death of the inner self is an illusion. Life is eternal. Must you choose one assertion and reject the other? Or is there a way to meaningfully resolve and even reconcile such apparent contradictions? ~ Dan Millman, #NFDB
1096:Naval’s Laws The below is Naval’s response to the question “Are there any quotes you live by or think of often?” These are gold. Take the time necessary to digest them. “These aren’t all quotes from others. Many are maxims that I’ve carved for myself.” Be present above all else. Desire is suffering (Buddha). Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else (Buddhist saying). If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day. Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else. All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. Earn with your mind, not your time. 99% of all effort is wasted. Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. Praise specifically, criticize generally (Warren Buffett). Truth is that which has predictive power. Watch every thought. (Always ask, “Why am I having this thought?”) All greatness comes from suffering. Love is given, not received. Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts (Eckhart Tolle). Mathematics is the language of nature. Every moment has to be complete in and of itself. A Few of Naval’s Tweets that are Too Good to Leave Out “What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” “If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.” “We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.” “The guns aren’t new. The violence isn’t new. The connected cameras are new, and that changes everything.” “You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus.” “My one repeated learning in life: ‘There are no adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.” “A busy mind accelerates the passage of subjective time. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1097:To the ancients, bears symbolized resurrection. The creature goes to sleep for a long time, its heartbeat decreases to almost nothing. The male often impregnates the female right before hibernation, but miraculously, egg and sperm do not unite right away. They float separately in her uterine broth until much later. Near the end of hibernation, the egg and sperm unite and cell division begins, so that the cubs will be born in the spring when the mother is awakening, just in time to care for and teach her new offspring. Not only by reason of awakening from hibernation as though from death, but much more so because the she-bear awakens with new young, this creature is a profound metaphor for our lives, for return and increase coming from something that seemed deadened.
The bear is associated with many huntress Goddesses: Artemis and Diana in Greece and Rome, and Muerte and Hecoteptl, mud women deities in the Latina cultures. These Goddesses bestowed upon women the power of tracking, knowing, 'digging out' the psychic aspects of all things. To the Japanese the bear is the symbol of loyalty, wisdom, and strength. In northern Japan where the Ainu tribe lives, the bear is one who can talk to God directly and bring messages back for humans. The cresent moon bear is considered a sacred being, one who was given the white mark on his throat by the Buddhist Goddess Kwan-Yin, whose emblem is the crescent moon. Kwan-Yin is the Goddess of Deep Compassion and the bear is her emissary.
"In the psyche, the bear can be understood as the ability to regulate one's life, especially one's feeling life. Bearish power is the ability to move in cycles, be fully alert, or quiet down into a hibernative sleep that renews one's energy for the next cycle. The bear image teaches that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressure gauge for one's emotional life, and most especially that one can be fierce and generous at the same time. One can be reticent and valuable. One can protect one's territory, make one's boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all the same. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Est s,#NFDB
1098:As noted before, bare attention is impartial, nonjudgmental, and open. It is also deeply interested, like a child with a new toy. The key phrase from the Buddhist literature is that it requires “not clinging and not condemning,” an attitude that Cage demonstrated with regard to the car alarms, that Winnicott described in his “good enough mothering” notion, that Freud counseled for the psychoanalyst at work, and that meditation practitioners must develop toward their own psychic, emotional, and physical sufferings. The most revealing thing about a first meditation retreat (after seeing how out of control our minds are) is how the experience of pain gives way to one of peacefulness if it is consistently and dispassionately attended to for a sufficient time. Once the reactions to the pain—the horror, outrage, fear, tension, and so on—are separated out from the pure sensation, the sensation at some point will stop hurting. The psychoanalyst Michael Eigen, in a paper entitled “Stones in a Stream,” describes his own first mystical experience in just these characteristic terms: I remember once being in emotional agony on a bus in my 20’s. I doubled over into my pain and focused on it with blind intensity. As I sat there in this wretched state, I was amazed when the pain turned to redness, then blackness (a kind of blanking out), then light, as if a vagina in my soul opened, and there was radiant light. The pain did not vanish, but my attention was held by the light. I felt amazed, uplifted, stunned into awareness of wider existence. Of course I did not want the light to go away, and was a bit fearful that it would, but above all was reverence, respect: it could last as long as it liked, and come and go as it pleased. It was an unforgettable moment. Life can never be quite the same after such experiences.9 This kind of experience can truly come as a revelation. When we see that staying with a pain from which we habitually recoil can lead to such a transformation, it makes us question one of our basic assumptions: that we must reject that which does not feel good. Instead, we discover, even pain can be interesting. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1099:MSB: La Rochefoucauld says that Cardinal de Retz (whom he didn't like) looked upon Pascal as a great rival. RG: The cardinal didn't have Pascal's genius, but he did have the human experience that Pascal lacked as both a very sick and a very lonely man. Montaigne, on the other hand, was too happy, too untroubled. Montaigne really prefigures the French bourgeois who has tasted success—the rat in his cheese, as one might say. MSB: You consider Montaigne's carefree spirit as a form of social blindness. Do you see a comparable danger in the determination to experience love as the only thing, the last thing possible in life? One finds this determination embodied, for example, by Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot. RG: Prince Myshkin is an ambiguous, ambivalent character, and to consider him as truly good, as many people do, is an error. Looking at Dostoevsky's notebooks for The Idiot, we see that Prince Myshkin, just like Stavrogin in The Demons, is the hypostasis of a person who has no desire. The absence of desire is Stavrogin's weakness, his suicidal side. He makes all sorts of attempts to arouse in others the desire, the mimetic desire, that he doesn't have. This is very clear in the duels: he always wins, because he never loses his nerve. Myshkin's attitude is much the same, I believe. Dostoevsky himself, confronted with a personality that was stronger than his own, wondered if it was the result of an excess of desire, or of a total absence of it. His notebooks make it clear that Stavrogin and Myshkin are monstrous figures who lack the same thing. Like Stavrogin, Myshkin has a negative effect on people around him—General Ivolgin, for example. Women fall in love with him because he has no mimetic desire. They are therefore his victims, although Myshkin himself seems not to understand what is going on. Isn't this precisely because he is unacquainted with mimetic desire? It seems to be a kind of physical defect, almost a biological deficiency. Otherwise, Myshkin must be regarded as a kind of Buddhist. One character in The Idiot wonders whether Myshkin isn't carrying out a deliberate strategy. His attitude may well be entirely calculating, who knows? Dostoevsky himself, it seems to me, hadn't answered these questions in his own mind. MSB ~ Ren Girard, #NFDB
1100:While most of us go through life feeling that we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a distorted view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or pathway of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging “center of narrative gravity” (to use Daniel Dennett’s phrase). In subjective terms, however, there seems to be one — to most of us, most of the time.
Our contemplative traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) also suggest, to varying degrees and with greater or lesser precision, that we live in the grip of a cognitive illusion. But the alternative to our captivity is almost always viewed through the lens of religious dogma. A Christian will recite the Lord’s Prayer continuously over a weekend, experience a profound sense of clarity and peace, and judge this mental state to be fully corroborative of the doctrine of Christianity; A Hindu will spend an evening singing devotional songs to Krishna, feel suddenly free of his conventional sense of self, and conclude that his chosen deity has showered him with grace; a Sufi will spend hours whirling in circles, pierce the veil of thought for a time, and believe that he has established a direct connection to Allah.
The universality of these phenomena refutes the sectarian claims of any one religion. And, given that contemplatives generally present their experiences of self-transcendence as inseparable from their associated theology, mythology, and metaphysics, it is no surprise that scientists and nonbelievers tend to view their reports as the product of disordered minds, or as exaggerated accounts of far more common mental states — like scientific awe, aesthetic enjoyment, artistic inspiration, etc.
Our religions are clearly false, even if certain classically religious experiences are worth having. If we want to actually understand the mind, and overcome some of the most dangerous and enduring sources of conflict in our world, we must begin thinking about the full spectrum of human experience in the context of science.
But we must first realize that we are lost in thought. ~ Sam Harris,#NFDB
1101:Self-Abuse by Drugs
Not a drop of alcohol is to be brought into this temple.
Master Bassui (1327-1387)1
(His dying instructions: first rule)
In swinging between liberal tolerance one moment and outraged repression the next,
modern societies seem chronically incapable of reaching consistent attitudes about
drugs.
Stephen Batchelor2
Drugs won't show you the truth. Drugs will only show you what it's like to be on drugs.
Brad Warner3
Implicit in the authentic Buddhist Path is sila. It is the time-honored practice
of exercising sensible restraints [Z:73-74]. Sila's ethical guidelines provide the
bedrock foundation for one's personal behavior in daily life. At the core of every
religion are some self-disciplined renunciations corresponding to sila. Yet, a profound irony has been reshaping the human condition in most cultures during the
last half century. It dates from the years when psychoactive drugs became readily
available. During this era, many naturally curious persons could try psychedelic
short-cuts and experience the way their consciousness might seem to ''expand.'' A
fortunate few of these experimenters would become motivated to follow the nondrug meditative route when they pursued various spiritual paths.
One fact is often overlooked. Meditation itself has many mind-expanding, psychedelic properties [Z:418-426]. These meditative experiences can also stimulate a
drug-free spiritual quest.
Meanwhile, we live in a drug culture. It is increasingly a drugged culture, for which overprescribing physicians must shoulder part of the blame. Do
drugs have any place along the spiritual path? This issue will always be hotly
debated.4
In Zen, the central issue is not whether each spiritual aspirant has the ''right''
to exercise their own curiosity, or the ''right'' to experiment on their own brains in
the name of freedom of religion. It is a free country. Drugs are out there. The real
questions are:
Can you exercise the requisite self-discipline to follow the Zen Buddhist Path?
Do you already have enough common sense to ask that seemingly naive question,
''What would Buddha do?'' (WWBD).
~ James Austin, Zen-Brain_Reflections,_Reviewing_Recent_Developments_in_Meditation_and_States_of_Consciousness,#NFDB
1102:A beautiful example of a long-term intention was presented by A. T. Ariyaratane, a Buddhist elder, who is considered to be the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. For seventeen years there had been a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. At one point, the Norwegians were able to broker peace, and once the peace treaty was in effect, Ariyaratane called the followers of his Sarvodaya movement together. Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice. Over 650,000 people came to the gathering to hear how he envisioned the future of Sri Lanka. At this gathering he proposed a five-hundred-year peace plan, saying, “The Buddha teaches we must understand causes and conditions. It’s taken us five hundred years to create the suffering that we are in now.” Ari described the effects of four hundred years of colonialism, of five hundred years of struggle between Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, and of several centuries of economic disparity. He went on, “It will take us five hundred years to change these conditions.” Ariyaratane then offered solutions, proposing a plan to heal the country. The plan begins with five years of cease-fire and ten years of rebuilding roads and schools. Then it goes on for twenty-five years of programs to learn one another’s languages and cultures, and fifty years of work to right economic injustice, and to bring the islanders back together as a whole. And every hundred years there will be a grand council of elders to take stock on how the plan is going. This is a sacred intention, the long-term vision of an elder. In the same way, if we envision the fulfillment of wisdom and compassion in the United States, it becomes clear that the richest nation on earth must provide health care for its children; that the most productive nation on earth must find ways to combine trade with justice; that a creative society must find ways to grow and to protect the environment and plan sustainable development for generations ahead. A nation founded on democracy must bring enfranchisement to all citizens at home and then offer the same spirit of international cooperation and respect globally. We are all in this together. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1103:The honey bee, a little tiger, is not addicted to the taste of sugar; his nature is to extract the juice from the sweet lotus flower! Dakinis, above, below, and on earth, unimpeded by closeness and distance, will surely extract the blissful essence when the yogins bound by pledges gather. The sun, the king of illumination, is not inflated by self-importance; by the karma of sentient beings, it shines resplendent in the sky. When the sun perfect in skill and wisdom dawns in the sky of the illuminated mind, without conceit, you beautify and crown the beings of all three realms. The smiling faces of the radiant moon are not addicted to hide and seek; by its relations with the sun, the moon takes waning and waxing forms. Though my gurus, embodiment of all refuge, are free of all fluctuation and of faults, through their flux-ridden karma the disciples perceive that the guru's three secrets display all kinds of effulgence. Constellations of stars adorning the sky are not competing in a race of speed; due to the force of energy's pull, the twelve planets move clockwise with ease. Guru, deity, and dakini -- my refuge -- though not partial toward the faithful, unfailingly you appear to guard those with fortunate karma blessed. The white clouds hovering above on high are not so light that they arise from nowhere; it is the meeting of moisture and heat that makes the patches of mist in the sky. Those striving for good karma are not greedy in self-interest; by the meeting of good conditions they become unrivaled as they rise higher. The clear expanse of the autumn sky is not engaged in the act of cleansing; yet being devoid of all obscuration, its pure vision bejewels the eyes. The groundless sphere of all phenomena is not created fresh by a discursive mind; yet when the face of ever-presence is known, all concreteness spontaneously fades away. Rainbows radiating colors freely are not obsessed by attractive costumes; by the force of dependent conditions, they appear distinct and clearly. This vivid appearance of the external world, though not a self-projected image, through the play of fluctuating thought and mind, appears as paintings of real things. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
~ Kelsang Gyatso, Little Tiger
,#NFDB
1104:5. Although Sanders and especially Pinnock often speak of the importance of faith, they rarely listen to what the New Testament has to say about the content of faith, about the object of faith. Consider, for example, the following statements: “people can receive the gift of salvation without knowing the giver or the precise nature of the gift.”77 Inclusivism “denies that Jesus must be the object of saving faith.”78 “‘Saving faith’…does not necessitate knowledge of Christ in this life. God’s gracious activity is wider than the arena of special revelation. God will accept into his kingdom those who repent and trust him even if they know nothing of Jesus.”79 “Faith in God is what saves, not possessing certain minimum information.”80 “A person is saved by faith, even if the content of faith is deficient (and whose is not?). The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus to be saved.”81 “The issue that God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of theology.”82 Some of this argument is slanted by the form of the proferred antitheses. For example: “Faith in God is what saves, not possessing certain minimum information.” At one level that is surely correct: merely possessing information, minimal or otherwise, does not save. Christians are not gnostics. On the other hand, the form of the antithesis may allow the unwary to overlook the fact that faith has content, or an object. Does faith in, say, a ouija board save? How about sincere faith in astrology? Pinnock says it is “faith in God” that saves. But which God? The Buddhist impersonal God? And even if we assume we are dealing with the true God, does all faith in this God save, when we are told that even the devils believe? Again: “The issue that God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of theology.” At one level, I would strenuously agree. Yet at the same time, I would want to add that if the direction of the heart is truly right, one of the things it will be concerned about is the content of theology. Does Paul sound as if he does not care about the content of theology in Galatians 1:8-9? Does John, in 1 John 4:1-6? Far from resorting to antitheses, John purposely links sound doctrine, transparent obedience, and love for the brothers and sisters in Christ, as being joint marks of the true believer (and thus of true faith!). ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1105:And so, by means both active and passive, he sought to repair the damage to his self-esteem. He tried first of all to find ways to make his nose look shorter. When there was no one around, he would hold up his mirror and, with feverish intensity, examine his reflection from every angle. Sometimes it took more than simply changing the position of his face to comfort him, and he would try one pose after another—resting his cheek on his hand or stroking his chin with his fingertips. Never once, though, was he satisfied that his nose looked any shorter. In fact, he sometimes felt that the harder he tried, the longer it looked. Then, heaving fresh sighs of despair, he would put the mirror away in its box and drag himself back to the scripture stand to resume chanting the Kannon Sutra.
The second way he dealt with his problem was to keep a vigilant eye out for other people’s noses. Many public events took place at the Ike-no-o temple—banquets to benefit the priests, lectures on the sutras, and so forth. Row upon row of monks’ cells filled the temple grounds, and each day the monks would heat up bath water for the temple’s many residents and lay visitors, all of whom the Naigu would study closely. He hoped to gain peace from discovering even one face with a nose like his. And so his eyes took in neither blue robes nor white; orange caps, skirts of gray: the priestly garb he knew so well hardly existed for him. The Naigu saw not people but noses. While a great hooked beak might come into his view now and then, never did he discover a nose like his own. And with each failure to find what he was looking for, the Naigu’s resentment would increase. It was entirely due to this feeling that often, while speaking to a person, he would unconsciously grasp the dangling end of his nose and blush like a youngster.
And finally, the Naigu would comb the Buddhist scriptures and other classic texts, searching for a character with a nose like his own in the hope that it would provide him some measure of comfort. Nowhere, however, was it written that the nose of either Mokuren or Sharihotsu was long. And Ryūju and Memyoō, of course, were Bodhisattvas with normal human noses. Listening to a Chinese story once, he heard that Liu Bei, the Shu Han emperor, had long ears. “Oh, if only it had been his nose,” he thought, “how much better I would feel! ~ Ry nosuke Akutagawa,#NFDB
1106: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
1107:After their time in the monastery, most young men and women will return to their villages, having completed their training with the elders. They are now accepted as “ripe,” as initiated men and women, respected in their community. Outwardly they will have learned the religious forms and sacred rituals of the Buddhist community. Inwardly, these ancient forms are intended to awaken an unshakable virtue and inner respect, fearlessness in the face of death, self-reliance, wisdom, and profound compassion. These qualities give one who leaves the monastery the hallmark of a mature man or woman. Perhaps as you read about this ordination process, its beauty will strike a chord in you that intuitively knows about the need for initiations. This does not mean that you have to enter a monastery to seek this remarkable and wonderful training. By reading about this tradition, you may simply awaken that place in yourself, which exists in each of us, that longs for wholeness and integrity, because the awakening that comes through initiation is a universal story. In our time we need to reclaim rites of passage, we need to honor elders, we need to find ways to remind our young people and the whole of our communities of the sacredness of life, of who we really are. Remember, too, that initiation comes in many forms. I have a friend who has three children under the age of five. This is a retreat as intensive as any other, including sitting up all night in the charnel grounds. Marriage and family are a kind of initiation. As Gary Snyder says, All of us are apprentices to the same teacher that all masters have worked with—reality. Reality says: Master the twenty-four hours. Do it well without self-pity. It is as hard to get children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha Hall on a cold morning. One is not better than the other. Each can be quite boring. They both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms: changing the car filters, wiping noses, going to meetings, sitting in meditation, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick. Don’t let yourself think that one or more of these distracts you from the serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties to escape so that we may do our practice that will put us on the path. It IS our path. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1108: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
1109:Ego autem sum quasi vas inane,’ he began awkwardly, stuttering along the lines of meaningless prose like a small child. ‘Ego donavit corpus meum ad dominum meum in exercitu magno Cardinalis Balthazar De La Senza,’ he continued, quickly becoming surprisingly fluent despite his vaguely cockney tone. ‘Tempore domini Inquisitoris magni voluntatis esse, aequo animo et scissa animam meam a fundamentis et suspensi in abyssum quasi stercora, nihil prorsus in aeternum damnatus egisse,’ he went on, oblivious to something stirring in the small box behind him. Wisps of purple drifted from it like steam from a cooling kettle. ‘Ego Christophorus Baxtere accipe usitata res est, uti et magnis La Senza caput meum corium et nervorum et magnifici primum genus dentium,’ Baxter continued, strangely enjoying himself. Far away in another place, the bound and trapped Cardinal La Senza had begun to whisper the words in unison beneath the folds of his hooded cloak. Oblivious, Baxter was flying now, quite unaware of the sinister coaching he was receiving. ‘O magnum La Senza, cum venerit, et ad hoc bonum esse propter tempus, quia ego miser!’ Baxter read on. A coiling snake-like tendril of purple had fingered its way through the lock of the cabinet and was creeping menacingly towards its target. It advanced up Baxter’s legs, body and neck until finally, it crept imperceptibly into his ears. ‘Ego Christophorus Baxtere immolare volens alumnam cerebrum meum et animam, ut vos mos postulo ut enable uariat possessione tua ...’ Pleased beyond measure by what he had fondled and explored, La Senza went still. Content for now, he drew back his sensing vines and they fell away from Baxter, unnoticed. His jailors had seen nothing. La Senza now had the chance he’d been craving for centuries, so many lifetimes of plotting and scheming. He knew nothing of the young man he had inspected so intimately – frankly, he didn’t care. It was the body, oh his body, so young and fit; teeth clean like white mice, no trace of Popery, no hint of Lutheran, Baptist, Jew, Muslim or Buddhist within his empty soul, nothing to restrain or inhibit the Inquisitor’s foul purposes. La Senza knew that his escape was mere days away. Immobile, he marshalled dark reserves for the events to come. ‘Nunc me vacua est anima mea praeparata et redditur supersunt, La Senza venit, et possident me! Sincere vestrum, Christopher Baxter,’ finished Chris, with a flourish. ‘Bravo Mr Baxter,’ said Ascot McCauley, standing as he clapped enthusiastically. ‘Bravo! ~ T J Brown, #NFDB
1110:The hero is the man of self-achieved submission. But submission to what? That precisely is the riddle that today we have to ask ourselves and that it is everywhere the primary virtue and historic deed of the hero to have solved. Only birth can conquer death—the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new. Within the soul, within the body social, there must be a continuous “recurrence of birth” a rebirth, to nullify the unremitting recurrences of death. For it is by means of our own victories, if we are not regenerated, that the work of Nemesis is wrought: doom breaks from the shell of our very virtue. Peace then is a snare; war is a snare; change is a snare; permanence a snare. When our day is come for the victory of death, death closes in; there is nothing we can do, except be crucified—and resurrected; dismembered totally, and then reborn.
The first step, detachment or withdrawal, consists in a radical transfer of emphasis from the external to the internal world, macro- to microcosm, a retreat from the desperation's of the waste land to the peace of the everlasting realm that is within. But this realm, as we know from psychoanalysis, is precisely the infantile unconscious. It is the realm that we enter in sleep. We carry it within ourselves forever. All the ogres and secret helpers of our nursery are there, all the magic of childhood. And more important, all the life-potentialities that we never managed to bring to adult realization, those other portions of our self, are there; for such golden seeds do not die. If only a portion of that lost totality could be dredged up into the light of day, we should experience a marvelous expansion of our powers, a vivid renewal of life. We should tower in stature. Moreover, if we could dredge up something forgotten not only by ourselves but by our whole generation or our entire civilization, we should indeed become the boon-bringer, the culture hero of the day—a personage of not only local but world historical moment. In a word: the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to clarify the difficulties, eradicate them in his own case (i.e., give battle to the nursery demons of his local culture) and break through to the undistorted, direct experience and assimilation of what C. G. Jung has called “the archetypal images.” This is the process known to Hindu and Buddhist philosophy as viveka, “discrimination. ~ Joseph Campbell,#NFDB
1111:One can readily imagine in what terms a man of today would speak if called upon to make a pronouncement on the only religion ever to have introduced a radical formula of salvation: "The quest for deliverance can be justified only if one believes in the transmigration, in the endless vagrancy of the self, and if one aspires to halt it. But for us who do not believe in it, what are we to halt? This unique and negligible duration? It is obviously not long enough to deserve the effort an escape would require. For the Buddhist, the prospect of other existences is a nightmare; for us, the nightmare consists in the termination of this one, this nightmare. Give us another one, we would be tempted to clamor, so that our disgraces will not conclude too soon, so that they may, at their leisure, hound us through several lives.
Deliverance answers a necessity only for the person who feels threatened by a surfeit of existence, who fears the burden of dying and redying. For us, condemned not to reincarnate ourselves, what's the use of struggling to set ourselves free from a nonentity? to liberate ourselves from a terror whose end lies in view? Further more, what's the use of pursuing a supreme unreality when everything here-below is already unreal? One simply does not exert oneself to get rid of something so flimsily justified, so precariously grounded.
Each of us, each man unlucky enough not to believe in the eternal cycle of births and deaths, aspires to a superabundance of illusion and torment. We pine for the malediction of being reborn. Buddha took exorbitant pains to achieve what? definitive death - what we, on the contrary, are sure of obtaining without meditations and mortifications, without raising a finger." ...
That's just about how this fallen man would express himself if he consented to lay bare the depths of his thought. Who will dare throw the first stone? Who has not spoken to himself in this way? We are so addicted to our own history that we would like to see it drone on and on, relentlessly. But whether one lives one or a thousand lives, whether one has at one's disposal a single hour or all of time, the problem remains the same: an insect and a god should not differ in their manner of viewing the fact of existence as such, which is so terrifying (as only miracles can be) that, reflecting on it, one understands the will to disappear forever so as not to have to consider it again in other existences. This is what Buddha emphasized, and it seems doubtful he would have altered his conclusion had he ceased to believe in the mechanism of transmigration. ~ Emil M Cioran,#NFDB
1112:Most disconcerting of all were those experiences in which the patient's consciousness appeared to expand beyond the usual boundaries of the ego and explore what it was like to be other living things and even other objects. For example, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female prehistoric reptile. She not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species' anatomy she found most sexually arousing was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. Although the woman had no prior knowledge of such things, a conversation Grof had with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles, colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. Patients were also able to tap into the consciousness of their relatives and ancestors. One woman experienced what it was like to be her mother at the age of three and accurately described a frightening event that had befallen her mother at the time. The woman also gave a precise description of the house her mother had lived in as well as the white pinafore she had been wearing—all details her mother later confirmed and admitted she had never talked about before. Other patients gave equally accurate descriptions of events that had befallen ancestors who had lived decades and even centuries before. Other experiences included the accessing of racial and collective memories. Individuals of Slavic origin experienced what it was like to participate in the conquests of Genghis Khan's Mongolian hordes, to dance in trance with the Kalahari bushmen, to undergo the initiation rites of the Australian aborigines, and to die as sacrificial victims of the Aztecs. And again the descriptions frequently contained obscure historical facts and a degree of knowledge that was often completely at odds with the patient's education, race, and previous exposure to the subject. For instance, one uneducated patient gave a richly detailed account of the techniques involved in the Egyptian practice of embalming and mummification, including the form and meaning of various amulets and sepulchral boxes, a list of the materials used in the fixing of the mummy cloth, the size and shape of the mummy bandages, and other esoteric facets of Egyptian funeral services. Other individuals tuned into the cultures of the Far East and not only gave impressive descriptions of what it was like to have a Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan psyche, but also related various Taoist or Buddhist teachings. ~ Michael Talbot, #NFDB
1113:The world is broken up by tribalism—the British, the German, the Swiss, the Hindu, the Buddhist, are tribes. See the fact that they are tribes, glorified as nations, and that this tribalism is creating havoc in the world, bringing wars in the world. Each tribe thinks in its own culture opposed to other cultures. But tribalism is the root, not the culture. Observing the fact of that is the action that frees the brain from the condition of tribalism. You see actually, not theoretically or ideationally, the fact that tribalism glorified as nations is one of the causes of war. That is a fact. There are other causes of war, economics and so on, but one of the causes is tribalism. When you see that, perceive that, and see that cannot bring about peace, the very perception frees the brain from its conditioning of tribalism.
One of the factors of contention throughout the world is religion. You are a Catholic, I am a Muslim, based on ideas, propaganda of hundreds or thousands of years; the Hindu and the Buddhist ideas are of thousands of years. We have been programmed like a computer. That programming has brought about great architecture, great paintings, great music, but it has not brought peace to mankind. When you see the fact of that, you do not belong to any religion. When there are half a dozen gurus in the same place, they bring about misery, contradiction, conflict: “My guru is better than yours; my group is more sanctified than yours; I have been initiated, you have not.” You know all the nonsense that goes on. So when you see all this around you as an actual fact, then you do not belong to any group, to any guru, to any religion, to any political commitment of ideas.
In the serious urgency to live peacefully there must be freedom from all this because they are the causes of dissension, division. Truth is not yours or mine. It does not belong to any church, to any group, to any religion. The brain must be free to discover it. And peace can exist only when there is freedom from fallacy. You know, for most of us, to be so drastic about things is very difficult, because we have taken security in things of illusion, in things that are not facts, and it is very difficult to let them go. It is not a matter of exercising will, or taking a decision: “I will not belong to anything” is another fallacy. We commit ourselves to some group, to an idea, to religious quackery, because we think it is some kind of security for us. In all these things there is no security, and therefore there is no peace. The brain must be secure; but the brain, with its thought, has sought security in things that are illusory. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#NFDB
1114:This was something new. Or something old. I didn’t think of what it might be until after I had let Aubrey go back to the clinic to bed down next to her child. Bankole had given him something to help him sleep. He did the same for her, so I won’t be able to ask her anything more until she wakes up later this morning. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether these people, with their crosses, had some connection with my current least favorite presidential candidate, Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret. It sounds like the sort of thing his people might do—a revival of something nasty out of the past. Did the Ku Klux Klan wear crosses—as well as burn them? The Nazis wore the swastika, which is a kind of cross, but I don’t think they wore it on their chests. There were crosses all over the place during the Inquisition and before that, during the Crusades. So now we have another group that uses crosses and slaughters people. Jarret’s people could be behind it. Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
1115:The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches. It began on a specific date with a panel of judges to oversee it. In this case Mongke Khan ordered them to debate before three judges: a Christian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. A large audience assembled to watch the affair, which began with great seriousness and formality. An official lay down the strict rules by which Mongke wanted the debate to proceed: on pain of death “no one shall dare to speak words of contention.” Rubruck and the other Christians joined together in one team with the Muslims in an effort to refute the Buddhist doctrines. As these men gathered together in all their robes and regalia in the tents on the dusty plains of Mongolia, they were doing something that no other set of scholars or theologians had ever done in history. It is doubtful that representatives of so many types of Christianity had come to a single meeting, and certainly they had not debated, as equals, with representatives of the various Muslim and Buddhist faiths. The religious scholars had to compete on the basis of their beliefs and ideas, using no weapons or the authority of any ruler or army behind them. They could use only words and logic to test the ability of their ideas to persuade. In the initial round, Rubruck faced a Buddhist from North China who began by asking how the world was made and what happened to the soul after death. Rubruck countered that the Buddhist monk was asking the wrong questions; the first issue should be about God from whom all things flow. The umpires awarded the first points to Rubruck. Their debate ranged back and forth over the topics of evil versus good, God’s nature, what happens to the souls of animals, the existence of reincarnation, and whether God had created evil. As they debated, the clerics formed shifting coalitions among the various religions according to the topic. Between each round of wrestling, Mongol athletes would drink fermented mare’s milk; in keeping with that tradition, after each round of the debate, the learned men paused to drink deeply in preparation for the next match. No side seemed to convince the other of anything. Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation. At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue. ~ Jack Weatherford, #NFDB
1116:You who absorb into sublime, immutable bliss all phenomena, moving and unmoving, infinite as space, O glorious Heruka and Varahi, your consort, I wear the jewel light of your feet as my crown. Great bliss, the union of method and wisdom, engaged in the play of the unmoving with movement, this young coral maiden with beautiful eyes, diamond queen, embrace me with your arts of love. Adorning the highest part of my body, my crown, with the jewel of your feet, I recite these words of aspiration and prayer with my palms folded at my heart. When shall I ever achieve this state: seeing all forms as mandala deities, all sounds as vajra songs of tantra, all thoughts as fuel to enflame the spontaneous wisdom of emptiness and bliss? When will I experience perfect purity? By purging in profound absorption all phenomena born of imaginative concepts, fully aware that they open the way to self-arisen rikpa. When will I run in a joyful step-dance, the play of supreme illusion, the bliss-void wisdom, in the dakin town, the emanation of pure realms -- where a hundred dharma doors are opened wide? Outer dakinis hover above the twenty-four mystic places; inner dakinis dwell in the sphere of radiant bliss. When will I immerse in the glory of sexual play through the secret act of conjoining space and vajra? When can I arise as the great magical net -- the union of body and mind, instantly burning all grossness of dualism with the great bliss fire flaming the expanse? When will I accomplish the natural feat of absorbing the imperfections of illusion into immutable bliss, this wheel of becoming, engaged in the blissful play of union? On the clear mirror of the luminous mind my guru, my deity, and my mind reflect as one; may I soon attain the good fortune of practicing night and day this perfect meditation. May my mind be always intoxicated by drinking insatiably the nectar -- the delicious taste of sexual play between the hero in his utter ecstasy and his lover, the lady emptiness. By entering deep into the sphere of voidness, may I be endowed with the power of cleansing this foul odor, grasping body, speech, and mind as ordinary, through the yoga of perceiving all as divine. May I come to see with naked eyes the form of the fully emergent mandala of perfect deities, the sport of the ever-present mind inside the courtyard of the heart's dharma chakra. O yoginis, heroines of the twenty-four places, and the hosts of mantra-born and field-born dakinis who possess powers swift as thought, assist me in friendship of every kind. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
~ Chone Lama Lodro Gyatso, A Dance of Unwavering Devotion
,#NFDB
1117: 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
1118:Any critique of Islam is denounced as an expression of Western Islamophobia, Salman Rushdie is denounced for unnecessarily provoking Muslims and being (partially, at least) responsible for the fatwa condemning him to death, and so on. The result of such stances is what one should expect in such cases: the more the Western liberal Leftists probe into their guilt, the more they are accused by Muslim fundamentalists of being hypocrites who try to conceal their hatred of Islam. [T]his constellation perfectly reproduces the paradox of the superego: the more you obey what the Other demands of you, the guiltier you are. It is as if the more you tolerate Islam, the stronger its pressure on you will be. What this implies is that terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, are not really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term--what they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: 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 found 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. 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 and fascinated by the sinful life of the non-believers. One can feel that, in fighting the sinful other, they are fighting their own temptation. The passionate intensity of a fundamentalist mob bears witness to the 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 would be if he felt threatened by, say, a stupid caricature in a low-circulation Danish newspaper? Fundamentalist Islamic terror is not grounded in the terrorists' conviction of their superiority and in their desire to safeguard their cultural-religious identify 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 makes them more furious and feed their resentment. The problem is not cultural difference (their effort to preserve their identity), but the opposite: the fact that the fundamentalists are already like us, that, secretly, they have already internalized our standards and measure themselves by them. ~ Slavoj i ek, #NFDB
1119:I wish I'd been accepted sooner and better. When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes--and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history. We choose our own lives. It is not simply that we decide on the behaviors that construct our experience; when given our druthers, we elect to be ourselves. Most of us would like to be more successful or more beautiful or wealthier, and most people endure episodes of low self-esteem or even self-hatred. We despair a hundred times a day. But we retain the startling evolutionary imperative for the fact of ourselves, and with that splinter of grandiosity we redeem our flaws. These parents have, by and large, chosen to love their children, and many of them have chosen to value their own lives, even though they carry what much of the world considers an intolerable burden. Children with horizontal identities alter your self painfully; they also illuminate it. They are receptacles for rage and joy-even for salvation. When we love them, we achieve above all else the rapture of privileging what exists over what we have merely imagined.
A follower of the Dalai Lama who had been imprisoned by the Chinese for decades was asked if he had ever been afraid in jail, and he said his fear was that he would lose compassion for his captors. Parents often think that they've captured something small and vulnerable, but the parents I've profiled here have been captured, locked up with their children's madness or genius or deformity, and the quest is never to lose compassion. A Buddhist scholar once explained to me that most Westerners mistakenly think that nirvana is what you arrive at when your suffering is over and only an eternity of happiness stretches ahead. But such bliss would always be shadowed by the sorrow of the past and would therefore be imperfect. Nirvana occurs when you not only look forward to rapture, but also gaze back into the times of anguish and find in them the seeds of your joy. You may not have felt that happiness at the time, but in retrospect it is incontrovertible.
For some parents of children with horizontal identities, acceptance reaches its apogee when parents conclude that while they supposed that they were pinioned by a great and catastrophic loss of hope, they were in fact falling in love with someone they didn't yet know enough to want. As such parents look back, they see how every stage of loving their child has enriched them in ways they never would have conceived, ways that ar incalculably precious. Rumi said that light enters you at the bandaged place. This book's conundrum is that most of the families described here have ended up grateful for experiences they would have done anything to avoid. ~ Andrew Solomon,#NFDB
1120: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
1121:Our joy, our peace, our happiness depend very much on our practice of recognizing and transforming our habit energies. There are positive habit energies that we have to cultivate, there are negative habit energies that we have to recognize, embrace, and transform. The energy with which we do these things is mindfulness. Mindfulness helps us be aware of what is going on. Then, when the habit energy shows itself, we know right away. "Hello, my little habit energy, I know you are there. I will take good care of you." By recognizing this energy as it is, you are in control of the situation. You don't have to fight your habit energy. In fact the Buddha does not recommend that you fight it, because that habit energy is you and you should not fight against yourself. You have to generate the energy of mindfulness, which is also you, and that positive energy will do the work of recognizing and embracing. Every time you embrace your habit energy, you can help it transform a little bit. The habit energy is a kind of seed within your consciousness, and when it becomes a source of energy, you have to recognize it. You have to bring your mindfulness into the present moment, and you just embrace that negative energy: "Hello, my negative habit energy. I know you are there. I am here for you." After maybe one or two or three minutes, that energy will go back into the form of a seed. But it may re-manifest later on. You have to be very alert.
Every time a negative energy is embraced by the energy of mindfulness, it will no longer push you to do or to say things you do not want to do or say, and it loses a little bit of its strength as it returns as a seed to the lower level of consciousness. The same thing is true for all mental formations: your fear, your anguish, your anxiety, and your despair. They exist in us in the form of seeds, and every time one of the seeds is watered, it becomes a zone of energy on the upper level of our consciousness. If you don't know how to take care of it, it will cause damage, and push us to do or to say things that will damage us and damage the people we love. Therefore, generating the energy of mindfulness to recognize, embrace, and take care of negative energy is the practice. And the practice should be done in a very tender, nonviolent way. There should be no fighting, because when you fight, you create damage within yourself.
The Buddhist practice is based on the insight of non-duality: you are love, you are mindfulness, but you are also that habit energy within you. To meditate does not mean to transform yourself into a battlefield with right fighting wrong, positive fighting negative. That's not Buddhist. Based on the insight of nonduality, the practice should be nonviolent. Mindfulness embracing anger is like a mother embracing her child, big sister embracing younger sister. The embrace always brings a positive effect. You can bring relief, and you can cause the negative energy to lose some of its strength, just by embracing it. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
1122:This point was driven home for me for the first time when I was traveling in Asia in 1978 on a trip to a forest monastery in northeastern Thailand, Wat Ba Pong, on the Thai-Lao border. I was taken there by my meditation teacher, Jack Kornfield, who was escorting a group of us to meet the monk under whom he had studied at that forest hermitage. This man, Achaan Chaa, described himself as a “simple forest monk,” and he ran a hundred-acre forest monastery that was simple and old-fashioned, with one notable exception. Unlike most contemporary Buddhist monasteries in Thailand, where the practice of meditation as the Buddha had taught had all but died out, Achaan Chaa’s demanded intensive meditation practice and a slow, deliberate, mindful attention to the mundane details of everyday life. He had developed a reputation as a meditation master of the first order. My own first impressions of this serene environment were redolent of the newly extinguished Vietnam War, scenes of which were imprinted in my memory from years of media attention. The whole place looked extraordinarily fragile to me. On my first day, I was awakened before dawn to accompany the monks on their early morning alms rounds through the countryside. Clad in saffron robes, clutching black begging bowls, they wove single file through the green and brown rice paddies, mist rising, birds singing, as women and children knelt with heads bowed along the paths and held out offerings of sticky rice or fruits. The houses along the way were wooden structures, often perched on stilts, with thatched roofs. Despite the children running back and forth laughing at the odd collection of Westerners trailing the monks, the whole early morning seemed caught in a hush. After breakfasting on the collected food, we were ushered into an audience with Achaan Chaa. A severe-looking man with a kindly twinkle in his eyes, he sat patiently waiting for us to articulate the question that had brought us to him from such a distance. Finally, we made an attempt: “What are you really talking about? What do you mean by ‘eradicating craving’?” Achaan Chaa looked down and smiled faintly. He picked up the glass of drinking water to his left. Holding it up to us, he spoke in the chirpy Lao dialect that was his native tongue: “You see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”5 Achaan Chaa was not just talking about the glass, of course, nor was he speaking merely of the phenomenal world, the forest monastery, the body, or the inevitability of death. He was also speaking to each of us about the self. This self that you take to be so real, he was saying, is already broken. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
1123:SPIEGEL: You have a lot of respect for the Dalai Lama, you even rewrote some Buddhist writings for him. Are you a religious person?
Cleese: I certainly don't think much of organized religion. I am not committed to anything except the vague feeling that there is something more going on than the materialist reductionist people think. I think you can reduce suffering a little bit, like the Buddhists say, that is one of the few things I take seriously. But the idea that you can run this planet in a rational and kind way -- I think it's not possible. There will always be these sociopaths at the top -- selfish people, power-seekers who want to spend their whole lives seeking it. Robin Skynner, the psychiatrist that I wrote two books with, said to me that you could begin to enjoy life when you realized how bad the planet is, how hopeless everything is. I reached that point these last two or three years when I saw that our existence here is absolutely hopeless. I see the rich people have got a stranglehold on us. If somebody had said that to me when I was 20, I would have regarded him as a left-wing loony.
SPIEGEL: You may not have been a left-wing loony, but you were happy to attack and ridicule the church. The "Life of Brian," the story of a young man in Judea who isn't Jesus Christ, but is nevertheless followed like a savior and crucified afterwards, was regarded as blasphemy when it was released in 1979.
Cleese: Well there was a small number of people in country towns, all very conservative, who got upset and said, "You can't show the film." So people hired a coach and drove 15 miles to the next town and went to see the film there. But a lot of Christians said, "We got it, we know that the joke is not about religion, but about the way people follow religion." If Jesus saw the Spanish Inquisition I think he would have said, "What are you doing there?"
SPIEGEL: These days Muslims and Islam are risky subjects. Do you think they are good issues for satire?
Cleese: For sure. In 1982, Graham Chapman and I wrote a number of scenes for "The Meaning of Life" movie which had an ayatollah in them. This ayatollah was raging against all the evil inventions of the West, you know, like toilet paper. These scenes were never included in the film, although I thought they were much better than many other scenes that were included. And that's why I didn't do any more Python films: I didn't want to be outvoted any longer. But I wouldn't have made fun of the prophet.
SPIEGEL: Why not?
Cleese: How could you? How could you make fun of Jesus or Saint Francis of Assisi? They were wonderful human beings. People are only funny when they behave inappropriately, when they've been taken over by some egotistical emotion which they can't control and they become less human.
SPIEGEL: Is there a difference between making fun of our side, so to speak, the Western, Christian side, and Islam?
Cleese: There shouldn't be a difference.
[SPIEGEL Interview with John Cleese: 'Satire Makes People Think' - 2015] ~ John Cleese,#NFDB
1124:Transcendental generosity is generally misunderstood in the study of the Buddhist scriptures as meaning being kind to someone who is lower than you. Someone has this pain and suffering and you are in a superior position and can save them—which is a very simple-minded way of looking down on someone. But in the case of the bodhisattva, generosity is not so callous. It is something very strong and powerful; it is communication.
Communication must transcend irritation, otherwise it will be like trying to make a comfortable bed in a briar patch. The penetrating qualities of external color, energy, and light will come toward us, penetrating our attempts to communicate like a thorn pricking our skin. We will wish to subdue this intense irritation and our communication will be blocked.
Communication must be radiation and receiving and exchange. Whenever irritation is involved, then we are not able to see properly and fully and clearly the spacious quality of that which is coming toward us, that which is presenting itself as communication. The external world is immediately rejected by our irritation which says, “no, no, this irritates me, go away.” Such an attitude is the complete opposite of transcendental generosity.
So the bodhisattva must experience the complete communication of generosity, transcending irritation and self-defensiveness. Otherwise, when thorns threaten to prick us, we feel that we are being attacked, that we must defend ourselves. We run away from the tremendous opportunity for communication that has been given to us, and we have not been brave enough even to look to the other shore of the river. We are looking back and trying to run away.
Generosity is a willingness to give, to open without philosophical or pious or religious motives, just simply doing what is required at any moment in any situation, not being afraid to receive anything. Opening could take place in the middle of a highway. We are not afraid that smog and dust or people’s hatreds and passions will overwhelm us; we simply open, completely surrender, give. This means that we do not judge, do not evaluate. If we attempt to judge or evaluate our experience, if we try to decide to what extent we should open, to what extent we should remain closed, the openness will have no meaning at all and the idea of paramita, of transcendental generosity, will be in vain. Our action will not transcend anything, will cease to be the act of a bodhisattva.
The whole implication of the idea of transcendence is that we see through the limited notions, the limited conceptions, the warfare mentality of this as opposed to that. Generally, when we look at an object, we do not allow ourselves to see it properly. Automatically we see our version of the object instead of actually seeing the object as it is. Then we are quite satisfied, because we have manufactured or own version of the thing within ourselves. Then we comment on it, we judge, we take or reject; but there is on real communication going on at all.
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, p.167, Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche ~ Ch gyam Trungpa,#NFDB
1125: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
1126:Evil
Hasten towards the good, leave behind all evil thoughts, for to do good without enthusiasm is to have a mind which delights in evil.
If one does an evil action, he should not persist in it, he should not delight in it. For full of suffering is the accumulation of evil.
If one does a good action, he should persist in it and take delight in it. Full of happiness is the accumulation of good.
As long as his evil action has not yet ripened, an evildoer may experience contentment. But when it ripens, the wrong-doer knows unhappiness.
As long as his good action has not yet ripened, one who does good may experience unhappiness. But when it ripens, the good man knows happiness.
Do not treat evil lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the fool fills himself little by little with wickedness.
Do not treat good lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the sage fills himself little by little with goodness.
The merchant who is carrying many precious goods and who has but few companions, avoids dangerous roads; and a man who loves his life is wary of poison. Even so should one act regarding evil.
A hand that has no wound can carry poison with impunity; act likewise, for evil cannot touch the righteous man.
If you offend one who is pure, innocent and defenceless, the insult will fall back on you, as if you threw dust against the wind.
Some are reborn here on earth, evil-doers go to the worlds of Niraya,1 the just go to the heavenly worlds, but those who have freed themselves from all desire attain Nirvana.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can find refuge from his evil actions.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can hide from death.
People have the habit of dealing lightly with thoughts that come. And the atmosphere is full of thoughts of all kinds which do not in fact belong to anybody in particular, which move perpetually from one person to another, very freely, much too freely, because there are very few people who can keep their thoughts under control.
When you take up the Buddhist discipline to learn how to control your thoughts, you make very interesting discoveries. You try to observe your thoughts. Instead of letting them pass freely, sometimes even letting them enter your head and establish themselves in a quite inopportune way, you look at them, observe them and you realise with stupefaction that in the space of a few seconds there passes through the head a series of absolutely improbable thoughts that are altogether harmful.
...?
Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking one's own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life.
*
What you must know is exactly the thing you want to do in life. The time needed to learn it does not matter at all. For those who wish to live according to Truth, there is always something to learn and some progress to make. 2 October 1969 ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#NFDB
1127:Much more than skeleton, it is flash, I mean the carrion flesh, which disturb and alarm us – and which alleviates us as well. The Buddhists monks gladly frequented charnel houses: where corner desire more surely and emancipate oneself from it? The horrible being a path of liberation in every period of fervor and inwardness, our remains have enjoyed great favor. In the Middle Ages, a man made a regimen of salvation, he believed energetically: the corpse was in fashion. Faith was vigorous than, invincible; it cherished the livid and the fetid, it knew the profits to be derived from corruption and gruesomeness. Today, an edulcorated religion adheres only to „nice” hallucinations, to Evolution and to Progress. It is not such a religion which might afford us the modern equivalent of the dense macabre.
„Let a man who aspires to nirvana act so that nothing is dear to him”, we read in a Buddhist text. It is enough to consider these specters, to meditate on the fate of the flash which adhered to them, in order to understand the urgency of detachment. There is no ascesis in the double rumination on the flesh and on the skeleton, on the dreadful decrepitude of the one and the futile permanence of the other. It is a good exercise to sever ourselves now and then from our face, from our skin, to lay aside this deceptive sheathe, then to discard – if only for a moment – that layer of grease which keeps us from discerning what is fundamental in ourselves. Once exercise is over, we are freer and more alone, almost invulnerable.
In other to vanquish attachments and the disadvantages which derive from them, we should have to contemplate the ultimate nudity of a human being, force our eyes to pierce his entrails and all the rest, wallow in the horror of his secretions, in his physiology of an imminent corpse. This vision would not be morbid but methodical, a controlled obsession, particularly salutary in ordeals. The skeleton incites us to serenity; the cadaver to renunciation. In the sermon of futility which both of them preach to us happiness is identified with the destruction of our bounds. To have scanted no detail of such a teaching and even so to come to terms with simulacra!
Blessed was the age when solitaries could plumb their depths without seeming obsessed, deranged. Their imbalance was not assigned a negative coefficient, as is the case for us. They would sacrifice ten, twenty years, a whole life, for a foreboding, for a flash of the absolute. The word „depth” has a meaning only in connection with epochs when the monk was considered as the noblest human exemplar. No one will gain – say the fact that he is in the process of disappearing. For centuries, he has done no more than survive himself. To whom would he address himself, in a universe which calls him a „parasite”? In Tibet, the last country where monks still mattered, they have been ruled out. Yet is was a rare consolation to think that thousands of thousands of hermits could be meditating there, today, on the themes of the prajnaparamita. Even if it had only odious aspects, monasticism would still be worth more than any other ideal. Now more then ever, we should build monasteries … for those who believe in everything and for those who believe in nothing. Where to escape? There no longer exist a single place where we can professionally execrate this world. ~ Emil M Cioran,#NFDB
1128: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
1129:Kral Majales (King Of May)
And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks and eyeglasses and
lying policemen
and the Capitalists proffer Napalm and money in green suitcases to the
Naked,
and the Communists create heavy industry but the heart is also heavy
and the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire for
their own glamour
in the Future, in the Future, but now drink vodka and lament the Security
Forces,
and the Capitalists drink gin and whiskey on airplanes but let Indian brown
millions starve
and when Communist and Capitalist assholes tangle the Just man is arrested
or robbed or has his head cut off,
but not like Kabir, and the cigarette cough of the Just man above the clouds
in the bright sunshine is a salute to the health of the blue sky.
For I was arrested thrice in Prague, once for singing drunk on Narodni
street,
once knocked down on the midnight pavement by a mustached agent who
screamed out BOUZERANT,
once for losing my notebooks of unusual sex politics dream opinions,
and I was sent from Havana by planes by detectives in green uniform,
and I was sent from Prague by plane by detectives in Czechoslovakian
business suits,
Cardplayers out of Cezanne, the two strange dolls that entered Joseph K's
room at morn
also entered mine and ate at my table, and examined my scribbles,
and followed me night and morn from the houses of the lovers to the cafes of
Centrum And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,
and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and Beard of my
own body
and I am the King of May, which is Kral Majales in the Czechoslovakian
tongue,
and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 people
chose my name,
and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at London
Airport,
and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and a
Buddhist Jew
51
who whorships the Sacred Heart of Christ the blue body of Krishna the
straight back of Ram
the beads of Chango the Nigerian singing Shiva Shiva in a manner which
I have invented,
and the King of May is a middleeuropean honor, mine in the XX century
despite space ships and the Time Machine, because I have heard the voice of
Blake
in a vision
and repeat that voice. And I am the King of May that sleeps with teenagers
laughing.
And I am the King of May, that I may be expelled from my Kingdom with
Honor, as of old,
To show the difference between Caesar's Kingdom and the Kingdom of the
May of Man and I am the King of May because I touched my finger to my forehead
saluting
a luminous heavy girl trembling hands who said 'one moment Mr. Ginsberg'
before a fat young Plainclothesman stepped between our bodies - I was
going to England and I am the King of May, in a giant jetplane touching Albion's airfield
trembling in fear
as the plane roars to a landing on the gray concrete, shakes & expels air,
and rolls slowly to a stop under the clouds with part of blue heaven still
visible.
And tho' I am the King of May, the Marxists have beat me upon the street,
kept me up all night in Police Station, followed me thru Springtime
Prague, detained me in secret and deported me from our kingdom by
airplane.
This I have written this poem on a jet seat in mid Heaven.
~ Allen Ginsberg,#NFDB
1130:What distinguishes us above all from Muslim-born or converted individuals—“psychologically”, one could say—is that our mind is a priori centered on universal metaphysics (Advaita Vedānta, Shahādah, Risālat al-Ahadiyah) and the universal path of the divine Name (japa-yoga, nembutsu, dhikr, prayer of the heart); it is because of these two factors that we are in a traditional form, which in fact—though not in principle—is Islam. The universal orthodoxy emanating from these two sources of authority determines our interpretation of the sharī'ah and Islam in general, somewhat as the moon influences the oceans without being located on the terrestrial globe; in the absence of the moon, the motions of the sea would be inconceivable and “illegitimate”, so to speak. What universal metaphysics says has decisive authority for us, as does the “onomatological” science connected to it, a fact that once earned us the reproach of “de-Islamicizing Islam”; it is not so much a matter of the conscious application of principles formulated outside of Islamism by metaphysical traditions from Asia as of inspirations in conformity with these principles; in a situation such as ours, the spiritual authority—or the soul that is its vehicle—becomes like a point of intersection for all the rays of truth, whatever their origin.
One must always take account of the following: in principle the universal authority of the metaphysical and initiatic traditions of Asia, whose point of view reflects the nature of things more or less directly, takes precedence—when such an alternative exists—over the generally more “theological” authority of the monotheistic religions; I say “when such an alternative exists”, for obviously it sometimes happens, in esoterism as in essential symbolism, that there is no such alternative; no one can deny, however, that in Semitic doctrines the formulations and rules are usually determined by considerations of dogmatic, moral, and social opportuneness. But this cannot apply to pure Islam, that is, to the authority of its essential doctrine and fundamental symbolism; the Shahādah cannot but mean that “the world is false and Brahma is true” and that “you are That” (tat tvam asi), or that “I am Brahma” (aham Brahmāsmi); it is a pure expression of both the unreality of the world and the supreme identity; in the same way, the other “pillars of Islam” (arqān al-Dīn), as well as such fundamental rules as dietary and artistic prohibitions, obviously constitute supports of intellection and realization, which universal metaphysics—or the “Unanimous Tradition”—can illuminate but not abolish, as far as we are concerned. When universal wisdom states that the invocation contains and replaces all other rites, this is of decisive authority against those who would make the sharī'ah or sunnah into a kind of exclusive karma-yoga, and it even allows us to draw conclusions by analogy (qiyās, ijtihād) that most Shariites would find illicit; or again, should a given Muslim master require us to introduce every dhikr with an ablution and two raka'āt, the universal—and “antiformalist”—authority of japa-yoga would take precedence over the authority of this master, at least in our case. On the other hand, should a Hindu or Buddhist master give the order to practice japa before an image, it goes without saying that it is the authority of Islamic symbolism that would take precedence for us quite apart from any question of universality, because forms are forms, and some of them are essential and thereby rejoin the universality of the spirit.
(28 January 1956) ~ Frithjof Schuon,#NFDB
1131:Homage to the Adamantine Mind! Dharma king, you who have realized the essence; you who expound the way of being, out of compassion: king Buddha Samdrup, I bow to you in my heart, pray listen to me. Through your kind and skillful means, by a habit long formed, and as a fruit of long practice in this life, I have realized the nature of ever-presence. When the secret of appearance is revealed, everything arises in a tone of voidness, undefined by the marks of identity. Like a sky that is nothing but an image. When the secret of thoughts is revealed, though active, they are but mind's sport, naked reflections of transcendent mind unsullied by deliberation and correction. When the secret of recollection is revealed, every memory is but an illumination of self-knowledge in the ever-present state, untainted by ego consciousness. When the secret of illusions is revealed, they seem nothing but the primordial state, appearing in the visual field of rikpa, untouched by the dualism of mind and things. When the secret of abiding is revealed, you are in the state of self-cognition, however long you remain, free of elaboration, the expanse unstained by laxity and torpor. When the secret of mobility is revealed, however much you move, you remain within clear light, unstained by distraction, excitement, and so on, a true self-recognizer. When the secret of samsara is revealed, however often one may circle, the cycles are illusion unaffected by joy and pain. This is the realization of Buddha's four bodies. When the secret of peace is revealed, however tranquil one's attainments, they are but an image; this is the natural pure space, free of the signs of being and nonbeing. When the secret of birth is revealed, however one's reborn, it's but an emanation; meditation's vision of pure self-generation free of clinging and apprehensions. When the secret of death is revealed, however often one may die, it's but the vision of the ultimate, the stages of completion perfect, free of any karmic deeds. When the secret of bliss is revealed, its intensity cannot be bettered; this is the state of spontaneous bliss, free of all traces of contamination. When the secret of luminosity is revealed, however bright, it's but an empty form -- mother image of the void in space, free of every multiplicity. When the secret of emptiness is revealed, though empty, it is the unsurpassed, devoid of every contingent stain, and free from every deception. When the secret of the view is revealed, however much one looks and sees, the world remains beyond thought and word -- the expanse beyond dichotomies. When the secret of meditation is revealed, however much one meditates, it's but a state -- undistracted, and in natural restfulness, free of exertion and constraint. When the secret of action is revealed, whatever one does are the six perfections -- spontaneous, free, and to the point, uncolored by strictures and moral codes. When the secret of fruition is revealed, achievements are but the cognition of mind as dharmakaya, the mind itself free of hope and fear. This is the profound innermost secret; guru's blessings have entered my heart; naked nonduality dawns within; the secret of samsara and nirvana is revealed! I have beheld the face of the ordinary mind; I have arrived at the view that is free of extremes; even if the Buddha came in person now, I have no queries that require his advice! This song on the view of voidness expounding the nature of the being of all, spoken in words inspired by conviction, was sung in a voice echoing itself, unobstructed, in between meditation sessions. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
~ Karma Trinley, A Song on the View of Voidness
,#NFDB
1132: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
1133:In short the only fully rational world would be the world of wishing-caps, the world of telepathy, where every desire is fulfilled instanter, without having to consider or placate surrounding or intermediate powers. This is the Absolute's own world. He calls upon the phenomenal world to be, and it IS, exactly as he calls for it, no other condition being required. In our world, the wishes of the individual are only one condition. Other individuals are there with other wishes and they must be propitiated first. So Being grows under all sorts of resistances in this world of the many, and, from
compromise to compromise, only gets organized gradually into what may be called secondarily rational shape. We approach the wishing-cap type of organization only in a few departments of life. We want water and we turn a faucet. We want a kodak-picture and we press a button. We want information and we telephone. We want to travel and we buy a ticket. In these and similar cases, we hardly need to do more than the wishing—the world is rationally organized to do the rest.
But this talk of rationality is a parenthesis and a digression. What we were discussing was the idea of a world growing not integrally but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts. Take the hypothesis seriously and as a live one. Suppose that the world's author put the case to you before creation, saying: "I am going to make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each several agent does its own 'level best.' I offer you the chance of taking part in such a world. Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through. It is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to be done. Will you join the procession? Will you trust yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the risk?"
Should you in all seriousness, if participation in such a world were proposed to you, feel bound to reject it as not safe enough? Would you say that, rather than be part and parcel of so fundamentally pluralistic and irrational a universe, you preferred to relapse into the slumber of nonentity from which you had been momentarily aroused by the tempter's voice?
Of course if you are normally constituted, you would do nothing of the sort. There is a healthy- minded buoyancy in most of us which such a universe would exactly fit. We would therefore accept the offer—"Top! und schlag auf schlag!" It would be just like the world we practically live in; and loyalty to our old nurse Nature would forbid us to say no. The world proposed would seem 'rational' to us in the most living way.
Most of us, I say, would therefore welcome the proposition and add our fiat to the fiat of the creator. Yet perhaps some would not; for there are morbid minds in every human collection, and to them the prospect of a universe with only a fighting chance of safety would probably make no appeal. There are moments of discouragement in us all, when we are sick of self and tired of vainly striving. Our own life breaks down, and we fall into the attitude of the prodigal son. We mistrust the chances of things. We want a universe where we can just give up, fall on our father's neck, and be absorbed into the absolute life as a drop of water melts into the river or the sea.
The peace and rest, the security desiderated at such moments is security against the bewildering accidents of so much finite experience. Nirvana means safety from this everlasting round of adventures of which the world of sense consists. The hindoo and the buddhist, for this is essentially their attitude, are simply afraid, afraid of more experience, afraid of life.
And to men of this complexion, religious monism comes with its consoling words: "All is needed and essential—even you with your sick soul and heart. All are one ~ William James,#NFDB
1134: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
1135:Kaddish, Part I
Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.
downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
shout blind on the phonograph
the rhythm the rhythm--and your memory in my head three years after-And read Adonais' last triumphant stanzas aloud--wept, realizing
how we suffer-And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember,
prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of Answers--and my own imagination of a withered leaf--at dawn-Dreaming back thru life, Your time--and mine accelerating toward Apocalypse,
the final moment--the flower burning in the Day--and what comes after,
looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city
a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom
Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed-like a poem in the dark--escaped back to Oblivion-No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream,
trapped in its disappearance,
sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worshipping each other,
worshipping the God included in it all--longing or inevitability?--while it
lasts, a Vision--anything more?
It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder,
Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shouldering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant--and
the sky above--an old blue place.
or down the Avenue to the south, to--as I walk toward the Lower East Side
--where you walked 50 years ago, little girl--from Russia, eating the
first poisonous tomatoes of America frightened on the dock
then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?--toward
Newark-toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice
cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards-Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school,
and learning to be mad, in a dream--what is this life?
Toward the Key in the window--and the great Key lays its head of light
on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the
46
sidewalk--in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward
the Yiddish Theater--and the place of poverty
you knew, and I know, but without caring now--Strange to have moved
thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again,
with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstops doors and dark boys on
the street, firs escapes old as you
--Tho you're not old now, that's left here with me-Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe--and I guess that dies with
us--enough to cancel all that comes--What came is gone forever
every time-That's good!That leaves it open for no regret--no fear radiators, lacklove,
torture even toothache in the end-Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul--and the lamb, the soul,
in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change's fierce hunger--hair
and teeth--and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin,
braintricked Implacability.
Ai! ai!we do worse! We are in a fix!And you're out, Death let you out,
Death had the Mercy, you're done with your century, done with
God, done with the path thru it--Done with yourself at last--Pure
--Back to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all--before the
world-There, more suffering for you.I know where you've gone, it's good.
No more flowers in the summer fields of New York, no joy now, no more
fear of Louis,
and no more of his sweetness and glasses, his high school decades, debts,
loves, frightened telephone calls, conception beds, relatives, hands-No more of sister Elanor,--she gone before you--we kept it secret you
killed her--or she killed herself to bear with you--an arthritic heart
--But Death's killed you both--No matter-Nor your memory of your mother, 1915 tears in silent movies weeks and
weeks--forgetting, agrieve watching Marie Dressler address humanity, Chaplin dance in youth,
or Boris Godunov, Chaliapin's at the Met, halling his voice of a weeping Czar
--by standing room with Elanor & Max--watching also the Capital
ists take seats in Orchestra, white furs, diamonds,
with the YPSL's hitch-hiking thru Pennsylvania, in black baggy gym skirts
pants, photograph of 4 girls holding each other round the waste, and
laughing eye, too coy, virginal solitude of 1920
all girls grown old, or dead now, and that long hair in the grave--lucky to
have husbands later-You made it--I came too--Eugene my brother before (still grieving now and
will gream on to his last stiff hand, as he goes thru his cancer--or kill
47
--later perhaps--soon he will think--)
And it's the last moment I remember, which I see them all, thru myself, now
--tho not you
I didn't foresee what you felt--what more hideous gape of bad mouth came
first--to you--and were you prepared?
To go where?In that Dark--that--in that God? a radiance? A Lord in the
Void?Like an eye in the black cloud in a dream?Adonoi at last, with
you?
Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess! Not merely the yellow skull
in the grave, or a box of worm dust, and a stained ribbon--Deathshead with Halo?can you believe it?
Is it only the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence,
than none ever was?
Nothing beyond what we have--what you had--that so pitiful--yet Triumph,
to have been here, and changed, like a tree, broken, or flower--fed to the
ground--but made, with its petals, colored, thinking Great Universe,
shaken, cut in the head, leaf stript, hid in an egg crate hospital, cloth
wrapped, sore--freaked in the moon brain, Naughtless.
No flower like that flower, which knew itself in the garden, and fought the
knife--lost
Cut down by an idiot Snowman's icy--even in the Spring--strange ghost
thought some--Death--Sharp icicle in his hand--crowned with old
roses--a dog for his eyes--cock of a sweatshop--heart of electric
irons.
All the accumulations of life, that wear us out--clocks, bodies, consciousness,
shoes, breasts--begotten sons--your Communism--'Paranoia' into
hospitals.
You once kicked Elanor in the leg, she died of heart failure of
p?within a year, the two of you, sisters in death.Is
Elanor happy?
Max grieves alive in an office on Lower Broadway, lone large mustache over
midnight Accountings, not life passes--as he sees--and
what does he doubt now?Still dream of making money, or that might
have made money, hired nurse, had children, found even your Immortality, Naomi?
I'll see him I've got to cut through to talk to you as I didn't
when you had a mouth.
we're bound for that, Forever like Emily Dickinson's horses
--headed to the End.
They know the way--These Steeds--run faster than we think--it's our own
life they cross--and take with them.
48
Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married dreamed, mortal changed--Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under
pine, almed in Earth, blamed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.
Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless,
Father in I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I'm
hymnless, I'm Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore
Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not
light or darkness, Dayless Eternity-Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some
of my Time, now given to Nothing--to praise Thee--But Death
This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping
--page beyond Psalm--Last change of mine and Naomi--to God's perfect
Darkness--Death, stay thy phantoms!
II
Over and over--refrain--of the Hospitals--still haven't written your
history--leave it abstract--a few images
run thru the mind--like the saxophone chorus of houses and years-remembrance of electrical shocks.
By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your
nervousness--you were fat--your next move-By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you-once and for all--when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my
opinion of the cosmos, I was lost-By my later burden--vow to illuminate mankind--this is release of
particulars--(mad as you)--(sanity a trick of agreement)-But you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and
spied a mystical assassin from Newark,
So phoned the Doctor--'OK go way for a rest'--so I put on my coat
and walked you downstreet--On the way a grammarschool boy screamed,
unaccountably--'Where you goin Lady to Death'? I shuddered-and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask
against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma-And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of
the gang?You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on--to New
York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound-~ Allen Ginsberg,#NFDB
1136:financially and employed him as his unofficial secretary.
In March 768, he began his journey again and got as far as Hunan province,
where he died in Tanzhou (now Changsha) in November or December 770, in his
58th year. He was survived by his wife and two sons, who remained in the area
for some years at least. His last known descendant is a grandson who requested
a grave inscription for the poet from Yuan Zhen in 813.
Hung summarises his life by concluding that, "He appeared to be a filial son, an
affectionate father, a generous brother, a faithful husband, a loyal friend, a
dutiful official, and a patriotic subject."
Works
Criticism of ~ Du Fu
's works has focused on his strong sense of history, his moral
engagement, and his technical excellence.
History
Since the Song dynasty, critics have called ~ Du Fu
the "poet historian". The most
directly historical of his poems are those commenting on military tactics or the
successes and failures of the government, or the poems of advice which he wrote
to the emperor. Indirectly, he wrote about the effect of the times in which he
lived on himself, and on the ordinary people of China. As Watson notes, this is
information "of a kind seldom found in the officially compiled histories of the
era".
~ Du Fu
's political comments are based on emotion rather than calculation: his
prescriptions have been paraphrased as, "Let us all be less selfish, let us all do
what we are supposed to do". Since his views were impossible to disagree with,
his forcefully expressed truisms enabled his installation as the central figure of
Chinese poetic history.
Moral engagement
A second favourite epithet of Chinese critics is that of "poet sage" (?? shi shèng),
a counterpart to the philosophical sage, Confucius. One of the earliest surviving
works, The Song of the Wagons (from around 750), gives voice to the sufferings
of a conscript soldier in the imperial army, even before the beginning of the
rebellion; this poem brings out the tension between the need of acceptance and
fulfilment of one's duties, and a clear-sighted consciousness of the suffering
which this can involve. These themes are continuously articulated in the poems
on the lives of both soldiers and civilians which ~ Du Fu
produced throughout his
life.
Although ~ Du Fu
's frequent references to his own difficulties can give the
impression of an all-consuming solipsism, Hawkes argues that his "famous
compassion in fact includes himself, viewed quite objectively and almost as an
afterthought". He therefore "lends grandeur" to the wider picture by comparing it
to "his own slightly comical triviality".
~ Du Fu
's compassion, for himself and for others, was part of his general
broadening of the scope of poetry: he devoted many works to topics which had
previously been considered unsuitable for poetic treatment. Zhang Jie wrote that
for ~ Du Fu
, "everything in this world is poetry", and he wrote extensively on
subjects such as domestic life, calligraphy, paintings, animals, and other poems.
Technical excellence
~ Du Fu
's work is notable above all for its range. Chinese critics traditionally used
the term txt (jídàchéng- "complete symphony"), a reference to Mencius'
description of Confucius. Yuan Zhen was the first to note the breadth of ~ Du Fu
's
achievement, writing in 813 that his predecessor, "united in his work traits which
previous men had displayed only singly". He mastered all the forms of Chinese
poetry: Chou says that in every form he "either made outstanding advances or
contributed outstanding examples". Furthermore, his poems use a wide range of
registers, from the direct and colloquial to the allusive and self-consciously
literary. This variety is manifested even within individual works: Owen identifies
the, "rapid stylistic and thematic shifts" in poems which enable the poet to
represent different facets of a situation, while Chou uses the term "juxtaposition"
as the major analytical tool in her work. ~ Du Fu
is noted for having written more
on poetics and painting than any other writer of his time. He wrote eighteen
poems on painting alone, more than any other Tang poet. ~ Du Fu
's seemingly
negative commentary on the prized horse paintings of Han Gan ignited a
controversy that has persisted to the present day.
The tenor of his work changed as he developed his style and adapted to his
surroundings ("chameleon-like" according to Watson): his earliest works are in a
relatively derivative, courtly style, but he came into his own in the years of the
rebellion. Owen comments on the "grim simplicity" of the Qinzhou poems, which
mirrors the desert landscape; the works from his Chengdu period are "light, often
finely observed"; while the poems from the late Kuizhou period have a "density
and power of vision".
Influence
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, ~ Du Fu
's writings are considered by
many literary critics to be among the greatest of all time, and it states "his
dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a
phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that
no translation can ever reveal."
In his lifetime and immediately following his death, ~ Du Fu
was not greatly
appreciated. In part this can be attributed to his stylistic and formal innovations,
some of which are still "considered extremely daring and bizarre by Chinese
critics." There are few contemporary references to him—only eleven poems from
six writers—and these describe him in terms of affection, but not as a paragon of
poetic or moral ideals. ~ Du Fu
is also poorly represented in contemporary
anthologies of poetry.
However, as Hung notes, he "is the only Chinese poet whose influence grew with
time", and his works began to increase in popularity in the ninth century. Early
positive comments came from Bai Juyi, who praised the moral sentiments of
some of ~ Du Fu
's works (although he found these in only a small fraction of the
poems), and from Han Yu, who wrote a piece defending ~ Du Fu
and Li Bai on
aesthetic grounds from attacks made against them. Both these writers showed
the influence of ~ Du Fu
in their own poetic work. By the beginning of the 10th
century, Wei Zhuang constructed the first replica of his thatched cottage in
Sichuan.
It was in the 11th century, during the Northern Song era that ~ Du Fu
's reputation
reached its peak. In this period a comprehensive re-evaluation of earlier poets
took place, in which Wang Wei, Li Bai and ~ Du Fu
came to be regarded as
representing respectively the Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian strands of Chinese
culture. At the same time, the development of Neo-Confucianism ensured that
~ Du Fu
, as its poetic exemplar, occupied the paramount position. Su Shi famously
expressed this reasoning when he wrote that ~ Du Fu
was "preeminent...
because... through all his vicissitudes, he never for the space of a meal forgot his
sovereign". His influence was helped by his ability to reconcile apparent
opposites: political conservatives were attracted by his loyalty to the established
order, while political radicals embraced his concern for the poor. Literary
conservatives could look to his technical mastery, while literary radicals were
inspired by his innovations. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of
China, ~ Du Fu
's loyalty to the state and concern for the poor have been
interpreted as embryonic nationalism and socialism, and he has been praised for
his use of simple, "people's language".
~ Du Fu
's popularity grew to such an extent that it is as hard to measure his
influence as that of Shakespeare in England: it was hard for any Chinese poet not
to be influenced by him. While there was never another ~ Du Fu
, individual poets
followed in the traditions of specific aspects of his work: Bai Juyi's concern for the
poor, Lu You's patriotism, and Mei Yaochen's reflections on the quotidian are a
few examples. More broadly, ~ Du Fu
's work in transforming the lushi from mere
word play into "a vehicle for serious poetic utterance" set the stage for every
subsequent writer in the genre.
~ Du Fu
has also been influential beyond China, although in common with the other
High Tang poets, his reception into the Japanese literary culture was relatively
late. It was not until the 17th century that he was accorded the same level of
fame in Japan as in China, but he then had a profound influence on poets such as
Matsuo Basho. In the 20th century, he was the favourite poet of Kenneth
Rexroth, who has described him as "the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet
who has survived in any language", and commented that, "he has made me a
better man, as a moral agent and as a perceiving organism".
A Homeless Man's Departure
After the Rebellion of 755, all was silent wasteland,
gardens and cottages turned to grass and thorns.
My village had over a hundred households,
but the chaotic world scattered them east and west.
No information about the survivors;
the dead are dust and mud.
I, a humble soldier, was defeated in battle.
I ran back home to look for old roads
and walked a long time through the empty lanes.
The sun was thin, the air tragic and dismal.
I met only foxes and raccoons,
their hair on end as they snarled in rage.
Who remains in my neighborhood?
One or two old widows.
A returning bird loves its old branches,
how could I give up this poor nest?
In spring I carry my hoe all alone,
yet still water the land at sunset.
The county governor's clerk heard I'd returned
and summoned me to practice the war-drum.
This military service won't take me from my state.
I look around and have no one to worry about.
It's just me alone and the journey is short,
but I will end up lost if I travel too far.
Since my village has been washed away,
near or far makes no difference.
I will forever feel pain for my long-sick mother.
I abandoned her in this valley five years ago.
She gave birth to me, yet I could not help her.
We cry sour sobs till our lives end.
In my life I have no family to say farewell to,
so how can I be called a human being?
~ Du Fu,#NFDB
1137: Love and Death
Love and Death
In woodlands of the bright and early world,
When love was to himself yet new and warm
And stainless, played like morning with a flower
Ruru with his young bride Priyumvada.
Fresh-cheeked and dew-eyed white Priyumvada
Opened her budded heart of crimson bloom
To love, to Ruru; Ruru, a happy flood
Of passion round a lotus dancing thrilled,
Blinded with his soul's waves Priyumvada.
To him the earth was a bed for this sole flower,
To her all the world was filled with his embrace.
Wet with new rains the morning earth, released
From her fierce centuries and burning suns,
Lavished her breath in greenness; poignant flowers
Thronged all her eager breast, and her young arms
Cradled a childlike bounding life that played
And would not cease, nor ever weary grew
Of her bright promise; for all was joy and breeze
And perfume, colour and bloom and ardent rays
Of living, and delight desired the world.
Then Earth was quick and pregnant tamelessly;
A free and unwalled race possessed her plains
Whose hearts uncramped by bonds, whose unspoiled thoughts
At once replied to light. Foisoned the fields;
Lonely and rich the forests and the swaying
Of those unnumbered tops affected men
With thoughts to their vast music kin. Undammed
The virgin rivers moved towards the sea,
And mountains yet unseen and peoples vague
Winged young imagination like an eagle
To strange beauty remote. And Ruru felt
The sweetness of the early earth as sap
All through him, and short life an aeon made
By boundless possibility, and love,
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Sweetest of all unfathomable love,
A glory untired. As a bright bird comes flying
From airy extravagance to his own home,
And breasts his mate, and feels her all his goal,
So from boon sunlight and the fresh chill wave
Which swirled and lapped between the slumbering fields,
From forest pools and wanderings mid leaves
Through emerald ever-new discoveries,
Mysterious hillsides ranged and buoyant-swift
Races with our wild brothers in the meads,
Came Ruru back to the white-bosomed girl,
Strong-winged to pleasure. She all fresh and new
Rose to him, and he plunged into her charm.
For neither to her honey and poignancy
Artlessly interchanged, nor any limit
To the sweet physical delight of her
He found. Her eyes like deep and infinite wells
Lured his attracted soul, and her touch thrilled
Not lightly, though so light; the joy prolonged
And sweetness of the lingering of her lips
Was every time a nectar of surprise
To her lover; her smooth-gleaming shoulder bared
In darkness of her hair showed jasmine-bright,
While her kissed bosom by rich tumults stirred
Was a moved sea that rocked beneath his heart.
Then when her lips had made him blind, soft siege
Of all her unseen body to his rule
Betrayed the ravishing realm of her white limbs,
An empire for the glory of a God.
He knew not whether he loved most her smile,
Her causeless tears or little angers swift,
Whether held wet against him from the bath
Among her kindred lotuses, her cheeks
Soft to his lips and dangerous happy breasts
That vanquished all his strength with their desire,
Meeting his absence with her sudden face,
Or when the leaf-hid bird at night complained
Love and Death
Near their wreathed arbour on the moonlit lake,
Sobbing delight out from her heart of bliss,
Or in his clasp of rapture laughing low
Of his close bosom bridal-glad and pleased
With passion and this fiery play of love,
Or breaking off like one who thinks of grief,
Wonderful melancholy in her eyes
Grown liquid and with wayward sorrow large.
Thus he in her found a warm world of sweets,
And lived of ecstasy secure, nor deemed
Any new hour could match that early bliss.
But Love has joys for spirits born divine
More bleeding-lovely than his thornless rose.
That day he had left, while yet the east was dark,
Rising, her bosom and into the river
Swam out, exulting in the sting and swift
Sharp-edged desire around his limbs, and sprang
Wet to the bank, and streamed into the wood.
As a young horse upon the pastures glad
Feels greensward and the wind along his mane
And arches as he goes his neck, so went
In an immense delight of youth the boy
And shook his locks, joy-crested. Boundlessly
He revelled in swift air of life, a creature
Of wide and vigorous morning. Far he strayed
Tempting for flower and fruit branches in heaven,
And plucked, and flung away, and brighter chose,
Seeking comparisons for her bloom; and followed
New streams, and touched new trees, and felt slow beauty
And leafy secret change; for the damp leaves,
Grey-green at first, grew pallid with the light
And warmed with consciousness of sunshine near;
Then the whole daylight wandered in, and made
Hard tracts of splendour, and enriched all hues.
But when a happy sheltered heat he felt
And heard contented voice of living things
Harmonious with the noon, he turned and swiftly
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Baroda, c. 1898 - 1902
Went homeward yearning to Priyumvada,
And near his home emerging from green leaves
He laughed towards the sun: "O father Sun,"
He cried, "how good it is to live, to love!
Surely our joy shall never end, nor we
Grow old, but like bright rivers or pure winds
Sweetly continue, or revive with flowers,
Or live at least as long as senseless trees."
He dreamed, and said with a soft smile: "Lo, she!
And she will turn from me with angry tears
Her delicate face more beautiful than storm
Or rainy moonlight. I will follow her,
And soo the her heart with sovereign flatteries;
Or rather all tyranny exhaust and taste
The beauty of her anger like a fruit,
Vexing her soul with helplessness; then soften
Easily with quiet undenied demand
Of heart insisting upon heart; or else
Will reinvest her beauty bright with flowers,
Or with my hands her little feet persuade.
Then will her face be like a sudden dawn,
And flower compelled into reluctant smiles."
He had not ceased when he beheld her. She,
Tearing a jasmine bloom with waiting hands,
Stood drooping, petulant, but heard at once
His footsteps and before she was aware,
A sudden smile of exquisite delight
Leaped to her mouth, and a great blush of joy
Surprised her cheeks. She for a moment stood
Beautiful with her love before she died;
And he laughed towards her. With a pitiful cry
She paled; moaning, her stricken limbs collapsed.
But petrified, in awful dumb surprise,
He gazed; then waking with a bound was by her,
All panic expectation. As he came,
He saw a brilliant flash of coils evade
The sunlight, and with hateful gorgeous hood
Love and Death
Darted into green safety, hissing, death.
Voiceless he sank beside her and stretched out
His arms and desperately touched her face,
As if to attract her soul to live, and sought
Beseeching with his hands her bosom. O, she
Was warm, and cruel hope pierced him; but pale
As jasmines fading on a girl's sweet breast
Her cheek was, and forgot its perfect rose.
Her eyes that clung to sunlight yet, with pain
Were large and feebly round his neck her arms
She lifted and, desiring his pale cheek
Against her bosom, sobbed out piteously,
"Ah, love!" and stopped heart-broken; then, "O Love!
Alas the green dear home that I must leave
So early! I was so glad of love and kisses,
And thought that centuries would not exhaust
The deep embrace. And I have had so little
Of joy and the wild day and throbbing night,
Laughter, and tenderness, and strife and tears.
I have not numbered half the brilliant birds
In one green forest, nor am familiar grown
With sunrise and the progress of the eves,
Nor have with plaintive cries of birds made friends,
Cuckoo and rainlark and love-speak-to-me.
I have not learned the names of half the flowers
Around me; so few trees know me by my name;
Nor have I seen the stars so very often
That I should die. I feel a dreadful hand
Drawing me from the touch of thy warm limbs
Into some cold vague mist, and all black night
Descends towards me. I no more am thine,
But go I know not where, and see pale shapes
And gloomy countries and that terrible stream.
O Love, O Love, they take me from thee far,
And whether we shall find each other ever
In the wide dreadful territory of death,
I know not. Or thou wilt forget me quite,
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And life compel thee into other arms.
Ah, come with me! I cannot bear to wander
In that cold cruel country all alone,
Helpless and terrified, or sob by streams
Denied sweet sunlight and by thee unloved."
Slower her voice came now, and over her cheek
Death paused; then, sobbing like a little child
Too early from her bounding pleasures called,
The lovely discontented spirit stole
From her warm body white. Over her leaned
Ruru, and waited for dead lips to move.
Still in the greenwood lay Priyumvada,
And Ruru rose not from her, but with eyes
Emptied of glory hung above his dead,
Only, without a word, without a tear.
Then the crowned wives of the great forest came,
They who had fed her from maternal breasts,
And grieved over the lovely body cold,
And bore it from him; nor did he entreat
One last look nor one kiss, nor yet denied
What he had loved so well. They the dead girl
Into some distant greenness bore away.
But Ruru, while the stillness of the place
Remembered her, sat without voice. He heard
Through the great silence that was now his soul,
The forest sounds, a squirrel's leap through leaves,
The cheeping of a bird just overhead,
A peacock with his melancholy cry
Complaining far away, and tossings dim
And slight unnoticeable stir of trees.
But all these were to him like distant things
And he alone in his heart's void. And yet
No thought he had of her so lately lost.
Rather far pictures, trivial incidents
Of that old life before her delicate face
Had lived for him, dumbly distinct like thoughts
Love and Death
Of men that die, kept with long pomps his mind
Excluding the dead girl. So still he was,
The birds flashed by him with their swift small wings,
Fanning him. Then he moved, then rigorous
Memory through all his body shuddering
Awoke, and he looked up and knew the place,
And recognised greenness immutable,
And saw old trees and the same flowers still bloom.
He felt the bright indifference of earth
And all the lonely uselessness of pain.
Then lifting up the beauty of his brow
He spoke, with sorrow pale: "O grim cold Death!
But I will not like ordinary men
Satiate thee with cries, and falsely woo thee,
And make my grief thy theatre, who lie
Prostrate beneath thy thunderbolts and make
Night witness of their moans, shuddering and crying
When sudden memories pierce them like swords,
And often starting up as at a thought
Intolerable, pace a little, then
Sink down exhausted by brief agony.
O secrecy terrific, darkness vast,
At which we shudder! Somewhere, I know not where,
Somehow, I know not how, I shall confront
Thy gloom, tremendous spirit, and seize with hands
And prove what thou art and what man." He said,
And slowly to the forest wandered. There
Long months he travelled between grief and grief,
Reliving thoughts of her with every pace,
Measuring vast pain in his immortal mind.
And his heart cried in him as when a fire
Roars through wide forests and the branches cry
Burning towards heaven in torture glorious.
So burned, immense, his grief within him; he raised
His young pure face all solemnised with pain,
Voiceless. Then Fate was shaken, and the Gods
Grieved for him, of his silence grown afraid.
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Therefore from peaks divine came flashing down
Immortal Agni and to the uswutth-tree
Cried in the Voice that slays the world: "O tree
That liftest thy enormous branches able
To shelter armies, more than armies now
Shelter, be famous, house a brilliant God.
For the grief grows in Ruru's breast up-piled,
As wrestles with its anguished barricades
In silence an impending flood, and Gods
Immortal grow afraid. For earth alarmed
Shudders to bear the curse lest her young life
Pale with eclipse and all-creating love
Be to mere pain condemned. Divert the wrath
Into thy boughs, Uswuttha - thou shalt be
My throne - glorious, though in eternal pangs,
Yet worth much pain to harbour divine fire."
So ended the young pure destroyer's voice,
And the dumb god consented silently.
In the same noon came Ruru; his mind had paused,
Lured for a moment by soft wandering gleams
Into forgetfulness of grief; for thoughts
Gentle and near-eyed whispering memories
So sweetly came, his blind heart dreamed she lived.
Slow the uswuttha-tree bent down its leaves,
And smote his cheek, and touched his heavy hair.
And Ruru turned illumined. For a moment,
One blissful moment he had felt 'twas she.
So had she often stolen up and touched
His curls with her enamoured fingers small,
Lingering, while the wind smote him with her hair
And her quick breath came to him like spring. Then he,
Turning, as one surprised with heaven, saw
Ready to his swift passionate grasp her bosom
And body sweet expecting his embrace.
Oh, now saw her not, but the guilty tree
Shrinking; then grief back with a double crown
Arose and stained his face with agony.
Love and Death
Nor silence he endured, but the dumb force
Ascetic and inherited, by sires
Fierce-musing earned, from the boy's bosom blazed.
"O uswutth-tree, wantonly who hast mocked
My anguish with the wind, but thou no more
Have joy of the cool wind nor green delight,
But live thy guilty leaves in fire, so long
As Aryan wheels by thy doomed shadow vast
Thunder to war, nor bless with cool wide waves
Lyric Saruswathi nations impure."
He spoke, and the vast tree groaned through its leaves,
Recognising its fate; then smouldered; lines
Of living fire rushed up the girth and hissed
Serpentine in the unconsuming leaves;
Last, all Hutashan in his chariot armed
Sprang on the boughs and blazed into the sky,
And wailing all the great tormented creature
Stood wide in agony; one half was green
And earthly, the other a weird brilliance
Filled with the speed and cry of endless flame.
But he, with the fierce rushing-out of power
Shaken and that strong grasp of anguish, flung
His hands out to the sun; "Priyumvada!"
He cried, and at that well-loved sound there dawned
With overwhelming sweetness miserable
Upon his mind the old delightful times
When he had called her by her liquid name,
Where the voice loved to linger. He remembered
The chompuc bushes where she turned away
Half-angered, and his speaking of her name
Masterfully as to a lovely slave
Rebellious who has erred; at that the slow
Yielding of her small head, and after a little
Her sliding towards him and beautiful
Propitiating body as she sank down
With timid graspings deprecatingly
In prostrate warm surrender, her flushed cheeks
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Upon his feet and little touches soft;
Or her long name uttered beseechingly,
And the swift leap of all her body to him,
And eyes of large repentance, and the weight
Of her wild bosom and lips unsatisfied;
Or hourly call for little trivial needs,
Or sweet unneeded wanton summoning,
Daily appeal that never staled nor lost
Its sudden music, and her lovely speed,
Sedulous occupation left, quick-breathing,
With great glad eyes and eager parted lips;
Or in deep quiet moments murmuring
That name like a religion in her ear,
And her calm look compelled to ecstasy;
Or to the river luring her, or breathed
Over her dainty slumber, or secret sweet
Bridal outpantings of her broken name.
All these as rush unintermitting waves
Upon a swimmer overborne, broke on him
Relentless, things too happy to be endured,
Till faint with the recalled felicity
Low he moaned out: "O pale Priyumvada!
O dead fair flower! yet living to my grief!
But I could only slay the innocent tree,
Powerless when power should have been. Not such
Was Bhrigu from whose sacred strength I spring,
Nor Bhrigu's son, my father, when he blazed
Out from Puloma's side, and burning, blind,
Fell like a tree the ravisher unjust.
But I degenerate from such sires. O Death
That showest not thy face beneath the stars,
But comest masked, and on our dear ones seizing
Fearest to wrestle equally with love!
Nor from thy gloomy house any come back
To tell thy way. But O, if any strength
In lover's constancy to torture dwell
Earthward to force a helping god and such
Love and Death
Ascetic force be born of lover's pain,
Let my dumb pangs be heard. Whoe'er thou art,
O thou bright enemy of Death, descend
And lead me to that portal dim. For I
Have burned in fires cruel as the fire
And lain upon a sharper couch than swords."
He ceased, and heaven thrilled, and the far blue
Quivered as with invisible downward wings.
But Ruru passioned on, and came with eve
To secret grass and a green opening moist
In a cool lustre. Leaned upon a tree
That bathed in faery air and saw the sky
Through branches, and a single parrot loud
Screamed from its top, there stood a golden boy,
Half-naked, with bright limbs all beautiful -
Delicate they were, in sweetness absolute:
For every gleam and every soft strong curve
Magically compelled the eye, and smote
The heart to weakness. In his hands he swung
A bow - not such as human archers use:
For the string moved and murmured like many bees,
And nameless fragrance made the casual air
A peril. He on Ruru that fair face
Turned, and his steps with lovely gesture chained.
"Who art thou here, in forests wandering,
And thy young exquisite face is solemnised
With pain? Luxuriously the Gods have tortured
Thy heart to see such dreadful glorious beauty
Agonise in thy lips and brilliant eyes:
As tyrants in the fierceness of others' pangs
Joy and feel strong, clothing with brilliant fire,
Tyrants in Titan lands. Needs must her mouth
Have been pure honey and her bosom a charm,
Whom thou desirest seeing not the green
And common lovely sounds hast quite forgot."
And Ruru, mastered by the God, replied:
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"I know thee by thy cruel beauty bright,
Kama, who makest many worlds one fire.
Ah, wherefore wilt thou ask of her to increase
The passion and regret? Thou knowest, great love!
Thy nymph her mother, if thou truly art he
And not a dream of my disastrous soul."
But with the thrilled eternal smile that makes
The spring, the lover of Rathi golden-limbed
Replied to Ruru, "Mortal, I am he;
I am that Madan who inform the stars
With lustre and on life's wide canvas fill
Pictures of light and shade, of joy and tears,
Make ordinary moments wonderful
And common speech a charm: knit life to life
With interfusions of opposing souls
And sudden meetings and slow sorceries:
Wing the boy bridegroom to that panting breast,
Smite Gods with mortal faces, dreadfully
Among great beautiful kings and watched by eyes
That burn, force on the virgin's fainting limbs
And drive her to the one face never seen,
The one breast meant eternally for her.
By me come wedded sweets, by me the wife's
Busy delight and passionate obedience,
And loving eager service never sated,
And happy lips, and worshipping soft eyes:
And mine the husband's hungry arms and use
Unwearying of old tender words and ways,
Joy of her hair, and silent pleasure felt
Of nearness to one dear familiar shape.
Nor only these, but many affections bright
And soft glad things cluster around my name.
I plant fraternal tender yearnings, make
The sister's sweet attractiveness and leap
Of heart towards imperious kindred blood,
And the young mother's passionate deep look,
Earth's high similitude of One not earth,
Love and Death
Teach filial heart-beats strong. These are my gifts
For which men praise me, these my glories calm:
But fiercer shafts I can, wild storms blown down
Shaking fixed minds and melting marble natures,
Tears and dumb bitterness and pain unpitied,
Racked thirsting jealousy and kind hearts made stone:
And in undisciplined huge souls I sow
Dire vengeance and impossible cruelties,
Cold lusts that linger and fierce fickleness,
The loves close kin to hate, brute violence
And mad insatiable longings pale,
And passion blind as death and deaf as swords.
O mortal, all deep-souled desires and all
Yearnings immense are mine, so much I can."
So as he spoke, his face grew wonderful
With vast suggestion, his human-seeming limbs
Brightened with a soft splendour: luminous hints
Of the concealed divinity transpired.
But soon with a slight discontented frown:
"So much I can, as even the great Gods learn.
Only with death I wrestle in vain, until
My passionate godhead all becomes a doubt.
Mortal, I am the light in stars, of flowers
The bloom, the nameless fragrance that pervades
Creation: but behind me, older than me,
He comes with night and cold tremendous shade.
Hard is the way to him, most hard to find,
Harder to tread, for perishable feet
Almost impossible. Yet, O fair youth,
If thou must needs go down, and thou art strong
In passion and in constancy, nor easy
The soul to slay that has survived such grief -
Steel then thyself to venture, armed by Love.
Yet listen first what heavy trade they drive
Who would win back their dead to human arms."
So much the God; but swift, with eager eyes
And panting bosom and glorious flushed face,
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The lover: "O great Love! O beautiful Love!
But if by strength is possible, of body
Or mind, battle of spirit or moving speech,
Sweet speech that makes even cruelty grow kind,
Or yearning melody - for I have heard
That when Saruswathi in heaven her harp
Has smitten, the cruel sweetness terrible
Coils taking no denial through the soul,
And tears burst from the hearts of Gods - then I,
Making great music, or with perfect words,
Will strive, or staying him with desperate hands
Match human strength 'gainst formidable Death.
But if with price, ah God! what easier! Tears
Dreadful, innumerable I will absolve,
Or pay with anguish through the centuries,
Soul's agony and torture physical,
So her small hands about my face at last
I feel, close real hair sting me with life,
And palpable breathing bosom on me press."
Then with a lenient smile the mighty God:
"O ignorant fond lover, not with tears
Shalt thou persuade immitigable Death.
He will not pity all thy pangs: nor know
His stony eyes with music to grow kind,
Nor lovely words accepts. And how wilt thou
Wrestle with that grim shadow, who canst not save
One bloom from fading? A sole thing the Gods
Demand from all men living, sacrifice:
Nor without this shall any crown be grasped.
Yet many sacrifices are there, oxen,
And prayers, and Soma wine, and pious flowers,
Blood and the fierce expense of mind, and pure
Incense of perfect actions, perfect thoughts,
Or liberality wide as the sun's,
Or ruthless labour or disastrous tears,
Exile or death or pain more hard than death,
Absence, a desert, from the faces loved;
Love and Death
Even sin may be a sumptuous sacrifice
Acceptable for unholy fruits. But none
Of these the inexorable shadow asks:
Alone of gods Death loves not gifts: he visits
The pure heart as the stained. Lo, the just man
Bowed helpless over his dead, nor all his virtues
Shall quicken that cold bosom: near him the wild
Marred face and passionate and will not leave
Kissing dead lips that shall not chide him more.
Life the pale ghost requires: with half thy life
Thou mayst protract the thread too early cut
Of that delightful spirit - half sweet life.
O Ruru, lo, thy frail precarious days,
And yet how sweet they are! simply to breathe
How warm and sweet! And ordinary things
How exquisite, thou then shalt learn when lost,
How luminous the daylight was, mere sleep
How soft and friendly clasping tired limbs,
And the deliciousness of common food.
And things indifferent thou then shalt want,
Regret rejected beauty, brightnesses
Bestowed in vain. Wilt thou yield up, O lover,
Half thy sweet portion of this light and gladness,
Thy little insufficient share, and vainly
Give to another? She is not thyself:
Thou dost not feel the gladness in her bosom,
Nor with the torture of thy body will she
Throb and cry out: at most with tender looks
And pitiful attempt to feel move near thee,
And weep how far she is from what she loves.
Men live like stars that see each other in heaven,
But one knows not the pleasure and the grief
The others feel: he lonely rapture has,
Or bears his incommunicable pain.
O Ruru, there are many beautiful faces,
But one thyself. Think then how thou shalt mourn
When thou hast shortened joy and feelst at last
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The shadow that thou hadst for such sweet store."
He ceased with a strange doubtful look. But swift
Came back the lover's voice, like passionate rain.
"O idle words! For what is mere sunlight?
Who would live on into extreme old age,
Burden the impatient world, a weary old man,
And look back on a selfish time ill-spent
Exacting out of prodigal great life
Small separate pleasures like an usurer,
And no rich sacrifice and no large act
Finding oneself in others, nor the sweet
Expense of Nature in her passionate gusts
Of love and giving, first of the soul's needs?
Who is so coldly wise, and does not feel
How wasted were our grandiose human days
In prudent personal unshared delights?
Why dost thou mock me, friend of all the stars?
How canst thou be love's god and know not this,
That love burns down the body's barriers cold
And laughs at difference - playing with it merely
To make joy sweeter? O too deeply I know,
The lover is not different from the loved,
Nor is their silence dumb to each other. He
Contains her heart and feels her body in his,
He flushes with her heat, chills with her cold.
And when she dies, oh! when she dies, oh me,
The emptiness, the maim! the life no life,
The sweet and passionate oneness lost! And if
By shortening of great grief won back, O price
Easy! O glad briefness, aeons may envy!
For we shall live not fearing death, nor feel
As others yearning over the loved at night
When the lamp flickers, sudden chills of dread
Terrible; nor at short absence agonise,
Wrestling with mad imagination. Us
Serenely when the darkening shadow comes,
One common sob shall end and soul clasp soul,
Love and Death
Leaving the body in a long dim kiss.
Then in the joys of heaven we shall consort,
Amid the gladness often touching hands
To make bliss sure; or in the ghastly stream
If we must anguish, yet it shall not part
Our passionate limbs inextricably locked
By one strong agony, but we shall feel
Hell's pain half joy through sweet companionship.
God Love, I weary of words. O wing me rather
To her, my eloquent princess of the spring,
In whatsoever wintry shores she roam."
He ceased with eager forward eyes; once more
A light of beauty immortal through the limbs
Gleaming of the boy-god and soft sweet face,
Glorifying him, flushed, and he replied:
"Go then, O thou dear youth, and bear this flower
In thy hand warily. For thou shalt come
To that high meeting of the Ganges pure
With vague and violent Ocean. There arise
And loudly appeal my brother, the wild sea."
He spoke and stretched out his immortal hand,
And Ruru's met it. All his young limbs yearned
With dreadful rapture shuddering through them. He
Felt in his fingers subtle uncertain bloom,
A quivering magnificence, half fire,
Whose petals changed like flame, and from them breathed
Dangerous attraction and alarmed delight,
As at a peril near. He raised his eyes,
But the green place was empty of the God.
Only the faery tree looked up at heaven
Through branches, and with recent pleasure shook.
Then over fading earth the night was lord.
But from Shatudru and Bipasha, streams
Once holy, and loved Iravathi and swift
Clear Chandrabhaga and Bitosta's toil
For man, went Ruru to bright sumptuous lands
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By Aryan fathers not yet paced, but wild,
But virgin to our fruitful human toil,
Where Nature lay reclined in dumb delight
Alone with woodlands and the voiceless hills.
He with the widening yellow Ganges came,
Amazed, to trackless countries where few tribes,
Kirath and Poundrian, warred, worshipping trees
And the great serpent. But robust wild earth,
But forests with their splendid life of beasts
Savage mastered those strong inhabitants.
Thither came Ruru. In a thin soft eve
Ganges spread far her multitudinous waves,
A glimmering restlessness with voices large,
And from the forests of that half-seen bank
A boat came heaving over it, white-winged,
With a sole silent helmsman marble-pale.
Then Ruru by his side stepped in; they went
Down the mysterious river and beheld
The great banks widen out of sight. The world
Was water and the skies to water plunged.
All night with a dim motion gliding down
He felt the dark against his eyelids; felt,
As in a dream more real than daylight,
The helmsman with his dumb and marble face
Near him and moving wideness all around,
And that continual gliding dimly on,
As one who on a shoreless water sails
For ever to a port he shall not win.
But when the darkness paled, he heard a moan
Of mightier waves and had the wide great sense
Of ocean and the depths below our feet.
But the boat stopped; the pilot lifted on him
His marble gaze coeval with the stars.
Then in the white-winged boat the boy arose
And saw around him the vast sea all grey
And heaving in the pallid dawning light.
Loud Ruru cried across the murmur: "Hear me,
Love and Death
O inarticulate grey Ocean, hear.
If any cadence in thy infinite
Rumour was caught from lover's moan, O Sea,
Open thy abysses to my mortal tread.
For I would travel to the despairing shades,
The spheres of suffering where entangled dwell
Souls unreleased and the untimely dead
Who weep remembering. Thither, O, guide me,
No despicable wayfarer, but Ruru,
But son of a great Rishi, from all men
On earth selected for peculiar pangs,
Special disaster. Lo, this petalled fire,
How freshly it blooms and lasts with my great pain!"
He held the flower out subtly glimmering.
And like a living thing the huge sea trembled,
Then rose, calling, and filled the sight with waves,
Converging all its giant crests; towards him
Innumerable waters loomed and heaven
Threatened. Horizon on horizon moved
Dreadfully swift; then with a prone wide sound
All Ocean hollowing drew him swiftly in,
Curving with monstrous menace over him.
He down the gulf where the loud waves collapsed
Descending, saw with floating hair arise
The daughters of the sea in pale green light,
A million mystic breasts suddenly bare,
And came beneath the flood and stunned beheld
A mute stupendous march of waters race
To reach some viewless pit beneath the world.
Ganges he saw, as men predestined rush
Upon a fearful doom foreseen, so run,
Alarmed, with anguished speed, the river vast.
Veiled to his eyes the triple goddess rose.
She with a sound of waters cried to him,
A thousand voices moaning with one pain:
"Lover, who fearedst not sunlight to leave,
With me thou mayst behold that helpless spirit
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Lost in the gloom, if still thy burning bosom
Have courage to endure great Nature's night
In the dire lands where I, a goddess, mourn
Hurting my heart with my own cruelty."
She darkened to the ominous descent,
Unwilling, and her once so human waves
Sent forth a cry not meant for living ears.
And Ruru chilled; but terrible strong love
Was like a fiery finger in his breast
Pointing him on; so he through horror went
Conducted by inexorable sound.
For monstrous voices to his ear were close,
And bodiless terrors with their dimness seized him
In an obscurity phantasmal. Thus
With agony of soul to the grey waste
He came, glad of the pain of passage over,
As men who through the storms of anguish strive
Into abiding tranquil dreariness
And draw sad breath assured; to the grey waste,
Hopeless Patala, the immutable
Country, where neither sun nor rain arrives,
Nor happy labour of the human plough
Fruitfully turns the soil, but in vague sands
And indeterminable strange rocks and caverns
That into silent blackness huge recede,
Dwell the great serpent and his hosts, writhed forms,
Sinuous, abhorred, through many horrible leagues
Coiling in a half darkness. Shapes he saw,
And heard the hiss and knew the lambent light
Loathsome, but passed compelling his strong soul.
At last through those six tired hopeless worlds,
Too hopeless far for grief, pale he arrived
Into a nether air by anguish moved,
And heard before him cries that pierced the heart,
Human, not to be borne, and issued shaken
By the great river accursed. Maddened it ran,
Anguished, importunate, and in its waves
Love and Death
The drifting ghosts their agony endured.
There Ruru saw pale faces float of kings
And grandiose victors and revered high priests
And famous women. Now rose from the wave
A golden shuddering arm and now a face.
Torn piteous sides were seen and breasts that quailed.
Over them moaned the penal waters on,
And had no joy of their fierce cruelty.
Then Ruru, his young cheeks with pity wan,
Half moaned: "O miserable race of men,
With violent and passionate souls you come
Foredoomed upon the earth and live brief days
In fear and anguish, catching at stray beams
Of sunlight, little fragrances of flowers;
Then from your spacious earth in a great horror
Descend into this night, and here too soon
Must expiate your few inadequate joys.
O bargain hard! Death helps us not. He leads
Alarmed, all shivering from his chill embrace,
The naked spirit here. O my sweet flower,
Art thou too whelmed in this fierce wailing flood?
Ah me! But I will haste and deeply plunge
Into its hopeless pools and either bring
Thy old warm beauty back beneath the stars,
Or find thee out and clasp thy tortured bosom
And kiss thy sweet wrung lips and hush thy cries.
Love shall draw half thy pain into my limbs;
Then we shall triumph glad of agony."
He ceased and one replied close by his ear:
"O thou who troublest with thy living eyes
Established death, pass on. She whom thou seekest
Rolls not in the accursed tide. For late
I saw her mid those pale inhabitants
Whom bodily anguish visits not, but thoughts
Sorrowful and dumb memories absolve,
And martyrdom of scourged hearts quivering."
He turned and saw astride the dolorous flood
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A mighty bridge paved with mosaic fire,
All restless, and a woman clothed in flame,
With hands calamitous that held a sword,
Stood of the quaking passage sentinel.
Magnificent and dire her burning face.
"Pass on," she said once more, "O Bhrigu's son;
The flower protects thee from my hands." She stretched
One arm towards him and with violence
Majestic over the horrid arch compelled.
Unhurt, though shaking from her touch, alone
He stood upon an inner bank with strange
Black dreary mosses covered and perceived
A dim and level plain without one flower.
Over it paced a multitude immense
With gentle faces occupied by pain;
Strong men were there and grieving mothers, girls
With early beauty in their limbs and young
Sad children of their childlike faces robbed.
Naked they paced with falling hair and gaze
Drooping upon their bosoms, weak as flowers
That die for want of rain unmurmuring.
Always a silence was upon the place.
But Ruru came among them. Suddenly
One felt him there and looked, and as a wind
Moves over a still field of patient corn,
And the ears stir and shudder and look up
And bend innumerably flowing, so
All those dumb spirits stirred and through them passed
One shuddering motion of raised faces; then
They streamed towards him without sound and caught
With desperate hands his robe or touched his hair
Or strove to feel upon them living breath.
Pale girls and quiet children came and knelt
And with large sorrowful eyes into his looked.
Yet with their silent passion the cold hush
Moved not; but Ruru's human heart half burst
With burden of so many sorrows; tears
Love and Death
Welled from him; he with anguish understood
That terrible and wordless sympathy
Of dead souls for the living. Then he turned
His eyes and scanned their lovely faces strange
For that one face and found it not. He paled,
And spoke vain words into the listless air:
"O spirits once joyous, miserable race,
Happier if the old gladness were forgot!
My soul yearns with your sorrow. Yet ah! reveal
If dwell my love in your sad nation lost.
Well may you know her, O wan beautiful spirits!
But she most beautiful of all that died,
By sweetness recognisable. Her name
The sunshine knew." Speaking his tears made way:
But they with dumb lips only looked at him,
A vague and empty mourning in their eyes.
He murmured low: "Ah, folly! were she here,
Would she not first have felt me, first have raised
Her lids and run to me, leaned back her face
Of silent sorrow on my breast and looked
With the old altered eyes into my own
And striven to make my anguish understand?
Oh joy, had she been here! for though her lips
Of their old excellent music quite were robbed,
Yet her dumb passion would have spoken to me;
We should have understood each other and walked
Silently hand in hand, almost content."
He said and passed through those untimely dead.
Speechless they followed him with clinging eyes.
Then to a solemn building weird he came
With grave colossal pillars round. One dome
Roofed the whole brooding edifice, like cloud,
And at the door strange shapes were pacing, armed.
Then from their fear the sweet and mournful dead
Drew back, returning to their wordless grief.
But Ruru to the perilous doorway strode,
And those disastrous shapes upon him raised
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Their bows and aimed; but he held out Love's flower,
And with stern faces checked they let him pass.
He entered and beheld a silent hall
Dim and unbounded; moving then like one
Who up a dismal stair seeks ever light,
Attained a dais brilliant doubtfully
With flaming pediment and round it coiled
Python and Naga monstrous, Joruthcaru,
Tuxuc and Vasuki himself, immense,
Magic Carcotaca all flecked with fire;
And many other prone destroying shapes
Coiled. On the wondrous dais rose a throne,
And he its pedestal whose lotus hood
With ominous beauty crowns his horrible
Sleek folds, great Mahapudma; high displayed
He bears the throne of Death. There sat supreme
With those compassionate and lethal eyes,
Who many names, who many natures holds;
Yama, the strong pure Hades sad and subtle,
Dharma, who keeps the laws of old untouched,
Critanta, who ends all things and at last
Himself shall end. On either side of him
The four-eyed dogs mysterious rested prone,
Watchful, with huge heads on their paws advanced;
And emanations of the godhead dim
Moved near him, shadowy or serpentine,
Vast Time and cold irreparable Death.
Then Ruru came and bowed before the throne;
And swaying all those figures stirred as shapes
Upon a tapestry moved by the wind,
And the sad voice was heard: "What breathing man
Bows at the throne of Hades? By what force,
Spiritual or communicated, troubles
His living beauty the dead grace of Hell?"
And one replied who seemed a neighbouring voice:
"He has the blood of Gods and Titans old.
An Apsara his mother liquid-orbed
Love and Death
Bore to the youthful Chyavan's strong embrace
This passionate face of earth with Eden touched.
Chyavan was Bhrigu's child, Puloma bore,
The Titaness, - Bhrigu, great Brahma's son.
Love gave the flower that helps by anguish; therefore
He chilled not with the breath of Hades, nor
The cry of the infernal stream made stone."
But at the name of Love all hell was moved.
Death's throne half faded into twilight; hissed
The phantoms serpentine as if in pain,
And the dogs raised their dreadful heads. Then spoke
Yama: "And what needs Love in this pale realm,
The warm great Love? All worlds his breath confounds,
Mars solemn order and old steadfastness.
But not in Hell his legates come and go;
His vernal jurisdiction to bare Hell
Extends not. This last world resists his power
Youthful, anarchic. Here will he enlarge
Tumult and wanton joys?" The voice replied:
"Menaca momentary on the earth,
Heaven's Apsara by the fleeting hours beguiled
Played in the happy hidden glens; there bowed
To yoke of swift terrestrial joys she bore,
Immortal, to that fair Gundhurva king
A mortal blossom of delight. That bloom
Young Ruru found and plucked, but her too soon
Thy fatal hooded snake on earth surprised,
And he through gloom now travels armed by Love."
But then all Hades swaying towards him cried:
"O mortal, O misled! But sacrifice
Is stronger, nor may law of Hell or Heaven
Its fierce effectual action supersede.
Thy dead I yield. Yet thou bethink thee, mortal,
Not as a tedious evil nor to be
Lightly rejected gave the gods old age,
But tranquil, but august, but making easy
The steep ascent to God. Therefore must Time
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Still batter down the glory and form of youth
And animal magnificent strong ease,
To warn the earthward man that he is spirit
Dallying with transience, nor by death he ends,
Nor to the dumb warm mother's arms is bound,
But called unborn into the unborn skies.
For body fades with the increasing soul
And wideness of its limit grown intolerant
Replaces life's impetuous joys by peace.
Youth, manhood, ripeness, age, four seasons
Twixt its return and pale departing life
Describes, O mortal, - youth that forward bends
Midst hopes, delights and dreamings; manhood deepens
To passions, toils and thoughts profound; but ripeness
For large reflective gathering-up of these,
As on a lonely slope whence men look back
Down towards the cities and the human fields
Where they too worked and laughed and loved; next age,
Wonderful age with those approaching skies.
That boon wilt thou renounce? Wherefore? To bring
For a few years - how miserably few! -
Her sunward who must after all return.
Ah, son of Rishis, cease. Lo, I remit
Hell's grasp, not oft relinquished, and send back
Thy beautiful life unborrowed to the stars.
Or thou must render to the immutable
Total all thy fruit-bearing years; then she
Reblossoms." But the Shadow antagonist:
"Let him be shown the glory he would renounce."
And over the flaming pediment there moved,
As on a frieze a march of sculptures, carved
By Phidias for the Virgin strong and pure,
Most perfect once of all things seen in earth
Or Heaven, in Athens on the Acropolis,
But now dismembered, now disrupt! or as
In Buddhist cavern or Orissan temple,
Large aspirations architectural,
Love and Death
Warrior and dancing-girl, adept and king,
And conquering pomps and daily peaceful groups
Dream delicately on, softening with beauty
Great Bhuvanayshwar, the Almighty's house,
With sculptural suggestion so were limned
Scenes future on a pediment of fire.
There Ruru saw himself divine with age,
A Rishi to whom infinity is close,
Rejoicing in some green song-haunted glade
Or boundless mountain-top where most we feel
Wideness, not by small happy things disturbed.
Around him, as around an ancient tree
Its seedlings, forms august or flame-like rose;
They grew beneath his hands and were his work;
Great kings were there whom time remembers, fertile
Deep minds and poets with their chanting lips
Whose words were seed of vast philosophies -
These worshipped; above this earth's half-day he saw
Amazed the dawn of that mysterious Face
And all the universe in beauty merge.
Mad the boy thrilled upwards, then spent ebbed back.
Over his mind, as birds across the sky
Sweep and are gone, the vision of those fields
And drooping faces came; almost he heard
The burdened river with human anguish wail.
Then with a sudden fury gathering
His soul he hurled out of it half its life,
And fell, like lightning, prone. Triumphant rose
The Shadow chill and deepened giant night.
Only the dais flickered in the gloom,
And those snake-eyes of cruel fire subdued.
But suddenly a bloom, a fragrance. Hell
Shuddered with bliss: resentful, overborne,
The world-besetting Terror faded back
Like one grown weak by desperate victory,
And a voice cried in Ruru's tired soul:
"Arise! the strife is over, easy now
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The horror that thou hast to face, the burden
Now shared." And with a sudden burst like spring
Life woke in the strong lover over-tried.
He rose and left dim Death. Twelve times he crossed
Boithorini, the river dolorous,
Twelve times resisted Hell and, hurried down
Into the ominous pit where plunges black
The vast stream thundering, saw, led puissantly
From night to unimaginable night, -
As men oppressed in dreams, who cannot wake,
But measure penal visions, - punishments
Whose sight pollutes, unheard-of tortures, pangs
Monstrous, intolerable mute agonies,
Twisted unmoving attitudes of pain,
Like thoughts inhuman in statuary. A fierce
And iron voicelessness had grasped those worlds.
No horror of cries expressed their endless woe,
No saving struggle, no breathings of the soul.
And in the last hell irremediable
Where Ganges clots into that fatal pool,
Appalled he saw her; pallid, listless, bare -
O other than that earthly warmth and grace
In which the happy roses deepened and dimmed
With come-and-go of swift enamoured blood!
Dumb drooped she; round her shapes of anger armed
Stood dark like thunder-clouds. But Ruru sprang
Upon them, burning with the admitted God.
They from his touch like ineffectual fears
Vanished; then sole with her, trembling he cried
The old glad name and crying bent to her
And touched, and at the touch the silent knots
Of Hell were broken and its sombre dream
Of dreadful stately pains at once dispersed.
Then as from one whom a surpassing joy
Has conquered, all the bright surrounding world
Streams swiftly into distance, and he feels
His daily senses slipping from his grasp,
Love and Death
So that unbearable enormous world
Went rolling mighty shades, like the wet mist
From men on mountain-tops; and sleep outstretched
Rising its soft arms towards him and his thoughts,
As on a bed, sank to ascending void.
But when he woke, he heard the kol insist
On sweetness and the voice of happy things
Content with sunlight. The warm sense was round him
Of old essential earth, known hues and custom
Familiar tranquillising body and mind,
As in its natural wave a lotus feels.
He looked and saw all grass and dense green trees,
And sunshine and a single grasshopper
Near him repeated fierily its note.
Thrilling he felt beneath his bosom her;
Oh, warm and breathing were those rescued limbs
Against the greenness, vivid, palpable, white,
With great black hair and real and her cheek's
Old softness and her mouth a dewy rose.
For many moments comforting his soul
With all her jasmine body sun-ensnared
He fed his longing eyes and, half in doubt,
With touches satisfied himself of her.
Hesitating he kissed her eyelids. Sighing
With a slight sob she woke and earthly large
Her eyes looked upward into his. She stretched
Her arms up, yearning, and their souls embraced;
Then twixt brief sobbing laughter and blissful tears,
Clinging with all her limbs to him, "O love,
The green green world! the warm sunlight!" and ceased,
Finding no words; but the earth breathed round them,
Glad of her children, and the kol's voice
Persisted in the morning of the world.
141
A NOTE ON LOVE AND DEATH
The story of Ruru and Pramadvura - I have substituted a name more manageable to the English tongue - her death in the forest by the snake and restoration at the price of half her husband's life is told in the Mahabharata. It is a companion legend to the story of Savitri but not being told with any poetic skill or beauty has remained generally unknown. I have attempted in this poem to bring it out of its obscurity. For full success, however, it should have had a more faithfully Hindu colouring, but it was written a score of years ago when I had not penetrated to the heart of the Indian idea and its traditions, and the shadow of the Greek underworld and Tartarus with the sentiment of life and love and death which hangs about them has got into the legendary framework of the Indian Patala and hells. The central idea of the narrative alone is in the Mahabharata; the meeting with
Kama and the descent into Hell were additions necessitated by the poverty of incident in the original story.
~ Sri Aurobindo, - Love and Death
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8 A B Purani
6 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
5 Thubten Chodron
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Swami Vivekananda
3 Joseph Campbell
3 James George Frazer
3 Bokar Rinpoche
2 Vyasa
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Ken Wilber
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jordan Peterson
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Carl Jung
21 The Synthesis Of Yoga
17 The Perennial Philosophy
13 Magick Without Tears
13 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
10 The Life Divine
10 Liber ABA
9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
8 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
6 Letters On Yoga II
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
5 The Secret Doctrine
5 Talks
5 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
5 Essays Divine And Human
4 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
3 The Human Cycle
3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3 The Golden Bough
3 Tara - The Feminine Divine
3 Questions And Answers 1956
3 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
3 Letters On Yoga IV
3 Essays On The Gita
3 Agenda Vol 10
3 Agenda Vol 06
3 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
2 Vishnu Purana
2 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
2 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Selected Fictions
2 Raja-Yoga
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
2 Maps of Meaning
2 Letters On Yoga I
2 Labyrinths
2 Isha Upanishad
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 Agenda Vol 05
2 Agenda Vol 02
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
For this reason I am especially pleased to be writing an introduction to a new edition of A Garden of Pomegranates. I feel that never, perhaps, was the need more urgent for just such a roadmap as the Qabalistic system provides. It should be equally useful to any who chooses to follow it, whether he be Jew, Christian or buddhist, Deist, Theosophist, agnostic or atheist.
The Qabalah is a trustworthy guide, leading to a comprehension both of the Universe and one's own Self. Sages have long taught that Man is a miniature of the Universe, containing within himself the diverse elements of that macrocosm of which he is the microcosm. Within the Qabalah is a glyph called the Tree of Life which is at once a symbolic map of the Universe in its major aspects, and also of its smaller counterpart, Man.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Keshab was the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the two great movements that, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, played an important part in shaping the course of the renascence of India. The founder of the Brahmo movement had been the great Raja Rammohan Roy (1774-1833). Though born in an orthodox brahmin family, Rammohan Roy had shown great sympathy for Islam and Christianity. He had gone to Tibet in search of the buddhist mysteries. He had extracted from Christianity its ethical system, but had rejected the divinity of Christ as he had denied the Hindu Incarnations. The religion of Islam influenced him, to a great extent, in the formulation of his monotheistic doctrines. But he always went back to the Vedas for his spiritual inspiration. The Brahmo Samaj, which he founded in 1828, was dedicated to the "worship and adoration of the Eternal, the Unsearchable, the Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe". The Samaj was open to all without distinction of colour, creed, caste, nation, or religion.
The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The universe is conceived as buddhists, on the one
hand, and Rationalists, on the other, would have us do;
--
Lotus and jewel of the well-known buddhist phrase and
this seems to suggest that this "toad" is the Yoni; the
--
The buddhist analysis may be true, but not for
men of courage. The plea that "love is sorrow", because
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A sage can smile and smile delightfully! The parable illustrates the well-known Biblical phrase, 'the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'. The monkey is symbolical of the ignorant, arrogant, fussy human mind. There is another buddhistic story about the monkey quoted in the book and it is as delightful; but being somewhat long, we cannot reproduce it here. It tells how the mind-monkey is terribly agile, quick, clever, competent, moving lightning-fast, imagining that it can easily go to the end of the world, to Paradise itself, to Brahmic status. But alas! when he thought he was speeding straight like a rocket or an arrow and arrive right at the target, he found that he was spinning like a top at the same spot, and what he very likely took to be the very fragrance of the topmost supreme heaven was nothing but the aroma of his own urine.
***
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A modern society or people cannot have religion, that is to say, credal religion, as the basis of its organized collective life. It was mediaeval society and people that were organized on that line. Indeed mediaevalism means nothing more and nothing lessthan that. But whatever the need and justification in the past, the principle is an anachronism under modern conditions. It was needed, perhaps, to keep alive a truth which goes into the very roots of human life and its deepest aspiration; and it was needed also for a dynamic application of that truth on a larger scale and in smaller details, on the mass of mankind and in its day to day life. That was the aim of the Church Militant and the Khilafat; that was the spirit, although in a more Sattwic way, behind the buddhistic evangelism or even Hindu colonization.
The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that gives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this 'sphere of sorrow' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding that was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.
--
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.
--
And still this was not the lastit could not be the lastanti thesis that had to be synthetized. The dialectical movement led to a more serious and fiercer contradiction. The buddhistic schism was after all a division brought about from within: it could be said that the two terms of the antinomy belonged to the same genus and were commensurable. The idea or experience of Asat and Maya was not unknown to the Upanishads, only it had not there the exclusive stress which the later developments gave it. Hence quite a different, an altogether foreign body was imported into what was or had come to be a homogeneous entity, and in a considerable mass.
Unlike the previous irruptions that merged and were lost in the general life and consciousness, Islam entered as a leaven that maintained its integrity and revolutionized Indian life and culture by infusing into its tone a Semitic accent. After the Islamic impact India could not be what she was beforea change became inevitable even in the major note. It was a psychological cataclysm almost on a par with the geological one that formed her body; but the spirit behind which created the body was working automatically, inexorably towards the greater and more difficult synthesis demanded by the situation. Only the thing is to be done now consciously, not through an unconscious process of laissez-faire as on the inferior stages of evolution in the past. And that is the true genesis of the present conflict.
0 1958 12 - Floor 1, young girl, we shall kill the young princess - black tent, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Two or three days after I retired to my room upstairs,1 early in the night I fell into a very heavy sleep and found myself out of the body much more materially than I do usually. This degree of density in which you can see the material surroundings exactly as they are. The part that was out seemed to be under a spell and only half conscious. When I found myself at the first floor where everything was absolutely black, I wanted to go up again, but then I discovered that my hand was held by a young girl whom I could not see in the darkness but whose contact was very familiar. She pulled me by the hand telling me laughingly, No, come, come down with me, we shall kill the young princess. I could not understand what she meant by this young princess and, rather unwillingly, I followed her to see what it was. Arriving in the anteroom which is at the top of the staircase leading to the ground floor, my attention was drawn in the midst of all this total obscurity to the white figure of Kamala2 standing in the middle of the passage between the hall and Sri Aurobindos room. She was as it were in full light while everything else was black. Then I saw on her face such an expression of intense anxiety that to comfort her I said, I am coming back. The sound of my voice shook off from me the semi-trance in which I was before and suddenly I thought, Where am I going? and I pushed away from me the dark figure who was pulling me and in whom, while she was running down the steps, I recognized a young girl who lived with Sri Aurobindo and me for many years and died five years back. This girl during her life was under the most diabolical influence. And then I saw very distinctly (as through the walls of the staircase) down below a small black tent which could scarcely be perceived in the surrounding darkness and standing in the middle of the tent the figure of a man, head and face shaved (like the sannyasin or the buddhist monks) covered from head to foot with a knitted outfit following tightly the form of his body which was tall and slim. No other cloth or garment could give an indication as to who he could be. He was standing in front of a black pot placed on a dark red fire which was throwing its reddish glow on him. He had his right arm stretched over the pot, holding between two fingers a thin gold chain which looked like one of mine and was unnaturally visible and bright. Shaking gently the chain he was chanting some words which translated in my mind, She must die the young princess, she must pay for all she has done, she must die the young princess.
Then I suddenly realized that it was I the young Princess and as I burst into laughter, I found myself awake in my bed.
0 1961-02-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Anyway, in reply to this nonsense, I have said: Your error, to be precise, is that you go to the Theosophical Society, for example, with the same opening as to the Christian religion or to the buddhist doctrine or with which you read one of Sri Aurobindos booksand as a result, you are plunged into a confusion and a muddle and you dont understand anything about anything.
And then the reply came to me very strongly; something took hold of me and I was, so to say, obliged to write: What Sri Aurobindo represents in the worlds history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.2
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first thing I did this morning was to open this book by Alice Bailey (Ive had it for several days, I had to have a look at it). So I looked Ah, I saidwell, well! Heres a person whos dead now, but she was the disciple of a Tibetan buddhist lama and considered a very great spiritual leader, and she writes, Christ is the incarnation of divine love on earth. And thats that. And the world will be transformed when Christ is reborn, when he comes back to earth. But why the devil does she put Christ? Because she was born Christian? Its deplorable.
And such a mixture of everythingeverything! Instead of making a synthesis, they make a pot-pourri. They scoop it all up, toss it together, whip it up a little, use a bunch of words that have nothing to do with one another, and then serve it to you!
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Bhikku: buddhist monk.
In Sri Aurobindo's terminology, the Overmind represents the highest level of the mind, the world of the gods and origin of all the revelations and highest artistic creations the world that has ruled mental man till now.
0 1963-09-28, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That was my major objection to the buddhists: all that you are advised to do is merely to give you an opportunity to flee thats not pretty.
But change, yes.
0 1964-06-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A charming buddhist and a disciple of Mother, a specialist in Pali and member of the French School of the Far East: Suzanne Karpels.
***
0 1964-08-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(D., a disciple, sent Mother an eighteenth-century account by a Japanese monk of the Zen buddhist sect describing a method called "Introspection," which enables one to overcome cold and hunger and attain physical immortality. Mother reads a few pages, then gives up.)
[Herms magazine, Spring 1963.]
0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are all the Christian, buddhist theories, Shankara, all those who declare that the world is an unreal Falsehood and that it must disappear and give place to a heaven (a new world and a heaven). And this is among the most aspiring elements of mankind, those who arent content with the world as it is, who dont say, Oh, as long as I am here and alive, things are fine; afterwards, I dont careenjoy the short life. Afterwards, well, its over, and thats that; let me make the most of the moment Ive been given. What a queer conception! Thats the other extreme.
But in fact, if we go back to the source, there was an Evangelist (I think it was St. John) who announced a new heaven and a new EARTH.
0 1965-06-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know. The buddhists use the symbol of two intertwined fish. I think its Multitude?
I often have underwater dreams: the other day, for instance, I went under water (and without any difficulty) and there were hosts of fish I was fishing under water. But those fish were dead, or had just diedhosts of fish that werent decomposing, that were still good, but dead, because they didnt have any more air or water.
0 1965-12-15, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The operation is successful. Tremor of the right hand and leg have stopped. There is no paralysis. Dr. is feeling well. This morning Dr. had his coffee early in the morning. At 7:30 A.M. a barber shaved his head. Dr. then looked like a buddhist monk (Mother laughs). At 9 A.M. he was removed near the operation theater N 2. At that time he had a sterile dressing on his head. At 10 A.M. he was taken inside the operation theater. They brought him out at 3 P.M. and put him in the post-operative ward. On seeing all of us surrounding his bed, he started weeping. We all moved away from his bed. He then lifted his right hand and leg. There was absolutely no tremor. His head is covered with a big bandage. We all pray for Dr.s recovery.4
King Mahendra and Queen Ratna.
0 1967-08-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But all those who were baptized and went for a time to confession are part of an inner, a whole psychological entity, and its VERY DIFFICULT to break free of it; they are bound to a wholethere is there is an invisible Church, and all those people are in its grip. To break free of it, one must be a vital hero. A true hero, you understand. Because its very strong. I saw that all religions have in that way kinds of congregations in the invisible; but the Christian one is the strongest of them all from a terrestrial standpoint. Its much stronger than that of the buddhists, much stronger than that of the Chinese, much stronger than the ancient Hindu religionsits the strongest. And naturally stronger than the more recent religions, too the strongest. And when you are baptized, you are bound. If you dont go to mass and have never been to confession, with a little vital energy you can get out of it, but those who have gone to confessionespecially confession and when you take communion, when you are given Christ to eat (another frightful thing).
Now that girl was a true artist and a great intelligence, so I had the example. When she was awake, she understood wonderfully; and she herself was furious, but she didnt have she didnt have the power to get free of the influence on her subconscient.
0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Before coming here, she was buddhist3 and Communistfervently Communist.
(silence)
--
buddhist temples are VERY FINE. Obviously nihilistic, but there is always a very concentrated atmosphereconcentrated and SINCERE. A sincere effort.
In temples here Oh, I met all kinds of things (lots of little devils), but all kinds of things. Here it was really interesting. In one temple the godhead came to me and asked me to help her have influence on people! She told me, Ill give you all I have, but you must see that (she didnt use those words I am translating). I was riding in a car towards her temple, and on the way she landed in the car! It was so unexpected! She told me, Do come. See that my power increases and Ill give you all I have! (Its in that temple that once a year they cut the necks of hundreds of chickens.5) So I said to her, No.
0 1969-05-28, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the bodys cells (I dont know whether its specific to this body; I cant believe this body to be so exceptional), they are ABSOLUTELY convinced, and they keep trying and trying and trying all the time, all the time, for every misery, every difficulty, every Theres only one solution, only one thing: You, You alone, to YouYou alone exist. Thats what expressed itself as the illusion of the world in the consciousness of people such as buddhists and others, but that was a half translation.
The true translation is, You alone exist, You alone. All the rest all the rest is misery. Misery, suffering darkness.
0 1969-05-31, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the process to change this back into That is what I dont know The process is abdication (what word should we use?), self-giving (thats not it). But the body felt everything, everything to be so horrible. There was a very, very difficult day.2 And curiously, I knew at that time that it was the exact repetition of the experience Buddha Siddhartha had, and that it was IN this experience that he said, There is only one way out: Nirvana. And at the SAME TIME, I had the true state of consciousness: his solution and the true one. That was really interesting. How the buddhistic solution is only ONE step taken on the pathone step. And BEYOND that (not on another path, but BEYOND that) is where the true solution lies. It was a decisive experience.
(long silence)
0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Have you seen brother A?1 He has changed a lota lot. Hes incomparably better than before. He went to stay with buddhists, it seems. He was supposed to go to Vinoba Bhaves place, but I dont think he stayed there, because he is coming from a buddhist monastery.
But he remains as Christian as before, doesnt he?
0 1973-01-20, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A truly benevolent man. buddhist benevolence, you know, and he practices it marvelously.
He seems to have no no selfishness in him (theres no word for it in French). I mean, a constant concern to do the right thing.
--
(Dalai Lama:) It is my dream to have the perfect economic development of Tibet, the perfect organization, the efficiency that we find in Communism, but all this based upon, founded upon the buddhistic qualities of Compassion and Love, so that the people in power do not degenerate into corruption. What is Mothers view of this dream, and whether such a thing will be realized in Tibet?
It is not a dream. It will naturally be. But the time it will take, I do not know. This is something like what Sri Aurobindo has said about the Supramental.
02.12 - Mysticism in Bengali Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Bengali poetry was born some time towards the end of an era of decline in the Indian consciousness, almost towards the close of what is called the buddhist period, but it was born with a veritable crown on its head. For it was sheer mystic poetry, mystic in substance, mystic in manner and expression. The poets were themselves mystics, that is to say spiritual seekers, sadhaks they were called Siddhas or Siddhacharyas. They told of their spiritual, rather occult experiences in an occult or oblique manner, the very manner of the ancient Vedic Rishis, in figures and symbols and similes. It was a form of beauty, not merely of truthof abstract metaphysical truth that rose all on a sudden, as it were, out of an enveloping darkness. It shone for a time and then faded slowly, perhaps spread itself out in the common consciousness of the people and continued to exist as a backwash in popular songs and fables and proverbs. But it was there and came up again a few centuries later and the crest is seen once more in a more elevated, polished and dignified form with a content of mental illumination. I am referring to Chandidasa, who was also a sadhak poet and is usually known as the father of Bengali poetry, being the creator of modern Bengali poetry. He flourished somewhere in the fourteenth century. That wave too subsided and retired into the background, leaving in interregnum again of a century or more till it showed itself once more in another volume of mystic poetry in the hands of a new type of spiritual practitioners. They were the Yogis and Fakirs, and although of a popular type, yet possessing nuggets of gold in their utterances, and they formed a large family. This almost synchronised with the establishment and consolidation of the Western Power, with its intellectual and rational enlightenment, in India. The cultivation and superimposition of this Western or secular light forced the native vein of mysticism underground; it was necessary and useful, for it added an element which was missing before; a new synthesis came up in a crest with Tagore. It was a neo-mysticism, intellectual, philosophical, broad-based, self-conscious. Recently however we have been going on the downward slope, and many, if not the majority among us, have been pointing at mysticism and shouting: "Out, damned spot!" But perhaps we have struck the rock-bottom and are wheeling round.
For in the present epoch we are rising on a new crest and everywhere, in all literatures, signs are not lacking of a supremely significant spiritual poetry being born among us.
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is indeed a gradation in the humanistic attitude that rises from grosser and more concrete forms to those that are less and less so. At the lowest rung and the most obvious in form and nature is what is called altruism, or philanthropy, that is to say, doing good to others, some good that is tangible and apparent, that is esteemed and valued by the world generally. In altruism refined and sublimated, when it is no longer a matter chiefly of doing but of feeling, from a more or less physical and material give and take we rise into a vital and psychological sympathy and intercommunion, we have what is humanism proper. Humanism is transfigured into something still higher and finer when from the domain of personal or individual feeling and sympathy we ascend to cosmic feeling, to self-identification with the All, the One that is Many. This is the experience that seems to be behind the buddhistic compassion, karu
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.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is, indeed, a gradation in the humanistic attitude that rises from grosser and more concrete forms to those that are less and less so. At the lowest rung and the most obvious in form and nature is what is called altruism, or more especially, philanthropy, that is to say, doing good to others, some good j that is tangible and apparent, that is esteemed and valued by the world generally. In an altruism refined and sublimated, when it is no longer a matter primarily of doing but of feeling, when, from a more or less physical and material give and take, we rise into a vital and psychological sympathy and inter communion, we have what is humanism proper. Humanism is transfigured into something still higher and finer when, from the domain of personal or individual feeling" and sympathy, we ascend to cosmic feeling, to self-identification with the All, the One that is Many. This is the experience that seems to be behind the buddhistic compassion, karu.
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.
03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is this characteristic that struck the European mind in its first contact with the Indian artistic world and called forth the criticism that Indian culture lacks in humanism. It is true, a very sublimated humanism finds remarkable expression in Ajanta, and perhaps it is here that the Western eye began to learn and appreciate the Indian style of beauty; even in Ajanta, however, in the pieces where the art reaches its very height, mere humanism seems to be at its minimum. And if we go beyond these productions that reflect the mellowness and humaneness of the buddhist Compassion, if we go into the sanctuary of the Brahmanic art, we find that the experiences embodied there and the method of expression become more and more "anonymous"; they have not, that is to say, the local colour of humanity, which alone makes the European mind feel entirely at home. Europe's revulsion of feeling against Indian art came chiefly from her first meeting with the multiple-headed, multiple-armed, expressionless, strangely poised Hindu gods and goddesses, so different in every way from ordinary human types.
Indian art had to be non-human, because its aim was to be supra-human, unnatural, because its very atmosphere was the supra-natural.
03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
buddhist logic considers negation as a simple contrary to affirmation; it is not an entity, it is the lack of entity. Zero or cypher means simple absence. Hindu logic makes of negation a positive statement but on the minus side, even as Hindu mathematics did not consider a zero as valueless but gave a special value, a value of position to it. Do we not hear of negative positives (positron) in modern science today?
The buddhists deny likewise the real existence of general ideas: according to them only individuals are real existences, general ideas are mere abstractions. The Hindus, on the other hand, like Plato who must have been influenced by them, affirm the reality of general ideas-although real need not always mean material.
(IV) The Vedic Rishis declared with one voice that all existence is built upon delight, all things are born out of delight and move from delight to delight, and delight is their final culmination. Buddha said misery is the hallmark of things created; sorrow is the marrow and pith and the great secret of existence. Sabbe samkhara anichcha. Sabbe samkhara dukkha. Sabbe dhamma anatta.1
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
These are the two primarytruthsrya saryawhichBuddha's illumination meant and for which he has become one of the great divine leaders of humanity. First, he has discovered man's rationality, and second, he has discovered man's humanity. Since his advent two thousand and five hundred years ago till the present day, in this what may pertinently be called the buddhist age of humanity, the entire growth, development and preoccupation of mankind was centred upon the twofold truth. Science and religion today are the highest expressions of that achievement.
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.
03.15 - Towards the Future, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The buddhists consider being as a stream of consciousness, a ceaseless flow of sensations. An individual formation, a creature, a human person has no permanent self-identity. Itis like the Heraclitean river where one does not ba the twice in the same water.
Besides, what is more interesting, it is not an uninterrupted continuous flow with no gap or hiatus, but a movement of disconnected units. Itis an unending series of disparate moments of consciousness. The sense of continuity is a make-believe, an illusion.
We know today, thanks to modern science, of the mystery of particles. The ultimate constituents of the material world consist of particles (or wave-particles), that is to say, packets of material energy strung together or merely juxtaposed, but held together somehow. Now the buddhists added that these are particles of energy no doubt, but the energy is not mere material, i.e., electrical energy; they are desire-energy. Human being or consciousness is an aggregate of cells of desire-energy. The task man has before him the alchemy or laboratory work man is to do is to empty the cells of desire and so annihilate "them; desire gone, cells crumble awayexistence becomes Nihilan inexpressible stillness or tranquillity.
There is however another solution. The cells can be emptied -of desire, but a new element can be put in the place of desire or desire itself can be transmuted.
--
Pursuing the mathematical imagery we may describe the buddhist equation as desire raised to the power of zero equals Nirvana: D=Zero. Buddha thought like that. He thought annihilation of desire means annihilation of existence, for he equated desire with existence. But mathematics tells us that anything raised to the power of zero is not zero but one, that is, the unit, the pure existenceSat (or Sachchidananda as the Vedantists say.
Science and mathematics tell us today of a truth or just point to a truth which a spiritual realisation reveals. It is, as I have already said, the mystery of transformation, or transubstantiation as the Christian faith figures it.
04.02 - A Chapter of Human Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In India we meet a characteristic movement. As I said the Vedas represented the Mythic Age, the age when knowledge was gained or life moulded and developed through Vision and Revelation (Sruti, direct Hearing). The Upanishadic Age followed next. Here we may say the descending light touched the higher reaches of the Mind, the mind of pure, fundamental, typical ideas. The consciousness divested itself of much of the mythic and parabolic apparel and, although supremely immediate and intuitive, yet was bathed with the light of the day, the clear sunshine of the normal wakeful state. The first burgeoning of the Rational Mind proper, the stress of intellect and intellectuality started towards the end of the Upanishadic Age with the Mahabharata, for example and the Brahmanas. It flowered in full vigour, however, in the earlier philosophical schools, the Sankhyas perhaps, and in the great buddhist illuminationBuddha being, we note with interest, almost a contemporary of Socrates and also of the Chinese philosopher or moralist Confuciusa triumvirate almost of mighty mental intelligence ruling over the whole globe and moulding for an entire cycle human culture and destiny. The very name Buddha is significant. It means, no doubt, the Awakened, but awakened in and through the intelligence, the mental Reason, buddhi. The buddhist tradition is that the buddhist cycle, the cycle over which Buddha reigns is for two thousand and five hundred years since his withdrawal which takes us, it seems, to about 1956 A.D.
The Veda speaks of Indra who became later on the king of the gods. And Zeus too occupies the same place in Greek Pantheon. Indra is, as has been pointed out by Sri Aurobindo, the Divine Mind, the leader of thought-gods (Maruts), the creator of perfect forms, in which to clo the our truth-realisations in life. The later traditional Indra in India and the Greek Zeus seem to be formulations on a lower level of the original archetypal Indra, where the consciousness was more mentalised, intellectualised, made more rational, sense-bound, external, pragmatic. The legend of Athena being born straight out of the head of Zeus is a pointer as to the nature and character of the gods. The Roman name for Athena, Minerva, is significantly derived by scholars from Latin mens, which means, as we all know, mind.
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Value refers to the particular poise or status, the mode of being or function of a thing. In its ultimate formulation we can say it is the rhythm or force of consciousness that vibrates in an object, it is the becomingof the being:but becoming does not cancel being, it only activises, energises, formulates. The debate brings us back to the ancient quarrel between the buddhists and the Vedantists, the latter posits sat, being or existence, while the former considers sat as only an assemblage of asat. The object and its function, the thing-in-itself and its attribute (the fire and its burning power, as the Indian logicians used to cite familiarly as an example) are not to be separated they are not separated in fact but given together as one unified entity; it is the logical mind that separates them artificially.
III
05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We say commonly souls are immortal. But in an occult sense souls are or may be mortal too. When the Vedantin speaks of laya or the buddhist of nya, what else is it? It is nothing but the annihilation of the soul, even if it is in the Brahman or some Absolute. But we are not referring to that here. There is a merger of souls, and a dissolution of souls in a somewhat different manner, not on the highest metaphysical heights, but even here below among the growing developing souls embodied upon earth. That is to say, one soul may unite with another and both form one single entity and embodiment.
This perhaps is not the general rule, especially on the higher levels, where the beings possess well developed and well organised individual personalities. It is more common in the earlier stages when the souls are just developing and are pliant and supple and can easily intermingle. But even on the higher reaches a merger is possible and does happen, when some special work has to be done. A god sometimes literally descends into a man, takes up the human soul within himself and becomes the man, transformed and transfigured, even as an Asura also may do the same thing. And human beings too on high altitudes of spiritual growth, major souls, can combine and fuse together to form a single soulsuch may be the demand of their individual lines of growth or the demand of a Higher Will and Purpose.
05.18 - Man to be Surpassed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The limitation of such a human ideal is for us evident. We demand a total surpassing of man, although that does not mean a rejection of man. Unless human life is built upon foundations quite other than what they are now, we say there can be no permanent or radical remedy to the ills it suffers from. Hence we are for utter transcendence; for, the highest height it is possible for the consciousness to reach and the being to dwell in, even the experience of Brahman or un-mitigated Absolute of the Mayavadin or the Zero, Shunyam of the buddhist not excluded. Since it is there that the true foundations of creation lie hidden and it is from there that a new world has to be recreated, a new humanity reshaped. The very stuff of human nature has to be changed, not only what is considered as bad in it but what is valued as good also. For beyond good and evil is Nature Divine. Man has to find out this divine nature and dissolve his human nature into that, remould it, reshape it in that pattern. So long as human consciousness remains too human, it will be always branded with the bar sinister of all earthly things. Man has to grow into the immortal seated within mortality, into the light that shines inviolate on the other side of the darkness we live in. That immortality, that light one has to bring down here on earth and in ourselves, and out of it build a new earth and a new human self and life.
***
05.19 - Lone to the Lone, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Some mystics and philosophers recently come into vogue (inspired or encouraged by the Christian or the buddhist way of Realisation) have emphasised this outlook. But it has also been counterbalanced by another way of spiritual growth and fulfilment: we may call it the modern way, for it has been a pronounced characteristic of the modern consciousness. We referred in our previous essay to the Existentialist who has attracted so much attention in these days, the linchpin of whose philosophy is the value of the individual person, especially the individual personal in relation to each other. Kierkegaard, the Danish mystic, from whom this school is supposed to originate, speaks of the Absolute as the Single One that excludes and annuls all "others", the crowd. He lays especial emphasis upon complete solitariness and total renunciation as the very condition, sine qua non, of the soul's spiritual journey and yet characterises the singlenessof the one in terms that make of it an essential whole, an integer. Man must isolate himself from his phenomenal being, certainlyas the neti netiformula enjoins but also he must first find or become his real self, realise his true individuality before he can reach God, the Divine Self, identify himself with the Transcendent. It is only a freely and truly formed individual being that can give itself to the Divine or become one with it. This true individuality is indeed a solitary being away and apart from the crowd of personalities that surround itit has been called by the Indian mystics, the Purusha in the heart, no bigger than the thumb, the Dwarf Godhead (Vmana).
When one is a member of the crowd, he has no personality or individuality, he is an amorphous mass, moving helplessly in the current of life, driven by Nature-force as it pleases her: spiritual life begins by withdrawing oneself from this flow of Ignorance and building up or taking cognisance of one's true person and being. When one possesses oneself integrally, is settled in the armature of one's spirit self, he has most naturally turned away from the inferior personalities of his own being and the comradeship also of people in bondage and ignorance. But then one need not stop at this purely negative poise: one can move up and arrive at a positive status, a new revaluation and reaffirmation. For when the divine selfhood is attained, one is no longer sole or solitary. Indeed, the solitariness or loneliness that is attributed to the spiritual status is a human way of viewing the experience: that is the impression left on the normal mind consciousness when the Purusha soars out of it, upwards from the life of the world to the life of the Spirit. But the soul, the true spiritual being in the individual, is not and cannot be an isolated entity; the nature of the spiritual consciousness is first transcendence, no doubt, transcendence of the merely temporal and ephemeral, but it is also universalisation, that is to say, the cosmic realisation that has its classic expression in the famous mantra of the Gita, he who sees himself in other selves and other selves in his own self. In that status "own" and "other" are not distinct or contrary things, but aspects of the one and the same reality, different stresses in one rhythm.
05.26 - The Soul in Anguish, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A range of mystics and philosophers or philosopher-mystics from Kierkegaard to Sartre have made much of the sentiment of "anguish". Naturally, it is not the usual feeling of grief or sorrow due to disappointment or frustration that they refer to, nor is it the "repentance" which is a cardinal virtue in the Christian spiritual discipline. Repentance or grief is for something amiss, for some wrong done, for some good not done. It has a definite cause that gives rise to it and determinate conditions that maintain and foster it: and therefore it has also an end, at least the possibility of an ending. It is not eternal and can be mastered and got over: it is of the category of the Sankhyan or buddhistic dukhatrayabhighata for that matter even the lacrimae rerum(tears inherent in things) of Virgil1 are not eternal.
But the new Anguish spoken of is a strange phenomenon: it is causeless and it is eternal. It has sprung unbidden with no antecedent cause or condition: it is woven into the stuff of the being, part and parcel of the consciousness itself. Indeed it seems to be the veritable original sin, pertaining to the very nature. Kierkegaard makes of it an absolute necessity in the spiritual constituent and growth of the human soul something akin to, but deeper, because ineradicable, than the Socratic "divine discontent". Sartre puts it in more philosophical and rational terms, in a secular atmosphere as a kind of inevitable accompaniment to the sense of freedom and responsibility and loneliness that besets the individual being and consciousness at its inmost core, its deepest depth.
08.12 - Thought the Creator, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
buddhists, I mean those who are in the more orthodox tradition, do not believe in God or an eternal Reality; they do not believe in gods either, that is to say, in beings who are truly divine. They, however, know admirably how to use the mind and the mind's power. The buddhist discipline makes you master of the mental instrument. A person following the buddhist discipline came to me once and said that he had made an experiment: he had formed a being with his thought, he had created something like a Mahatma. He knew and it is a proved fact that these mental formations after a time begin to have a personal life, independently of the author,although they may be connected with him, yet they are quite independent, in the sense that they have a will of their own. But now he was facing a formidable difficulty. He said: "Do you know I have formed my Mahatma so well that he has become a personality quite independent of me and comes all the while to trouble me? He comes, scolds me for this and that, advises me in this matter and that and wants to control my life altogether. I am unable to get rid of him. I find it extremely difficult and do not know how to go about it. As I say, my Mahatma has become extremely troublesome. He does not leave me to be at rest. He interferes in all my activities, prevents me from doing my work and yet I know it is my own creation and I am unable to do away with it." He explained to me how he had tried to get rid of the thing. I then told him it was because he did not know the trick. I showed him the process and the next morning he came happy and beaming, saying "it has left." He could not cut the connection; even then cutting the connection is not sufficient, for the being would continue to live apart and independent. What is needed is to re-absorb what one has created, to swallow what has been put out.
***
08.36 - Buddha and Shankara, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And as to the existence or manifestation of the Divine upon earth, they who believed in Buddha have now made him a God. You have only to look at the buddhist temples and all their divinities to know that human nature has always the tendency to deify what it admires.
***
09.06 - How Can Time Be a Friend?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
She was a militant personality and a great buddhist luminary. When she came to India she wanted to see some of the great Indian sages, Gurus, that is to say, and she went to one of them I do not give you his namewho looked at her and asked her, as the talk was about Yoga and personal effort and all that, whether she was indifferent to criticism. She answered him in the classical expression: "Does one mind the barking of a dog?" She added, when she was narrating to me the story, with much humour: "Happily, he did not ask me whether I was indifferent to praise for that is much more difficult!"
So then, you should not consider yourself superior to others and I shall tell you why; you must know that in a being, human or other, it is the consciousness that matters and you are either conscious or unconscious: you can consider yourself superior only when you are unconscious; the very moment you are conscious, truly conscious, you lose the sense of superiority or inferiority. In either case you must not feel superior, for it is smallness, pettiness; but you must be full of goodwill and sympathy and care little about what one says or does not say; however, be always polite, for it is always better to be polite than to be impolite. In that way you put yourself in relation with forces that are more harmonious and you can fight better against the forces of destruction and ugliness. But in reality you must rise above all that and feel yourself interested only in the Divine, in what He expects of you and in what to do for Him, for that is the only thing that counts. The rest has no importance.
10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the buddhist experience of nihil, nothingness, extinction that is the first step, the very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit the nee plus ultra, beyond which there is nothing but it is the very foundation, the absolute minimum of spiritualitysine qua non, without which it is not. The one experience with which you start your spiritual journey is the total negation of whatever exists, reducing existence to zero: world-existence being equated with Ignorance. Life is a falsehood, one has to reject it outright. The next step in Vedanta would be, when you have eliminated everything, reduced all to zero, to contemplate, to find what remains, the irreducible reality the unity, the One, Sat, Brahman.
First, then, the total and absolute dissolution of this creation of ignorance, the Creation which is ignorance, and attaining a status of nothingness, absolute annihilation, then in that blank void emerges the Residue, the One True Realitya silent, infinite eternal immobility, a pure Existence. In the beginning the Non-Existence (Asat), then there arises the Pure Existence (Sat). That pure Existence is gradually found to possess or be Delight also. As Being is not the being in creation even so the Consciousness is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life; they are all of quite another quality and category.
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
All the serious Orders of the world, or nearly all, begin by insisting that the aspirant should take a vow of poverty; a buddhist Bhikku, for example, can own only nine objects his three robes, begging bowl, a fan, toothbrush, and so on. The Hindu and Mohammedan Orders have similar regulations; and so do all the important Orders of monkhood in Christianity.
Our own Order is the only exception of importance; and the reason for this is that it is much more difficult to retain one's purity if one is living in the world than if one simply cuts oneself off from it. It is far easier to achieve technical attainments if one is unhampered by any such considerations. These regulations operate as restrictions to one's usefulness in helping the world. There are terrible dangers, the worst dangers of all, associated with complete retirement. In my own personal judgment, moreover, I think that our own ideal of a natural life is much more wholesome.
1.00 - Introduction to Alchemy of Happiness, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
It is too narrow a view to adopt, in regard to a man of the sublime character of Ghazzali, that he obtained his ideas from any one school of thinkers, or that being in fellowship with the Soofies, that he was merely a Soofi. He was living in the centre of Aryan peoples and religions. He may have had his doctrine of the future life shaped by Zoroaster, and have been influenced by the missionaries of the buddhists.
The practical religion taught in these homilies will give a favorable opinion of the state of mind of the more intelligent Mussulmans. They contain not the Mohammedanism of the creed or the catechism, but of the closet and the pulpit. The tenor of the book establishes the truth of Ibn Khallikan's remark in his Biographical Dictionary that "Ghazzali's ruling passion was making public exhortations."
1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The fire of Spirit finally, when blended with the two other fires (which blending commences in man at the first initiation), forms a basis of spiritual life or existence. As evolution proceeds in the fifth or spiritual kingdom, these three fires blaze forth simultaneously, producing perfected consciousness. This blaze results in the final [52] purification of matter and its consequent adequacy; at the close of manifestation it brings about eventually the destruction of the form and its dissolution, and the termination of existence as understood on the lower planes. In terms of buddhistic theology it produces annihilation; this involves, not loss of identity, but the cessation of objectivity and the escape of Spirit, plus mind, to its cosmic centre. It has its analogy in the initiation at which the adept stands free from the limitations of matter in the three worlds.
The internal fires of the system, of the planet, and of man are threefold:
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
they Christian or buddhist or what you will are lovely,
li Cf. my papers on the divine child and the Kore in the present volume, and
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
in all orders and for all Tibetan buddhists.
Question: Are male yidams more appropriate for men and
1.01 - To Watanabe Sukefusa, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
Until now, your mother could not devote herself to good works because from the time you were born she lavished her every moment on you, caring for you and seeing that you were provided with everything necessary for your upbringing. If she did find time to enter the family altar room, the sutras and dharanis she recited were always dedicated to your good health and long life, without a thought for her own karmic future, and heedless of her own physical exhaustion. Now, having retired in recent years from her former busy life, she has time to spend quietly on buddhist devotions-but you come around, hatching your malicious schemes to frustrate and upset her, spreading silly rumors at the yearend cleaning, thinking up ways to anger her at the busy year-end season. What a bitterly cruel thing to do.
How heartwarming it is to see ordinary sons and daughters attending to their duty to their parents with benevolent smiles on their faces, sparing no expense to provide for their needs and amusement:
"You must use a palanquin when you visit the shrine." "Why don't you take your friend so-and-so with you when you attend that buddhist service?"
But never forget, that no matter how long-lived your parents are, they cannot remain forever in this illusory world of dreams. Accounts have been transmitted throughout the past of brave samurai whose minds were filled with thoughts of filial devotion, of virtuous priests of deep attainment whose love and compassion for their parents was a constant concern. Still, perhaps you think it strange my saying these things to you. "Ekaku is quick to grab his brush and write letters of this kind to people. But what about him? Hasn't he left his father, who is well into his eighties, to go wandering off to the far-flung corners of the country, never so much as sending him a letter?"
However, a person who leaves his home to take the vows of a buddhist monk has, in doing so, renounced his former self completely. He sets out in search of a good master who can help him achieve his goal, engaging in arduous practice day and night, precisely because he is concerned with obtaining a favorable rebirth for his parents into the endless future. He is performing the greatest kind of filial piety.
It is said that on receiving a just remonstrance, you should not consider the person who delivers it.
--
Edo-period Japan with its formal government sanction of Confucian ethics. Many Confucians, including some with great political influence, regarded monasticism as abhorrent on the grounds that it contravened the basic operating principles of filial behavior by keeping young men from producing heirs to continue the parental line. buddhists in China, and later in Japan, responded to such charges with some success, arguing the deep filiality of the monk's career, in which "leaving home" for the priesthood, through the redemptive power of awakening, is reconciled with Confucian filial responsibilities.
Sharing these premises, Hakuin launched vehement attacks on what he considered the mistaken understanding purveyed by such architects of Confucian orthodoxy as Hayashi Razan (see chapter
1.01 - Who is Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
Those of us who were not raised buddhist can easily bring our previous reli-
how to free your mind
gious conditioning into buddhist practice and substitute Buddha for God.
Since this would create many difculties in our spiritual practice, lets be
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
reason that the buddhists believe that everything is Maya, or illusion:38 the motivational significance of
ongoing events is clearly determined by the nature of the goal towards which behavior is devoted. That
1.02 - Meditating on Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
At the beginning we are kindergarten buddhists and thats okay. We see our
older brothers and sisters who have already gotten their Ph.D.s, but they
--
are not separate practices that are unrelated to other buddhist practices. To
do tantric practices, we have to be rmly grounded in the foundational teachings of the Theravada the three higher trainings of ethical discipline, concentration, and wisdom. In addition, we must practice the general Mahayana
--
Dharma, and Sangha. That is, we have examined buddhist teachings and are
condent that they are accurate and that following them will lead to our
--
a buddhist.
As followers of the Buddhas path, we should not criticize other religions
--
God is. Some people who consider themselves buddhists may pray to Tara as
if she were an external God, while some Christians may see God as emptiness
--
Becoming enlightened doesnt depend on calling ourselves buddhist.
It depends on what we believe in our heart and how we practice to transform
--
even the buddhist path, let alone the paths of other religions to be able to
know with certainty whether these various paths lead to the same or different results.
--
Christians to Bodhgaya, and some buddhists attended the dialogue as well.
Everyone practiced and discussed together. I heard from a friend who
--
them. If those people tried to use buddhist symbols, they might not work for
them. If they tried to adopt buddhist views, they might become confused.
Before getting attached to calling ourselves buddhists and boasting of
the superiority of our path, we need to investigate, Do my views actually
--
if we really hold buddhist views. We may say that were a buddhist but not
actually know or agree with what the Buddha taught. For example, some people say, Im buddhist, but they dont want to hear teachings on the sutras
spoken by the Buddha. They just want to receive blessings and initiations
--
Do these people hold buddhist views?
We need to look inside ourselves and see to what extent we are training
--
our mind in buddhist views. Such training doesnt mean we simply say,
Whatever the Buddha believed is right, and then blindly follow what other
--
In buddhist practice, we try to develop a love for others that goes beyond
how they supercially act or think. We cultivate a love that wants them to
1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[12]: Time is not usually enumerated in the Purāṇas as an element of the first cause, but the Padma P. and the Bhāgavata p. 10 agree with the Viṣṇu in including it. It appears to have been regarded at an earlier date as an independent cause: the commentator on the Mokṣa Dherma cites a passage from the Vedas, which he understands to allude to the different theories of the cause of creation. Time, inherent nature, consequence of acts, self-will, elementary atoms, matter, and spirit, asserted severally by the Astrologers, the buddhists, the Mimānsakas, the Jains, the Logicians, the Sā
khyas, and the Vedāntis. Κρόνος was also one of the first generated agents in creation, according to the Orphic theogony.
1.02 - The Great Process, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But the damage does not stop there. Nothing is stickier than falsehood. It sticks to the soles of our shoes even though we have turned away from the wrong path. Others had indeed seen the earthly relevance of the Great Process the Zen buddhists, the Tantric initiates, the Sufis and others and, more and more, disconcerted minds are turning to it and to themselves: never have so many more or less esoteric schools flourished. But the old error is holding fast (to tell the truth, we don't know whether error is ever an appropriate term, for the so-called error always turns out to be a roundabout route of the same Truth leading to a wider view of itself). It took so much effort out of the Sages of those days, and out of the lesser sages of these days, so many indispensable conditions of peace, austerity, silence and purity for them to achieve their more or less illumined goal, that our subconscious mind was as if branded by a red-hot iron with the idea that, without special conditions and special masters and somewhat special or mystical or innate gifts, it was not really possible to set out on that path, or at best the results would be meager and proportionate to the effort expended. And it was still, of course, an individual undertaking, a lofty extension of book learning. But this new dichotomy threatens to be more serious than the other one, more potentially harmful, between an unredeemed mass and an enlightened elite juggling lights about which anything can be said since there is no microscope to check it. Drugs, too, are a cheap ticket to dizzying glimpses of dazzling lights.
But we still do not have the key, the simple key. Yet the Great Process is there, the simple process.
1.02 - The Magic Circle, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
A buddhist magician drawing his Mandala, putting his five deities in the form of figures or diagrams on top of the relevant emanation, is, at that moment, meditating about each single deity whose influence he is trying to evoke. This magical ceremony, too, is, in our opinion, equivalent to the drawing of a magic circle, although it actually is a genuine prayer to the buddhist deities. To say more about this matter in this book is quite unnecessary for enough material has already been published in Eastern literature about this kind of magical practice, either in exoteric or in secret manuscripts.
A magic circle. may serve many purposes. It may be used for evocation of beings or as a protective means against invisible influences. It need not in all cases be drawn or placed on the ground. It can also be drawn in the air with a magical weapon, like the magic sword or the magic wand, under the condition that the magician is fully conscious of the universal quality of protection, etc. If no magical weapon is at hand, the circle can also be described with the finger or with the hand alone, providing this is done in the right spirit, in agreement with God. It is even possible to form a magic circle by one's mere imagination.
1.02 - The Necessity of Magick for All, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Taoist sectaries appear to assume that Perfection consists in the absence of any disturbance of the Stream of Nescience; and this is very much like the buddhist idea of Nibbana.
We who accept the Law of Thelema, even should we concur in this doctrine theoretically, cannot admit that in practice the plan would work out; our aim is that our Nothing, ideally perfect as it is in itself, should enjoy itself through realizing itself in the fulfillment of all possibilities. All such phenomena or "point-events" are equally "illusion"; Nothing is always Nothing; but the projection of Nothing on this screen of the phenomenal does not only explain, but constitutes, the Universe. It is the only system which reconciles all the contradictions inherent in Thought, and in Experience; for in it "Reality" is "Illusion", "Free-will" is "Destiny", the "Self" is the "Not-Self"; and so for every puzzle of Philosophy.
1.02 - The Pit, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
It is sometimes claimed that the buddhist terminology, as contained in the Abidhamma, provides a sufficiently complete philosophical alphabet. While there is much to be said in favour of the buddhist system, we cannot wholly concur with this opinion for the following reasons:
Firstly, the actual words are barbarously long, impossibly so for the average European.
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Secondly, an understanding of that system demands complete acquiescence in the buddhist doctrinalia, which we are not prepared to give.
Thirdly, the meaning of the terms is not as clear, precise, and comprehensive as could be wished. There is most certainly a great deal of pedantry, disputed matter, and confusion. Only recently, I learn that Mrs. Rhys Davids hes issued a book on buddhist Origins, in which the question among others is raised by her as to the correct translation or meaning of the Pali word" Dhamma"; whether it implies "law", "conscience", "life", or simply the
buddhist doctrine.
10.37 - The Golden Bridge, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The liberation of the mind, at least the higher mind, as an instrument of expression for the human consciousness was achieved to a remarkable degree in the Upanishads generally, particularly in some, although the beginnings of it might be traced even in some of the earliest of the Vedic Riks. A serious and persistent attempt for this liberation was made later, in the age or rather ages of the Gita, the Mahabharata, the Darshanas. It was the rational spirit that impelled and inspired the buddhist consciousness and in Europe it had its heyday in the age of Socrates and Plato. Those were intellectual ages and the intellect was trying to find and explore its own domain in its full and free power and sovereignty. And the human language too, as a necessary corollary was remoulded, remodelled, rationalised: it shook itself away as far as possible from the prejudices and prepossessions of the sense-bound mind. That is the inner story of the growth of language from the synthetic inflexional cohesive stage to its modern analytic discursive character.
Still, however, it is not easy to completely ignore or efface the influence of a concrete truth, a fact which is at the basis of human birth the truth and fact of the body, of the external material objects. For example, how to express That which does not belong to this world, has not the measures of this body? The Upanishad has perforce to speak negatively of the Supreme positive Reality. It has to say, "It is not this, it is not this, it is quite other than all this, it has no parallel here below although it is the source and origin of all this." We have found some positive words indeedsat-cit-nanda; but the other key-word is a negative in structureamtam, not death. Immortality means not mortality, and ananta too is a negative expression. We remember the famous lines: Na tatra srya bhti etc.,1 it is a supreme revelation, it is supremely evocative but it is built up of negatives. The Vedic rishis followed a different line, as I said; they did not evade or reject the materials of a physical life, they boldly grasped them and used them as signs, symbols, embodiments of other truths and realities. They accepted the sun, the moon, the stars, man and woman, even the normal activities of life but they gave these quite a different connotation. They filled them with a new depth and density, a higher specific gravity.
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
What is the nature of this stinking lump of selfness or personality, which has to be so passionately repented of and so completely died to, before there can be any true knowing of God in purity of spirit? The most meagre and non-committal hypodiesis is that of Hume. Mankind, he says, are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and movement. An almost identical answer is given by the buddhists, whose doctrine of anatta is the denial of any permanent soul, existing behind the flux of experience and the various psycho-physical skandhas (closely corresponding to Humes bundles), which constitute the more enduring elements of personality. Hume and the buddhists give a sufficiently realistic description of selfness in action; but they fail to explain how or why the bundles ever became bundles. Did their constituent atoms of experience come together of their own accord? And, if so, why, or by what means, and within what kind of a non-spatial universe? To give a plausible answer to these questions in terms of anatta is so difficult that we are forced to abandon the doctrine in favour of the notion that, behind the flux and within the bundles, there exists some kind of permanent soul, by which experience is organized and which in turn makes use of that organized experience to become a particular and unique personality. This is the view of the orthodox Hinduism, from which buddhist thought parted company, and of almost all European thought from before the time of Aristotle to the present day. But whereas most contemporary thinkers make an attempt to describe human nature in terms of a dichotomy of interacting psyche and physique, or an inseparable wholeness of these two elements within particular embothed selves, all the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy make, in one form or another, the affirmation that man is a kind of trinity composed of body, psyche and spirit. Selfness or personality is a product of the first two elements. The third element (that quidquid increatum et increabile, as Eckhart called it) is akin to, or even identical with, the divine Spirit that is the Ground of all being. Mans final end, the purpose of his existence, is to love, know and be united with the immanent and transcendent Godhead. And this identification of self with spiritual not-self can be achieved only by dying to selfness and living to spirit.
What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man different from self?
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The biographies of the saints testify unequivocally to the fact that spiritual training leads to a transcendence of personality, not merely in the special circumstances of battle, but in all circumstances and in relation to all creatures, so that the saint loves his enemies or, if he is a buddhist, does not even recognize the existence of enemies, but treats all sentient beings, sub-human as well as human, with the same compassion and disinterested good will. Those who win through to the unitive knowledge of God set out upon their course from the most diverse starting points. One is a man, another a woman; one a born active, another a born contemplative. No two of them inherit the same temperament and physical constitution, and their lives are passed in material, moral and intellectual environments that are profoundly dissimilar. Nevertheless, insofar as they are saints, insofar as they possess the unitive knowledge that makes them perfect as their Father which is in heaven is perfect, they are all astonishingly alike. Their actions are uniformly selfless and they are constantly recollected, so that at every moment they know who they are and what is their true relation to the universe and its spiritual Ground. Of even plain average people it may be said that their name is Legionmuch more so of exceptionally complex personalities, who identify themselves with a wide diversity of moods, cravings and opinions. Saints, on the contrary, are neither double-minded nor half-hearted, but single and, however great their intellectual gifts, profoundly simple. The multiplicity of Legion has given place to one-pointedness not to any of those evil one-pointednesses of ambition or covetousness, or lust for power and fame, not even to any of the nobler, but still all too human one-pointednesses of art, scholarship and science, regarded as ends in themselves, but to the supreme, more than human one-pointedness that is the very being of those souls who consciously and consistently pursue mans final end, the knowledge of eternal Reality. In one of the Pali scriptures there is a significant anecdote about the Brahman Drona who, seeing the Blessed One sitting at the foot of a tree, asked him, Are you a deva? And the Exalted One answered, I am not. Are you a gandharva? I am not, Are you a yaksha? I am not. Are you a man? I am not a man. On the Brahman asking what he might be, the Blessed One replied, Those evil influences, those cravings, whose non-destruction would have individualized me as a deva, a gandharva, a yaksha (three types of supernatural being), or a man, I have completely annihilated. Know therefore that I am Buddha.
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.
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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.
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Can the many fantastic and mutually incompatible theories of expiation and atonement, which have been grafted onto the Christian doctrine of divine incarnation, be regarded as indispensable elements in a sane theology? I find it difficult to imagine how anyone who has looked into a history of these notions, as expounded, for example, by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, by Athanasius and Augustine, by Anselm and Luther, by Calvin and Grotius, can plausibly answer this question in the affirmative. In the present context, it will be enough to call attention to one of the bitterest of all the bitter ironies of history. For the Christ of the Gospels, lawyers seemed further from the Kingdom of Heaven, more hopelessly impervious to Reality, than almost any other class of human beings except the rich. But Christian theology, especially that of the Western churches, was the product of minds imbued with Jewish and Roman legalism. In all too many instances the immediate insights of the Avatar and the theocentric saint were rationalized into a system, not by philosophers, but by speculative barristers and metaphysical jurists. Why should what Abbot John Chapman calls the problem of reconciling (not merely uniting) Mysticism and Christianity be so extremely difficult? Simply because so much Roman and Protestant thinking was done by those very lawyers whom Christ regarded as being peculiarly incapable of understanding the true Nature of Things. The Abbot (Chapman is apparently referring to Abbot Marmion) says St John of the Cross is like a sponge full of Christianity. You can squeeze it all out, and the full mystical theory (in other words, the pure Perennial Philosophy) remains. Consequently for fifteen years or so I hated St John of the Cross and called him a buddhist. I loved St Teresa and read her over and over again. She is first a Christian, only secondarily a mystic. Then I found I had wasted fifteen years, so far as prayer was concerned.
Now see the meaning of these two sayings of Christs. The one, No man cometh unto the Father but by me, that is through my life. The other saying, No man cometh unto me except the Father draw him; that is, he does not take my life upon him and follow after me, except he is moved and drawn of my Father, that is, of the Simple and Perfect Good, of which St. Paul saith, When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.
1.03 - Tara, Liberator from the Eight Dangers, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
that reason, Tibetan buddhist practitioners are encouraged to do 100,000
full-length prostrations. While prostrating, we contemplate the good qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which makes respect and admiration
1.03 - The Coming of the Subjective Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is this principle and necessity that justify an age of individualism and rationalism and make it, however short it may be, an inevitable period in the cycle. A temporary reign of the critical reason largely destructive in its action is an imperative need for human progress. In India, since the great buddhistic upheaval of the national thought and life, there has been a series of re current attempts to rediscover the truth of the soul and life and get behind the veil of stifling conventions; but these have been conducted by a wide and tolerant spiritual reason, a plastic soul-intuition and deep subjective seeking, insufficiently militant and destructive. Although productive of great internal and considerable external changes, they have never succeeded in getting rid of the predominant conventional order. The work of a dissolvent and destructive intellectual criticism, though not entirely absent from some of these movements, has never gone far enough; the constructive force, insufficiently aided by the destructive, has not been able to make a wide and free space for its new formation. It is only with the period of European influence and impact that circumstances and tendencies powerful enough to enforce the beginnings of a new age of radical and effective revaluation of ideas and things have come into existence. The characteristic power of these influences has been throughoutor at any rate till quite recentlyrationalistic, utilitarian and individualistic. It has compelled the national mind to view everything from a new, searching and critical standpoint, and even those who seek to preserve the present or restore the past are obliged un consciously or half-consciously to justify their endeavour from the novel point of view and by its appropriate standards of reasoning. Throughout the East, the subjective Asiatic mind is being driven to adapt itself to the need for changed values of life and thought. It has been forced to turn upon itself both by the pressure of Western knowledge and by the compulsion of a quite changed life-need and life-environment. What it did not do from within, has come on it as a necessity from without and this externality has carried with it an immense advantage as well as great dangers.
The individualistic age is, then, a radical attempt of mankind to discover the truth and law both of the individual being and of the world to which the individual belongs. It may begin, as it began in Europe, with the endeavour to get back, more especially in the sphere of religion, to the original truth which convention has overlaid, defaced or distorted; but from that first step it must proceed to others and in the end to a general questioning of the foundations of thought and practice in all the spheres of human life and action. A revolutionary reconstruction of religion, philosophy, science, art and society is the last inevitable outcome. It proceeds at first by the light of the individual mind and reason, by its demand on life and its experience of life; but it must go from the individual to the universal. For the effort of the individual soon shows him that he cannot securely discover the truth and law of his own being without discovering some universal law and truth to which he can relate it. Of the universe he is a part; in all but his deepest spirit he is its subject, a small cell in that tremendous organic mass: his substance is drawn from its substance and by the law of its life the law of his life is determined and governed. From a new view and knowledge of the world must proceed his new view and knowledge of him self, of his power and capacity and limitations, of his claim on existence and the high road and the distant or immediate goal of his individual and social destiny.
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Ideation ". With the buddhists of China, this is Kwan
Shi Yin ; Vishnu and Ishvara with the Hindus. Chokmah is the Word, the Greek Logos, and the Memrah of the Tar- gum. The Sepher Yetsirah names it " The Illuminating
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.
1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
Buddha Dharma, the transmission could not have lasted down to the present day." Indignant, Hsuantse left the monastery, but on his way down the mountain he reflected, "The master is known throughout the land as a great teacher. He has over five hundred disciples. There must be some merit to his words." Returning penitently to the monastery, he performed his bows before Fa-yen, and asked, "What is the self of a buddhist monk?" "Ping-ting t'ung-tzu comes for fire," the master replied.
At the words, Hsuan-tse attained great enlightenment (Records of the Lamp, ch. 17).
1.03 - Yama and Niyama, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
3:In the buddhist system, "Sila", "Virtue," is similarly enjoined. The qualities are, for the layman, these five: Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt drink no intoxicating drink. For the monk many others are added.
4:The commandments of Moses are familiar to all; they are rather similar; and so are those given by Christ footnote: Not, however, original. The whole sermon is to be found in the Talmud. in the "Sermon on the Mount."
1.03 - YIBHOOTI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
by a sect of the buddhists. They take a lump of clay, and make
Samyama on that, and gradually they begin to see the fine
1.045 - Piercing the Structure of the Object, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
When we dissect an object into its components, the object ceases to be there; we have only the components. The appearance of a single, compact object before the mind is due to a misconception that has arisen in the mind. We dealt with this subject earlier, when we discussed some aspects of buddhist psychology and certain other relevant subjects in this connection. The belief in the solidity of an object, and the conviction that the object is completely outside one's consciousness, almost go together. They move hand in hand, and it is this difficulty that comes as a tremendous and serious obstacle in meditation.
Whatever be our effort in meditation, the conviction that things are outside us and that they are completely out of our control will repeat itself so vehemently and forcefully that we will be unhappy. Doubts will arise in the mind. "After all, am I going to succeed? How can I control this mountain? What right have I over this mountain?" But we will realise, after repeated practise, that we have some say in the matter of the existence of even a mountain, though it may look that it is irrelevant to the question at hand. Ultimately there is nothing that is disconnected from us and, therefore, there is nothing which cannot be converted into an object of meditation. In fact there is nothing, anywhere in this world, which cannot become an avenue for the entry of consciousness into the Universal Reality. Any object, for the matter of that, can be taken as a suitable object for the purpose of meditation, because prakriti is permanently present, pervading everything in one form or the other, and so whatever be the object that we take for meditation, it is a form of prakriti, this pradhana of the Samkhya. So, there is no need to worry oneself about the choice of the object of meditation. It depends upon the predilection of the mind, the tendency of the mind, and the suitability of the relationship one has with the object that has been chosen.
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The Sravaka (literally hearer, the name given by Mahayana buddhists to contemplatives of the Hinayana school) fails to perceive that Mind, as it is in itself, has no stages, no causation. Disciplining himself in the cause, he has attained the result and abides in the samadhi (contemplation) of Emptiness for ever so many aeons. However enlightened in this way, the Sravaka is not at all on the right track. From the point of view of the Bodhisattva, this is like suffering the torture of hell. The Sravaka has buried himself in Emptiness and does not know how to get out of his quiet contemplation, for he has no insight into the Buddha-nature itself.
Mo Tsu
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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,
--
St. Bernard speaks in what seems a similar strain. What I know of the divine sciences and Holy Scripture, I learnt in woods and fields. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. And in another of his letters he says: Listen to a man of experience: thou wilt learn more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach thee more than thou canst acquire from the mouth of a magister. The phrases are similar; but their inner significance is very different. In Augustines language, God alone is to be enjoyed; creatures are not to be enjoyed but usedused with love and compassion and a wondering, detached appreciation, as means to the knowledge of that which may be enjoyed. Wordsworth, like almost all other literary Nature-worshippers, preaches the enjoyment of creatures rather than their use for the attainment of spiritual endsa use which, as we shall see, entails much self-discipline for the user. For Bernard it goes without saying that his correspondents are actively practising this self-discipline and that Nature, though loved and heeded as a teacher, is only being used as a means to God, not enjoyed as though she were God. The beauty of flowers and landscape is not merely to be relished as one wanders lonely as a cloud about the countryside, is not merely to be pleasurably remembered when one is lying in vacant or in pensive mood on the sofa in the library, after tea. The reaction must be a little more strenuous and purposeful. Here, my brothers, says an ancient buddhist author, are the roots of trees, here are empty places; meditate. The truth is, of course, that the world is only for those who have deserved it; for, in Philos words, even though a man may be incapable of making himself worthy of the creator of the cosmos, yet he ought to try to make himself worthy of the cosmos. He ought to transform himself from being a man into the nature of the cosmos and become, if one may say so, a little cosmos. For those who have not deserved the world, either by making themselves worthy of its creator (that is to say, by non-attachment and a total self-naughting), or, less arduously, by making themselves worthy of the cosmos (by bringing order and a measure of unity to the manifold confusion of undisciplined human personality), the world is, spiritually speaking, a very dangerous place.
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,
--
Every worldly affair is now a buddhist work,
And wherever he goes he finds his home air.
--
Compared with that of the Taoists and Far Eastern buddhists, the Christian attitude towards Nature has been curiously insensitive and often downright domineering and violent. Taking their cue from an unfortunate remark in Genesis, Catholic moralists have regarded animals as mere things which men do right to exploit for their own ends. Like landscape painting, the humanitarian movement in Europe was an almost completely secular affair. In the Far East both were essentially religious.
The Greeks believed that hubris was always followed by nemesis, that if you went too far you would get a knock on the head to remind you that the gods will not tolerate insolence on the part of mortal men. In the sphere of human relations, the modern mind understands the doctrine of hubris and regards it as mainly true. We wish pride to have a fall, and we see that very often it does fall.
1.04 - Reality Omnipresent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
6:But, still, there is the absolute withdrawal, there is the NonBeing. Out of the Non-Being, says the ancient Scripture, Being appeared.2 Then into the Non-Being it must surely sink again. If the infinite indiscriminate Existence permits all possibilities of discrimination and multiple realisation, does not the NonBeing at least, as primal state and sole constant reality, negate and reject all possibility of a real universe? The Nihil of certain buddhist schools would then be the true ascetic solution; the Self, like the ego, would be only an ideative formation by an illusory phenomenal consciousness.
7:But again we find that we are being misled by words, deceived by the trenchant oppositions of our limited mentality with its fond reliance on verbal distinctions as if they perfectly represented ultimate truths and its rendering of our supramental experiences in the sense of those intolerant distinctions. NonBeing is only a word. When we examine the fact it represents, we can no longer be sure that absolute non-existence has any better chance than the infinite Self of being more than an ideative formation of the mind. We really mean by this Nothing something beyond the last term to which we can reduce our purest conception and our most abstract or subtle experience of actual being as we know or conceive it while in this universe. This Nothing then is merely a something beyond positive conception. We erect a fiction of nothingness in order to overpass, by the method of total exclusion, all that we can know and consciously are. Actually when we examine closely the Nihil of certain philosophies, we begin to perceive that it is a zero which is All or an indefinable Infinite which appears to the mind a blank, because mind grasps only finite constructions, but is in fact the only true Existence.3
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The myth of the Fall, Christian or buddhist, describes the development of self-consciousness as
voluntary, though pre-arranged, in a sense, by the gods, whose power remains outside human control.
1.04 - The Crossing of the First Threshold, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
Oceanic, Assyro-Babylonian, buddhist, Celtic, Chinese, Christian, Coptic,
Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, Indian, Jain, Japanese, Jewish, Moslem, Persian,
--
The thunderbolt (vajra) is one of the major symbols in buddhist iconogra
phy, signifying the spiritual power of Buddhahood (indestructible enlighten
1.04 - The Praise, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
DESIRE: sphere of desire. buddhist cosmology divides
the possibilities of existence into three spheres or
--
of the world in buddhist cosmology.
MANDARA: a mountain.
1.05 - Buddhism and Women, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
initiative appeared suspect to Indian buddhists. They
met in Bodhgaya to discuss this issue and sent three
--
receive a buddhist education during their studies. To
this effect, there is a teacher of buddhism in all the
schools. A buddhist university was founded in
Varanasi. It is open to all-monks and lay people, girls
and boys-and various buddhist disciplines are taught
as well as Sanskrit and English languages. But few
1.05 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice - The Psychic Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A wider formula has been provided by the secular mind of mall of which the basis is the ethical sense; for it distinguishes between the emotions sanctioned by the ethical sense and those that are egoistic and selfishly common and mundane. It is the works of altruism, philanthropy, compassion, benevolence, humanitarianism, service, labour for the well-being of man and all creatures that are to be our Ideal; to shuffle off the coil of egoism and grow into a soul of self-abnegation that lives only or mainly for others or for humanity as a whole is the way of man's inner evolution according to this doctrine. Or if this is too secular and mental to satisfy the whole of our being, since there is a deeper religious and spiritual note there that is left out of account by the humanitarian formula, a religio-ethical foundation can be provided for it -and such was indeed its original basis. To the inner worship of the Divine or the Supreme by the devotion of the heart or to the pursuit of the Ineffable by the seeking of a highest knowledge can be added a worship through altruistic works or a preparation through acts of love, of benevolence, of service to mankind or to those around us. It is indeed by the religio-ethical sense that the law of universal goodwill or universal compassion or of love and service to the neighbour, the Vedantic, the buddhistic, the Christian ideal, was created; only by a sort of secular refrigeration extinguishing the fervour of the religious element in it could the humanitarian ideal disengage itself and become the highest plane of a secular system of mental and moral ethics. For in the religious system this law of works is a means that ceases when its object is accomplished or a side issue; it is a part of the cult by which one adores and seeks the Divinity or it is a penultimate step of the excision of self in the passage to Nirvana. In the secular ideal it is promoted into an object in itself; it becomes a sign of the moral perfection of the human being, or else it is a condition for a happier state of man upon earth, a better society, a more united life of the race. But none of these things satisfy the demand of the soul that is placed before us by the integral Yoga.
Altruism, philanthropy, humanitarianism, service are flowers of the mental consciousness and are at best the mind's cold and pale imitation of the spiritual flame of universal Divine Love. Not truly liberative from ego-sense, they widen it at most and give it higher and larger satisfaction; impotent in practice to change mall's vital life and nature, they only modify and palliate its action and daub over its unchanged egoistic essence. Or if they are intensely followed with an entire sincerity of the will, it is by an exaggerated amplification of one side of our nature; in that exaggeration there can be no clue for the full and perfect divine evolution of the many sides of our individualised being towards the universal and transcendent Eternal. Nor can the religio-ethical ideal be a sufficient guide, -- for this is a compromise or compact of mutual concessions for mutual support between a religious urge which seeks to get a closer hold on earth by taking into itself the higher turns of ordinary human nature and an ethical urge which hopes to elevate itself out of its own mental hardness and dryness by some touch of a religious fervour. In making this compact religion lowers itself to the mental level and inherits the inherent imperfections of mind and its inability to convert and transform life. The mind is the sphere of the dualities and, just as it is impossible for it to achieve any absolute Truth but only truths relative or mixed with error, so it is impossible for it to achieve any absolute good; for moral good exists as a counterpart and corrective to evil and has evil always for its shadow, complement, almost its reason for existence. But the spiritual consciousness belongs to a higher than the mental plane and there the dualities cease; for there falsehood confronted with the truth by which it profited through a usurping falsification of it and evil faced by the good of which it was a perversion or a lurid substitute, are obliged to perish for want of sustenance and to cease. The integral Yoga, refusing to rely upon the fragile stuff of mental and moral ideals, puts its whole emphasis in this field on three central dynamic processes -- the development of the true soul or psychic being to take the place of the false soul of desire, the sublimation of human into divine love, the elevation of consciousness from its mental to its spiritual and supramental plane by whose power alone both the soul and the life-force can be utterly delivered from the veils and prevarications of the Ignorance.
1.05 - The Universe The 0 = 2 Equation, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
[AC11] Possibly almost identical with the buddhist Neroda-Samapatti.
[ back to TOC ]
1.06 - Dhyana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
47:We may, however, provisionally accept the view that Dhyana is real; more real and thus of more importance to ourselves than all other experience. This state has been described not only by the Hindus and buddhists, but by Mohammedans and Christians. In Christian writings, however, the deeply-seated dogmatic bias has rendered their documents worthless to the average man. They ignore the essential conditions of Dhyana, and insist on the inessential, to a much greater extent than the best Indian writers. But to any one with experience and some knowledge of comparative religion the identity is certain. We may now proceed to Samadhi.
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Rabia, the Sufi woman-saint, speaks, thinks and feels in terms of devotional theism; the buddhist theologian, in terms of impersonal moral Law; the Chinese philosopher, with characteristic humour, in terms of politics; but all three insist on the need for non-attachment to self-interestinsist on it as strongly as does Christ when he reproaches the Pharisees for their egocentric piety, as does the Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita, when he tells Arjuna to do his divinely ordained duty without personal craving for, or fear of, the fruits of his actions.
St. Ignatius Loyola was once asked what his feelings would be if the Pope were to suppress the Company of Jesus. A quarter of an hour of prayer, he answered, and I should think no more about it.
--
In the first seven branches of his Eightfold Path the Buddha describes the conditions that must be fulfilled by anyone who desires to come to that right contemplation which is the eighth and final branch. The fulfilment of these conditions entails the undertaking of a course of the most searching and comprehensive mortificationmortification of intellect and will, craving and emotion, thought, speech, action and, finally, means of livelihood. Certain professions are more or less completely incompatible with the achievement of mans final end; and there are certain ways of making a living which do so much physical and, above all, so much moral, intellectual and spiritual harm that, even if they could be practised in a non-attached spirit (which is generally impossible), they would still have to be eschewed by anyone dedicated to the task of liberating, not only himself, but others. The exponents of the Perennial Philosophy are not content to avoid and forbid the practice of criminal professions, such as brothel-keeping, forgery, racketeering and the like; they also avoid themselves, and warn others against, a number of ways of livelihood commonly regarded as legitimate. Thus, in many buddhist societies, the manufacture of arms, the concoction of intoxicating liquors and the wholesale purveying of butchers meat were not, as in contemporary Christendom, rewarded by wealth, peerages and political influence; they were deplored as businesses which, it was thought, made it particularly difficult for their practitioners and for other members of the communities in which they were practised to achieve enlightenment and liberation. Similarly, in mediaeval Europe, Christians were forbidden to make a living by the taking of interest on money or by cornering the market. As Tawney and others have shown, it was only after the Reformation that coupon-clipping, usury and gambling in stocks and commodities became respectable and received ecclesiastical approval.
For the Quakers, soldiering was and is a form of wrong livelihoodwar being, in their eyes, anti-Christian, not so much because it causes suffering as because it propagates hatred, puts a premium on fraud and cruelty, infects whole societies with anger, fear, pride and uncharitableness. Such passions eclipse the Inner Light, and therefore the wars by which they are aroused and intensified, must be regarded, whatever their immediate political outcome, as crusades to make the world safe for spiritual darkness.
1.06 - Origin of the four castes, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[8]: This allusion to the sects hostile to the Vedas, buddhists or Jains, does not occur in the parallel passages of the Vāyu and Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇas.
[9]: The Vāyu goes farther than this, and states that the castes were now first divided according to their occupations; having, indeed, previously stated that there was no such distinction in the Krita age: 'Brahmā now appointed those who were robust and violent to be Kṣetriyas, to protect the rest; those who were pure and pious he made Brahmans; those who were of less power, but industrious, and addicted to cultivate the ground, he made Vaisyas; whilst the feeble and poor of spirit were constituted Śūdras: and he assigned them their several occupations, to prevent that interference with one another which had occurred as long as they recognised no duties peculiar to castes.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
requests and also non-deceptive to others, was composed by the buddhist
monk Lobsang Tenpey Gyaltsen, in his nineteenth year, the Water Mouse
--
a buddhist practicehelps to center us and invoke our spiritual yearning.
These four are:
--
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
--
dont use jewelry or cosmetics, dont listen to music or go out for entertainment. The buddhist community was grateful to have people keeping
pure ethical discipline nearby and voluntarily gave them food, shelter, cloth-
--
The situation today is very different. Many buddhist teachers are lay people who have a family to support. They need a house for their kids. They need
a car, furniture, clothes, jewelry, magazine subscriptions, cd players, bicycles, and so on. They want their children to t in with everyone else, so they
--
get shaky. For example, when we rst become a buddhist and our old friends
ask, What in the world are you doing? we begin to doubt, Well, what in
--
gives us Dharma advice that is against the general buddhist teachings, we
138
--
normal. But when we start looking from a buddhist point of view at what
causes suffering and what causes happiness and how things exist, we notice
--
Dont think that Buddhas and bodhisattvas only manifest to buddhists,
and to Mahayana buddhists in particular. They seek to benet everyone! Do
you think that a teacher in the Theravada tradition cant be a bodhisattva? Do
--
We have to be very careful that we dont misapply buddhist teachings
and create weird psychological trips. For example: A friend told me that she
1.07 - Incarnate Human Gods, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
transmigrates into another man. The buddhist Tartars believe in a
great number of living Buddhas, who officiate as Grand Lamas at the
1.07 - Samadhi, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
4:Now there is great confusion, because the buddhists use the word Samadhi to mean something entirely different, the mere faculty of attention. Thus, with them, to think of a cat is to "make Samadhi" on that cat. They use the word Jhana to describe mystic states. This is excessively misleading, for as we saw in the last section, Dhyana is a preliminary of Samadhi, and of course Jhana is merely the wretched plebeian Pali corruption of it. footnote: The vulgarism and provincialism of the buddhist cannon is infinitely repulsive to all nice minds; and the attempt to use the terms of an ego-centric philosophy to explain the details of a psychology whose principal doctrine is the denial of the ego, was the work of a mischievous idiot. Let us unhesitatingly reject these abominations, these nastinesses of the beggars dressed in rags that they have snatched from corpses, and follow the etymological signification of the word as given above!
5:There are many kinds of Samadhi. footnote: Apparently. That is, the obvious results are different. Possibly the cause is only one, refracted through diverse media. "Some authors consider Atmadarshana, the Universe as a single phenomenon without conditions, to be the first real Samadhi." If we accept this, we must relegate many less exalted states to the class of Dhyana. Patanjali enumerates a number of these states: to perform these on different things gives different magical powers; or so he says. These need not be debated here. Any one who wants magic powers can get them in dozens of different ways.
1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
The major [contemplative] traditions we have studied in their original languages present an unfolding of meditation experience in terms of a stage model: for example, the Mahamudra from the Tibetan buddhist tradition; the Visuddhimagga from the Pali Theravada tradition; and the Yoga Sutras from the Sanskrit Hindu tradition. The models are sufficiently similar to suggest an underlying common invariant sequence of stages, despite vast cultural and linguistic differences as well as styles of practice.
This developmental model has also been found to be consistent with the stages of mystical or interior prayer found in the Jewish (Kabbalist), Islamic (Sufi), and Christian mystical traditions (see, for example, Chirban's chapter in Transformations), and Brown has also found it in the Chinese contemplative traditions. Theorists such as Da Avabhasha have given extensive hermeneutic and developmental readings from what now appears to be at least a representative sampling from every known and available contemplative tradition (see, for example, The Basket of Tolerance), and they are in fundamental and extensive agreement with this overall developmental model.
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
We may complete the whole tradition of the Indian peninsula very simply. To the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Tripitaka of the buddhists, we have only to add the Tantras of what are called the Vamacharya Schools. Paradoxical as it may sound the Tantrics are in reality the most advanced of the Hindus. Their theory is, in its philosophical ultimatum, a primitive stage of the White tradition, for the essence of the Tantric cults is that by the performance of certain rites of Magick, one does not only escape disaster, but obtains positive benediction. The Tantric is not obsessed by the will-to-die. It is a difficult business, no doubt, to get any fun out of existence; but at least it is not impossible. In other words, he implicitly denies the fundamental proposition that existence is sorrow, and he formulates the essential postulate of the White School of Magick, that means exist by which the universal sorrow (apparent indeed to all ordinary observation) may be unmasked, even as at the initiatory rite of Isis in the ancient days of Khem. There, a Neophyte presenting his mouth, under compulsion, to the pouting buttocks of the Goat of Mendez, found himself caressed by the chaste lips of a virginal priestess of that Goddess at the base of whose shrine is written that No man has lifted her veil.
The basis of the Black philosophy is not impossibly mere climate, with its resulting etiolation of the native, its languid, bilious, anaemic, fever-prostrated, emasculation of the soul of man. We accordingly find few true equivalents of this School in Europe. In Greek philosophy there is no trace of any such doctrine. The poison in its foulest and most virulent form only entered with Christianity.*[AC17] But even so, few men of any real eminence were found to take the axioms of pessimism seriously. Huxley, for all of his harping on the minor key, was an eupeptic Tory. The culmination of the Black philosophy is only found in Schopenhauer, and we may regard him as having been obsessed, on the one hand, by the despair born of that false scepticism which he learnt from the bankruptcy of Hume and Kant; on the other, by the direct obsession of the buddhist documents to which he was one of the earliest Europeans to obtain access. He was, so to speak, driven to suicide by his own vanity, a curious parallel to Kiriloff in The Possessed of Dostoiewsky.
We have, however, examples plentiful enough of religions deriving almost exclusively from the Black tradition in the different stages. We have already mentioned the Evangelical cults with their ferocious devil-god who creates mankind for the pleasure of damning it and forcing it to crawl before him, while he yells with druken glee over the agony of his only son.[AC18] But in the same class, we must place Christian Science, so grotesquely afraid of pain, suffering and evil of every sort, that its dupes can think of nothing better than to bleat denials of its actuality, in the hope of hypnotizing themselves into anaesthesia.
Practically no Westerns have reached the third stage of the Black tradition, the buddhist stage. It is only isolated mystics, and those men who rank themselves with a contemptuous compliance under the standard of the nearest religion, the one which will bother them least in their quest of nothingness, who carry the sorites so far.
The documents of the Black School of Magick have already been indicated. They are, for the most part, tedious to the last degree and repulsive to every wholesome-minded man; yet it can hardly be denied that such books as The Dhammapada and Ecclesiastes are masterpieces of literature. They represent the agony of human despair at its utmost degree of intensity, and the melancholy contemplation which is induced by their perusal is not favourable to the inception of that mood which should lead every truly courageous intelligence to the determination to escape from the ferule of the Black Schoolmaster to the outstretched arms of the White Mistress of Life.
--
Adepts of the White School regard their brethren of the Black very much as the aristocratic English Sahib (of the days when England was a nation) regarded the benighted Hindu. Nietzsche expresses the philosophy of this School to that extent with considerable accuracy and vigour. The man who denounces life merely defines himself as the man who is unequal to it. The brave man rejoices in giving and taking hard knocks, and the brave man is joyous. The Scandinavian idea of Valhalla may be primitive, but it is manly. A heaven of popular concert, like the Christian; of unconscious repose, like the buddhist; or even of sensual enjoyment, like the Moslem, excites his nausea and contempt. He understands that the only joy worth while is the joy of continual victory, and victory itself would become as tame as croquet if it were not spiced by equally continual defeat.
The purest documents of the White School are found in the Sacred Books of Thelema. The doctrine is given in excellent perfection both in the book of the Heart Girt with the Serpent and the book of Lapis Lazuli. A single passage is adequate to explain the formula.
1.07 - TRUTH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In later buddhist philosophy words are regarded as one of the prime determining factors in the creative evolution of human beings. In this philosophy five categories of being are recognizedName, Appearance, Discrimination, Right Knowledge. Suchness. The first three are related for evil, the last two for good. Appearances are discriminated by the sense organs, then reified by naming, so that words are taken for things and symbols are used as the measure of reality. According to this view, language is a main source of the sense of separateness and the blasphemous idea of individual self-sufficiency, with their inevitable corollaries of greed, envy, lust for power, anger and cruelty. And from these evil passions there springs the necessity of an indefinitely protracted and repeated separate existence under the same, self-perpetuated conditions of craving and infatuation. The only escape is through a creative act of the will, assisted by Buddha-grace, leading through selflessness to Right Knowledge, which consists, among other things, in a proper appraisal of Names, Appearances and Discrimination. In and through Right Knowledge, one emerges from the infatuating delusion of I, me, mine, and, resisting the temptation to deny the world in a state of premature and one-sided ecstasy, or to affirm it by living like the average sensual man, one comes at last to the transfiguring awareness that samsara and nirvana are one, to the unitive apprehension of pure Suchness the ultimate Ground, which can only be indicated, never adequately described in verbal symbols.
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.
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The Sanskrit dharmaone of the key words in Indian formulations of the Perennial Philosophyhas two principal meanings. The dharma of an individual is, first of all, his essential nature, the intrinsic law of his being and development. But dharma also signifies the law of righteousness and piety. The implications of this double meaning are clear: a mans duty, how he ought to live, what he ought to believe and what he ought to do about his beliefs these things are conditioned by his essential nature, his constitution and temperament. Going a good deal further than do the Catholics, with their doctrine of vocations, the Indians admit the right of individuals with different dharmas to worship different aspects or conceptions of the divine. Hence the almost total absence, among Hindus and buddhists, of bloody persecutions, religious wars and proselytizing imperialism.
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.
1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
The first three stages deal with the ordinary mind or ego, "unregenerate" in the gross, manifest world of thought and sense. In the first Mansion, that of Humility, the ego is still in love with the creatures and comforts outside the Castle, and must begin a long and searching discipline in order to turn within. In the second Mansion (the Practice of Prayer), intellectual study, edification, and good company streng then the desire and capacity to interiorize and not merely scatter and disperse the self in exterior distractions. In the Mansion of Exemplary Life, the third stage, discipline and ethics are firmly set as a foundation of all that is to follow (very similar to the buddhist notion that sila, or moral discipline, is the foundation of dhyana, or meditation, and prajna, or spiritual insight). These are all natural (or personal) developments.
In the fourth mansion, a supernatural (or transpersonal) grace enters the scene with the Prayer of Recollection and the Prayer of Quiet (which Teresa differentiates by their bodily effects). In both, there is a calming and slowing of gross-oriented faculties (memory, thoughts, senses) and a consequent opening to deeper, more interior spaces with correlative "graces," which Teresa calls, at this stage, "spiritual consolations" (because they are consoling to the self, not yet transcending of the self). On the other hand, it is also as if the soul itself is actually beginning to emerge at this stage: "The senses and all external things seem gradually to lose their hold, while the soul, on the other hand, regains its lost control." And this carries a glimmer of the truth to come, "namely, that God is within us."26
1.09 - Taras Ultimate Nature, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
The Tibetans categorized holders of various buddhist philosophical views in
India into four schools of tenets. One of the distinguishing differences
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All buddhists and non- buddhists who believe in karma and its result are
challenged to explain how karmic seeds go from one life to another. In general, most non- buddhists assert some kind of soul, atman, or unchanging self
that they say carries the truly existent karmic seeds. How do buddhists, who
assert selessness, explain this process?
This has been an important topic of discussion among the various buddhist tenet schools. Some assert that the collection of mental and physical
aggregates is the person or that their continuum is the person. They say there
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Other buddhists assert another consciousness, in addition to the ve
sense consciousnesses and the mental consciousness. It is a storehouse consciousness, called mind-basis-of-all, foundational consciousness, or in
1.09 - The Pure Existent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:But is this a true record? May it not be that Time and Space so disappear merely because the existence we are regarding is a fiction of the intellect, a fantastic Nihil created by speech, which we strive to erect into a conceptual reality? We regard again that Existence-in-itself and we say, No. There is something behind the phenomenon not only infinite but indefinable. Of no phenomenon, of no totality of phenomena can we say that absolutely it is. Even if we reduce all phenomena to one fundamental, universal irreducible phenomenon of movement or energy, we get only an indefinable phenomenon. The very conception of movement carries with it the potentiality of repose and betrays itself as an activity of some existence; the very idea of energy in action carries with it the idea of energy abstaining from action; and an absolute energy not in action is simply and purely absolute existence. We have only these two alternatives, either an indefinable pure existence or an indefinable energy in action and, if the latter alone is true, without any stable base or cause, then the energy is a result and phenomenon generated by the action, the movement which alone is. We have then no Existence, or we have the Nihil of the buddhists with existence as only an attribute of an eternal phenomenon, of Action, of Karma, of Movement. This, asserts the pure reason, leaves my perceptions unsatisfied, contradicts my fundamental seeing, and therefore cannot be. For it brings us to a last abruptly ceasing stair of an ascent which leaves the whole staircase without support, suspended in the Void.
8:If this indefinable, infinite, timeless, spaceless Existence is, it is necessarily a pure absolute. It cannot be summed up in any quantity or quantities, it cannot be composed of any quality or combination of qualities. It is not an aggregate of forms or a formal substratum of forms. If all forms, quantities, qualities were to disappear, this would remain. Existence without quantity, without quality, without form is not only conceivable, but it is the one thing we can conceive behind these phenomena.
--
11:In reality, this opposition of actual insight into being to the conceptual fictions of the pure Reason is fallacious. If indeed intuition in this matter were really opposed to intelligence, we could not confidently support a merely conceptual reasoning against fundamental insight. But this appeal to intuitive experience is incomplete. It is valid only so far as it proceeds and it errs by stopping short of the integral experience. So long as the intuition fixes itself only upon that which we become, we see ourselves as a continual progression of movement and change in consciousness in the eternal succession of Time. We are the river, the flame of the buddhist illustration. But there is a supreme experience and supreme intuition by which we go back behind our surface self and find that this becoming, change, succession are only a mode of our being and that there is that in us which is not involved at all in the becoming. Not only can we have the intuition of this that is stable and eternal in us, not only can we have the glimpse of it in experience behind the veil of continually fleeting becomings, but we can draw back into it and live in it entirely, so effecting an entire change in our external life, and in our attitude, and in our action upon the movement of the world. And this stability in which we can so live is precisely that which the pure Reason has already given us, although it can be arrived at without reasoning at all, without knowing previously what it is, - it is pure existence, eternal, infinite, indefinable, not affected by the succession of Time, not involved in the extension of Space, beyond form, quantity, quality, - Self only and absolute.
12:The pure existent is then a fact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The supreme intuition and its corresponding experience may correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence and of worldexistence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the facts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.
1.09 - The Worship of Trees, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
These monks, of course, are buddhists. But buddhist animism is not a
philosophical theory. It is simply a common savage dogma
1.1.01 - The Divine and Its Aspects, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Whatever impersonal Truth or Light there is, you have to find it, use it, do what you can with it. It does not trouble itself to hunt after you. It is the buddhist idea that you must do everything for yourself, that is the only way.
*
1.1.02 - Sachchidananda, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Tao and the buddhist Shunya that that is a Nothingness in which all is, so with the negation of consciousness here. Superconscient and subconscient are only relative terms; as we rise into the superconscient we see that it is a consciousness greater than the highest we yet have and therefore in our normal state inaccessible to us and, if we can go down into the subconscient, we find there a consciousness other than our own at its lowest mental limit and therefore ordinarily inaccessible to us. The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it - "an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force".
The gradations of consciousness are universal states not dependent on the outlook of the subjective personality; rather the outlook of the subjective personality is determined by the grade of consciousness in which it is organised according to its typal nature or its evolutionary stage.
11.02 - The Golden Life-line, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
These are then the two chains binding, each in its own way, our life movements, each building a whole with a special significance and fulfilment. They are two life- lines, as it were, a running parallel to each other. One, as I have said, is the normal mundane life, the other a transfigured spiritual life. The Upanishad, we know, speaks of the path of the Sun and the path of the Fathers they roughly correspond to the two lines I have just spoken of. But the Upanishadic path of the Sun is a vertical ascension from the normal life-line into a transcendent beyond. What we meant was not an ascension beyond but a parallel growth in transformation, that is to say, what we referred to as the lower iron links are to be transmuted into the golden ones, without breaking or dissolving them. The problem is to find out the secret of this alchemy that transmutes the iron links into the golden ones. Psychologically the buddhist way is a great help even if it is not the unique and inevitable one towards that consummation. For it dislocates, disintegrates the chain that binds the being to the normal and ignorant life. It teaches one to see and feel life as separate and isolated 'moments', there being no real link between the moments; so if one is to live the truth of life one must learn to live from moment to moment without any thought from the past or of the future. The Biblical motto gains in this connection a deeper significance: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. One does not carry on his shoulders the burden of the past moments nor a possible burden in the thought of the morrow. One becomes free, absolutely free, with no care but just the need of the moment to note and the immediate gesture to meet it.
That is a way, an effective way, for dissolving life, but we seek, as we have said, not dissolution or disintegration but integration Integration into a higher integer, a greater reality. The lower chain dissolved, we have to find a new status beyond the dissolution. That is perhaps what the Upanishad indicated when it said: one has to traverse death through Ignorance (perception of ignorance) and then through Knowledge (perception of the Knowledge) to attain immortality. Buddha has led us across death, now we have to reach immortality. There is a higher line of Karma and a lower line running parallel, as I said, to each other the lower (the iron chain) leads from death to death, the higher (the golden one) leads from life to life and from light to light.
11.05 - The Ladder of Unconsciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Likewise unconsciousness too has its own various degrees. As consciousness rises up to higher and higher grades of consciousness, so unconsciousness too descends into lower and lower grades of unconsciousness. The first degree of unconsciousness is simple forgetfulness. It is the absence of consciousness, not the loss of consciousness. The consciousness is there but it is not apparent or expressed, it is held back for the time. One can recall it; it can be remembered and brought forward. The abeyance of consciousness, when it persists, when it amounts to a turn of nature, is called ignorance. Yet ignorance is not the negation of consciousness, it is clouded or veiled consciousness; it is not that the sun is set and gone but simply that it is behind the clouds, it is up in the sky but shrouded. This behind-the-veil consciousness is the subliminal consciousness or simply sub-consciousness. Sub-consciousness is a consciousness that is not dormant or asleep, stilled into silence, it is at work but behind the normal waking state It is the swapna-state as the Indian sages termed it. Lower down is the state of unconsciousness proper. It is a still more diminished degree of consciousness, apparently a total absence of consciousness, not merely an abeyance or subsidence of consciousness, it is a lack of consciousness. The animal consciousness might be taken as an instance or expression of the ignorant consciousness, likewise the plant consciousness parallels the subliminal consciousness the Indian description of it is antapraja. Next to it is the consciousness in the mineral, it is unconsciousness. By unconsciousness it is meant here naturally the absence of the mental consciousness: the presence or absence of consciousness means the presence or absence of the mental consciousness. There is a generic consciousness, consciousness in itself, or pure consciousness, which is imbedded in all created things, for creation itself is at bottom a vibration or pulsation of consciousness (vijana-vijmbhaam). There is a range or rung still further below with a still lesser degree of consciousness: it is called the inconscient, which is a totally total, in depth and in extent, absence of consciousness. In the other degree that is above it, there is the probability of consciousness in the midst of apparent absence, here it is reduced almost to nothingness or to just a possibility: for, as I have said, some consciousness, the presence of Sachchidananda is always there everywhere in the core of things. Yet there is also an absolute negation and this has been termed Nescience, it is the zero of things, where there is no question of possibility or impossibility: it is the final and definite end, sunyam of the buddhists, termed asat by the Vedantists.
Now, the curious and most interesting thing is that the end is not the end of things; for beyond the zero there is the minus sign and what does minus mean? I t does not mean mere negation, it means a realitya negative real. It is a moot problem in philosophyphilosophers have questioned, argued, discussed at length about itwhether negation means only denial, just the contrary of affirmation. If affirmation means a real, negation means simply the unreal. It has been declared by competent authorities that negation, like affirmation, is also a reality but of the opposite sign. We know in mathematics the minus sign is as real as the plus.
1.10 - Fate and Free-Will, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The first is the answer of the devout and submissive mind in its dependence on God, but, unless we adopt a Calvinistic fatalism, the admission of the guiding and overriding will of God does not exclude the permission of freedom to the individual. The second is the answer of the scientist; Heredity determines our Nature, the laws of Nature limit our action, cause and effect compel the course of our development, and, if it be urged that we may determine effects by creating causes, the answer is that our own actions are determined by previous causes over which we have no control and our action itself is a necessary response to a stimulus from outside. The third is the answer of the buddhist and of post- buddhistic Hinduism. It is our fate, it is written on our forehead, when our Karma is exhausted, then alone our calamities will pass from us;this is the spirit of tamasic inaction justifying itself by a misreading of the theory of Karma.
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 - The Revolutionary Yogi, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
unthinkable, absolute, yet supremely real and solely real. This was no mental realization nor something glimpsed somewhere above, no abstraction, it was positive, the only positive reality although not a spatial physical world, pervading, occupying or rather flooding and drowning this semblance of a physical world, leaving no room or space for any reality but itself, allowing nothing else to seem at all actual, positive or substantial. . . . What it [this experience] brought was an inexpressible Peace, a stupendous silence, an infinity of release and freedom.117 Sri Aurobindo had gone straight into what the buddhists call Nirvana, what the Hindus call the Silent Brahman or That; the Tao of the Chinese; the Transcendent, the Absolute, or the Impersonal of the Westerners. He had reached that famous "liberation" (mukti), which is considered the "peak" of all spiritual life what could there be beyond the Transcendent? Sri Aurobindo could tangibly verify the words of the great Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna:
"If we live in God, the world disappears; if we live in the world, God exists no longer." The gulf he had tried to bridge between Matter and Spirit had split open again before his unveiled eyes. The Western and Eastern spiritualists were right in assigning a life beyond as the sole destination of man's effort: paradise, Nirvana, or liberation
1.10 - The Scolex School, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
All this about Gautama Buddha having renounced Nirvana is apparently all a pure invention of Mme. Blavatsky, and has no authority in the buddhist canon. The Buddha is referred to, again and again, as having 'passed away by that kind of passing away which leaves nothing whatever behind.' The account of his doing this is given in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta; and it was the contention of the Toshophists that this 'great, sublime Nibbana story' was something peculiar to Gautama Buddha. They began to talk about Parinibbana, super-Nibbana, as if there were some way of subtracting one from one which would leave a higher, superior kind of a nothing, or as if there were some way of blowing out a candle which would leave Moses in a much more Egyptian darkness than we ever supposed when we were children.
This is not science. This is not business. This is American Sunday journalism. The Hindu and the American are very much alike in this innocence, this 'naivet' which demands fairy stories with ever bigger giants. They cannot bear the idea of anything being complete and done with. So, they are always talking in superlatives, and are hard put to it when the facts catch up with them, and they have to invent new superlatives. Instead of saying that there are bricks of various sizes, and specifying those sizes, they have a brick and a super-brick, and 'one' brick, and 'some' brick; and when they have got to the end they chase through the dictionary for some other epithet to brick, which shall excite the sense of wonder at the magnificent progress and super-progress I present the American public with this word which is supposed to have been made. Probably the whole thing is a bluff without a single fact behind it. Almost the whole of the Hindu psychology is an example of this kind of journalism. They are not content with the supreme God. The other man wishes to show off by having a supremer God than that, and when a third man comes along and finds them disputing, it is up to him to invent a supremest super-God.
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.
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In what light did these ancient thinkers understand the Vedic gods? As material Nature Powers called only to give worldly wealth to their worshippers? Certainly, the Vedic gods are in the Vedanta also accredited with material functions. In the Kena Upanishad Agnis power & glory is to burn, Vayus to seize & bear away. But these are not their only functions. In the same Upanishad, in the same apologue, told as a Vedantic parable, Indra, Agni & Vayu, especially Indra, are declared to be the greatest of the gods because they came nearest into contact with the Brahman. Indra, although unable to recognise the Brahman directly, learned of his identity from Uma daughter of the snowy mountains. Certainly, the sense of the parable is not that Dawn told the Sky who Brahman was or that material Sky, Fire & Wind are best able to come into contact with the Supreme Existence. It is clear & it is recognised by all the commentators, that in the Upanishads the gods are masters not only of material functions in the outer physical world but also of mental, vital and physical functions in the intelligent living creature. This will be directly evident from the passage describing the creation of the gods by the One & Supreme Being in the Aitareya Upanishad & the subsequent movement by which they enter in the body of man and take up the control of his activities. In the same Upanishad it is even hinted that Indra is in his secret being the Eternal Lord himself, for Idandra is his secret name; nor should we forget that this piece of mysticism is founded on the hymns of the Veda itself which speak of the secret names of the gods. Shankaracharya recognised this truth so perfectly that he uses the gods and the senses as equivalent terms in his great commentary. Finally in the Isha Upanishad,itself a part of the White Yajur Veda and a work, as I have shown elsewhere, full of the most lofty & deep Vedantic truth, in which the eternal problems of human existence are briefly proposed and masterfully solved,we find Surya and Agni prayed to & invoked with as much solemnity & reverence as in the Rigveda and indeed in language borrowed from the Rigveda, not as the material Sun and material Fire, but as the master of divine God-revealing knowledge & the master of divine purifying force of knowledge, and not to drive away the terrors of night from a trembling savage nor to burn the offered cake & the dripping ghee in a barbarian ritual, but to reveal the ultimate truth to the eyes of the Seer and to raise the immortal part in us that lives before & after the body is ashes to the supreme felicity of the perfected & sinless soul. Even subsequently we have seen that the Gita speaks of the Vedas as having the supreme for their subject of knowledge, and if later thinkers put it aside as karmakanda, yet they too, though drawing chiefly on the Upanishads, appealed occasionally to the texts of the hymns as authorities for the Brahmavidya. This could not have been if they were merely a ritual hymnology. We see therefore that the real Hindu tradition contains nothing excluding the interpretation which I put upon the Rigveda. On one side the current notion, caused by the immense overgrowth of ritualism in the millennium previous to the Christian era and the violence of the subsequent revolt against it, has been fixed in our minds by buddhistic ideas as a result of the most formidable & damaging attack which the ancient Vedic religion had ever to endure. On the other side, the Vedantic sense of Veda is supported by the highest authorities we have, the Gita & the Upanishads, & evidenced even by the tradition that seems to deny or at least belittle it. True orthodoxy therefore demands not that we should regard the Veda as a ritualist hymn book, but that we should seek in it for the substance or at least the foundation of that sublime Brahmavidya which is formally placed before us in the Upanishads, regarding it as the revelation of the deepest truth of the world & man revealed to illuminated Seers by the Eternal Ruler of the Universe.
Modern thought & scholarship stands on a different foundation. It proceeds by inference, imagination and conjecture to novel theories of old subjects and regards itself as rational, not traditional. It professes to rebuild lost worlds out of their disjected fragments. By reason, then, and without regard to ancient authority the modern account of the Veda should be judged. The European scholars suppose that the mysticism of the Upanishads was neither founded upon nor, in the main, developed from the substance of the Vedas, but came into being as part of a great movement away from the naturalistic materialism of the early half-savage hymns. Unable to accept a barbarous mummery of ritual and incantation as the highest truth & highest good, yet compelled by religious tradition to regard the ancient hymns as sacred, the early thinkers, it is thought, began to seek an escape from this impasse by reading mystic & esoteric meanings into the simple text of the sacrificial bards; so by speculations sometimes entirely sublime, sometimes grievously silly & childish, they developed Vedanta. This theory, simple, trenchant and attractive, supported to the European mind by parallels from the history of Western religions, is neither so convincing nor, on a broad survey of the facts, so conclusive as it at first appears. It is certainly inconsistent with what the old Vedantic thinkers themselves knew and thought about the tradition of the Veda. From the Brahmanas as well as from the Upanishads it is evident that the Veda came down to the men of those days in a double aspect, as the heart of a great body of effective ritual, but also as the repository of a deep and sacred knowledge, Veda and not merely worship. This idea of a philosophic or theosophic purport in the hymns was not created by the early Hindu mystics, it was inherited by them. Their attitude to the ritual even when it was performed mechanically without the possession of this knowledge was far from hostile; but as ritual, they held it to be inferior in force and value, avaram karma, a lower kind of works and not the highest good; only when performed with possession of the knowledge could it lead to its ultimate results, to Vedanta. By that, says the Chhandogya Upanishad, both perform karma, both he who knows this so and he who knows not. Yet the Ignorance and the Knowledge are different things and only what one does with the knowledge,with faith, with the Upanishad,that has the greater potency. And in the closing section of its second chapter, a passage which sounds merely like ritualistic jargon when one has not the secret of Vedic symbolism but when that secret has once been revealed to us becomes full of meaning and interest, the Upanishad starts by saying The Brahmavadins say, The morning offering to the Vasus, the afternoon offering to the Rudras and the evening offering to the Adityas and all the gods,where then is the world of the Yajamana? (that is to say, what is the spiritual efficacy beyond this material life of the three different sacrifices & why, to what purpose, is the first offered to the Vasus, the second to the Rudras, the third to the Adityas?) He who knows this not, how should he perform (effectively) ,therefore knowing let him perform. There was at any rate the tradition that these things, the sacrifice, the god of the sacrifice, the world or future state of the sacrificer had a deep significance and were not mere ritual arranged superstitiously for material ends. But this deeper significance, this inner Vedic knowledge was difficult and esoteric, not known easily in its profundity and subtlety even by the majority of the Brahmavadins themselves; hence the searching, the mutual questionings, the record of famous discussions that occupy so much space in the Upanishadsdiscussions which, we shall see, are not intellectual debates but comparisons of illuminated knowledge & spiritual experience.
1.10 - The Yoga of the Intelligent Will, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nirvana, - not the negative self-annihilation of the buddhists, but the great immergence of the separate personal self into the vast reality of the one infinite impersonal Existence.
Such, subtly unifying Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta, is the first foundation of the teaching of the Gita. It is far from being all, but it is the first indispensable practical unity of knowledge and works with a hint already of the third crowning intensest element in the soul's completeness, divine love and devotion.
1.11 - GOOD AND EVIL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Philosophers and theologians have sought to establish a theoretical basis for the existing moral codes, by whose aid individual men and women pass judgment on their spontaneous evaluations. From Moses to Bentham, from Epicurus to Calvin, from the Christian and buddhist philosophies of universal love to the lunatic doctrines of nationalism and racial superiority the list is long and the span of thought enormously wide. But fortunately there is no need for us to consider these various theories. Our concern is only with the Perennial Philosophy and with the system of ethical principles which those who believe in that philosophy have used, when passing judgment on their own and other peoples evaluations. The questions that we have to ask in this section are simple enough, and simple too are the answers. As always, the difficulties begin only when we pass from theory to practice, from ethical principle to particular application.
Granted that the ground of the individual soul is akin to, or identical with, the divine Ground of all existence, and granted that this divine Ground is an ineffable Godhead that manifests itself as personal God or even as the incarnate Logos, what is the ultimate nature of good and evil, and what the true purpose and last end of human life?
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That the passage from the unity of spiritual to the manifoldness of temporal being is an essential part of the Fall is clearly stated in the buddhist and Hindu renderings of the Perennial Philosophy. Pain and evil are inseparable from individual existence in a world of time; and, for human beings, there is an intensification of this inevitable pain and evil when the desire is turned towards the self and the many, rather than towards the divine Ground. To this we might speculatively add the opinion that perhaps even subhuman existences may be endowed (both individually and collectively, as kinds and species) with something resembling the power of choice. There is the extraordinary fact that man stands alone that, so far as we can judge, every other species is a species of living fossils, capable only of degeneration and extinction, not of further evolutionary advance. In the phraseology of Scholastic Aristotelianism, matter possesses an appetite for formnot necessarily for the best form, but for form as such. Looking about us in the world of living things, we observe (with a delighted wonder, touched occasionally, it must be admitted, with a certain questioning dismay) the innumerable forms, always beautiful, often extravagantly odd and sometimes even sinister, in which the insatiable appetite of matter has found its satisfaction. Of all this living matter only that which is organized as human beings has succeeded in finding a form capable, at any rate on the mental side, of further development. All the rest is now locked up in forms that can only remain what they are or, if they change, only change for the worse. It looks as though, in the cosmic intelligence test, all living matter, except the human, had succumbed, at one time or another during its biological career, to the temptation of assuming, not the ultimately best, but the immediately most profitable form. By an act of something analogous to free will every species, except the human, has chosen the quick returns of specialization, the present rapture of being perfect, but perfect on a low level of being. The result is that they all stand at the end of evolutionary blind alleys. To the initial cosmic Fall of creation, of multitudinous manifestation in time, they have added the obscurely biological equivalent of mans voluntary Fall. As species, they have chosen the immediate satisfaction of the self rather than the capacity for reunion with the divine Ground. For this wrong choice, the non-human forms of life are punished negatively, by being debarred from realizing the supreme good, to which only the unspecialized and therefore freer, more highly conscious human form is capable. But it must be remembered, of course, that the capacity for supreme good is achieved only at the price of becoming also capable of extreme evil. Animals do not suffer in so many ways, nor, we may feel pretty certain, to the same extent as do men and women. Further, they are quite innocent of that literally diabolic wickedness which, together with sanctity, is one of the distinguishing marks of the human species.
We see then that, for the Perennial Philosophy, good is the separate selfs conformity to, and finally annihilation in, the divine Ground which gives it being; evil, the intensification of separateness, the refusal to know that the Ground exists. This doctrine is, of course, perfectly compatible with the formulation of ethical principles as a series of negative and positive divine commandments, or even in terms of social utility. The crimes which are everywhere forbidden proceed from states of mind which are everywhere condemned as wrong; and these wrong states of mind are, as a matter of empirical fact, absolutely incompatible with that unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, which, according to the Perennial Philosophy, is the supreme good.
1.11 - Powers, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
The Yogi makes Samyama on the elements, first on the gross, and then on the finer states. This Samyama is taken up more by a sect of the buddhists. They take a lump of clay and make Samyama on that, and gradually they begin to see the fine materials of which it is composed, and when they have known all the fine materials in it, they get power over that element. So with all the elements. The Yogi can conquer them all.
46. From that comes minuteness and the rest of the powers, "glorification of the body," and indestructibleness of the bodily qualities.
1.12 - Independence, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
That is, there is an objective world independent of our minds. This is a refutation of buddhistic Idealism. Since different people look at the same thing differently, it cannot be a mere imagination of any particular individual.
(There is an additional aphorism here in some editions:
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Knowledge itself is there; its covering is gone. One of the buddhistic scriptures defines what is meant by the Buddha (which is the name of a state) as infinite knowledge, infinite as the sky. Jesus attained to that and became the Christ. All of you will attain to that state. Knowledge becoming infinite, the knowable becomes small. The whole universe, with all its objects of knowledge, becomes as nothing before the Purusha. The ordinary man thinks himself very small, because to him the knowable seems to be infinite.
1.13 - SALVATION, DELIVERANCE, ENLIGHTENMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
This seems sufficiently self-evident. But most of us take pleasure in being lazy, cannot be bothered to be constantly recollected and yet passionately desire to be saved from the results of sloth and unawareness. Consequently there has been a widespread wish for and belief in Saviours who will step into our lives, above all at the hour of their termination, and, like Alexander, cut the Gordian knots which we have been too lazy to untie. But God is not mocked. The nature of things is such that the unitive knowledge of the Ground which is contingent upon the achievement of a total selflessness cannot possibly be realized, even with outside help, by those who are not yet selfless. The salvation obtained by belief in the saving power of Amida, say, or Jesus is not the total deliverance described in the Upanishads, the buddhist scriptures and the writings of the Christian mystics. It is something different, not merely in degree, but in kind.
Talk as much philosophy as you please, worship as many gods as you like, observe all ceremonies, sing devoted praises to any number of divine beingsliberation never comes, even at the end of a hundred aeons, without the realization of the Oneness of Self.
1.14 - IMMORTALITY AND SURVIVAL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
There is a general agreement, East and West, that life in a body provides uniquely good opportunities for achieving salvation or deliverance. Catholic and Mahayana buddhist doctrine is alike in insisting that the soul in its disembodied state after death cannot acquire merit, but merely suffers in purgatory the consequences of its past acts. But whereas Catholic orthodoxy declares that there is no possibility of progress in the next world, and that the degree of the souls beatitude is determined solely by what it has done and thought in its earthly life, the eschatologists of the Orient affirm that there are certain posthumous conditions in which meritorious souls are capable of advancing from a heaven of happy personal survival to genuine immortality in union with the timeless, eternal Godhead. And, of course, there is also the possibility (indeed, for. most individuals, the necessity) of returning to some form of embodied life, in which the advance towards complete beatification, or deliverance through enlightenment, can be continued. Meanwhile, the fact that one has been born in a human body is one of the things for which, says Shankara, one should daily give thanks to God.
The spiritual creature which we are has need of a body, without which it could nowise attain that knowledge which it obtains as the only approach to those things, by knowledge of which it is made blessed.
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More precisely, good men spiritualize their mind-bodies; bad men incarnate and mentalize their spirits. The completely spiritualized mind-body is a Tathagata, who doesnt go anywhere when he dies, for the good reason that he is already, actually and consciously, where everyone has always potentially been without knowing. The person who has not, in this life, gone into Thusness, into the eternal principle of all states of being, goes at death into some particular state, either purgatorial or paradisal. In the Hindu scriptures and their commentaries several different kinds of posthumous salvation are distinguished. The thus-gone soul is completely delivered into complete union with the divine Ground; but it is also possible to achieve other kinds of mukti, or liberation, even while retaining a form of purified I-consciousness. The nature of any individuals deliverance after death depends upon three factors: the degree of holiness achieved by him while in the body, the particular aspect of the divine Reality to which he gave his primary allegiance, and the particular path he chose to follow. Similarly, in the Divine Comedy, Paradise has its various circles; but whereas in the oriental eschatologies the saved soul can go out of even sublimated individuality, out of survival even in some kind of celestial time, to a complete deliverance into the eternal, Dantes souls remain for ever where (after passing through the unmeritorious sufferings of purgatory) they find themselves as the result of their single incarnation in a body. Orthodox Christian doctrine does not admit the possibility, either in the posthumous state or in some other embodiment, of any further growth towards the ultimate perfection of a total union with the Godhead. But in the Hindu and buddhist versions of the Perennial Philosophy the divine mercy is matched by the divine patience: both are infinite. For oriental theologians there is no eternal damnation; there are only purgatories and then an indefinite series of second chances to go forward towards not only mans, but the whole creations final endtotal reunion with the Ground of all being.
Preoccupation with posthumous deliverance is not one of the means to such deliverance, and may easily, indeed, become an obstacle in the way of advance towards it. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that ardent spiritualists are more likely to be saved than those who have never attended a sance or familiarized themselves with the literature, speculative or evidential. My intention here is not to add to that literature, but rather to give the baldest summary of what has been written about the subject of survival within the various religious traditions.
1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Buddhahood according to the doctrine of the buddhists, it is the soul awakened from its present mundane individuality into an infinite superconsciousness. That need not carry with it either the inner consciousness or the characteristic action of the Avatar.
On the other hand, this entering into the divine consciousness may be attended by a reflex action of the Divine entering or coming forward into the human parts of our being, pouring himself into the nature, the activity, the mentality, the corporeality even of the man; and that may well be at least a partial
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In the buddhist legend the name of the mother of Buddha makes the symbolism clear; in the Christian the symbol seems to have been attached by a familiar mythopoeic process to the actual human mother of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Process of Avatarhood
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 - Religion as the Law of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We need not follow the rationalistic or atheistic mind through all its aggressive indictment of religion. We need not for instance lay a too excessive stress on the superstitions, aberrations, violences, crimes even, which Churches and cults and creeds have favoured, admitted, sanctioned, supported or exploited for their own benefit, the mere hostile enumeration of which might lead one to echo the cry of the atheistic Roman poet, To such a mass of ills could religion persuade mankind. As well might one cite the crimes and errors which have been committed in the name of liberty or of order as a sufficient condemnation of the ideal of liberty or the ideal of social order. But we have to note the fact that such a thing was possible and to find its explanation. We cannot ignore for instance the bloodstained and fiery track which formal external Christianity has left furrowed across the mediaeval history of Europe almost from the days of Constantine, its first hour of secular triumph, down to very recent times, or the sanguinary comment which such an institution as the Inquisition affords on the claim of religion to be the directing light and regulating power in ethics and society, or religious wars and wide-spread State persecutions on its claim to guide the political life of mankind. But we must observe the root of this evil, which is not in true religion itself, but in its infrarational parts, not in spiritual faith and aspiration, but in our ignorant human confusion of religion with a particular creed, sect, cult, religious society or Church. So strong is the human tendency to this error that even the old tolerant Paganism slew Socrates in the name of religion and morality, feebly persecuted non-national faiths like the cult of Isis or the cult of Mithra and more vigorously what it conceived to be the subversive and anti-social religion of the early Christians; and even in still more fundamentally tolerant Hinduism with all its spiritual broadness and enlightenment it led at one time to the milder mutual hatred and occasional though brief-lived persecution of buddhist, Jain, Shaiva, Vaishnava.
The whole root of the historic insufficiency of religion as a guide and control of human society lies there. Churches and creeds have, for example, stood violently in the way of philosophy and science, burned a Giordano Bruno, imprisoned a Galileo, and so generally misconducted themselves in this matter that philosophy and science had in self-defence to turn upon Religion and rend her to pieces in order to get a free field for their legitimate development; and this because men in the passion and darkness of their vital nature had chosen to think that religion was bound up with certain fixed intellectual conceptions about God and the world which could not stand scrutiny, and therefore scrutiny had to be put down by fire and sword; scientific and philosophical truth had to be denied in order that religious error might survive. We see too that a narrow religious spirit often oppresses and impoverishes the joy and beauty of life, either from an intolerant asceticism or, as the Puritans attempted it, because they could not see that religious austerity is not the whole of religion, though it may be an important side of it, is not the sole ethico-religious approach to God, since love, charity, gentleness, tolerance, kindliness are also and even more divine, and they forgot or never knew that God is love and beauty as well as purity. In politics religion has often thrown itself on the side of power and resisted the coming of larger political ideals, because it was itself, in the form of a Church, supported by power and because it confused religion with the Church, or because it stood for a false theocracy, forgetting that true theocracy is the kingdom of God in man and not the kingdom of a Pope, a priesthood or a sacerdotal class. So too it has often supported a rigid and outworn social system, because it thought its own life bound up with social forms with which it happened to have been associated during a long portion of its own history and erroneously concluded that even a necessary change there would be a violation of religion and a danger to its existence. As if so mighty and inward a power as the religious spirit in man could be destroyed by anything so small as the change of a social form or so outward as a social readjustment! This error in its many shapes has been the great weakness of religion as practised in the past and the opportunity and justification for the revolt of the intelligence, the aesthetic sense, the social and political idealism, even the ethical spirit of the human being against what should have been its own highest tendency and law.
1.17 - The Divine Birth and Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is these things that condition and determine the work of the Avatar. In the buddhistic formula the disciple takes refuge from all that opposes his liberation in three powers, the dharma, the sangha, the Buddha. So in Christianity we have the law of Christian living, the Church and the Christ.
These three are always the necessary elements of the work of the Avatar. He gives a dharma, a law of self-discipline by which to grow out of the lower into the higher life and which necessarily includes a rule of action and of relations with our fellowmen and other beings, endeavour in the eightfold path or the law of faith, love and purity or any other such revelation of the nature of the divine in life. Then because every tendency in man has its collective as well as its individual aspect, because those who follow one way are naturally drawn together into spiritual companionship and unity, he establishes the sangha, the fellowship and union of those whom his personality and his teaching unite. In Vaishnavism there is the same trio, bhagavata, bhakta, bhagavan, - the bhagavata, which is the law of the Vaishnava dispensation of adoration and love, the bhakta representing the fellowship of those in whom that law is manifest, bhagavan, the divine Lover and
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
A disciple had to discover everything for himself, within himself, in the midst of a very active life. He was left to himself. How could mental rules possibly be drawn up for a work embracing all the levels of evolution mental, vital, and psychic, all the human types and all the traditions and cultures (some disciples had been raised as Christians, others as Taoists, Moslems, buddhists, atheists, etc.)? Each one had to find his own truth, which is never the same as the next man's truth. Some people in the Ashram believed in the virtues of asceticism in spite of all Sri Aurobindo had said about it and they lived as ascetics; others favored judo or football; others liked books and studies, while still others did not; some were involved in business,
or manufactured stainless steel, perfumes, and even tons of sugar in a modern sugar mill. There was something to satisfy every taste. Those who liked painting painted; those who liked music had every possible instrument, Indian and Western, at their disposal; those who liked teaching became teachers at the International Centre of Education,
1.18 - FAITH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The core and spiritual heart of all the higher religions is the Perennial Philosophy; and the Perennial Philosophy can be assented to and acted upon without resort to the kind of faith, about which Luther was writing in the foregoing passages. There must, of course, be faith as trust for confidence in ones fellows is the beginning of charity towards men, and confidence not only in the material, but also the moral and spiritual reliability of the universe, is the beginning of charity or love-knowledge in relation to God. There must also be faith in authority the authority of those whose selflessness has qualified them to know the spiritual Ground of all being by direct acquaintance as well as by report. And finally there must be faith in such propositions about Reality as are enunciated by philosophers in the light of genuine revelationpropositions which the believer knows that he can, if he is prepared to fulfil the necessary conditions, verify for himself. But, so long as the Perennial Philosophy is accepted in its essential simplicity, there is no need of willed assent to propositions known in advance to be unverifiable. Here it is necessary to add that such unverifiable propositions may become verifiable to the extent that intense faith affects the psychic substratum and so creates an existence, whose derived objectivity can actually be discovered out there. Let us, however, remember that an existence which derives its objectivity from the mental activity of those who intensely believe in it cannot possibly be the spiritual Ground of the world, and that a mind busily engaged in the voluntary and intellectual activity, which is religious faith cannot possibly be in the state of selflessness and alert passivity which is the necessary condition of the unitive knowledge of the Ground. That is why the buddhists affirm that loving faith leads to heaven; but obedience to the Dharma leads to Nirvana. Faith in the existence and power of any supernatural entity which is less than ultimate spiritual Reality, and in any form of worship that falls short of self-naughting, will certainly, if the object of faith is intrinsically good, result in improvement of character, and probably in posthumous survival of the improved personality under heavenly conditions. But this personal survival within what is still the temporal order is not the eternal life of timeless union with the Spirit. This eternal life stands in the knowledge of the Godhead, not in faith in anything less than the Godhead.
The immortality attained through the acquisition of any objective condition (e.g., the conditionmerited through good works, which have been inspired by love of, and faith in, something less than the supreme Godheadof being united in act to what is worshipped) is liable to end; for it is distinctly stated in the Scriptures that karma is never the cause of emancipation.
1.19 - GOD IS NOT MOCKED, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
IF THERE is freedom (and even Determinists consistently act as if they were certain of it) and if (as everyone who has qualified himself to talk about the subject has always been convinced) there is a spiritual Reality, which it is the final end and purpose of consciousness to know; then all life is in the nature of an intelligence test, and the higher the level of awareness and the greater the potentialities of the creature, the more searchingly difficult will be the questions asked. For, in Bagehots words, we could not be what we ought to be, if we lived in the sort of universe we should expect. A latent Providence, a confused life, an odd material world, an existence broken short in the midst and on a sudden, are not real difficulties, but real helps; for they, or something like them, are essential conditions of a moral life in a subordinate being. Because we are free, it is possible for us to answer lifes questions either well or badly. If we answer them badly, we shall bring down upon ourselves self-stultification. Most often this self-stultification will take subtle and not immediately detectable forms, as when our failure to answer properly makes it impossible for us to realize the higher potentialities of our being. Sometimes, on the contrary, the self-stultification is manifest on the physical level, and may involve not only individuals as individuals, but entire societies, which go down in catastrophe or sink more slowly into decay. The giving of correct answers is rewarded primarily by spiritual growth and progressive realization of latent potentialities, and secondarily (when circumstances make it possible) by the adding of all the rest to the realized kingdom of God. Karma exists; but its equivalence of act and award is not always obvious and material, as the earlier buddhist and Hebrew writers ingenuously imagined that it should be. The bad man in prosperity may, all unknown to himself, be darkened and corroded with inward rust, while the good man under afflictions may be in the rewarding process of spiritual growth. No, God is not mocked; but also, let us always remember, He is not understood.
Per nella giustizia sempiterna
--
Horizontally and vertically, in physical and temperamental kind as well as in degree of inborn ability and native goodness, human beings differ profoundly one from another. Why? To what end and for what past causes? Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. The man of science, on the contrary, would say that the responsibility rested with the parents who had caused the blindness of their child either by having the wrong kind of genes, or by contracting some avoidable disease. Hindu or buddhist believers in reincarnation according to the laws of karma (the destiny which, by their actions, individuals and groups of individuals impose upon themselves, one another and their descendants) would give another answer and say that, owing to what he had done in previous existences, the blind man had predestined himself to choose the sort of parents from whom he would have to inherit blindness.
These three answers are not mutually incompatible. The parents are responsible for making the child what, by heredity and upbringing, he turns out to be. The soul or character incarnated in the child is of such a nature, owing to past behaviour, that it is forced to select those particular parents. And collaborating with the material and efficient causes is the final cause, the teleological pull from in front. This teleological pull is a pull from the divine Ground of things acting upon that part of the timeless now, which a finite mind must regard as the future. Men sin and their parents sin; but the works of God have to be manifested in every sentient being (either by exceptional ways, as in this case of supernormal healing, or in the ordinary course of events)have to be manifested again and again, with the infinite patience of eternity, until at last the creature makes itself fit for the perfect and consummate manifestation of unitive knowledge, of the state of not I, but God in me.
1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If the question be of Indian Yoga itself in its own characteristic forms, here too the supposed inability is contradicted by experience. In early times Greeks and Scythians from the West as well as Chinese and Japanese and Cambodians from the East followed without difficulty buddhist or Hindu disciplines; at the present day an increasing number of occidentals have taken to
Vedantic or Vaishnava or other Indian spiritual practices and this objection of incapacity or unsuitableness has never been made either from the side of the disciples or from the side of the Masters. I do not see, either, why there should be any such unbridgeable gulf; for there is no essential difference between spiritual life in the East and spiritual life in the West, - what difference there is has always been of names, forms and symbols or else of the emphasis laid on one special aim or another or on one side or another of psychological experience. Even here differences are often alleged which do not exist or else are not so great as they appear. I have seen it alleged by a Christian writer
1.20 - TANTUM RELIGIO POTUIT SUADERE MALORUM, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
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
1.22 - EMOTIONALISM, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The phrase, religion of experience, has two distinct and mutually incompatible meanings. There is the experience of which the Perennial Philosophy treats the direct apprehension of the divine Ground in an act of intuition possible, in its fulness, only to the selflessly pure in heart. And there is the experience induced by revivalist sermons, impressive ceremonials, or the deliberate efforts of ones own imagination. This experience is a state of emotional excitementan excitement which may be mild and enduring or brief and epileptically violent, which is sometimes exultant in tone and sometimes despairing, which expresses itself here in song and dance, there in uncontrollable weeping. But emotional excitement, whatever its cause and whatever its nature, is always excitement of that individualized self, which must be thed to by anyone who aspires to live to divine Reality. Experience as emotion about God (the highest form of this kind of excitement) is incompatible with experience as imme thate awareness of God by a pure heart which has mortified even its most exalted emotions. That is why Fnelon, in the foregoing extract, insists upon the need for calm and simplicity, why St. Franois de Sales is never tired of preaching the serenity which he himself so consistently practised, why all the buddhist scriptures harp on tranquillity of mind as a necessary condition of deliverance. The peace that passes all understanding is one of the fruits of the spirit. But there is also the peace that does not pass understanding, the humbler peace of emotional self-control and self-denial; this is not a fruit of the spirit, but rather one of its indispensable roots.
The imperfect destroy true devotion, because they seek sensible sweetness in prayer.
1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Note, please, how sophistically unconvincing are the buddhist theories of how we ever got into this mess. First cause: Ignorance. Way out, then, knowledge. O.K., that implies a knower, a thing known and so on and so forth, thought all the Three Waste Paper Baskets of the Law; analysed, it turns out to be nonsense all dolled up to look like thinking. And there is no genuine explanation of the origin of the Will to be.
How different, how simple, how self-evident, is the doctrine of The Book of the Law!
--
At that time I was a hard-shell buddhist, sent out a New Year's Card "wishing you a speedy termination of existence!" And this as a young man, with the world at my feet. It only goes to show . . . . .)
Vv. 19, 20. "Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. . . . Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us."
1.23 - THE MIRACULOUS, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The Sufis regard miracles as veils intervening between the soul and God. The masters of Hindu spirituality urge their disciples to pay no attention to the siddhis, or psychic powers, which may come to them unsought, as a by-product of one-pointed contemplation. The cultivation of these powers, they warn, distracts the soul from Reality and sets up insurmountable obstacles in the way of enlightenment and deliverance. A similar attitude is taken by the best buddhist teachers, and in one of the Pali scriptures there is an ancedote recording the Buddhas own characteristically dry comment on a prodigious feat of levitation performed by one of his disciples. This, he said, will not conduce to the conversion of the unconverted, nor to the advantage of the converted. Then he went back to talking about deliverance.
Because they know nothing of spirituality and regard the material world and their hypotheses about it as supremely significant, rationalists are anxious to convince themselves and others that miracles do not and cannot happen. Because they have had experience of the spiritual life and its by-products, the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy are convinced that miracles do happen, but regard them as things of little importance, and that mainly negative and anti-spiritual.
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Times. It related to recapitulation of past incarnations. In it Paul Brunton has mentioned the buddhist methods of gaining that faculty. Sri Bhagavan said, "There is a class of people who want to know all about their future or their past. They ignore the present. The load from the past forms the present misery. The attempt to recall the past is mere waste of time."
224
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Times. It related to recapitulation of past incarnations. In it Paul Brunton has mentioned the buddhist methods of gaining that faculty. Sri Bhagavan said, There is a class of people who want to know all about their future or their past. They ignore the present. The load from the past forms the present misery. The attempt to recall the past is mere waste of time.
Talk 261.
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 extract which follows is taken from the translation by Waitao and Goddard of the Chinese text of The Awakening of Faith, by Ashvaghoshaa work originally composed in Sanskrit during the first century of our era, but of which the original has been lost. Ashvaghosha devotes a section of his treatise to the expedient means, as they are called in buddhist terminology, whereby unitive knowledge of Thusness may be achieved. The list of these indispensable means includes charity and compassion towards all sentient beings, sub-human as well as human, self-naughting or mortification, personal devotion to the incarnations of the Absolute Buddha-nature, and spiritual exercises designed to free the mind from its infatuating desires for separateness and independent selfhood and so make it capable of realizing the identity of its own essence with the universal Essence of Mind. Of these various expedient means I will cite only the last two the Way of Tranquillity, and the Way of Wisdom.
The Way of Tranquillity. The purpose of this discipline is twofold: to bring to a standstill all disturbing thoughts (and all discriminating thoughts are disturbing), to quiet all engrossing moods and emotions, so that it will be possible to concentrate the mind for the purpose of meditation and realization. Secondly, when the mind is tranquillized by stopping all discursive thinking, to practise reflection or meditation, not in a discriminating, analytical way, but in a more intellectual way (cp. the scholastic distinction between reason and intellect), by realizing the meaning and significances of ones thoughts and experiences. By this twofold practice of stopping and realizing ones faith, which has already been awakened, will be developed, and gradually the two aspects of this practice will merge into one another the mind perfectly tranquil, but most active in realization. In the past one naturally had confidence in ones faculty of discrimination (analytical thinking), but this is now to be eradicated and ended.
1.26 - PERSEVERANCE AND REGULARITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
THE buddhists have a similar saying to the effect that, if an arhat thinks to himself that he is an arhat, that is proof that he is not an arhat.
I tell you that no one can experience this birth (of God realized in the soul) without a mighty effort. No one can attain this birth unless he can withdraw his mind entirely from things.
1.27 - CONTEMPLATION, ACTION AND SOCIAL UTILITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In cases where the one-pointed contemplation is of God there is also a risk that the minds unemployed capacities may atrophy. The hermits of Tibet and the Thebad were certainly one-pointed, but with a one-pointedness of exclusion and mutilation. It may be, however, that if they had been more truly docile to the Holy Ghost, they would have come to understand that the one-pointedness of exclusion is at best a preparation for the one-pointedness of inclusion the realization of God in the fulness of cosmic being as well as in the interior height of the individual soul. Like the Taoist sage, they would at last have turned back into the world riding on their tamed and regenerate individuality; they would have come eating and drinking, would have associated with publicans and sinners or their buddhist equivalents, wine-bibbers and butchers. For the fully enlightened, totally liberated person, samsara and nirvana, time and eternity, the phenomenal and the Real, are essentially one. His whole life is an unsleeping and one-pointed contemplation of the Godhead in and through the things, lives, minds and events of the world of becoming. There is here no mutilation of the soul, no atrophy of any of its powers and capacities. Rather, there is a general enhancement and intensification of consciousness, and at the same time an extension and transfiguration. No saint has ever complained that absorption in God was a cursed evil.
In the beginning was the Word; behold Him to whom Mary listened. And the Word was made flesh; behold Him whom Martha served.
1.28 - Need to Define God, Self, etc., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
And the buddhists won't admit any God at all in anything at all like the sense in which you use the word.[AC34]
What's worse, whatever you may mean by "God" conveys no idea to me: I can only guess by the light of my exceedingly small knowledge of you and your general habits of thought and action. Then what sense was there in chucking it at my head? Half a brick would have served you better.
1.34 - The Tao 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Why is the Tao translated "Reason"? Because by "Reason" is here meant the structure of the mind itself; a buddhist who had succeeded with Mahasatipatthana might call it the Consciousnesss of the Tendency to Perceive the Sensation of Anything. For in the last resort, and through the pursuit of one line of analysis, this structure is all that we can call our consciousness. Everything of which we can in any way be aware may be interpreted as being some function of this structure.
Note! Function. For now we see why Tao may also be translated "The Way"; for it is the motion of the structure that we observe. There is no Being apart from Going.
1.35 - The Tao 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
As for ,[64] which superficially might seem the best translation of Tao as described in the text, it is the most misleading of the three. For To On possesses an extensive connotation implying a whole system of Platonic concepts, than which nothing can be more alien to the essential quality of the Tao. Tao is neither "being" nor "not being" in any sense which Europe could understand. It is neither existence, nor a condition or form of existence. Equally, TO MH ON gives no idea of Tao. Tao is altogether alien to all that class of thought. From its connection with "that principle which necessarily underlies the fact that events occur" one might suppose that the "Becoming" of Heraclitus might assist us to describe the Tao. But the Tao is not a principle at all of that kind. To understand it requires an altogether different state of mind to any with which European thinkers in general are familiar. It is necessary to pursue unflinchingly the path of spiritual development on the lines indicated by the Sufis, the Hindus and the buddhists; and, having reached the trance called Nerodha-Sammapati, in which are destroyed all forms soever of consciousness, there appears in that abyss of annihilation the germ of an entirely new type of idea, whose principal characteristic is this: that the entire concatenation of One's previous experiences and conceptions could not have happened at all, save by virtue of this indescribable necessity.
I am only too painfully aware that the above exposition is faulty in every respect. In particular, it presupposes in the reader considerable familiarity with the subject, thus practically begging the question. It must also prove almost wholly unintelligible to the average reader, him in fact whom I especially aim to interest.
1.37 - Death - Fear - Magical Memory, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Good: now see how logical this is." For how else could one have reasonable "certainty," as contrary with "faith" (=interior conviction), otherwise than by the acquisition of the "Magical Memory" the memory of former lives. And this must evidently include that of former deaths. Indeed "Freudian forgetfulness" is very pertinacious on such themes; the shock of death makes it a matter of displaying the most formidable courage to go over in one's mind the incidents of previous deaths. You recall the buddhist "Ten Impurities;" The Drowned Corpse, the Gnawed-by-wild-beasts-Corpse, and the rest.
Magick (though I says it as shouldn't) gives a very full and elaborate account of this Memory, and Liber CMXIII (Thisarb) a sound Official Instruction on the two main methods of acquiring this faculty. (None of my writings, by the way, deal with the First Method; this is because I could never make any headway with it; none at all. F.'. Iehi Aour, on the other hand, was a wizard at it; he thought that some people could use that way, and others not: born so.
1.400 - 1.450 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Mr. G. Duff: The buddhists deny the world; the Hindu philosophy admits its existence, but says that it is unreal. Am I right?
M.: The difference of view is according to the difference in the angles of vision.
1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are three main possibilities for the sadhak - (1) To wait on the Grace and rely on the Divine. (2) To do everything himself like the full Adwaitin and the buddhist. (3) To take the middle path, go forward by aspiration and rejection etc. helped by the
Force.
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
Mr. G. Duff: The buddhists deny the world; the Hindu philosophy admits its existence, but says that it is unreal. Am I right?
M.: The difference of view is according to the difference in the angles of vision.
1.50 - A.C. and the Masters; Why they Chose him, etc., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
They prepared me by (a) pushing me rapidly forward both in Magick and in Yoga; (b) wearying me of both of them and making me despair of them both as a solution to the problem of Life, and (c) fixing me both in buddhistic pessimism and scientific rationalism, so that their victory over me might be as difficult and solid as achievement as possible. (I am by no means proud of myself. Either I fought them or failed them, at every turn.) Chapter V of The Equinox of the Gods might have been written with more emphasis; but there are passages elsewhere in that volume which lay great stress upon the point.
Yet, after all, AL II, 10-11 should surely be enough. "O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but I am stronger."
1.57 - Public Scapegoats, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
over. But if the laity go out, the clergy come in. All the buddhist
monasteries of the country for miles round about open their gates
1.63 - Fear, a Bad Astral Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It is reassuring to learn that you are two-thirds human! Greed, anger and sloth are the three buddhist bed-rock badnesses; and you have certainly given the last a miss in baulk. It is my own darkest and deadliest foe, and oh how mighty! With me he never relaxes. Sounds a paradox! but so it is.
Now as to fear. In the Neophyte ceremony of GD when the bandage is first removed from the eyes of the Aspirant, Horus, who was in that Aeon "the Lord in the West," tells him: "Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure: be thou therefore without fear for in the heart of the coward virtue abideth not."
--
Incidentally, one may draw a quite close parallel between these four stages and those accompanying Samadhi (probably listed in Mrs. Rhys David's book on buddhist Psychology, or in Warren's bran-tub of translations from the Tripitaka, or Three baskets of the Dhamma. I haven't seen either book for forty years or more, don't remember the exact titles; scholars would help us to dig them out, but it isn't worth while. I recall the quintessence accurately enough.
Stage 1 is Ananda, usually translated "Bliss". This is an intensity of enjoyment altogether indescribable. This is due to the temporary destruction of the pain-bearing Ahamkara, or Ego-making faculty.
--
Stage 4. "Neither indifference nor not-indifference." One hardly knows what to make of this translation of the technical buddhist term: probably no meaning is really illuminating to one who has not experienced that state of mind. To me it seems a kind of non-awareness which is somehow different from mere ignorance. Rather like one's feeling about the automatic functions of physiology, perhaps: and acceptance so complete that, although the mind contains the idea, it is not stirred thereby into consciousness. These speculations are, perhaps, idle, and so distracting, for you in your present path. Was it worth while to make this analogy? I think so, vague and unscientific as it must have seemed to you, as reminding you of the way in which unlike ideas acquire close kinship as one advance on the path.
Enough of all this! I could not bear to hear you exclaim:
--
Then there is quite another kind, which is quite clearly penny-plain frustration. Something one wants to do, perhaps a trifle, and one can't. Then one looks for the obstacle, and then the enemy behind that again; maybe one gets into one of those "ladder-meditations" (as described in Liber Aleph,[121] quoted in The Book of Thoth, when discussing "The Fool" and Hashish, only the wrong way up!) which end by the conception of the Universe itself as the very climax, asymptote, quintessence of frustration the perfect symbol of all uselessness. This is, of course, the absolute contradictory of Thelema; but it is the sorites on which both Hindu and buddhist conclusions are based.
This kind of rage is, accordingly, most noxious; it is direct attack from within upon the virgin citadel of Self. It is high treason to existence. Its results are immediately harmful; it begets depression, melancholy, despair. In fact, one does wisely to take the bear by the ring in his snout; accept his conclusions, agree that it is all abject and futile and silly and turn the hose-pipe of the Trance of Laughter on him until he dances to your pleasure.
1.83 - Epistola Ultima, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
buddhist Psychology, Mrs, Rhys-Davies 283
La Maison des Hommes Vivants, Claude Farrrre 302
1913 11 25p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is certainly another remedy. What is it? Undoubtedly, one must learn to control ones subconscient just as one controls ones conscious thought. There must be many ways of achieving this. Regular introspection in the buddhist manner and a methodical analysis of ones dreamsformed almost always from this subconscious registrationare part of the method to be found. But there is surely something more rapidly effective.
O Lord, Eternal Master, Thou shalt be the Teacher, the Inspirer; Thou wilt teach me what should be done, so that after an indispensable application of it to myself, I may make others also benefit from what Thou hast taught me.
1929-04-21 - Visions, seeing and interpretation - Dreams and dreaml and - Dreamless sleep - Visions and formulation - Surrender, passive and of the will - Meditation and progress - Entering the spiritual life, a plunge into the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The two beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne dArc would, if seen by an Indian, have a quite different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of ones mind. To what you see you give the form of that which you expect to see. If the same being appeared simultaneously in a group where there were Christians, buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, it would be named by absolutely different names. Each would say, in reference to the appearance of the being, that he was like this or like that, all differing and yet it would be one and the same manifestation. You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother, the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, and others would give other names. It is the same Force, the same Power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths.
What is the place of training or discipline in surrender? If one surrenders, can he not be without discipline? Does not discipline sometimes hamper?
1929-05-19 - Mind and its workings, thought-forms - Adverse conditions and Yoga - Mental constructions - Illness and Yoga, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
According to the buddhist teachings, every human being lives and moves in a world of his own, quite independent of the world in which another lives; it is only when a certain harmony is created between these different worlds that they interpenetrate and men can meet and understand one another. This is true of the mind; for everybody moves in a mental world of his own, created by his own thoughts. And it is so true that always, when something has been said, each understands it in a different way; for what he catches is not the thing that has been spoken but something he has in his own head. But it is a truth that belongs to the movement of the mental plane and holds good only there.
For the mind is an instrument of action and formation and not an instrument of knowledge; at each moment it is creating forms. Thoughts are forms and have an individual life, independent of their author: sent out from him into the world, they move in it towards the realisation of their own purpose of existence. When you think of anyone, your thought takes a form and goes out to find him; and, if your thinking is associated with some will that is behind it, the thought-form that has gone out from you makes an attempt to realise itself. Let us say, for instance, that you have a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital impulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have made; you imagine, If he came, it would be like this or it would be like that. After a time you drop the idea altogether, and you do not know that even after you have forgotten it, your thought continues to exist. For it does still exist and is in action, independent of you, and it would need a great power to bring it back from its work. It is working in the atmosphere of the person touched by it and creates in him the desire to come. And if there is a sufficient power of will in your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its own realisation. But between the formation and the realisation there is a certain lapse of time, and if in this interval your mind has been occupied with quite other things, then when there happens this fulfilment of your forgotten thought, you may not even remember that you once harboured it; you do not know that you were the instigator of its action and the cause of what has come about. And it happens very often too that when the result does come, you have ceased to desire or care for it. There are some men who have a very strong formative power of this kind and always they see their formations realised; but because they have not a well-disciplined mental and vital being, they want now one thing and now another and these different or opposite formations and their results collide and clash with one another. And these people wonder how it is that they are living in so great a confusion and disharmony! They do not realise that it is their own thoughts and desires that have built the circumstances around them which seem to them so incoherent and contradictory and make their life almost unbearable.
1929-07-28 - Art and Yoga - Art and life - Music, dance - World of Harmony, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Why not? The Mahabharata and Ramayana are certainly not inferior to anything created by Shakespeare or any other poet, and they are said to have been the work of men who were Rishis and had done Yogic tapasy. The Gita which, like the Upanishads, ranks at once among the greatest literary and the greatest spiritual works, was not written by one who had no experience of Yoga. And where is the inferiority to your Milton and Shelley in the famous poems written whether in India or Persia or elsewhere by men known to be saints, Sufis, devotees? And, then, do you know all the Yogis and their work? Among the poets and creators can you say who were or who were not in conscious touch with the Divine? There are some who are not officially Yogis, they are not gurus and have no disciples; the world does not know what they do; they are not anxious for fame and do not attract to themselves the attention of men; but they have the higher consciousness, are in touch with a Divine Power, and when they create they create from there. The best paintings in India and much of the best statuary and architecture were done by buddhist monks who passed their lives in spiritual contemplation and practice; they did supreme artistic work, but did not care to leave their names to posterity. The chief reason why Yogis are not usually known by their art is that they do not consider their art-expression as the most important part of their life and do not put so much time and energy into it as a mere artist. And what they do does not always reach the public. How many there are who have done great things and not published them to the world!
Have Yogis done greater dramas than Shakespeare?
1951-02-26 - On reading books - gossip - Discipline and realisation - Imaginary stories- value of - Private lives of big men - relaxation - Understanding others - gnostic consciousness, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a state of consciousness which may be called gnostic, in which you are able to see at the same time all the theories, all the beliefs, all the ideas men have expressed in their highest consciousness the most contradictory notions, like the buddhistic, the Vedantic, the Christian theories, all the philosophical theories, all the expressions of the human mind when it has managed to catch a little corner of the Truth and in that state, not only do you put each thing in its place, but everything appears to you marvellously true and quite indispensable in order to be able to understand anything at all about anything whatsoever. There is a state of consciousness Oh, I was going to tell you things you cannot yet understand. I shall give you a simpler example. Anatole France said in one of his books: So long as men did not try to make the world progress, all went well and everybody was satisfiedno worry about perfecting oneself or perfecting the world, consequently all went well. Therefore the worst thing is to want to make others progress; let them do what they like and dont bother about anything, that will be much more wise. On the contrary, others tell you: There is a Truth to be attained; the world is in a state of ignorance and one must at all costs, in spite of the difficulty of the way, enlighten mans consciousness and pull him out of his ignorance. But I tell you that there is a state of consciousness in which both the ways of seeing are absolutely equally true. Naturally, if you take only two aspects, it is difficult to see clearly; one must be able to see all the aspects of the truth glimpsed by the human intelligence and something more. And then, in that state, nothing is absolutely false, nothing is absolutely bad. In that state one is free from all problems, all difficulties, all battles and everything appears to you wonderfully harmonious.
But if you try to imitate this condition mentallydo you understand? To make a mental imitation of ityou may be sure of doing stupid things; you will be one of those who have a chaos in their head and can say the most contradictory things without even being aware of it.
1951-03-29 - The Great Vehicle and The Little Vehicle - Choosing ones family, country - The vital being distorted - atavism - Sincerity - changing ones character, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These are buddhist terms. This is the translation of a Pali word, I believe. It is said that the religion of the North is the Great Vehicle and the religion of the South the Little Vehicle. The Little Vehicle abides by quite a strict teaching according to what has been preserved or is believed to have been preserved of the words of the Buddha.
You know the Buddha used to say that there was no God, there was no persistence of the ego, there were no beings of higher worlds who could incarnate here, there were no He denied almost every possible thing. The religion of the South is like that, it is extremely nihilistic, it says no, no, no to everything; while in the religion of the North, which has been practised in Tibet, and spread from Tibet into China and from China to Japan, one finds the Bodhisattvas (who stand for saints as in all other religions), all the previous Buddhas who are also like some sort of demigods or gods. I dont know if you have ever had a chance to visit a buddhist temple of the North (I saw them in China and Japan), for you enter halls where there are innumerable statuettesall the Bodhisattvas, all the disciples of those Bodhisattvas, all the forces of nature deified, indeed you are overwhelmed by the number of gods! On the other hand, if you go to the South, there is nothing, not a single image. I believe they speak of the Great Vehicle because there are lots of things inside, and the Little Vehicle because there are few! I dont know exactly the origin of the two terms.
Things have an inner value and become real to you only when you have acquired them by the exercise of your free choice, not when they have been imposed upon you. If you want to be sure of your religion, you must choose it; if you want to be sure of your country, you must choose it; if you want to be sure of your family, even that you must choose.
1951-04-17 - Unity, diversity - Protective envelope - desires - consciousness, true defence - Perfection of physical - cinema - Choice, constant and conscious - law of ones being - the One, the Multiplicity - Civilization- preparing an instrument, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The law of each being is different, yes, otherwise how would a distinction be made?From top to bottom, the nature, appearance, actions, all would be the same. If there were only one law, there would be only one law and every one would repeat the same thing. There would be no need at all to manifest a universe because it would be one single law. The very characteristic of the universe is an infinite multiplicity of laws which altogether, in their totality, reproduce the One. And it is this which is particularly marvellous in the physical world (in man and in the physical world, for it is proper to the terrestrial being), that it can be one of the innumerable elements which in their totality reproduce the One, and yet at the same time have a personal relation with the One that is to say, contain in itself the consciousness of the One and the relation with the One, and at the same time be an element of the whole. But if the fact of becoming conscious of the One and identifying oneself with it stopped one from being particular, one would cease existing as a personality. This is precisely what the buddhists and the disciples of Shankara try to realise; they wish to abolish totally their personality, their individuality, abolish the truth of their being, the special law of their being. This is what they consider to be a fusion with the Divine. But this is the negation of this creation. And as I was saying, the miracle of this creation, as far as the terrestrial individuality goes, is that we may achieve this union, this complete identification with the Supreme, the One, and at the same time keep the consciousness of our diversity, of the particular law we have to express. It is more difficult but infinitely more complete, and it is the very truth of this universe. The universe has not been made for anything else but that, to unite these two poles, the two extremes of consciousness. And when they are united, one understands that these two extremes are exactly the same thinga whole, at once one and innumerable.
But one feels very different from others!
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.
1954-08-11 - Division and creation - The gods and human formations - People carry their desires around them, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know if you have ever heard of Madame David-Neel who went to Tibet and has written books on Tibet, and who was a buddhist; and buddhists buddhists of the strictest traditiondo not believe in the Divine, do not believe in his Eternity and do not believe in gods who are truly divine, but they know admirably how to use the mental domain; and buddhist discipline makes you a good master of the mental instrument and mental domain.
We used to discuss many things and once she told me: Listen, I made an experiment. (She had studied a bit of theosophy also.) She said: I formed a mahatma; with my thought I formed a mahatma And she knew (this has been proved) that at a given moment mental formations acquire a personal life independent of the fashionerthough they are linked with him but independent, in the see that they can have their own will. And so she told me: Just imagine, I had made my mahatma so well that he became a personality independent of me and constantly came to trouble me! He used to come, scold me for one thing, give me advice for another, and he wanted to direct my life; and I could not succeed in getting rid of him. It was extremely difficult, and I didnt know what to do!
1955-02-09 - Desire is contagious - Primitive form of love - the artists delight - Psychic need, mind as an instrument - How the psychic being expresses itself - Distinguishing the parts of ones being - The psychic guides - Illness - Mothers vision, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was someone who was invitedit happened in Parisinvited to a first-night (a first-night means a first performance) of an opera of Massenets. I think I dont remember now whose it was. The subject was fine, the play was fine, and the music not displeasing; it was the first time and this person was invited to the box of the Minister of Fine Arts who always has a box for all the first nights at the government theatres. This Minister of Fine Arts was a simple person, an old countryside man, who had not lived much in Paris, who was quite new in his ministry and took a truly childlike joy in seeing new things. Yet he was a polite man and as he had invited a lady he gave her the front seat and himself sat at the back. But he felt very unhappy because he could not see everything. He leaned forward like this, trying to see something without showing it too much. Now, the lady who was in front noticed this. She too was very interested and was finding it very fine, and it was not that she did not like it, she liked it very much and was enjoying the show; but she saw how very unhappy that poor minister looked, not being able to see. So quite casually, you see, she pushed back her chair, went back a little, as though she was thinking of something else, and drew back so well that he came forward and could now see the whole scene. Well, this person, when she drew back and gave up all desire to see the show, was filled with a sense of inner joy, a liberation from all attachment to things and a kind of peace, content to have done something for somebody instead of having satisfied herself, to the extent that the evening brought her infinitely greater pleasure than if she had listened to the opera. This is a true experience, it is not a little story read in a book, and it was precisely at the time this person was studying buddhist discipline, and it was in conformity with the saying of the Buddha that she tried this experiment.
And truly this was so concrete an experience, you know, so real that ah, two seconds later, you see, the play, the music, the actors, the scene, the pictures and all that were gone like absolutely secondary things, completely unimportant, while this joy of having mastered something in oneself and done something not simply selfish, this joy filled all the being with an incomparable serenitya delightful experience Well, it is not just an individual, personal experience. All those who want to try can have it.
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
Mother, in the buddhist traditions it is said
Oh! Oh! you are becoming a buddhist. Its the fashion.
Yes?
1956-06-20 - Hearts mystic light, intuition - Psychic being, contact - Secular ethics - True role of mind - Realise the Divine by love - Depression, pleasure, joy - Heart mixture - To follow the soul - Physical process - remember the Mother, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He writes: It is indeed by the religio-ethical sense that the law of universal goodwill or universal compassion or of love and service to the neighbour, the Vedantic, the buddhistic, the Christian ideal, was created; only by a sort of secular refrigeration extinguishing the fervour of the religious element in it could the humanitarian ideal disengage itself and become the highest plane of a secular system of mental and moral ethics.
The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 142
1957-03-08 - A Buddhist story, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1957-03-08 - A buddhist story
class:chapter
--
A buddhist Story
As I am still unable to read to you this evening, I am going to tell you a story. It is a buddhist story which perhaps you know, it is modern but has the merit of being au thentic. I heard it from Madame Z who, as you probably know, is a well-known buddhist, especially as she was the first European woman to enter Lhasa. Her journey to Tibet was very perilous and thrilling and she narrated one of the incidents of this journey to me, which I am going to tell you this evening.
She was with a certain number of fellow travellers forming a sort of caravan, and as the approach to Tibet was relatively easier through Indo-China, they were going from that side. Indo-China is covered with large forests, and these forests are infested with tigers, some of which become man-eaters and when that happens they are called: Mr. Tiger.
--
Very reluctantly they started off, for it was impossible to reason with herwhen she had decided to do something nothing could prevent her from doing it. They went away and she sat down comfortably at the foot of a tree and entered into meditation. After a while she felt a rather unpleasant presence. She opened her eyes to see what it was and three or four steps away, right in front of her was Mr. Tiger!with eyes full of greed. So, like a good buddhist, she said, Well, if this is the way by which I shall attain Nirvana, very good. I have only to prepare to leave my body in a suitable way, in the proper spirit. And without moving, without even the least quiver, she closed her eyes again and entered once more into meditation; a somewhat deeper, more intense meditation, detaching herself completely from the illusion of the world, ready to pass into Nirvana. Five minutes went by, ten minutes, half an hournothing happened. Then as it was time for the meditation to be over, she opened her eyes and there was no tiger! Undoubtedly, seeing such a motionless body it must have thought it was not fit for eating! For tigers, like all wild animals, except the hyena, do not attack and eat a dead body. Impressed probably by this immobility I dare not say by the intensity of the meditation!it had withdrawn and she found herself quite alone and out of danger. She calmly went her way and on reaching camp said, Here I am.
Thats my story. Now we are going to meditate like her, not to prepare ourselves for Nirvana (laughter), but to heighten our consciousness!
1957-10-02 - The Mind of Light - Statues of the Buddha - Burden of the past, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For some months, every Friday in the younger children's class Mother used to read a few verses from the Dhammapada, the most sacred text of buddhist Teaching.
***
1969 10 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
183In the buddhists view to have saved an ant from drowning is a greater work than to have founded an empire. There is a truth in the idea, but a truth that can easily be exaggerated.
184To exalt one virtue,compassion even,unduly above all others is to cover up with ones hand the eyes of wisdom. God moves always towards a harmony.
1970 04 01, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
433The Mayavadin talks of my Personal God as a dream and prefers to dream of Impersonal Being; the buddhist puts that aside too as a fiction and prefers to dream of Nirvana and the bliss of nothingness. Thus all the dreamers are busy reviling each others visions and parading their own as the panacea. What the soul utterly rejoices in, is for thought the ultimate reality.
434Beyond Personality the Mayavadin sees indefinable Existence; I followed him there and found my Krishna beyond in indefinable Personality.
1.ac - The Buddhist, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
object:1.ac - The buddhist
author class:Aleister Crowley
1.cllg - A Dance of Unwavering Devotion, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Thupten Jinpa and Jas Elsener Original Language Tibetan You who absorb into sublime, immutable bliss all phenomena, moving and unmoving, infinite as space, O glorious Heruka and Varahi, your consort, I wear the jewel light of your feet as my crown. Great bliss, the union of method and wisdom, engaged in the play of the unmoving with movement, this young coral maiden with beautiful eyes, diamond queen, embrace me with your arts of love. Adorning the highest part of my body, my crown, with the jewel of your feet, I recite these words of aspiration and prayer with my palms folded at my heart. When shall I ever achieve this state: seeing all forms as mandala deities, all sounds as vajra songs of tantra, all thoughts as fuel to enflame the spontaneous wisdom of emptiness and bliss? When will I experience perfect purity? By purging in profound absorption all phenomena born of imaginative concepts, fully aware that they open the way to self-arisen rikpa. When will I run in a joyful step-dance, the play of supreme illusion, the bliss-void wisdom, in the dakin town, the emanation of pure realms -- where a hundred dharma doors are opened wide? Outer dakinis hover above the twenty-four mystic places; inner dakinis dwell in the sphere of radiant bliss. When will I immerse in the glory of sexual play through the secret act of conjoining space and vajra? When can I arise as the great magical net -- the union of body and mind, instantly burning all grossness of dualism with the great bliss fire flaming the expanse? When will I accomplish the natural feat of absorbing the imperfections of illusion into immutable bliss, this wheel of becoming, engaged in the blissful play of union? On the clear mirror of the luminous mind my guru, my deity, and my mind reflect as one; may I soon attain the good fortune of practicing night and day this perfect meditation. May my mind be always intoxicated by drinking insatiably the nectar -- the delicious taste of sexual play between the hero in his utter ecstasy and his lover, the lady emptiness. By entering deep into the sphere of voidness, may I be endowed with the power of cleansing this foul odor, grasping body, speech, and mind as ordinary, through the yoga of perceiving all as divine. May I come to see with naked eyes the form of the fully emergent mandala of perfect deities, the sport of the ever-present mind inside the courtyard of the heart's dharma chakra. O yoginis, heroines of the twenty-four places, and the hosts of mantra-born and field-born dakinis who possess powers swift as thought, assist me in friendship of every kind. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
1.hcyc - In my early years, I set out to acquire learning (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese In my early years, I set out to acquire learning, And I studied commentaries and inquired into Sutras and Shastras. Distinguishing among terms and characteristics, I didn't know how to stop. Entering the sea to count the sands I exhausted myself in vain. But the Thus Come One reprimanded this folly: What benefit is there in counting other's treasures?! Unsuccessful all along, I felt I had practiced in vain. Many years I wasted as a transient, like dust in the wind. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts <
1.hcyc - It is clearly seen (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese It is clearly seen: There is not a single thing. Nor are there any people; nor are there any Buddhas. The great thousand worlds are bubbles in the sea. All the worthy Sages are like flashes of lightning. Even if an iron wheel were rolled over one's head, Samadhi and wisdom would be fully bright and never lost. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts <
1.hcyc - Let others slander me (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese Let others slander me; I bear their condemnation. Those who try to burn the sky only exhaust themselves. When I hear it, it's just like drinking sweet dew. Thus smelted and refined, suddenly one enters the inconceivable. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts <
1.hcyc - Roll the Dharma thunder (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese Roll the Dharma thunder, Beat the Dharma drum. Clouds of kindness gather. Sweet dew is dispersed; Dragons and elephants tread upon it, moistening everything. The Three Vehicles and five natures are all roused awake. The Himalaya Pinodhni grass is unalloyed indeed; Pure ghee produced from it I have often partaken of. The nature completely pervades all natures. The dharma everywhere contains all dharmas. One moon universally appears in all waters. The moons in all waters are by one moon gathered in. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts <
1.hcyc - Who is without thought? (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese Who is without thought? Who is without birth? If there is really no production, there is nothing not produced. Summon a wooden statue and inquire of it. Apply yourself to seeking Buddha-hood; sooner or later you will accomplish it. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts <
1.hcyc - With Sudden enlightened understanding (from The Song of Enlightenment), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts Original Language Chinese With Sudden enlightened understanding Of the Dhyana of the Thus Come Ones, The six crossings-over and ten thousand practices are complete in substance, In a dream, very clearly, there are six destinies; After Enlightenment, completely empty, there is no universe. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Song of Enlightenment: By Great Master Yung Chia of the T'ang Dynasty, Edited by Tripitaka Master Hua / Translated by International Institute for the Translation of buddhist Texts <
1.kg - Little Tiger, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Thubten Jinpa and Jas Elsener Original Language Tibetan The honey bee, a little tiger, is not addicted to the taste of sugar; his nature is to extract the juice from the sweet lotus flower! Dakinis, above, below, and on earth, unimpeded by closeness and distance, will surely extract the blissful essence when the yogins bound by pledges gather. The sun, the king of illumination, is not inflated by self-importance; by the karma of sentient beings, it shines resplendent in the sky. When the sun perfect in skill and wisdom dawns in the sky of the illuminated mind, without conceit, you beautify and crown the beings of all three realms. The smiling faces of the radiant moon are not addicted to hide and seek; by its relations with the sun, the moon takes waning and waxing forms. Though my gurus, embodiment of all refuge, are free of all fluctuation and of faults, through their flux-ridden karma the disciples perceive that the guru's three secrets display all kinds of effulgence. Constellations of stars adorning the sky are not competing in a race of speed; due to the force of energy's pull, the twelve planets move clockwise with ease. Guru, deity, and dakini -- my refuge -- though not partial toward the faithful, unfailingly you appear to guard those with fortunate karma blessed. The white clouds hovering above on high are not so light that they arise from nowhere; it is the meeting of moisture and heat that makes the patches of mist in the sky. Those striving for good karma are not greedy in self-interest; by the meeting of good conditions they become unrivaled as they rise higher. The clear expanse of the autumn sky is not engaged in the act of cleansing; yet being devoid of all obscuration, its pure vision bejewels the eyes. The groundless sphere of all phenomena is not created fresh by a discursive mind; yet when the face of ever-presence is known, all concreteness spontaneously fades away. Rainbows radiating colors freely are not obsessed by attractive costumes; by the force of dependent conditions, they appear distinct and clearly. This vivid appearance of the external world, though not a self-projected image, through the play of fluctuating thought and mind, appears as paintings of real things. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
1.kt - A Song on the View of Voidness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Thupten Jinpa & Jas Elsner Original Language Tibetan Homage to the Adamantine Mind! Dharma king, you who have realized the essence; you who expound the way of being, out of compassion: king Buddha Samdrup, I bow to you in my heart, pray listen to me. Through your kind and skillful means, by a habit long formed, and as a fruit of long practice in this life, I have realized the nature of ever-presence. When the secret of appearance is revealed, everything arises in a tone of voidness, undefined by the marks of identity. Like a sky that is nothing but an image. When the secret of thoughts is revealed, though active, they are but mind's sport, naked reflections of transcendent mind unsullied by deliberation and correction. When the secret of recollection is revealed, every memory is but an illumination of self-knowledge in the ever-present state, untainted by ego consciousness. When the secret of illusions is revealed, they seem nothing but the primordial state, appearing in the visual field of rikpa, untouched by the dualism of mind and things. When the secret of abiding is revealed, you are in the state of self-cognition, however long you remain, free of elaboration, the expanse unstained by laxity and torpor. When the secret of mobility is revealed, however much you move, you remain within clear light, unstained by distraction, excitement, and so on, a true self-recognizer. When the secret of samsara is revealed, however often one may circle, the cycles are illusion unaffected by joy and pain. This is the realization of Buddha's four bodies. When the secret of peace is revealed, however tranquil one's attainments, they are but an image; this is the natural pure space, free of the signs of being and nonbeing. When the secret of birth is revealed, however one's reborn, it's but an emanation; meditation's vision of pure self-generation free of clinging and apprehensions. When the secret of death is revealed, however often one may die, it's but the vision of the ultimate, the stages of completion perfect, free of any karmic deeds. When the secret of bliss is revealed, its intensity cannot be bettered; this is the state of spontaneous bliss, free of all traces of contamination. When the secret of luminosity is revealed, however bright, it's but an empty form -- mother image of the void in space, free of every multiplicity. When the secret of emptiness is revealed, though empty, it is the unsurpassed, devoid of every contingent stain, and free from every deception. When the secret of the view is revealed, however much one looks and sees, the world remains beyond thought and word -- the expanse beyond dichotomies. When the secret of meditation is revealed, however much one meditates, it's but a state -- undistracted, and in natural restfulness, free of exertion and constraint. When the secret of action is revealed, whatever one does are the six perfections -- spontaneous, free, and to the point, uncolored by strictures and moral codes. When the secret of fruition is revealed, achievements are but the cognition of mind as dharmakaya, the mind itself free of hope and fear. This is the profound innermost secret; guru's blessings have entered my heart; naked nonduality dawns within; the secret of samsara and nirvana is revealed! I have beheld the face of the ordinary mind; I have arrived at the view that is free of extremes; even if the Buddha came in person now, I have no queries that require his advice! This song on the view of voidness expounding the nature of the being of all, spoken in words inspired by conviction, was sung in a voice echoing itself, unobstructed, in between meditation sessions. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
1.lb - Sitting Alone On Jingting Mountain by Li Po, #Li Bai - Poems, #Li Bai, #Poetry
Li Po (701-762) is China's great Taoist and buddhist poet. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
1.lr - An Adamantine Song on the Ever-Present, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Thubten Jinpa and Jas Elsner Original Language Tibetan To experience the ocean of essence, resembling the sphere of unchanging space: free of center and perimeter, pervading the expanse. Enlightened mind transcends cognitions! Rootless and baseless are appearance and void, in the self-arisen rikpa of every perception. Vivid is the sense of noncessation: luminous, the absence of object perception. Within the voidness free of class distinction all appearances dissolve, for their ground is lost; The rikpa of liberation is spread evenly. Subject and object are both void, for their roots are lost. The essence of self-arisen wisdom and all duality are cleansed like the sky; subjects and objects arise as free from bounds, as naked dharmakaya! This is the Great Perfection, free of cognition! The self-arisen ground primordially pure, the ultraversed path supremely swift, the unsought fruit spontaneously savored, such is the Great Perfection, in the radiant dharmakaya. This primordial sphere of pervasive essence is the Great Perfection of samsara and nirvana; this song of transcending -- beyond cause and effect, beyond all endeaver, was sung by Longchen Rabjam Zangpo. [1585.jpg] -- from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This poem or song is an outright cryptogram. It speaks of mysterious things in an even more mysterious way. First of all, we must note that the poet is a woman. She calls herself kukkuri. But why of all names a "bitch"? Well, she is in good company. One remembers the Vedic Sarama or Sarameya. The West too has its Hound of Heaven. Only the term here has been put in its vernacular form. Anyhow it is a yogini who embodies or represents the divine Being, nairatma devi, as the buddhist commentator says.
The opening lines have a clear Vedic ring, they take us back to the famous Devi Sukta where the poetess there too it is a Rishika, Vak or Vagambhrinifeels herself one with the Supreme Shakti and declares her mightinesses.
2.00 - BIBLIOGRAPHY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
GODDARD, DWIGHT. A buddhist Bible (published by the editor, Thetford, Maine, 1938). This volume contains translations of several Mahayana texts not to be found, or to be found only wida much difficulty, elsewhere. Among these are The Diamond Sutra, The Surangama Sutra, The Lankavatara Sutra, The Awakening of Faith and The Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.
GUNON, REN. Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta (London, n. d.).
--
Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng. Translated by Wung Mou-lam (Shanghai, 1930). Reprinted in A buddhist Bible (Thetford, 1938).
SUZUKI, B. L. Mahayana Buddhism (London, 1938).
2.01 - The Object of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:The traditional systems, whatever their other differences, all proceed on the belief or the perception that the Eternal and Absolute can only be or at least can only inhabit a pure transcendent state of non-cosmic existence or else a non-existence. All cosmic existence or all that we call existence is a state of ignorance. Even the highest individual perfection, even the blissful cosmic condition is no better than a supreme ignorance. All that is individual, all that is cosmic has to be austerely renounced by the seeker of the absolute Truth. The supreme quiescent Self or else the absolute Nihil is the sole Truth, the only object of spiritual knowledge. The state of knowledge, the consciousness other than this temporal that we must attain is Nirvana, an extinction of ego, a cessation of all mental, vital and physical activities, of all activities whatsoever, a supreme illumined quiescence, the pure bliss of an impersonal tranquillity self-absorbed and ineffable. The means are meditation, concentration excluding all things else, a total loss of the mind in its object. Action is permissible only in the first stages of the search in order to purify the seeker and make him morally and temperamentally a fit vessel for the knowledge. Even this action must either be confined to the performance of the rites of worship and the prescribed duties of life rigorously ordained by the Hindu Shastra or, as in the buddhistic discipline, must be guided along the eight-fold path to the supreme practice of the works of compassion which lead towards the practical annihilation of self in the good of others. In the end, in any severe and pure Jnanayoga, all works must be abandoned for an entire quiescence. Action may prepare salvation, it cannot give it. Any continued adherence to action is incompatible with the highest progress and may be an insuperable obstacle to the attainment of the spiritual goal. The supreme state of quiescence is the very opposite of action and cannot be attained by those who persist in works. And even devotion, love, worship are disciplines for the unripe soul, are at best the best methods of the Ignorance. For they are offered to something other, higher and greater than ourselves; but in the supreme knowledge there can be no such thing, since there is either only one self or no self at all and therefore either no one to do the worship and offer the love and devotion or no one to receive it. Even thought-activity must disappear in the sole consciousness of identity or of nothingness and by its own quiescence bring about the quiescence of the whole nature. The absolute Identical alone must remain or else the eternal Nihil.
3:This pure Jnanayoga comes by the intellect, although it ends in the transcendence of the intellect and its workings. The thinker in us separates himself from all the rest of what we phenomenally are, rejects the heart, draws back from the life and the senses, separates from the body that he may arrive at his own exclusive fulfilment in that which is beyond even himself and his function. There is a truth that underlies, as there is an experience that seems to justify, this attitude. There is an Essence that is in its nature a quiescence, a supreme of Silence in the Being that is beyond its own development and mutations, immutable and therefore superior to all activities of which it is at most a Witness. And in the hierarchy of our psychological functions the Thought is in a way nearest to this Self, nearest at least to its aspect of the all-conscious knower who regards all activities but can stand back from them all. The heart, will and other powers in us are fundamentally active, turn naturally towards action, find through it their fulfilment, -although they also may automatically arrive at a certain quiescence by fullness of satisfaction in their activities or else by a reverse process of exhaustion through perpetual disappointment and dissatisfaction. The thought too is an active power, but is more capable of arriving at quiescence by its own conscious choice and will. The thought is more easily content with the illumined intellectual perception of this silent Witness Self that is higher than all our activities and, that immobile Spirit once seen, is ready, deeming its mission of truth-finding accomplished, to fall at rest arid become itself immobile. For in its most characteristic movement it is itself apt to be a disinterested witness, judge, observer of things more than an eager participant and passionate labourer in the work and can arrive very readily at a spiritual or philosophic calm and detached aloofness. And since men are mental beings, thought, if not truly their best and highest, is at least their most constant, normal and effective means for enlightening their ignorance. Armed with its functions of gathering and reflection, meditation, fixed contemplation, the absorbed dwelling of the mind on its object, sravana, manana, hididhyasana, it stands at our tops as an indispensable aid to our realisation of that which we pursue, and it is not surprising that it should claim to be the leader of the journey and the only available guide or at least the direct and innermost door of the temple.
2.01 - The Yoga and Its Objects, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Gita hold up as the rule of life; you will see the Self in all existing things and all existing things in the Self, atmanam sarvabhutes.u sarvabhutani catmani; you will be aware of all things as Brahman, sarvam khalvidam brahma. But the crowning realisation of this yoga is when you become aware of the whole world as the expression, play or Lila of an infinite divine personality, when you see in all, not the impersonal Sad Atman which is the basis of manifest existence, - although you do not lose that knowledge, - but Sri Krishna who at once is, bases and transcends all manifest and unmanifest existence, avyakto 'vyaktat parah.. For behind the Sad Atman is the silence of the Asat which the buddhist Nihilists realised as the sunyam and beyond that silence is the Paratpara Purusha (purus.o varen.ya adityavarn.as tamasah. parastat). It is he who has made this world out of his
The Yoga and Its Objects
2.02 - Meeting With the Goddess, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
Hindu and buddhist iconography. Tantric symbolism was carried by medieval
Buddhism out of India into Tibet, China, and Japan.
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
hedonist or utilitarian. The buddhists knew it 2000 years ago
and the Aryans of India practised it before that; the whole life
--
and distinguishing idea of Christianity; in humanity, the buddhistic spirit of mercy, pity, love, of which Europe knew nothing
till Christianity breathed it forth over the Mediterranean and
2.02 - Yoga, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
1. buddhist and Shankarite:
The world is an illusion, a field of ignorance and suffering due to ignorance. The one thing to do is to get out of it as soon as possible and to disappear into the original Non-Existence or
2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
culture and in the noble and perfect buddhist-Confucian system
of ethics and ideal of life which regulates Chinese politics, society and individual life. In India on the other hand, as we shall
2.03 - On Medicine, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
When a congregation of fifty thousand persons was caught in a fire due to an earthquake there was not a single cry, not a mutter. All men were standing up and chanting a buddhist hymn. That is a heroic people with wonderful self-control.
Disciple: If they have such self-control they would be very good at Yoga.
2.04 - On Art, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: I did, but the word is not given there in that sense; it only carries the sense of Chaitya of the buddhists and the Jains.
Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another meaning. But what about this one?
2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
found in every buddhist temple of the farthest Orient. She is
blessed alike to the simple and to the wise; for behind her vow
--
this is an old rule" (from the buddhist Dhammapada, 1:5; "Sacred Books of
the East," Vol. X, Part I, p. 5; translation by Max Miiller).
--
responding to the buddhist Kama, "desire") and the death-wish
(thanatos or destrudo, which is identical with the buddhist Mara,
"hostility or death") are the two drives that not only move the
--
method of the celebrated buddhist Eightfold Path:
Right Belief, Right Intentions,
--
twenty-eighth buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, "to pacify his
soul." Bodhidharma retorted, "Produce it and I will pacify it."
--
This is what the buddhist calls "the sermon of the inanimate."
A certain Hindu ascetic who lay down to rest beside the holy
2.05 - The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
political and social gospels, the illusion of his ethical efforts at perfection, the illusion of philanthropy and service, the illusion of works, the illusion of fame, power, success, the illusion of all achievement. Human social and political endeavour turns always in a circle and leads nowhere; man's life and nature remain always the same, always imperfect, and neither laws nor institutions nor education nor philosophy nor morality nor religious teachings have succeeded in producing the perfect man, still less a perfect humanity, - straighten the tail of the dog as you will, it has been said, it always resumes its natural curve of crookedness. Altruism, philanthropy and service, Christian love or buddhist compassion have not made the world a whit happier, they only give infinitesimal bits of momentary relief here and there, throw drops on the fire of the world's suffering. All aims are in the end transitory and futile, all achievements unsatisfying or evanescent; all works are so much labour of effort and success and failure which consummate nothing definitive: whatever changes are made in human life are of the form only and these forms pursue each other in a futile circle; for the essence of life, its general character remains the same for ever. This view of things may be exaggerated, but it has an undeniable force; it is supported by the experience of man's centuries and it carries in itself a significance which at one time or another comes upon the mind with an overwhelming air of self-evidence. Not only so, but if it is true that the fundamental laws and values of terrestrial existence are fixed or that it must always turn in repeated cycles,
- and this has been for long a very prevalent notion, - then this view of things in the end is hardly escapable. For imperfection, ignorance, frustration and suffering are a dominant factor of the existing world-order, the elements contrary to them, knowledge, happiness, success, perfection are constantly found to be deceptive or inconclusive: the two opposites are so inextricably mixed that, if this state of things is not a motion towards a greater fulfilment, if this is the permanent character of the world-order, then it is hard to avoid the conclusion that all here is either the creation of an inconscient Energy, which would account for the incapacity of an apparent consciousness to arrive at anything, or
2.06 - Reality and the Cosmic Illusion, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
consciousness: the individual has only a relative value and a temporary reality. But if Matter turns out to be itself unreal or derivative and simply a phenomenon of Energy, as seems now to be the probability, then Energy remains as the sole Reality; the percipient, his perception, the perceived object are only phenomena of Energy. But an Energy without a Being or Existence possessing it or a Consciousness supplying it, an Energy working originally in the void, - for the material field in which we see it at work is itself a creation, - looks itself very much like a mental construction, an unreality: or it might be a temporary inexplicable outbreak of motion which might cease at any time to create phenomena; the Void of the Infinite alone would be enduring and real. The buddhist theory of the percipient and the perception and the percept as a construction of Karma, the process of some cosmic fact of Action, gave room to such a conclusion; for it led logically to the affirmation of the NonBeing, Void or Nihil. It is possible indeed that what is at work is not an Energy, but a Consciousness; as Matter reduces itself to
Energy seizable by us not in itself but in its results and workings, so Energy could be reduced to action of a Consciousness seizable by us not in itself but in its results and workings. But if this
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Self and of all existence. The buddhists took this last step and refused reality to the Self on the ground that it was as much as the rest a construction of the mind; they cut not only God but the eternal Self and impersonal Brahman out of the picture.
An uncompromising theory of Illusion solves no problem of our existence; it only cuts the problem out for the individual by showing him a way of exit: in its extreme form and effect, our being and its action become null and without sanction, its experience, aspiration, endeavour lose their significance; all, the one incommunicable relationless Truth excepted and the turning away to it, become equated with illusion of being, are part of a universal Illusion and themselves illusions. God and ourselves and the universe become myths of Maya; for God is only a reflection of Brahman in Maya, ourselves are only a reflection of Brahman in illusory individuality, the world is only an imposition on the Brahman's incommunicable self-existence.
2.06 - The Wand, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
10:Now there are very great difficulties to be overcome in the training of the mind. Perhaps the greatest is forgetfulness, which is probably the worst form of what the buddhists call ignorance. Special practices for training the memory may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory is naturally poor. In any case the Magical Record prescribed for Probationers of the A.'.A.'. is useful and necessary.
11:Above all the practices of Liber III must be done again and again, for these practices develop not only vigilance but those inhibiting centres in the brain which are, according to some psychologists, the mainspring of the mechanism by which civilized man has raised himself above the savage.
2.07 - On Congress and Politics, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
There was not the idea of 'interests' in India as in Europe, i.e., each community was not fighting for its own interests; but there was rather the idea of Dharma the function which the individual and the community have to fulfil in the larger national life. There were caste organisations not based upon a religio-social basis as we find nowadays; they were more or less groups organised for a communal life. There were also religious communities like the buddhists, Jains, etc. Each followed its own law Swadharma unhampered by the State. The State recognised the necessity of allowing such various forms of life to develop freely in order to give to the national spirit a richer expression.
Then over the two there was the central authority, whose function was not so much to legislate as to harmonise and see that everything was going on all right. It was administered by a Raja, in some cases, also, by an elected head of the clan, as in the instance of Gautama Buddha. Each ruled over either a small State or a group of small States or republics. One was not at the head to put his hands over all organisations and keep them down. If he interfered with them he was deposed because each of these organisations had its own laws which had been established for long ages. The machinery of the State also was not so mechanical as in the West it was plastic and elastic.
2.08 - Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Therefore through that it can most easily lay hold on the fact of eternal being, on the reality; all the rest it is tempted, when it considers things narrowly, to look on not merely as phenomenon, but as, possibly, error, ignorance, illusion, because they no longer appear to it directly real. So the Illusionist considers them; the only thing he holds to be truly real is that eternal self which lies behind the mind's direct present self-consciousness. Or else, like the buddhist, one comes to regard even that eternal self as an illusion, a representation, a subjective image, a mere imagination or false sensation and false idea of being. Mind becomes to its own view a fantastic magician, its works and itself at once strangely existent and non-existent, a persistent reality and yet a fleeting error which it accounts for or does not account for, but in any case is determined to slay and get done with both itself and its works so that it may rest, may cease in the timeless repose of the Eternal from the vain representation of appearances.
But, in truth, our sharp distinctions made between the without and the within, the present and the past self-consciousness are tricks of the limited unstable action of mind. Behind the mind and using it as its own surface activity there is a stable consciousness in which there is no binding conceptual division between itself in the present and itself in the past and future; and yet it knows itself in Time, in the present, past and future, but at once, with an undivided view which embraces all the mobile experiences of the Time-self and holds them on the foundation of the immobile timeless self. This consciousness we can become aware of when we draw back from the mind and its activities or when these fall silent. But we see first its immobile status, and if we regard only the immobility of the self, we may say of it that it is not only timeless, but actionless, without movement of idea, thought, imagination, memory, will, self-sufficient, selfabsorbed and therefore void of all action of the universe. That then becomes alone real to us and the rest a vain symbolising in non-existent forms - or forms corresponding to nothing truly existent - and therefore a dream. But this self-absorption is only
2.08 - The Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
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
buddhist, Nibbana, was in any way different from their own goal,
2.09 - Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Time. The surface consciousness is constantly adding to its experience or rejecting from its experience, and by every addition it is modified and by every rejection also it is modified; although that deeper self which supports and contains this mutation remains unmodified, the outer or superficial self is constantly developing its experience so that it can never say of itself absolutely, "I am the same that I was a moment ago." Those who live in this surface Time-self and have not the habit of drawing back inward towards the immutable or the capacity of dwelling in it, are even incapable of thinking of themselves apart from this ever selfmodifying mental experience. That is for them their self and it is easy for them, if they look with detachment at its happenings, to agree with the conclusion of the buddhist Nihilists that this self is in fact nothing but a stream of idea and experience and mental action, the persistent flame which is yet never the same flame, and to conclude that there is no such thing as a real self, but only a flow of experience and behind it Nihil: there is experience of knowledge without a Knower, experience of being without an Existent; there are simply a number of elements, parts of a flux without a real whole, which combine to create the illusion of a Knower and Knowledge and the Known, the illusion of an Existent and existence and the experience of existence.
Or they can conclude that Time is the only real existence and
2.09 - The Pantacle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
47:We have the story of one of the Buddha's Arahats, who being blind, in walking up and down unwittingly killed a number of insects. [The buddhist regards the destruction of life as the most shocking crime.] His brother Arahats inquired as to hwo this was, and Buddha spun them a long yarn as to how, in a previous incarnation, he had maliciously deprived a woman of her sight. This is only a fairy tale, a bogey to frighten the children, and probably the worst way of influencing the young yet devised by human stupidity.
48:Karma does not work in this way at all.
2.09 - The Release from the Ego, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
THE formation of a mental and vital ego tied to the body-sense was the first great labour of the cosmic Life in its progressive evolution; for this was the means it found for creating out of matter a conscious individual. The dissolution of this limiting ego is the one condition, the necessary means for this very cosmic Life to arrive at its divine fruition: for only so can the conscious individual find either his transcendent self or his true Person. This double movement is usually represented as a fall and a redemption or a creation and a destruction, -- the kindling of a light and its extinction or the formation first of a smaller temporary and unreal self and a release from it into our true self's eternal largeness. For human thought falls apart towards two opposite extremes: one, mundane and pragmatic, regards the fulfilment and satisfaction of the mental, vital and physical ego-sense individual or collective as the object of life and looks no farther, while the other spiritual, philosophic or religious which regards the conquest of the ego in the interests of the soul, spirit or whatever be the ultimate entity, as the one thing supremely worth doing. Even in the camp of the ego there are two divergent attitudes which divide the mundane or materialist theory of the universe. One tendency of this thought regards the mental ego as a creation of our mentality which will be dissolved with the dissolution of mind by the death of the body; the one abiding truth is eternal Nature working in the race-this or another-and her purpose should be followed, not ours. The fulfilment of the race, the collective ego, and not that of the individual should be the rule of life. Another trend of thought, more vitalistic in its tendencies, fixes on the conscious ego as the supreme achievement of Nature, no matter how transitory, ennobles it into a human representative of the Will-to-be and holds up its greatness and satisfaction as the highest aim of our existence. In the more numerous systems that take their stand on some kind of religious thought or spiritual discipline there is a corresponding divergence. The buddhist denies the existence of a real self or ego, admits no universal or transcendent Being. The Advaitin declares the apparently individual soul to be none other than the supreme Self and Brahman, its individuality an illusion; the putting off of individual existence is the only true release. Other systems assert, in flat contradiction of this view, the eternal persistence of the human soul; a basis of multiple consciousness in the One or else a dependent but still separate entity, it is constant, real, imperishable.
Amidst these various and conflicting opinions the seeker of the Truth has to decide for himself which shall be for him the Knowledge. But if our aim is a spiritual release or a spiritual fulfilment, then the exceeding of this little mould of ego is imperative. In the human egoism and its satisfaction there can be no divine culmination and deliverance. A certain purification from egoism is the condition even of ethical progress and elevation, for social good and perfection; much more is it indispensable for inner peace, purity and joy. But a much more radical deliverance, not only from egoism but from ego-idea and ego-sense, is needed if our aim is to raise human into divine nature. Experience shows that, in proportion as we deliver ourselves from the limiting mental and vital ego, we comm and a wider life, a larger existence, a higher consciousness, a happier soul-state, even a greater knowledge, power and scope. Even the aim which the most mundane philosophy pursues, the fulfilment, perfection, satisfaction of the individual is best assured not by satisfying the same ego but by finding freedom in a higher and larger self. There is no happiness in smallness of the being, says the Scripture, it is with the large being that happiness comes. The ego is by its nature a smallness of being; it brings contraction of the consciousness and with the contraction limitation of knowledge, disabling ignorances-confinement and a diminution of power and by that diminution incapacity and weakness, -- scission of oneness and by that scission disharmony and failure of sympathy and love and understanding, -- inhibition or fragmentation of delight of being and by that fragmentation pain and sorrow. To recover what is lost we must break out of the worlds of ego. The ego must either disappear in impersonality or fuse into a larger I: it must fuse in the wider cosmic 'I' which comprehends all these smaller selves or the transcendent of which even the cosmic self is a diminished image.
--
That substance is the self of the man called in European thought the Monad, in Indian philosophy, Jiva or Jivatman, the living entity, the self of the living creature. This Jiva is not the mental ego-sense constructed by the workings of Nature for her temporary purpose. It is not a thing bound, as the mental being, the vital, the physical are bound, by her habits, laws or processes. The Jiva is a spirit and self, superior to Nature. It is true that it consents to her acts, reflects her moods and upholds the triple medium of mind, life and body through which she casts them upon the soul's consciousness; but it is itself a living reflection or a soul-form or a self-creation of the Spirit universal and transcendent. The One Spirit who has mirrored some of His modes of being in the world and in the soul, is multiple in the Jiva. That Spirit is the very Self of our self, the One and the Highest, the Supreme we have to realise, the infinite existence into which we have to enter. And so far the teachers walk in company, all agreeing that this is the supreme object of knowledge, of works and of devotion, all agreeing that if it is to be attained, the Jiva must release himself from the ego-sense which belongs to the lower Nature or Maya. But here they part company and each goes his own way. The Monist fixes his feet on the path of an exclusive Knowledge and sets for us as sole ideal an entire return, loss, immersion or extinction of the Jiva in the Supreme. The Dualist or the partial Monist turns to the path of Devotion and directs us to shed indeed the lower ego and material life, but to see as the highest destiny of the spirit of man, not the self-annihilation of the buddhist, not the self-immersion of the Adwaitin, not a swallowing up of the many by the One, but an eternal existence absorbed in the thought, love and enjoyment of the Supreme, the One, the All-Lover.
For the disciple of an integral Yoga there can be no hesitation; as a seeker of knowledge it is the integral knowledge and not anything either half-way and attractive or high-pinnacled and exclusive he must seek. He must soar to the utmost height, but also circle and spread to the most all-embracing wideness, not binding himself to any rigid structure of metaphysical thought, but free to admit and contain all the soul's highest and greatest and fullest and most numerous experiences. If the highest height of spiritual experience, the sheer summit of all realisation is the absolute union of the soul with the Transcendent who exceeds the individual and the universe, the widest scope of that union is the discovery of that very Transcendent as the source, support, continent, informing and constituent spirit and substance of both these manifesting powers of the divine Essence and the divine Nature. Whatever the path, this must be for him the goal. The Yoga of Action also is not fulfilled, is not absolute, is not victoriously complete until the seeker has felt and lives in his essential and integral oneness with the Supreme. One he must be with the Divine will in his highest and inmost and in his widest being and consciousness, in work, his will, his power of action, his mind, body, life. Otherwise he is only released from the illusion of individual works, but not released from the illusion of separate being and instrumentality. As the servant and instrument of the Divine, he works, but the crown of his labour and its perfect base or motive is oneness with that which he serves and fulfils. The Yoga of devotion too is complete only when the lover and the Beloved are unified and difference is abolished in the ecstasy of a divine oneness, and yet in the mystery of this unification there is the sole existence of the Beloved but no extinction or absorption of the lover. It is the highest unity which is the express direction of the path of knowledge, the call to absolute oneness is its impulse, the experience of it its magnet: but it is this very highest unity which takes as its field of manifestation in him the largest possible cosmic wideness. Obeying the necessity to withdraw successively from the practical egoism of our triple nature and its fundamental ego-sense, we come to the realisation of the spirit, the self, lord of this individual human manifestation, but our knowledge is not integral if we do not make this self in the individual one with the cosmic spirit and find their greater reality above in an inexpressible but not Unknowable Transcendence. That Jiva, possessed of himself, must give himself up into the being of the Divine. The self of the man must be made one with the Self of all; the self of the finite , individual must pour itself into the boundless finite and that cosmic spirit must be exceeded in the transcendent Infinite.
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
cross: a new and thoroughly original effort towards a buddhistic
movement of peace, towards real and _not_ merely promised _happiness
2.1.02 - Love and Death, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In buddhist cavern or Orissan temple,
Large aspirations architectural,
2.1.02 - Nature The World-Manifestation, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Karma as the buddhists call it. We see that this action of Force exists only by an infinite flux of feature and relation, the stream of the buddhist figure. Apart from that it is nothing, it is the
buddhist sunya or Nihil, and the reduction of the universe to
--
For it cannot be denied that the universe, the thing from which all our conscious experience starts, is such a constant stream of becoming, a round of mutations and modifications, a mass of features and relations. The question is how is it maintained? what is [it] that gives an appearance of permanence to the impermanent, of stability to the unstable, of a sum of eternal sameness in which all the elements of the sum are in constant instability and all capable of mutation? The buddhist admits that it is done by an action of consciousness, by idea and association, vijnana, sanskara; but ideas and associations are themselves Karma, action of Force, themselves impermanent, only they create an appearance of permanence, by always acting in the same round, creating the same combination of forms and elements, as the flame and stream appear always the same, though that which constitutes them is always impermanent. The modern Materialist says that it is material Force or an eternal
Energy which takes the form of Matter and follows always the same inherent law of action. The Mayavadin says on the contrary that it is Consciousness, but a consciousness which is in its reality immutable and unmodifiable self-existence, only it produces a phenomenon of constant modification and mutation.
2.10 - On Vedic Interpretation, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Some time back you said that the symbolism of the Vedas was to some extent conventional; for example, the cow as typifying "light of the Truth". The same may be said of buddhist symbolism and that of ancient Egypt.
Is there not a symbolism which could be said to be universal, i.e., having a reality independent of the mental significance of words and images?
2.11 - On Education, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: The time of Kalidasa, for instance. You see the subjects women had to study in those days. You will see there were so many arts and accomplishments they had to learn. Then there was a time when buddhist Universities like Nalanda, Takshashila were in vogue. They were like the Schools in mediaeval Europe.
Disciple: What was the system of education in Europe at that time?
2.11 - The Modes of the Self, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And yet, so complex is the Maya of the Infinite, there is a sense in which the view of all as parts of the whole, waves of the sea or even as in a sense separate entities becomes a necessary part of the integral Truth and the integral Knowledge. For if the Self is always one in all, yet we see that for the purposes at least of the cyclic manifestation it expresses itself in perpetual soul-forms which preside over the movements of our personality through the worlds and the aeons. This persistent soul-existence is the real Individuality which stands behind the constant mutations of the thing we call our personality. It is not a limited ego but a thing in itself infinite; it is in truth the Infinite itself consenting from one plane of its being to reflect itself in a perpetual soul-experience. This is the truth which underlies the Sankhya theory of many Purushas, many essential, infinite, free and impersonal souls reflecting the movements of a single cosmic energy. It stands also, in a different way, behind the very different philosophy of qualified Monism which arose as a protest against the metaphysical excesses of buddhistic Nihilism and illusionist Adwaita. The old semi- buddhistic, semi-Sankhya theory which saw only the Quiescent and nothing else in the world except a constant combination of the five elements and the three modes of inconscient Energy lighting up their false activity by the consciousness of the Quiescent in which it is reflected, is not the whole truth of the Brahman. We are not a mere mass of changing mind-stuff, life-stuff, body-stuff taking different forms of mind and life and body from birth to birth, so that at no time is there any real self or conscious reason of existence behind all the flux or none except that Quiescent who cares for none of these things. There is a real and stable power of our being behind the constant mutation of our mental, vital and physical personality, and this we have to know and preserve in order that the Infinite may manifest Himself through it according to His will in whatever range and for whatever purpose of His eternal cosmic activity.
And if we regard existence from the standpoint of the possible eternal and infinite relations of this One from whom all things proceed, these Many of whom the One is the essence and the origin and this Energy, Power, or Nature through which the relations of the One and the Many are maintained, we shall see a certain justification even for the dualist philosophies and religions which seem to deny most energetically the unity of beings and to make an unbridgeable differentiation between the Lord and His creatures. If in their grosser forms these religions aim only at the ignorant joys of the lower heavens, yet there is a far higher and profounder sense in which we may appreciate the cry of the devotee poet when in a homely and vigorous metaphor he claimed the right of the soul to enjoy for ever the ecstasy of its embrace of the Supreme. "I do not want to become sugar," he wrote, "I want to eat sugar." However strongly we found ourselves on the essential identity of the one Self in all, we need not regard that cry as the mere aspiration of a certain kind of spiritual sensuousness or the rejection by an attached and ignorant soul of the pure and high austerity of the supreme Truth. On the contrary, it aims in its positive part at a deep and mysterious truth of Being which no human language can utter, of which human reason can give no adequate account, to which the heart has the key and which no pride of the soul of knowledge insisting on its own pure austerity can abolish. But that belongs properly to the summit of the path of Devotion and there we shall have again to return to it.
2.13 - The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in arriving to these planes or deriving from them the limitations of our mentality pursue us. In the first place the mind is an inveterate divider of the indivisible and its whole nature is to dwell on one thing at a time to the exclusion of others or to stress it to the subordination of others. Thus in approaching Sachchidananda it will dwell on its aspect of the pure existence, Sat, and consciousness and bliss are compelled then to lose themselves or remain quiescent in the experience of pure, infinite being which leads to the realisation of the quietistic Monist. Or it will dwell on the aspect of consciousness, Chit, and existence and bliss become then dependent on the experience of an infinite transcendent Power and Conscious-Force, which leads to the realisation of the Tantric worshipper of Energy. Or it will dwell on the aspect of delight, Ananda, and existence and consciousness then seem to disappear into a bliss without basis of self-possessing awareness or constituent being, which leads to. the realisation of the buddhistic seeker of Nirvana. Or it will dwell on some aspect of Sachchidananda which comes to the mind from the supramental Knowledge, Will or Love, and then the infinite impersonal aspect of Sachchidananda is almost or quite lost in the experience of the Deity which leads to the realisations of the various religions and to the possession of some supernal world or divine status of the human soul in relation to God. And for those whose object is to depart anywhi ther from cosmic existence, this is enough, since they are able by the mind's immergence into or seizure upon any one of these principles or aspects to effect through status in the divine planes of their mentality or the possession by them of their waking state this desired transit.
But the Sadhaka of the integral Yoga has to harmonise all so that they may become a plenary and equal unity of the full realisation of Sachchidananda. Here the last difficulty of mind meets him, its inability to hold at once the unity and the multiplicity. It is not altogether difficult to arrive at and dwell in a pure infinite or even, at the same time, a perfect global experience of the Existence which is Consciousness which is Delight. The mind may even extend its experience of this Unity to the multiplicity so as to perceive it immanent in the universe and in each object, force, movement in the universe or at the same time to be aware of this Existence-Consciousness-Bliss containing the universe and enveloping all its objects and originating all its movements. It is difficult indeed for it to unite and harmonise rightly all these experiences; but still it can possess Sachchidananda at once in himself and immanent in all and the continent of all. But with this to unite the final experience of all this as Sachchidananda and possess objects, movements, forces, forms as no other than He, is the great difficulty for mind. Separately any of these things may be done; the mind may go from one to the other, rejecting one as it arrives at another and calling this the lower or that the higher existence. But to unify without losing, to integralise without rejecting is its supreme difficulty.
2.14 - The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What then is this spiritual or psychic witness or what is to it the value of the sense of good and evil? It may be maintained that the one use of the sense of sin and evil is that the embodied being may become aware of the nature of this world of inconscience and ignorance, awake to a knowledge of its evil and suffering and the relative nature of its good and happiness and turn away from it to that which is absolute. Or else its spiritual use may be to purify the nature by the pursuit of good and the negation of evil until it is ready to perceive the supreme good and turn from the world towards God, or, as in the buddhistic ethical insistence, it may serve to prepare the dissolution of the ignorant ego-complex and the escape from personality and suffering. But also it may be that this awakening is a spiritual necessity of the evolution itself, a step towards the growth of the being out of the
Ignorance into the truth of the divine unity and the evolution of a divine consciousness and a divine being. For much more than the mind or life which can turn either to good or to evil, it is the soul-personality, the psychic being, which insists on the distinction, though in a larger sense than the mere moral difference. It is the soul in us which turns always towards Truth,
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: The buddhists have an idea that there are Gods without form there are Rupa Devas and Arupa Devas. What could that mean?
Sri Aurobindo: I do not know buddhist mythology. But what do you mean by Arupa Loka?
Disciple: A plane of consciousness where the Gods have no forms, perhaps. Or they have forms which are so different from man's, that for man they are no forms at all.
2.15 - The Cosmic Consciousness, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It may even seem as if it were the greatest oneness, since it accepts all that we can be sensible of in the mind-created world as our own. Sometimes one sees it spoken of as the highest achievement. Certainly, it is a great realisation and the path to a greater. It is that which the Gita speaks of as the accepting of all existences as if oneself whether in grief or in joy; it is the way of sympathetic oneness and infinite compassion by which the buddhist arrives at his Nirvana. Still there are gradations and degrees. In the first stage the soul is still subject to the reactions of the duality, still subject therefore to the lower prakriti; it is depressed or hurt by the cosmic suffering, elated by the cosmic joy. We suffer the joys of others, suffer their griefs, and this oneness can be carried even into the body, as in the story of the Indian saint who, seeing a bullock tortured in the field by its cruel owner, cried out with the creature's pain and the weal of the lash was found reproduced on his own flesh. But there must be a oneness in the freedom of Sachchidananda as well as with the subjection of the lower being to the reactions of prakriti. This is achieved when the soul is free and superior to the cosmic reactions which are then felt in the life, mind and body as an inferior movement; the soul understands, accepts, sympathises, but is not overpowered or affected, so that even the mind and body learn also to accept without being overpowered or even affected except on their surface. And the consummation of this movement is when the two spheres of existence are no longer divided and the mind, life and body grow into the spirit's freedom from the lower or ignorant response to the cosmic touches and the subjection to the duality ceases. This does not mean insensibility to the struggles and sufferings of others, but it does mean a spiritual supremacy and freedom which enables one to understand perfectly, put the right values on things and heal from above instead of struggling from below. It does not inhibit the divine compassion and helpfulness, but it does inhibit the human and animal sorrow and suffering.
The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the mental being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijnana and which we may term the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or supermind where the One and the Many meet and our being is freely open to the revealing light of the divine Truth and the inspiration of the divine Will and Knowledge. If we can break down the veil of the intellectual, emotional, sensational mind which our ordinary existence has built between us and the Divine, we can then take up through the Truth-mind all our mental, vital and physical experience and offer it up to the spiritual -- this was the secret or mystic sense of the old Vedic "sacrifice" -- to be converted into the terms of the infinite truth of Sachchidananda, and we can receive the powers and illuminations of the infinite Existence in forms of a divine knowledge, will and delight to be imposed on our mentality, vitality, physical existence till the lower is transformed into the perfect vessel of the higher. This was the double Vedic movement of the descent and birth of the gods in the human creature and the ascent of the human powers that struggle towards the divine knowledge, power and delight and climb into the godheads, the result of which was the possession of the One, the Infinite, the beatific existence, the union with God, the Immortality. By possession of this ideal plane we break down entirely the opposition of the lower and the higher existence, the false gulf created by the Ignorance between the finite and the Infinite, God and Nature, the One and the Many, open the gates of the Divine, fulfil the individual in the complete harmony of the cosmic consciousness and realise in the cosmic being the epiphany of the transcendent Sachchidananda.
2.16 - The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Whatever mitigations may be made in the severity of this logic, whatever concessions validating life and personality for the time being, yet from this view-point the true law of living must be whatever rule can help us soonest to get back to self-knowledge and lead by the most direct road to Nirvana; the true ideal must be an extinction of the individual and the universal, a selfannulment in the Absolute. This ideal of self-extinction which is boldly and clearly proclaimed by the buddhists, is in Vedantic thought a self-finding: but the self-finding of the individual by his growth into his true being in the Absolute would only be possible if both are interrelated realities; it could not apply to the final world-abolishing self-affirmation of the Absolute in an unreal or temporary individual by the annulment of the false personal being and by the destruction of all individual and cosmic existence for that individual consciousness, - however much these errors may go on, helplessly inevitable, in the world of Ignorance permitted by the Absolute, in a universal, eternal and indestructible Avidya.
But this idea of the total vanity of life is not altogether an inevitable consequence of the supracosmic theory of existence.
2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
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?
--
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.
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: About Z becoming a buddhist, Y said it is only that Z does not want to belong to any particular sect.
Sri Aurobindo: That is understandable.
--
You must become free if you want to be free from responsibility. There are three ways, or rather several ways, of attaining that freedom. One is by the separation of Purusha from Prakriti and realising it as free from it. Another is by realising the Self, the Atman or the Spirit, free from the cosmic movement. A third is by the identification with the Transcendent by realising the Paramatman. You can also have this freedom by merging into the Shunyam through the buddhistic discipline.
Disciple: In the experience of the first two methods does the Purusha remain the witness?
2.18 - The Soul and Its Liberation, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The cause of our world-existence is not, as our present experience induces us to believe, the ego; for the ego is only a result and a circumstance of our mode of world-existence. It is a relation which the many-souled Purusha has set up between individualised minds and bodies, a relation of self-defence and mutual exclusion and aggression in order to have among all the dependences of things in the world upon each other a possibility of independent mental and physical experience. But there can be no absolute independence upon these planes; impersonality which rejects all mental and physical becoming is therefore the only possible culmination of this exclusive movement: so only can an absolutely independent self-experience be achieved. The soul then seems to exist absolutely, independently in itself; it is free in the sense of the Indian word, svadhina, dependent only on itself, not dependent upon God and other beings. Therefore in this experience God, personal self and other beings are all denied, cast away as distinctions of the ignorance. It is the ego recognising its own insufficiency and abolishing both itself and its contraries that its own essential instinct of independent self-experience may be accomplished; for it finds that its effort to achieve it by relations with God and others is afflicted throughout with a sentence of illusion, vanity and nullity. It ceases to admit them because by admitting them it becomes dependent on them; it ceases to admit its own persistence, because the persistence of ego means the admission of that which it tries to exclude as not self, of the cosmos and other beings. The self-annihilation of the buddhist is in its nature absolute exclusion of all that the mental being perceives; the self-immersion of the Adwaitin in his absolute being is the self-same aim differently conceived: both are a supreme self-assertion of the soul of its exclusive independence of prakriti.
The experience which we first arrive at by the sort of shortcut to liberation which we have described as the movement of withdrawal, assists this tendency. For it is a breaking of the ego and a rejection of the habits of the mentality we now possess; for that is subject to matter and the physical senses and conceives of things only as forms, objects, external phenomena and as names which we attach to those forms. We are not aware directly of the subjective life of other beings except by analogy from our own and by inference or derivative perception based upon their external signs of speech, action, etc., which our minds translate into the terms of our own subjectivity. When we break out from ego and physical mind into the infinity of the spirit, we still see the world and others as the mind has accustomed us to see them, as names and forms; only in our new experience of the direct and superior reality of spirit, they lose that direct objective reality and that indirect subjective reality of their own which they had to the mind. They seem to be quite the opposite of the truer reality we now experience; our mentality, stilled and indifferent, no longer strives to know and make real to itself those intermediate terms which exist in them as in us and the knowledge of which has for its utility to bridge over the gulf between the spiritual self and the objective phenomena of the world. We are satisfied with the blissful infinite impersonality of a pure spiritual existence; nothing else and nobody else any longer matters to us. What the physical senses show to us and what the mind perceives and conceives about them and so imperfectly and transiently delights in, seems now unreal and worthless; we are not and do not care to be in possession of the intermediate truths of being through which these things are enjoyed by the One and possess for Him that value of His being and delight which makes, as we might say, cosmic existence a thing beautiful to Him and worth manifesting. We can no longer share in God's delight in the world; on the contrary, it looks to us as if the Eternal had degraded itself by admitting into the purity of its being the gross nature of Matter or had falsified the truth of its being by imagining vain names and unreal forms. Or else if we perceive at all that delight, it is with a far-off detachment which prevents us from participating in it with any sense of intimate possession, or it is with an attraction to the superior delight of an absorbed and exclusive self-experience which does not allow us to stay any longer in these lower terms than we are compelled to stay by the continuance of our physical life and body.
2.2.01 - The Problem of Consciousness, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Eternity. Or, as the materialist sees only a bundle of phenomena material and dependent on Matter or a fortuitous result of material operations, so the Nihilistic buddhist sees only a bundle of associations, sanskaras, which stuck together produce the false appearance of a continuity of concrete phenomena or a stream of momentary perceptions giving the impression of a false self and coherent world, a coherent personality, but if the bundle is dissolved, if the stream ceases to flow, all dissolves and
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2.20 - The Lower Triple Purusha, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Such is the constituent principle of the various worlds of cosmic existence and the various planes of our being; they are as if a ladder plunging down into Matter and perhaps below it, rising up into the heights of the Spirit, even perhaps to the point at which existence escapes out of cosmic being into ranges of a supra-cosmic Absolute, -- so at least it is averred in the world-system of the buddhists. But to our ordinary materialised consciousness all this does not exist because it is hidden from us by our preoccupation with our existence in a little corner of the material universe and with the petty experiences of the little hour of time which is represented by our life in a single body upon this earth. To that consciousness the world is a mass of material things and forces thrown into some kind of shape and harmonised into a system of regulated movements by a number of fixed self-existent laws which we have to obey, by which we are governed and circumscribed and of which we have to get the best knowledge we can so as to make the most of this one brief existence which begins with birth, ends with death and has no second recurrence. Our own being is a sort of accident or at least a very small and minor circumstance in the universal life of Matter or the eternal continuity of the workings of material Force. Somehow or other a soul or mind has come to exist in a body and it stumbles about among things and forces which it does not very well understand, at first preoccupied with the difficulty of managing to live in a dangerous and largely hostile world and then with the effort to understand its laws and use them so as to make life as tolerable or as happy as possible so long as it lasts. If we were really nothing more than such a minor movement of individualised mind in Matter, existence would have nothing more to offer us; its best part would be at most this struggle of an ephemeral intellect and will with eternal Matter and with the difficulties of Life supplemented and eased by a play of imagination and by the consoling fictions presented to us by religion and art and all the wonders dreamed of by the brooding mind and restless fancy of man.
But because he is a soul and not merely a living body, man can never for long remain satisfied that this first view of his existence, the sole view justified by the external and objective facts of life, is the real truth or the whole knowledge: his subjective being is full of hints and inklings of realities beyond, it is open to the sense of infinity and immortality, it is easily convinced of other worlds, higher possibilities of being, larger fields of experience for the soul. Science gives us the objective truth of existence and the superficial knowledge of our physical and vital being; but we feel that there are truths beyond which possibly through the cultivation of our subjective being and the enlargement of its powers may come to lie more and more open to us. When the knowledge of this world is ours, we are irresistibly impelled to seek for the knowledge of other states of existence beyond, and that is the reason why an age of strong materialism and scepticism is always followed by an age of occultism, of mystical creeds, of new religions and profounder seekings after the Infinite and the Divine. The knowledge of our superficial mentality and the laws of our bodily life is not enough; it brings us always to all that mysterious and hidden depth of subjective existence below and behind of which our surface consciousness is only a fringe or an outer court. We come to see that what is present to our physical senses is only the material shell of cosmic existence and what is obvious in our superficial mentality is only the margin of immense continents which lie behind unexplored. To explore them must be the work of another knowledge than that of physical science or of a superficial psychology.
2.20 - The Philosophy of Rebirth, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Or there may be an eternal Becoming, which manifests itself in a cosmic Life-force with the appearance of Matter as one objective end of its operations and the appearance of Mind as the other subjective end, the interaction of these two phenomena of Life-force creating our human existence. On the other side, we have the old theory of a sole-existing Superconscient, an eternal unmodifiable Being which admits or creates by Maya an illusion of individual soul-life in this world of phenomenal Mind and Matter, both of them ultimately unreal, - even if they have or assume a temporary and phenomenal reality, - since one unmodifiable and eternal Self or Spirit is the only entity. Or we have the buddhist theory of a Nihil or Nirvana and, somehow imposed upon that, an eternal action or energy of successive becoming, Karma, which creates the illusion of a persistent self or soul by a constant continuity of associations, ideas, memories, sensations, images. In their effect upon the life problem all these three explanations are practically one; for even the Superconscient is for the purposes of the universal action an equivalent of the Inconscient; it can be aware only of its own unmodifiable self-existence: the creation of a world of individual beings by Maya is an imposition on this self-existence; it takes place, perhaps, in a sort of self-absorbed sleep of consciousness, sus.upti,3 out of which yet all active consciousness and modification of phenomenal becoming emerge, just as in the modern theory our consciousness is an impermanent development out of the Inconscient. In all three theories the apparent soul or spiritual individuality of the creature is not immortal in the sense of eternity, but has a beginning and an end in Time, is a creation by Maya or by Nature-Force or cosmic Action out of the Inconscient or Superconscient, and is therefore impermanent in its existence. In all three rebirth is either unnecessary or else illusory; it is either the prolongation by repetition of an illusion, or it is an additional revolving wheel among the many wheels of the complex machinery of the Becoming, or it is excluded since a single birth is all that can be asked for by a conscious being fortuitously engendered as part of an inconscient creation.
In these views, whether we suppose the one Eternal Existence to be a vital Becoming or an immutable and unmodifiable spiritual Being or a nameless and formless Non-being, that which we call the soul can be only a changing mass or stream of phenomena of consciousness which has come into existence in the sea of real or illusory becoming and will cease to exist there, - or, it may be, it is a temporary spiritual substratum, a conscious reflection of the Superconscient Eternal which by its presence supports the mass of phenomena. It is not eternal, and its only immortality is a greater or less continuity in the Becoming. It is not a real and always existent Person who maintains and experiences the stream or mass of phenomena. That which supports them, that which really and always exists, is either the one eternal Becoming or the one eternal and impersonal Being or the continual stream of Energy in its workings. For a theory of this kind it is not indispensable that a psychic entity always the same should persist and assume body after body, form after form, until it is dissolved at last by some process annulling altogether the original impetus which created this cycle. It is quite possible that as each form is developed, a consciousness creator of things. develops corresponding to the form, and as the form dissolves, the corresponding consciousness dissolves with it; the One which forms all, alone endures for ever. Or, as the body is gathered out of the general elements of Matter and begins its life with birth and ends with death, so the consciousness may be developed out of the general elements of mind and equally begin with birth and end with death. Here too, the One who supplies by Maya or otherwise the force which creates the elements, is the sole reality that endures. In none of these theories of existence is rebirth an absolute necessity or an inevitable result of the theory.4
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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".
Thus while in the vitalistic view of things there is a real universe and a real though brief temporary becoming of individual life which, even though there is no ever-enduring Purusha, yet gives a considerable importance to our individual experience and actions, - for these are truly effective in a real becoming, - in the Mayavada theory these things have no real importance or true effect, but only something like a dream-consequence. For even release takes place only in the cosmic dream or hallucination by the recognition of the illusion and the cessation of the individualised mind and body; in reality, there is no one bound and no one released, for the sole-existent Self is untouched by these illusions of the ego. To escape from the all-destroying sterility which would be the logical result, we have to lend a practical reality, however false it may be eventually, to this dream-consequence and an immense importance to our bondage and individual release, even though the life of the individual is phenomenal only and to the one real Self both the bondage and the release are and cannot but be non-existent. In this compulsory concession to the tyrannous falsehood of Maya the sole true importance of life and experience must lie in the measure in which they prepare for the negation of life, for the selfelimination of the individual, for the end of the cosmic illusion.
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.
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2.25 - AFTER THE PASSING AWAY, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
It was midnight. M. was wide awake. He said to himself: "Everything is as it was before. The same Ayodhya — only Rama is not there." M. silently left his bed. It was the full-moon night of Vaisakh, the thrice-blessed day of the buddhists, associated with Buddha's birth, realization, and passing away. M. was walking alone on the bank of the Ganges, contemplating the Master.
It was Sunday. M. had arrived the day before and was planning to stay till Wednesday. The householder devotees generally visited the monastery on Sundays.
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M. (to himself): "Ah! The Master used to say that those who seek God pass through the state that Prasanna is now experiencing. In that state sometimes one doubts the very existence of God. I understand that Tarak is now reading buddhistic philosophy. That is why he says that according to the jnani God does not exist. But Sri Ramakrishna used to say that the jnani and the bhakta will ultimately arrive at the same destination."
Narendra and Prasanna were talking in the meditation room. Rakhal, Harish, and the younger Gopal were seated in another part of the room. After a while the elder Gopal came in.
2.26 - Samadhi, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The sleep-state ascends to a higher power of being, beyond thought into pure consciousness, beyond emotion into pure bliss, beyond will into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born. But here we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of symbolic language. The use of the words dream and sleep for these higher states is nothing but an image drawn from the experience of the normal physical mind with regard to planes in which it is not at home. It is not the truth that the Self in the third status called perfect sleep, susupti, is in a state of slumber. The sleep self is on the contrary described as Prajna, the Master of Wisdom and Knowledge, Self of the Gnosis, and as Ishwara, the Lord of being. To the physical mind a sleep, it is to our wider and subtler consciousness a greater waking. To the normal mind all that exceeds its normal experience but still comes into its scope, seems a dream; but at the point where it borders on things quite beyond its scope, it can no longer see truth even as in a dream, but passes into the blank incomprehension and non-reception of slumber. This border-line varies with the power of the individual consciousness, with the degree and height of its enlightenment and awakening. The line may be pushed up higher and higher until it may pass even beyond the mind. Normally indeed the human mind cannot be awake even with the inner waking of trance, on the supramental levels; but this disability can be overcome. Awake on these levels the soul becomes master of the ranges of gnostic thought, gnostic will, gnostic delight, and if it can do this in Samadhi, it may carry its memory of experience and its power of experience over into the waking state. Even on the yet higher level open to us, that of the Ananda, the awakened soul may become similarly possessed of the Bliss-Self both in its concentration and in its cosmic comprehension. But still there may be ranges above from which it can bring back no memory except that which says, "somehow, indescribably, I was in bliss," the bliss of an unconditioned existence beyond all potentiality of expression by thought or description by image or feature. Even the sense of being may disappear in an experience in which the world-existence loses its sense and the buddhistic symbol of Nirvana seems alone and sovereignly justified. However high the power of awakening goes, there seems to be a beyond in which the image of sleep, of susupti, will still find its application.
Such is the principle of the Yogic trance, Samadhi, -- into its complex phenomena we need not now enter. It is sufficient to note its double utility in the integral Yoga. It is true that up to a point difficult to define or delimit almost all that Samadhi can give, can be acquired without recourse to Samadhi. But still there are certain heights of spiritual and psychic experience of which the direct as opposed to a reflecting experience can only be acquired deeply and in its fullness by means of the Yogic trance. And even for that which can be otherwise acquired, it offers a ready means, a facility which becomes more helpful, if not indispensable, the higher and more difficult of access become the planes on which the heightened spiritual experience is sought. Once attained there, it has to be brought as much as possible into the waking consciousness. For in a Yoga which embraces all life completely and without reserve, the full use of Samadhi comes only when its gains can be made the normal possession and experience for an integral waking of the embodied soul in the human being.
2.3.03 - Integral Yoga, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Reality such as the Zero of the Nihilistic buddhists which is yet a mysterious All, a negation that is a positive Permanence. It is an error to take these variations as a proof that spiritual experience is unreliable. All religions, all philosophies are equally desperate in their attempts to give an account of the Real and Ultimate; science itself for all its matter of fact physical positivism draws back bewildered from the attempt to touch the Real and Ultimate. It is the nature of Mind to arrive at this result of uncertain certainty; our experience is true but it is not and cannot be the sole possible integral experience.
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2.4.01 - Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3) Or perhaps you only mean that the Divine Infinite which the calm sages seek is by the very fact of their calm and wisdom something cold, dark, empty, gloomy. Has it not occurred to you that if they really sought for something cold, dark and gloomy as the supreme good, they would not be sages but asses? The sages sought after the Divine as the supreme existence, consciousness and Bliss, the Light beyond lights by which all this shineth, the joy beyond all other joys. Even the seekers of the Absolute Indefinable find in it the peace that passeth all understanding and that is nothing cold, dark or gloomy. The Nihilistic buddhists? But they did not believe in the Divine or in Eternity, only in Non-existence and what they sought was not the supreme good, but self-extinction and the end of sufferingan intelligible aim, but something quite different from the stress towards the Eternal.
"It [the being] knows that this active state of love should be constant and impersonal, that is, absolutely independent of circumstances and persons, since it cannot and must not be concentrated upon any one thing in particular...." The Mother, Prayers and Meditations, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2003), Collected Works of the Mother (second edition), vol. 1, p. 335.
2.4.1 - Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Absence of love and fellow-feeling is not necessary for nearness to the Divine; on the contrary, a sense of closeness and oneness with others is a part of the divine consciousness into which the sadhak enters by nearness to the Divine and the feeling of oneness with the Divine. An entire rejection of all relations is indeed the final aim of the Mayavadin, and in the ascetic Yoga an entire loss of all relations of friendship and affection and attachment to the world and its living beings would be regarded as a promising sign of advance towards liberation, Moksha; but even there, I think, a feeling of oneness and unattached spiritual sympathy for all is at least a penultimate stage, like the compassion of the buddhist, before the turning to Moksha or Nirvana. In this Yoga the feeling of unity with others, love, universal joy and Ananda are an essential part of the liberation and perfection which are the aim of the sadhana.
On the other hand, human society, human friendship, love, affection, fellow-feeling are mostly and usuallynot entirely or in all casesfounded on a vital basis and are ego-held at their centre. It is because of the pleasure of being loved, the pleasure of enlarging the ego by contact, mutual penetration of spirit, with another, the exhilaration of the vital interchange which feeds their personality that men usually love and there are also other and still more selfish motives that mix with this essential movement. There are of course higher spiritual, psychic, mental, vital elements that come in or can come in; but the whole thing is very mixed, even at its best. This is the reason why at a certain stage with or without apparent reason the world and life and human society and relations and philanthropy (which is as ego-ridden as the rest) begin to pall. There is sometimes an ostensible reasona disappointment of the surface vital, the withdrawal of affection by others, the perception that those loved or men generally are not what one thought them to be and a host of other causes; but often the cause is a secret disappointment of some part of the inner being, not translated or not well translated into the mind, because it expected from these things something which they cannot give. It is the case with many who turn or are pushed to the spiritual life. For some it takes the form of a vairgya which drives them towards ascetic indifference and gives the urge towards Moksha. For us, what we hold to be necessary is that the mixture should disappear and that the consciousness should be established on a purer level (not only spiritual and psychic but a purer and higher mental, vital, physical consciousness) in which there is not this mixture. There one would feel the true Ananda of oneness and love and sympathy and fellowship, spiritual and self-existent in its basis but expressing itself through the other parts of the nature. If that is to happen, there must obviously be a change; the old form of these movements must drop off and leave room for a new and higher self to disclose its own way of expression and realisation of itself and of the Divine through these things that is the inner truth of the matter.
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So long as the whole consciousness is not clear of doubtful stuff and the realisation of oneness confirmed in the supreme purity, the expression of the all-love is not advisable. It is by holding it in oneself that it becomes a real part of the nature, established and purified by joining with it the other realisations still to come. At present it is only a first touch and to dissipate it by expression would be very imprudent. The sex and vital might easily become active I have known cases of very good Yogis in whom the vivaprema became the vivakma, all-love becoming all-lust. This has happened with many both in Europe and the East. Even apart from that it is always best to solidify and to confirm rather than to throw out and disperse. When the sadhana has progressed and the knowledge from above comes to enlighten and guide the love, then it will be another matter. My insistence on rejection of all untransformed vital movements is based on experience, mine and others and that of past Yogas like the Vaishnava movement of Chaitanya (not to speak of the old buddhist Sahaja dharma) which ended in much corruption. A wide movement such as that of all-love can only take place when the ground of Nature has been solidly prepared for it. I have no objection to your mixing with others, but only under a continual guard and control by a vigilant mind and will.
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29.03 - In Her Company, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is interesting to compare the buddhist teaching:
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29.06 - There is also another, similar or parallel story in the Veda about the God Agni, about the disappearance of this, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now we go back to our story. The Gods accompanied Brahmajaya, the Bride of Brahman in her journey back home. But the story has a beginning, an earlier episode - a prologue as it were. Why did the Divine Bride leave at all her Lord? What was it that made her run away? - leaving him alone with whom she was once one in perfect union? The story is as the Upanishad reports, the Lord Brahman was long - in fact for eternity - single, alone, the One Existence, the One Truth, undivided, indivisible; but at one time of his existence he became conscious that he was alone. So long he had not thought of it at all. No thought of being alone or of other people being around was there. He was simply Existence, existing. But now he felt, he saw that he was alone, and once you begin to think you cannot stop. Then he said: Alone how can one be happy? You must be two to become happy - ekaki na ramate.When you are alone you don't enjoy. So you must be two. Thus Brahman, the Supreme, divided himself into two, One divided two-fold: one part man, the other part woman; one part consciousness, the other part force, power; one part Brahman, the other part Brahmashakti. So long both the parts were there, but they were united, soldered as it were, fused into one being and person; Shakti and her Lord, Fire and its Flame - they were one and indivisible. But, as I said, when the thought came they must be two, in fact also they separated, Brahman separated himself from his Shakti and took Shakti out, and Shakti herself went out, and the two separated actually, stood face to face as it were. You may remember - I mean the elder generation - the drama that was staged here in the Theatre, directed by the Mother - "He and She" - and the play, the Lila of "He" and "She" was displayed, how they were one, how they separated, and the play of union and reunion. Now when they separated, in order to look closely and carefully they separated more and more, the distance grew slowly, so much so that they were completely separated, and the Shakti was so far away from her Lord that she went to the other extreme. Brahman was the supreme consciousness above, and She became the absolute dark Matter below. And Brahman too separated utterly the other way from his Shakti and went off in the contrary direction, towards Nothingness, Shunya as reported by the buddhists.
Now the return journey. The Shakti cannot be for long away from her Lord, that cannot be the final stance. She is to come back to her Lord. This is the story of the redemption of material nature and her gradual transmutation into the higher Nature, regaining her status by the side of her Lord. The process or the series of steps described by the Veda remains always the same, for human beings also for their liberation from inferior nature and regaining the spiritual nature. The Veda says the Gods came one by one and led the Shakti up the way. First Soma came, that is to .say, Delight touched the inner core of the fallen Nature and impelled her to awake and rise. As Ananda was the source of their first union, so for the reunion Ananda is the inspirer and the leader. Next Agni was directed to take the Shakti along with him on the way. Agni means, as I have said, the light and fire of aspiration to rise up. Agni first initiated the ignorant Shakti with a mantra,it is like a normal human initiation when you enter the spiritual life. You have to go to a Guru and the Guru gives you the mantra that awakens your consciousness. Now Agni gave as mantra the Divine word "Brahma" as the image of the Divine. She was to concentrate upon it till she became in consciousness identified with Him. She did so and after a time when she felt she recognised her Lord and accepted Him, the God Agni said: "Now proceed. You have to go to the second stage. Enlarge your being, enlarge your consciousness; what you have got now is the realisation that you are the Brahman, you are one with Him. Now you have to unite yourself with all beings, with all Gods, with all creatures, universalise yourself." So the .Bride of Brahman from her individual realisation went forward into the universal where she met her Lord, dwelling in all beings and all creatures everywhere, - she entered into the mansion of all the Gods. Now, you know there are three steps, three steps of consciousness, three steps of your being in its ascension towards the Supreme: first, your ordinary individual being with your particular name and form, that is the personal individual; then, coming out of that shell you learn to be one with all beings, all humanity, all things even. You become as large as creation itself; however, that is not the end. You have to go beyond, beyond, into what is known as the Transcendent, there you find the Supreme, the total, the Supreme Truth of your being. So the Bride of Brahman from her universal realisation went into theTranscendent, into her Lord, her own total Self. From her ignorant material formulation in her upward march she was shedding her scales as it were, of her inferior formations, putting on purer and higher and more glorious embodiments. Ultimately she found herself to be as she used to be originally and always and ever before the separation. When thus united the Gods were also included in their embrace and all found themselves happy at last.
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.
Now, in the creation nothing can remain itself and unaltered for good. Difference and polarity are the inviolable laws of nature. Therefore it is not that we do not find glimpses of pure intuition here and there among the Bengalees. Chandidas, the pioneer poet of Bengal, represents an unalloyed, pure inspiration and Vidyapati reflects glimpses of intuition. When a feeling of emotion tingled through the blood of Chandidas he turned deep within and sang to himself with his eyes closed, in trance as it were:
30.06 - The Poet and The Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whatever may be the case of the poet, it is not that such a notion does not prevail in India at least about the votaries of other arts. The buddhist Vishuddhi Magga has classed the painter with the cook, that is, both are taken to serve the same purpose, both cater only to the pleasure of the senses.
Bernard Shaw has given the name of hell to one such world, vide his play Man and Superman. It is enough if it comes within the domain of experience and gives satisfaction. This vital is again the field of all desires and impulses of men. The attractions of the vital keep men confined to an absolutely human plane. Poetry is the unrivalled drug to enslave men to the mortal world.
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.
But afterwards, when out of curiosity he read through the manuscript with care, he made the startling discovery that here was the earliest and a beautifully poetic form of the Bengali language. The manuscript contained fifty poems or songs; they were the work of a Tantric buddhist group known as Siddhacharyas.
Later on, he made the further discovery that there was a Sanskrit commentary on these poems, for without a commentary it is difficult to get at their true import. They abound in suggestive symbols and illustrations of a line of spiritual discipline. Another curious thing about these poems was that he could discover a complete translation of these poems in Tibetan. This in itself indicates the importance and influence of these verses. In fact, these are not ordinary poems. They have the power of the Mantra, they are records of spiritual experiences and are helps to their realisation. Another thing: several pages were found missing in the particular manuscript that the Pandit had discovered, with the result that one or two of the poems were not to be found at all and one or two others were available only in fragments. Luckily, the commentary in Sanskrit and the Tibetan translation were available for the entire series, and with their help the missing parts have been reconstructed in full.
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We shall now look a little deeper into the peculiarities of each and try to find out their distinctive features. The ultimate state of consciousness in the view of the buddhists and those influenced by them is that of the Non-Self. Vedanta on the other hand takes its stand on the Self, the Conscious Being who is extra-cosmic and beyond all manifestation. Buddha did not take cognisance of this Self, the buddhists have altogether denied Its existence. The followers of Tantra, whether buddhistic or otherwise, have not sought to escape from the world into some extra-cosmic state, Nirvana or Self. They have brought down into this world and established here another kind of Self, an inner conscious being. In their experience, Shiva has his abode (as the Jiva in the form of the inner Witness) within man and this earth. Creation or the manifested worlds include the earth, the earth includes man, and man is primarily the human body and life, his mind being an obedient servant of these two. The Tantrics have sought for the Power that rules over man's body and life.
Vedanta regards Brahman, the Supreme Reality, as if aloof from the created universe, above it and utterly transcending it. The result has been to declare the world to be a falsehood and an illusion, mithya,
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The wife will reign there in her glory without anyone to share her power. The in-laws' house is the body of man, the vehicle of his life and mind. Its ancient master and mistress have to be displaced, it has to be made neat and clean, and there you have to set up your Cherished Goddess, your innermost Self, the Divine Being - the buddhists call her by another name, the Godhead of the Nihil or Non-Self.
There is another thing that we find interesting here. Even in those days the condition of the ordinary Bengali was perhaps as miserable as it is now. The Siddhacharya has introduced himself as a Bengali, and he says: Bhusuku, your lot is now truly that of a Bengali; for the robber bands have come and robbed you of your boat, broken into your house, even abducted your wife. Bhusuku, you have now become a veritable Bengali!
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The Nihilism of the buddhists and the Illusionism of Shankar a have cast a long shadow on these Charyapada verses. Nihil and Sahaja are often taken as being one and the same. But actually the two elements run like water and oil in separate streams in both. Nihil is no other than the Illusion of the Vedantin, but Sahaja gives a definite form to the mystic principle of the Body. That is why the Siddhacharyas say that Nihil is not an entire Negation, it is the perfect Integer, Illusion is not Unreality, it is the indivisible Whole. One of them says in clear terms that the true Nihil is that from which all irrelevant parts and fractions have fallen off: it is not the complete negation of things. In the words of Kahnu:
My mind has found the fulfilment of Nihil in Sahaja.
3.05 - The Divine Personality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The nature of the philosophical intellect is to move among ideas and to give them a sort of abstract reality of their own apart from all their concrete representations which affect our life and personal consciousness. Its bent is to reduce these representations to their barest and most general terms and to subtilise even these if possible into some final abstraction. The pure intellectual direction travels away from life. In judging things it tries to get back from their effects on our personality and to arrive at whatever general and impersonal truth may be behind them; it is inclined to treat that kind of truth as the only real truth of being or at least as the one superior and permanent power of reality. Therefore it is bound by its own nature to end in its extremes at an absolute impersonality and an absolute abstraction. This is where the ancient philosophies ended. They reduced everything to three abstractions, existence, consciousness and bliss of being, and they tended to get rid of the two of these three which seemed dependent on the first and most abstract, and to throw all back into a pure featureless existence from which everything else had been discharged, all representations, all values, except the one infinite and timeless fact of being. But the intellect had still one farther possible step to take and it took it in buddhistic philosophy. It found that even this final fact of existence was only a representation; it abstracted that also and got to an infinite zero which might be either a void or an eternal inexpressible.
The heart and life, as we know, have an exactly opposite law. They cannot live with abstractions; they can find their satisfaction only in things that are concrete or can be made seizable; whether physically, mentally or spiritually, their object is not something which they seek to discriminate and arrive at by intellectual abstraction; a living becoming of it or a conscious possession and joy of their object is what they seek. Nor is it the satisfaction of an abstract mind or impersonal existence to which they respond, but the joy and the activity of a being, a conscious Person in us, whether finite or infinite, to whom the delights and powers of his existence are a reality. Therefore when the heart and life turn towards the Highest and the Infinite, they arrive not at an abstract existence or non-existence, a Sat or else a Nirvana, but at an existent, a Sat Purusha, not merely at a consciousness, but at a conscious Being, a Chaitanya Purusha, not merely at a purely impersonal delight of the Is, but at an infinite I Am of bliss, an Anandamaya Purusha; nor can they immerge and lose his consciousness and bliss in featureless existence, but must insist on all three in one, for delight of existence is their highest power and without consciousness delight cannot be possessed. That is the sense of the supreme figure of the intensest Indian religion of love, Sri Krishna, the All-blissful and All-beautiful.
3.07 - The Formula of the Holy Grail, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
p. 334]; also read up the buddhist meditations on the Ten Impurities [in, e.g., the
Mahsatipat t hna Sutta].
3.09 - Evil, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When you take up the buddhist discipline to learn how to control your thoughts, you make very interesting discoveries. You try to observe your thoughts. Instead of letting them pass freely, sometimes even letting them enter your head and establish themselves in a quite inopportune way, you look at them, observe them and you realise with stupefaction that in the space of a few seconds there passes through the head a series of absolutely improbable thoughts that are altogether harmful.
You believe you are so good, so kind, so well disposed and always full of good feelings. You wish no harm to anybody, you wish only goodall that you tell yourself complacently. But if you look at yourself sincerely as you are thinking, you notice that you have in your head a collection of thoughts which are sometimes frightful and of which you were not at all aware.
31.10 - East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Our object will be served better if we compare Oriental painting and sculpture with the Occidental. Let us compare the image of Venus with that of the Buddha. Wherein lies the difference? The goddess Venus is in no way superior to a human being. A finely modelled face, well-formed limbs, beautifully chiselled nose, eyes, ears, forehead - in one word, she is the paragon of beauty. Softness and loveliness are reflected in her every limb. The Greek goddess marks the highest human conception of beauty and love. But the image of the Buddha is not entirely flawless. No doubt, it is the figure of a human being, but an anatomist will certainly be able to point out many defects and flaws of composition in it. The image of the Buddha in the state of deep self-absorption does not represent a manin contemplation, but it is a symbol of concentration; it is meditation personified. This is the special character of Oriental Art. Oriental Art does not try to express sentiment and emotion through an exact portrayal. Its object is to give an adequate form to the idea itself. The buddhist sculptor gives an expression to the supernatural state of realisation which the Buddha attained when he was on the verge of losing himself in Nirvana. The sculptor is not concerned with the elegance or correctness of the bodily limbs; his only care is to see how far the abstract idea has been expressed. Wrinkles of thought or the smoothness of peace on the forehead, fire of anger or spark of love in the eyes, the extraordinarily robust and highly muscular limbs of a man, and smooth and soft creeper-like flowing arms of a woman - such are the elements on which the Occidental artist has laid emphasis to show or demonstrate the play of psychological factors. The Oriental artist looked to the eternal truth that lies behind the attitudes of the mind and the body; he has not laboured to manifest the external gestures, the physical changes that are visible in our day-to-day life; the little that had to be done in this connection was executed in such a manner as to make it coincide with or merge into the idea of the truth itself - it became the very body of the idea. The Oriental sculptor has perpetuated in stone the eternal concepts of knowledge, compassion, energy, etc. - various glimpses of the infinite - through the images of Bodhisattwa, Avalokiteshwar, Nataraj and other deities. Raphael has succeeded in imparting a divine expression to motherhood in the visage of his Madonna, but that too is not Oriental Art. The image of the Madonna represents an ideal mother, and not motherhood. The Madonna may be called the acme of the emotional creation, but in the image of the Buddha the percepts of a suprasensual consciousness have been heaped up. The East wants to discover the true nature, the truth of things present in the ultimate unity, the Infinite. The West dwells in the finite, the diverse, the duality.
Beethoven characteristically represents the West in music. The soul of the West is reflected in the symphonies of Beethoven more than perhaps in anything else. He has expressed human emotion in its different modes with their opulence, their concords and even more their contrasts and clashes. Verily Beethoven's world consists in Nature's dual, i.e.,polarized, mood, manifesting itself in innumerable channels. It is like an elephant running amuck and trampling underfoot all that it meets in a virgin forest densely covered with trees and bushes, thickets and creepers. The elephant's trumpeting, the yelling of animals, the chirping of birds and the rustle of leaves - all these go to form what would appear to be like the devastating clamour of the periodic dissolution of the world. The genius of Beethoven has raised the unrhythmic hulla-balloo of the world to a lofty pitch capable of charming the human heart. As a contrast how calm, profound and unitonal is the kirtanof Tyagraj! No doubt, his music has not the rich variation, the polyphonism of his European counterpart; and yet rising on the crest of a single tune we are transported to the Elysian lap of an infinite calm leaving behind this whirl of the earth. We know European music takes pride in harmony, while Indian music is noted for its melody. In other words, Occidental music expresses the multitudinous diversity of Nature, while Oriental music represents the oneness of the truth beyond Nature.
3.2.03 - Jainism and Buddhism, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The buddhist Nirvana and the Adwaitins Moksha are the same thing. It corresponds to a realisation in which one does not feel oneself any longer as an individual with such a name or such a form, but an infinite eternal Self spaceless (even when in space), timeless (even when in time). Note that one can perfectly well do actions in that condition and it is not to be gained only by Samadhi.
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It [the Nirvana of Buddha] is the same [as the Nirvana of the Gita]. Only the Gita describes it as Nirvana in the Brahman while Buddha preferred not to give any name or say anything about that into which the nirvana took place. Some later schools of buddhists described it as Sunya, the equivalent of the Chinese Tao, described as the Nothing which is everything.
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The feeling of the Self as a vast peaceful Void, a liberation from existence as we know it, is one that one can always have, buddhist or no buddhist. It is the negative aspect of Nirvanait is quite natural for the mind, if it follows the negative movement of withdrawal, to get that first, and if you lay hold on that and refuse to go farther, being satisfied with this liberated Non-Existence, then you will naturally philosophise like the buddhists that Sunya is the eternal truth. Lao Tse was more perspicacious when he spoke of it as the Nothing that is All. Many of course have the positive experience of the Atman first, not as a void but as pure unrelated Existence like the Adwaitins (Shankara) or as the one Existent.
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They [those who have had the experience of Nirvana] do not feel as if they had any existence at all. In the buddhistic Nirvana they feel as if there were no such thing at all, only an infinite zero without form. In the Adwaita Nirvana there is felt only one vast existence, no separate being is discernible anywhere. There are forms of course but they are only forms, not separate beings. Mind is silent, thought has ceased,desires, passions, vital movements there are none. There is consciousness but only a formless elemental consciousness without limits. The body moves and acts, but the sense of body is not there. Sometimes there is only the consciousness of pure existence, sometimes only pure consciousness, sometimes all that exists is only a ceaseless limitless Ananda. Whether all else is really dissolved or only covered up is a debatable point, but at any rate it is an experience as if of their dissolution.
***
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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.
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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.
***
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.
***
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The impressions in the approach to Infinity or the entry into it are not always quite the same; much depends on the way in which the mind approaches it. It is felt first by some as an infinity above, by others as an infinity around into which the mind disappears (as an energy) by losing its limits. Some feel not the absorption of the mind energy into the infinite, but a falling entirely inactive; others feel it as a lapse or disappearance of energy into pure Existence. Some first feel the infinity as a vast existence into which all sinks or disappears, others, as you describe it, as an infinite ocean of Light above, others as an infinite ocean of Power above. A certain school of buddhists felt it in their experience as a limitless Sunya, the Vedantists on the contrary see it as a positive Self-Existence featureless and absolute. No doubt the various experiences were erected into various philosophies, each putting its conception as definitive; but behind each conception there was such an experience. What you describe as a completely emptied mind substance devoid of energy or light, completely inert, is the condition of neutral peace and empty stillness which is or can be a stage of the liberation. But it can afterwards feel itself filled with infinite existence, consciousness (carrying energy in it) and finally Ananda.
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The universe is only a partial manifestation and Brahman as its foundation is the Sat. But there is also that which is not manifested and beyond manifestation and is not contained in the basis of manifestation. The buddhists and others get from that the conception of Asat as the ultimate thing.
Another meaning given is: Sat = the Eternal, Asat = the Temporary and Unreal.
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The ego and its continuity, they [the buddhists] say, are an illusion, the result of the continuous flowing of energies and ideas in a determined current. There is no real formation of an ego. As to the liberation, it is in order to get free from dukha etc.,it is a painful flow of energies and to get free from the pain they must break up their continuity. That is all right, but how it started, why it should end at all and how anybody is benefited by the liberation, since there is nobody there, only a mass of idea and action these things are insoluble mysteries. But is there not the same difficulty with the Mayavadin also, since there is no Jiva really, only Brahman and Brahman is by nature free and unbound for ever? So how did the whole absurd affair of Maya come into existence and who is liberated? That is what the old sages said at last: There is none bound, none freed, none seeking to be free. It was all a mistake (a rather long-standing one though). The buddhists, I suppose, could say that also.
***
3.2.06 - The Adwaita of Shankaracharya, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Vivekananda accepted Shankaras philosophy with modifications, the chief of them being Daridra-Narayan-seva which is a mixture of buddhist compassion and modern philanthropy.
***
32.07 - The God of the Scientist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We do not know how many have given due regard to this remarkable fact that the rational mind of modern times, inspired by the spirit of science which has turned towards spirituality for whatever reason, is often attracted to the pure Vedanta or the buddhistic philosophy of India. The chief reason for this appears to me to be this that the truth and the essence of religion are looked upon as anthropomorphic by the scientist. The scientist can hardly accept this position. For, the very speciality of the scientific procedure is to keep aside the human factor from human knowledge. A particular knowledge bears the stamp of the knower, but science aims at knowledge independent of its knower. Now the scientific attitude from its summit declares, I do not know the unknown and the unknowable that is beyond. This learned ignorance which is called agnosticism, and is, in a little altered form, known as scepticism - that is the legitimate consummation of scientific rationalism. But when one looks upon this unknown and unknowable with religious reverence, one says, "Therefrom speech returns baffled along with the mind." This is verily the Brahman, beyond speech and mind; and its other name is then Nihil.. Mind can understand mind or its absence or disintegration. It is extremely difficult for it to comprehend anything that is apart from these two extreme terms. It is not so difficult for the rational mind to accept the spiritual doctrine of 'not this, not this'; but the other aspects of spirituality - the truth about divine Forms and Incarnations, about Purushottama, the supreme Being, even the transmigration of the soul, - all these are senseless enigmas to reason-bound mind. The triune principle of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss of the Vedanta is such a general, neutral and indefinite principle that it seems to be intuited and felt by the pure intellect when it climbs up to its acme. In other words, at the highest level of the brain, as it were, there takes place the first revelation of spirituality, a glow and reflection amounting to the perception of a formless infinite, whose true nature is separately or simultaneously an existence, consciousness and bliss or a non-Being pregnant with all the essence of Being.
The scientific intellect has thus reached a certain theism and the poet and the artist also have reached similar levels through different ways of approach. The aesthetic taste of the artist, the sense of intense delight in the beauty of the cosmic creation is not born of the intellect but is allied to it, and falls within the category of the mind - it is a thing that belongs to this side of the boundary of consciousness, which we have to cross to attain to the true spiritual world. The twilight consciousness is, as it were, on the border-line; it belongs in its rhythm, gesture, gait and expression still to this shore-land rather than the other, howsoever may the artist aspire for the shore beyond. No doubt, I speak of the creations of artists in general. There are rare artists whose creation embodies genuine spiritual experience and realisation. But that is a different matter - it concerns the purely spiritual art. Ordinary works of art do not belong to that category and derive their inspiration from a different source. With regard to philosophy something similar might be said. Most of the Indian philosophies, such as the philosophies of Shankara, Ramanuja, the sage Kapila and Patanjali are but intellectual expressions of different spiritual visions and realisations. If it be so, then is it not possible for science also to become a vehicle or expression of spiritual realisations? This may not have materialised up till now; generally or to a large degree perhaps an attempt of the kind was made in the line that is known as occultism, and which was called alchemy by the ancients, but the effort ended in a spurious system of rites and ceremonies. No doubt this knowledge, even at its best, falls short of the Higher Knowledge, Para Vidya; still there was a time when the Inferior Knowledge, Apara Vidya, was accepted as a stepping-stone to the Higher. "Exceeding death by Avidya (Ignorance) one has to enjoy immortality through Vidya (Knowledge)" - "Avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyaya amrtam asnute."
3.21 - Of Black Magic, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
occulture for example in Hindu and buddhist Tantrism, where right hand and
left hand are technical sectarian designations with no particular moral connotationone cannot even be sure of this (of course, such sects may, and frequently
--
Theosophical Society which spread garbled Hindu and buddhist ideas into
Western occulture that left hand path became a term of abuse). The whole
33.13 - My Professors, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
While speaking of my professors, I must not omit to mention our Pundit. This was a title given by the students to the teacher of Sanskrit in college as in school, no matter how big a professor he might be - as if to show that the feeling of distance created by English was not there in the case of Sanskrit. Our Pundit was Satischandra Vidyabhushan, who later became a Mahamahopadhyaya, an extremely courteous man, entirely modest, one who behaved as if he were an absolute "nobody". In his class the students had no fear or worry, no constraint, sometimes even no sense of propriety either. One day they said in class, "There is not going to be any reading today, sir; you had better tell us a story. You are familiar with the languages and histories and cultures of so many strange lands, please tell us something." Vidyabhushan was particularly learned in Pali and the buddhist scriptures. Without a murmur he accepted the order of the boys. While talking of Pali and the buddhists, he told us something about the Tibetans too. "What you call Darjeeling," he said, "is not a distorted version of Durjayalinga. Actually it is a transcription of a Tibetan word." He spelt out the word on the black-board, in the Tibetan script - it looked somewhat like Bengali - something like Dang-Sang-Ling, I cannot now exatly recall. On another occasion we had the chance to hear a conversation in Sanskrit in his class. The class was on, when one of the officials of the college entered the room with a Ceylonese monk. The monk wanted to meet the Pundit. They talked in Sanskrit. I only remember a single sentence of our professor, "ghatika-catustayam eva agacchatu bhavan,"Be pleased to come at four o'clock." The kindness and affection of our Pundit are still fresh in my mind. He was never afflicted by the weight of his learning, nor did it ever afflict us.
Now to conclude: let me give you the scene of my final. parting with college, the professors and college life.
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To ignore the influence of the mystic thought and its methods of self-expression on the intellectual thinking of the Greeks from Pythagoras to Plato is to falsify the historical procession of the human mind. It was enveloped at first in the symbolic, intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the Mystics,-Vedic and Vedantic seers, Orphic secret teachers, Egyptian priests. From that veil it emerged along the path of a metaphysical philosophy still related to the Mystics by the source of its fundamental ideas, its first aphoristic and cryptic style, its attempt to seize directly upon truth by intellectual vision rather than arrive at it by careful ratiocination, but nevertheless intellectual in its method and aim. This is the first period of the Darshanas in India, in Greece of the early intellectual thinkers. Afterwards came the full tide of philosophic rationalism, Buddha or the buddhists and the logical philosophers in India, in Greece the Sophists and Socrates with all their splendid progeny; with them the intellectual method did not indeed begin, but came to its own and grew to its fullness. Heraclitus belongs to the transition, not to the noontide of the reason; he is even its most characteristic representative. Hence his cryptic style, hence his brief and burdened thought and the difficulty we feel when we try to clarify and entirely rationalise his significances. The ignoring of the Mystics, our pristine fathers, pūrve pitaraḥ, is the great defect of the modern account of our thought-evolution.
Heraclitus - II
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Two apophthegms of Heraclitus give us the starting-point of his whole thinking. They are his saying that it is wisdom to admit that all things are one and his other saying "One out of all and all out of One." How are we to understand these two pregnant utterances? Must we read them into each other and conclude that for Heraclitus the One only exists as resultant of the many even as the many only exist as a becoming of the One? Mr. Ranade seems to think so; he tells us that this philosophy denies Being and affirms only Becoming,-like Nietzsche, like the buddhists. But surely this is to read a little too much into Heraclitus' theory of perpetual change, to take it too much by itself. If that was his whole belief, it is difficult to see why he should seek for an original and eternal principle, the ever-living Fire which creates all by its perpetual changing, governs all by its fiery force of the "thunderbolt", resolves all back into itself by a cyclic conflagration, difficult to account for his theory of the upward and downward way, difficult to concede what Mr. Ranade contends, that Heraclitus did hold the theory of a cosmic conflagration or to imagine what could be the result of such a cosmic catastrophe. To reduce all becoming into Nothing? Surely not; Heraclitus' thought is at the very antipodes from speculative Nihilism. Into another kind of becoming? Obviously not, since by an absolute conflagration existing things can only be reduced into their eternal principle of being, into Agni, back into the immortal Fire. Something that is eternal, that is itself eternity, something that is for ever one,-for the cosmos is eternally one and many and does not by becoming cease to be one,-something that is God (Zeus), something that can be imaged as Fire which, if an ever-active force, is yet a substance or at least a substantial force and not merely an abstract Will-to-become,-something out of which all cosmic becoming arises and into which it returns, what is this but eternal Being?
Heraclitus was greatly preoccupied with his idea of eternal becoming, for him the one right account of the cosmos, but his cosmos has still an eternal basis, a unique original principle. That distinguishes his thought radically from Nietzsche's or the buddhists'. The later Greeks derived from him the idea of the perpetual stream of things, "All things are in flux." The idea of the universe as constant motion and unceasing change was always before him, and yet behind and in it all he saw too a constant principle of determination and even a mysterious principle of identity. Every day, he says, it is a new sun that rises; yes, but if the sun is always new, exists only by change from moment to moment, like all things in Nature, still it is the same ever-living Fire that rises with each Dawn in the shape of the sun. We can never step again into the same stream, for ever other and other waters are flowing; and yet, says Heraclitus, "we do and we do not enter into the same waters, we are and we are not." The sense is clear; there is an identity in things, in all existences, sarvabhūtāni, as well as a constant changing; there is a Being as well as a Becoming and by that we have an eternal and real existence as well as a temporary and apparent, are not merely a constant mutation but a constant identical existence. Zeus exists, a sempiternal active Fire and eternal Word, a One by which all things are unified, all laws and results perpetually determined, all measures unalterably maintained. Day and Night are one, Death and Life are one, Youth and Age are one, Good and Evil are one, because that is One and all these are only its various shapes and appearances.
Heraclitus would not have accepted a purely psychological principle of Self as the origin of things, but in essence he is not very far from the Vedantic position. The buddhists of the Nihilistic school used in their own way the image of the stream and the image of the fire. They saw, as Heraclitus saw, that nothing in the world is for two moments the same even in the most insistent continuity of forms. The flame maintains itself unchanged in appearance, but every moment it is another and not the same fire; the stream is sustained in its flow by ever new waters. From this they drew the conclusion that there is no essence of things, nothing self-existent; the apparent becoming is all that we can call existence, behind it there is eternal Nothing, the absolute Void, or perhaps an original Non-Being. Heraclitus saw, on the contrary, that if the form of the flame only exists by a constant change, a constant exchange rather of the substance of the wick into the substance of the fiery tongue, yet there must be a principle of their existence common to them which thus converts itself from one form into another;-even if the substance of the flame is always changing, the principle of Fire is always the same and produces always the same results of energy, maintains always the same measures.
The Upanishad too describes the cosmos as a universal motion and becoming; it is all this that is mobile in the mobility, jagatyāṁ jagat,-the very word for universe, jagat, having the radical sense of motion, so that the whole universe, the macrocosm, is one vast principle of motion and therefore of change and instability, while each thing in the universe is in itself a microcosm of the same motion and instability Existences are "all becomings"; the Self-existent Atman, Swayambhu, has become all becomings, ātmā eva abhūt sarvāṇi bhūtāni. The relation between God and World is summed up in the phrase, "It is He that has moved out everywhere, sa paryagāt"; He is the Lord, the Seer and Thinker, who becoming everywhere-Heraclitus' Logos, his Zeus, his One out of which come all things-"has fixed all things rightly according to their nature from years sempiternal",-Heraclitus' "All things are fixed and determined." Substitute his Fire for the Vedantic Atman and there is nothing in the expressions of the Upanishad which the Greek thinker would not have accepted as another figure of his own thought. And do not the Upanishads use among other images this very symbol of the Fire? "As one Fire has entered into the world and taken shapes according to the various forms in the world," so the one Being has become all these names and forms and yet remains the One. Heraclitus tells us precisely the same thing; God is all contraries, "He takes various shapes just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each." Each one names Him according to his pleasure, says the Greek seer, and He accepts all names and yet accepts none, not even the highest name of Zeus. "He consents and yet at the same time does not consent to be called by the name of Zeus." So too said Indian Dirghatamas of old in his long hymn of the divine Mysteries in the Rig Veda, "One existent the sages call by many names." Though He assumes all these forms, says the Upanishad, He has no form that the vision can seize, He whose name is a mighty splendour. We see again how close are the thoughts of the Greek and very often even his expressions and images to the sense and style of the Vedic and Vedantic sages.
We must put each of Heraclitus' apophthegms into its right place if we would understand his thought. "It is wise to admit that all things are one,"-not merely, be it noted, that they came from oneness and will go back to oneness, but that they are one, now and always,-all is, was and ever will be the ever-living Fire. All seems to our experience to be many, an eternal becoming of manifold existences; where is there in it any principle of eternal identity? True, says Heraclitus, so it seems; but wisdom looks beyond and does see the identity of all things; Night and Day, Life and Death, the good and the evil, all are one, the eternal, the identical; those who see only a difference in objects, do not know the truth of the objects they observe. "Hesiod did not know day and night; for it is the One,"-esti gar hen, asti hi ekam. Now, an eternal and identical which all things are, is precisely what we mean by Being; it is precisely what is denied by those who see only Becoming. The Nihilistic buddhists1 insisted that there were only so many ideas, vijñānāni, and impermanent forms which were but the combination of parts and elements: no oneness, no identity anywhere; get beyond ideas and forms, you get to self-extinction, to the Void, to Nothing. Yet one must posit a principle of unity somewhere, if not at the base or in the secret being of things, yet in their action. The buddhists had to posit their universal principle of Karma which, when you think of it, comes after all to a universal energy as the cause of the world, a creator and preserver of unchanging measures. Nietzsche denied Being, but had to speak of a universal Will-to-be; which again, when you come to think of it, seems to be no more than a translation of the Upanishadic tapo brahma, "Will-Energy is Brahman." The later Sankhya denied the unity of conscious existences, but asserted the unity of Nature, Prakriti, which is again at once the original principle and substance of things and the creative energy, the phusis of the Greeks. It is indeed wise to agree that all things are one; for vision drives at that, the soul and the heart reach out to that, thought comes circling round to it in the very act of denial.
Heraclitus saw what all must see who look at the world with any attention, that there is something in all this motion and change and differentiation which insists on stability, which goes back to sameness, which assures unity, which triumphs into eternity. It has always the same measures; it is, was and ever will be. We are the same in spite of all our differences; we start from the same origin, proceed by the same universal laws, live, differ and strive in the bosom of an eternal oneness, are seeking always for that which binds all beings together and makes all things one. Each sees it in his own way, lays stress on this or that aspect of it, loses sight of or diminishes other aspects, gives it therefore a different name-even as Heraclitus, attracted by its aspect of creative and destructive Force, gave it the name of Fire. But when he generalises, he puts it widely enough; it is the One that is All, it is the All that is One,-Zeus, eternity, the Fire. He could have said with the Upanishad, "All this is the Brahman", sarvaṁ khalu idaṁ brahma, though he could not have gone on and said, "This Self is the Brahman", but would have declared rather of Agni what a Vedantic formula says of Vayu, tvaṁ pratyakṣaṁ brahmāsi, "Thou art manifest Brahman."
37.02 - The Story of Jabala-Satyakama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
Thus was Satyakama given admission to the Ashrama of Gautama. Now for his initiation and training and the tests. Gautama sent for him and said, "Satyakama, I shall now I invest you with the sacred thread." This investiture is a sacred rite which "sets one on the path" - what the buddhists call in Pali "sompatti" (srotapattiin Sanskrit), that is, "getting into the stream" or starting on the way. He added, "You bring in the fuel from the neighbouring wood." Satyakama did as he was told and the ceremony of initiation was duly performed.
The teacher now sent for him again and said, "Satyakama, I possess some four hundred kine. But they are all puny and weak. You should look after them." This meant that he was to take them out to pasture. Satyakama replied, "Very well, sir, it will be as you desire. I am leaving with the four hundred kine and I do not return till they are a thousand." Gautama sent him off with his blessings.
3.7.1.01 - Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The arguments which are usually put forward by supporters and opponents, are often weak or futile and even at their best insufficient either to prove or to disprove anything in the world. One argument, for instance, often put forward triumphantly in disproof is this that we have no memory of our past lives and therefore there were no past lives! One smiles to see such reasoning seriously used by those who imagine that they are something more than intellectual children. The argument proceeds on psychological grounds and yet it ignores the very nature of our ordinary or physical memory which is all that the normal man can employ. How much do we remember of our actual lives which we are undoubtedly living at the present moment? Our memory is normally good for what is near, becomes vaguer or less comprehensive as its objects recede into the distance, farther off seizes only some salient points and, finally, for the beginning of our lives falls into a mere blankness. Do we remember even the mere fact, the simple state of being an infant on the mothers breast? and yet that state of infancy was, on any but a buddhist theory, part of the same life and belonged to the same individual,the very one who cannot remember it just as he cannot remember his past lives. Yet we demand that this physical memory, this memory of the brute brain of man which cannot remember our infancy and has lost so much of our later years, shall recall that which was before infancy, before birth, before itself was formed. And if it cannot, we are to cry, Disproved your reincarnation theory! The sapient insipiency of our ordinary human reasoning could go no farther than in this sort of ratiocination. Obviously, if our past lives are to be remembered whether as fact and state or in their events and images, it can only be by a psychical memory awaking which will overcome the limits of the physical and resuscitate impressions other than those stamped on the physical being by physical cerebration.
I doubt whether, even if we could have evidence of the physical memory of past lives or of such a psychical awakening, the theory would be considered any better proved than before. We now hear of many such instances confidently alleged though without that apparatus of verified evidence responsibly examined which gives weight to the results of psychical research. The sceptic can always challenge them as mere fiction and imagination unless and until they are placed on a firm basis of evidence. Even if the facts alleged are verified, he has the resource of affirming that they are not really memories but were known to the person alleging them by ordinary physical means or were suggested to him by others and have been converted into reincarnate memory either by conscious deception or by a process of self-deception and self-hallucination. And even supposing the evidence were too strong and unexceptionable to be got rid of by these familiar devices, they might yet not be accepted as proof of rebirth; the mind can discover a hundred theoretical explanations for a single group of facts. Modern speculation and research have brought in this doubt to overhang all psychical theory and generalisation.
3.7.1.02 - The Reincarnating Soul, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The old Indian thinkers,I am not speaking of the popular belief which was crude enough and thought not at all about the matter,the old buddhistic and Vedantist thinkers surveyed the whole field from a very different standpoint. They were not attached to the survival of the personality; they did not give to that survival the high name of immortality; they saw that personality being what it is, a constantly changing composite, the survival of an identical personality was a non-sense, a contradiction in terms. They perceived indeed that there is a continuity and they sought to discover what determines this continuity and whether the sense of identity which enters into it is an illusion or the representation of a fact, of a real truth, and, if the latter, then what that truth may be. The buddhist denied any real identity. There is, he said, no self, no person; there is simply a continuous stream of energy in action like the continuous flowing of a river or the continuous burning of a flame. It is this continuity which creates in the mind the false sense of identity. I am not now the same person that I was a year ago, not even the same person that I was a moment ago, any more than the water flowing past yonder ghaut is the same water that flowed past it a few seconds ago; it is the persistence of the flow in the same channel that preserves the false appearance of identity. Obviously, then, there is no soul that reincarnates, but only Karma that persists in flowing continuously down an apparently uninterrupted channel. It is Karma that incarnates; Karma creates the form of a constantly changing mentality and physical bodies that are, we may presume, the result of that changing composite of ideas and sensations which I call myself. The identical I is not, never was, never will be Practically, so long as the error of personality persists, this does not make much difference and I can say in the language of ignorance that I am reborn in a new body; practically, I have to proceed on the basis of that error. But there is this important point gained that it is all an error and an error which can cease; the composite can be broken up for good without any fresh formation, the flame can be extinguished, the channel which called itself a river destroyed. And then there is non-being, there is cessation, there is the release of the error from itself.
The Vedantist comes to a different conclusion; he admits an identical, a self, a persistent immutable reality,but other than my personality, other than this composite which I call myself. In the Katha Upanishad the question is raised in a very instructive fashion quite apposite to the subject we have in hand. Nachiketas, sent by his father to the world of Death, thus questions Yama, the lord of that world: Of the man who has gone forward, who has passed away from us, some say that he is and others this he is not; which then is right? what is the truth of the great passage? Such is the form of the question and at first sight it seems simply to raise the problem of immortality in the European sense of the word, the survival of the identical personality. But that is not what Nachiketas asks. He has already taken as the second of three boons offered to him by Yama the knowledge of the sacred Flame by which man crosses over hunger and thirst, leaves sorrow and fear far behind him and dwells in heaven securely rejoicing. Immortality in that sense he takes for granted as, already standing in that farther world, he must surely do. The knowledge he asks for involves the deeper, finer problem, of which Yama affirms that even the gods debated this of old and it is not easy to know, for subtle is the law of it; something survives that appears to be the same person, that descends into hell, that ascends into heaven, that returns upon the earth with a new body, but is it really the same person that thus survives? Can we really say of the man He still is, or must we not rather say This he no longer is? Yama too in his answer speaks not at all of the survival of death, and he only gives a verse or two to a bare description of that constant rebirth which all serious thinkers admitted as a universally acknowledged truth. What he speaks of is the Self, the real Man, the Lord of all these changing appearances; without the knowledge of that Self the survival of the personality is not immortal life but a constant passing from death to death; he only who goes beyond personality to the real Person becomes the Immortal. Till then a man seems indeed to be born again and again by the force of his knowledge and works, name succeeds to name, form gives place to form, but there is no immortality.
Such then is the real question put and answered so divergently by the buddhist and the Vedantin. There is a constant reforming of personality in new bodies, but this personality is a mutable creation of force at its work streaming forward in Time and never for a moment the same, and the ego-sense that makes us cling to the life of the body and believe readily that it is the same idea and form, that it is John Robinson who is reborn as Sidi Hossain, is a creation of the mentality. Achilles was not reborn as Alexander, but the stream of force in its works which created the momentarily changing mind and body of Achilles flowed on and created the momentarily changing mind and body of Alexander. Still, said the ancient Vedanta, there is yet something beyond this force in action, Master of it, one who makes it create for him new names and forms, and that is the Self, the Purusha, the Man, the Real Person. The ego-sense is only its distorted image reflected in the flowing stream of embodied mentality.
Is it then the Self that incarnates and reincarnates? But the Self is imperishable, immutable, unborn, undying. The Self is not born and does not exist in the body; rather the body is born and exists in the Self. For the Self is one everywhere,in all bodies, we say, but really it is not confined and parcelled out in different bodies except as the all-constituting ether seems to be formed into different objects and is in a sense in them. Rather all these bodies are in the Self; but that also is a figment of space-conception, and rather these bodies are only symbols and figures of itself created by it in its own consciousness. Even what we call the individual soul is greater than its body and not less, more subtle than it and therefore not confined by its grossness. At death it does not leave its form, but casts it off, so that a great departing Soul can say of this death in vigorous phrase, I have spat out the body.
3.7.1.05 - The Significance of Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The oppressing sense of a circle of mechanical recurrence and the passionate seeking for an outlet of absolute escape haunted the earlier statements of the truth of rebirth and have left upon them in spite of the depths they fathomed a certain stamp of unsatisfactory inadequacy,not illogical, for they are logical enough, once their premisses are admitted, but unsatisfying, because they do not justify to us our being. For, missing the divine utility of the cosmic workings, they fail to explain to us with a sufficiently large, patient, steadfast wholeness God and ourselves and existence, negate too much, miss the positive sense of our strain and leave sounding an immense note of spiritual futility and cosmic discord. No statement of the sense of our being or our non-being has laid a more insistent stress on rebirth than did the buddhistic; but it affirms strongly only the more strongly to negate. It views the recurrence of birth as a prolonged mechanical chain; it sees, with a sense of suffering and distaste, the eternal revolving of an immense cosmic wheel of energy with no divine sense in its revolutions, its beginning an affirmation of ignorant desire, its end a nullifying bliss of escape. The wheel turns uselessly for ever disturbing the peace of Non-being and creating souls whose one difficult chance and whole ideal business is to cease. That conception of being is only an extension from our first matter-governed sense of the universe, of our creation in it and of our decisive cessation. It takes up at every point our first obvious view of the bodily life and restates all its circumstances in the terms of a more psychical and spiritual idea of our existence.
What we see in the material universe is a stupendous system of mechanical recurrences. A huge mechanical recurrence rules that which is long-enduring and vast; a similar but frailer mechanical recurrence sways all that is ephemeral and small. The suns leap up into being, flame wheeling in space, squander force by motion and fade and are extinct, again perhaps to blaze into being and repeat their course, or else other suns take their place and fulfil their round. The seasons of Time repeat their unending and unchanging cycle. Always the tree of life puts forth its various flowers and sheds them and breaks into the same flowers in their recurring season. The body of man is born and grows and decays and perishes, but it gives birth to other bodies which maintain the one same futile cycle. What baffles the intelligence in all this intent and persistent process is that it seems to have in it no soul of meaning, no significance except the simple fact of causeless and purposeless existence dogged or relieved by the annulling or the compensating fact of individual cessation. And this is because we perceive the mechanism, but do not see the Power that uses the mechanism and the intention in its use. But the moment we know that there is a conscious Spirit self-wise and infinite brooding upon the universe and a secret slowly self-finding soul in things, we get to the necessity of an idea in its consciousness, a thing conceived, willed, set in motion and securely to be done, progressively to be fulfilled by these great deliberate workings.
But the buddhistic statement admits no self, spirit or eternal Being in its rigorously mechanical economy of existence. It takes only the phenomenon of a constant becoming and elevates that from the physical to the psychical level. As there is evident to our physical mind an Energy, action, motion, capable of creating by its material forces the forms and powers of the material universe, so there is for the buddhistic vision of things an Energy, action, Karma, creating by its psychic powers of idea and association this embodied soul life with its continuity of recurrences. As the body is a dissoluble construction, a composite and combination, so the soul too is a dissoluble construction and combination; the soul life like the physical life sustains itself by a continuous flux and repetition of the same workings and movements. As this constant hereditary succession of lives is a prolongation of the one universal principle of life by a continued creation of similar bodies, a mechanical recurrence, so the system of soul rebirth too is a constant prolongation of the principle of the soul life by a continued creation through Karma of similar embodied associations and experiences, a mechanical recurrence. As the cause of all this physical birth and long hereditary continuation is an obscure will to life in Matter, so the cause of continued soul birth is an ignorant desire or will to be in the universal energy of Karma. As the constant wheelings of the universe and the motions of its forces generate individual existences who escape from or end in being by an individual dissolution, so there is this constant wheel of becoming and motion of Karma which forms into individualised soul-lives that must escape from their continuity by a dissolving cessation. An extinction of the embodied consciousness is our apparent material end; for soul too the end is extinction, the blank satisfaction of Nothingness or some ineffable bliss of a superconscientNon-Being. The affirmation of the mechanical occurrence or recurrence of birth is the essence of this view; but while the bodily life suffers an enforced end and dissolution, the soul life ceases by a willed self-extinction.
The buddhistic theory adds nothing to the first obvious significance of life except an indefinite prolongation by rebirth which is a burden, not a gain, and the spiritual greatness of the discipline of self-extinction,the latter, no doubt, a thing of great value. The illusionist solution adds something, but does not differ very greatly in its motive from the buddhistic. It sets against the futile cosmic repetition an eternity of our own absolute being; from the ignorance which creates the illusory mechanism of a recurrence of rebirth, it escapes into the self-knowledge of our ineffable existence. That seems to bring in a positive strain and to give to our being an initial, a supporting and an eventual reality. But the hiatus here is the absence of all true and valid relation between this real being of ours and all our birth and becoming. The last event and end of our births is not represented as any absolute fulfilment of what we are,that would be a great, fruitful and magnificently positive philosophy, nor as the final affirmation of a progressive self-finding,that too would give a noble meaning to our existence; it is a turning away from the demand of the universal Spirit, a refusal of all these cosmic ideas, imaginations, aspirations, action and effectuation. The way to find our being given us is an absolute denial of all our becoming. We rise to self by a liberating negation of ourselves, and in the result the Idea in the universe pursues its monstrous and aimless road, but the individual ceases and is blest in the cessation. The motive of this way of thought is the same oppressive sense of an ignorant mechanical cosmic recurrence as in the buddhistic and the same high impatient passion of escape. There is recognition of a divine source of life, but a non-recognition of any divine meaning in life. And as for rebirth it is reduced in its significance to a constant mechanism of self-deception, and the will not to live is shown us as the last acquisition, the highest good and the one desirable result of living. The satisfaction which Illusionism gives,for it does give a certain high austere kind of satisfaction to the intellectand to one turn of spiritual tendency,is the pressing to a last point of the obvious antinomy between this great burdensome and tyrannous mechanism, the universe, and the spirit which feels itself of another and a diviner nature, the great relief to a soul passioning for freedom, but compelled to labour on as a spring of the dull machine, of being able to cast away the cosmic burden, and finally the free and bare absoluteness of this spiritual conclusion. But it gives no real, because no fruitful answer to the problem of God and man and the significance of life; it only gets away from them by a skilful evasion and takes away from them all significance, so that any question of the sense and will in all this tremendous labour and throb and seeking loses meaning. But the challenge of Gods universe to the knowledge and strength of the human spirit cannot in the end be met by man with a refusal or solved by an evasion, even though an individual soul may take refuge from the demand, as a man may from the burden of action and pain in unconsciousness, in spiritual trance or sleep or escape through its blank doors into the Absolute. Something the Spirit of the universe means by our labour in existence, some sense it has in these grandiose rhythms, and it has not undertaken them in an eternally enduring error or made them in a jest.1 To know that and possess it, to find and fulfil consciously the universal beings hidden significances is the task given to the human spirit.
There are other statements or colourings of the idea of rebirth which admit a more positive sense for existence and nourish a robuster confidence in the power and delight of being which are its secret fountains; but they all stumble in the end over the limitations of humanity and an inability to see any outlet from their bondage in the order of the universe, because they suppose this to be a thing fixed from of years sempiternalvatbhya sambhya, not an eternally developing and creative, but an immutable cycle. The Vaishnava idea of the play of God, striking as it does into the secret of the hidden deligh the core of things, is a luminous ray shot into the very heart of the mystery; but isolated it cannot solve all its enigma. There is more here in the world than a play of secret delight; there is knowledge, there is power, there is a will and a mighty labour. Rebirth so looked at becomes too much of a divine caprice with no object but its playing, and ours is too great and strenuous a world to be so accounted for. Such chequered delight as is given to our becoming, is a game of disguises and seekings with no promise here of any divine completeness; its circles seem in the end not worth following out and the soul turns gladly to its release from the games unsatisfying mazes. The Tantric solution shows us a supreme superconscient Energy which casts itself out ere into teeming worlds and multitudinous beings and in its order the soul rises from birth to birth and follows its million forms, till in a last human series it opens to the consciousness and powers of its own divinity and returns through them by a rapid illumination to the eternal superconscience. We find at last the commencement of a satisfying synthesis, some justification of existence, a meaningful consequence in rebirth, a use and a sufficient though only temporary significance for the great motion of the cosmos. On lines very like these the modern mind, when it is disposed to accept rebirth, is inclined to view it. But there is a too minor stress on the souls divine potentialities, a haste of insistence on the escape into superconscience; the supreme Energy constructs too long and stupendous a preparation for so brief and so insufficient a flowering. There is a lacuna here, some secret is still missing.
3.7.1.08 - Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of
Karma
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The buddhists' mental and moral law of Karma comes in at this difficult point with a clue and an opening. As Science fills our mind with the idea of a universal government of Law in the physical and outward world and in our relations with Nature, though she leaves behind it all a great unanswered query, an agnosticism, a blank of some other ungrasped Infinite, - here covered by the concept of Chance, - the buddhist conception too fills the spaces of our mental and moral being with the same sense of a government of mental and moral Law: but this too erects behind that Law a great unanswered query, an agnosticism, the blank of an ungrasped Infinite. But here the covering word is more grandly intangible; it is the mystery of Nirvana.
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
3.7.1.09 - Karma and Freedom, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But here the critical negative analytic thinker, ancient nihilistic buddhist or modern materialist, comes in to take away the basis of any actual freedom in our earthly or in any possible heavenly existence. The buddhist denied the existence of a Self free and infinite; that, he thought, was only a sublimation of the idea of ego, an imposition, adhyropa, or gigantic magnified shadow thrown by the falsehood of our personality on eternal Non-Existence. But as for the soul, there is no soul, but only a stream of forms, ideas and sensations, and as the idea of a chariot is only a name for the combination of planks and pole and wheels and axles, so is the idea of individual soul or ego only a name for the combination or continuity of these things.Nor is the universe itself anything other than such a combination, sa
ghta, formed and maintained in its continuity by the successions of Karma, by the action of Energy. In this mechanical existence there can be no freedom from Karma, no possible liberty; but there is yet a possible liberation, because that which exists by combination and bondage to its combinations can be liberated from itself by dissolution. The motive power which keeps Karma in motion is desire and attachment to its works, and by the conviction of impermanence and the cessation of desire there can come about an extinction of the continuity of the idea in the successions of Time.
3.7.1.10 - Karma, Will and Consequence, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The buddhist perception of karma and suffering as inseparable, that which drove the Buddha to the search for a means of the extinction of the will to be, is only a first phase and partial appearance. To find self is the cure of suffering, because self is infinite possession and perfect satisfaction. But to find self in quiescence is not the whole meaning of the spiritual evolution, but to find it too in its power of being; for being is not only eternal status, but also eternal movement, not only rest, but also action. There is a delight of rest and a delight of action, but in the wholeness of the spirit these two things are no longer contraries, but one and inseparable. The status of the spirit is an eternal calm, but also its self-expression in world-being is without any beginning or end, because eternal power means an eternal creation. When we gain the one, we need not lose its counterpart and consequence. To get to a foundation is not to destroy all capacity for superstructure.
Karma is nothing but the will of the Spirit in action, consequence nothing but the creation of will. What is in the will of being, expresses itself in karma and consequence. When the will is limited in mind, karma appears as a bondage and a limitation, consequence as a reaction or an imposition. But when the will of the being is infinite in the spirit, karma and consequence become instead the joy of the creative spirit, the construction of the eternal mechanist, the word and drama of the eternal poet, the harmony of the eternal musician, the play of the eternal child. This lesser, bound, seemingly separate evolution is only a step in the free self-creation of the Spirit from its own illimitable Ananda. That is behind all we are and do; to hide it from mind and bring it slowly forward into the front of existence and action is the present play of Self with Nature.
3.7.1.11 - Rebirth and Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The old idea of rebirth errs on the contrary by an excessive individualism. Too self-concentrated, it treated ones rebirth and karma as too much ones own single affair, a sharply separate movement in the whole, leaned too much on ones own concern with ones self and even while it admitted universal relations and a unity with the whole, yet taught the human being to see in life principally a condition and means of his own spiritual benefit and separate salvation. That came from the view of the universe as a movement which proceeds out of something beyond, something from which each being enters into life and returns out of it to its source, and the absorbing idea of that return as the one thing that at all matters. Our being in the world, so treated, came in the end to be regarded as an episode and in sum and essence an unhappy and discreditable episode in the changeless eternity of the Spirit. But this was too summary a view of the will and the ways of the Spirit in existence. Certain it is that while we are here, our rebirth or karma, even while it runs on its own lines, is intimately one with the same lines in the universal existence. But my self-knowledge and self-finding too do not abolish my oneness with other life and other beings. An intimate universality is part of the glory of spiritual perfection. This idea of universality, of oneness not only with God or the eternal Self in me, but with all humanity and other beings, is growing to be the most prominent strain in our minds and it has to be taken more largely into account in any future idea or computation of the significance of rebirth and karma. It was admitted in old times; the buddhist law of compassion was a recognition of its importance; but it has to be given a still more pervading power in the general significance.
The self-effectuation of the Spirit in the world is the truth on which we take our foundation, a great, a long self-weaving in time. Rebirth is the continuity of that self-effectuation in the individual, the persistence of the thread; Karma is the process, a force, a work of energy and consequence in the material world, an inner and an outer will, an action and mental, moral, dynamic consequence in the soul evolution of which the material world is a constant scene. That is the conception; the rest is a question of the general and particular laws, the way in which karma works out and helps the purpose of the spirit in birth and life. And whatever those laws and ways may be, they must be subservient to this spiritual self-effectuation and take from it all their meaning and value. The law is a means, a line of working for the spirit, and does not exist for its own sake or for the service of any abstract idea. Idea and law of working are only direction and road for the souls progress in the steps of its existence.
3.7.1.12 - Karma and Justice, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ordinary current conception of law of Karma is dominantly ethical, but ethical in no very exalted kind. Its idea of karma is a mechanical and materialistic ethics, a crudely exact legal judgment and administration of reward and punishment, an external sanction to virtue and prohibition of sin, a code, a balance. The idea is that there must be a justice governing the award of happiness and misery on the earth, a humanly intelligible equity and that the law of Karma represents it and gives us its formula. I have done so much good, puya. It is my capital, my accumulation and balance. I must have it paid out to me in so much coin of prosperity, the legal currency of this sovereign and divine Themis, or why on earth should I at all do good? I have done so much evil. That too must come back to me in so much exact and accurate punishment and misfortune. There must be so much outward suffering or an inward suffering caused by outward event and pressure; for if there were not this physically sensible, visible, inevitable result, where would be any avenging justice and where could we find any deterrent sanction in Nature against evil? And this award is that of an exact judge, a precise administrator, a scrupulous merchant of good for good and evil for evil who has learned nothing and will never learn anything of the Christian or buddhistic ideal rule, has no bowels of mercy or compassion, no forgiveness for sin, but holds austerely to an eternal Mosaic law, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, a full, slow or swift, but always calm and precisely merciless lex talionis.
This commercial and mathematical accountant is sometimes supposed to act with a startling precision. A curious story was published the other day, figuring as a fact of contemporary occurrence, of a rich man who had violently deprived another of his substance. The victim is born as the son of the oppressor and in the delirium of a fatal illness reveals that he has obliged his old tyrant and present father to spend on him and so lose the monetary equivalent of the property robbed minus a certain sum, but that sum must be paid now, otherwise The debt is absolved and as the last pice is expended, the reborn soul departs, for its sole object in taking birth is satisfied, accounts squared and the spirit of Karma content. That is the mechanical idea of Karma at its acme of satisfied precision. At the same time the popular mind in its attempt to combine the idea of a life beyond with the notion of rebirth, supposes a double prize for virtue and a double penalty for transgression. I am rewarded for my good deeds in heaven after death until the dynamic value of my virtue is exhausted and I am then reborn and rewarded again materially on earth. I am punished in hell to the equivalence of my sins and again punished for them in another life in the body. This looks a little superfluous and a rather redundant justice, and, even, the precise accountant becomes very like an unconscionable hundred per cent usurer. Perhaps it may be said that beyond earth it is the soul that suffers for purification, and here the physical beingas a concession to the forces of life and the symmetry of things: but still it is the soul that thus pays double in its subtle experience and in its physical incarnation.
38.07 - A Poem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
This buddhist cult was created in illusion and delusion
Forbearance has made the spirit sluggish, compassion filled it with affliction
3.8.1.05 - Occult Knowledge and the Hindu Scriptures, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Reincarnation is much more prominent and the ideas about it more systematised in buddhist than in Hindu books. But most of the Hindu philosophies took some kind of reincarnation for granted. It was part of the ancient teaching which had come down to them from the earliest times. They are more concerned with its causes and the method of escape from the obligation of rebirth; the thing itself was for them a fact beyond question.
But the nature of reincarnation is not the same for all the old thinkers. The Upanishads, for instance, seem to teach that the physical self is dissolved at death into its principle, ether; it is the mental being that appears to be born and reborn, but in reality birth and death are merely semblances and operations of
3.8.1.06 - The Universal Consciousness, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When a man lives in the cosmic self, he necessarily embraces the life of the world and his attitude towards that world struggling upward from the egoistic state must be one of compassion, of love or of helpfulness. The buddhists held that immersion in the infinite non-ego was in itself an immersion in a sea of infinite compassion. The liberated Sannyasin is described in the Gita
454
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
only the Sad Atman is a reality, just as many buddhists deny the
Sad Atman as well and say that only the Asad is a reality, but
--
poetry & no philosophical significance. The buddhist Arhat certainly did not mean merely a deserving person; it meant one
extremely exalted, or one who had risen high above the world.
4.10 - The Elements of Perfection, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When the self is purified of the wrong and confused action of the instrumental Nature and liberated into its self-existent being, consciousness, power and bliss and the Nature itself liberated from the tangle of this lower action of the struggling gunas and the dualities into the high truth of the divine calm and the divine action, then spiritual perfection becomes possible. Purification and freedom are the indispensable antecedents of perfection. A spiritual self-perfection can only mean a growing into oneness with the nature of divine being, and therefore according to our conception of divine being will be the aim, effort and method of our seeking after this perfection. To the Mayavadin the highest or rather the only real truth of being is the impassive, impersonal, self-aware Absolute and therefore to grow into an impassive calm, impersonality and pure self-awareness of spirit is his idea of perfection and a rejection of cosmic and individual being and a settling into silent self-knowledge is his way. To the buddhist for whom the highest truth is a negation of being, a recognition of the impermanence and sorrow of being and the disastrous nullity of desire and a dissolution of egoism, of the upholding associations of the Idea and the successions of Karma are the perfect way. Other ideas of the Highest are less negative; each according to its own idea leads towards some likeness to the Divine, sadrsya, and each finds its own way, such as the love and worship of the Bhakta and the growing into the likeness of the Divine by love. But for the integral Yoga perfection will mean a divine spirit and a divine nature which will admit of a divine relation and action in the world; it will mean also in its entirety a divinising of the whole nature, a rejection of all its wrong knots of being and action, but no rejection of any part of our being or of any field of our action. The approach to perfection must be therefore a large and complex movement and its results and workings will have an infinite and varied scope. We must fix in order to find a clue and method on certain essential and fundamental elements and requisites of perfection, siddhi; for if these are secured, all the rest will be found to be only their natural development or particular working. We may cast these elements into six divisions, interdependent on each other to a great extent but still in a certain way naturally successive in their order of attainment. The movement will start from a basic equality of the soul and mount to an ideal action of the Divine through our perfected being in the largeness of the Brahmic unity.
The first necessity is some fundamental poise of the soul both in its essential and its natural being regarding and meeting the things, impacts and workings of Nature. This poise we shall arrive at by growing into a perfect equality, samata. The self, spirit or Brahman is one in all and therefore one to all; it is, as is said in the Gita which has developed fully this idea of equality and indicated its experience on at least one side of equality, the equal Brahman, samam brahma; the Gita even goes so far in one passage as to identify equality and yoga, samatvam yoga ucyate. That is to say, equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite. Moreover, it is the condition of a securely and perfectly divine action; the security and largeness of the cosmic action of the Infinite is based upon and never breaks down or forfeits its eternal tranquillity. That too must be the character of the perfect spiritual action; to be equal and one to all things in spirit, understanding, mind, heart and natural consciousness, -- even in the most physical consciousness, -- and to make all their workings, whatever their outward adaptation to the thing to be done, always and imminuably full of the divine equality and calm must be its inmost principle. That may be said to be the passive or basic, the fundamental and receptive side of equality, but there is also an active and possessive side, an equal bliss which can only come when the peace of equality is founded and which is the beatific flower of its fullness.
4.1 - Jnana, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
183. In the buddhists' view to have saved an ant from drowning is a greater work than to have founded an empire. There is a truth in the idea, but a truth that can easily be exaggerated.
184. To exalt one virtue, - compassion even, - unduly above all others is to cover up with one's hand the eyes of wisdom.
4.2.1 - The Right Attitude towards Difficulties, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These things are not part of the normal difficulties, however acute, of the nature but especial formationstornadoes which start (usually from a particular point, sometimes varying) and go whirling round in the same circle always till it is finished. In your case the crucial point, whatever may have been the outward starting-point if any, is the idea or feeling of frustration in the sadhana; once that takes hold of the mind, all the rest follows. That again is why I have been putting all sorts of suggestions before you for getting rid of this ideanot because my suggestions, however useful and true if they can be followed, are binding laws of Yoga, but because if followed they can wipe out this point of danger. A formation like this is very often the result of something in past lives the Mother has so seen it in yourswhich prolongs a karmic sanskara (as the buddhists would say) and tries to repeat itself once again. To dissolve it ought to be possible if one sees it for what it is and is resolved to get rid of itnever allowing any mental justification of it, however logical, right and plausible the justification may seem to bealways replying to all the minds arguments or the vitals feelings in favour of it, like Cato to the debaters, Delenda est CarthagoCarthage must be destroyed, Carthage in this case being the formation and its nefarious circle.
Anyway the closing idea in your letter is the right one. The Divine is worth ferreting out even if oceans of gloom have to be crossed. If you could confront the formation always with that firm resolution, it should bring victory. In the Mothers vision Kali did express a wish to interfere and break the thing I dont know how she proposes to do itby giving you the strength you pray for or by breaking the head of the unwelcome lodger or visitor. I hope she will soon do it.
4.25 - Towards the supramental Time Vision, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is because the mind in the Ignorance lives in the moment and moves from hour to hour like a traveller who sees only what is near and visible around his immediate standpoint and remembers imperfectly what he has passed through before, but all in front beyond his immediate view is the unseen and unknown of which he has yet to have experience. Therefore man in his self-ignorance moving in time exists, as the buddhists saw, only in the succession of thoughts and sensations and of the external forms present to his thought and sense. His present momentary self is alone real to him, his past self is dead or vanishing or only preserved in memory, result and impression, his future self is entirely non-existent or only in process of creation or preparation of birth. And the world around him is subject to the same rule of perception. Only its actual form and sum of happenings and phenomena is present and quite real to him, its past is no longer in existence or abides only in memory and record and in so much of it as has left its dead monuments or still survives into the present, the future is not yet at all in existence.
It must be noted, however, that if our knowledge of the present were not limited by our dependence on the physical mind and sense, this result would not be altogether inevitable. If we could be aware of all the present, all the action of physical, vital, mental energies at work in the moment, it is conceivable that we would be able to see their past too involved in them and their latent future or at least to proceed from present to past and future knowledge. And under certain conditions this might create a sense of real and ever-present time continuity, a living in the behind and the front as well as the immediate, and a step farther might carry us into an ever present sense of our existence in infinite time and in our timeless self, and its manifestation in eternal time might then become real to us and also we might feel the timeless Self behind the worlds and the reality of his eternal world manifestation. In any case, the possibility of another kind of time consciousness than we have at present and of a triple time knowledge rests upon the possibility of developing another consciousness than that proper to the physical mind and sense and breaking our imprisonment in the moment and in the mind of ignorance with its limitation to sensation, memory, inference and conjecture.
4.3 - Bhakti, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
432. The Mayavadin talks of my Personal God as a dream and prefers to dream of Impersonal Being; the buddhist puts that aside too as a fiction and prefers to dream of Nirvana and the bliss of nothingness. Thus all the dreamers are busy reviling each other's visions and parading their own as the panacea. What the soul utterly rejoices in, is for thought the ultimate reality.
433. Beyond Personality the Mayavadin sees indefinable Existence; I followed him there and found my Krishna beyond in indefinable Personality.
4.43 - Chapter Three, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
III,53: With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the buddhist, Mongol and Din.
III,54: Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.
4.4.4.04 - The Descent of Silence, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
one can feel the Nirvana of the buddhists or the Atmabodha of
the Vedantins. Both force and bliss or either can descend into
5.01 - On the Mysteries of the Ascent towards God, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Tao of the Chinese - The Brahman of the Hindus - The Law of the buddhists - The Good of Hermes - That which cannot be named, according to the ancient Jewish tradition - The God of the Christians - The Allah of the Muslims - The Justice, the Truth of the materialists.
The purpose of man's life is to become conscious of That.
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
therefore a buddhist emblem. 93 (Cf. also Fig. 4.)
5 6 5 For our patient the process appeared to mean, first and
--
597 But a parallel with the buddhist East cannot be carried
through here, because the mandala is divided into an upper and
--
and twining snakes. This is not the sort of picture a buddhist
holy man would make, but that of a Western person with a
--
This, oddly enough, is the colour of the buddhist monk's robe,
which was certainly not a conscious intention of the patient.
--
homelessness of the buddhist monk is meant. On the psycho-
logical level this does not, of course, refer to so drastic a
--
167 Cf. the buddhist conception of the "eight points of the compass" in the
Amitdyur-dhydna Siitra; cf. "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," pp. 56off.
--
Amitdyur-dhydna Sutra. In: buddhist Mahdyana Sutras, Part II.
Translated by F. Max Miiller and Junjiro Takakusu. (Sacred
--
Davids. (Sacred Books of the buddhists, 3.) London, 1951.
Sanatsugatiya. See: The Bhagavadgita, with the Sanatsugatiya and
--
toga, buddhist monk's, 339
Tom Dumb, 184
APPENDIX I - Curriculum of A. A., #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Dhammapada. (S.B.E. Series, Oxford University Press.) ::: The best of the buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S.B.E. Series.) ::: Technical points of buddhist dogma, illustrated by dialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mystic Vi Explicand, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scienti Summ. ::: 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.
authors (code), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
.*//g' | getright ":" ## 5 buddhist Authors -->
Big Mind (non-dual), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Before thinking arises, things are just the way they are. All manifestations are just manifestations of me, the Non-Dual Mind, the unborn, Big Mind. buddhists call it
Buddha Mind. Other religions and cultures have different names for me. Mystics in many spiritual traditions have known about my being, (I don't want to say existence, because I neither exist nor do I not exist, I'm beyond both existing and non-existing), but they've known about me, they've touched me.
Big Mind (ten perfections), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
TRUE SELF: You can use the triangle again in order to speak to three seemingly distinctively different views of our actions, which buddhists call the Three Vehicles: the Hinaya, Buddhayana, and Mahayana. These three vehicles, or views, manifest as one free and integrated, unfixed way of living our life.
I'd suggest that you start with the Literal Mind. Then speak to Big Mind. Then you can return to me, as the apex of the triangle: Wise or Appropriate Action.
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
but the cult is now preserved mostly in China and the buddhist countries, "Bel and the Dragon being
uniformly coupled together, and the priest of the Ophite religion as uniformly assuming the name of
--
the seventh stage of the world, answering to the seventh zone of the buddhists, or the White Island."
Now here the Orientalists have been, and are still, facing the Sphinx's riddle, the wrong solution of
--
Prometheus, on its trial). This, say Brahminical and buddhistic legends, echoed by the Zoroastrian and
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-1-23.htm (18 von 21) [06.05.2003 03:36:17]
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exoterically called. These personages, however, though called in the Northern buddhist religion
"Buddhas," may just as well be called Rishis, or Avatars, etc., as they are "Buddhas who have
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
* Nanda is the first buddhist Sovereign, Chandragupta, against whom all the Brahmins were so
arrayed; he of the Morya Dynasty, and the grandfa ther of Asoka. This is one of those passages that do
--
points -- were well understood by the mystical minds of the Hindus, Brahmins and buddhists,
thousands of years before it was heard of in Europe; and that symbol was and is found all over the
--
contempt for the "Esoteric buddhists" as theosophists are now called; yet no Student of Occult
philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle for a living personage and vice versa, as was very often the case
--
adopted. With the esoteric (and, for the matter of that, exoteric) buddhist, the Chinaman and the
Mongolian, it means "the 10,000 truths." These truths, they say, belong to the
--
plant, and the name has a great significance in the buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in
the Greek "myths." The T, or
--
matter whether these teachings are called Illuminatist, buddhist, Kabalist, Gnostic,
Masonic, or Christian, the elemental types can only be truly known in their
--
esoteric point of view. To maintain this, does not at all mean that the "Esoteric buddhists" resolve
men into a number of elementary Spirits, as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses them of
maintaining. No "Esoteric buddhist" has ever been guilty of any such absurdity. Nor has it been ever
imagined that these shadows "become spiritual beings in another world," or "seven potential spirits or
--
the Brahminical Logos than with the buddhist Logos. In order to make my meaning clear I may point
out here that the Logos has seven forms. In other words, there are seven kinds of Logoi in the
--
Hindus and buddhists, but called "mythical" by geographers and Orientalists, the less one talks of it,
the wiser he will be. Nor can one accept the said "sevenfold classification" as having "a closer
connection with the Brahminical Logos than with the buddhist Logos," since both are identical,
whether the one "Logos" is called Eswara or Avalokiteswara, Brahma or Padmapani. These are,
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Aryasanga in his Secret treatises, and now by all the mystic Northern buddhists. It is a Sanskrit term,
and an appellation given by the earliest Aryans to the Unknown deity; the word "Brahma" not being
--
embrace the esoteric tenets of the whole world since the beginning of our humanity, and buddhistic
occultism occupies therein only its legitimate place, and no more. Indeed, the secret portions of the
--
"esoteric" buddhist schools of antiquity in their modern garb, not only in China and other buddhist
countries in general, but even in not a few schools in Thibet, left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and
--
Dwijas. His teachings, therefore, could not be different from their doctrines, for the whole buddhist
reform merely consisted in giving out a portion of that which had been kept secret from every man
--
but is often visited by Mongolians and buddhists. The same tradition speaks of immense subterranean
abodes, of large corridors filled with tiles and cylinders. It may be an idle rumour, and it may be an
--
What do the scholars say of buddhist literature? Have they got it in its completeness? Assuredly not.
Notwithstanding the 325 volumes of the Kanjur and the Tanjur of the Northern buddhists, each
volume we are told, "weighing from four to five pounds," nothing, in truth, is known of Lamaism. Yet,
--
several schools."** Moreover, "according to a tradition preserved by the buddhist schools, both of the
South and of the North, the sacred buddhist Canon comprised originally 80,000 or 84,000 tracts, but
most of them were lost, so that there remained but 6,000," the professor tells his audiences. "Lost" as
usual for Europeans. But who can be quite sure that they are likewise lost for buddhists and Brahmins?
Considering the sacredness for the buddhists of every line written
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Spence Hardy, "The Legends and Theories of the buddhists," p. 66.
** "Buddhism in Tibet," p. 78.
--
in, and emigrations from, India. But as it is well ascertained that buddhist Arhats began their religious
exodus, for the purpose of propagating the new faith beyond Kashmir and the Himalayas, as early as
--
* Lassen, ("Ind. Althersumkunde" Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows a buddhist monastery erected in the Kailas
range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham, earlier than that.
--
known that the most important buddhist tracts belonging to the sacred canon were stored away in
countries and places inaccessible to the European pundits, the late Swami Dayan and Sarasvati, the
--
Testament borrowed anything from the more ancient religion of the Brahmans and buddhists, it does
not follow that the Jews have not borrowed all they knew from the Chaldean records, the latter being
--
who could have translated a line of the Veda . . . of the Zend Avesta, or . . . of the buddhist Tripitaka,
and now the Vedas are proved to be the work of the highest antiquity whose 'preservation amounts
--
thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic science greets the buddhists and the Svabhavikas as the
"positivists" of the archaic ages. If we take a one-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our
materialists may be right in their own way. The buddhists maintained that there is no Creator, but an
infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance, the essence of which
--
to Pantheism will be modified. It is wrong and unjust to regard the buddhists and Advaitee Occultists
as atheists. If not all of them philosophers, they are, at any rate, all logicians, their objections and
--
So far "There are only Four Truths, and Four Vedas" -- say the Hindus and buddhists. For a similar
reason Irenaeus insisted on the necessity of Four Gospels. But as every new Root-race at the head of a
--
the Svabhavat of the buddhist philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet abstract, the
self-existent plastic Essence and the root of all things, viewed in the same dual light as the Vedantin
--
having been "evoked by the teachings of the buddhists,"
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
* Aryasanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma di
Koros places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century [[Footnote continued on next
--
say, the buddhistic concrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindu philosophy Mulaprakriti. It is
the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing principle
--
others. The Japanese Secret Science of the buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has "seven precious
things." We will speak of them, hereafter.
--
the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteswara of the esoteric buddhists.
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 75 NOUMENAL AND PHENOMENAL LIGHT.
--
the Number, in its Unity of Substance, on the highest plane. The name is of buddhist use and a
Synonym for the four-fold Anima Mundi, the Kabalistic "Archetypal World," from whence proceed
--
intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the buddhist esoteric
philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or
--
"We give below in a tabular form the classifications adopted by the buddhist and Vedantic teachers of
the principles of man: --
--
From the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the buddhist classification is not
separately mentioned in the Vedantic division, as it is merely the vehicle of Prana. It will also be seen
--
purely Brahmanic, buddhistic and Kabalistic philosophy. The Book is copiously illustrated with
diagrams, tables, etc. It asserts that the gradual debasement and degradation of man, morally and
--
three faculties" of Brahma exoterically, and the Panchasyam, the five Brahmas, or the five DhyaniBuddhas in the buddhist system.
The highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the "Fiery Lions" and
--
taught by both the Shinto and the buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes
Cosmogenesis, as the Divine merges into the human, and creates -[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
body goes on living on Earth, is a pre-eminently occult doctrine, especially in Chinese and buddhist
philosophy. See "Isis Unveiled," vol. i., [[Footnote continued on next page]]
--
principles, and man is compared to the seven-leaved plant of this name* so sacred among buddhists.
For further details as to Saptaparna and the importance of the number seven in occultism, as well as in
--
Entities whom we call Devas (gods), Dhyan Chohans, Chitkala (Kwan-yin, the buddhists call them),
and by other names. The Daimones are -- in the Socratic sense, and even in the Oriental and Latin
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
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
himself to criticizing the "Seven Principles" of the Esoteric buddhists, and attempts to ridicule them.
On page 405, the closing page, he speaks enthusiastically of the Vidyadharas, "the seven great legions
--
But he is, at all events, the greatest Pali and buddhist scholar of the day, and whatever he may say is
entitled to respectful hearing. But when one who knows no more of exoteric Buddhism on scientific
--
Palestine alone, but the same Nirvana as the learned buddhist and Brahmin do -- the bosom of the
ETERNAL ONE, symbolized by that of Abraham, and by Palestine as its substitute on Earth.*** The
--
here, on earth again and again" -- truly. In the Northern buddhist system, or the popular exoteric
religion, it is taught that every Buddha, while preaching the good law on earth, manifests himself
--
* C. W. King, identifies it with "that summum bonum of Oriental aspiration, the buddhist Nirvana,"
perfect repose, the Epicurean Indolentia, which looks flippant enough in its expression, though not
--
The true buddhist, recognising no "personal god," nor any "Father" and "Creator of Heaven and
Earth," still believes in an absolute consciousness, "Adi-Buddhi"; and the buddhist philosopher knows
that there are Planetary Spirits, the "Dhyan Chohans." But though he admits of "spiritual lives," yet, as
--
** buddhist Catechism, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society.
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 636 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
is always likely to answer, as Jacolliot was answered -- "I am myself 'God';" a buddhist (a Sinhalese
especially) would simply laugh, and say in reply, "There is no God; no Creation." Yet the root
philosophy of both Adwaita and buddhist scholars is identical, and both have the same respect for
animal life, for both believe that every creature on earth, however small and humble, "is an immortal
--
accommodate the old faith to the influence of buddhistic theosophy, the very essence of which was
that the innumerable gods of the Hindu mythology were but names for the ENERGIES of the First
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Serpent of Eternity, in India, among esoteric buddhists, in Egypt, in Chaldea, etc. etc., and among the
Initiates of every other country. It is on the Seven zones of post mortem ascent, in the Hermetic
--
had only confused the buddhists and the older Charvaka materialists. The version exists nowhere in
other Puranas if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the "Vishnu Purana"; the
--
cosmogony. "It was unknown to Confucius, and the buddhists extended their Cosmogony without
introducing a personal God,"* it is complained. The Yi-King, "the very essence of ancient thought and
--
Chinese buddhists reject the idea of One Creator, accepting one cause and its numberless effects, they
are misunderstood by the believers in a personal God. The "great Extreme" as the commencement "of
--
say of him that he is a modern invention of the Northern buddhists, for under another appellation he
has been known from the earliest times. The Secret Doctrine teaches that "He who is the first to
--
perfect equivalent. In a temple of Pu'to, the sacred island of the buddhists in China, Kwan-Shi-Yin is
represented floating on a black aquatic bird (Kala-Hansa), and pouring on the heads of mortals the
--
besides being now the patron deities of the buddhist ascetics, the Yogis of Thibet, are the gods of
chastity, and are, in their esoteric meaning, not even that which is implied in the rendering of Mr.
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
men. The buddhists affirm that Dragons are no fewer in
number than the fishes of their many concentric seas; somewhere in the universe a sacred cipher exists to express their
--
devours a snake (probably the hooded cobra) until a buddhist prince teaches him the value of abstinence. In the last
act, the penitent Garuda brings back to life the bones of the
Diamond Sutra 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
It is also ironic that while the father was busy emptying his treasury to support the buddhist order, the son was compiling Chinas great literary anthology known as the Wen Hsuan and devoting himself to the Diamond Sutra, which he is said to have recited ten thousand times before his early death. In dividing this sutra into thirty-two chapters, Chao-ming was acknowledging what will become clearer in the chapters that follow: this sutra is not only about the body of the Buddha, which was said to be marked by thirty-two unique attributes, it is the body of the Buddha. In addition, Chao-ming gave each chapter a title. This first one he called The Cause and Reason for the Dharma Assembly. The aptness of his titles led a number of commentators, including the Tang-dynasty prime minister, Chang Wu-chin, and the Sixth Zen Patriarch, Hui-neng, to begin each chapter with an explanation of these titles.
Hui-neng says, The lay prime minister Chang Wu-chin said, If not for dharmas, there would be no way to discuss emptiness. If not for wisdom, there would be no way to speak about dharmas. The multiplicity of the myriad dharmas is what is meant by cause. And the responsiveness of the one mind is what is meant by reason. Thus, at the beginning is a chapter on the cause and reason for this dharma assembly.
--
(see Hardayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine in buddhist Sanskrit Literature, p. 9) or spiritual being, which is the more common, if less interesting, interpretation. The term originally referred to ascetics of various religious traditions but was eventually taken over by buddhists and was extended not only to monks but to nuns as well as to male and female householders who devoted themselves to achieving enlightenment for others as well as for themselves. Thus, the term was used to represent the Mahayana ideal with its emphasis on compassion and wisdom as opposed to the Hinayana ideal of the arhan with its emphasis on morality and meditation.
Throughout this sutra, bodhisattva is modified by mahasattva, which I have translated as fearless. Normally, mahasattva is interpreted quite literally as great being, as Purna does in the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, when he says to the Buddha, One who is called a mahasattva puts on the great armor, sets forth on the great path, and rides the great vehicle. Such a being is called a mahasattva. (1) However, this term was first applied not to humans but to lions and only later to those who had the courage of the king of beasts. Hence, it was used to suggest the difficulties facing those who set forth on the bodhisattva path as well as to praise them for such aspiration. Also, without fearlessness, no progress on this path is possible.
--
Before noon: Dawn is when gods eat; noon is when buddhas eat; dusk is when animals eat; and midnight is when spirits eat. Thus, it was the Buddhas custom to eat his one daily meal at midday, after which he ate nothing until the following day. Although this custom is still followed by the buddhists of South and Southeast Asia, it has been relaxed, if not ignored, by those in colder climates. Seng-chao comments, When food is cooked, this is when everyone has something and when thoughts of giving easily arise. Thus, monks begged for food when householders were preparing their midday meal.
Patched robe: The Buddha designated three robes for monks: one of five patches for daily activities, for sitting and for sleeping; one of seven patches worn on top of the one of five patches for preaching the Dharma; and one of nine (sometimes twenty-five) patches for going about in public or entering a private residence. Here, this last kind of robe, called a civara, is meant. Thus, when the Buddha later takes this robe off and puts it away, he is still wearing his other garments. These two simpler robes were usually made of plain, undyed cloth, while the civara was invariably saffronyellowthus it was also called a kashaya (saffron-yellow). The sight that finally prompted
--
Bowl: The bowl, or patra, was called the vessel of humility, and the Vinaya, or rules of the buddhist order, established limits as to its size, material, and color. In the Buddhas day, most bowls were made of iron in order to withstand being banged about during the constant wandering of the monks. However, bowls of clay and stone were also used, and the Buddhas own bowl was made of purple stone. It was said to have been the bowl used by Vipashyin, the first buddha of the present kalpa, and was given to Shakyamuni by the Guardians of the Four Quarters following his
Enlightenment.
--
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.
Here, too, there is no recourse to such crowd-pleasers as the radiation of light from the Buddhas body or the appearance of deities and other worlds. This is because this sutra is directed toward those who seek and are ready to accept instruction in the highest wisdom, shorn of all spiritual accessories.
DS2, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
MOST buddhist SUTRAS begin with a question. Subhuti has just witnessed the compassion and detachment with which the Buddha performed his daily round of giving and receiving offerings, and he is moved to ask how others might do the same. Among the Buddhas disciples, Subhuti was foremost in his freedom from passion, for he was the one who best understood the doctrine of emptiness. On this occasion, he saw in the Buddhas actions the perfect realization of that doctrine.
Thus, he expresses his gratitude for such instruction by example and asks how others, not only monks but anyone who seeks to live an enlightened life, can follow in the Buddhas footsteps. The wording of his questions, however, reflects the understanding of someone on the Hinayana, or Lesser Path. But this is a Mahayana sutra.
--
Chiang Wei-nung says, In buddhist sutras, it is sometimes said that women experience such great distractions that they cannot become buddhas but must first be reborn as men. The Dharma, however, is shared by all. If women first had to be reborn as men, this would be less than all. Still, the distractions of women are great. First is the distraction of motherhood. Second, they frequently confuse love for compassion. Compassion is impartial. It knows neither direction nor degree. Love, meanwhile, is a river of life and death, of endless rebirth. In the eyes of the Buddha there is neither male nor female. The reason he says the distractions of women are greater is because they need to take greater care. Yet, if they can make the great resolve to set forth on such a path, they, too, will
become buddhas. This is why Subhuti asks on behalf of both men and women.
DS3, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
categories represent a single sequence in what buddhists call the Three Realms, with the first four
categories of birth belonging to the Realm of Desire and the two categories of form and the three
--
realms of Form and Formlessness. Chiang Wei-nung, for example, says, When buddhist sutras
divide beings into the Six States of Existence, it is to show their position on the wheel of rebirth.
--
as it suggests creation beyond the laws of karma, which, again, is not the case. The only buddhist
scholar I know of to offer a solution to this confusion is Garma Chang, who uses ethereally in his
DS4, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
In the practice of charity, buddhists distinguish three kinds of gifts: material, emotional, and
spiritual. Material gifts include such things as food and clothes and medicine. Emotional gifts include
--
meanings as pure, holy, auspicious, and meritorious. It is this last meaning that buddhists
usually associate with the word, and it certainly has that sense here, since it refers to the karmic
--
of air. buddhists, however, took the term to mean space, which includes not only the sky but also
the earth below, which is the tenth direction. The Buddhas choice of words is also intended to
Liber 71 - The Voice of the Silence - The Two Paths - The Seven Portals, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Lam is the Tibetan word for Way or Path, and Lama is He who Goeth, the specific title of the Gods of Egypt, the Treader of the Path, in buddhistic phraseology. Its numerical value is 71, the number of this book.
Prefatory Note
--
obscure to any one unacquainted with buddhist literature. The
"everlasting" referred to is not a life-condition at all.
--
treatise Hindu ideas are painfully mixed with buddhist, and the
introduction of the "four noble truths" comes very strangely as the
--
buddhist canon. The Buddha is referred to, again and again, as having
"passed away by that kind of passing away which heaves nothing whatever
--
and I know of no Canonical buddhist authority for this statement. (A
Srotapatti becomes an Arahat in seven more incarnations.
--
By "desire" is again meant "tendency" in the technical buddhist sense.
The Law of Gravitation is the most universal example of such a
--
This is quite contrary to buddhist teaching. Buddha certainly had
"Parinirvna," if there be such a thing, though, as Nirvna means
--
Now the buddhist rejects Atman, saying there is no such thing.
Therefore-to him-there is no Parabrahman. There is really Maha Brahma,
--
This is all clear enough, but then the buddhist goes on and takes the
word Nibbana to mean exactly that which the Hindus meant by Nirvana,
--
to the buddhist, that Hindu Yogis, however eminent, are not Arhats.) He
said that the rules laid down for Bhikkhus created the conditions
--
justification. Nirvana is frequently spoken of as an island in buddhist
writings, but I am not familiar with any passage in which the metaphor
--
There is a distinction between buddhist 'Jhana' and Sanskrit 'Dhyana,'
though etymologically the former is a corruption of the latter.
--
renders the majority of buddhist documents, if not valueless, at least
unreliable. We, however, taking this book as an original work by
--
stated, not a buddhist, but a Hindu idea. The teaching is here to refer
everything to atman, to regard everything as a corruption of atman, if
--
knower of no change"; the Hindu statement identical with the buddhist,
and the identity covered by crazy terminology. X = A says the Hindu, Y
= A says the buddhist. X = Y is furiously denied by both, although
these two equations are our only source of information about either X
--
absurd to call themselves buddhists, as the buddhist had no Soul, and
the Theosophist, not even content with having one, insisted on
--
most exquisite agony. Such is the attempt of all buddhist writers, and
their even feebler Western imitators. But once the secret of the
--
got at all the old conception. The ordinary buddhist is quite unable to
see anything but details. Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya once refused to
--
escape. The buddhist regulations are comparable to orders which might
have been, but were not, because he was not mad, given by the Captain
--
have spoken. But this is of course incompatible with the buddhist
teaching on the subject. Tanha is properly defined as the hunger of the
Talks 051-075, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Bruntons two books. He asked: The buddhists say that I is unreal, whereas Paul Brunton in the Secret Path tells us to get over the Ithought and reach the state of I. Which is true?
M.: There are supposed to be two Is; the one is lower and unreal, of which all are aware; and the other, the higher and the real, which is to be realised.
--
D.: Who is this I? It seems to be only a continuum of senseimpression. The buddhist idea seems to be so too.
M.: The world is not external. The impressions cannot have an outer origin. Because the world can be cognised only by consciousness.
Talks 125-150, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: Is the buddhist view, that there is no continuous entity answering to the ideas of the individual soul, correct or not? Is this consistent with the Hindu notion of a reincarnating ego? Is the soul a continuous entity which reincarnates again and again, according to the Hindu doctrine, or is it a mere mass of mental tendencies - samskaras?
M.: The Real Self is continuous and unaffected. The reincarnating ego belongs to the lower plane, namely, thought. It is transcended by Self-Realisation.
Reincarnations are due to a spurious offshoot. Therefore it is denied by the buddhists. The present state is due to a mixing up of the chit (sentient) with jada (insentient).
Talk 137.
--
M.: To introvert the mind is the prime thing. The buddhists consider the flow of I thought to be Liberation; whereas we say that such flow proceeds from its underlying substratum - the only - Reality.
Why should one be meditating I am Brahman? Only the annihilation of I is Liberation. But it can be gained only by keeping the I-I always in view. So the need for the investigation of the I thought. If the I is not let go, no blank can result to the seeker. Otherwise meditation will end in sleep.
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
SRI AUROBINDO: All preachers are illogical. Were you a fervent buddhist? Is
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?
--
few hundred thousand buddhists?
NIRODBARAN: Asoka helped in propagating Buddhism.
--
up and chanting buddhist hymns. That's a heroic people with wonderful
self-control.
--
PURANI: Talking of Krishna reminds me of X. They say he has turned a buddhist now.
SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord!
--
SRI AUROBINDO: I dont understand why he should have become a buddhist.
Living with ones realisations as in a fortress, one can gather and add whatever knowledge one wants to ones original line of sadhana. It is not at all
--
NIRODBARAN: Dilip says, about the subject of X's becoming a buddhist from a
Vaishnava, that it is not like that. He does not want to belong to any group or
--
the buddhists.
SATYENDRA: In the second and third ways, does the Purusha remain the witness?
--
originally got their artistic impulse from India. Their buddhist images have
Indian inspiration: it is only later that they developed their own lines.
--
SATYENDRA: Tibetan buddhists say, "Nirvana is only a stage."
SRI AUROBINDO (surprised): Is that so?
--
it a fact that all buddhists utter: Buddham saranam gacchami, dharmam
saranam gacchami, sangham saranam gacchami?1 Buddha himself couldn't
--
SRI AUROBINDO: N is a buddhist. The judge should have been told that. He
would have said to N, "I see Buddha in your face." Somebody should have
--
NIRODBARAN: The buddhists don't believe in Grace.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. They say you have to do everything by yourself. They
--
as the Being but it is only a gate of entry into the Absolute. From this Nirvana you can either take up the negative or the affirmative path. By the negative you reach the Non-Being or what the Gita calls anirdeshyam (the Indeterminate). This Non-Being is the buddhists Nirvana or Chinese Tao. The
buddhists consider it as Shunya, the Void, while to the Taoists this void,
--
from a Nirvana which was not of the buddhist type but a state of mere being
443
--
Brahman. The buddhists negate all the three aspects and arrive at Non-Being.
11 FEBRUARY 1940
--
Existence. It is the buddhists' way of expressing the Supreme they contact.
In reality it is nothing but an aspect of the Supreme. What is called the Indeterminate is not really indeterminate. It can be called so because it is not
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
PURANI: He takes his stand on the buddhistic Karma theory.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. His contention that everything is fixed reduces this
--
SATYENDRA: The Tibetan buddhists say that Nirvana is a half-way house.
SRI AUROBINDO: What is beyond?
--
SRI AUROBINDO: That is not unusual, quite ancient. There are funny stories in old buddhist books about Sannyasis. In some books the Sannyasis are
described as drinking and shouting in the streets. Subramaniam Bharati told
--
nature, being a buddhist himself. He will take the side of Buddha.
SRI AUROBINDO: Well?
--
PURANI: A Ceylonese young man, a buddhist has come to see the Ashram.
He says Buddha didn't teach that the world was full of evil.
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
One morning, exacdy at sunrise, a buddhist monk began to
climb a tall mountain. The narrow path, no more than a foot or
--
fathered the buddhist monk problem set his experimental subjects
the task of making a pendulum. The subject was led to a table on which
--
versa, if we tried to see ourselves through the eyes of a buddhist or
medieval Christian, our notion that random events exert a decisive
--
lem of the buddhist monk (Book One, p. 183); or of re-stating the
problem in different terms; or letting one's attention wander, guided
The Anapanasati Sutta A Practical Guide to Mindfullness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom Meditation, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
meditate in the buddhist way. It doesn't matter whether one
is talking about full or fixed absorption concentration, or
--
true essence of buddhist meditation.
The true aim of the Anapanasati Sutta is nothing less
--
the buddhist Path evolves in two distinct stages, a mundane
(lokiya) or preparatory stage and a supramundane
--
and in the Tibetan buddhist styles of meditation, as well as,
in other popular commentaries like the Visuddhi Magga.
--
In buddhist meditation, have the questions ever come
up, "What is mindfulness (Sati), really?"... "Exactly how
--
thrust is in buddhist Meditation! This is why Dependent
Origination is so important to see and understand. It
--
In summary, Mindfulness is very relevant to buddhist
meditation and daily life. The process of recollection keeps
--
meditate according to the buddhist practice.
"He develops the basis for spiritual power
--
because conditions are right for them to arise. In buddhist
terms, this is called 'anatta' or not self nature of existence.
--
Jhana- The definition here of 'Jhana' in buddhist
terms is a "stage of meditation through understanding (the
--
Delusion (moha) - In some buddhist traditions the
word "delusion" (Moha) is linked up with two other words
--
Bhante Vimalaramsi became a buddhist monk in 1986
because of his keen interest in meditation. He went to
--
American buddhist Forest Tradition study center on
American Soil where all teaching and work is done using
The Coming Race Contents, #The Coming Race, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The buddhistic enlightenment and discipline
did not admit the supreme authority of
--
Vedas, the buddhistic spirit denied life. It was
quite a new thing in the Indian conscious
--
tion. The buddhistic schism was after all
a division brought about from within : it
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
tradition also exists among the buddhists of Tibet; it was taught by the Druids as well as by
the Chinese and the ancient Persians. According to the books of Zoroaster, the first man and
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
8) Wisdom is the most precious riches. ~ Chinese buddhistic, Scriptures
9) How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver! ~ Proverbs
--
22) Wisdom is like unto a beacon set on high, which radiates its light even in the darkest night. ~ buddhist Meditations from the Japanese
23) And when the benevolence of benevolences manifests itself, all things are in her light and in joy. ~ The Zohar
--
5) True knowledge does not grow old, so have declared the sages of all times. ~ buddhist Canons in Pali
6) May the partisans of all doctrines in all countries unite and live in a common fellowship. For all alike profess mastery to be attained over oneself and purity of the heart. ~ Inscriptions of Asoka
--
13) The man who does not think about religion, imagines that there is only one that is true, the one in which he was born. But thou hast only to ask thyself what would happen if thou wert born in another religion, thou, Christian, if thou wert born a Mahomedan, thou, buddhist, a Christian and thou, Mahomedan, a Brahmin. Is it possible that we alone with our religion should be in the truth and that all others should be subjected to falsehood? No religion can become true merely by thy persuading thyself or persuading others that it alone is true. ~ Tolstoi
14) No man has a right to constrain another to think like himself. Each must bear with patience and indulgence the beliefs of others. ~ Giordano Bruno
--
15) He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ buddhist Mediations from the Japanese
The Unknowable Divine View Similar The Divine Becoming
--
15) He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ buddhist Mediations from the Japanese
The Unknowable Divine View Similar The Divine Becoming
--
7) Awake, arise; strive incessantly towards the knowledge so that thou mayst attain unto the peace. ~ buddhist Text
8) True royalty consists in spiritual knowledge; turn thy efforts to its attainment. ~ Farid-ud-din-attar, "Mantic uttair."
--
28) An attentive scrutiny of thy being will reveal to thee that it is one with the very essence of absolute perfection. ~ buddhist Writings in the Japanese
29) O my friend, hearken to the melody of the Spirit in thy heart and in thy soul and guard it as the apple of thy eyes. ~ Baha-ullah, "The Seven Valleys"
--
18) A bad thought is the most dangerous of thieves. ~ buddhist scriptures from the Chinese
19) Let not worldly thoughts and anxieties trouble your minds. ~ Ramakrishna
--
4) My brothers, when you accost each other, two things alone are fitting, instructive words or a grave silence. ~ buddhist Scripture
5) It is far more useful to commune with oneself than with others. ~ Demophilus
--
19) As the perfect man speaks so he acts; as he acts, so the perfect man speaks. It is because he speaks as he acts and acts as he speaks that he is called the perfect. ~ buddhist Scripture
20) Who is the superior man ? It is he who first puts his words in practice and then speaks in agreement with his acts. ~ Confucius
--
10) There is the Truth where Love and Righteousness are ~ buddhist Text
11) Compassion and love, behold the true religion! ~ Asoka
--
10) There is no happiness apart from rectitude. ~ buddhist Text
11) An upright life tastes calm repose by night and by day; it is penetrated with a serene felicity. ~ buddhist Text
12) The simple and upright man is as strong as if he were a great host. ~ Lao-Tse
--
14) The man full of uprightness is happy here below, sweet is his sleep by night and by day his heart is radiant with peace. ~ buddhist Text
15) The straight way is the love of the infinite essence. ~ Baha-Ullah: The Seven Valleys
--
23) The wise in joy and in sorrow depart not from the equality of their souls. ~ buddhist Text
24) What is the sign of a man settled in the fixity of his soul and his understanding? When he casts from him all desires that come to the mind, satisfied in himself and with himself, when his mind is undisturbed in pain and without desire in pleasure, when liking and fear and wrath have passed away from him, then a man is fixed in his understanding. He who is unaffected in all things by good or by evil happening, neither rejoices in them nor hates, in him wisdom is established. ~ Bhagavad Gita
--
6) Wherefore, O my brothers, if men blame you, condemn you, persecute or attack you, you shall not be indignant, you shall not be discouraged and your spirit shall not be cast down. ~ buddhist Text
7) Be indifferent to the praise and blame of men; consider it as if the croakings of frogs. ~ Ramakrishna
--
14) Patience is an invincible breast-plate. ~ Chinese buddhist Scriptures
15) If you do not cover yourself on every side with the shield of patience, you will not remain long without wounds. ~ Imitation of Christ
--
8) Be watchful, divest yourself of all neglectfulness; follow the path. ~ buddhist Maxims
9) Watch diligently over yourselves, let not negligence be born in you. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king
--
12) Watch with care over your heart and give not way to heedlessness; practise conscientiously every virtue and let not there be born in you any evil inclination. ~ buddhist Maxims
13) Above all things avoid heedlessness; it is the enemy of all virtues. ~ Fo-shu-hiug-tsan-king
--
11) A single day of life of the man who stimulates himself by an act of energy, is of more value than a hundred years passed in norchalance and indolence. ~ buddhist Texts
12) Indolence is a soil. ~ buddhist Texts
13) The disciple has rejected indolence and indolence conquers him not; loving the light, intelligent, clearly conscient, he purifies his heart of all laxness and all lassitude. ~ buddhist Texts
14) I know nothing which engenders evil and weakens good so much as carelessness; in the uncaring evil appears at once and effaces good. I know nothing which engenders good and weakens evil so much as energy; in the energetic good at once appears and evil vanishes. ~ buddhist Texts
15) Carelessness is not proper even for the worldling who derives vanity from his family and his riches; how much less for a disciple who has proposed to himself for his goal to discover the path of liberation ! ~ Fo -shu-hing-tsan-king
16) Whoso has been careless and has conquered his carelessness, whoso having committed errors concentrates his whole will towards good, shines on the darkened world like the moon in a cloudless sky, ~ buddhist Sayings from the Chinese
17) Use all your forces for endeavour and leave no room for carelessness. ~ buddhist Texts
18) Endeavour with your whole energy and leave no place for carelessness. ~ Fo -shu-hing-tsan-king
--
5) Be firm in the accomplishment of your duties, the great and the small. ~ buddhist Texts
6) Be ye steadfast, immovable. ~ Corinthians XV. 58
--
15) Therefore regard attentively this ocean of impermanence, contemplate it even to its foundation and labour no more to attain but one sole thing,-the kingdom of the Permanent. ~ buddhist Texts
16) Deliver yourself from all that is not your self; but what is it that is not your self? The body, the sensations, the perceptions, the relative differentiations. This liberation will lead you to felicity and peace. ~ buddhist Texts
17) My brother, a delicate heart is like a mirror; polish it by love and detachment, that the Sun of the Reality may reflect itself in it and the divine Dawn arise. ~ Baha-ullah
--
19) Root out in thee all love of thyself and all egoism. ~ buddhist Texts
20) Above all banish the thought of the "I." ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-kiug
--
3) Who is blinder even than the blind? The man of passion. ~ buddhist Maxim
4) When the soul has not self-mastery, one looks and sees not, listens and hears not. ~ Theng-tse
--
11) Happy the man who has tamed the senses and is utterly their master. ~ buddhist Maxims
12) A man who has comm and over his senses and the forces of his being, has a just title to the name of king. ~ Angelus Silesius
--
34) As a living man abstains from mortal poisons, so put away from thee all defilement. ~ buddhist Texts
35) Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. ~ Proverbs IV. 23
--
19) He whose mind is utterly purified from soil, as heaven is pure from stain and the moon from dust, him indeed I call a man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
20) He whose mind is utterly pure from all evil as the Sun is pure of stain and the moon of soil, him indeed I call a man of religion. ~ Udanavagga
21) He who practises wisdom without anger or covetousness, who fulfils with fidelity his vows and lives master of himself, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
22) He who watches over his body, his speech, his whole self, who is full of serenity and joy, possesses a spirit unified and finds satisfaction in solitude, he is in-deed a man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
23) He who has perfectly mastered himself in thought and speech and act, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
24) He who puts away from him all passion, hatred, pride and hypocrisy, who pronounces words instructive and benevolent, who does not make his own what has not been given to him, who without desire, covetousness, impatience knows the depths of the Permanent, he is indeed a.man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
25) He who afflicts no living creature, who neither kills nor allows to be killed, him indeed I call a man of religion. Whoever wishes to consecrate himself to the spiritual life, ought not to destroy any life. ~ buddhist Text
26)He who punishes not, kills not, permits not to be killed, who is full of love among those who are full of hate, full of sweetness among those who are full of cruelty, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
27) He who has conquered the desire of the present life and of the future life, who has vanquished all fear and broken all chain, he is indeed a man of religion. ~ buddhist Text
The Psychology of Social Development - I View Similar Our Demand and Need from the Gita
--
10) An evil thought is the most dangerous of all thieves. ~ buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese
11) We hear it said and taught over the whole surface of the earth, "Be good, be good." There is hardly anywhere a child, wherever he is born, to whom one does not say, "Do not steal, do not lie". But we can only be really helpful to him by teaching him to dominate his thoughts. ~ Vivekananda
--
16) When a thought of anger or cruelty or a bad and unwholesome inclination awakes in a man, let him immediately throw it from him. let him dispel it, destroy it, prevent it from staying with him. ~ buddhist Maxims
17) When the disciple regarding his ideas sees appear in him bad and unwholesome thoughts, thoughts of covetousness, hatred, error, he should either turn his mind from them and concentrate on a healthy idea, or examine the fatal nature of the thought, or else he should analyse it and decompose it into its different elements, or calling up all his strength and applying the greatest energy suppress it from his mind: so bad and unwholesome thoughts withdraw and disappear, and the mind becomes firm, calm, unified, vigorous. ~ buddhist Maxims
18) We cannot prevent birds from flying over our heads but we can prevent them from making their nests there. So we cannot prevent evil thoughts from traversing the mind, but we have the power not to let them make their nest in it so as to hatch and engender evil actions. ~ Luther
--
20) Battle with all thy force to cross the great torrent of desire. ~ buddhist Texts
21) Fight the good fight, lay hold on eternal life. ~ I Timothy. VI. 12
--
24) I strive not against the world, but it is the world which strives against me.-It is better to perish in the battle against evil than to be conquered by it and remain living. ~ buddhist Texts
The Psychology of Self-Perfection View Similar "Is India Civilised" - III
--
5) This is the noble way in regard to the origin of suffering; its origin is that thirst made up of egoistic desires which produces individual existence and which now here, now there hunts for its self-satisfaction, and such is the thirst of sensation, the thirst of existence, the thirst of domination and well-being. ~ buddhist Texts
6)The consciousness which is born of the battle of the sense-organs with their corresponding objects, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in it; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes its origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. The sensations which are born of the senses, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in them; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes its origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. The perception and the representation of the objects sensed by the senses, man finds agreeable and takes pleasure in them; it is in that pleasure that this thirst takes origin, is developed and becomes fixed and rooted. ~ buddhist Texts
7)It is in the foundation of our being that the conditions of existence have their root. It is from the foundation of our being that they start up and take form. ~ buddhist Texts
8)The action of man made of desire, dislike and illusion starts from his own being, in himself it has its source and, wherever it is found, must come to ripeness, and wherever his action comes to ripeness, man gathers its fruits whether in this or some other form of life. ~ buddhist Texts
9) Desire is the profoundest root of all evil; it is from desire that there has arisen the world of life and sorrow. ~ Pali Canon
10)Like burning coals are our desires; they are full of suffering, full of torment and a yet heavier distressfulness. ~ buddhist Texts
11)No living being possessed by desire can escape from sorrow. Those who have full understanding of this truth, conceive a hatred for desire. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsau-king
12)The man who has conquered his unreined desires, offers no hold to sorrow; it glides over him like water over the leaves of the lotus. ~ buddhist Texts
13) They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. ~ Hosea VIII
14) Every action a man performs in thought, word and act, remains his veritable possession. It follows him and does not leave him even as a shadow separates not by a line from him who casts it. ~ buddhist Texts
15) The fruit of coveting and desire ripens in sorrow; pleasant at first it soon burns, as a torch burns the hand of the fool who has not in time cast it from him. ~ Sutra in 42 articles
--
11) If thou art weary of suffering and affliction, do no longer any transgression, neither openly nor in secret. ~ buddhist Texts
12) Thou shalt heal thy soul and deliver it from all its pain and travailing. ~ Pythagoras
--
15) Leave hereafter iniquity and accomplish righteousness. ~ buddhist Texts
16) Once thou hadst passions and namedst them evils. But now thou hast only virtues; they were born from thy passions. Thou broughtest into thy passions thy highest aim; then they became thy virtues and thy joys. ~ Nietzsche: Zarathustra
17)Let all men accomplish only the works of righteousness, and they shall build for themselves a place of safety where they can store their treasures. ~ buddhist Texts
18) Let a man make haste towards good, let him turn away his thought from evil. ~ Dhammapada
--
33) The saintly disciple who applies himself in silence to right meditation, has surmounted covetousness, negligence, wrath, the inquietude of speculation and doubt; he contemplates and enlightens all beings friendly or hostile, with a limitless compassion, a limitless sympathy, a limitless serenity. He recognises that all internal phenomena are impermanent, subjected to sorrow and without substantial reality, and turning from these things he concentrates his mind on the permanent. ~ buddhist Texts
34) He should sanctify his soul, for it is there that there sits the eternal Beloved; he should deliver his mind from all that is the water and mire of things without reality, vain shadows, so as to keep in himself no trace of love or hatred; for love may lead into the evil way and hatred prevents us from following the good path. ~ Bahu-ullah
--
16) A torrent of clarity streams from the mind which is purified in full of all its impurities. ~ buddhist Texts
17) By the purity of the thoughts, of the actions, of holy words one cometh to know Ahura-Mazda. ~ Avesta: Yana
--
29) Renovate thyself daily. ~ A Chinese buddhist Inscription
Purification-The Lower Mentality View Similar A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - IV
--
9) Three roots of evil: desire, disliking and ignorance. ~ buddhist Texts
10) Three roads to good: knowledge, the spiritual life and the control of the mind. ~ Sangiti Sutta
--
19) Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of distraction and the joy of vigilance; but nobler is the joy that is heedful. ~ buddhist Texts
20) Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the sated senses and the joy of the equal soul; but nobler is the joy of equality. ~ buddhist Texts
21) Two kinds of joy are there O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the senses and the joy of the spirit; but nobler is the joy of the spirit. ~ buddhist Texts
22) Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy to possess and the joy to renounce; but nobler is the joy of renunciation. ~ buddhist Texts
23) Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of egoism and the joy to forget oneself; but nobler is the joy of self-oblivion. ~ buddhist Texts
24) There is an internal war in man between reason and the passions. He could get some peace if he had only reason without passions or only passions without reason, but because he has both, he must be at war, since he cannot have peace with one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided and in opposition to himself. ~ buddhist Texts
25) For the good that I would do, I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do.. I find then a law that, when I would dogood, evil is present with me. ~ Pascal
--
35) One road conducts to the goods of this world, honour and riches, but the other to victory over the world. Seek not the goods of the world, riches and honour. Let your aim be to transcend the world. ~ buddhist Texts
36) Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. ~ buddhist Texts
37) Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; for the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the desire of the spirit is against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other. ~ Matthew XII. 13
--
7) Let not the favourable moment pass thee by, for those who have suffered it to escape them, shall lament when they find themselves on the path which leads to the abyss. ~ buddhist Texts
8) How shouldst thou not profit by thy age of strength to issue from the evil terrain? ~ Kin-yuan-li-sao
--
10) Seek out swiftly the way of righteousness; turn without delay from that which defiles thee. ~ buddhist Texts
11) Knowest thou not that thy life, whether long or brief, consists only of a few breathings? ~ Farid-ud-din-attar
--
10) Heedlessness is the road of death. ~ buddhist Texts
11) To be heedful of one's soul is the way to immortality, but heedlessness is the highway of death. They who persevere and are heedful shall not perish, but the careless are even now as if souls that are dead. ~ Dhammapada
--
35) Be not taken in the snares of the Prince of death, let him not cast thee to the ground because thou hast been heedless. ~ buddhist Texts
36) Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. ~ Revelations III. 1
--
40) When thou art purified of thy omissions and thy pollutions, thou shalt come by that which is beyond age and death. ~ buddhist Texts
41) Strive forcefully, cross the current. ~ Dhammapada
--
45) Those who are consecrated to Truth shall surely gain the other shore and they shall cross the torrent waves of death. ~ buddhist Texts
Recent English Poetry - II View Similar Karma
--
15) As the floods when they have thrown themselves into the ocean, lose their name and their form and one cannot say of them, "Behold, they are here, they are there, " though still they are, so one cannot say of the Perfect when he has entered into the supreme Nirvana, "He is here, he is there," though he is still in existence. ~ buddhist Meditations,
16) The traveller in this valley may seem to be seated in the dust, but in truth he sits upon spiritual heights receiving the eternal favours, drinking the exquisite wine of the spirit. ~ Baha-ullah: The Seven Valleys
--
3) Young and old and those who are growing to age, shall all die one after the other like fruits that fall. ~ buddhist Texts
4) Man falls not suddenly into death, but moves to meet him step by step. We are dying each day; each day robs us of a part of our existence. ~ Sencea
--
7) As a ripe fruit is at every moment in peril of detaching itself from the branch, so every creature born lives under a perpetual menace of death. ~ buddhist Texts
8) The lives of mortal men are like vases of many colours made by the potter's hands; they are broken into a thousand pieces ; there is one end for all. ~ buddhist Texts
9) As the herdsman urges with his staff his cattle to the stall, so age and death drive before them the lives of men. ~ Udanavarga
10) Like the waves of a river that flow slowly on and return never back, the days of human life pass and come not back again. ~ buddhist Texts
11) Like the waves of a rivulet, day and night are flowing the hours of life and coining nearer and nearer to their end. ~ buddhist Texts
12) Time is a flood, an impetuous torrent which drags with it all that is born. A thing has scarcely appeared when it is carried away; another has already passed; and this other will soon fall into the gulf. ~ Marcus Aurelius
--
5) There is no pollution like unto hatred. ~ buddhist Text
6) Whosoever nourishes feelings of hatred against those who hate, will never purify himself, but one who in reply to hatred awakens love, appeases and softens those who are filled with hatred. ~ Magghima Nikaya
--
16) With a heart pure and overflowing with love I desire to act towards others even as I would toward myself. ~ buddhist Text
Nor Anger View Similar First Mundaka
The Garden of Forking Paths 1, #Selected Fictions, #unset, #Zen
"A strange destiny," said Stephen Albert, "that of Ts'ui Pen - Governor of his native province, learned in astronomy, in astrology and tireless in the interpretation of the canonical books, a chess player, a famous poet and a calligrapher. Yet he abandoned all to make a book and a labyrinth. He gave up all the pleasures of oppression, justice, of a well-stocked bed, of banquets, and even of erudition, and shut himself up in the Pavilion of the Limpid Sun for thirteen years. At his death, his heirs found only a mess of manuscripts. The family, as you doubtless know, wished to consign them to the fire, but the executor of the estate - a Taoist or a buddhist monk - insisted on their publication."
"Those of the blood of Ts'ui Pen," I replied, "still curse the memory of that monk.
The Garden of Forking Paths 2, #Selected Fictions, #unset, #Zen
"An astounding fate, that of Ts'ui Pen," Stephen Albert said. "Governor of his native province, learned in astronomy, in astrology and in the tireless interpretation of the canonical books, chess player, famous poet and calligrapher-he abandoned all this in order to compose a book and a maze. He renounced the pleasures of both tyranny and justice, of his populous couch, of his banquets and even of erudition-all to close himself up for thirteen years in the Pavilion of the Limpid Solitude. When he died, his heirs found nothing save chaotic manuscripts. His family, as you may be aware, wished to condemn them to the fire; but his executor-a Taoist or buddhist monk-insisted on their publication."
"We descendants of Ts'ui Pen," I replied, "continue to curse that monk. Their publication was senseless. The book is an indeterminate heap of contradictory drafts. I examined it once: in the third chapter the hero dies, in the fourth he is alive. As for the other undertaking of Ts'ui Pen, his labyrinth. . ."
The Poems of Cold Mountain, #Cold Mountain, #Han-shan, #Zen
willow catkins in spring along river embankments. buddhists liken spiritual discipline to
a raft one uses for crossing the Sea of Suffering. Taoists, meanwhile, find the ingredients
The Riddle of this World, #unknown, #Unknown, #unset
possibilities then, to get out of it into Nirvana by the buddhist or the
illusionist way or to get inside oneself and find the Divine there since he
--- Overview of noun buddhist
The noun buddhist has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (1) Buddhist ::: (one who follows the teachings of Buddha)
--- Overview of adj buddhist
The adj buddhist has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (1) Buddhist, Buddhistic ::: (of or relating to or supporting Buddhism; "Buddhist sculpture")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun buddhist
1 sense of buddhist
Sense 1
Buddhist
=> religious person
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun buddhist
1 sense of buddhist
Sense 1
Buddhist
=> Mon
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun buddhist
1 sense of buddhist
Sense 1
Buddhist
=> religious person
--- Similarity of adj buddhist
1 sense of buddhist
Sense 1
Buddhist, Buddhistic
--- Antonyms of adj buddhist
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun buddhist
1 sense of buddhist
Sense 1
Buddhist
-> religious person
=> religionist
=> Christian
=> non-Catholic
=> Muslim, Moslem
=> Buddhist
=> Hindu, Hindoo
=> abstainer, ascetic
=> agnostic
=> anointer
=> believer, worshiper, worshipper
=> celibate
=> churchgoer, church member
=> coreligionist
=> Mandaean, Mandean
=> missionary, missioner
=> Moonie
=> oblate
=> Nazarene, Ebionite
=> novitiate, novice
=> pagan
=> Parsee, Parsi
=> penitent
=> prayer, supplicant
=> prophet
=> religious
=> religious leader
=> Sabbatarian
=> sacrificer
=> tritheist
HAS INSTANCE=> Eddy, Mary Baker Eddy, Mary Morse Baker Eddy
HAS INSTANCE=> Fox, George Fox
--- Pertainyms of adj buddhist
1 sense of buddhist
Sense 1
Buddhist, Buddhistic
Pertains to noun Buddhism (Sense 2)
=>Buddhism
=> religion, faith, religious belief
--- Derived Forms of adj buddhist
--- Grep of noun buddhist
buddhist
zen buddhist
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Wikipedia - Buddhist philosophy -- Elaboration and explanation of the delivered teachings of the Buddha
Wikipedia - Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India
Wikipedia - Buddhist pilgrimage sites
Wikipedia - Buddhist pilgrimage
Wikipedia - Buddhist poetry
Wikipedia - Buddhist prayer beads
Wikipedia - Buddhist Precepts
Wikipedia - Buddhist psychology
Wikipedia - Buddhist Publication Society
Wikipedia - Buddhist schools
Wikipedia - Buddhist scripture
Wikipedia - Buddhist socialism
Wikipedia - Buddhist Society of India -- Buddhist organization in India, founded by B. R. Ambedkar
Wikipedia - Buddhist Society
Wikipedia - Buddhist studies
Wikipedia - Buddhist sutras
Wikipedia - Buddhist symbolism
Wikipedia - Buddhist Tantras
Wikipedia - Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Buddhist texts -- Historic literature of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Buddhist vegetarianism -- Vegetarianism in Buddhist culture and philosophy
Wikipedia - Buddhist view of marriage -- Buddhist perspectives on the tradition of marriage
Wikipedia - Buddhist
Wikipedia - BuddhabhiM-aM-9M-#eka -- Buddhist rituals used to consecrate images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas
Wikipedia - Bunhwangsa -- Buddhist temple in South Korea
Wikipedia - Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs
Wikipedia - Buseoksa -- Buddhist temple in South Korea
Wikipedia - ByM-EM-^MdM-EM-^M-in -- Buddhist temple in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan
Wikipedia - Category:13th-century Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:1st-century Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:1st-century Buddhist nuns
Wikipedia - Category:1st-century Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:20th-century Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:21st-century Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:American Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:American Theravada Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:American Zen Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Bhutanese Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Bhutanese Buddhist teachers
Wikipedia - Category:British Buddhist scholars
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist acharyas
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist and Christian interfaith dialogue
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist artists
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist biography stubs
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist clergy by type
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist clergy stubs
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist cosmology
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist devotion
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist literature
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist logic
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist martial arts
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist meditation
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist monks from Tibet
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist mysticism
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist mystics
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist mythology
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist new religious movements
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist philosophical concepts
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist philosophy
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist poetry
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist poets
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist practices
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist reformers
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist religious leaders
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist religious occupations
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist revivalists
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhists by denomination
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist scholars from Tibet
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist scholars
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhists of Jewish descent
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist symbols
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist teachers
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist terminology
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist titles
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist vegetarianism
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist writers
Wikipedia - Category:Buddhist yogis
Wikipedia - Category:Canadian Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Canadian Zen Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Chan Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Chinese Zen Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Edo period Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:English Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:English Buddhist teachers
Wikipedia - Category:Fictional Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Founders of Buddhist sects
Wikipedia - Category:Gelug Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Heian period Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Indian Buddhist missionaries
Wikipedia - Category:Indian Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Indian Buddhist scholars
Wikipedia - Category:Indian Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Japanese Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Japanese Buddhist scholars
Wikipedia - Category:Japanese Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Japanese Zen Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Kagyu Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Kamakura period Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:LGBT Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Liang dynasty Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Lists of Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Mahayana Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Nepalese Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Northern Wei Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Northern Wei Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Nyingmapa Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:People's Republic of China Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Persecution by Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Qing dynasty Tibetan Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Rinzai Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Shin Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Soto Zen Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category talk:Tibetan Buddhist teachers
Wikipedia - Category talk:Vajrayana Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Tang dynasty Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist concepts
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist literature
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist practices
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Australia
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Bhutan
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from France
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from India
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Mongolia
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Nepal
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Slovenia
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Taiwan
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Tibet
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist teachers
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist terminology
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist titles
Wikipedia - Category:Tibetan Buddhist yogis
Wikipedia - Category:Vajrayana Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Zen Buddhist monks and priests
Wikipedia - Category:Zen Buddhists
Wikipedia - Category:Zen Buddhist terminology
Wikipedia - Cetiya -- Holy cites & objects used by Theravada Buddhists to remember Gotama Buddha
Wikipedia - Chandra Khonnokyoong -- Thai nun and co-founder of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, a Thai Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Channa (Buddhist)
Wikipedia - Chedi Phukhao Thong -- Buddhist tower in Thailand
Wikipedia - Chhairo gompa -- Tibetan Buddhist monastry in Mustang, Nepal
Wikipedia - Chi Chao -- Jin dynasty minister and Buddhist writer
Wikipedia - Chinese Buddhist canon
Wikipedia - Chittagong Hill Tracts -- Buddhist-majority region in southeastern Bangladesh
Wikipedia - Chogyam Trungpa -- Tibetan Buddhist lama and writer (1939-1987)
Wikipedia - Chonjusa -- Korean Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Chung Tai Chan Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Taiwan
Wikipedia - City of Ten Thousand Buddhas -- Buddhist community in Mendocino County, California
Wikipedia - Companion statues: Kashyapa and Ananda -- Pair of Tang Dynasty sculptures, depicting Buddhist figures
Wikipedia - Creator in Buddhism -- Buddhist views on the belief in a creator deity, or any eternal divine personal being
Wikipedia - Daewonsa -- Buddhist temple in South Korea
Wikipedia - Daisaku Ikeda -- Japanese Buddhist philosopher, nuclear disarmament advocate, and President of Soka Gakkai International (born 1928)
Wikipedia - Daitoku-ji -- Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan
Wikipedia - Dalai Lama -- Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teacher
Wikipedia - Damien Keown -- Bioethicist focused on Buddhist ethics
Wikipedia - Daruma-ji -- Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Dasa sil mata -- Type of Buddhist renunciant in Sri Lanka
Wikipedia - Datsue-ba -- Buddhist deity
Wikipedia - Da zhidu lun -- Encyclopedic Mahayana Buddhist text meant as a commentary
Wikipedia - Deekshabhoomi -- Buddhist monument at Nagpur, Maharashtra, India
Wikipedia - Delta Beta Tau -- Buddhist college fraternity
Wikipedia - Desire realm -- Aspect of Buddhist cosmology
Wikipedia - Devadatta -- Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Developing Virtue Secondary School -- A private Buddhist secondary school in Talmage, California (USA)
Wikipedia - Dhammakaya meditation -- Thai Buddhist meditation method
Wikipedia - Dhammapala -- Name of two or more great Theravada Buddhist commentators
Wikipedia - Dharma Bum Temple -- Buddhist temple in the United States
Wikipedia - Dharma centre -- Non-monastic Buddhist centre in a community
Wikipedia - Dharma Drum Mountain -- Buddhist foundation founded by late Chan master Sheng-yen
Wikipedia - Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
Wikipedia - Dharma Realm Buddhist University -- Private, nonprofit Buddhist university in Ukiah, California, United States
Wikipedia - Diskit Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Ladakh, India
Wikipedia - DM-DM-+ghajaM-aM-9M-^Gu Sutta -- Buddhist text about ethics for lay people
Wikipedia - DM-DM-+gha Nikaya -- Buddhist scripture, "Collection of Long Discourses"
Wikipedia - DM-DM-+pankara Buddha -- Figure of Buddhist mythology
Wikipedia - DM-EM-^Mgen -- Japanese Zen buddhist teacher
Wikipedia - Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen -- Tibetan Buddhist master known as "The Buddha from Dolpo
Wikipedia - DoM-aM-9M-^Ga Sutta -- A short Buddhist discourse concerning the Buddha's nature or identity
Wikipedia - Draft:Sister Dang Nghiem -- Buddhist nun, teacher, and author
Wikipedia - Drukpa Kunley -- Buddhist master (1455-1529)
Wikipedia - Dubdi Monastery -- Buddhist monastery near Yuksom, Sikkim, India
Wikipedia - Duncan RyM-EM-+ken Williams -- Scholar and Buddhist priest (b. 1969)
Wikipedia - Dzogchen Beara -- Tibetan Buddhist retreat centre in West Cork, Ireland
Wikipedia - Early Buddhist Schools
Wikipedia - Early Buddhist schools -- Schools into which the Buddhist monastic saM-aM-9M-^Egha initially split
Wikipedia - Early Buddhist Texts
Wikipedia - Early Buddhist texts -- The parallel texts shared by the Early Buddhist schools
Wikipedia - East Asian Buddhist
Wikipedia - Eifuku-ji -- Buddhist temple in Minamikawachi District, Osaka
Wikipedia - Eight precepts -- Buddhist precepts kept on observance days and festivals
Wikipedia - Einosuke Akiya -- Japanese Buddhist leader
Wikipedia - Ekai Kawaguchi -- Japanese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Fahai -- Chinese Buddhist monk in the Tang Dynasty
Wikipedia - Famen Temple -- Buddhist temple in Shaanxi, China
Wikipedia - Fawang Temple -- Buddhist temple near Dengfeng, Henan, China
Wikipedia - Fayuan Zhulin -- Chinese Buddhist encyclopedic work
Wikipedia - Fifth Buddhist council
Wikipedia - Filial piety in Buddhism -- Aspect of Buddhist ethics, story-telling traditions, apologetics and history
Wikipedia - First Buddhist Council
Wikipedia - First Buddhist council -- Gathering of senior monks of the Buddhist order convened just after the Buddha's death
Wikipedia - Five Mountain System -- Network of state-sponsored Chan (Zen) Buddhist temples created in China during the Southern Song (1127-1279).
Wikipedia - Five precepts -- Basic code of ethics for Buddhist lay people
Wikipedia - Fo Guang Shan Temple, Tawau -- Buddhist temple in Tawau, Malaysia
Wikipedia - Four harmonious animals -- Story in Buddhist traditions, especially South Asian
Wikipedia - Four Noble Truths -- Basic framework of Buddhist thought
Wikipedia - Frank Ostaseski -- American Buddhist teacher
Wikipedia - Freda Bedi -- British Buddhist nun
Wikipedia - Fuang Jotiko -- Thai Buddhist monk, 1915-1986
Wikipedia - Gaeunsa -- Buddhist temple in South Korea
Wikipedia - Gaman (term) -- Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin
Wikipedia - Gandharan Buddhist texts
Wikipedia - Gangchen Tulku Rinpoche -- Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Gedatsu Church of America -- American Buddhist church
Wikipedia - GempM-EM-^M Yamamoto -- Japanese Zen Buddhist
Wikipedia - Genshin -- Japanese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - GesshM-EM-+ SM-EM-^Mko -- Zen Buddhist teacher and calligrapher
Wikipedia - Ghost Festival -- Traditional Buddhist and Taoist festival
Wikipedia - Global Buddhist Network -- Thai online television channel
Wikipedia - Golden Pagoda, Namsai -- Burmese-style Buddhist temple in India
Wikipedia - Gompa -- Tibetan Buddhist and Bon religious monastery
Wikipedia - Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution
Wikipedia - Great Stupa of Universal Compassion -- Buddhist monument under construction near Bendigo, Victoria, Australia
Wikipedia - Greco-Buddhist art -- Artistic syncretism between Classical Greece and Buddhist India
Wikipedia - Greco-Buddhist monasticism
Wikipedia - Greco-Buddhist
Wikipedia - Gregory Schopen -- American scholar Buddhist studies
Wikipedia - Gyoran-ji -- Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Japan
Wikipedia - Hachiman -- Japanese Shinto-Buddhist syncretic deity
Wikipedia - Haeinsa -- Buddhist temple in Hapcheon County, Korea
Wikipedia - Hakuin Ekaku -- Japanese Zen Buddhist master
Wikipedia - Hannah Nydahl -- Bhutanese Buddhist teacher (1946-2007)
Wikipedia - Harada Daiun Sogaku -- Japanese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Haribhadra (Buddhist philosopher)
Wikipedia - Hariti -- Both a revered goddess and demon in some Buddhist traditions
Wikipedia - Higan -- Buddhist holiday exclusively during both the Spring and Autumnal Equinox
Wikipedia - Hill of the Buddha -- Buddhist shrine in Sapporo, Japan
Wikipedia - History of Wat Phra Dhammakaya -- History of a Thai Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - HM-CM-2a HM-aM-:M-#o -- Lay Buddhist organization, founded in 1939 by HuM-aM-;M-3nh Phu SM-aM-;M-^U
Wikipedia - Hongchunping Temple -- Buddhist temple on Mount Emei, Leshan, Sichuan, China
Wikipedia - Householder (Buddhism) -- Buddhist layperson with responsibilities
Wikipedia - Htupayon Pagoda -- A Buddhist stupa located in Sagaing
Wikipedia - Huiguo -- Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Huiwen -- Chinese Buddhist
Wikipedia - Huiyuan (Buddhist) -- Chinese Buddhist teacher
Wikipedia - Hungry ghost -- Chinese conception of the preta of Buddhist mythology
Wikipedia - Hyecho -- 8th-century Korean Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - IkkM-EM-^M-ikki -- mobs of peasant farmers, Buddhist monks, Shinto priests and local nobles who rose up against daimyM-EM-^M rule in 15th- and 16th-century Japan
Wikipedia - Institute of Buddhist Studies
Wikipedia - International Buddhist College -- Buddhist institution of higher education
Wikipedia - International Buddhist Film Festival
Wikipedia - International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University
Wikipedia - Issan Dorsey -- American Soto Zen Buddhist
Wikipedia - Italian Buddhist Union -- Association representing Buddhism in Italy
Wikipedia - Jack Kornfield -- American writer and Buddhist teacher
Wikipedia - Jakucho Setouchi -- 20th and 21st-century Japanese Buddhist nun and novelist
Wikipedia - Jan Nattier -- American scholar of Buddhist studies
Wikipedia - Japanese Buddhist architecture
Wikipedia - Japanese Buddhist pantheon
Wikipedia - Jewish Buddhist -- Person with a Jewish background who practices a form of Dhyanam Buddhist-linked meditation, yoga, chanting or spirituality
Wikipedia - Jigen-ji -- Buddhist temple in Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Wikipedia - Jikjisa -- Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Jinakalamali -- A post-canonical Buddhist chronicle used in Theravadin countries
Wikipedia - JinapaM-CM-1jara -- Buddhist devotional text used for recitation and meditation
Wikipedia - Jin Taw Yan -- Buddhist temple in Burma
Wikipedia - JM-EM-^Mten-ji -- Buddhist temple in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
Wikipedia - Joan Halifax -- American Zen Buddhist roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, and civil rights activist
Wikipedia - Kadadora Vihara -- Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka
Wikipedia - Kalachakra Stupa (Greece) -- Buddhist stupa in southern Greece
Wikipedia - Kalpa (aeon) -- Long period of time in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology
Wikipedia - Kalyani Ordination Hall -- Buddhist hall in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Kangiten -- Japanese Buddhist elephant-headed god
Wikipedia - Kanishka casket -- Buddhist reliquary in Peshawar Museum, Pakistan
Wikipedia - Karmapa International Buddhist Institute
Wikipedia - Kasaya (clothing) -- Robes worn by fully-ordained Buddhist monks and nuns
Wikipedia - Kasina -- Type of Buddhist meditation and objects used in such meditation
Wikipedia - Kathina -- Theravada Buddhist festival, held yearly
Wikipedia - Katyayana (Buddhist) -- Leading disciple of Gautama Buddha
Wikipedia - KeneM-EM-^M -- Buddhist mythological creature
Wikipedia - Khema -- Foremost female disciple of Gautama Buddha, Buddhist nun
Wikipedia - Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche -- Buddhist lama
Wikipedia - Khentrul Jamphel Lodro Rinpoche -- Tibetan Buddhist Rime Master
Wikipedia - Khuong ViM-aM-;M-^Gt -- Vietnamese Buddhist monk and poet
Wikipedia - Kingdom of Khotan -- Iranian Saka Buddhist kingdom (56-1006)
Wikipedia - Kings of Shambhala -- Thirty-two kings in the Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist tradition
Wikipedia - Kinnara -- Hindu and Buddhist mythological creature
Wikipedia - Kitano temple ruins -- Archaeological site of an Asuka period Buddhist temple in present day Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
Wikipedia - KM-EM-+kai -- Japanese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - KM-EM-^MshM-EM-+ Itabashi -- Japanese Zen Buddhist
Wikipedia - KongM-EM-^M-ji -- Buddhist temple in Osaka, Japan
Wikipedia - Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery -- Largest Buddhist temple in Singapore
Wikipedia - Korean Buddhist Temples
Wikipedia - Korean Buddhist temples
Wikipedia - Kotapola Amarakitti Thero -- Sri Lankan Buddhist monk and politician
Wikipedia - Kotugoda Dhammawasa Thera -- Sri Lankan Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Koya-dofu -- Koya-dofu is frozen-dried tofu, a Japanese pantry staple and an important ingredient in Buddhist vegetarian cookery.
Wikipedia - Kshanti -- Buddhist concept of patience, forbearance and forgiveness
Wikipedia - K. Sri Dhammaratana -- Malaysian Buddhist monk (born 1948)
Wikipedia - Kucha -- ancient Buddhist kingdom on the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert
Wikipedia - Kumbum -- Type of Tibetan Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Kung Fu Nuns -- Order of Buddhist nuns who belong to the Drukpa Lineage
Wikipedia - Kyaikthanlan Pagoda -- Buddhist monastery in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Kyauksein Pagoda -- Buddhist pagoda in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Lachung Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Sikkim, India
Wikipedia - Lake Superior Zendo -- SM-EM-^MtM-EM-^M Zen Buddhist temple located in Marquette, Michigan, United States
Wikipedia - Lankapatuna Samudragiri Viharaya -- Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Lingdum Monastery -- Buddhist monastery near Ranka, Sikkim, North East India
Wikipedia - Lingfeng Temple -- Buddhist temple located in Taihuai Town of Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi, China
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist architecture in China
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist colleges and universities in Nepal -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist festivals -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist members of the United States Congress -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist monasteries in Sikkim -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist philosophers
Wikipedia - List of Buddhists -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist temples -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist terms and concepts
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist topics
Wikipedia - List of Buddhist viharas in Bangladesh -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Dhammakaya branches -- List of branch centers of the Thai Buddhist Dhammakaya Movement
Wikipedia - List of Korean Buddhists -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Living Treasures of Hawaii -- Program by the Buddhist temple Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii to honor Hawaii residents
Wikipedia - List of modern scholars in Buddhist studies -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Liyan (Buddhist monk) -- 9th century Buddhist monk ; translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese
Wikipedia - Lokaksema (Buddhist monk) -- 2nd century Indian Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - London Buddhist Lodge
Wikipedia - Longquan Monastery -- Buddhist temple in Haidian District, Beijing, China
Wikipedia - Lopon Tsechu -- Bhutanese buddhist teacher (1918-2003)
Wikipedia - L. S. Cousins -- Buddhist studies scholar
Wikipedia - Luang Pho Daeng -- Mummified Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Luang Por Dhammajayo -- Thai Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Luang Pu Sodh Candasaro -- Thai Buddhist monk and founder of the Dhammakaya meditation school
Wikipedia - Luminous mind -- Metaphor used in Buddhist doctrine
Wikipedia - Madhyanta-vibhaga-karika -- Key work in Buddhist philosophy of the Yogacara school
Wikipedia - Mahabodhi Temple -- Buddhist temple
Wikipedia - Mahamakut Buddhist University -- Public Buddhist university in Thailand
Wikipedia - Maha Myat Muni Temple -- Buddhist temple in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Mahanipata Jataka -- Buddhist collection of stories
Wikipedia - Mahar Shwe Thein Daw Pagoda -- A Buddhist temple in Thin Taung Gyi village
Wikipedia - Mahasi Sayadaw -- Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk (1904-1982)
Wikipedia - Maha Thetkya Yanthi Buddha -- Buddhist temple in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Mahinda (buddhist monk)
Wikipedia - Maitreya -- Future Buddha in Buddhist eschatology
Wikipedia - Majjhantika -- Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - MakyM-EM-^M -- "Ghost cave": Zen Buddhist concept
Wikipedia - M-aM-9M-^Zddhi -- Technical term in Buddhist doctrine and practice
Wikipedia - Man Buddha Temple -- Buddhist temple in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Manpuku-ji -- Buddhist temple in Uji, Japan
Wikipedia - Marathi Buddhists -- Buddhists of Marathi ethnic and linguistic identity
Wikipedia - Martine Batchelor -- French Buddhist nun
Wikipedia - Masao Abe -- Japanese Buddhist
Wikipedia - Matsyendra -- 10th century Hindu and Buddhist saint and yogi
Wikipedia - Mawtinzun Pagoda -- Buddhist temple in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Maya (Buddhist mental factor) -- Buddhist term
Wikipedia - Maya Devi Temple, Lumbini -- Ancient Buddhist temple at Lumbini, Nepal
Wikipedia - M-DM-^@nanda -- Attendant of the Buddha and main figure in First Buddhist Council
Wikipedia - M-DM-^@tman (Buddhism) -- Buddhist concept of self
Wikipedia - SM-EM-+nyata -- Buddhist theological concept of voidness in ontology, meditation and phenomenology
Wikipedia - Sravakayana -- Mahayana Buddhist term referring to certain types of Buddhist doctrine
Wikipedia - Merit (Buddhism) -- Concept considered fundamental to Buddhist ethics
Wikipedia - Middle Way -- Buddhist doctrine
Wikipedia - Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera -- Sri Lankan Buddhist orator
Wikipedia - Miracles of Gautama Buddha -- Supernatural feats and abilities attributed to Gautama Buddha by the Buddhist scriptures
Wikipedia - Magha PM-EM-+ja -- Buddhist festival and day of observance in Southeast and South Asia
Wikipedia - Mana -- A Buddhist term that may be translated as "pride", "arrogance", or "conceit"
Wikipedia - Mogaung Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Moggaliputta-Tissa -- Indian Buddhist monk and scholar, associated with emperor Ashoka
Wikipedia - Mount Meru -- Sacred mountain of Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu cosmology
Wikipedia - Mouzi Lihuolun -- A classic Chinese Buddhist work
Wikipedia - Mulian Rescues His Mother -- Popular Chinese Buddhist tale
Wikipedia - Mundamala -- garland of severed human heads and/or skulls in Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist iconography
Wikipedia - MusM-EM-^M Soseki -- Japanese Zen-Buddhist teacher and landscape architect
Wikipedia - MyM-EM-^Mchikai KyM-EM-^Mdan -- Japanese Buddhist lay organisation that stems from ReiyM-EM-+kai
Wikipedia - MyM-EM-^MdM-EM-^Mkai KyM-EM-^Mdan -- Japanese Buddhist lay organisation that stems from the ReiyM-EM-+kai
Wikipedia - MyM-EM-^MryM-EM-+-ji -- Buddhist temple in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan
Wikipedia - Myo Daunt Pagoda -- Buddhist pagoda in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Nalandabodhi -- Buddhist organization
Wikipedia - Nalanda -- Ancient Buddhist monastery in India
Wikipedia - Namantar Andolan -- University's Name Change Movement by Buddhists & Dalits
Wikipedia - Nanda (Buddhist nun)
Wikipedia - Nanda (Buddhist)
Wikipedia - Nan Hua Temple -- The largest Buddhist temple and seminary in Africa, in Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa
Wikipedia - Naropa -- Indian Buddhist Mahasiddha
Wikipedia - Neo-Buddhist movement
Wikipedia - Network of Buddhist Organisations -- British ecumenical body
Wikipedia - New England Peace Pagoda -- Buddhist stupa in Leverett, Massachusetts, US
Wikipedia - Ngahtatgyi Buddha Temple -- Buddhist temple in Bahan Township
Wikipedia - Nikaya Buddhism -- Group of early Buddhist schools
Wikipedia - Nikken Abe -- Buddhist high priest
Wikipedia - Nishi Hongan-ji -- Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. Head temple of Honganji-ha school
Wikipedia - NM-DM-+lakaM-aM-9M-^GM-aM-9M--ha DharaM-aM-9M-^GM-DM-+ -- Buddhist mantra
Wikipedia - Noah Levine -- American Buddhist teacher and writer
Wikipedia - Noble Eightfold Path -- An early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara
Wikipedia - Norwich Buddhist Centre -- Buddhist centre in Norwich, Norfolk, England
Wikipedia - Omamori -- Japanese Shinto and Buddhist amulet
Wikipedia - Order of Interbeing -- International Buddhist community founded by Thich NhM-aM-:M-%t HM-aM-:M-!nh
Wikipedia - Ordination hall -- Type of Buddhist building
Wikipedia - Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies
Wikipedia - Padmasambhava -- 8th-century Buddhist Lama
Wikipedia - Pakhangyi Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Pakhannge Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Palcho Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Tibet
Wikipedia - PaM-aM-9M--M-aM-9M--hana -- Buddhist scripture
Wikipedia - Pancasikha -- Celestial musician in Buddhist texts
Wikipedia - Patikulamanasikara -- Type of traditional Buddhist meditation
Wikipedia - Patrick Gaffney (Buddhist)
Wikipedia - Paul Dahlke (Buddhist) -- German physician
Wikipedia - Paul Williams (Buddhist studies scholar)
Wikipedia - Peace Pagoda -- Buddhist stupa; a monument to inspire peace
Wikipedia - Pemayangtse Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Sikkim, India
Wikipedia - Perambalur Buddhas -- Set of historic Buddhist images found in Thiyaganur, Tamil Nadu, India
Wikipedia - Persecution of Buddhists
Wikipedia - Phra Malai -- A legendary Buddhist monk in South and Southeast Asia
Wikipedia - Phra That Kham Kaen -- Buddhist reliquary in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand
Wikipedia - Pindola Bharadvaja -- Buddhist Arahant
Wikipedia - Plaosan -- Buddhist temple in Indonesia
Wikipedia - PaguM-CM-1M-CM-1ata -- Buddhist term
Wikipedia - Pali Canon -- Buddhistibrahims ipad253554364465ipad 6th grne uaf557465280852967 14.2 kwufw52962mr6w7h87264753725 5981152
Wikipedia - Poh Ern Shih Temple -- Buddhist temple in Singapore
Wikipedia - Post-canonical Buddhist texts
Wikipedia - PrajM-CM-1a (Buddhist monk) -- 9th century Buddhist monk ; translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese
Wikipedia - Prajna (Buddhist Monk)
Wikipedia - PratM-DM-+tyasamutpada -- Fundamental Buddhist teaching on reincarnation
Wikipedia - Pure Land Buddhists
Wikipedia - Quan M-CM-^Bm Pagoda (Ho Chi Minh City) -- Chinese-style Buddhist pagoda in Cho Lon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, dedicated to Guanyin
Wikipedia - Rebirth (Buddhist)
Wikipedia - ReiyM-EM-+kai -- Japanese Buddhist new religious movement founded in 1919 by KakutarM-EM-^M Kubo and Kimi Kotani
Wikipedia - Rigpa (organization) -- international Buddhist organization
Wikipedia - RyM-EM-^Mkan -- Japanese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Sacca -- Buddhist term meaning "real" or "true"
Wikipedia - Saha Triad -- Devotional motif in East Asian Buddhist art
Wikipedia - Saidu Sharif Stupa -- Sacred Buddhist area near Saidu Sharif, Pakistan
Wikipedia - Sakyong Mipham -- American Buddhist leader, b. 1962
Wikipedia - Salugara Monastery -- Buddhist shrine outside Siliguri, West Bengal, India
Wikipedia - SaM-aM-9M-^Cyutta Nikaya -- Buddhist scripture
Wikipedia - Saman (deity) -- Buddhist god from Sri Lanka
Wikipedia - Samatha -- Buddhist term meaning "tranquility of the mind
Wikipedia - Samue -- Work clothing of Japanese Zen Buddhist monks
Wikipedia - Sanchi University of Buddhist-Indic Studies
Wikipedia - Sanchi -- Buddhist complex, famous for its Great Stupa, in Madhya Pradesh, India
Wikipedia - Sand mandala -- Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from coloured sand
Wikipedia - Sanmon -- Zen Buddhist temple gate
Wikipedia - Sanskrit Buddhist literature
Wikipedia - Sati (Buddhism) -- Buddhist concept of mindfulness or awareness
Wikipedia - Satori -- Japanese Buddhist term for awakening
Wikipedia - Satya Priya Mahathero -- Bangladeshi Buddhist leader
Wikipedia - Sayadaw U Narada -- Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk (1931-2006)
Wikipedia - Sayadaw U Tejaniya -- Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Sayadaw -- Burmese Buddhist title
Wikipedia - Scott Mitchell (Buddhist scholar) -- American scholar of Buddhism
Wikipedia - Seattle Buddhist Church -- A Japanese Jodo Shinshu Buddhist temple in Seattle, Washington, USA
Wikipedia - Senshin Buddhist Temple -- Buddhist temple in Los Angeles, California
Wikipedia - Sera Monastery -- Buddhist monastery in Tibet
Wikipedia - Shambhala Buddhist
Wikipedia - Shaolin Monastery -- Chan Buddhist temple in Dengfeng County, Henan Province, China
Wikipedia - Sharon Salzberg -- American Buddhist teacher
Wikipedia - Shinnyo-en -- A Japanese Buddhist order
Wikipedia - Shinnyo -- Japanese Buddhist nun (1211-1282)
Wikipedia - Shinran -- Japanese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Shin Upagutta -- Buddhist arahant
Wikipedia - ShM-EM-^MchM-EM-^M Hagami -- Japanese Buddhist
Wikipedia - ShM-EM-^MkM-EM-+ -- Founder of the JM-EM-^Mdo-shM-EM-+ Buddhist sect
Wikipedia - ShM-EM-^Mren-in -- Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan
Wikipedia - ShM-EM-^Mshinkai -- Japanese Nichiren Buddhist dissenting group formed in July 1980
Wikipedia - ShM-EM-^MsM-EM-^Min -- Buddhist temple in Nara Prefecture, Japan
Wikipedia - ShunryM-EM-+ Suzuki -- Japanese Buddhist monk who popularized Zen in the US
Wikipedia - Shwethalyaung Pagoda -- Buddhist temple in [[Kyaukse]]
Wikipedia - Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism
Wikipedia - Sixth Buddhist Council
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Wikipedia - Soka Gakkai International -- International Nichiren Buddhist movement founded in 1975 by Daisaku Ikeda
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Wikipedia - Surya Das -- American lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition
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Wikipedia - Syama Jataka -- A Buddhist tale of a former life of the Buddha
Wikipedia - Taima-dera -- Buddhist temple in Japan
Wikipedia - Takht-i-Bahi -- Archaeological site of an ancient Buddhist monastery in Pakistan
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Wikipedia - Tamote Shinpin Shwegugyi Temple -- A Theravada Buddhist temple in Kyaukse
Wikipedia - Tanaka-Iga -- Japanese company that produces Buddhist goods
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Wikipedia - Tattvasamgraha -- Text written by the 8th century Indian Buddhist pandit SantarakM-aM-9M-#ita
Wikipedia - Tawagu Pagoda -- Buddhist monastery in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Template talk:Buddhist-clergy-stub
Wikipedia - Template talk:Buddhist devotional practices
Wikipedia - Template talk:Chinese Buddhist Pantheon
Wikipedia - Template talk:Japanese Buddhist Pantheon
Wikipedia - Template talk:Modern Buddhist writers
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Wikipedia - Terma (religion) -- Hidden teachings in various Buddhist traditions
Wikipedia - Thanale Caves -- Buddhist caves in India (Maharashtra)
Wikipedia - Thangka -- Tibetan Buddhist painting
Wikipedia - Thatta Thattaha Maha Bawdi Pagoda -- Buddhist temple in Myanmar
Wikipedia - Thayettaw Monastery -- Buddhist monastic complex in Yangon, Myanmar
Wikipedia - Theravada Buddhist
Wikipedia - The sixteen dreams of King Pasenadi -- Story in post-canonical Buddhist texts
Wikipedia - The Twin Miracle -- One of the miracles by the Buddha, as described in Buddhist texts
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Wikipedia - Thich PhM-FM-0M-aM-;M-^[c NgM-aM-;M-^Mc -- Buddhist monk
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Wikipedia - Thich QuM-aM-:M-#ng M-DM-^PM-aM-;M-^Y -- Vietnamese Buddhist monk
Wikipedia - Thich Tri Quang -- Vietnamese Buddhist monk
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Wikipedia - Thirteen Buddhas -- Japanese grouping of Buddhist deities
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Wikipedia - Tibetan Buddhist architecture
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Wikipedia - Tibetan Buddhists
Wikipedia - Tibetan Buddhist wall paintings
Wikipedia - Tibetan Buddhist
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Wikipedia - Wat Pradu Chimphli -- Buddhist temple in Thailand
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Wikipedia - Wat -- Type of Buddhist and Hindu temple
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#Ba-di
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#Juzu
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#Mala
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#Numbers_and_Symbolism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#Shu_zhu
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_prayer_beads#Usage
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_Precepts
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhists
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhists_in_the_World
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_symbolism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_terms_and_concepts
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Buddhist_views_today
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Eating_meat_versus_killing
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Further_reading
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Mahayana
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Theravada
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Vajrayana
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Kheper - Buddhist -- 26
Kheper - Buddhist_meditation -- 8
auromere - buddhist-monk-is-the-worlds-happiest-man
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Integral World - Ken Wilber on Trial, Buddhist Organization Sues Ken Wilber for Fraud and Other Charges, Frank Visser
When Buddhists Go Bad: The Tragedy in Myanmar (And Why Development Trumps Doctrine)
Why Be a Buddhist, When You Can Be the Buddha?
selforum - buddhist eschewing of divine being
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2012/09/buddhist-cosmology.html
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2012/10/knowledge-in-buddhist-context.html
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2015/03/christian-buddhist-explorations-rainbow.html
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2016/01/buddhist-cosmology.html
https://esotericotherworlds.blogspot.com/2013/11/buddhist-phenomenology.html
wiki.auroville - Buddhist
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Corpse Princess (2008 - 2009) - the series centers on the "Corpse Princess" Makina Hoshimura, an undead girl who is hunting down 108 undead corpses in order to gain entry into heaven with the help of a secret society of anti-corpse Buddhist monks.Feel and Gainax partnered together to adapt the series into a thirteen episode anime...
Rambo III(1988) - John Rambo's former Vietnam superior, Colonel Samuel Trautman, has been assigned to lead a mission to help the Mujahedeen rebels who are fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the Buddhist Rambo turns down Trautman's request that Rambo help out. When the mission goes belly up and Trautman...
The Golden Child(1986) - Eddie Murphy plays a social worker with a specialty of finding lost children. He is told he is the 'Chosen one' who will find and protect the Golden Child, a Buddhist mystic who was kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. Murphy disbelieves the mysticism but finds more and more evidence of demon worship as h...
Warriors Of Heaven And Earth(2003) - A Chinese emissary is sent to the Gobi desert to execute a renegade soldier. When a caravan transporting a Buddhist monk and a valuable treasure is threatened by thieves, however, the two warriors might unite to protect the travelers.
Diamond Dogs(2007) - A mercenary is hired to protect an expedition group while they search for a Tangka, a Buddhist artifact worth millions of dollars.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003) ::: 8.0/10 -- Bom Yeoareum Gaeul Gyeoul Geurigo Bom (original title) -- Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring Poster -- A boy is raised by a Buddhist monk in an isolated floating temple where the years pass like the seasons. Director: Ki-duk Kim (as Kim Ki-duk) Writer:
The Burmese Harp (1956) ::: 8.1/10 -- Biruma no tategoto (original title) -- The Burmese Harp Poster In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk. Director: Kon Ichikawa Writers: Michio Takeyama (novel), Natto Wada
The New Legends of Monkey ::: TV-PG | 24min | Action, Adventure, Comedy | TV Series (2018 ) -- Entering the mythical world of the Monkey King, where a young monk and his group of disciples are on a journey to collect scrolls of Buddhist wisdom. Stars:
The Steel Helmet (1951) ::: 7.4/10 -- Approved | 1h 25min | Action, Drama, War | 2 February 1951 (USA) -- A ragtag group of American stragglers battles against superior Communist troops in an abandoned Buddhist temple during the Korean War. Director: Samuel Fuller Writer: Samuel Fuller Stars:
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Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- -- AIC -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Magic Romance Seinen -- Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- In a world where humans can have their wish granted via the Goddess Help Hotline, a human, Keiichi Morisato, summons the Goddess Belldandy by accident and jokes that she should stay with him forever. Unfortunately for him, his "wish" is granted. -- -- Suddenly, Keiichi is now living with this gorgeous woman all alone, causing him to be kicked out of the all-male dormitory he was staying in. But soon, after they find lodging in a Buddhist temple, Keiichi and Belldandy's relationship begins to blossom. Although they are both awkward and rather uncomfortable with one another at first, what awaits these two strangers could turn out to be an unexpected romance. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters, NYAV Post -- TV - Jan 7, 2005 -- 137,829 7.35
Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- -- AIC -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Magic Romance Seinen -- Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- In a world where humans can have their wish granted via the Goddess Help Hotline, a human, Keiichi Morisato, summons the Goddess Belldandy by accident and jokes that she should stay with him forever. Unfortunately for him, his "wish" is granted. -- -- Suddenly, Keiichi is now living with this gorgeous woman all alone, causing him to be kicked out of the all-male dormitory he was staying in. But soon, after they find lodging in a Buddhist temple, Keiichi and Belldandy's relationship begins to blossom. Although they are both awkward and rather uncomfortable with one another at first, what awaits these two strangers could turn out to be an unexpected romance. -- -- TV - Jan 7, 2005 -- 137,829 7.35
Amaenaide yo!! -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Ecchi Harem Romance Supernatural -- Amaenaide yo!! Amaenaide yo!! -- Satonaka Ikkou, a 16 year old boy, is a first year trainee at the Saienji Buddhist Temple. He was sent there by his parents to be trained by his grandmother, the Saienji Priestess. At the temple he finds himself surrounded by beautiful female priestesses-in-training. Upon seeing a girl naked, Ikko has the ability to turn into a super-monk, performing massive exorcisms for the good of the temple. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters, Nozomi Entertainment -- TV - Jul 1, 2005 -- 66,401 6.49
Amaenaide yo!! -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Ecchi Harem Romance Supernatural -- Amaenaide yo!! Amaenaide yo!! -- Satonaka Ikkou, a 16 year old boy, is a first year trainee at the Saienji Buddhist Temple. He was sent there by his parents to be trained by his grandmother, the Saienji Priestess. At the temple he finds himself surrounded by beautiful female priestesses-in-training. Upon seeing a girl naked, Ikko has the ability to turn into a super-monk, performing massive exorcisms for the good of the temple. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Jul 1, 2005 -- 66,401 6.49
Amaenaide yo!!: Yasumanaide yo!! -- -- Studio Deen -- 1 ep -- - -- Ecchi Comedy Romance Supernatural -- Amaenaide yo!!: Yasumanaide yo!! Amaenaide yo!!: Yasumanaide yo!! -- Ikko and the girls of Saienji Buddhist Temple are participating in a game show competition and happen to win a trip to a secluded inn. At the inn, Ikko is presented with the challenge of not awakening while all of the girls are sleepwalking. -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters, Nozomi Entertainment -- Special - Dec 21, 2005 -- 13,484 6.67
Aoi Bungaku Series -- -- Madhouse -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Drama Historical Psychological Seinen Thriller -- Aoi Bungaku Series Aoi Bungaku Series -- Ningen Shikkaku -- A high school student seeks solace in narcotics to escape the dispiritedness that has come over his life. As he goes through the different stages of his life, it culminates in the questioning of his existence in the world. -- -- Sakura no Mori no Mankai no Shita -- The adaptation of Ango Sakaguchi's literary work deals with the love story of a woman abducted by a mountain bandit. -- -- Kokoro -- While trying to fill the void in his life, a university student in Tokyo encounters a charismatic older man, whom he addresses as "Sensei," who offers him advice on life. However, the man is apprehensive to share his life experience, deepening the student's curiosity. Through this peculiar relationship, the student comes to ponder about the distance between him and his family and the growing desolation in his heart filled with ego and guilt. -- -- Hashire, Melos! -- The story portrays the unbreakable bond between two friends, Melos and Selinuntius, and their faith in protecting each other, all while dangling on a thread which hovers over death and misery. -- -- Kumo no Ito -- Kandata is a coldhearted criminal who, while being punished in Hell for his misdeeds, is noticed by the Buddha Shakyamuni. Despite maintaining a record of committing ruthless atrocities, Kandata had once shown mercy to a spider he encountered in the forest by letting it live. Moved by this, Shakyamuni offers him redemption by dropping a spider's thread into the searing pits of Hell, and it is up to Kandata to seize the opportunity. -- -- Jigokuhen -- Yoshihide is a great painter in the land ruled by Horikawa, a tyrant. Offered a commission to paint the "Buddhist Hell" by the lord, Yoshihide declines, as he cannot paint anything he has not witnessed himself. In an attempt to make Yoshihide understand the magnitude of his request, the lord tortures his subjects to provide inspiration for the artist, descending his domain into utter despair and darkness. -- -- TV - Oct 11, 2009 -- 174,861 7.74
Detective Conan Movie 07: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Adventure Mystery Comedy Police Shounen -- Detective Conan Movie 07: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital Detective Conan Movie 07: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital -- Under the cover of darkness, a masked samurai murders six men across the metropolis of Japan: three in Tokyo, one in Osaka, and the last in Kyoto. In their investigation, the police learn that each man was a member of the Genjibotaru—a thieves gang centered on the theft of Buddhist statues and artifacts and who go by the names of Minomoto no Yoshitune's servants. -- -- Without a clear motive or clues to the other members' identities, the case runs dry until a Kyoto temple calls for the famous Kogorou Mouri. Having received an anonymous letter containing a peculiar puzzle, the temple monks ask for his assistance in solving it to recover their long lost statue. Meanwhile, Conan Edogawa and high school detective Heiji Hattori team up in order to solve the cryptic puzzle and find the murderer, as Hattori searches for his childhood love. -- -- With Hattori's knowledge of Kyoto, the two scour the streets and gradually discover the truth, but not before the murderer strikes again—killing another Genjibotaru member and, after repeated attempts on Hattori's life, eventually kidnapping Hattori's childhood sweetheart. It is only by working together to bring buried clues to light can Conan and Hattori hope to end the rogue samurai's bloodshed and save Hattori's love. -- -- Movie - Apr 19, 2003 -- 40,896 7.83
Hi no Tori -- -- Tezuka Productions -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Historical Supernatural Drama -- Hi no Tori Hi no Tori -- From prehistoric times to the distant future, Hi no Tori portrays how the legendary immortal bird Phoenix acts as a witness and chronicler for the history of mankind's endless struggle in search of power, justice, and freedom. -- -- The Dawn -- Since time immemorial, people have sought out the legendary Phoenix for its blood, which is known to grant eternal life. Hearing about rumored Phoenix sightings in the Land of Fire, Himiko—the cruel queen of Yamatai obsessed with immortality—sends her army to conquer the nation and retrieve the creature. Young Nagi, his elder sister Hinaku, and her foreign husband Guzuri are the only survivors of the slaughter. But while Nagi is taken prisoner by the enemy, elsewhere, Hinaku has a shocking revelation. -- -- The Resurrection -- In a distant future where Earth has become uninhabitable, Leona undergoes surgery on a space station to recover from a deadly accident. However, while also suffering from amnesia, his brain is now half cybernetic and causes him to see people as formless scraps and robots as humans. Falling in love with Chihiro, a discarded robot, they escape together from the space station to prevent Chihiro from being destroyed. Yet as his lost memories gradually return, Leona will have to confront the painful truth about his past. -- -- The Transformation -- Yearning for independence, Sakon no Suke—the only daughter of a tyrant ruler—kills priestess Yao Bikuni, the sole person capable of curing her father's illness. Consequently, she and her faithful servant, Kahei, are unexpectedly confined to the temple grounds of Bikuni's sanctuary. While searching for a way out, Sakon no Suke assumes the priestess's position and uses a miraculous feather to heal all those reaching out for help. -- -- The Sun -- After his faction loses the war, Prince Harima's head is replaced with a wolf's. An old medicine woman who recognizes his bloodline assists him and the wounded General Azumi-no-muraji Saruta in escaping to Wah Land. But their arrival at a small Wah village is met with unexpected trouble as Houben, a powerful Buddhist monk, wants Harima dead. With the aid of the Ku clan wolf gods that protect the village's surroundings, he survives the murder attempt. After tensions settle, Saruta uses his established reputation in Wah to persuade the villagers to welcome Harima into their community. Over a period of time, Harima becomes the village's respected leader under the name Inugami no Sukune. But while the young prince adapts to his new role, he must remain vigilant as new dangers soon arise and threaten his recently acquired tranquility. -- -- The Future -- Life on Earth has gradually ceased to exist, with the survivors taking refuge in underground cities. To avoid human extinction, Doctor Saruta unsuccessfully tries to recreate life in his laboratory. However, the unexpected visit of Masato Yamanobe, his alien girlfriend Tamami, and his colleague Rock Holmes reveals a disturbing crisis: the computers that regulate the subterranean cities have initiated a nuclear war that will eliminate all of mankind. -- -- TV - Mar 21, 2004 -- 7,595 7.10
Honoo no Mirage: Minagiwa no Hangyakusha -- -- Madhouse -- 3 eps -- Light novel -- Action Romance Supernatural Historical Drama Shoujo Shounen Ai -- Honoo no Mirage: Minagiwa no Hangyakusha Honoo no Mirage: Minagiwa no Hangyakusha -- Takaya was sent to Kyoto to investigate the re-awakening of Ikko sect and Araki Murashige, a member of the Ikko sect who deserted the clan.With the help of his vassal Haruie, Takaya is finally successful in tracing Araki who hunts down a 400-years-old mandala (Buddhist artifact for meditating) that was made of the hair of the deceased Araki clansmen. Unfortunately, by the time they meet, Haruie recognizes Araki as Shintarou, her lover in her past-life. Takaya orders her to eliminate Araki, who is a threat, but will she be able to do it. Furthermore Takaya finally meets Naoe... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- OVA - Jul 28, 2004 -- 9,244 6.87
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